Second Looks//Sherlock Series 2, Episode 2 - The Hounds of Baskerville
So on with the
episode entitled ‘The Hounds of Baskerville.’
The first parallel is
that of a small boy running through some woods as *something* wild attacks a
man. This is inspired from the source material of the original novel where in Chapter
Two the tale is told by a Dr Mortimer of ‘the Curse of the Baskervilles’ where,
in 1742, Sir Charles Baskerville is chased by something through the woods next
to Baskerville Hall. We then see the boy grown up, Russell Tovey, stood in a
forest clearing alone bewildered and confused. Like that of any great mystery
we haven’t a clue what’s just happened and, more importantly, what’s going to. Cut to credits.
This is where we take
Holmes’ most famous case into new territory, Tovey, who is the Henry of the
episode (here his surname is Knight not Baskerville), brings the tale of the Hound
to Holmes (the Henry of the novel doesn’t believe in such stuff and nonsense) and
quite clearly Knight believes to have seen the Hound kill his father, near the
mysterious Baskerville Military Experiment building on Dartmoor where urban
myths circulate that they create genetic animals for the battlefield. Yes
Gatiss –who penned this particular episode – is certainly taking us out of
familiar territory and right into an updated 21st century take on
the material where the government is much more frightening than any silly
ghosts...
Amusingly, when proof
of the hound is mentioned (footprints) Henry is asked whether they are ‘a man’s
or woman’s?’ (exactly like in the book) and where the literary Henry dramatically
replies, ‘Mr Holmes, they were the
footprints of a gigantic hound!’ the T.V. Henry is cut off by Sherlock before
he can mention the hound, by shouting ‘boring!’
Here is an example of
where modern creators play with our expectations of familiar characters, the
certain situations we believe they will get into or the things they may say:
this reminded me of the scene from the recent Man of Steel film where Lois is
cut off before she gives Superman his moniker based on him wearing an ‘S’ or in
Star Trek Into Darkness where SPOILERS Spock screams Khan instead of Kirk doing
so from ‘Wrath of Khan’ END SPOILERS.
But Henry does
eventually say the above well known line from the novel, and as we find out
later it is the specificity of these words that changes Sherlock’s mind, he
takes the case but says he’s too busy
and put’s Watson on the case, telling him to keep him updated. This is from the
original novel where, oddly, Holmes ends up being missing for the for the first
half of the book (this is been put down to Conan Doyle being fed up with the
character, he had already killed the character off by now but begrudgingly
wrote ‘The Hound...’ as an earlier untold case story); here Sherlock is simply messing
with them as it is whim to with those around him.
The shots of the
moors (before the scene where Sherlock is driving) gave me the first inkling of
something trippy or druggy within the story and was reminiscence of the camera
work in the recent Ben Wheatley ‘Pastoral Horror’ film, A Field in England, which
is well worth seeing if you want a break from the usual generic Hollywood tripe
on offer.
As Holmes and Watson
wander the small village next to the moors quizzing the pub landlord and
watching the Hound tours that are available, I realised Gatiss had picked a
good story to ‘translate’ as the second episode (in between the more serial
feeling one and three), as this get the detectives out of the city for the
episode, giving it a change of pace, a little lighter touch, and away from
Moriarty dominating the proceedings (as he does with the wonderfully flamboyant
portrayal by Andrew Scott); the fact that Gatiss manages to do this without the
episode ever feeling like ‘series
padding’ or a hold over till the next Moriarty episode, (as that’s something I
felt about the second episode of the first series: The Blind Banker), is a
testament to his writing.
Other allusions and inferences
to the original novel (and other Holmes stories):
·
Many think that Holmes’ cigarettes are
a new take on his pipe where I believe it to be a modernisation on the Literary
Holmes’ cocaine addiction. We see him in the first series with seven nicotine patches
and here he mention he needs something ‘seven per cent stronger’ than tea which
again alludes to the cocaine as the Literary Holmes used a ‘seven per cent
solution’ of cocaine. When he checks in the shoe this is a nod to the stories
as Holmes keeps his tobacco in a Persian
slipper.
·
The blood soaked appearance and
harpoon comes from ‘The Adventure of the Black Peter’ where the murder weapon
is a harpoon and Holmes gains evidence by gutting a pig with it.
