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storytellingdreamer · 2 years ago

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Watching Granada Holmes: The Devil’s Foot

Image description: Watson and Holmes in the Cornwall cottage. Watson is at the back on the window seat, looking irritated. Holmes is sitting at the table, holding a cup of tea, with a blanket around his shoulders. He has a half-focused but slightly absent expression on his face. / end image description.

I was excited for this one and it did not disappoint. A humorous note: by pure chance, due to an overlap of our usual Granada Holmes Watch day and a particular February date, my partner and I watched this episode on Valentine’s Day. Appropriate? Perhaps. ;)

Read my other recaps here. Also see Plaid Adder’s review - our thoughts overlap a decent amount for this episode, and she also gives additional context to some scenes.

I’m categorising this episode as High Stakes Deductions and Holmes/ Watson Feels. Due to the way each of those parts play out, I��ve split this recap along those lines rather than going through linearly – which has led to a rather long recap!

Let’s get to it. First up: The Case.

The opening is suitably spooky, though, as my partner later reflected, it does spoil certain later details (if you pay attention).

That may be why it’s so short - any longer, and it would have potentially spoiled the whole conclusion.

Not a fan of the African drumming music that occurs as a motif throughout the episode, though.

Like, Granada, I can see the owner of this house has a fascination with Africa thanks to the statues, you don’t need to add the music on top of it. Anyway.

The first client interview is sweet, amusing, and unnerving by turns.

Sweet because of Watson’s obvious care as he tries to encourage Holmes away from the case (then is reluctantly drawn into it himself).

Note Holmes’s little smile when Watson finally asks Tregennis a question - he knows the matter has captured Watson’s attention as it has captured his.

Amusing because Holmes has evidently not been using his macassar hair oil with his muffler on, so his new shorter hair sticks up like a bird’s nest when he takes the muffler off!

Unnerving because of the subject matter - one person dead and two people insensible from something unknown.

That thread of unease will persist throughout the rest of the case, especially during the visit to the house.

Holmes uses his walk over to quiz Tregennis, who is very eager to gloss over his past family feud, in a “all water under the bridge” way.

“Nevertheless,” as Holmes says. (Brett <3)

Note the trick Holmes does to check Tregennis’s feet before they enter the house. ;) Watson notices.

Also, the scene of Holmes entering the room of the crime was another, “Oh, so that’s where that gif/ clip comes from!” moment.

You could probably pull some more ASMR-like stuff from that scene and the bits around it.

I like Holmes letting Tregennis ramble on until he says something potentially interesting. If Holmes already had a theory (and I’d say he did), then it’s a good strategy.

The housekeeper arrives, and Holmes gives her the reassurance he sees she needs.

As with previous episodes involving female clients, he uses a small touch with his hand, leading her to a seat, then implores her to leave nothing out.

Soon, Holmes finds out things weren’t as easy-going as Tregennis portrayed. Confirming some suspicions, perhaps.

I love Watson’s little aside when he and Holmes are viewing Brenda Tregennis’s body: “Tregennis is lying about a mild blood disorder, I’ll stake my reputation on that.”

I love this next scene rather a lot.

Holmes is incredibly frustrated with the case as it stands, and vents at Watson (he’s such a verbal processor sometimes, I relate!).

Watson provides a sounding board, asking his own questions for Holmes to answer.

It’s all going swimmingly - note the background urgent-but-jaunty music. And then Sterndale shows up. The music abruptly stops.

Notice how Holmes commands the scene despite remaining on the ground.

Sterndale is a towering man - and Watson is unsettled enough that he gets up, to resolve the height difference (and possibly put acceptable distance between himself and Holmes).

Holmes doesn’t bother - and therefore retains all the power, despite Sterndale’s attempt at using his presence to intimidate.

“You are very inquisitive, Mr Holmes!” “It is my business.”

And then, once Sterndale stomps off in a huff, Holmes begs leave of Watson, telling him to wait at the cottage, and fobs him off by reciting some of Watson’s earlier holiday encouragements about “sea air” and things.

The next morning brings more bad news. Note how Holmes calls for Watson’s help in managing the distraught vicar.

They continue to tag team at the house, Watson in examining the body and reassuring the vicar, while Holmes examines the surroundings.

Just as Holmes is putting the clues together, the local detectives arrive, and are none too pleased to find Holmes has beat them to it.

So Holmes turns immediately to the vicar and gives him explicit instructions about what the detectives should pay attention to, while Watson before he departs tells the vicar: “Good luck.”

Holmes and Watson head back to the cottage, but the rest of their afternoon falls solidly in the Holmes/ Watson Feels part of this episode recap, so I’m skipping ahead to the case’s conclusion for a moment.

Memo to last week’s team: this is how you do a wrap-up scene. The tension is thoroughly maintained throughout, and it’s not boring at all.

