January Book Review: A History of the World in 6 Glasses

A couple weeks ago I made the pseudo-resolution of trying to read more books in 2014 and I decided to kick off the year with Tom Standage's "A History of the World in 6 Glasses". The book outlines six different types of drinks that have featured prominently throughout history. They are beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea and Coca Cola. The underlying premise of the book is that these drinks have had medicinal, political, religious and societal influence far beyond what drinks are for: becoming less thirsty. The actual text of the book is 274 pages long.  

As someone who has a whole Pinterest board dedicated to tea, choosing this book was a no brainer because I thought I would fly through it and it would be enjoyable to boot. Now, I actually flew through a majority of the book in the span of about two days. The book is a pretty easy read so you might be wondering then "Well, why did it take so long for you to write a review for it then?" The answer to that question is that one afternoon I just put the book down...and it took me almost 20 days to pick it back up to finish the last drink section. While there were some interesting moments to the book, there wasn't much to compel me to finish reading it. 

One thing worth mentioning is that while the book was a "breezy" read, it was actually a little bit off putting to read a work of nonfiction that didn't have any forms of citations on the page. I know that's a little bit of a weird comment and maybe it's just that I have spent too much time trying to read academic papers/articles. However, it felt very bizarre for the author to make assertions in every paragraph about different historical topics without citing the sources directly in-text or in footnotes. There is a full bibliography of course, but I feel like that's not as an efficient way for readers to go find information about a certain topic if they felt like researching it. 

The book as a whole felt like a laundry list of facts and for me at least, it wasn't a particularly compelling one. I don't consider myself to be a huge history buff but I felt as though I already knew about 75-80% of the information that was presented to me in the book. All of this does not detract that some people would definitely find the different connections and roles that these drinks had really really interesting. And yes, as someone who is a relatively new adult learning about some of the different alcoholic beverages was interesting and informative. However, I already knew that the Greek scholars drank wine at symposia. I already knew that tea was really important in China and mostly consumed by the British. I already knew that Coca Cola was originally intended to be taken as a medicine. It was somewhat predictable and as a result felt a little dull to me. Not to mention that this book felt very Western-centric in general and I would have liked to have had more elaboration on the parts that included South America, Africa and Asia. So while there were tidbits of new information, there wasn't enough to really sustain my interest. 

Overall, I think that the book has a really interesting premise. Thinking about drinks being more than just drinks and thinking about their role in history is a really cool idea. However, this book felt somewhat superficial to me because it was a compilation of facts, a textbook in a slightly more palatable form. In this sense, it was easy to read but not especially innovative or compelling. There was a lot of background information on the drinks(which again, for beer and spirits I really needed), but I really wish that the author made some kind of really interesting argument as to why these drinks in particular are so influential. Standage makes the point in the introduction that half of the drinks that were chosen were alcoholic and half are caffeinated. After reading that, my immediate thought was that he could potentially could have geared the book around the thesis that perhaps these were the most influential drinks due to their ability to induce an altered state of being. Or really just anything that would have made the reader think "Oh hey, he put some real effort and thought into crafting this argument."

I haven't read any other historical non-fiction books in a while so I really can not compare Standage's style to those of other contemporary historians. However, I would rate the book a 2-2.5 out of 5. While he hooked me in with a really interesting concept, the execution of the book leaves something to be desired. 

Some thoughts on Identity

Hi. My name is Tiffany. 

I am a cis-female. A Junior at Wellesley College.  An ally. A relatively new "twenty-something".  Born and bred in New England, I have never lived outside of the state of Massachusetts. I've never actually lived in Boston city proper, but will nonetheless call myself a Bostonian. American with Canadian citizenship. 

Well, Asian American if we're being specific. Of Taiwanese and Cantonese descent but I really only capitalize on that when there is food involved. One who has in recent years taken an interest in almost every single asian culture except her own, but not intentionally so. Lover of J-doramas and Jpop and Kpop. KissMe with a bias towards Eli at the moment, but that's flexible. Mildly obsessed with sushi, dim sum and frozen yogurt. Will not turn down offers for Korean BBQ. 

