7. "Mrs. Hudson's Been Attacked By An American: I'm Restoring Balance To The Universe" 'A Scandal In Belgravia'
Mrs. Hudson is very much a background character in the stories, but in the show she's been given real life. She's got a history we don't know about at all (something about running a drug cartel in Florida while moonlighting as an exotic dancer), but as far as we know, she's a little old lady who owns a flat. She insists that she isn't their housekeeper, but she keeps bringing food and cleaning up, probably because if she didn't, they'd live in squalor eating nothing but beans. She's one of the few people with a real role in Sherlock's life, and like most people he's close to, Sherlock treats her badly. He shuts doors in her face, he screams at her, he shoots at her wall. But he hugs her in the very first episode, and he shouts at Mycroft for being rude to her. She's one of the three people Moriarty threatens to murder to "burn" Sherlock. It's in 'Scandal in Belgravia' that we really see how much Sherlock cares about her. When he comes home already in a raw emotional state and sees that she's been attacked and beaten, he really freaks out. He becomes very, very cold, and throws her attacker out the window onto the bins. The whole scene is hilarious and wonderful, both for what it reveals about how much Sherlock really cares about Mrs. Hudson, and for the pleasure of seeing the bad guy get his just desserts.
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.