·
In the conversation with the landlord
the Grimpen mine field is mentioned as a dangerous place to stay away from and
this is an overt reference to the Grimpen Mire where, in the novel, many an
innocent have been sucked under.
We are then are given
by the tour guide what is ostensibly ‘a stay way from the moors’ story. This is
interesting, in and of itself, as Gatiss originally wanted to make the episode more
of a typical Gothic Horror, as he felt because its Holmes’ most famous case, they should stick to the source material more
than usual. However he discarded this idea when he realised society has moved
on and the government is the new ‘boogeyman’ and conspiracy stories are the new
myths we tell each other.
·
Using Mycroft’s I.D card is a reference
to the literary Holmes’ penchant for disguises.
·
Major Barrymore comes from the name of
the butler in the book.
·
The caged animals are directly from ‘The
Copper Beaches,’ ‘The Creeping Man’ and ‘The Speckled Band’ and even ‘the Giant
Rat of Sumatra’ which is only ever referenced in ‘The Sussex Vampire’ (and also
the recent CGI Tintin movie because Moffat was one of the scriptwriters on it.)
·
The mention of the lost Blue- Bell the
Bunny, from the beginning, is connected up here to the animal experiments, but
the mention of ‘glowing’ comes from the phosphorous put upon the Hound in the
novel to make it seem supernatural.
·
The female Dr Stapleton here comes
from the male Stapleton character who is in actual fact the ‘real’ villain in
the novel and controls the Hound.
·
Frankilyn’s talk of nearly ‘not
recognising Sherlock without the hat’ pays homage to the fact that the general
public believe the deerstalker to be an important part of the mythos, when in
fact it is only mentioned a couple times in the original canon.
After Frankilyn helps
Sherlock and John leave the facility (by pretending Holmes is Mycroft), we
arrive at Henry’s rather large house- he’s rich like the Henry of the novel
will be when he gains his Baskerville inheritance- and the words ‘Liberty’ and
‘In’ are remembered by him.
At the Hollow John
hears the ghostly sounds of the hound(?) but Holmes, although he doesn’t admit
it, actually sees it: although interestingly enough we, as the viewer, do not.
·
The morse code lights in the night-
which are doggers here- are communication from an escaped criminal, in the
original novel, to Barrymore as he is Mrs. Barrymore’s brother.
·
‘Once you've ruled out the impossible,
whatever remains, however improbable, must be true’ is something stated by
Holmes in various stories and is one of the few statements he makes that could
be considered a catchphrase. ‘The game’s a foot’ and ‘elementary my dear
Watson’ however are not in the stories although variations on these can be
found in the dialogue once or twice.
·
(Also its interesting to note that
John calls Sherlock, ‘Spock,’ because of his incapacity to feel, little did any
of them know Cumberbatch would play chief villain in the next Star Trek film.)
·
The idea that there something ‘dodgy’
about Stapleton goes back to the aforementioned fact that Stapleton is the
villain of the novel: Gatiss is cleverly using the literary villain’s name as
red herring, so all the fans of the Conan-Doyle books are shouting at the
screen ‘it’s her she’s the baddie!’ Shouting smugly and wrongly.
Lestrade appears and has
his little moment of glory uncovering the Hound as a set up of the couple from
the pub, to help trade.
Sherlock goes to see
Henry and asks why he uses the word ‘Hound’ and not ‘dog’, and this the nitty gritty
of why he changed his mind at the beginning of the episode and decided to take
the case on- he starts to wonder if it’s an acronym. Things are starting to
come together in Sherlock’s head and in the audiences if they’re particularly
observant. So Sherlock drugs John’s tea, or so he thinks, locks him in the
Baskerville lab and finally poor old
Watson sees the hound (SIDENOTE: the drug isn’t in the sugar, John’s already
been exposed to the gas) and Holmes feeling is confirmed: the Hound is merely a
drug hallucination. This fits in with the literary Holmes who experimented on
himself many times to come to scientific conclusions and took risks that included others safety
for the greater good (as did the modern Holmes
that is Dr Gregory House).
The sequence where
Holmes goes to his mind palace (a device used by Derren Brown who is also
another influence on this modern interpretation of Holmes, according to Messrs.
