kaydeefalls | and now that I've finished watching... (Reply)

I have such a love-hate relationship with Moffat's writing, you don't even know. I do love how clever his plotting can be. And I love so many of the character moments (I would watch the Holmes brothers interacting FOREVER, and, yeah, Martin Freeman has an amazing face). And then I think about the ways in which he writes women and I get angry all over again. Even with the female characters I really quite love, like Mary. Other people have summed it up way better than I can, and I'm not gonna get into that again here, but, okay, here's a very spoilery theory about Mary Morstan that makes excellent reading and that I agree with 100%, and it really, really bothers me that the closest thing we've had to a well-written, sympathetic, three-dimensional female character on Sherlock so far is probably evil. Yeah, I got the "Empty House" parallels, Moffat, thanks for whacking me over the head with those. Mary is Moran. And while I'm normally all for genderbending interesting villains -- hello, Elementary's Jamie Moriarty, godDAMN -- it sucks that in Moffat's world, all women are either sweet-but-pathetic (Mrs. Hudson, Molly) or scheming bitches (Irene, Sally Donovan, Mary). Sure, he serves them all up with witty one-liners and a side of sass, which I have to appreciate, but for fuck's sake, come ON. I want to enjoy this plot twist -- and likely further twists -- for the clever bits of writing they are, and it would be fine if Mary-as-Moran were the exception to the rule, but there's an ugly pattern in Moffat's writing, and it's driving me up a wall.

Unrelatedly, this episode made me genuinely miss Andrew Scott's Moriarty. Which made the ending rather ironic, since I really had just been thinking that.

Look, I have to say -- I do still very much enjoy this show! I love John Watson really very much, and I love how much Sherlock loves John (albeit in a very NO HOMO sort of way, GDIAF Moffat), and again, every interaction between the Holmes brothers gives me life. I think that's why it's so fucking frustrating for me to watch -- because there is so much good stuff in there, that the misogyny really rubs me raw. (And then there's the general lack of racial diversity or LGBTQ representation, but that's another rant entirely.)