Granada Discussion Post: The Devil's Foot
Jun. 30th, 2013 12:46 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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sherlock60Let's talk telly in the discussion post for Granada's TV adaptation of The Devil's Foot. If you haven't seen this episode yet, you can find it at YouTube, Netflix, Amazon Video, and DVD. Follow me behind the jump for my random thoughts and impressions. Please add your own in the comments!
Canon discussion for The Devil's Foot is available in this week's canon discussion post.
- Holmes finally gives up his cocaine habit here, although he is an utterly obnoxious addict until then. As soon as they arrive, Holmes decides to shoot himself full of drugs, then partially tries to hide his using when Watson walks in, which only makes it more obvious and frustrating for his companion. When the vicar arrives, Holmes, being high, acts half crazy in front of him, laughing wildly and singing to himself. God, what Watson has to put up with. At least Holmes finally does give up his cocaine, although the reason for that isn't clear. And perhaps he could have found a better place to dispose of his glass vial and needle than the beach.
- Watson is rightfully angry with Holmes for much of this episode. Instead of the rest he needs, Holmes takes a murder case along with an injection of cocaine. He has every reason to be frustrated. At least ONE of them needs to try to keep Holmes alive, because he certainly isn't going to do it.
- While Granada's Watson is still obedient enough to go along with Holmes' idiot experiment, he does at least attempt to stop it, correctly deeming it "insane". When it's over and they aren't dead, he isn't all devotion and servitude like canon Watson. "That was a stupid and dangerous thing to do!" he says. "We could have been killed!" He's right, and Holmes knows it.
- "John!" - Waking up from his near pass with death, Holmes calls Watson by his given name for the first and only time in Granada, which never happens in the canon text. I find it perfect. The intimacy implied in the use of a given name in a moment of intense emotion is irresistible to me, no matter much of a trope it is. Granada's Holmes does not favor physical touch - see last week and his stiff panic when hugged by Mary after Crocker's trial - but he reaches for Watson here, grasping at his cheek and neck, pleading for his forgiveness. The rarity of the tenderness makes it all the more powerful.
- Don't ask me what is going on in the dream sequence Holmes has while poisoned, because I couldn't begin to tell you. He's running; he's confused. We see some random pictures, perhaps Holmes as a child? There's Moriarty, and Holmes bleeding from his head and hands. He imagines/remembers falling from the waterfall, even though that never actually happened. It's all fairly inexplicable. I'll give Granada this, though: Jeremy Brett really does look like he's losing his mind screaming on the ground with his arms flailing and his face contorting.
- By the way, didn't Watson get exactly the same dose of the poison Holmes got? Shouldn't he be lost in insanity like Holmes is or at least showing some effects? He seems totally healthy while bringing Holmes around again outside.
- The actor who plays Leon Sterndale, one Denis Quilley, is terrific here. He's threatening and violent and at the same time, tender. "And this is what we waited for." Heartbreaking. Speaking of Sterndale, though, how does he not get affected by the poison when he kills Mortimer Tregennis? It's the same problem as with Watson. Unlike in the canon text, Sterndale is in the room at the time here rather than outside with a gun, so he should have gotten plenty of a dose, rag at his mouth or not.
Canon discussion for The Devil's Foot is available in this week's canon discussion post.
- Holmes finally gives up his cocaine habit here, although he is an utterly obnoxious addict until then. As soon as they arrive, Holmes decides to shoot himself full of drugs, then partially tries to hide his using when Watson walks in, which only makes it more obvious and frustrating for his companion. When the vicar arrives, Holmes, being high, acts half crazy in front of him, laughing wildly and singing to himself. God, what Watson has to put up with. At least Holmes finally does give up his cocaine, although the reason for that isn't clear. And perhaps he could have found a better place to dispose of his glass vial and needle than the beach.
- Watson is rightfully angry with Holmes for much of this episode. Instead of the rest he needs, Holmes takes a murder case along with an injection of cocaine. He has every reason to be frustrated. At least ONE of them needs to try to keep Holmes alive, because he certainly isn't going to do it.
- While Granada's Watson is still obedient enough to go along with Holmes' idiot experiment, he does at least attempt to stop it, correctly deeming it "insane". When it's over and they aren't dead, he isn't all devotion and servitude like canon Watson. "That was a stupid and dangerous thing to do!" he says. "We could have been killed!" He's right, and Holmes knows it.
- "John!" - Waking up from his near pass with death, Holmes calls Watson by his given name for the first and only time in Granada, which never happens in the canon text. I find it perfect. The intimacy implied in the use of a given name in a moment of intense emotion is irresistible to me, no matter much of a trope it is. Granada's Holmes does not favor physical touch - see last week and his stiff panic when hugged by Mary after Crocker's trial - but he reaches for Watson here, grasping at his cheek and neck, pleading for his forgiveness. The rarity of the tenderness makes it all the more powerful.
- Don't ask me what is going on in the dream sequence Holmes has while poisoned, because I couldn't begin to tell you. He's running; he's confused. We see some random pictures, perhaps Holmes as a child? There's Moriarty, and Holmes bleeding from his head and hands. He imagines/remembers falling from the waterfall, even though that never actually happened. It's all fairly inexplicable. I'll give Granada this, though: Jeremy Brett really does look like he's losing his mind screaming on the ground with his arms flailing and his face contorting.
- By the way, didn't Watson get exactly the same dose of the poison Holmes got? Shouldn't he be lost in insanity like Holmes is or at least showing some effects? He seems totally healthy while bringing Holmes around again outside.
- The actor who plays Leon Sterndale, one Denis Quilley, is terrific here. He's threatening and violent and at the same time, tender. "And this is what we waited for." Heartbreaking. Speaking of Sterndale, though, how does he not get affected by the poison when he kills Mortimer Tregennis? It's the same problem as with Watson. Unlike in the canon text, Sterndale is in the room at the time here rather than outside with a gun, so he should have gotten plenty of a dose, rag at his mouth or not.
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