Notice again that Holmes is commanding the room from a seated position, refusing to let Sterndale use his height to dictate matters.

He pushes and pushes until Sterndale cracks – and then stops Sterndale cold by revealing the ring.

The tale that results is a tragic one.

It is also another story obviously influenced by Doyle’s personal circumstances in the mid-1890s to early 1900s. But anyway.

I find Sterndale a difficult character, in many respects.

We are obviously meant to sympathise with him, and his story of thwarted love, now lost.

And it’s not as if him killing Mortimer Tregennis instead of pointing the detectives at him made much of a difference overall. According to the laws of the time, Tregennis would probably have been convicted of murder and been put to death anyway.

Sterndale will have to live with what happened and what he did in response for the rest of his life, and for all his bluster and anger, it’s clear his actions left a mark on him. (“He died. Oh, how he died…”)

Yet I must say I fall in line with Watson. I couldn’t take the law onto myself like Sterndale did as executioner. Or like Holmes frequently does as judge.

However. As Holmes puts it – who’s to know what any of us would do, if faced with a similar outcome?

Onto the Holmes/ Watson Feels part of this recap, as this episode is fairly saturated with them. We get a good dose of it in the first few minutes, and then they crop up again throughout.

After the title credits, we see Holmes and Watson for the first time. They are on holiday - and Holmes is Grumpy about it. I am Amused by this sequence.

Partly because in Letters from Watson we’ve just finished reading Reigate Squire(s), which starts with Holmes and Watson off on a holiday after Holmes has had a nervous breakdown.

What they’re trying to avoid here. (In both stories, the holiday part doesn’t last for long before a case interrupts of course.)

The next scene is of Watson taking in the invigorating (terrifying) clifftop views and sea air, before returning to the house in good cheer... to find Holmes has just injected himself with cocaine. There are several interesting points about the short scene that follows.

For one, Holmes appears embarrassed about having shot up.

He hides his arm when he hears Watson return, and then guiltily sticks his foot up to cover the needle and case.

The second interesting point is Watson’s reaction.

Recall that our first introduction to Granada’s Holmes and Watson consisted, in part, of a fiery (angry) exchange in which Watson snapped at Holmes, “Which was it this time - morphine, or cocaine?”

Here, Watson’s reaction is much more subdued, though somewhat reminiscent of his initial reaction to Holmes’s drug use at Musgrave, some episodes back. Both post-Return in the Granada timeline.

Watson merely looks at the evidence, pauses in disappointment, then crosses the room to leave. Pausing again only to say (very quietly) where he’ll be - seeing to the luggage. Holmes quietly says, “Thank you,” as he leaves.

Unfortunately, Watson isn’t given much time at all to collect himself, as they’re interrupted by the vicar.

This means that poor Watson must negotiate another “be sociable while Holmes is high” conversation, right when he’s already upset about it all.

(Holmes’s damn weird laugh deserves a mention - Brett makes my skin crawl every time he does it, because that particular chortle only occurs when Holmes is high).

The next major point in the H/W episode arc occurs when Watson and Holmes are walking along the cliffs together.

There, Holmes draws Watson’s attention to the granite slabs he’s inspecting - ancient tombs.

Watson, with a very solemn, weighted expression, gives this interesting remark in response: “I suppose death is always with us.”

Holmes turns sharply to him, and they look at each other a moment before Holmes says, “Quite so.”

This conversation starts a delightful atmospheric set of scenes. Holmes strides about the clifftops, examining small artefacts and other things, while Watson’s narration provides context.

(Hardwicke’s voice has really grown on me btw, I love his delivery of these lines.)

It’s not until the very end of this set of scenes that we get to the heart of the matter. Holmes disposes of his cocaine and syringe with a determined finality.

And final it is. We won’t see the cocaine and syringe even discussed for the remainder of the episode. On the surface it seems a small moment because of that. However, it’s a huge moment overall. It’s also set up for the emotional climax of the episode, so let’s dwell on it a bit.

Recall that the last time Holmes and Watson went on a convalescent holiday (Granada’s Musgrave Ritual, again)?

Holmes injected himself the first night he was there (again, out of Watson’s sight, though he left the syringe in plain view).

Also remember that one of Holmes’s stated reasons for using drugs is to cope with boredom.

(Though during the MUSG episode recap, I noted my headcanon that it helps him deal with anxiety/ depression and a too-busy-at-times brain.)

In this episode, Holmes brought the cocaine with him so he wouldn’t feel bored, just like last time - remember, he didn’t want to come on this holiday at first.

At least, that’s what he would have told himself. But given the drug is addictive, you have to wonder if he (subconsciously) just didn’t want to do without it.

Fortunately, in the time between Musgrave Ritual and now, Holmes has become more uncertain about his use of the drug as a coping tool – and given his guilty actions, more aware of the hold it might have on him.

