Sherlock, S1 Ep2 – The Blind Banker

By
Melissa
on June 1, 2011Posted in: Featured, Recaps, Television
Graffitti

So it took me ages to write this recap because I didn’t want to watch the episode again. I’d only seen it once and what I remembered wasn’t fabulous. My notes:

1. Orientalism!
2. Watson gets a girlfriend.
3. Cirque du Soleil?

I whined and whined and whined about how much I hated this stupid episode, and watched it in, like, three minute increments. In the end, the only way I could watch it was if I did something else at the same time, so don’t be surprised if you come across notes for Veronica Mars, knitting, or Mormon porn (don’t ask).

Anyway, here’s something I didn’t remember from the first time I watched it, probably because I was busy trying not to fall into a boredom coma: Watson is a whiny, passive-aggressive little man. I mean, he was Sad and Aggrieved in the first episode because he was injured and nobody seemed to remember he had a cane. But now he’s gone full-blown mother-in-law. “No, no, I can manage. I’m only carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders. It’s not like I have rheumatoid arthritis and a plastic hip or anything.”

Other things I’ve relearned:

Sherlock* Everybody hated Sherlock in school (now there’s a story I’d like to see, little Sherlock Holmes in public school. Everybody would call him Sherley and he’d have his head shaved in a moment because he blurted out that the head boy was shagging somebody else’s girlfriend).

* Two grown men aren’t allowed to live together without a bunch of coy gay jokes and/or one of them getting a girlfriend. In this series, the plot contrivance is Sarah, a woman who gives John a job at the local clinic and then doesn’t seem to mind when he falls asleep during his shift and she has to pick up all his patients, when he takes her to a show and Sherlock cockblocks them the entire time, or when she’s kidnapped and nearly killed. John Watson is just that damn hot.

* Asian people don’t understand humor, know every form of martial art and origami, use ancient weapons to kill all the people who look at them funny, haggle over cheap knickknacks, and don’t smile.

I also have a tiny beret that asks you when you're going to write your mother.

You're in a box. A large box. A box of disapproval?

* Watson wears black-and-white boatneck shirts, like the world’s most passive-aggressive mime.

Anyway, the plot: one of Sherlock’s school acquaintances hires him to find out how someone broke into the bank he runs and put Chinese symbols on the wall in yellow paint. None of the doors registered a break-in, but no one notices the window is unlocked except Sherlock. I mean, it’s on the seventy billionth floor, but still. London’s brightest, taking care of all your money!

As a matter of fact, nobody in this episode except Sherlock seems to understand that people can come in through windows. “The window?” they exclaim, as if they have never heard of such a contraption. “What on earth is that?”

There’s no Inspector Lestrade in this episode, which is the bland icing atop a boring cake. Instead, we’re treated to some snarky twelve-year-old upstart called Detective Inspector Dimmick, who inexplicably says “no” to everything Sherlock wants to do, even though Sherlock’s proven right every step of the way. Twelve-year-old detective: I know it seems like Watson should be whining that he’s too old for this shit and Sherlock’s hair is more like Mel Gibson’s ‘80s mullet than anybody would admit, but this is not a Lethal Weapon movie.

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