S01.E17: Social Engineering

[Kromm]

It would look fake (and is expensive) to age up a young actress with custom facial prosthetics and heavy makeup and it is not sure thing that she will know how to portray an old woman believably, Why bother when they can cast a mature world-class actress in the role and get the performance they are looking for.

Not that it's the best argument over a good older actress, but as any of us who have watched Face Off know, the makeup job is really only the time paying the effects makeup artist.  They have to make the custom prosthetics, it's true, but the materials cost is pennies.

 

The biggest issue is that a show like Forever probably wouldn't hire a real effects makeup artist but try and have their normal makeup person fudge it, and it would wind up looking terrible.

[bros402]

Had Henry tried shooting himself?  Most deathless immortals actually aren't - vampires, Connor MacLeod, demons.  Take a licking and keep on ... oh wait, beheading?  Stake to the heart? Certain metals?  Dead.  Turns out a gunshot wouldn't have finished Henry but Nora didn't know that.

 

Honestly, after 200 years of being immortal, it seems like he has tried many methods of death - as he has a log of methods of death, and knows how painful some of them can be. I can only assume that at some point in his 200 years, he has hit a low point where he ended his own life, perhaps it was related to Abigail - then boom, wakes up in the water.

[henripootel]

I can only assume that at some point in his 200 years, he has hit a low point where he ended his own life, perhaps it was related to Abigail - then boom, wakes up in the water.

Oh, I agree, by now he may have (or at least, before his son came along).  My point was that Nora trying to shoot him was especially reprehensible - for all she (and possibly Henry at that time) knew she might have killed him for realsies.  To say nothing of the logic that 'Sorry I didn't believe you were immortal so I'll make it up to you by 'killing' you.  You're welcome.'  Doesn't sound like something someone would actually do except in a show with an immortal guy who trying to not draw attention to himself.  And no, 'Nora's crazy' doesn't cover the ground either - it's less 'logic of character' and more 'lazy writing'.  

 

Would have been a lot more interesting dramatically if he'd reconciled with Nora somewhat, but that would have been a bit subtle and complicated.  This show doesn't really do 'complicated'.

[Kromm]

Sure it's "TV crazy" for her to try and shoot him versus "real life crazy", but given the whole fantasy setup, I don't see the problem. I don't see it as lazy writing at all, because it's not like there was any compelling need to bring her character back at all. They did so to drive home a certain character beat/characteristic of Henry. The flashbacks ALL serve that purpose, and they're rarely to never going to introduce complicated plot elements in the past like "Henry somewhat reconciles with her and they work out their issues". What would be the point of that anyway? Would Henry still be so tortured about it in the present if they HAD? Of course not.

It's also a weird debate to me if she had any way to know if it would really kill him or not. I think the point WAS indeed simple. He'd told her he couldn't die, she didn't believe him, she was presented with the proof, she presumably had already suffered some level of guilt for committing him, and the confirmation he was telling the truth caused her to go nuts. We can't parallel this situation to what someone might do in the real world and HAVE to roll with the TV logic, because there is no real life equivalent. The one thing I DO think we can't do is apply some moral filter to her, because it was as simple as her swinging from total disbelief of what he said to total belief. If we accept the TV logic that this would have driven her crazy, then we have to also roll with the notion that the simplest way to fulfill her stated crazy agenda to "share it with the world" was to shoot him--continuing with the belief that he had indeed known exactly what he was talking about and had been totally truthful with her the first time around.

[henripootel]

The one thing I DO think we can't do is apply some moral filter to her, [Nora, Henry's shooty old wife]

I think we can and, in fact, this is the thing that rings the most false.  Magical immortality - no problem.  Nora shooting Henry in public, nay, and for a good 19th century reason: it's rude.  Even if she's loosing her mind, I'd think she'd fall back on her basic lady training and be polite, especially if she frames Henry's condition as a 'gift from god' thing.

 

If by 'TV logic', Kromm, you mean 'the big book of TV tropes', I'd go so far as to agree that much of the scripts for these episodes are just xeroxes of various pages.  It's not the worst thing they could do but they sure ain't getting a pass for doing this.

The flashbacks ALL serve that purpose, and they're rarely to never going to introduce complicated plot elements in the past like "Henry somewhat reconciles with her and they work out their issues". What would be the point of that anyway?

One possible point: Henry is immortal.  He's lived for decades (between the nuthouse and seeing Nora again) and his life had changed a lot, and Nora had gotten old.  I can see not being all that forgiving but man, decades.  Henry was pushing 90 or so by this point (if I'm getting my dates right) - surely he'd be getting a bit of perspective by then.  I'd think that immortals fall out of the habit of grinding axes and let old age settle their scores, if for no other reason than seeing the wreckage time makes of everyone else.

Edited March 7, 2015 by henripootel

[sinkwriter]

Decades had passed, but he hadn't seen her in all that time and probably never anticipated seeing her again. To have her show up out of the blue, trying to call herself his wife after all this time and after all she'd done... I imagine the perspective of time didn't matter much. It's still a shock to see someone like that for the first time, someone who had done terrible things to you, betrayed you to the core. If he'd seen her multiple times, maybe he could have gathered up that internal perspective, but this was the first time he'd seen her in decades, the first time seeing her after all she'd done to him, and he was being confronted with being exposed? I can see why he would react the way he did. Personally, I thought he was as civil as he possibly could be under the circumstances. She didn't deserve forgiveness or any sort of "working out" of issues.

