WATSON?

Sherlock and Co.

So I just listened to the latest episode, the conclusion of A Case of Identity. I have to say, it was deeply disappointing. For the most part I've been really enjoying Sherlock and Co. It's been fun and engaging. The actors are great. It's a solid new take on "Sherlock Holmes but in the 21st century". I love that they're going through all the stories of the original canon and giving them modern updates. So many Sherlock Holmes adaptations seem to have the basic trappings of the characters and premise without any interest in the original mysteries. This show is clearly being made with love and deep attention to detail. Also, on a personal note, my heart melts every time it explicitly (and even casually!) confirms that Sherlock is autistic and that that is a DISABILITY for him. He gets overstimulated. It gives him an often restricted diet. He hurts people's feelings from not picking up social cues and feels bad about it! There's also a lot of hints that Sherlock used to struggle to interact with others FAR worse than he currently does, to the point where he has never graduated from any school he attended. And John is kind and supportive, understanding the situation as a friend and a doctor, while also having his own understandable limitations. He gets annoyed with Sherlock sometimes and they need to hash things out. It's not perfect between them, but I can see how they're growing closer as they come to understand each other. John Watson is also handled very interestingly in this podcast. He's clearly got some issues of his own he's going through. There's some obvious PTSD from his time in Afghanistan, but also more mundane issues. He feels unappreciated by his mother and still grieves the father that died when he was ten. He's clearly massively insecure, as he constantly expresses jealousy of other people's wealth, good looks, and success. He seems to perk up every time he hears of an idea that could, in theory, make him rich or successful. He constantly second-guesses himself in any social situation because he's so afraid of looking foolish. I even think the reason that he himself decided to call their detective/podcasting business Sherlock and Co. (rather than Sherlock and Watson or something more evenly balanced) is because of his profound insecurity. He doesn't think anyone would care about the role he plays in the business. Clearly Sherlock is the only interesting person there.

But for all of that, I think this is the most competent, helpful, and good Watson I've ever seen. (ACD's Watson is excellent, but the stories almost always really downplayed his role in the crime-solving.) He is shown, again and again, to be an excellent doctor and more than that, one who is very calm and capable under extreme pressure. (Which makes perfect sense with his history as an army doctor.) If someone gets shot at your wedding, Dr. John Watson is the one who will have the skill and the presence of mind to use an expired condom as a tool to save their life. And he's also a good co-detective. He regularly helps Sherlock see connections that Sherlock might have missed. Things relating to pop culture, to social norms, to anything medical, not to mention all the support and encouragement John offers. And Sherlock genuinely appreciates it! These two are an actual, real team! It's excellent! (I have a soft spot in my heart for Nigel Bruce's Watson, but I can't deny that he inspired a real line of idiotic, totally a sidekick, why-are-you-even-here Watson portrayals. Granted, we've gotten away from that in most modern portrayals; Liu, Freeman, and Law were also very capable, though I think Liu was easily the smartest. It's just refreshing to have a Watson I can respect.) But all of that is a pretty roundabout way of getting to my point of what disappointed me with A Case of Identity. So, in the original Case of Identity story, a woman comes to Sherlock and Watson saying that her fiancee has disappeared. The eventual solution is that everything about this fiancee was a lie. He was actually her evil stepfather in disguise "wooing" her with the intention of disappearing mysteriously and leaving her too heartbroken and loyal to think of marrying anyone else (and thus depriving her stepfather of her fortune). The Sherlock and Co. adaptation has a solid update to the story. It's now about a rich, though insecure, man who's being cat-fished. He loves "Angel", even wants to marry her, and has given her tons of money for two years now. He's only going to Sherlock at all because he has a friend who thinks the situation is sketchy. In a parallel to the original story, it turns out that "Angel" is actually Des, the client's stepfather. It started off as a scheme from Des and the mother, Clara, to keep Miles from dating women they didn't approve of. Then Des went behind Clara's back to keep the charade going and get more and more money, consequently getting more and more intimate with his stepson the whole time. I was already a bit nervous at that point, because Des was coming dangerously close to playing out a transphobic stereotype. Being a man who pretended to be a woman for personal gain, and willing to completely betray and deceive the people closest to him. It also didn't help that John had made a point of saying that there was nothing wrong with being a Tory mere minutes before. (Which to me read as more of his insecurity and need to not alienate the in-universe listeners but certainly wasn't interrogated.) But I tried to be optimistic and kept listening. Unfortunately...it was even worse than I'd feared. Des turned out to not only being grifting his stepson through a semi-incestuous cat-fishing scheme, but he had a split personality. Angel had become real through Des having a mental health crisis. And she could spontaneously take over, which she did in order to grab Clara and hold a knife to her throat when the truth came out. Finally, Angel/Des tries to kill themself, which is something the show has the audacity to make a joke about before the audience knows if Des lived or died.