Other Identifiers?: Student, former musician but life-long music lover. Lover of bossa nova, jazz and classical but will also listen to One Direction and Taylor Swift on a regular basis. Former film photographer who gave up and has since decided to use her phone exclusively. Writer sometimes. Perpetually observing and thinking about life and the Human Experience. ISTJ-The Inspector. Sister. Daughter. Friend. Not incredibly self-confident but working on that. 

Swimmer with Yogi tendencies. Not clinically overweight but there's always room for improvement. Occasional rock-climber that has been known to spend quite a bit of time on a boat (dinghies or otherwise). I would spend almost every moment I have by the sea if I could and would be ridiculously sad if I had to go and live somewhere that did not at least have a fairly sizeable body of water nearby.

 Biologist by trade but have experimented(haha) with the other sciences. Art Historian on the side. Classics enthusiast. Kind of multilingual-some French, Greek, Latin and Japanese. A few German and Italian phrases for flavor. Nerd sometimes, nerd fighter all the time. Occasional Tumblr user with a strong preference for Pinterest. Gryffindor. Stark sympathizer but Daenerys supporter. Member of the Sherlock fandom. Social media addict. 

Lover of all things pink and fluffy(as well as sparkly), proud unicorn owner. Currently obsessed with bows, tweeds and brightly colored pants. Will not compromise comfort in fashion. Tea enthusiast.

Liberal-ish. Slightly addicted to YouTube, particularly vloggers (the British ones are awesome). Avid film watcher who used to like rom-coms a lot but is working on branching out. Despite the fact that it is a very unpopular standpoint amongst feminists: I still love fairy tales. 
_________________________________

So those are just some of the ways that I identify myself. I could probably say a lot more(I kept going back to put more things in) but I think you get my point.

I think I became much more aware of identity and trying to find my identity the moment that I stepped on campus. I think it's just the nature of our school that finding your identity is more prominent/encouraged than it might have been at other schools. That being said though, I think I hesitated writing anything about identity because I thought mine wasn't interesting enough (as though I had some sort of obligation to you to be interesting). And I thought that I wasn't qualified to talk about privilege and identity because I am a cis-heterosexual female. How could I possibly have anything interesting to add to the conversation?

What I realized when I saw this video from Sexplanations that not only am I qualified to talk about identity but EVERYONE is able to talk about identity. Why? Because there is no one who knows more about being me than me and no one who knows more about being you than you.

The one point I would disagree with Nick is that identity isn't just a part of who we are, it is everything that we are. The way we feel, act and treat others(while hard to define in words per se) is still a part of our identity, how we can know ourselves and how others can know us. And to paraphrase Hank Green, the creation of the self is one of greatest things we will ever create. Identity transcends gender, race and sexual orientation because yes, it encompasses all of that but also so much more.

I think the most common problem that I've encountered is that the people I see only get to see part of my identity at any one time. I haven't stopped being all the things that I wrote above but in different settings with different people, different things take precedence. I'm not actively trying to be different selves for different people or that I'm trying to be deceiving, it just sort of turns out that way.

Over the years, I've always gotten kind of offended when people have tried to distill me into a few facets of my personality. An example of this is that I am "addicted to studying". Someone once told me that "oh, I miss having you around because I know I never have to worry about anything because I know Tiff will do enough worrying for the both of us". And then there's the "Oh you're Asian, so all of this math and science stuff must come really easily to you"(No, it doesn't.) Someone even used to liken me to a baby panda, which retroactively I'm realizing that even though it wasn't meant to be racist, it probably did have racial undertones and was undeniably condescending and I probably should have been much more offended than I was. Anyways.

