#kitty winter

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

meanwhile, with Holmes and the estimable Miss Winter...

"I knelt by the injured man and turned that awful face to the light of the lamp. The vitriol was eating into it everywhere and dripping from the ears and the chin. One eye was already white and glazed. The other was red and inflamed. The features which I had admired a few minutes before were now like some beautiful painting over which the artist has passed a wet and foul sponge. They were blurred, discoloured, inhuman, terrible. ... I could have wept over the ruin had I not remembered very clearly the vile life which had led up to so hideous a change."

As the story goes, Oscar Wilde and Arthur Conan Doyle had dinner together once in 1889. Doyle left with new inspiration for his detective character, and wrote the second Holmes story, the Sign of the Four (in which we see a much more languid, witty, cocaine-using Holmes...Wilde's influence?). Wilde left with inspiration to write The Picture of Dorian Gray, a story which uses very similar language to the above passage to tie together ideas of beauty and sin with horror and portraiture. I like to think that this passage in the Illustrious Client was Doyle paying homage to his old (and long-dead at time of publication) friend.

One (or maybe two, can't decide) more part to come!

I rewatch this episode from time to time, and it strikes me over and again just how committed it is to non-legal means of justice, which is particularly rare given that Elementary technically operates within the copaganda genre (with some room for outliers here and there).

When Kitty is about to murder Gruner, the man who sexually assaulted and tortured her, Sherlock shows up. Typically within the police procedural, Sherlock would be the Character Who Reminds [X] That Killing Is Wrong and Legal Justice is Right. But Sherlock doesn't do any of that. He tells Kitty that she deserves to know that he has found a way to prosecute Gruner. He tells her that this is an option if she doesn't want to wrestle with what it means to take a life. While following the law is not what Sherlock thinks Kitty should do, it is an option nonetheless. What would be unfair, Sherlock understands, is for Kitty to have no way out but to resort to murder.

Kitty responds, "What does that have to do with me? With what he did to me?"

And she's right, prosecuting Gruner has nothing to do with what he did to her. What the police wants is not what she wants. Kitty's assault was a singular event, and only she can determine what justice should be. It's an oddly refreshing take, given that most procedurals would remind to Kitty to uphold the law (e.g. SVU).

Sherlock replies, "Nothing. Everything. Wish I could tell you. If you decide that killing Gruner will make you feel whole again, I won't stop you. But whatever you decide, you will always be my friend."

I've thought a lot about this scene, and how it places Kitty's decision and Sherlock's love at the center of what justice should be. It also brings to the forefront Sherlock's struggle with addiction — he doesn't have many friends which means that his gesture of love is completely genuine. It's a gesture of unconditional love from a stoic man who finds it difficult to love, to a woman whose experience of love has been destroyed by sexual abuse. It doesn't matter to Sherlock if Kitty kills Gruner because the fact that she is his friend will always come first. In the end, Kitty realises that she is offered something she has wanted for so long but thought she couldn't have. That is, someone loves her so much to the point where she feels, for the first time, that she is able to say it back and mean it. So it is beautiful that the episode ultimately conludes with Kitty saying: "Do you know what I haven't said to anyone in a really long time? I love you. Isn't that the saddest thing?"

(i've really only seen Elementary and 1 of the old Jeremy Brett movies--The Solitary Cyclist--and while I've been meaning to get around to reading the originals it just hasn't managed to happen)

We didn't really have a systematized approach to this. It was more organic, using elements of canon whenever it seemed fun/appropriate without forcing wholesale adaptations of canon stories unless inspiration struck. "Hounded" is probably the most obvious example of riffing fully on a canon story. Kitty's story and Mycroft's relationship with MI5 are examples on using elements of canon as inspiration without being slavish faithful. We'd also use bits of canon as teasers or as b-stores, for example in "The Latest Model," the teaser touches briefly on "The Adventure of the Three Students" and the documentary that enrages the would-be shooter is basically "The Adventure of the Devil's Foot." I don't think we managed to get to all of canon, nor did we try.

Another example is that for "The Solitary Cyclist" all we did was a quick throwaway reference in "The Adventure of the Ersatz Sobekneferu" whereas the Brett version, as you mentioned, adapted the entire story.

ADDENDUM 1:

Doyle wrote 56 short stories and 4 novels for 60 canon stories total. We did 154 episodes, more than 2.5x that, so there's no way we could have relied solely on canon to fill out the series.

ADDENDUM 2:

Since someone brought it up in comments, added the nod to the classic Holmes/Watson costumes from "Meet Your Maker" below. It's a fairly good example of times we'd briefly reference canon or the previous adaptations.

JOAN: The only question is, should we go in our normal clothes… or in costume?

As Sherlock looks at her, and we puzzle as to their next stop…

CUT TO:

EXT. NEW YORK HALL OF SCIENCE - MORNING

CLOSE ON a man and a woman -- their backs to us -- as they wait in a long line outside the building. The man wears an INVERNESS COAT, while the woman sports a DEERSTALKER CAP. It’s classic Holmes and Watson… except…

REVERSE ANGLE reveals that it’s not Sherlock and Joan. It’s another couple, clad head-to-toe in steampunk gear. They wait in line with other steampunk cosplayers, families in matching Tyvek coveralls, and a man in a duct tape suit.

Guess what I’ve started hyperfixating on in this blessed year of 2025 (full illustration under the cut)

Clyde appreciation detail <3

Elementary (season 3, episode 12): The One Who Got Away

i love love love love how much platonic relationships are prioritized in this show. the addition of kitty to this show is amazing because are you freaking kidding me??? she saved him and he saved her!!

Their parent-child bond is literally canon, I'm so in love with this trio

CBS Elementary S3E03

Moriarty has a daughter, but that doesn't mean she stops her criminal masterminding. She can't be a proper mother, but she gets her child adopted by a nice, well to do family. No one who watched that episode can deny that she loves her kid, or that her daughter at least knows her mother.

Kitty has a son by accident, with a man she doesn't want to be in a relationship with. And that's okay! She coparents with him. She loves her son. She steps back from her job, and that's also okay, because that happens. People change their lifestyle when they have kids. It wasn't in an 'all women must step back from careers, especially risky ones, when they have children' but in a 'it was time and healthy for me' way. She's clearly still the amazing badass she was in S3.

Joan's progression to motherhood is gradual and deliberate. She wants a child. And after getting him with a lot of effort, she rearranges some of her life for Arthur, but is still on the job. She has friends to care for him. She hires an ex-military nanny. She has a personal assistant. She is a single mother via adoption who has a dangerous lifestyle.