The Value of Joan Watson

(spoilers through episode 16, "Details")

When the premise of CBS's "Elementary" was revealed, and we learned that Watson's character would be female, I and many other people were concerned about how it would read to have a woman in a role that's often been portrayed as "lesser" than Holmes in many ways. In both the Guy Ritchie movies and the BBC Sherlock TV series, for example, Watson is a long-suffering friend who experiences considerable inconvenience and embarrassment serving the whims of a domineering Holmes. It would have been unpleasant to see a female Watson placed into this situation, another in a long line of women on TV catering to great men. That this Watson had already been explicitly portrayed as a caretaker of Holmes added to my concern.

However, "Elementary" pleasantly surprised me, and continued to far exceed my expectations. Lucy Liu's Joan Watson and Jonny Lee Miller's Sherlock Holmes have a much less dysfunctional dynamic than any other modern adaptation I have seen, and this Watson makes it clear exactly how far she will accept Holmes's less courteous behaviors. The show portrays Joan Watson as a valued and valuable character, and I will examine three of the ways in which it does so.

Joan Watson is a caretaker, a stereotypically female role. We know that caretaking work, for example, of children, the elderly, or the ill, is often un- or undervalued, and un- or underpaid. Women are often expected to fulfill this caretaking work in addition to their careers, and absorb any financial penalty; when caretaking work is a career, as in teaching at the pre-college level, it often pays terribly. Watson's caretaker role, though, is different. She's paid for it, and it's implied that she's paid a lot. The work that she does as a caretaker is portrayed as valuable because we can, literally, put a value on it.

Holmes also tells Watson that she and her work are valuable. Sometimes it's in a backhanded way, as when he praises her to her family and then pretends he didn't mean any of it. Sometimes it's with great sincerity, as in the scene where he asks her to stay; he doesn't praise her here, but what she does is so important to him that he asks her to become his partner. By the 16th episode, Holmes, who in the first episodes consistently denigrated Watson's work, has come to value her and her work so highly that he is willing to call her partner. Holmes values Watson, and he explicitly tells her so.

Finally, we see that not only is the show willing to put financial value on Watson's work, so is Holmes. He's willing to dig into his savings, which are finite, in order to pay her. This can be read in multiple ways, though, and the interpretation that he is paying her to stick around and be his friend is unpleasant. But we know that, for Watson, it's not about the money; she's been digging into her own savings in order to stay with Holmes. What about him, then? From his point of view, he could have done two things: he could have asked her to stay on permanently with him and not offered to pay her, leaving her without a source of income, essentially asking her to deplete her savings because working with him was worth the price. Or he could have offered to pay her, risking the implication that he was paying her to be his friend, but also implying that her time is valuable and her work is valuable. I think he made the right choice.

There are other, smaller clues. Gregson goes from not knowing how to introduce "Miss Watson," towards the beginning of the season, to referring to "his associates, Holmes and Watson" by the 16th episode. We see Watson's value as a surgeon when she saves the life of a girl who'd received the wrong diagnosis. During the scene where Holmes joins the Watson family for dinner, we see him go out of his way to make sure Watson's family understand the value of what she does.

There are a lot of reasons why I like "Elementary," but the way that Joan Watson is portrayed as an equal partner with Sherlock Holmes, respected and valued by him, by the other characters, and by the show itself, is a big one.