Sooooo, yeah. That's incredibly offensive on so many levels. Angel, while not quite a trans character (I think?) plays into transphobic rhetoric beat-for-beat. It's also an incredibly cliche representation of split personality disorder that plays into extremely tired representations of people with mental illnesses being violent dangers to society. And that's especially disappointing because of the attention Sherlock and Co. usually pays to portraying mental health issues with sensitivity. What the fuck, Sherlock and Co.? Did you get a new writer for this one? Did they time travel directly from the 1950s? This is cheap drama that hurts. It hurts trans women. It hurts people with mental illnesses. And it hurts the wider queer and disabled communities. Which, if you're trying to get popular with the most vocal Sherlock Holmes fans today, are largely the exact people you most want to like you.

Cards on the table, I've been really hoping this show would finally be the adaptation where John and Sherlock would become an actual, explicit couple. It's something fans have longed for for literal generations and now that all of Sherlock Holmes is in the public domain it can finally definitely happen. I felt like Sherlock and John had good chemistry and were maybe even flirting in previous episodes, but I'll save those theories for now. My point is that this is a show where I believed that could happen. I trusted Sherlock and Co. to be respectful and thoughtful. And I'm not saying that all my goodwill is gone now. But it has taken a hit. Sherlock and Co. has been overwhelmingly clever and interesting, finding creative ways to recast the classic stories while still keeping their hearts. I love the acting, I love the action and mysteries, and I haven't even come close to expressing how much thought I've put into what overarching plot threads might be getting established in each episode.

But I won't be able to continue to enjoy those parts if I come to spend my time listening more concerned about if a plot twist is going to leave me feeling attacked. I don't know who writes for this show and I don't know if you read any reviews on Tumblr, but I hope you do. And I hope you do better in the future. An apology and some good trans representation in the future would be nice. Please, I really want to be able to obsess about your show peacefully!

Sherlock and John, +1 firelard requested by John Watson himself!

Y'all like pride month because you're gay. I like pride month because I'm an egotistical sinner. We are not the same. /j

Also, my John pride month pfp I made for myself in the Sh & Co discord.

Ookay,

This work is a bit stiff but god did it feed my delusions

If you know, suggest me a any classical equal to Me and the Devil song bc i need

🏳️‍🌈 Happy Pride Month 🏳️‍🌈

no tv show will ever be able to resolve a m/m/f love triangle as perfectly and as weirdly as Hannibal, in which the woman kisses one of the guys, sleeps with the other one, then decides "actually, never mind, you're both awful!" and marries a rich lesbian instead - and, while this is all going on, the guys develop a weird homoerotic obsession with each other culminating in them going off a cliff together. truly unhinged and unmatched

I’m kinda surprised I haven’t seen one of these for the Sherlock Holmes fandom yet

❤️❤️❤️

kim kittysuragi. If you even care.

I hate hate hate Holmes adaptations that make him invincible Need I remind you:

