Sherlock is never merely about solving cool crime in cool ways.
I wish I had known that from the start --from the moment my friend urged me to check on this BBC's modern take of Arthur Conan Doyle's legendary fictional detective story. Well, in a way, it is about solving cool crime in cool ways because, come on, it is Sherlock Holmes and what is not cool about him, right? But there are so much more than that. And if only I had realized this, I wouldn't have been so caught up in picking every little detail on the technical way of solving a case, one clue leading to another clue, or being trapped in the whodunit scheme that in the end only leads to the not-so-plausible reveal (I'm talking about the disappointing reveal of the cabbie and the oh-so-unthreatening Black Lotus).
Yes, it literally took an entire first series to get me hooked. And it's not only because Moriarty in The Great Game is a lot more interesting criminal mind, but also because this episode kind of wakes me up. Suddenly I felt like I'd only been sleep-watching it all this time. What happened in The Great Game? John Watson happened.
It's what John did in the "darkened swimming pool". Against Moriarty, John offered his own life to save Sherlock's. His action not only shocked Sherlock himself but also shocked me. Up to this point I saw Sherlock as being annoying, irritating, a bad person who is selfish, doesn't care about anybody else and has been treating John like a doormat. But how could John, a man with high standard of morality, be willing to die for someone like Sherlock? What. Do. I. Miss?
As the series continued and their "relationship" became more and more interesting with each episode, I still couldn't exactly figure it out when I finally finished second series and I asked my friend (still the same friend I mentioned earlier), why is John sooo emotionally dependent on Sherlock? He obviously has better social skill, he can make friends easily, WHY does he NEED Sherlock?
Of course my friend is so nice, she bothered providing me with such a very diplomatic answer. But now that I look at it again, my question itself is slightly misleading. See, John barely had friends when we met him in A Study in Pink so I doubt that my statement is even right. He obviously doesn't get along with just anyone. There is obviously something. Something not too obvious that makes our war vet John Watson decide to not only befriend the peculiar Sherlock Homes but also to basically devote his life to him.
But why? W. H. Y.
I am not going to explain anything here, though. I just want to point out about what I said in the beginning that Sherlock is never just a detective story. It is a very interesting look at human personality and its complexity. It is about how two men with their different --even opposite-- personalities can form a solid, endearing friendship we possibly can only imagine we have. It is how an introverted-sensing John and an introverted-thinking Sherlock can function as a complement to each other. Like an actual soul mate. Seriously, someone has done this Myers-Briggs analysis on them and I think whoever wonders why John is so attached to Sherlock and vice versa should definitely read it here. In short, they are attached to each other because they can give what the other one needs and because of this they are in sort of life-debt to each other. To semi-quote F. Scott Fitzgerald's words: they understand each other just as far as they want to be understood, they believe in each other just as one would like to believe in himself… maybe even more.
Seeing it from a totally different perspective now, even The Blind Banker becomes a great episode (read here why) and the taxi driver's *cough* lame *cough* modus operandi to murder people suddenly has redeeming quality. The whole final showdown between him and Sherlock was to show how close Sherlock had come to being self-destructive if only John Watson hadn't come to his life. While I'm busy nitpicking the plausibility of every case presented in the show, the show actually offers a whole different side to it, which is the dynamic between Sherlock Holmes and John Watson.
Image via aithine.org.
