safe-is-relative:

Can I just say that I love that this episode was titled “Heroine”

It has the obvious connection to heroin, which I will get back to but then the two women are the heroines of their own stories. 

Irene/Moriarty is the heroine in her conflict with Holmes, she beat him. In her story, she is the protagonist and the winner.

Then Joan, precious Joan, SHE is the one to beat Moriarty. SHE is the heroine of not only her story, but the show. Not Sherlock, but Joan. 

Now, back to the heroin connections. Obviously, there’s the plan to trick Irene by staging Sherlock’s overdose. But also, heroin was what Sherlock turned to when he lost Irene the first time. And when he loses her the second time, by finding out that she’s Moriarty and thus not the Irene he fell in love with, well then he turns to Joan. Not in a completely healthy way, because he doesn’t let her help him as much as he should, but he still relies on her. And so, with this loss of Irene, instead of turning to heroin, he turns to his heroine, Joan Watson. 

stardust-rust:

Guys, Elementary’s Irene Adler was a COMPLETE opposite of BBC’s Irene.

BBC Irene is first presented as this cunning, intelligent, independent and sexy woman who confused Sherlock with her nakedness. She ‘beat’ Sherlock and manipulated the Holmes brothers like a violin, proving herself their equal. But then we find out that all along she’d been with Moriarty as a semi-pawn, and all her planning had actually been Moriarty’s.

None of the genius was hers, she only got the information through her ~womanly wiles~ and required Moriarty to help her with her plans. So unhappy with how that turned out. Not to mention the very ick lesbian-cured-by-a-man bit, where her love for him betrays her in the most ridiculous way with the worst pun I’d ever heard (SHER-locked indeed, jesus fucking christ). The ending of course, as we all know, is her on her knees in some sandy supposedly Middle-Eastern nowhere, about to be beheaded of all things, and Sherlock swooping in to save the damsel. *SEVERE EYE ROLL*

BUT IN ELEMENTARY

Irene is first presented as a victim of Moriarty, a pawn of his that he manipulated to shatter Sherlock and destroy his morale. She has been mentally-fucked with, she is a shell of her former self, she is a woman without agency in this battle between two men. Then in a complete turnaround plot twist, it was Irene’s nakedness that betrayed her and gave Sherlock clarity to her real involvement with Moriarty, and later on, she IS Moriarty. All of Moriarty’s plans and genius and insidious intellect has been hers all along, and to quote “As if men had a monopoly on murder.” (you’re an evil bitch Irene, but goddamn I love you). And in the end she didn’t need rescuing by him, he needed rescuing from her by the lovely and incredibly talented Joan ‘Badass’ Watson.

It was JOAN that saw her weakness and took her down like a ton of bricks because NO ONE calls her a mascot and goddamn gets away with it. Oh and no one fucks with her BFF either. So yes, Elementary’s Irene was also in love with Sherlock, but their love made them weak for each other, almost a stalemate. It took Joan to break that unhealthy relationship and give Sherlock his life, and his focus, back to him.

Then he rightfully acknowledged Joan’s badassery by naming a bee after her. (And I think it’s Euglossa Watsonia. I know Sherlock said “Euglassia” but Euglossa is an actual bee type).

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To extrapolate on this, what I mean to say is that more often than not, women are not really given fair media time or roles (duh).

They’re always painted as lesser, even if not overtly, the idea is always there. In fact, it’s there the second people go, “Woah, a woman doing x? Breaking stereotypes good for her!” Because the expected is that women don’t do x, so a woman who does x is abnormal, and breaking stereotypes and wow, look at her go.

My father has never been particularly kind but one of the things he used to tell his children was that if you have to think, “I have to be as good as x,” you’re already beaten. (In this case, a woman thinking, “I have to be as good as a man.” Then her thinking process is already selling herself short.)

But I digress.

It is vehemently refreshing to see a popular TV show manage the dynamics Elementary has with its actresses, and it’s pretty damned amazing.

It is a breath of fresh air to see that, instead of the poor little woman who didn’t know what she was getting herself into/didn’t know who she was fucking with (a man) get cut down to size and “lose” in the game of whatever they were playing, a strong female character is bested by another strong female character.

Before I start to repeat myself (YAY FOR AMAZING DYNAMICS AND GOD BLESS ELEMENTARY) I think I’ll stop for now.

i can finally un-tumblr saviour “elementary”

what?

no i’m not crying

i have a dam stuck in my eye

woah that was amazing

u go joan

u look so beautiful with that hairstyle

and that red jacket

and you should feel amazing

because you single handedly brought down a crime tycoon

no, i think there was mutual seducing going on there

OD’d

wut

wow this is really charged