Moffat and Gatiss) is stunning in its execution and not only does it give us a
glimpse of what goes on in his head when deducing but shows us how his
intuition is like that of a ‘super power’.
We find out H.O.U.N.D.
is a project set up to create an experimental drug that leaves its victims
incredibly suggestible and, as a side effect, very dangerous, so no monster
here just the monstrous behaviour and immorality of humans. Frankilyn is
uncovered as the true villain and Sherlock and John rush off to find Henry
whose gone to the ghollows to commit suicide. Henry remembers in fact it was a
Young Frankilyn, in a Project H.O.U.N.D. sweater, that killed his father and
that mixed with the gas, which is actually the fog of the Hollows, led Henry to
create a false memory of a gigantic hound.
·
The use of a gas to bring on
hallucinations is from The Adventure of the Devil’s Foot.
·
The Grimpen Mire (‘Minefield’ here) being the place where the novel’s villain,
Stapleton, meets his fate.
We then hilariously see
the experiment Sherlock placed John in to test his theory about the sugar.
Less hilariously
Mycroft lets Moriarty out of prison. And the audience ready itself for a final
battle of wits.
There are three
reasons I feel this episode works really well (and this can be attributed to
any episode of the series really):
1. Holmes
and Watson’s relationship- Unlike the homoerotic undertones of Downey Jnr./Law partnership
or the Miller and Liu will- they-or wont-they, Cumberbatch’s and Freeman’s is all based on true friendship. Watson
respects and admires Holmes’ abilities and Holmes appreciates Watson’s loyalty
and candour. Also of great importance to the relationship (and to the audience)
Sherlock maybe a great eccentric but John is quirky in his own way: he has an
eye for the ladies, a militaristic sense
of dress, a soldier like walk and obsessively writes all their adventures on
his blog; this is certainly no dull sidekick in the shadows.
But the most
important part of the relationship is
they balance each other out and give each other what they need from life: John
gets excitement and reason to be enthusiastic about life again after coming
back from Afghanistan and Holmes gets someone who helps him keep his feet on
the ground, as his flights of fantasy could truly take him away one day never
to return... It’s almost like the Holmes of the books has been transported to
the 21st century, so is seemingly odder and more eccentric than ever before.
This makes Watson a real necessary anchor for Holmes and why John is more confrontational
to him than in the original stories; he’s trying to help him, stop him from
falling into the abyss he teeters on every day, where he totally cuts himself
from humanity and becomes pure ego- like the Greek gods of old to modern day
superheroes- if Sherlock turned nasty, with all the power he has, God help us
all. And that is why the character of Dr John H. Watson is so important: He
stops Holmes doing that.
2. Humour:
In many ways Holmes and Watson are a stereotypical comical double act but
instead of two idiots (stupid and stupider) it’s about two outsiders (lonely
and lonelier). Much of the humour is derived from them being opposites in
personality, morality, perception and what they long for in life. In particular
there’s a lot of room for humour in this episode because of the strangeness and
absurdity of the case, so it doesn’t ever get bogged down in its own
seriousness. There’s the small touches too, like Sherlock thinking Greg is code
for something and not realising its Lestrade’s first name to Watson running
around like an arse in the lab. As the epilogue foreshadows things are about to
get darker, it was good to have a more straight forward investigation and
adventure this week.
3. The
story never cheats you: The information is there, you’ve just got to know where
to look because if you watch them again and again you see things that seemed unusual
or unimportant at first become an obvious clue or plot point – like LIBERTY IN,
the fog as gas, Frankilyn as the villain (as in Colombo he’s just far to
helpful from the beginning), as well as the red herrings of the flashing lights
and Stapleton as the villain (because of poor old Blue Bell’s fate).
The only negatives I
can muster is that the case was easier to work out than usual (but then again I
usually don’t have a bloody clue, so I shouldn’t complain!) because I guessed hallucinogenic
gas early on, and Russell Tovey over acts a little in places - I genuinely
thought he was going to turn in to a werewolf at the end - but, along with
Doctor Who, it’s still one of the best things the Beeb has produced in years.
Bring on next week’s finale and then series three. Ciao and happy viewing.
Words by Martin Shepley.