Transcript of Episode 42: Lestrade Appreciation
The Baker Street Babes Podcast
Transcript, Episode 42: Lestrade Appreciation
Released 30/06/13, Transcribed by Melanie Fletcher
Kristina: Sadly, I don’t have, like, a poem, from last time.
Katherine: We could make one up, we could just like, y’know–
Lyndsay: Rap it?
Katherine: Hardcore, yeah, like rap version.
Kristina: Katherine, I deem you (laughter) responsible for doing that.
Katherine: Roses are red, violets are blue, uh, Lestrade is great, we love you!
Melinda: That was awful!
Katherine: It was meant to be!
Lyndsay: Everybody’s a critic.
Kristina: This will be episode 42, so Lestrade is the answer to life.
Lyndsay: He is, that’s a fact.
Kristina: So congratulations, Lestrade. Or Le-strayde.
Ardy: Or Lehstred.
Lyndsay: This was a story we vowed to tell. Don Hobbs — THE Don Hobbs — who probably has the oddest Sherlockian collection in the universe–
Katherine: He collects language books, doesn’t he?
Lyndsay: Correct, yes. So he collects versions of the Canon that he cannot himself read. If the language exists and Sherlock Holmes has been translated into it — and that is most of them — he probably has a copy. So he was invested into the Baker Street Irregulars last year with the amazing investiture name Lestrade. And I went up to him afterwards, and I was very excited — he’s from Texas, and he is a charming, wonderful gentleman, and I said, “Well, how are you going to pronounce your investiture name? Is it going to be Le-strahd or Le-strayd?” And he said, “Lyndsay, I’m from Texas. It’s Lestrid.” (laughter)
Katherine: You should put that in the podcast, because I don’t think it made it into the other one we did.
Lyndsay: Oh, God, it was so funny.
Melinda: Are we recording? (laughter)
Kristina: Yes, we’re recording. Surprise, Melinda!
Melinda: I’ve been eating. Rather noisily.
Katherine: We’ll just take out some of the sounds of knives and forks that you can hear in the background.
Melinda: We didn’t even do the intro.
Kristina: We kinda did.
Lyndsay: Well, it’s not as if we’re interviewing anyone at the moment, so we can’t ask them questions. We can just talk about, I mean, theoretically, if Lestrade had a favorite canonical case.
Katherine: We could get, like, Gabe to volunteer, and by volunteer I mean kidnap him, and he could be Lestrade and we could ask him questions.
Lyndsay: Absolutely — well, if he was in the house. But you’ll have to settle for Prufrock.
Katherine: Prufrock, what’s your favorite Sherlock Holmes story?
Lyndsay: Well, she’s licking her belly right now, so–
Kristina: That means–
Melinda: I’m gonna go with Blue Carbuncle.
Katherine: She’s got good taste.
Kristina: I suppose we should say who’s all here because I think that’s something a lot of people — what did you just pick off of Lyndsay?
Melinda: Um, I think it was a hairball. Yeah.
Kristina: So, on this episode there’s me, Kristina.
Lyndsay: Lyndsay Faye, hi, how are you?
Melinda: Melinda Caric.
(thumping noise)
Kristina: That’s your cue to say your names.
Katherine: Kafers here, or Katherine if you’d like to call me that as well.
Kristina: Ardy & Sarah just spoke at the same time, but you get the idea. We’re so, so good at podcasting. So, this episode is Lestrade appreciation hour.
Lyndsay: There’s a lot to talk about with that fella.
Kristina: There IS a lot to talk about. I got some questions off of Twitter, but before we go into that, I suppose, I dunno, should we all say who our favorite Lestrade is? Our favorite Lestrudel.
Katherine: Our favorite Lestrudel?
Kristina: I like apple Lestrudel.
Lyndsay: Why do people let us on the internet?
Katherine: Why do people listen to our podcast? It’s a mystery.
Kristina: So, we’ll do those that aren’t in the same room first, so Katherine, who’s your favorite Lestrudel?