 

Frankly, if she hadn't been so insistent upon exposing his truth to the world, maybe they could have at least come to some sort of understanding. But she ruined any chance of it by pushing the issue and trying to kill him. I could see why she might have lost her mind, coming to such an intense realization that her husband hadn't been lying or insane when he said he was immortal.

 

I also don't think it was a necessary plot point for the two of them to reconcile in any way. She is a symbol of those who have hurt, tortured and betrayed Henry because of his secret. It is a reminder to us as viewers that even in the modern world Henry is not safe, he can still be tortured (in the "interests of scientific discovery") and he can still be betrayed. She is a reminder of the lesson he learned, that he needs to be very careful and that he can only trust certain people in his life. (One hopes that Jo will become one of those people.)

Edited March 7, 2015 by sinkwriter

[henripootel]

She is a symbol of those who have hurt, tortured and betrayed Henry because of his secret. It is a reminder to us as viewers that even in the modern world Henry is not safe, he can still be tortured (in the "interests of scientific discovery") and he can still be betrayed

This is indeed what the writers had in mind but to my thinking, it's a somewhat facile take on what it means to be immortal.  It's kinda like some of the flashbacks to Henry's past - they sometimes seem a bit Disney to me.  But hey, Disney is fine and popular and all, just a bit bland and formulaic.  I was hoping for better.

[slothgirl]

after all she'd done... someone who had done terrible things to you, betrayed you to the core... after all she'd done to him

I would hope that after some number of decades, he would gain at least a SMIDGE of perspective and realize that she behaved in a totally normal way, reacting exactly as almost anyone would have.

 

She didn't have him committed out of malice. She wasn't responsible for the poor state of mental health care in that era. She was faced with a husband who claimed that he couldn't be killed and was threatening to harm himself. For all she knew, his next claim might have been that SHE couldn't be killed either and tried to harm her.

 

His behavior mimicked every Schizophrenic who got committed in those days and even today if they are a threat to themselves or others.

 

I still can't figure out what posters would have had her do instead? Stand there and watch while he sliced himself open? Would you do that if a loved one who appeared irrational was about to slice open his or her wrists? Would you believe him just because you loved him? An intervention almost always feels like a betrayal to the person; that doesn't mean it isn't the right thing to do. People who respond to whatever treatment is being sought usually come to realize that. The fact that Henry doesn't need any treatment is a rare exception, but as a doctor, I would hope he would understand that it appeared that he did, and that NO ONE could be expected to believe otherwise, especially when he is bordering on hysterical and manic when he tries to explain himself.

 

I do think the concept of her coming back to confront him was poorly executed and would have been more obviously so with a less capable actress playing Nora. I don't think the scene was needed at all unless they plan to show more of the aftermath.

 

I think there must have also been a scene I missed (or that they failed to show) One minute he is standing there with the knife and the next he's being carted away? How did she stop him from cutting himself before "help" got there? Or did he actually cut himself but not enough to die (or she stopped the bleeding)

 

And why am I trying to use logic on this show? ;)

Edited March 7, 2015 by slothgirl

[sinkwriter]

I don't think they were very clear about what happened between the time he threatened to show her and the moment he's carted away. I think I assumed that she somehow begged him not to do it, that she told him she believed him in order to placate him, and when he stopped the attempt, it seemed that all was fine. He thought she believed him. Instead, she contacted those who would take him away.

 

I don't think what she did in that instance was a wrong thing. As slothgirl said, what would any of us do in the same situation, if a loved one was threatening to kill oneself.

 

However... I do think that she was shown to be malicious after the fact. When she visited him in the sanitarium or asylum or whatever it was, (if memory serves) it sounded like they'd already put him through some torture, yet she seemed like she didn't care. She walked away after talking to him as if this was the end of their relationship forever, that she was done with him. It sounded like she hadn't even visited him up to that point. I know a lot of it is the writing, and also just the way things might have been back then, but I felt she seemed surprisingly cold to someone who was supposed to be her husband, someone she supposedly wanted to "get better." Instead, she treated him as if she were writing him off, leaving him there to rot. And where was she when he was declared mostly likely sane, but instead of being set free, he was moved to a prison? 

 

I don't think Henry needs to forgive anything under the circumstances, especially the way she came back into his life and once again put it into great upheaval even when he begged her not to. But I was bothered by one part of the writing -- when she said she'd never remarried, as if she'd been waiting for him to get better and he just never did and instead disappeared from her life. Nothing shown about her has indicated that she cared so much for him that she could never love another. Her coldness and walking away from him, leaving him in that horrible place, showed no desire on her part to "wait" for him in any way. Not in my eyes.

Edited March 7, 2015 by sinkwriter

[shapeshifter]

I would hope that after some number of decades, he would gain at least a SMIDGE of perspective and realize that she behaved in a totally normal way, reacting exactly as almost anyone would have....

And maybe he would have, but he didn't really have an opportunity to forgive her, since she immediately announced her intentions to screw up his life yet again.

