on Elementary's finale
Aug. 27th, 2019 03:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xparrotFinally managed to gather the household for long enough to watch the finale of Elementary!
Last year when Elementary s6 ended, the showrunners thought it might be the end, so they wrote the finale they wanted for the show. And I loved it, to the point that when the show did get renewed for a final short seventh season, I was actually a little disappointed, because I wasn't sure if they could stick the landing a second time. So while I was happy to get more and was enjoying this season, I was a little worried all along about how it was all going to end.
Now it has. And, in the final reckoning -- I am so, so happy they got that last season, and that we got this finale.
The season overall I thought was great. The show has had its ups and downs in its run, but the last few seasons have all been solid, and the storyline for this one managed to push suspension of disbelief juuuuust far enough without completely going off the rails, in a way that feels so delightfully true to the original canon.
The cases were as fun as always -- Elementary probably had my favorite procedural cases; I tend to find the genre exhausting these days, but this show's cases were always less predictable than most because they were so convoluted and absurd. I am convinced that the Elementary screenwriters came up with the plots by having a big bucket in the writers' room filled with random prompts -- current news stories, random facts, etc -- and for every episode, you had to pull three prompts from the bucket and write a story around them, no matter how weird they were. So you'd get, like, "forensics evidence contamination," "welder's mask," and "drug-sniffing dogs," and have to make up a mystery incorporating those elements. It was ridiculous and randomly educational; one of us was always wiki'ing during an ep to fact-check.
As far as the arc went, Reichenbach was an entertaining modern-day mastermind, and Sherlock and Joan vs Person of Interest's Machine was a suitably epic battle to go out on. All along, Elementary has been such a beautiful, compassionate take on the original canon -- faithful to the best spirit of the stories, to the mythology of Holmes and Watson as the great detective duo, and never more than here. So Reichenbach falls (ahahah), Sherlock fakes his death, of course; but Joan is in on the plan from the go, is essential to it. And you know she is -- as soon as Sherlock said "we have to plan a murder," we all cheered, because it's this canon, how else can it go. And of course this Sherlock wouldn't do that to his partner, wouldn't hurt her like that -- he might have earlier, but he's developed through the course of the show, learned. (And they did keep it from their other friends -- but only for a bit, because of course Joan couldn't do that to them, even for their own protection.)
And to have that climax happen in the penultimate episode, so the finale could be the character story -- that was perfect. The writers knew their show, knew that we don't watch procedurals for the cases, but for the people, for Holmes and Watson. The final episode wasn't completely perfect -- suprise!cancer ambushes are never going to be fun in fiction (not that they ever were, but they hit harder now), and it was disappointing that they couldn't get Moriarty's actress back for one last scene. But the rest -- the ex-military nanny, and Marcus's punch, and Joan publishing -- "The book was a tribute to you!" "It was revenge." "...Fine, it was revenge."
And more than anything, what it says about Sherlock and Joan, about their relationship, their partnership. What Gregson says to Sherlock -- to call what Sherlock and Joan have love, without any qualifiers; to explicitly compare it to his own loving romantic relationship, without clarifying that it's 'not like that' -- but it isn't a lead-in to some grand realization of "true feelings." Because the feelings Joan and Sherlock share have been true all along, are absolutely as real and significant as any romantic relationship. And they know it, and their friends know it, and no one has to remark on how special or different what they have is -- because it isn't. It's important, of course, it's the most important thing; but love isn't strange or unique, it's something so many people have or had, and that the shape of it may be different between different people doesn't change what it is, not in any way that really matters.
After so, so many shows that have teased and played with and played out platonic m-f relationships, that promised and then ultimately didn't follow through -- after Mulder and Scully (and yes okay I ship it now out of necessity, but I was a hardcore NoRomo way way way back in the day), and Bones and Booth, and I will never forgive Warehouse 13 for its final season -- but Elementary gave me this.
It gave me a beautiful hug (maybe the first Sherlock has initiated? also Lucy Liu and Johnny Lee Miller were fantastic to watch from the first ep to the last but that scene, they both knocked it out of the fucking park); it gave me platonic partners working together, and living together, and raising a child together -- as the life they chose, the life they both want and love, as much as they love each other.
I'm going to miss Elementary's wacky cases and Lucy Liu's incredibly wardrobe (those coats!) and all the quirks JLM gave Holmes, and New York's snowy streets. But this was about the most perfect ending I could ask for, better even than what they closed on before -- maybe not as clever, but more heartfelt, and definitely on the list of best show finales of all time.
