Investigating Sherlock

by Nikki Stafford

  The key scene between the siblings is in the mortuary, when they go to identify Irene’s body. Standing outside the room, Mycroft offers Sherlock a much-desired cigarette as a Christmas present, albeit a low-tar one (“you barely knew her”), and they stand beside one another, two outsiders looking at the world through a window, like spectators who are uninvolved in the lives outside. Mycroft looks at the people in the hospital corridor, obviously grieving over the very recent death of someone close to them. “Look at them,” Sherlock says, “they all care so much. Do you ever think there’s something wrong with us?” “Caring is not an advantage, Sherlock,” Mycroft replies. In this gorgeously shot scene, Sherlock stands with Mycroft as if they are the same. But Mycroft sees through the guise and knows that Sherlock is no longer separate from the caring public, if he ever was. He knows that his brother cared about Irene Adler in some way, and that he simply exhibits his sorrow differently. As Sherlock leaves the mortuary, Mycroft calls John, and we discover that the two of them had been working behind Sherlock’s back, united in their concern that the detective might fall victim to one of his many vices in his grief. It’s an extraordinary moment: Sherlock and John have been positioned as being everything that Sherlock and Mycroft never were, with Mycroft on the outside looking in; yet here we see not only that John and Mycroft came together to help Sherlock, but that Mycroft’s disguise of an uncaring person is disingenuous. He really does care about his little brother. He wants to be at home in front of a crackling fire on Christmas Eve, but instead he’s standing in a mortuary, watching over his brother, and checking in with John to make sure he does the same thing. Both men care deeply for Sherlock, even if one of them has a tougher time showing it.

  Sherlock’s relationship with his brother is troubled, but his relationships with women are catastrophic (when there is any sort of relationship with a woman, which is rare). In the books, there is no end to Holmes’s disparaging remarks about women or Watson’s disgust at having to repeat them to his readers. In The Sign of Four, Holmes remarks, “Women are never to be entirely trusted — not the best of them.” Watson editorializes, “I did not pause to argue over this atrocious statement.”

  What sets Adler’s story apart from the others, however, is that the culprit isn’t just a woman, but a woman who beats Sherlock at his own game. This is why, like Moriarty, the character appears in only one story but has appeared onstage and onscreen numerous times. The opportunity to show the complexity of gender relationships with Adler is immense, and therefore Moffat had a lot of pressure riding on his interpretation of this story. There has been a lot of criticism of the depiction of Irene Adler on Sherlock (the number of sites devoted to Moffat’s inherent sexism as a writer are legion), but I have to disagree with it: not only is it a very faithful adaptation of the original character, but I do not think she was defeated in the way critics suggest she was.

  This episode is based on “A Scandal in Bohemia,” which is quite brief: Irene Adler is an opera singer and “adventuress” who was once the mistress of the King of Bohemia, who couldn’t marry her because she was below his station and had a flawed moral character, in his eyes. He sent her love letters and a photograph of the two of them together, and now that he’s about to marry a Scandinavian princess, he wants them back. Holmes, on the case, follows her to a church, where she’s getting married, and she pulls Holmes in to witness the wedding.

  Holmes returns to her house later that day disguised as a clergyman. She lets him in while Watson waits in the bushes outside the window; Holmes talks her into opening a window, Watson lets off a smoke bomb and yells, “Fire!” and Adler, in a panic, rushes to where the photograph is hidden. Watson and Holmes must leave because of the crowd that gathers. That evening, as Holmes is walking into his apartment, a boy walks by and says, “Good evening, Mr. Holmes.” He looks up, thinking he knows the voice, but the youth is already gone. The next day Holmes returns to Adler’s place with the King of Bohemia to get the materials from the hiding place Adler had inadvertently disclosed, but she has already left and taken everything with her. She leaves behind a photograph of herself and a letter telling Holmes she knew it was him in disguise, and that she was the youth who’d bid him good night. She says they will never find her, but she reassures the king that she has no intention of using the photo or letters; they are merely protection. Holmes requests as payment only her photograph, which he keeps with him for the rest of his life, always referring to her as the woman.