I've been assuming she had Alzheimer's or dementia, but maybe just bad judgement.

Edited March 8, 2015 by shapeshifter

[Netfoot]

I still can't figure out what posters would have had her do instead? Stand there and watch while he sliced himself open?

 

It may have been reasonable for her to have him committed, but her actions 50 years later were not.

 

What?  Did she conclude that having unjustly (if understandably) committed him so long ago, she had now just won a young husband again, in the immortality lottery?  That he would be glad to see her, because he had been pining for her all those years?  That she would do him the favour of shooting him dead so as to publicize his immortality?

 

Henry could have put aside her earlier behaviour, so many years ago, but the recent behaviour, accosting him in a very public place and making a huge scene is something he might easily have considered as unforgivable.

Edited March 8, 2015 by Netfoot

[sinkwriter]

Exactly. And just the act of declaring herself his wife, knowing the huge difference in appearance of age, was deluded on her part. 

[slothgirl]

However... I do think that she was shown to be malicious after the fact. When she visited him in the sanitarium or asylum or whatever it was, (if memory serves) it sounded like they'd already put him through some torture, yet she seemed like she didn't care. She walked away after talking to him as if this was the end of their relationship forever, that she was done with him. It sounded like she hadn't even visited him up to that point. I know a lot of it is the writing, and also just the way things might have been back then, but I felt she seemed surprisingly cold to someone who was supposed to be her husband, someone she supposedly wanted to "get better." Instead, she treated him as if she were writing him off, leaving him there to rot. And where was she when he was declared mostly likely sane, but instead of being set free, he was moved to a prison? 

Was this in this eposode or in one of the earlier episodes that I missed? I don't remember a scene with her visiting him in the asylum

[smiley13]

Poor Henry has had a tough time with the ladies in his life.  Nora was a nasty piece of work and based on what they showed us, Abigail must have left him.  I wonder if there have been any other wives that they have not shown us yet?

 

I would guess that there has not been anyone since Abigail since she was around in the last thirty years.

[blugirlami21]

I don't think Henry was unforgiving or mean to Nora at all. He was very surprised to see her again and he was still trying to help her up until she tried to shoot him.

I dunno what I would have done if my husband came home raving about being immortal but Henry is the honest, stalwart type. I don't think he would make up something like that.

And we kind of do get to see a different reaction in Abigail. She learned the truth and she believed him.

That may be why Nora comes off so badly imo.

[mythoughtis]

I don't think Abigail 'left', but rather she died. Abe said once she would have been 94, and he has stuff of hers like her recipe book.

[Kromm]

I don't think Abigail 'left', but rather she died. Abe said once she would have been 94, and he has stuff of hers like her recipe book.

They seemed to be saying that she left Henry, but that doesn't mean that Abe was out of touch with her (in fact, since Abe and Henry clearly have spent years apart at times, Abe was possibly in equal remote contact with both of them).  

 

But even if he wasn't in touch with her, that doesn't mean Henry, Abe or both of them couldn't still have had tons of her possessions.  

[egnever]

One of the things I enjoy about Elementary is the cops figure things out the same time Sherlock does just in a different, slower way and when they deal with medical cases Joan is the one to talk about it. However people complain on that show that Sherlock is supposed to be the smartest person ever so no one should figure anything out before him. Sherlock probably does know almost everything, but that doesn't mean that everyone else is stupid. 

 

This show could use some of that. Jo is not stupid and has been solving cases long before Henry came around. She should know things and be able to share her knowledge. Even if Henry knows it. I want her to say it first. 

Here's my issue with this line of thinking. The thing about a show like Sherlock or Elementary, or even Forever, is that it's supposed to show an individual who is supposed to be far outside of the spectrum of normality. Their brain simply doesn't function on the same level as your average person, even if that person is reasonably clever or competent, which is not always the case. The term gets bandied around all the time that it's lost its original meaning, but that's what 'genius' is supposed to be. Genius is hitting targets that you can't see. It's supposed to be doing something that the average person literally finds incomprehensible.

 

The problem with a show like Castle, or Forever, or Elementary, is that they're crime shows with a male lead and a female co-lead. The unfortunate consequence is that any time you show the male lead being—understandably, given their unique position of intelligence, knowledge, or method—considerably more intelligent than their peers (and more specifically their female co-lead), you unintentionally create a dynamic which some people immediately jump to as saying it's disparaging or unflattering towards women. You see on BBC's Sherlock that Watson is made to look like a fool many times, but hardly anyone claims that it's a problem. Part of this could be that there's enough of an abundance of white male roles that making one of them look like a fool is not going to make anyone believe that it's a criticism of the entire demographic.

 

That said, as Henry is obviously very well educated, intelligent, and vastly more experienced than anyone else, I think it totally makes sense that he should be able to jump ahead of the standard process because of some esoteric bit of knowledge that he's accumulated. The thing I don't like about it is how that esoteric bit of knowledge almost always seems to coincide with some historically significant event in his past. It gives the entire show a Slumdog Millionaire feel to it, where it starts to become so incredulous that he would have experienced the exact event that corresponds with him knowing that very specific factoid. It also completely undermines the amount of knowledge that Henry could have simply learned through studying, reading, practice. Why can't we just assume Henry read about it in a book?