Perhaps in part because Watson no longer gets mad at him, just gives him silent disappointment instead. Harder to ignore the doubts when the justifications aren’t being voiced anymore.

Yet - as we will see later - Holmes’s mind hasn’t become easier to manage just because he’s grown wary of his usual solution (pun intended).

We’re only eight episodes post-Return, after all. There’s still plenty to process from his time away.

As the reason for the Cornwall trip shows, however, Holmes can’t just push through it by working himself to the ground, either.

So, during the atmospheric montage, he begins to explore other ways of coping. Long walks, meditation, and so on.

And eventually, he decides to get rid of his old vice - and start afresh.

Unfortunately, before Holmes can tell Watson the new path he’s decided upon (gah I wish we’d seen that - thank goodness for fanfic), A Case arrives. One that will test Holmes’s new resolution in unexpected ways.

Holmes knew there was a substance involved from fairly early on. Something that caused the doctor, the Tregennis’s housekeeper, and the vicar’s housekeeper, in three separate incidents, to feel faint, have a turn, and get a headache respectively. It also caused the Tregennis’s housekeeper to think the room needed airing.

As early as Holmes and Watson’s first clifftop discussion of the case, Holmes had an inkling of what the cause would be – he was about to say it when Sterndale interrupted. Perhaps, too, he already knew what he might eventually need to do.

First, though, Holmes talks it over with Watson, who gets to voice the start of the conclusion as to what killed Brenda and Mortimer Tregennis. (Love how Granada do that!)

Holmes then reveals he intends to test the theory – by drugging himself. Watson protests, then agrees to stay also, visibly unhappy about the whole idea.

Plaid Adder’s review above explains why Holmes’s idea wasn’t as farfetched an idea in canon times as it might seem to us.

She also explains what the Granada production team have done to refresh it - subtly indicating the links between this experiment and Holmes’s earlier drug-seeking behaviour, while making Watson less gung-ho than canon about the whole thing due to those links.

Right. The next bit can be mostly summarised by the exchange my partner and I had while watching it.

Me: “It’s very trippy.” Him: “Not trippy enough.”

Look, they… tried? But sort of half-arsed it. I would have preferred more colour-saturated moments and less fake blood, though I suppose the overall effect was unnerving.

We see from Holmes’s perspective that his greatest fear ties back to being alone, to his childhood, and to Moriarty (and I’ve just read that the weird painting may be some sort of allegory to Holmes’s (homo)sexual desires).

Though it’s all a bit confusing about the specifics... until Watson’s voice comes through, steadily louder, and the best bits of the scene occur.

My visceral reaction during the bit from red screen to Holmes waking up went something like this:

“Oh, phew. Wait. Holmes. Oh my god, he really looks like he’s gone mad… Holmes, WAKE UP!”

Then, as his eyes finally focus: “Oh thank goodness!”

And then of course: “JOHN!” Holmes practically shouts in relief. The nightmare’s specifics are suddenly much more real – and the relief all the sweeter.

(And the entire fandom screeches due to the meaning behind Holmes using Watson’s first name in that context…)

There’s another thing about this scene that Plaid Adder addresses better than I could: the mirroring of the revival scene with a certain revival scene in Empty House - and what that means. Lemme show you.

Here is the one from Devil’s Foot…

And here is the one from Empty House.

You see?

I can’t say much more about this scene really because Plaid Adder has said it all in her review, please read it.

All I’ll say is that it’s a big moment. The mirroring indicating that Holmes has at last understood what Watson meant when he said earlier that “death is all around us”. Something that Watson has been aware of on a personal sense since FINA.

Holmes has finally caught up to him. So, just as he buried his syringe and cocaine, Holmes tosses the lamp from the pseudo-Reichenbach clifftop into the raging waters, and his decision to start afresh truly begins.

… just as soon as he’s cleared up the last couple of points in the case, of course.

Note Sterndale’s words, during his confession: “the one person on this earth who was dear to me.”

Holmes’s handling of Sterndale makes Watson a trifle vexed at him. Holmes’s reply is a coda to the emotional arc he’s been on this episode.

Though his starting line about never having loved rings hollow after all of what we’ve seen so far. Almost as if it was covering for something else.

It’s up to the viewer/ reader as to whether the bit omitted was “never loved a woman” or something about Watson in particular that was too obvious to print… ;)

For there’s really no “if I did” about it. This episode is one of many that show that whatever form the love actually takes (i.e. platonic, romantic, sexual or something else), in the end there’s only one person for Holmes, and that is his Watson.

#granada holmes #watching granada holmes #the devil's foot #sherlock holmes #john watson #sherlock holmes loves john watson #jeremy brett #jeremy brett is the perfect sherlock holmes #edward hardwicke

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