Now, I don't think these remarks were made with any sort of malicious intent but when they came out they just didn't sit very well with me. I think I've come to the realization though that these people who tried to make these generalizations about me already thought of me in a certain way and probably had no intentions of getting to know me to find out the nuances. It showed to me an incomplete understanding of my identity and that made me sad and a little frustrated. I started worrying about whether or not I should be changing the way that I act or what I talk about so that I could leave a better impression. But then I realized that it would probably not make a difference. And that I have every prerogative to not include them in my life in any significant capacity if I don't want to. The best friends that I have made have realized that I have good days and bad days and everything in between and are incredibly supportive of that. Because I am human and so are they, and so are you. And because we are human, things are inherently complicated.

And that's okay.
____________________
The Videos I was referencing:

Sexplanations: Nick on Identity

Hank Green of the Vlogbrothers: "We're all scared"

Kiss, Kiss, Fall in Love!-Ouran Highschool Host Club Review

As some of you might know, I’m in my second year of studying Japanese at university. I was first really introduced to Japanese culture by my brother when I was in middle school and have continued to follow it on and off since then. Since a lot of the elders in my family are fluent in Japanese, I thought I would use the Foreign Language requirement here to really learn the language. Because I had some extra time over break, I decided to take the plunge and do something a little bit out of the ordinary: watch an anime.

When I first really got into researching Japanese media, it was mainly the live action dramas and J-pop music rather than the anime series. My knowledge of Japanese animation mainly consists of Studio Ghibli films, which are not really quite different. I think I watched a couple bishonen animes back in high school under pressure but I just didn’t find them all that interesting. So this was my first really genuine attempt at watching an anime on my own.

That being said, I decided to give animes another shot and since three separate people had recommended that I watch Ouran Highschool Host Club (桜蘭高校ホスト部), I decided to give it shot. Besides, watching the series in Japanese with English subtitles would help me improve my Japanese while killing some time; win-win!

Haruhi: All the androgyny. 

To set the stage, Ouran is a satirical anime set in a fictitious high school. It chronicles the doings of a “host club”  in which incredibly wealthy male high school students entertain their female counterparts. A female “honor” student Haruhi is initiated into the group after breaking a very expensive Ming Dynasty vase. Haruhi is a "commoner" who was accepted on scholarship. She works as a male host to pay off her debt and to make use of the fact that she could (conveniently) pass as a guy. The premise of rich Japanese teenage guys basically doing whatever they felt like is a similar premise to Hana Yori Dango (花より男子), which was the first Japanese dorama that I ever watched. 

The Host Club is comprised of seven members aside from Haruhi, each of whom plays up a one thing about themselves in order to establish a variety of “types” to please their “clients”.

Tamaki-senpai

Tamaki Suoh is the leader of the group and the only son of the school’s superintendent. He is cast as the “princely type” and follows the bishonen aesthetic. Raised in France, he has silver blond hair, is incredibly tall and thin and charms girls by using over the top romantic gestures and words. He is a caricature of what storybook princes are supposed to be like and the main mastermind behind most of the Host Club’s over-the-top themes. Although is very bubbly, cheerful and dramatic in the anime, it is revealed that he had a rather unconventional childhood abroad and the conditions under which he was brought to Japan were not ideal.Throughout the series, he acts as Haruhi’s “father” within the club and is incredibly protective of her. I think in the manga version of Ouran, they eventually get married but the anime doesn’t get that far. They do acknowledge their feelings for one another but nothing really happens. 

Kyoya-senpai

The ‘mother’ of the group is Kyoya Ootori. He is cast at the “cool” type and he manages all of the accounts for the club.  He serves as Tamaki’s foil both in terms of looks and personality. While Tamaki is the dreamer, Kyoya is the planner. While Tamaki is gushes over his clients, Kyoya is more reserved and humble. As the third son of the Ootori zaibatsu, he is unlikely to be the heir to the family business and this is the main character issue that he struggles with throughout the series. Kyoya senpai is shown to be incredibly calculating and always tries to be several steps ahead of the game. Out of all the hosts, he is the most independent from Tamaki and will usually find his own way to solve whatever situation it is that the club has found themselves in. He also is hyperaware of his need to keep dipomatic relationships with his fellow students, something that was impressed upon him by his strict father. Kyoya senpai often remarks how well connected the people he encounters are and seems to only be concerned with people who could potentially help his business. However, it is revealed though that he is much more kind and generous than he initially appears.