 

I think this episode did a decent job at indicating just where Henry's knowledge ended. He was as clueless as anyone while the cyber crimes unit did their thing. But the other complaint I have about the episode is that portrayals of 'hackers' in media are always so ridiculous and over-the-top. This isn't Watch Dogs where you can simply swipe and change traffic signals instantaneously. Even if you had it on your phone there would probably be a significant lag because of network connections and layers of encryption, assuming such a direct connection were even possible.

[dubbel zout]

You see on BBC's Sherlock that Watson is made to look like a fool many times, but hardly anyone claims that it's a problem.

 

Watson isn't a homicide detective. Jo is, and she's a homicide detective with a decent amount of experience.

 

Why can't we just assume Henry read about it in a book?

 

Why can't we just assume Jo read about it in a book?

 

My problem isn't that Henry knows a lot of stuff, it's that Jo isn't allowed to show that she knows a lot of stuff, too. It's fine that Henry has the edge when it comes to medical issues, but does he always have to have the edge in the investigative parts, too?

[slothgirl]

Why can't we just assume Henry read about it in a book?

Because then they'd have to come up with some other reason to show flashbacks to give us tidbits of Henry's backstory. Personally I rather like the way they are slowly fleshing out the show's mythology by tying his past into the COTW.

 

Since people do tend to remember things better when they learned them through a personal experience rather than random reading, I have no problem with Henry's "trivia" knowledge being shown as often stemming from his life rather than study. It seems to me that he isn't meant to be a savant or genius... just a guy who has had a whole lot more time to amass a lot more factoids than the people around him.

[egnever]

Watson isn't a homicide detective. Jo is, and she's a homicide detective with a decent amount of experience.

Being a homicide detective probably won't help you when it comes down to what exotic meat the deceased consumed, or kind of artwork style was popular in the 50s. Those are the kinds of things that Henry knows from experience, and those are the strange trivia breakthroughs that Henry knows but Jo doesn't.

 

Jo has demonstrated reasonable competence in things "homicide detective" related, and she was never shown as any kind of homicide detective savant, merely as a good detective.

 

I agree with you that Jo should know more (or at least a similar amount) about investigative stuff than Henry, and dislike it when the show makes her unaware of detective work. But Henry should be well ahead of everyone else when it comes to esoteric knowledge that could crack open a case. That's what makes the entire show entertaining for me. I have no real interest in watching thoroughly average detectives fumble around cases with complete mediocrity.

 

Why can't we just assume Jo read about it in a book?

 

My problem isn't that Henry knows a lot of stuff, it's that Jo isn't allowed to show that she knows a lot of stuff, too. It's fine that Henry has the edge when it comes to medical issues, but does he always have to have the edge in the investigative parts, too?

Henry has had about 160 more years to read than Jo has. I would also imagine that Henry has had a fair amount more required reading, given that he's been a doctor for most of his very long lifespan. That's a lot of required medical reading, plus refreshers every few decades to keep up to date. The difference is likely more extreme when we consider that, likely, their first (give or take) 20 years likely involved them developing their general education and improving their reading skills to read at an adult level. In that case, Jo has likely about ~20 years of reading at an adult level. Henry has about 180.

 

If Jo has anywhere close to Henry's overall knowledge base in anything outside of modern technology, pop culture, police, and detective work (which she's demonstrated on several occasions), it would probably paint Henry as being a total moron. She should lag well behind Henry in medicine, history, biology, chemistry, art, physics, classical music, architecture, etc.

 

Because then they'd have to come up with some other reason to show flashbacks to give us tidbits of Henry's backstory. Personally I rather like the way they are slowly fleshing out the show's mythology by tying his past into the COTW.

 

Since people do tend to remember things better when they learned them through a personal experience rather than random reading, I have no problem with Henry's "trivia" knowledge being shown as often stemming from his life rather than study. It seems to me that he isn't meant to be a savant or genius... just a guy who has had a whole lot more time to amass a lot more factoids than the people around him.

I'm well aware of why they choose to go with content-specific flashbacks. I'm just saying that it happening so regularly gives it an incredulous feel about it. To the show's credit, they are occasionally self-referential and good humored about it, but other times it still just feels tremendously convenient and used as a crutch. I compared it to Slumdog Millionaire, where the protagonist's overall education and knowledge was not particularly vast, but his unique life experiences just happened to coincide exactly with what the questions were, to the point where it was essentially acknowledged as being extraordinarily unrealistic and practically infinitesimally small odds.

 

If a COTW involved a man dying from a rare toxin found only in an endangered flower in Inner Mongolia, I would half expect that Henry would suddenly flashback to when he was stranded there and happened across the man's great grandfather teaching his kids not to touch the flowers. Just the sheer exactness of the flashbacks is getting to really amusing levels.

[dubbel zout]

Henry might have had more time to read than Jo, but that doesn't mean he's read everything.

 

I would like Jo to have more parity with Henry; she's basically a sidekick rather than a partner. I can't help but feel there's a whiff (or more) of innate sexism going on. If the roles were reversed, there's no way the male cop wouldn't be the main character.