  This story is played out rather faithfully in the first part of this episode. People have objected to Adler being a dominatrix in this 21st-century update, but “adventuress” was a negative term in the Victorian era, and an opera singer was seen as little more than a highly paid prostitute. Since both of these terms have a different meaning today, the writers had to convey Adler as a “fallen” woman for our times, which is difficult. So they made her like her Victorian counterpart: a strong woman who is proud of what she does, even if others might balk at it. She uses her job and position to get ahead in the world and make money, and refuses to be ruled by men. She leaves a sexy sigh on Sherlock’s phone to indicate he has a text message, just as the Victorian Irene lets Holmes hear her voice one last time before she gets on a train. Doyle’s Adler gets married and is forced out of London, on the run, left behind by a man who thought it inappropriate to marry her. Sherlock’s Irene practically brings down the British government, has Sherlock within her thrall, and is able to wrap him around her finger and use him for her own purposes. Not exactly a damsel in distress. And unlike the other Irene, not only is she not tied to the institution of marriage, she professes to be a lesbian.

  The first time Sherlock sees Irene, she’s completely naked, which has been deemed problematic by some viewers who saw her as being objectified onscreen in a way the male actors aren’t. But we can’t forget that Sherlock was starkers himself in the previous scene at Buckingham Palace. Adler does it to unnerve Sherlock, put him off his game, and make him unable to read her. Sherlock does it to piss off Mycroft, put him off his game, and get the upper hand. The only difference is Sherlock wraps himself in a sheet because he draws a line; Adler is shown as far more courageous and dominant, and has the nerve to walk in completely in the buff. Sherlock hides; she dares him to find what she’s hiding. Immediately preceding this scene, we see the two of them performing the same operations: both flip through photos of the other one and think they know everything about that person; both go through several outfit choices, with her choosing nothing and him going with the same outfit he always wears, now with added clergyman collar. He figures out the combination to her safe — because she wants him to — and opens it, saving all of them, but, like her literary counterpart, Adler manages to get the information back and disappears.

  Point: Adler.

  This is the spot where the original story ends. But just like that seemingly unrelated case that Sherlock is working on, where the car backfires in the countryside and a man is found dead by a stream, Irene is the boomerang that turns around and whizzes back. It’s no fun to have her just walk away (readers would expect that), so she chooses her second disguise: a dead body. She manages to interrupt the merriment of Christmas, fool Sherlock and Mycroft, discourage Molly, and send Sherlock into a spiral of despair. But not before she sends Sherlock her phone, putting him on a wild goose chase to come up with the passcode that will unlock it, a game that will consume Sherlock in the coming months.

  Point: Adler.

  For her next trick, she returns, and every time Sherlock thinks he’s tricking her, she’s already two steps ahead of him. Ultimately, she deceives him into undoing two years of British government plans, compromising himself, his brother, and all of Great Britain.

  Point: Adler.

  But wait! With Mycroft having no choice but to do her bidding, she shows one card too many — “Jim Moriarty sends his love” — and Sherlock solves her puzzle. For, despite the fact that Irene is a
master of disguise and deceit, Sherlock knows Moriarty, the way he thinks and works, and it’s through that slip that Sherlock gains the upper hand.

  Point: Sherlock. (Sort of, given that it was a weakness in Moriarty’s poker face — not Adler’s — that gave it away. But she’s the one who said Moriarty’s name, so she loses this one.)