Fred and George in anime form

Next are the brothers Hikaru and Kaoru Hitachiin, who frankly remind be vaguely of Fred and George Weasley. They often come up with games to amuse themselves when they get bored with club activities as well as playing pranks on other students. As identical twins, they capitalize off of their ability to portray a caring and vaguely homoerotic (and incestuous if we’re being technical) relationship to please their female clients. Once they become friends with Haruhi, she is able to get to know them and is subsequently able to tell one brother from the other. Before Hikaru and Kaoru joined the host club no one could tell them apart and so the two kept to themselves. As a result, they were the most reclusive of the club members prior to being scouted by Tamaki. Indeed, Hikaru is still a bit abrasive at times.  However, they are both able to become more sociable with Haruhi’s encouragement.

Honey-senpai

By far the most adorable of the hosts is Mitsukuni Haninozuka, known affectionately as Honey-senpai. Even though he is the most diminutive of all of the members, he is actually the oldest member. He is the first to be openly affectionate to Haruhi and enjoys cakes and other sweets. Honey-senpai is often seen with his pink bunny named Usa-chan. How fitting is it then that he is the oldest son to a martial arts family and is indeed a master himself? This disconnect is shown to be a sore point for his younger brother who views Honey-senpai as unfit to be heir. Even though he looks adorable, he is a very capable fighter and is absolutely ruthless should you try to harm one of his friends.

Mori-senpai

Last but not least is Takashi Morinozuka, Honey senpai’s cousin. Takashi-kun is cast as the strong and silent type and is constantly looking out for Honey senpai. I believe that in the manga version, Mori senpai also has romantic feelings for Haruhi but this isn't really explored very much in the anime. Mori senpai is mainly painted as loyal and stoic. He also is a skilled martial arts practitioner. There is a nice fourth wall break during the episode that Mori-senpai takes an "apprentice" and the hosts remark that they don't really know what he does. Despite the fact that he doesn’t say much throughout the series, Mori-senpai has saved other students on multiple occasions and is very well liked.

Now there are any number of things that I could criticize the series for: the fetishization of homoerotic relationships, the superficiality of all the female students, all the neglectful parents of the hosts…but I’m not going to do that. This series is a satire and MEANT to be over the top and ridiculous. Trying to hold Ouran as the standard for portraying what it’s like to be a high schooler in Japan would be akin to trying to convince ourselves that Gossip Girl is a realistic portrayal of American High school life. Ouran is a story and as such I think it deserves a bit of leeway.

This is Haruhi's dad. 

Moreover, I think that Ouran actually does something interesting by portraying gender and sexuality in such a flexible manner. While it’s definitely true that all the guys in the club are supposed to fall in love with Haruhi, they always imagine her as being very cute rather than hypersexualizing/reducing her. Also, homosexual relationships, while mildly fetishized, don’t seem to carry the stigma that they often hold in Western media. In a scene where Haruhi (dressed in male clothes) is entertaining a male student, the other students are simply overwhelmed by how cute the two “boys” are together rather than trying to make the two feel any sort of shame. Another example is when the hosts meet Haruhi’s father, who works as a professional cross-dresser. The boys, and more importantly Haruhi, seem to take it in stride. And it's not because it's not because it doesn't matter but rather there are more important aspects to his character that the writers wanted to emphasize. There were lots of different ways to show that Haruhi’s dad is an ineffective parent-they could have made him depressed, a gambler, or a drunkard. Instead they opted for a different route.

These are the Hitachiin brothers.

Also there definitely seems to be a freedom of expression with the sheer amount of cross-dressing. The twins are shown to have been cross-dressing since their childhood, Haruhi cross dresses on a daily basis and in one episode, the hosts cross dress in an attempt to discourage Haruhi from transferring schools. Cross dressing is just so ubiquitous in this series that it kind of just loses the shock factor. And the same comment above still stands-it's not that we're supposed to think that this isn't substantial. There are just bigger things to worry about, more important plot points to make. 