[sinkwriter]

They don't have to (and shouldn't) ignore or downgrade Jo's abilities in order to elevate Henry's. I don't see why they can't both be capable and smart individuals (with Henry having the slight edge because he's been around so long). Plus, if this is truly meant to be a build-up to an eventual romantic partnership as well as a professional partnership, I would think the showrunners should highlight the attributes that make Jo special and standout in order to show why Henry would want to give up his very long life of solitude and choose to share his secret with her. She is supposed to be different from your average woman; otherwise why would Henry risk losing everything to tell her about the truth? We (and he) should get to see all the ways she is his equal, not just a pretty face and a good listener.

[possibilities]

I love this show, but I agree it has its flaws. I totally agree that if the genders were reversed, it would be "normal man/cop" is the main character, and all about his adventures managing the "quirky immortal female sidekick." He would also figure out or be told her secret, and become her protector and (probably her lover) in the first three episodes. She would either be portrayed as childishly rebellious, or she would be sooooo grateful for his protection and for having finally found a handler to rescue her and keep her out of all the trouble she was getting into before he came along....

[sinkwriter]

Yikes, possibilities, that would be such a horrible show! (LOL.)

[possibilities]

Yes. I'm still shuddering and working through the dry heaves even thinking about it induced in me. I might be too good at thinking up terrible ideas.

[Sakura12]

There is a difference from making Henry a genius and everyone else an incompetent idiot.

 

Does Jo even bother to do any investigating before waiting for Henry? I would think she solved crimes without him and should be semi competent at her job. That's why I brought up Elementary, on that show we saw Sherlock teaching Joan how to be observant and deduce. He'd step back and see if she could figure it out. That doesn't mean he doesn't know the answer, just that he's letting her reach the conclusion without him telling her. 

 

All I'm asking is for Jo learning a bit from Henry's methods and telling him how a victim died. She has time to before he arrives. He can figure out all the strange stuff leading to the death. But being that this show is not lasting beyond this season, I probably won't get that. 

Edited March 17, 2015 by Sakura12

[Netfoot]

I would like to see Henry expound at length on some subject (say, Saddlemaking, at the riding stables where the groom was murdered) only for someone to say "Oh, no!  They haven't done it that way since 1885!"  Which gives Henry less of an Oracular nature, and starts Jo asking some gently embarassing questions.

[egnever]

They don't have to (and shouldn't) ignore or downgrade Jo's abilities in order to elevate Henry's. I don't see why they can't both be capable and smart individuals (with Henry having the slight edge because he's been around so long). Plus, if this is truly meant to be a build-up to an eventual romantic partnership as well as a professional partnership, I would think the showrunners should highlight the attributes that make Jo special and standout in order to show why Henry would want to give up his very long life of solitude and choose to share his secret with her. She is supposed to be different from your average woman; otherwise why would Henry risk losing everything to tell her about the truth? We (and he) should get to see all the ways she is his equal, not just a pretty face and a good listener.

I don't see where they're intentionally downgrading Jo's ability in order to elevate Henry's. Most of Henry's observations that would fall in police domain or common knowledge, Jo already knows and approaches it with a, "Yeah, what's your point?" perspective. Henry, like a lot of very intelligent detectives, has demonstrated a much better than average ability to connect the dots between two apparently dissonant things, which makes him very good at solving mysteries. That doesn't mean that everyone around him, be it Jo, Lucas, or Hanson, needs to rival him in those areas. If anything, Jo has demonstrated markedly more competence than either Lucas or Hanson.

 

Also, I don't see any evidence that Henry is looking for a long life of solitude. He's like anyone else, and would value human companionship and affection. Obviously there's a lot more complications with a relationship, which makes him hesitant to enter one. But he doesn't demonstrate that you need to be some 'super special human' to be friends with him.

 

There is a difference from making Henry a genius and everyone else an incompetent idiot.

 

Does Jo even bother to do any investigating before waiting for Henry? I would think she solved crimes without him and should be semi competent at her job. That's why I brought up Elementary, on that show we saw Sherlock teaching Joan how to be observant and deduce. He'd step back and see if she could figure it out. That doesn't mean he doesn't know the answer, just that he's letting her reach the conclusion without him telling her. 

 

All I'm asking is for Jo learning a bit from Henry's methods and telling him how a victim died. She has time to before he arrives. He can figure out all the strange stuff leading to the death. But being that this show is not lasting beyond this season, I probably won't get that. 

The thing about Elementary is that many of the cases are solved with Watson having the breakthrough and Sherlock being the one that had not yet arrived at the conclusion. So much that it really diminishes the fact that Sherlock is supposed to be one of the smartest human beings on the planet and has a unique mind for this kind of deductive science (it's really more abductive, to be fair). Watson, Bell, and Gregson are all written competently, but it's often at the expense of making Sherlock seem petulant, out of touch, or otherwise lacking as a human being. The dynamic of the show makes Sherlock out to be someone who's fundamentally 'not right' because he's not normal, and someone who is (and should be) self-loathing because of the fact. It not only diminishes Sherlock's intelligence but also sends the message that it's wrong to have any asocial personality quirks, as if everyone should be perfectly polite, charming, outgoing personalities and have lots and lots of friends. Sherlock obviously isn't, so he must be intensely unhappy, as evidenced by his many long and wistful looks in the general direction of the camera with a sad expression on his face.

