The Magnificent Decency of Detective Inspector Lestrade

 (Sherlock Meta from before S3 by drinkingcocoa)

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There is a bastion of decency in BBC Sherlock, an indicator of trustworthiness, and his name is Lestrade.  His very presence conveys security.  His character judgments are sound because where people are concerned, Lestrade doesn’t just see; he observes.

In “A Study in Pink,” what is John to make of the potential flatmate?  Genius or madman?  Mrs. Hudson seems to like Sherlock, but for all John knows, she could be mad, too.  And then a heavy tread on the stair announces a man in a trenchcoat talking half telepathically with Sherlock:  This one did.  Will you come?  And Sherlock whirls away.

What just happened?

John opens the paper.  There.  Just below the fold.  “DI Lestrade:  In charge of the investigation.”  And everything changes with that photo.  It anchors reality.  Lestrade is proof:  Sherlock Holmes is real.

At the crime scene, Sergeant Donovan voices every doubt John might have.  “Psychopaths get bored,” she warns, and just as John is pondering this –

“DONOVAN!”

Donovan immediately turns to obey Lestrade.  She leaves John with “Stay away from Sherlock Holmes,” but her warning is too late:  Lestrade has anchored reality again.  If this Donovan heeds Lestrade, and Sherlock also heeds Lestrade, and Lestrade believes in Sherlock… then Sherlock must be real.  Lestrade’s approval is confirmation enough for John.

They believe in Lestrade at the Met.  Proud, defensive DI Dimmock is not above Lestrade’s mentoring.  Lestrade advises DI Carter on Sherlock (“try not to punch him”) with the manner of a man who knows this grizzled cop will listen to him.  The Chief Superintendent calls Lestrade “a bloody idiot,” but the show makes sure he gets chinned later.

In “The Great Game,” Sherlock spurns Mycroft’s entreaties for help, but the moment Lestrade calls, he says, “Of course.  How could I refuse?”  In “Hounds,” and probably long before, Mycroft calls on Lestrade to intercede with Sherlock.

Even Moriarty acknowledges Lestrade, whom he casts as King Arthur to Sherlock’s Sir Boast-a-lot.  In “The Great Game,” Moriarty’s mouthpiece says, “It’s okay that you’ve gone to the police.”  But Sherlock didn’t go to the police.  It was Moriarty who involved the police by leaving them something to give Sherlock.  Moriarty recognizes the significance of Lestrade’s role in Sherlock’s life before Sherlock does.

We see in “The Great Game” that Lestrade is a childhood dream come true for Sherlock, though perhaps Sherlock doesn’t know to appreciate this.  Moriarty does, though.  Moriarty has been keeping track of everything that happened once the Carl Powers case hit the papers:

“I made a fuss,” Sherlock tells John.  “I tried to get the police interested, but nobody seemed to think it was important.”  But now there is Lestrade, who comes personally when Sherlock requests “your least irritating officer,” who vouches for Sherlock with skeptical co-workers, who accepts Sherlock’s deductions with nothing more than “You sure about this?”  The Chief Superintendent points out that Sherlock’s been given access to all kinds of classified information.  Exactly.  Lestrade is aware that Sherlock has handled all of it flawlessly, confidentially, every single time.  There is no way Lestrade’s faith in Sherlock could waver; he has long-verified proof that Sherlock is real.

What makes Lestrade so certain?

He doesn’t just see; he observes.

Watch him in the “drugs bust” scene.  He’s focused almost entirely on Sherlock, and yet he’s simultaneously aware of every single person on the premises, so deftly in control that he can even afford humor (“No, Anderson’s my sniffer dog”):  he slots his interpersonal dealings according to priority without ever losing track.  He’s so attuned to people that he knows when it’s time to deviate from the script:  when he cuts off Sherlock’s resistance by revealing his own nicotine patch, we see a world of untold story about an authority figure who once, long ago, understood that the way to gain trust was to give something of himself.  How mercilessly Sherlock must once have deduced Lestrade’s nicotine addiction.  How little he must have expected that this surprising policeman would be secure enough to take it as invitation instead of attack.  Younger Sherlock probably loathed hypocrisy; Lestrade has none.

Once Lestrade has secured Sherlock’s participation, his eyes bear down intently on Sherlock.  His gaze flickers only when Sherlock asks why the dead woman would still be upset about a stillbirth:  Will the new man see Sherlock as a sociopath or as the rare treasure he is?  The camera cuts sharply to a close-up just of Lestrade’s eyes snapping to John, without his head moving.  He observes John, understands instantly who John and Sherlock will be to each other, then snaps his focus back to Sherlock.

With Sherlock’s permission, at Sherlock’s invitation, he’s plugging into Sherlock’s brain:  Sherlock is offering himself as a deducing machine for the two of them to use together, in partnership.  It’s incredibly intimate.  Especially considering the way Sherlock experiences revelation, Lestrade’s observation feels almost like watching for a mental orgasm, with a climax and an afterglow.  This accounts for Lestrade’s always slightly-too-interested demeanor, as we see at the Christmas party when Sherlock says “No, it was me” of the text alert.  But it accounts for Lestrade’s respectfulness as well, the measured but trusting dismissals when Sherlock goes his way.

By the time John asks Lestrade why he puts up with Sherlock, Lestrade has identified John as Lestrade’s ally for life.  His answer brings John fully up to speed.  Lestrade trusts in Sherlock for his job (“because I’m desperate”).  He treasures Sherlock for his gift, the same thing Sherlock values in himself (“a great man”).  And he is personally fond of Sherlock, invested in what becomes of him (“if we’re very lucky…a good one”).  This tells John:  yes, it’s okay to need Sherlock, admire him, and like him, too.  Lestrade does, and Lestrade’s judgment is sound.

Lestrade’s liking for people and his sensitivity for what makes them tick are the sources of his strength.  We see that he relies on these powers as securely as Sherlock relies on his deductions and perhaps, like Sherlock, he doesn’t fully understand what it’s like not to be himself:  he’s genuinely surprised that Donovan and Anderson can have seen Sherlock’s magic over the years and not believe that it is real.  This is part of the appeal of this character:  his innocence of his own gifts.

Perhaps, too, Lestrade’s powerful sense of humanity tells us why he missed when he shot at the hound in the fog.  The poison works with fear and stimulus to make people feel uncontrollably aggressive.  Sherlock sees the face of his fear:  Moriarty.  What did Lestrade see?  Perhaps he saw himself as a cop who has become jaded and brutal, violent, punitive.  It may be just as disorienting for Lestrade to lose touch with his decency as it is for Sherlock to be unable to trust the evidence of his senses.  Perhaps he felt so much unfamiliar aggression toward the menacing hound that his alarm interrupted his aim.  Of course, he could have just missed.  But he did see something he feared; they all did.

Moriarty’s attack in “The Reichenbach Fall” causes Sherlock, finally, to consider his relationship to Lestrade – to grow aware of Lestrade in a way reminiscent of a child maturing into new understanding of his parents.  Lestrade’s steadfastness, unblinking even when Sherlock tests him with a tap on the third eye, tells the whole story of his character.  The viewer knows, though Lestrade does not yet, that by the end of Series 2, Sherlock has become the good man that Lestrade always hoped he could be.  Lestrade’s comprehension of Sherlock’s goodness is one of the great pleasures to look forward to in Series 3.