"I'm the widow of a drug dealer, I own property in central London, and for the last bloody time, John, I'm not your housekeeper!"
The character of Culverton Smith is, at one level, the embodiment of an idea explicitly referred to in the script: what if all the serial killers we know about- mentally subnormal, odd and marginalised- are just those who get caught? What if, every so often, there is a rich and powerful serial killer who simply kills with impunity? There's a blatant subtext here: Smith stands for Jimmy Savile, and that obviously informs Toby Jones' (excellent) performance; he even has his "own" hospital. There's a reason why Sherlock Holmes declares Culverton Smith to be the very worst and most despicable adversary he's ever met.
This is a plot by Steven Moffat which is surprisingly straightforward and relatively free of his usual narrative tricks, although the camerawork remains as clever as is usual for Sherlock. It isn't really a whodunit, either; like Columbo, the tension lies in whether or not Sherlock can prove the guilt of the obvious killer.
No; the narrative tricks lie elsewhere, in the interplay between Sherlock and John, and in their interactions and slow reconciliation. And yes, Sherlock is almost... nice, at times here. He certainly reacts sensitively, for him, when John confesses that he is not the man Mary thought he was, and had been flirting by text with another woman. It is here, with the character stuff, where we see the more traditional Sherlock narrative cleverness. And it's good telly. And yet- it's about time we had a proper, clever whodunit, don't you think?
Nice cliffhanger, though,,with Sherlock's sister, whom I assume to be a baddie...
I remember some people thinking John apparently flirting with another woman and Sherlock reacting calmly to his confession to be out of character for both men. Sherlock, who respected Mary, even when she turned out to have had a double life, should have been taken aback and disgusted by John cheating. Plus, we know the backstory of John as when they're trying to make this big surprise. Notwithstanding that the flirting was a ruse by the sister, John has zero, absolutely zero motivation to have cheated on his wife because there's zero explanation why he did it or why he doesn't like his home life enough to want to do it. John might as well have not HAD a family before this, that's actually believable.
ReplyDeleteWhen you write a cheating subplot, you should be writing WHY you do it. If the affair seems to come across a non-entity in the entire product, there's nothing to cheat on from the viewer's perspective.
All that's very Moffat, isn't it? Very much clever plotting first, characterisation second, at least in terms of story structure. It's not that he can't, or doesn't, write characters very well indeed.... when he wants to. But he isn't good at dealing with the bits of necessary characterisation that arise as a consequence of his plotting.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if some American reviwers are aware that Culverton is so blatantly modeled on Jimmy Savile? Viewers outside of the UK might not be aware of Savile; the chracter here is a definite case of art imitating life.
ReplyDeleteVery true. I suspect there may be some degree of awareness internationally, what with Netflix documentaries and so on, but this hits much harder when you know the awful subtext.
ReplyDeleteAccording to Dan Davies' in his book on Savile, the man's final month was in ill health and suffering from pneumonia. During a cruise on the MS Queen Elizabeth for its maiden voyage around Britain in September 2011, Savile had been taken ill and was forced to leave the ship in Liverpool. He was admitted to hospital where he was diagnosed with pneumonia and four of his major organs were failing. In the week before he died, Savile checked himself out of hospital and returned home where he gave his final interview to Alison Bellamy on October 25 and Simon Hulme took the final picture of him. Frail and poorly, Savile acknowledged he was in ill health and suffering from pneumonia, stating, "It was a foreign virus. 'I've got a bounce back-ability, but this time I don't seem to be bouncing back." Mick Starkey described him as "very tired...I’m sure he knew the end was near.’ Alan Franey phoned Savile and dsecribed him as ‘very tired and short of breath’. He described Savile as being mentally alert but resigned to his fate. ‘I’m coming to the end of the tunnel,’ he’d said. On October 28, Savile cancelled the Friday Morning Club meeting stating he was unwell and confined to bed. Later that evening, Alistair Hall phoned him to suggest he should return to hospital. Savile replied, "If I’m no better tomorrow I will go." The next morning, October 29, Savile was found dead, reportedly with his fingers crossed. He was two days shy of his 85th birthday. The cause of death was given as cardiac arrest, heart failure, ischaemic disease and renal failure.
ReplyDeleteIf only he'd lasted another year or two, and experienced his own downfall. Then again, I suppose it only all came out because he was dead and unable to sue...
DeleteWhile Savile died without facing any justice for his wicked crimes, there is one shred of hope. Savile firmly believed in Catholic faith and himself, on the topic of sin, in a one-line postscript to his autobiography, added, "I hope he really does take it easy on sinners". He gave indirect hints in his interviews that he would "be going downstairs" rather "than up".
DeleteSo in seems he had a twisted sense of fear that he was going straight to hell was genuine - which might explain why, when his body was found, the fingers were crossed.
There’s a chance he died in torment. We can but hope.
Perversely, of course, that partly explains the charity work- a desperate attempt to come up with some good deeds for the other side of the ledger in the hope that Heaven works like that old Pete and Dud sketch!
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