 

The main problem with writing everyone as intelligent and competent is that the writers aren't good enough with coming up with 'genius' deductions that really separate the truly elite mind from the good ones. In that sense, because everyone else on Elementary are reasonably intelligent people, the only time Sherlock gets a leg up is when he's used with a trope or plot device. E.g. he gains insight because has an incredibly acute nose that just happens to pick up an unusual scent. Or his studies of botany means he just so happens can identify the kind of flowers or seeds are around the crime scene. Or he just so happens to recognize a particular name used in reference. There's none of the extraordinary leaps of deduction or unusual connections from A to B that makes the source material compelling reading. The writers themselves lack the ability to come up with these deductions, and can only come up with scenarios where you have to crack the case with some amount of esoteric knowledge because all of the 'ordinary' inferences you can make are fairly easy to make even for the averagely competent person.

 

When faced with that kind of scenario, you either have to have your 'special' person interject convenient, esoteric knowledge to unlock the case, or you have to write all the 'not as special' people to be dumb in failing to connect the dots on a relatively routine deduction. This is also why 'genius' is never portrayed properly in media, because to accurately represent genius the writers have to be up to the task.

[zannej]

About Nora, I don't think she was trying to be cold when she was leaving him in the asylum. I think she was truly scared for him and for herself and didn't know what to do. The things he said and how he was behaving were just not normal and, as someone else said, it seemed like maybe he might have decided to try to harm her-- or to try to harm himself again. The doctors probably convinced her that they could cure him somehow. I wonder if they got money from her for it. When she turned around, she clearly looked upset and conflicted. So I don't think it was an easy thing. I don't think she knew he was being tortured. If she knew, she might not have left him there.

 

When she returned, I figured she'd spent years being eaten away by guilt and "what ifs" and possibly had alzheimers or some form of dementia. It's not too much of a stretch for me to see her coming to the conclusion that he was immortal and trying to shoot him to prove it. I have seen people in real live do some pretty crazy stuff. Look at the people who were convinced that committing suicide when a comet passed over meant they would get a ride on a spaceship or something nutso like that. For all we know, Nora had developed a brain tumor and her sense of logic was shut off and/or maybe she was very ill and dying and thought that somehow Henry's immortality could be some link that might save her life somehow. Or that maybe it could make her young again. We don't know exactly what was going through her mind because we saw things from Henry's perspective and even about 200 years later he still felt very betrayed by her.

 

I will say that I really love the supporting characters in this, and I don't think they come off as idiots. Fun fact: some police offices actually refuse to hire people with genius level IQs. They reject people who score too high on their tests because they think geniuses will become bored and not stay in the job and the money spent training them will be wasted. There was actually a lawsuit from a guy who was rejected because he was a genius and the court ruled that it was ok for the police to refuse to hire him because of his high IQ. But I don't think the characters are as dumbed down as the ones on the show The Profiler. The original lead actress on the show demanded that the writers dumb the rest of the characters down so she could appear better and smarter than them. And they started to do that on Criminal Minds-- making the male characters all dumber and less competent than the JJ character (although, again, not as badly as on The Profiler).

 

I think in some ways, Jo may see Henry as almost a favorite tool. Like, say you are a carpenter and most of your life you used hand tools. You were able to do the job, but it took longer. Then one day, you get a handy new powertool that makes things much easier and faster. You aren't any less competent or skilled, but you prefer to use that tool to do the work. So with Jo, its not that she can't do the job, its that she finds its easier and faster when Henry is around. Plus I think the supporting characters all really like him. 

[sinkwriter]

 

Also, I don't see any evidence that Henry is looking for a long life of solitude. He's like anyone else, and would value human companionship and affection. Obviously there's a lot more complications with a relationship, which makes him hesitant to enter one. But he doesn't demonstrate that you need to be some 'super special human' to be friends with him.

 

I think a long life of solitude was what he assumed his life would have to be (after Abigail left). When we first met him in the pilot episode, he seemed to be pretty reclusive. No friends, no lasting relationships other than Abe. Spent a lot of time studying his journals and death notes, possibly had some brief no-strings sexual encounters, but otherwise spent his time in solitude in the medical examiner's lab. He didn't like to socialize, he didn't even have a relationship with Lucas, he seemed to push people away and prefer to keep it that way. He was protecting himself (and Abe) from scrutiny or any other kind of danger that would ruin the lives they'd worked to build in NYC.

 

It's only over the course of this season that we've seen Henry start to loosen up and open up to people again, mostly due to befriending Jo. But even that partnership at the start was mostly Jo offering up pieces of information about herself and trying to get Henry to give her more than cryptic smiles and half-answers about himself and his life before she met him. He didn't trust anyone except Abe. It's to the show's credit, the writing and the acting, that we've seen Henry start to loosen and become more of the man he likely was before Abigail left. The very notion of him hanging out with everyone in a karaoke bar at the start of this season would have been impossible. Even if he wanted to, Henry would have turned them down and gone home for another evening of solitude and study. It's wonderful to see him able to ease up on his reserved and careful nature and try to join the actual world. But it took him a while to even get to this point, and he's still got a long way to go. There's a lot he can't share with Jo, or is afraid to share with Jo because he doesn't want to risk ruining what he has (a good life in NYC, a strong partnership with a good friend in Jo, and some small friendships with the others in his main sphere).

