"let's have dinner." | a scandal in belgravia review.

[falling_voices]

Okay. Okay. Having slept on Scandal, let's have a more-or-less comprehensive review of this.

I loved about ninety percent of it - the entire episode was, in general, delightful, except for the last ten minutes or so. That ending threw me in for a loop, especially after the beautifully layered, nuanced relationships and characterizations the episode had been so careful to construct. But there's still so much that was a delight to watch, so much that I'm going to enjoy watching again and again, that I think I can - for now - just ignore the last few minutes and focus on the rest of the episode.

Bulletpoints!

the fantastic;

• The pool resolution is utterly magical. The Bee Gees! Jim and Sherlock mouthing Sorry; it's fine at each other! the general feeling of complete and utter befuddlement! brilliant.

• The cinematography of this episode is all-around gorgeous. I have no idea if they intend to keep one-upping the previous episode every time, but if they do we're going to end up in Middle Earth, judging by the colours.

• The hats. Of course they wouldn't miss a chance at doing a Private Life Of Sherlock Holmes-ish moment here. And Sherlock has become a Internet phenomenon - there's so much meta in there, just.

• THE GEEK INTERPRETER.

• The entire opening sequence following the pool is quite good: it manages to flash-forward through several months without getting into a routine, and their double-act - the rivalry between John and Sherlock's blogs, their Internet fame, the two of them creating a rating system for each case - is hilarious.

• 'Just once, can you two behave like grown-ups?'

• Irene. Holy shit, Irene. God, I loved her. She's the smart, intelligent, beautiful woman she is in the books, and even if the storyline does differ from the original story, they did keep her characterization intact and whole. There's been a lot of talk in the last few weeks - ever since the early trailers came out - about her nudity and sexualization; there was fear that she might be objectified and characterized only by her sexual appeal, much the way Ritchie's Adler was. I'm terribly glad that, in the end, Irene is someone who uses sexual attraction and nudity to her own means (her battle dress being no dress at all is brilliant; it makes her completely impervious to Sherlock's deductive skills and confuses him utterly at the same time), instead of someone who is subjected to objectification. Lara Pulver plays her brilliantly - although with a terrible hairdo, her hair down is much lovelier - and, overall, she's a fantastic character.

• This influences her relationship with Sherlock, of course; I rather love that they took away the physical in the attraction between them - she's gay and uses sex as a power device, he's uninterested and possibly asexual - so that everything between them happens intellectually. It's a complete reversal from the traditional representation of their relationship; it's a far, far cry from the 'vixen seduces loveless man with her feminine viles' plot device. Even the more overtly sexual moments (riding crrrrrop) are hinging around power and control rather than physicality. Moffat and Gatiss have described their relationship as beyond a love story, and I think I agree. Romantic love requires more than mutual fascination to function upon, and that's, IMO, exactly what they are to each other: they're akin to children looking into a mirror for the first time. They believed themselves alone in the world, and suddenly here is someone who is just like them. It's facinating, the way they weave their relationship around that obsession, that compulsion they have towards each other, towards figuring each other out. I think it was Pulver herself who described it as an 'infatuation' - something brilliant and fierce that sparks between them and then dies out, but remains as the memory of something ideal and beautiful, of an intellectual equal, brain against brain. (note: this is absolutely open to interpretation. I've seen some people coming out of the episode thinking they were in love, and others thinking they were morbidly interested in each other, and others thinking they were just trying to constantly outwit each other. It's a relationship that's remarkably open to debate, which somehow adds to how interesting it is.)

• Speaking of which, how awesome was the warehouse scene between Irene and John? their relationship was much more subtle than Sherlock and Irene's, and yet it's there - I especially liked the way John insisted Irene tell Sherlock she's alive, regardless of his own feelings in the matter (he was rather remarkably prissy and jealous of her in here, wasn't he? and yet it is Sherlock's well-being that matters to him the most, just, my heart), as well as her emphasis on the necessity to go through John before she reaches Sherlock. Irene keeps acknowledging that John is a very, very important part of Sherlock's life; her quiet 'I don't think that's a good idea,' after Sherlock has left them, could very well not have been followed by 'Do you?', and yet it was. John is not excluded; there is no 'true' understanding of Sherlock's state of mind that would be Irene's alone, and she asks for his opinion. In that instant, they are allied in their same care for Sherlock.

• And then, of course, there's the incredible piece of conversation that's "We're not a couple!" "Yes you are." "I'm not actually gay!" "But I am. And look at us both." There's just - so much that can be said about this, about how sexual orientation doesn't matter when it comes to caring for someone, to being together in the truest sense of the word. I don't think either Irene/Sherlock or Sherlock/John are meant to be canon, but this little discussion just throws that in for a loop.