In terms of romance, Ouran is really quite tame by Western standards. Even though the job of the hosts is to "make the girls happy", the plot mainly just plays with lots of unrequited love. Three of the members fall in love with Haruhi but no one really acts upon it. Mostly there's just longing gazes at the person of interest and other ways to show affection. There's only scene where there was the potential for things to go further but it is incredibly obvious that it is not going anywhere and that situation is diffused in under 20 seconds. 

I question this creative decision.

I will say that the portrayal of the Lobelia Academy students is a little bit problematic for me. Lobelia Academy is an all-female high school and an elite group of performers takes an interest in Haruhi, recognizing her immediately to be a female despite her attire. Perhaps this is just sensitivity as I currently attend a historically all-womens’ institution, but the Lobelia students didn’t really come off as liberated they just seemed militant. I don’t think this portrayal is particularly helpful from a Western perspective but I know that there are many all-women’s high schools and colleges in Japan so the breadth of the satire might be more widely received than it would be for a Western audience.

Even though I think it’s unlikely that I’ll be watching more animes, I found Ouran Highschool Host Club to be well-paced and wildly entertaining. I've noticed that watching a lot of media that is set in highschools has become a little difficult as a college junior, soon to be senior.  I distinctly remember highschool being exponentially less exciting and fun than these shows would make it seem so I was worried that Ouran would come across as stale. However, Ouran was actually quite enjoyable in its ridiculousness, though watching Hana Yori Dango definitely helped to prep me. Ouran Highschool Host Club did exactly what it was supposed to though, allowing the viewer to escape into a completely different world, if only for 25 minute increments.

A Step In Time: A Review of the "Saving Mr. Banks" Soundtrack

The Oscar Nominations are out and Thomas Newman's work in "Saving Mr. Banks" is up for an Academy award for Best Original Score. As soon as I walked out of the theater I told my friends that the score was amazing so while I'm not entirely surprised, I am definitely thrilled to hear about the nomination. I'm not a huge film buff so I don't usually follow awards season but I've always taken an interest in this category as a musician. The role of the orchestral score, like any other element of the film like the script, actors and cinematography, is to tell a story. It helps to define a mood and tone for the film. Music has the ability to completely transform scenes and it's my favorite part of analyzing a film.

And I can absolutely guarantee you that you've heard Newman's work before. He has had a long and illustrious career providing the soundtracks to such films as Finding Nemo, WALL-E, A Series of Unfortunate Events, The Help (starring Emma Stone) and of course the latest Bond film-Skyfall. Newman is actually one of my favorite film composers (alongside Alan Menken, Alan Silvestri and Michael Giacchino). If I wanted a composer to write the soundtrack to my life, it would definitely be Thomas Newman because his work is often very subtle but still strikes a perfect balance between being fanciful and warm. His tracks do a wonderful job of supporting the storyline and actors because they fit into the scene so wonderfully that you could hardly imagine the scenes without them.

In this film, Newman has to negotiate two different settings. The film takes place both in 1960's California and turn of the century Allora, Queensland. These two locations are completely different and the accompanying music needed to demonstrate that as well.

The Walt Disney Studios were moving forward, modern and to a certain extent....superficial. There are a few original tracks from the period incorporated into the soundtrack. Heigh Ho was the swing version of the song from Snow White recorded in 1957. This was a few years before the film takes place but I think it's nice to characterize the more casual and liberally creative ambience. Taking a classic and improvising it into a new style is exactly what a lot of jazz musicians do. However, deviating from the original is exactly what P. L. Travers is afraid that the creative team at Disney is going to do to her story and she is terrified of that.  One Mint Julep by Ray Charles was also featured in the soundtrack to underscore the bold, bombastic nature of California or at least as it appears to P. L. Travers. I think that it was definitely a good choice to include these because it lends a certain authenticity to those scenes.

