Sally Donovan

 (Sherlock Meta by thecutteralicia)

This is a very good meta.

Here’s the thing I appreciate about Sally Donovan as a female WOC character in particular: she is not there to serve Sherlock. I think a lot of fans get blinded by the fact that she doesn’t like him (and presumably he doesn’t like her very much). Yet not liking Sherlock doesn’t make a character a villain. In fact, the series goes out of its way to make Donovan’s dislike of Sherlock justifiable.

In terms of Reichenbach, as the evidence room scene shows, Donovan doesn’t frame Sherlock. She’s not a one dimensional harpy or the bad cop trying to pin the crime on him to get him out of her way; instead, we see her ruminating over the case and the evidence because there’s something missing that’s nagging at her. She’s had her doubts about Sherlock for a long time, and with the abduction case regarding the ambassador’s children her suspicions finally come to the forefront. As the audience we of course know that Donovan’s wrong, yet the series shows us how it’s completely understandable how she, as a police sergeant, came to that conclusion. She’s also not portrayed as gleeful or happy about her suspicions. In fact, she only goes over Lestrade’s head when it appears to her that he won’t do anything about questioning Sherlock in the case.



The first time we meet her, she insults Sherlock and he insults her back. They proceed to have a frosty relationship for the rest of the series, where they’re far from friends and clearly don’t particularly like working with each other, but they tolerate each other. I like that because I find it realistic. The insults they exchanged weren’t the finest moment for either character, but they said them and moved on. There was no condescending scene of forgiveness or apology (I imagine Sally would tell Sherlock to shove it where the sun don’t shine anyway).

(And as a personal aside, how cool is it also to see a professional black woman on TV with natural hair?)