"His words were cut short by a sudden scream of “Help! Help! Murder!” With a thrill I recognised, I rushed madly from the room on to the landing. The cries, which had sunk down into a hoarse, inarticulate shouting, came from the room which we had first visited. I dashed in, and on into the dressing-room beyond. The two Cunninghams were bending over the prostrate figure of Sherlock Holmes, the younger clutching his throat with both hands, while the elder seemed to be twisting one of his wrists. In an instant the three of us had torn them away from him, and Holmes staggered to his feet, very pale and evidently greatly exhausted." (Reigate Squires) "With this permission I stole into the darkened room. The sufferer was wide awake, and I heard my name in a hoarse whisper. The blind was threequarters down, but one ray of sunlight slanted through and struck the bandaged head of the injured man. A crimson patch had soaked through the white linen compress. I sat beside him and bent my head. “All right, Watson. Don’t look so scared,” he muttered in a very weak voice. “It’s not as bad as it seems."" (Illustrious Client) "Holmes’s quiet day in the country had a singular termination, for he arrived at Baker Street late in the evening with a cut lip and a discoloured lump upon his forehead, besides a general air of dissipation which would have made his own person the f itting object of a Scotland Yard investigation. He was immensely tickled by his own adventures, and laughed heartily as he recounted them." (Solitary Cyclist) "“My collection of M’s is a fine one,” said he. “Moriarty himself is enough to make any letter illustrious, and here is Morgan the poisoner, and Merridew of abominable memory, and Mathews, who knocked out my left canine in the waitingroom at Charing Cross, and, finally, here is our friend of to-night.”" (Empty House) "Well, he has rather more viciousness than I gave him credit for, has Master Joseph. He flew at me with his knife, and I had to grasp him twice, and got a cut over the knuckles, before I had the upper hand of him. He looked murder out of the only eye he could see with when we had finished, but he listened to reason and gave up the papers. Having got them I let my man go, but I wired full particulars to Forbes this morning. If he is quick enough to catch his bird, well and good. But if, as I shrewdly suspect, he finds the nest empty before he gets there, why, all the better for the government. I fancy that Lord Holdhurst for one, and Mr. Percy Phelps for another, would very much rather that the affair never got as far as a police-court" (Naval Treaty) ".... Of course I knew better, but I could prove nothing. I took a cab after that and reached my brother’s rooms in Pall Mall, where I spent the day. Now I have come round to you, and on my way I was attacked by a rough with a bludgeon. I knocked him down, and the police have him in custody; but I can tell you with the most absolute confidence that no possible connection will ever be traced between the gentleman upon whose front teeth I have barked my knuckles and the retiring mathematical coach, who is, I dare say, working out problems upon a black-board ten miles away...." (Final Problem) Plus he fought the boxer McMurdo (prior to the events of the Sign of Four) so he must have gotten hit then too

Disco, Murder & Mystery

Doyle Canon: This is Dr. John Watson. He has managed to have multiple love affairs on three different continents. He is a love machine. A sex god, if you will. Able to woo multiple Victorian ladies.

80% of Sherlock Holmes Adaptations: This is Dr. John Watson. He looks like a hamster.

It’s 2024. creators are still surprised when they are confronted with people asking for canon Johnlock. I…

Don’t get me wrong. I like the cast. I liked Emerys answer but I am so tired that we have to explain the same stuff again and again and again. It’s like we are stuck.

They don’t want to „put an angle“ on the story. Which is like… I get where they are coming from but times have changed. Acting like they didn’t is just straight up naive. You can not just go and ignore that times change. Modern setting also means modern values. This is also why we treat women better in modern Sherlock Holmes adaptations fe

The point is: „we don’t want to adress that because we want to focus on the story“ I think nothing can upset me more then this statement. It is valid, because it is their story. BUT: John can go on straight dates, carry a condom with him, but when we talk about Sherlock fe we suddenly don’t want to address this topic aka his sexuality?

Straight is still assumed the default. If it doesn’t matter, John would go on straight dates, Sherlock would go meet some cute guys and it wouldn’t matter

But like this? Seems like it only doesn’t matter when the persons are straight

It’s so damn frustrating.

Tell the story you want. But please leave those old fashioned arguments behind, I am so damn tired of them

(Yes I still like the podcast. But I am also allowed to do some critical thinking. And no this isn’t about Johnlock. This is about how we treat queer representation or the lack of it in modern media)

Twink death

Dilf birth

Sherlock & Co. fandom, this is serious

This latest episode of Sherlock & Co. (a case of identity part 2) has wronged the DID community. Severely.

I'll make it brief.

In a podcast where the title character has DID, you'd expect we'd get good representation.

Instead, we get a scene in which a character is revealed to have flirted with his step son under an alias for money, this character then proceeds to hold a knife to someone's neck and then attempt to commit suicide, all the while struggling with falling in and out of character as this persona.

In a podcast where the title character has DID, the first tangible piece of representation we get for this disorder, is in a scene with an incestuous scammer threatening violence.

The first tangible piece of representation we get for this disorder is from someone fucked up, unstable and scary.

This is what's called "demonization." In this episode, Joel Emery is demonizing dissociative identity disorder.