 

This is why I wish the show would be renewed. There may be some issues with believability when it comes to stuff like this week's case (in "Punk is Dead") or other little details, but when it comes to the relationships and the characters' development, I think they're doing a great job and I genuinely want to see these characters' lives and stories unfold in a natural manner. I don't want them to leave things unresolved and not shown because the show gets cancelled. I don't want them to rush anything. But I worry that we're on borrowed time here and we're not going to get to see the main story unfold the way we want to. That disappoints me as a viewer. 

Edited April 2, 2015 by sinkwriter

[Eneya]

In regards to Nora... I am somewhat weirded out, that so many people are missing one very crucial point, that she lived at a time in which being insane... was not seen the way it is seen today. There were only two options... sane and insane... and the insane wasn't managable. How many of you, given such a context, would have reacted in any other way? Public display of feelings, emotion and so on were not common, so her being cold or showing as cold is not showing us anything about character but more about what was socially acceptable as public behaviour. Committing him WAS quite sensible, given the fact that she, unlike us, didn't know he is truly an immortal. The fact that she never moved on needs to be accepted at face value, because you can't hold someone responsible for not SHOWING enough emotional connection and something that the character experienced in the next 30 odd years. In regards to shooting him, I think she was having dementia or something other like this or her actions literally do not make any sense. :)

In regards to Jo... we have the usual "we have a genious but because the writers are not geniouses themselves, they can't show it in any other way but to make the rest dumber than usual". ;)

[sinkwriter]

Out of curiosity, why do you think Henry's wife thought it acceptable to shoot him in front of everyone, Eneya?

 

If it wasn't some sort of insanity (oh, the irony of that, given what she did to Henry) or dementia, what made it okay for her to go to such extremes to insist that after 30+ years apart she's still his wife (especially given their drastic age difference in appearance and the fact that she walked away from him a very long time ago) and okay for her to shoot him in broad daylight in front of everyone, when that would have definitely been against what was "socially acceptable," in her time or any.

Most of us get why she had Henry committed back then, even if we in our modern sensibilities don't agree with what she did. What many of us struggle with is why she'd show up after all that time, acting as if nothing had changed between them. If she were in her right mind, surely she would have admitted that the entire situation was strange and complicated and not something to be hashed out in front of everyone. Her behavior became erratic and hyper-insistent, and she had no regard for what Henry's feelings on the matter might be. He asked her to speak with him privately, he asked her to leave him alone because he felt betrayed by what she'd done;  she merely got louder and came back more aggressively. That behavior certainly wasn't in keeping with social graces. 

[slothgirl]

In regards to Nora... I am somewhat weirded out

 

I felt the same way at the vitriole being shown towards the character given that A) mental illness was grossly (and shamefully) misunderstood and mistreated; and B) he claimed to be immortal for pete's sake and was waving a weapon around threatening to KILL himself.

 

Most of us get why she had Henry committed back then, even if we in our modern sensibilities don't agree with what she did.

 

What many of us struggle with is why she'd show up after all that time, acting as if nothing had changed between them. If she were in her right mind, surely she would have admitted that the entire situation was strange and complicated and not something to be hashed out in front of everyone. Her behavior became erratic and hyper-insistent, and she had no regard for what Henry's feelings on the matter might be. He asked her to speak with him privately, he asked her to leave him alone because he felt betrayed by what she'd done;  she merely got louder and came back more aggressively. That behavior certainly wasn't in keeping with social graces. 

 

Some posters may have understood the fact that she had him committed while only being very opposed to her later actions, but the posts bashing the character did not just start after the episode where she returns. People were trashing her before that, about having him committed in the 1st place and then appearing so "cold" when visiting him.

 

And actually, even with our "modern sensibilities", almost everyone here would probably STILL agree with what she did initially if they were actually in that same position. It isn't something we'd look back on with "better understanding" now. Our "understanding" only comes from the fact that WE the viewers know he IS immortal. What has changed with our modern sensibility is the type of facility that we would have someone committed to, how long they would have to stay, the care they would receive there, and the follow-up after they are released.

 

But I'll bet even today, every single person here would call for help if their spouse suddenly ranted that they were immortal and started to kill him/herself. (and he WAS ranting.. they made sure to show us that he was extremely agitated, bordering on nutso)  And I'd also bet that the ranter in question would be placed under a psych hold as long as they persisted in acting like they were a threat to themselves or anyone else. If anything, our "modern sensibilities" have made us LESS likely to believe in a flesh and blood immortal than previous centuries still steeped in various forms of mysticism.

 

As to her return, I don't remember him asking to speak to her privately, but I could have missed it. What I remember was him insisting that he had no idea who she was and that she was mistaking him for someone else, which was not going to calm her at all. Despite his medical training, he never showed much understanding of where SHE was coming from either even in the present. After a couple of centuries, I would think he would have SOME perspective beyond just continuing to hold onto the betrayal and pain. Even with only one lifetime, people who have been hurt by someone manage to let go and look back with a different perspective, especially if they find happiness. Nora was no saint, but Henry chose to remain bitter even into the present.