Furthermore, it's also worth mentioning that Jason Schwartzman and BJ Novak recorded snippets from some of the original tracks from Mary Poppins. These are  played as the Sherman brothers wrote some of the songs that would become iconic. I really liked seeing the creative process and I think hearing unfinished versions of the songs helped to hammer home how awful it would have been had the film never been made.

The orchestral tracks by Newman used in the California and the Disney Studio scenes are as follows: Jollification, The Mouse, Mr. Disney, Beverly Hills Hotel, Penguins, Maypole, The Magic Kingdom. Not to give too much away but I think these sets of tracks are an interesting mix of the whimsical but also use a driving rhythm to build a sense of anticipation and excitement. Mr. Disney and The Magic Kingdom are both prime examples of the latter. Let it not be said that Newman can't do bolder tracks because both of these two pieces use the full drum section as well as the entire range of the orchestra to drive the music along and give it energy. It gives the listener the feeling that exciting things are happening and that there will be wonderful creative things to look forward to. And in the case of Mr. Disney, I think that the purpose of his pieces was the define Walt Disney as a character and to draw a further contrast to P. L. Travers. Where Travers is traditional, Walt Disney is innovative. Where she is disagreeable and mysterious, he is charming and has a larger than life personality. Where Travers is holding on to her past, Walt Disney is looking to the stories of the future. Even with these, the most vigorous tracks on the soundtrack, I never felt overwhelmed by the volume or breadth of the music.

By contrast, Newman takes a rather different tone with the music that backs the childhood memories of P. L. Travers. Certainly the Australia setting is more of a fairy tale setting than California so it makes sense there is a whimsy to these tracks and the use of the celesta helps to emphasize that nicely. However, this story didn't have a happy ending. The adults in her life disappointed Travers time and time again so there is also a sadness and gravitas to some of the pieces. The first track that we are introduced to in the beginning is an arrangement of Chim Chim Cher-ee with a voiceover track of the first lines from Mary Poppins spoken by Travers' father. The other tracks that comprise the Australia scenes are as follows: Travers Goff, Walking Bus, Uncle Albert, Celtic Soul, A Foul Fowl, Laying Eggs, Whiskey, To My Mother, Westerly Weather and Pears. These are definitely more subdued than the California tracks and I can definitely see the parallels between Newman's previous work with Finding Nemo and A Series of Unfortunate Events. He tends to use alternate between the use of a piano to establish the melody and then brings in the entire orchestra to answer it. One of my favorite things about Newman's compositions is that he uses instruments that don't normally get a lot of use in other scores. He make extensive use of the wind sections in these tracks as well as the glockenspiel and harp to emphasize the fairytale-esque aspect of the Allora scenes. They are heartachingly beautiful and truly transport you into a different make-believe realm. Rest assured though, strings are used to create drama and substance in those scenes where the fairytale begins to crumble.

Overall I think that Newman did a fantastic job of capturing the two aspects of the story, both the theatricality of California studios and the sentimentality surrounding Travers' childhood in Allora. Of course, it's always hard to tell whether or not a film will win Best Score since these things are highly political. However if it does, it will be incredibly well deserved.

The Game is Afoot Again.

I could think of no better way to kick off 2014's posts than to talk a little bit about the series 3 premiere of Sherlock. After a 2 year hiatus the episode "The Empty Hearse" was aired on BBC1 yesterday and it basically broke the Tumblr fandom. It was as if the writer's of the show went through all the conspiracy theories and fan fictions and mashed it all together into one episode. Personally, I happened to find the gratuitous fandom service a bit too flashy though I will admit it was very entertaining. However, I think the main objective was to placate viewers who were driven to madness from having to wait so long to see the aftermath of series 2, in which Sherlock Holmes threw himself off the top of a tall building and somehow managed to survive. 