Last year when Elementary s6 ended, the showrunners thought it might be the end, so they wrote the finale they wanted for the show. And I loved it, to the point that when the show did get renewed for a final short seventh season, I was actually a little disappointed, because I wasn't sure if they could stick the landing a second time. So while I was happy to get more and was enjoying this season, I was a little worried all along about how it was all going to end.
Now it has. And, in the final reckoning -- I am so, so happy they got that last season, and that we got this finale.
The season overall I thought was great. The show has had its ups and downs in its run, but the last few seasons have all been solid, and the storyline for this one managed to push suspension of disbelief juuuuust far enough without completely going off the rails, in a way that feels so delightfully true to the original canon.
The cases were as fun as always -- Elementary probably had my favorite procedural cases; I tend to find the genre exhausting these days, but this show's cases were always less predictable than most because they were so convoluted and absurd. I am convinced that the Elementary screenwriters came up with the plots by having a big bucket in the writers' room filled with random prompts -- current news stories, random facts, etc -- and for every episode, you had to pull three prompts from the bucket and write a story around them, no matter how weird they were. So you'd get, like, "forensics evidence contamination," "welder's mask," and "drug-sniffing dogs," and have to make up a mystery incorporating those elements. It was ridiculous and randomly educational; one of us was always wiki'ing during an ep to fact-check.
As far as the arc went, Reichenbach was an entertaining modern-day mastermind, and Sherlock and Joan vs Person of Interest's Machine was a suitably epic battle to go out on. All along, Elementary has been such a beautiful, compassionate take on the original canon -- faithful to the best spirit of the stories, to the mythology of Holmes and Watson as the great detective duo, and never more than here. So Reichenbach falls (ahahah), Sherlock fakes his death, of course; but Joan is in on the plan from the go, is essential to it. And you know she is -- as soon as Sherlock said "we have to plan a murder," we all cheered, because it's this canon, how else can it go. And of course this Sherlock wouldn't do that to his partner, wouldn't hurt her like that -- he might have earlier, but he's developed through the course of the show, learned. (And they did keep it from their other friends -- but only for a bit, because of course Joan couldn't do that to them, even for their own protection.)
And to have that climax happen in the penultimate episode, so the finale could be the character story -- that was perfect. The writers knew their show, knew that we don't watch procedurals for the cases, but for the people, for Holmes and Watson. The final episode wasn't completely perfect -- suprise!cancer ambushes are never going to be fun in fiction (not that they ever were, but they hit harder now), and it was disappointing that they couldn't get Moriarty's actress back for one last scene. But the rest -- the ex-military nanny, and Marcus's punch, and Joan publishing -- "The book was a tribute to you!" "It was revenge." "...Fine, it was revenge."
And more than anything, what it says about Sherlock and Joan, about their relationship, their partnership. What Gregson says to Sherlock -- to call what Sherlock and Joan have love, without any qualifiers; to explicitly compare it to his own loving romantic relationship, without clarifying that it's 'not like that' -- but it isn't a lead-in to some grand realization of "true feelings." Because the feelings Joan and Sherlock share have been true all along, are absolutely as real and significant as any romantic relationship. And they know it, and their friends know it, and no one has to remark on how special or different what they have is -- because it isn't. It's important, of course, it's the most important thing; but love isn't strange or unique, it's something so many people have or had, and that the shape of it may be different between different people doesn't change what it is, not in any way that really matters.
After so, so many shows that have teased and played with and played out platonic m-f relationships, that promised and then ultimately didn't follow through -- after Mulder and Scully (and yes okay I ship it now out of necessity, but I was a hardcore NoRomo way way way back in the day), and Bones and Booth, and I will never forgive Warehouse 13 for its final season -- but Elementary gave me this.
It gave me a beautiful hug (maybe the first Sherlock has initiated? also Lucy Liu and Johnny Lee Miller were fantastic to watch from the first ep to the last but that scene, they both knocked it out of the fucking park); it gave me platonic partners working together, and living together, and raising a child together -- as the life they chose, the life they both want and love, as much as they love each other.
I'm going to miss Elementary's wacky cases and Lucy Liu's incredibly wardrobe (those coats!) and all the quirks JLM gave Holmes, and New York's snowy streets. But this was about the most perfect ending I could ask for, better even than what they closed on before -- maybe not as clever, but more heartfelt, and definitely on the list of best show finales of all time.