Katherine: Um, I’d probably have to say the Sherlock Lestrudel, ’cause he’s a nice bit of grey Lestrudel in his hair. I’m sure Jen would agree with me if she was here. That adorable man.
Kristina: Ardy, who’s your favorite Lestrudel?
Ardy: I do like Rupert Graves, but I think I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say Colin Jeavons from the Brett series.
Lyndsay: Preach.
Ardy: For the simple reason that I think he doesn’t get the credit that he deserves, and he was an awesome Lestrade.
Kristina: Sarah?
Sarah: I agree that the Granada Lestrade was magnificent. He has the look as he’s described in the Canon, I think, and he’s a wonderful actor, but I have to give it to Rupert Graves.
Kristina: Melinda, who’s your favorite Lestrudel?
Melinda: I agree that the one in the Granada series was probably more accurate, but I think that Rupert Graves really just knocks it out of the park. He was also just given a better part. They fleshed him out a lot more as a character, and you get to see a lot more of him, which I think more than anything else is why I prefer his version to anybody else’s.
Lyndsay: I’m Team Colin Jeavons, hands down. The Six Napoleons episode, I weep copiously at. It’s stupidly pretty, and he does it perfectly, you know, where he just says, “We’re proud of you, and there’s not a man at the Yard who wouldn’t shake your hand.” And you can see Jeremy Brett just acting his face off and tearing up and it’s gorgeous, and I have a lot of feelings about the Six Napoleons. Like, “acting!”
Kristina: I’m also on Team Silver Fox, but I actually really like Eddie Marsten in the two films.
Lyndsay: Oh, he’s great!
Kristina: He’s just really fun, and is he the only Lestrade that’s gotten to punch Sherlock?
Lyndsay: This is a really good point you’re making.
Kristina: I mean, it’s like a lot of Lestrades WANTED to.
Melinda: Don’t we all?
Katherine: It’s like a little, very special private club of people who’ve gotten to punch Sherlock Holmes.
Kristina: I feel like he’s a premium member.
Lyndsay: He’s great. I want them to write the third screenplay faster.
Kristina: And I want him to come in more, because he was just at the very end of the second one. It was like, “Where’s Lestrade?”
Lyndsay: That was actually unfortunate. He was underused in Game of Shadows. Or a Gay of Gays. (laughter) As it’s called.
Kristina: We say this with all fondness.
Lyndsay: A Game of Shadows, or as it’s referred to in insiders’ circles, Gay Gay Gay. (laughter)
Lyndsay: Thank you for bringing him up, because I actually wasn’t remembering that he was that brilliant. He was really good.
Kristina: He’s good because he also follows the description. He’s short, and he’s got a little rat face.
Katherine: And he’s kind of weasley. Not in manners, but in looks.
Lyndsay: Oh, totally weaseltastic.
Kristina: A weaseltastic–
Katherine: That’s a brilliant description for somebody to use, like, a weasel for a description, because it’s such a typical British animal. “Oh, this man kind of looks like a weasel, that tells you everything you need to know about him.” And then other people reading the book are like, “Wha?”
Lyndsay: Why isn’t there, like, with the otters and the hedgehogs, there should be weasels.
Kristina: Why isn’t–
Lyndsay: Like with Colin Jeavons or with, you know, Eddie Marstan. Any number of them, it would work.
Kristina: Why hasn’t anyone drawn them?
Lyndsay: That should be a thing.
Katherine: Yeah. We want Weasel Lestrade, and we want it now. Right, so questions from Twitter, or Tumblr even. How many questions have we got?
Kristina: Quite a few. There’s everything from comments to this one girl sent three tweets full of questions. We’ll knock out the BBC ones, because there’s quite a few. This one is from ForScienceJohn — why do you think Gatiss and Moffat strayed from the bumbling idiot portrayal other versions tend towards?
Katherine: Well, they did it with John, didn’t they? So it makes sense for them to do it with Lestrade, as well. It fits the tone of the piece better when they’re competent, and I think wasn’t it Steven Moffat who said that without Sherlock Holmes, Lestrade is this incredibly competent policeman, but when you compare him to Sherlock Holmes, as with anybody he just seems less…
Kristina: A dolt, yeah.