The episode seemed to lack the neatly packaged plot that we saw with "The Hounds of Baskerville" and instead presumably set the stage and tone of this upcoming season. The first half of the episode concentrated on showing how the various characters two years after the fateful fall. We begin with Anderson's high adrenaline theory of how he did it, which includes smashing hospital windows and some rather gratuitous Sherlolly action. While I was certainly among the many who was excited to believe that that was the true story, we cut to Lestrade and Anderson's conversation on the streets of London showing that it was indeed a farce. From the mini-episode released on Christmas Eve, we know that Anderson has been obsessively trying to piece together how Sherlock faked his death but Lestrade insists that he does this only out of profound guilt that Anderson must conceivably feel after pushing Sherlock to such drastic measures by calling him a fraud. 

John has tried to move on(literaly and figuratively) from his time at 221B Baker Street and is now sports a moustache and almost-fiancee. From what we've seen in previous episodes, I think it makes sense that John has had the most trouble moving on as he is prone to repress his emotions and as Sherlock was such a significant part of his life. He hasn't been in contact with Mrs. Hudson, his and Sherlock's former landlady and Mycroft has also kept a distant eye on him. He has obviously struggled in the past two years and it seems like he has tried for an entirely fresh start. 

And what of the mysterious Mr. Holmes? Sherlock has evidently spent the last two years dismantling Jim Moriarty's extensive criminal network. We first see him being tortured, with some rather bizarre Christ imagery but I'm not sure that's too relevant. Mycroft intervenes, brings his baby brother back to London and they attempt to figure out the newest threat: a looming terrorist attack on London. 

Sherlock first decides to surprise John, as he is trying to propose to his girlfriend Mary. While in the books John faints upon being reunited with Sherlock, Sherlock!John is rather more feisty and wallops him soundly and they get kicked out of three establishments as a result. Sherlock is a bit confused to his response but goes on to reveal himself to Molly and Lestrade. 

I won't say too much more about the plot line because you should watch the episode for yourself but there were a couple of things that I wanted to address:

1) I really like the character development with both Sherlock and Mycroft in this episode. When discussing the terrorist situation, it was revealed that the Holmes boys were playing the game of "Operation". In their game of deductions however, they finally show Mycroft as the equally talented older brother who may have pushed Sherlock around a bit when they were growing up. I feel like their dynamic up until this point hasn't really showcased Mycroft as a mastermind but evidently growing up he was "The Smart One" which I think was interesting. Also, we were introduced to Sherlock's parents, who were played by Benedict Cumberbatch's real parents. Not sure what the significance to the overall plot of series 3 but John does make the comment that they are so "ordinary" which seems to irk Sherlock. As such, it is hardly a surprise then that he had such an adverse reaction to Moriarty calling him "ordinary" in the series 2 finale. 

2) There's something about Mary: I'm not entirely sure how to feel about her. When I first watched the episode, I immediately liked her. She was sweet and caring, basically the antithesis of Sherlock. She was exactly what John needed to get himself through the last few years. But upon closer inspection, I noticed that Sherlock's deductions of her included that she was a "liar", "disillusioned", "short-sighted". As of right now, I have two theories about her. The first is that she is in fact evil and using John to get at Sherlock. She found John at his most vulnerable and would thus be in a perfect position to exploit him. Or, she will end up dead because writers never let us have nice things. Either way, something is going to happen with her this season, something big. 

3) Molly's boyfriend is seriously shady. After Sherlock's disappearance, Molly 'moved on' to date someone and evidently they are serious. And evidently he seriously looks like Sherlock, a fact which EVERYONE notices but Molly. Not sure if it's because I'm shipping Sherlock and Molly a little bit but I am not a fan of this Sherlock wannabe and would prefer that he not be in the picture, whether he turns out to be sinister or not. 

The Sherlock premiere definitely paid tribute to what the fans wanted and it was flashy and exciting and basically everything Tumblr expected it would be. However, I have to say that it felt almost like an action movie wannabe (almost Bond-like). It felt rather heavy-handed in some moments with the Moriarty-Sherlock kiss and the kind of campy scene where Sherlock attempts to reason out the train situation. And while I appreciate that the show wanted to cater to its viewers and found this episode very entertaining, I hope that the next episodes will focus more on telling the story, whatever that may be.