I really need to see Hackers again, I've been wanting to because of a young (blonde) JLM. But now that I remember Fisher Stevens was in it!? Yes PLEASE! Oh yeah, and something about Angelina Jolie and brief nudity
I have rather mixed feelings about last night's episode. I liked the B-plot stuff more than the A-plot. Holmes and the Stanley Cup, Marcus and his girlfriend in Internal Affairs -- that stuff held my interest. The A-plot -- escapee from a private prison in New Jersey commits two murders -- was moderately engaging until the twist reveal at the prison midway through, and then my interest in it evaporated. I'm okay with that. Sometimes the mystery is good and the character moments are bonus. Sometimes the mystery is a little less than engaging and the character moments carry it. We need more scenes of Holmes and Bell, one on one. They have a nice rapport.
I figured out right away that the "escaped" inmate was a patsy, since of course she was the only suspect and therefore had to be innocent. Holmes pointing out the statistical unlikelihood of her escape just reinforced it. So it was annoying that Holmes and Watson didn't even think of the possibility. I don't like mysteries where the writers cheat and have the characters ignore a possibility they should logically consider in order to keep the audience from guessing the solution too soon. (For instance, there was a Castle episode -- way back in the first season, when the mysteries were usually pretty clever -- where the cops completely failed to consider that the wife might be a suspect, even though cops always consider the spouse as a suspect. Of course, the wife was guilty.) If the rest of the mystery suffered from anything, it was a paucity of suspects to consider. The whole thing was a bit vaguely sketched out. Although at least this time the best-known guest star (Susan Misner) was the red herring instead of the killer. (Unless the actual killer is a big name from shows I don't watch.) I did like the attempt to comment on the abuses of the private prison system, which I assume is a real thing. On the other hand, given all the examples in recent years of police violence and abuse of power, I can't sympathize at all with Bell's hostility toward Internal Affairs. The people who hold power -- and the license to use deadly force -- need to be watched more closely than anyone, and the idea that "cops shouldn't rat on cops" creates a toxic culture that allows police corruption and brutality to go unpunished.
I had a real issue with this last episode, vis a vi, Bell. He got all on his girlfriend's case about being a spy in the police department. He was really mad that there is a entity within the police force which is tasked in policing the police, internal affairs. With all the things going on in the country about police forces covering for the "bad apples" and all the excesses that are coming to light now that people have pocket cameras with them all the time, how can someone NOT understand that internal affairs is critical? She knocked him back when she pointed out that he had uncovered bad cops a time or two before but he continued on with what she did was wrong. "Fix some cop's mistake" is the kind of thing that should not be happening. I did not buy his last confession about letting her do her own thing and that he would not bring it up again; I'm glad she left.
Well SPOILERS for the season finale last night................... but looks like Sherlock finally relapsed at the end after being put through the emotional wringer and manipulated by his old drug dealer. At first I was having a hard time buying it, since you would think Sherlock had progressed enough that he wouldn't be so easily tempted back (unless Alfredo had actually been found dead, which he thankfully wasn't). And that just the sight of how utterly miserable and pathetic everyone in those drug dens looked would be more than enough motivation not to go down that road again. But then again I'm not an addict, and for all I know just simply being surrounded by that world again for too long might be all it really takes sometimes. Either way, it was definitely heartbreaking to see him in that condition at the end.
The finale, "A Controlled Descent," wasn't much of a mystery, and the things that passed for mysteries -- what happened to Olivia, and where was Alfredo -- weren't the heart of the episode. It became obvious that there was more to Oscar's need for Sherlock to find his sister than he was letting on. As the episode wore on, it was clear that the episode was really about Sherlock's journey into his own heart of darkness. In that sense, this wasn't a Sherlock Holmes story in any traditional sense. This wasn't about deduction and observation. There was no parsley in the butter, no dog that didn't bark in the night. Instead, this was a story about a man, Sherlock Holmes, deliberately pushed to his breaking point. What would he do when he reached that point? And would he break? Look at what Sherlock Holmes has lost in the last year -- his brother, his daughter (emotionally true if not biologically), and, for a time, Watson. Cut off from his emotional support networks by Oscar's plan and without any way of reaching them, Holmes was on very, very dangerous ground as he descended deeper into the past that he had left behind but was never very far away. I don't think this was as good as "The One Who Got Away" (Kitty's departure), but for Elementary this was still very good indeed. The only thing that would have made it better, frankly, was Kitty herself. And I can "see" what she would have done -- while Holmes went with Oscar to find Olivia and Joan went after Alfredo with Bell, Kitty followed the clues to find Holmes. And then, at the train tunnel at the end, she finds Holmes, the heroin kit in his hand. The song at the end, by the way, was Keaton Henson's "Beekeeper." Which, when you listen to the lyrics, could so easily apply to this Sherlock Holmes. "You all say I've crossed a line, but the sad fact is I've lost my mind." [yt]ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRrer1toZX4[/yt] Rob Doherty said in an interview that Sherlock did relapse, and the fourth season will deal with the fallout, since we know that Holmes' father will cut him off. To be frank, when he picked up the heroin kit, I wanted him to inject Oscar with it, induce an OD, and kill him. I honestly would have been more content with Holmes murdering Oscar than giving in to the compulsion of heroin addiction.
I think what probably paved the way the most for this was that incredible scene earlier in the season when he talked about how hard it was for him to find any motivation anymore to stay clean. And that all the usual tricks just weren't working for him anymore. And I agree about the need for more Kitty. The show was fine without her in the beginning, but when she came on she created a very interesting and fresh new dynamic that it feels like the show has really been missing since she left.
