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neadodsI was assured at Gally that the next-to-latest episode of Elementary was a game-changer. Which it is, but not in the way its supporters feel.
Okay, so Holmes has admitted he likes Joan and Joan has admitted that she likes both him and the job. These are good things, I admit it. BUT! Last week's episode didn't make me feel better about the show and this week's is creeping me out to the point that I'm finding it hard to watch and take notes.
Why?
First, because literature's greatest friendship is still hire and sale. Joan hasn't found a side job, Holmes *is* her job, still. She has no true independence. Thanks to events of a previous episode, she doesn't even have her own home anymore. She is dependent upon Holmes for her money and her shelter.
And that leads to my second point, the escalating and continuingly creepy gender!fail. I HATE HATE HATE HATE HAAAAAATE that it was "okay" for the boy to prove to the girl how much he liked her and wanted to take help her take care of herself by repeatedly ambushing and physically hurting her. Joan even pointed out "the only one hurting me is you" but Sherlementary outright promised to keep that shit up until she righteously punched him in the face for it.
I take it I'm supposed to cheer her pounding him, but I'm far too busy fighting down the nausea of the man telling the woman that he's only hurting her for her own good. That's what he said. That's. What. He. Said. There is no reality, this one or any alternates, where that is remotely okay, or for him to continue after she tells him to knock it off.
This week, we see that he isn't just teaching her deductions - the scene where he solicits her theory on the crime scene and then shreds it (with actual deductions, huzzah!) was fine. It was even arguably canonical, huzzah!
And then we find out that he's not just telling her how to deduce, but teaching her a ridiculously useless self-defense technique (seriously, she's supposed to carry a stick around NYC? Teach her something that doesn't use props, for fuck's sake! This is New York City! To steal a line from Beauty and the Beast [the real one, with the lion guy /crabby old fan]: "No kung fu, no egg fu young - New York Street fighting, down and dirty.") He's also having her read stacks and stacks of books, some of which are, as she pointed out, tangential to the point of irrelevance.
The man is telling the woman not how to do his job: he's completely trying to remake her, including directing her reading and her actions. Not a speck of overreach or gender issues here, not a bit! Especially as the male-male modern versions DON'T include either Robert Downey Jr. or Ben Cumberbatch telling their respective Watsons how to spend their off hours. Or teaching them how to take care of themselves... but then, Joan Watson is the only one to have been disempowered by having no training and throwing away her job prospects (twice) in the first place.
This isn't Conan Doyle. It's fucking Pygmalion.
And I'm not even going to go into how he's making her run and pay for his errands.
Okay, so Holmes has admitted he likes Joan and Joan has admitted that she likes both him and the job. These are good things, I admit it. BUT! Last week's episode didn't make me feel better about the show and this week's is creeping me out to the point that I'm finding it hard to watch and take notes.
Why?
First, because literature's greatest friendship is still hire and sale. Joan hasn't found a side job, Holmes *is* her job, still. She has no true independence. Thanks to events of a previous episode, she doesn't even have her own home anymore. She is dependent upon Holmes for her money and her shelter.
And that leads to my second point, the escalating and continuingly creepy gender!fail. I HATE HATE HATE HATE HAAAAAATE that it was "okay" for the boy to prove to the girl how much he liked her and wanted to take help her take care of herself by repeatedly ambushing and physically hurting her. Joan even pointed out "the only one hurting me is you" but Sherlementary outright promised to keep that shit up until she righteously punched him in the face for it.
I take it I'm supposed to cheer her pounding him, but I'm far too busy fighting down the nausea of the man telling the woman that he's only hurting her for her own good. That's what he said. That's. What. He. Said. There is no reality, this one or any alternates, where that is remotely okay, or for him to continue after she tells him to knock it off.
This week, we see that he isn't just teaching her deductions - the scene where he solicits her theory on the crime scene and then shreds it (with actual deductions, huzzah!) was fine. It was even arguably canonical, huzzah!
And then we find out that he's not just telling her how to deduce, but teaching her a ridiculously useless self-defense technique (seriously, she's supposed to carry a stick around NYC? Teach her something that doesn't use props, for fuck's sake! This is New York City! To steal a line from Beauty and the Beast [the real one, with the lion guy /crabby old fan]: "No kung fu, no egg fu young - New York Street fighting, down and dirty.") He's also having her read stacks and stacks of books, some of which are, as she pointed out, tangential to the point of irrelevance.
The man is telling the woman not how to do his job: he's completely trying to remake her, including directing her reading and her actions. Not a speck of overreach or gender issues here, not a bit! Especially as the male-male modern versions DON'T include either Robert Downey Jr. or Ben Cumberbatch telling their respective Watsons how to spend their off hours. Or teaching them how to take care of themselves... but then, Joan Watson is the only one to have been disempowered by having no training and throwing away her job prospects (twice) in the first place.
This isn't Conan Doyle. It's fucking Pygmalion.
And I'm not even going to go into how he's making her run and pay for his errands.