• Interestingly, I've also seen a lot of people argue that Moffat has been trying to sink Sherlock/John in this episode, to soften the level of slash, to break up the 'they're in love!' interpretation. This is strange, because I got the exact opposite impression. John and Sherlock are unarguably domestic in this - they have gotten used to each other now, know each other inside and out, and it's incredibly evident from the Christmas Eve scenes, from the moment when John has to put Sherlock back to bed and they have this lovely little moment of bickering, as though this was a regular occurence, which it probably is. Where even in TGG there were dissensions, by this time they function perfectly together. Sherlock panicks whenever John is in danger, talks to him even when he's not there, thinks of him first thing as soon as he wakes up; John's girlfriend thinks he's a better boyfriend to Sherlock than he is to her; Irene quietly insists that John and Sherlock are, in fact, a couple. John's jealousy towards her at some points is palpable: it's in the way he's sitting in between them while they're dancing circles around each other, half defiant and half aroused, in the way he asks 'Do you think you're going to... see her again?', in his expression when he asks Sherlock why his phone makes that noise - gosh, if this is Moffat trying to sink Sherlock/John, then he isn't doing a very good job of it.

• Moving on from the main three - Mycroft's characterization has quite evolved. He's less sympathetic in this than he is in S1, I think; but he's also shown under a lot of pressure, and this clearly bleeds into his relationship towards his brother. People have been calling him out on his final outburst against Sherlock, but I saw that as completely deserved: Sherlock has gotten himself completely in over his head in this matter. Their dynamics in this episode - from 'Do you think there's something wrong with us?' to Mycroft asking John to lie for Sherlock's sake - are really quite interesting.

• The Christmas scene; the violin, Lestrade's jaw-drop when Molly takes off her coat, Sherlock eventually kissing her cheek to apologize, of all things, and John's face.

• Mrs Hudson is the best. That's all.

the not quite so fantastic;

• The slow motion during the fight. The Ritchie!movies did that. It wasn't any better in the BBC!verse.

• Mycroft calling Sherlock out on his (possible) virginity? seriously? I realize that it's the act of a pissy brother towards a pissy brother, but it's still Not Good, Jesus.

• The plane full of dead people was the creepiest thing I've seen in a long, long time.

• No Godfrey Norton, why. Headcanon claims that Kate - Irene's dressing maid/butler/chauffeur - is the BBC!version of him, and that the two of them are having a lot of lesbian sex behind the scenes.

• The ending, re: Irene. I have a lot to say about that, and I am very, very disappointed - in both endings. Irene did outsmart and manipulate Sherlock, that's true; but it was for Moriarty's benefit, instead of hers, as it should have been, and as it was in the books. Sherlock's confrontation with her in Mycroft's office, as well as the way he tears her down and absolutely humiliates her, ending with her being forced to beg him for her life; just. What. This is the one woman Sherlock Holmes utterly respects and admires because she managed to outsmart him. This sudden volte-face doesn't make any sense, neither in the context of ACD!canon nor in that of the beautiful, equal relationship the entire episode had built up between them. However I try to twist my mind around it, I just don't understand how Moffat could have thought this was a good idea.

• And the very, very ending - is reducing Irene to nothing more than a damsel in distress who has to be saved from the clutches of the Evil Terrorists. Irene Adler, who in canon outwitted Sherlock Holmes and escaped the clutches of the King of Bohemia. I realize that it's supposed to be a shout-out to the very beginning of the episode; Sherlock saves Irene the same way Irene saved him and John - but it is done in a manner that demeans her, and cheapens her character nonsensically. I'm resolutely sticking to the headcanon that this was, in fact, a plan between the two of them to make her avoid Mycroft's clutches and begin a new life under a new name away from them all, because otherwise I'm having lots of trouble swallowing it.

allll the quotes;

• 'I could cut myself on a face like this. Would you like me to try?'

• 'Mrs Hudson, leave Baker Street? England would fall.'

• 'Are you wearing any pants?' 'No.' '... okay.'

• 'Are we here to see the Queen?' '... oh. Apparently yes.' *giggles*

• 'I have a website.' 'In which you enumerate two hundred and forty-eight different types of tobacco ash. Nobody's reading your website.'

• 'Would you turn that phone down a bit in my time of life?'

• 'Sherlock always replies. He's Mr. Punchline. He will outlive God trying to have the last word.'

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

Tl;dr, because this got long: Irene is fantastic, but I very much dislike Moffat's treatment of her in the end; her relationship with Sherlock is fascinating and fascinated and wonderfully open to interpretation; Sherlock and John's relationship is deepening beautifully; Mycroft is gaining quite a lot of characterization; Molly is adorable; Mrs Hudson rules them all.