  And now she’s dead. Mycroft ensures that this death is real, and then forces John to lie to Sherlock for the first time. “It would take Sherlock to fool me,” Mycroft tells John, “and I don’t think he was on hand, do you?” But (cue music) Sherlock was on hand at her execution and prevented it. And therein lies the biggest problem some viewers have with this particular interpretation of Adler: in the end, she was a damsel to be saved by Sherlock. However, from a different perspective, it is she who had him in her thrall. When Sherlock thinks she is dead the first time, he doesn’t mourn her out of love or attraction; he’s sad that such a formidable foe is gone. When he instantly cracks her Bond Air code, it has nothing to do with the sexual favors she’s promising him as she leans seductively over his desk, it’s because he wants to impress someone as intelligent and cunning as her. He tells her that he took her pulse and knew that her heart was racing when she was around him, and that she was attracted to him, but that he remained distant. And yet, while Sherlock doesn’t feel romantic love towards her, he is attracted to her mind and her brilliance the same way he always smiles at Moriarty with admiration, even when Moriarty is doing or saying terrible things to him. Notice when she drugs him, he doesn’t have sexual fantasies about her, but instead fantasizes about her watching one of his deductions and being impressed by him. Her nakedness doesn’t arouse him, it just throws him off his game. John, on the other hand, stammers, asks her to cover herself, and can’t make eye contact. She doesn’t slow down Sherlock’s deductions by whispering untoward things in his ear, but once again she unnerves John. This woman who can use her own sexuality and cunning to overthrow governments and dominate people fascinates Sherlock. And for that, he will follow her to Karachi and save her life, because he doesn’t want to lose such an impressive adversary. Knowing that Irene Adler is in the world makes it a little less dull for him, so now she has protection more powerful than anything on that phone.

  Game: Adler.

  Lara Pulver plays Adler with such fierceness and control, yet shows just the right hints of vulnerability and emotion that the audience can’t help but side with her, even when Sherlock is showing her up.

  Despite her bravura performance, however, one of the most memorable moments of this episode happens on Christmas Eve when Molly shows up in a stunning outfit, nervous and with a special present for Sherlock. The cocky detective is rarely kind to Molly (and even when he is, it’s usually because he wants something from her), but the way he treats her in this scene is abhorrent. He not only embarrasses himself, but humiliates her in the process. Everyone in the room knows she’s carrying a torch for Sherlock, but she believes she is hiding it behind her own mask. Everyone except Sherlock, however, immediately sees through the sexy “disguise” she wears to the party. The disdain he has for Molly stems not from a lack of attraction — Sherlock doesn’t work that way — but from him believing she is not an intellectual equal, a girly-girl who just acts silly when she’s around him. Her emotional reaction to his cruelty stops him in his tracks, and he suddenly realizes what he’s done and what the true meaning behind her gift is, and he apologizes. It’s a rare moment of humanity, one that’s welcomed after such a terrible outburst, and yet another reason why fans love Molly so much. Louise Brealey is marvelous in this scene and, like Adler, is a woman who goes up against Sherlock in an argument and wins.

  We have seen Sherlock’s brotherly connection to John, admiration for Irene Adler, filial responsibility to Mycroft, and an apologetic kiss on Molly’s cheek. But if there’s one person that Sherlock actually does have feelings for, it’s Mrs. Hudson. Sherlock isn’t looking for any romantic attachments, but this mother figure is very important to him. He first admonishes Mycroft for being rude to her, as previously mentioned, but his true devotion to her unveils itself when he discovers she’s in danger. When he enters 221, he knows before he even ascends the stairs that something terrible has happened to his landlady, and by the time he opens the door to 221B, he’s ready. In most situations, Sherlock at first turns to reason and logic to gain the upper hand, but in this scene he moves straight to violence — and not just violence that will give him the advantage, but that exacts horrible and painful revenge over and over again. Like Irene and Molly, Mrs. Hudson shows that she’s not a victim: she had exactly what the baddies were looking for hidden on her person the whole time. John worries that such a delicate woman should leave Baker Street to recover, but Sherlock knows how resilient Mrs. Hudson is. “Shame on you, John Watson,” Sherlock says, to Mrs. Hudson’s amusement. “Mrs. Hudson leave Baker Street? England would fall!”

  “A Scandal in Belgravia” is a beautifully written and highly entertaining return to the second season, possibly the best script of the series to date. Mrs. Hudson holds her own, Molly gives Sherlock a stern talking-to, and Irene Adler breaks through Sherlock’s resolute exterior and makes him care about her. It’s a wonderful piece of subtle feminist storytelling, where every woman is strong and complex and manages to hold Sherlock in her thrall, even if just for a moment. After 18 months of waiting for a resolution to the big season-one cliffhanger, fans were treated to a return of all the series regulars, now with the stronger chemistry that a second season always promises. The script is often hilarious and yet also dives into the psychology of Sherlock’s character with subtlety. It’s wonderful to be back in 221B.

