If you're nuts, like me, and you watch DVD extras, you'll learn a secret about this episode: it's written, directed, and acted to be a love story. The intellectual and the mental games were all secondary to the emotional dynamics nursed through the episode. It therefore makes sense that the climactic scene hinges on emotions. Irene, it appears, was not good enough to play with the big boys. She let her heart rule her head, and she went and fell in love with the mark. Quite different from the original, and quite the fall for the dominatrix. The fear and pain from Irene, next to the cold calculation of Sherlock, are very painful to watch. The obvious ending is for her to die. For that to be it. The story ended, she lost because she wasn't cold enough. But that's not the end. The end reveals that, even if she lost the intellectual game, she won the far more important emotional game. Outmaneuvering someone's head is easy--Sherlock and Mycroft do it for a living. Outmaneuvering their heart is far more valuable, and far more important. And it made Sherlock come and get her. Mr. "Don't Let Your Head Rule Your Heart" helped her fake her death and let her loose on an unsuspecting world. And his reasoning, apparently, was whatever counts for him as love.
Rebecca Kulik lives in Iowa, reads an obsence amount, watches way too much television, and occasionally studies for her BA in History. Come by her personal pop culture blog at tyrannyofthepetticoat.wordpress.com and her reading blog at journalofimaginarypeople.wordpress.com.