 

It's a shame they couldn't fit in any explanation of what went on for her in the intervening years. Did she remarry? Was she ostracized for having an insane spouse? Was he finally declared dead at some point so that she wasn't required to remain his wife for the rest of her life? (I have a feeling they did mention this in a different episode)

 

Imagine if that insane spouse you had committed later turned out to be telling the TRUTH! I can't even imagine wrapping my head around finding out that my husband was immortal all along. It is so unfathomable, I wouldn't even guess how I would react. I don't think I would behave "rationally" or think about the "right" way to discuss a complicated matter. Frankly, I think  I would freak right the F out.

 

But in HER time, it would play right into various mystical leanings that people sometimes had because of their lack of scientific knowledge. She most likely saw herself as helping him proove what he'd claimed all along, knowing that if HE tried to proove it, he'd just be locked up. She felt that the others had the right to know how to avoid death. She wouldn't know that he wanted to keep it a deep secret, because he had tried to REVEAL the secret himself in the past. She was old. She wasn't going to live much longer herself, so she was probably focused on how his situation could benefit mankind (including her).

 

And of course, there's always the possibility that she was just nuts. ;)

Edited April 5, 2015 by slothgirl

[kassygreene]

She didn't remarry, she said that when she first met him again in 1865. Over forty years of pious (perhaps ostentatiously pious) widowhood, and the times she lived, gave her a certain religious fervor.  And she tried to kill him to prove, publicly, that he was immortal, as he had told her forty years earlier.  The nurse jumped in the way and took the bullet, and while it wasn't shown, the clearly crazy old woman who thought this young doctor was her forty years dead (or missing) husband and who wound up killing someone, publicly, would have wound up in an asylum.  I'm just vinegar-y enough in my old-ish age to hope that Henry did nothing for her.

 

Of course the concept is fiction...  As the song said, who wants to live forever?  And yeah, not particularly religious myself, but this is suddenly a weird subject for Easter Sunday...  

[Eneya]

I think I said it... VERY clearly, I assumed she was not in a stable psychological state. I have no other explanation... and the character bears no responsibility that the writer sucked in that regard. :) I can't explain why she did what she did... I think it could be guilt, dementia and a number of other things combined... someone said it before... we, the viewers have more information... but we still live in a world in which "he/she is nuts" is seen as enough of explanation and reasoning.

[zannej]

I think the distinction is that when Nora was younger, she behaved in a socially acceptable way and did what she thought was right, and it was clearly something she didn't take lightly. She looked very distraught when she was leaving Henry in the prison-like cell, but she *did* ask the doctors how long they thought it would take to cure him. She wasn't planning on ditching him there for life, she actually wanted/expected them to "cure" him. I think in her mind, it was only going to be a short time and then they would be back together. But that never happened and I think the guilt and not knowing just ate away at her. I think she probably had to convince herself that she did the right thing, but we don't know whether or not she fully moved on with her life. Given that they were torturing him, I doubt they allowed her to visit him. One thing I'm guessing is that they had quite a bit of money at that time and the facility probably charged her for his boarding and "treatment". It's no secret that mental hospitals (even in today's world) will even fabricate mental illnesses for wealthy patients to make an excuse to hold them longer and siphon money while truly mentally ill people who are impoverished are kicked to the curb.

 

I wish I could honestly say that mental healthcare is vastly better than it was, but there is still a huge social stigma and people just don't understand it. Even in recent years, people who are deemed mentally unsound have been subjected to torture under the guise of "treatment". I think there was a facility that was giving electroshock to autism patients not so long ago. It just shows that some people are so desperate to make their loved ones "normal" and lack understanding to the point that they allow such things to happen (although in some cases, they don't know what is being done).

 

IMO, Nora in later years was broken. She never got her husband back, she was now elderly and probably had no children. So she probably felt her life was wasted and that she was now dying. I don't know if she had some sort of diagnosis or if it was just old age, but I think she was really off her rocker. When she saw that Henry was alive, I think it gave her hope. She was demented enough to want to prove that he was right and that he hadn't been crazy (because it reflected poorly on her to have married a guy who went nutso), but also, I think she expected that if she could make the world see what he was, that he could be studied and the secret to his immortality could be learned and extended to others (specifically herself). She saw him as the source of a cure for others.

 

IIRC, it seemed that Henry didn't want to have her sent to a mental hospital at first, because he knew what that was like. I imagine they deemed her nutso and threw her in to an institution where she died.

Edited April 7, 2015 by zannej

[kassygreene]

What Nora did, in front of witnesses, was attempted murder (of Henry) and actual murder (at the very least manslaughter) of the nurse.  So Bedlam until she died, or if she's deemed sane a very quick trial with conviction (multiple witnesses), and she is either hanged or spends the remainder of her life in prison (and that would be short). 

[zannej]

Oh, I agree. What Nora did was absolutely a crime and back then they didn't have the same standards in terms of people being able to appreciate the consequences. She believed that Henry would not truly die if she shot him and she did not intend to shoot the nurse. In today's world she would be put in psychiatric care and given therapy. Back then, it was likely the rest of her life in prison. Since she seemed to be of higher status and wealth, they probably would have given her a huge fine and then sent her to some facility to live out the rest of her days instead of hanging her. I think they definitely would have said she was insane. And I doubt she lived very long after that regardless.