  HIGHLIGHT The stunned look on John’s face when Sherlock asks him to punch him in the face and then repeats the question when John doesn’t answer. “Didn’t you hear me?” “I always hear ‘punch me in the face’ when you’re speaking,” John replies, “but it’s usually subtext.”

  DID YOU NOTICE?

  As Sherlock studies the body in the trunk of the car, he looks at the passport, which says the passenger’s name is John Coniston. That’s the name of the lead character on the BBC series Inside Men.

  When Irene whips Sherlock with a riding crop, it’s similar to the way Sherlock was beating the dead body in “A Study in Pink.”

  When Sherlock is reading the newspaper at the breakfast table, you can see the headline “Refit for Historical Hospital.” For the big finale in the third episode of this season, the writers were originally going to involve some sort of scaffolding on St. Bart’s, so they put the headline in the paper as a set-up. (The idea was later scrapped.)

  In the Christmas Eve scene — which ranks right up there with the drugs bust scene in “A Study in Pink” for pure entertainment — watch Lestrade in the background. The look on his face when Molly removes her coat is priceless; when Sherlock tells him that his wife is having an affair, you can see him silently piecing it together and suddenly realizing it’s true; and finally, when Sherlock’s phone sighs with a new text and Molly says she didn’t do that sound, Sherlock says, “No, it was me,” and Lestrade immediately says, “Wait, what?!” Rupert Graves is spectacular.

  The woman who takes John to see Irene at the warehouse looks, dresses, and types on her phone the same way Anthea did in “A Study in Pink,” and John clearly mistakes her for being the same woman, but it’s a different actress.

  At the end you can see all of Irene’s texts: I’m not hungry, let’s have dinner.

  Bored in a hotel. Join me. Let’s have dinner.

  John’s blog is HILARIOUS. I think he likes you more than I do. Let’s have dinner.

  I can see tower bridge and the moon from my room. Work out where I am and join me.

  I saw you in the street today. You didn’t see me.

  You do know that hat actually suits you, don’t you?

  Oh for God’s sake. Let’s have dinner.

 
I like your funny hat.

  I’m in Egypt talking to an idiot. Get on a plane, let’s have dinner.

  You looked sexy on Crimewatch.

  Even you have got to eat. Let’s have dinner.

  BBC1 right now. You’ll laugh.

  I’m thinking of sending you a Christmas present.

  Mantelpiece.

  I’m not dead. Let’s have dinner.

  FROM ACD TO BBC “A Scandal in Bohemia” is as much about disguises and masks as this episode is.

  In that story, Watson writes of Holmes that “the stage lost a fine actor, even as science lost an acute reasoner, when he became a specialist in crime.”

  When the King of Bohemia arrives at Holmes’s flat, he first tries to hide his identity from Holmes, but the sleuth sees through it instantly and forces him to remove his mask, just as a nearly naked Sherlock insists at Buckingham Palace that they reveal the name of his client.

  Holmes is disguised as a drunken groom when he gets hauled into Adler’s wedding, and just as Sherlock dresses up as a priest who’s been beaten up in the street, Holmes arrives at Adler’s door dressed as a clergyman. He doesn’t need Watson to punch him in the face because he stops a purse-snatching in the street and gets roughed-up in the process (though he does add fake blood).

  Several of Doyle’s story titles are played with in this episode: “The Greek Interpreter” becomes “The Geek Interpreter”; “The Adventure of the Speckled Band” becomes “The Speckled Blonde”; a case Sherlock scathingly refers to as the Belly Button Murders is titled “The Navel Treatment” by John, a riff on “The Naval Treaty.”

  When Sherlock is called out to investigate a body in the trunk of a car, he says he has eight ideas, which he narrows to four, and then two. In several of the stories, Holmes says he has a specific number of theories upon looking at the scene, such as in “The Adventure of the Copper Beeches” when he says he has “seven separate explanations.”