Yeah. Addiction ultimately isn't rational. It's a change in the brain that alters how we think and feel. It's not temptation, it's compulsion. You can know rationally how harmful it is to sink into addiction, you can hate everything about it, but that doesn't mean you'll be able to resist the compulsion. I've never experienced it myself, certainly, but I saw my father struggling with his tobacco addiction, and how much he hated being dependent on it, how he knew he was hurting himself, but still found it almost impossible to quit. (Although he finally did find a way after years of struggle.) Honestly, that was my biggest problem with the episode. I figured out pretty early that Oscar was doing this to force Sherlock to fall off the wagon. First take away his sponsor (since Oscar wouldn't have known he'd "fired" Alfredo), then isolate him from his friends and support network, then drag him back into a shooting gallery and force him to wait there for hours? It was obvious what he was doing, and I couldn't believe that Sherlock didn't deduce that early on, even without knowing that the sister was already dead. I mean, maybe he was so busy struggling against the temptation and the triggering memories that he couldn't stop to think rationally about how he was being set up, but his deductive skills didn't seem impaired in other regards, so how could he have missed something so self-evident? It felt contrived. I mean, granted, he couldn't have walked away in any case, knowing that Alfredo was in danger, but he should at least have had a clear understanding of what Oscar was trying to do to him, and should've said as much. I think that would've made the ending even more potent -- if he established early on that he knew Oscar was trying to force him into a relapse, if he'd set himself against succumbing to that pressure, but still fell off the wagon anyway. Also, I think the ending could've made Sherlock's relapse a little clearer. I wasn't sure if he'd actually succumbed or not. Maybe she'll come back next season -- I hope. Try to help Sherlock through this as he helped her. So... who would we like to see play Daddy Holmes? What a shame Jeremy Brett is no longer with us. And Ian McKellen's probably too expensive. Roger Rees would've been great, but he's out of the running.
I thought it was pretty clear -- Holmes is walking into the tunnel where Olivia died after pummeling Oscar to unconsciousness with the heroin kit in his hands as we fade to black -- but I saw enough people on Twitter last night who didn't "get" it that, yes, I can see that it needed to be clearer. Charles Dance would be very good. I can't claim credit for that; I saw it suggested on the AV Club. A completely left-field thought I had this morning was Peter Davison.
The "Previously On..." segment at the beginning of the episode kind of gave away that Holmes was probably going to relapse, since they played a clip from S1 saying that Holmes' father would kick him out of the brownstone and disown him if he took heroin again. I think they could have just reiterated that point with dialogue in the final scene of the episode when Joan says his father is coming rather than giving a big clue before the episode even began and spoiling things. I wonder with the viciousness of Holmes' attack on Oscar that there might have been a little bit more at play there than just (completely justified) anger over Oscar kidnapping Alfredo and tempting Sherlock with heroin again. While Holmes would never put Alfredo in danger or force him to remain in captivity any longer than necessary, I wonder if there wasn't a little part of him who was secretly disappointed that the police found Alfredo before Oscar forced him to take the heroin, because it would allow him to relapse without the guilt in a sense, since he was "doing it at gunpoint" to save his friend. Once Alfredo was rescued, though, Holmes again has free will (well, with the temptation he faces as an addict), and as such he feels a greater shame at his relapse that he might not have felt had it been even more coerced than it was. The shame on his face at the end of the episode might not just be because of the relapse itself but because he allowed the thought to cross his mind —no matter how briefly— of being disappointed that they found Alfredo before he was forced to shoot up, and that he did it on his own. As far as actors I'd like to see play Holmes' father besides those already mentioned (Charles Dance would be fantastic, and almost playing Tywin Lannister again in a sense as the cold, distant, unforgiving father who doesn't care for his children except out of familial obligation and advancement of the family line), Jonathan Pryce is on the younger side (but still twenty years older than Ifans, so it works) but would be good. On the older side Christopher Plummer or Roger Moore would be great. All three have played Holmes before, which isn't a necessary requirement, but is still fun. They've also all done TV work in guest or recurring roles recently, and can pull off the stern demeanor and gravitas well.
Actor's that come to mind are Charles Dance,Edward fox ,James fox or Robert Bathurst. Oh and a little known actor called Patrick Stewart.
McKellen playing Holmes and Stewart playing Holmes's father within a year of each other? That'd be... hmm. Something. How about Malcolm McDowell? He strikes me as having a quality in common with Jonny Lee Miller, enough that they could plausibly be related. His only previous Holmesian role is an undistinguished one, the voice of Professor Moriarity (sic) in 2010's Tom and Jerry Meet Sherlock Holmes (opposite Michael York and John Rhys-Davies as Holmes and Watson, impressively enough), but he was also H.G. Wells in Time After Time, which was scripted and directed by Nicholas Meyer of The Seven Per Cent Solution.
Here's another idea for Holmes' father -- Tim Pigott-Smith. He has an interesting Sherlock Holmes connection. He wrote two childrens books about the Baker Street Irregulars.
I'm not familiar enough with Pigott-Smith to have an opinion. He's done a few things I've seen, but mostly long-ago stuff like '70s Doctor Who and the original Clash of the Titans.
I was thinking Peter Stormare. He loves doing American television, and he looks almost like a cross between Miller and Ifans. There is, of course, the fact that he and Ifans are only 12 years apart in age. But Hollywood has never cared much about that.