Lyndsay: That’s very apt, and canonically speaking we have to remember that Holmes multiple times says that Lestrade is the best of the Yarders. He’s at the top of his game, so we have Sherlock Holmes’s say so on that. He respected him and wanted to work with him, and I think it’s really clear by the time you get to Six Napoleons that they’re friends. So it makes sense that the BBC version would have a competent–
Katherine: Badass.
Kristina: Yeah, and like what Melinda was talking about, they fleshed him out a lot more. So if you just had him appearing every so often, then he could fall prey to that, “Oh, I’m just a stupid police officer.” But they have him in a relationship with Sherlock and John and everyone, so to make him look like a complete incompetent idiot you’d be like, “Why does Sherlock even bother with him?”
Katherine: They almost set up his character within the first few moments of a Study in Pink, actually, when you first meet him. It’s like you almost know immediately that he’s somebody who’s at the end of his rope and really needs Sherlock Holmes, but otherwise he’s fairly competent.
Lyndsay: And it becomes quite clear, which I find fascinating in the BBC version, that he knew Sherlock when Sherlock had a drug problem. And I think that’s amazing.
Katherine: Yeah.
Lyndsay: Can I ask a strange side question? Do we count Gregson from Elementary as Lestrade? Because Gregson and Lestrade are basically the best of the Yarders in A Study in Scarlet, and they’re compared to each other as being the most competent of the Yard. And if you’re talking about archetypes, they’re the same person. I mean, does that count? Can we talk about Aidan Quinn as Lestrade?
Katherine: I think we should because–
Kristina: Ardy wants to talk about Aidan Quinn. Bring it, Ardy.
Ardy: The thing about Aidan Quinn and Elementary is, you just have to switch your brain off every so often.
Lyndsay: You mean for the whole episode? (laughter)
Kristina: Lyndsay!
Ardy: No, because the reason why Sherlock Holmes is working with NYPD don’t always make the most sense. But as the series went on I’m not sure if it actually got better or if I just cared less. (laughter) And I kind of wish they’d done more with Aidan Quinn or with Gregson as a character, because–
Kristina: I’ve heard a lot of people say that he’s horribly underused.
Ardy: He’s a great actor. That is my main complaint because you look at him in every scene he’s in and you see the potential, and you know you could do so much with this and you didn’t. And it’s kind of frustrating, but you know, hey, Aidan Quinn, even though he’s not in it very much.
Lyndsay: I wanna throw it out there that Elementary has a lot of fans because it’s awesome. There are a lot of awesome things about it. If people don’t care for it, that’s fine. If people really do passionately care for it, that’s because it’s awesome. So, you know, rock on Elementary.
Kristina: Nice doubleback.
Lyndsay: Well, seriously, like yes, you are a real Sherlockian. Like every incarnation is fucking badass. It’s amazing that we get to have three at the moment — we’ve got the Warner Brothers incarnation with Robert Downey Jr. who’s a bloody superhero, we’ve got BBC Sherlock which is amazing, we’ve got Elementary which is making a lot of interesting, cool casting choices, et cetera. So if we dis it, we don’t mean to dis the fandom. I just want to throw that out there.
Ardy: I’m in the Elementary fandom and I don’t feel dissed.
Kristina: Good. Because on the way over here I was thinking about how Elementary doesn’t have Lestrade, but I think that’s because they made a very conscious choice in Sherlock leaving London. So there is a Lestrade, he’s just over in London.
Lyndsay: Yeah, that’s true. And meanwhile the figure in the series who plays that role is Gregson.
Kristina: But they’re opening season two in London, so we may meet Lestrade.
Lyndsay: Oh, that would be awesome.
Katherine: Mm, interesting. Next question!
Kristina: This is actually the three parter but we can split it up. From Jenna221B, what do you think Lestrade’s first meeting with Sherlock was like? In A Study in Pink he’s known him for five years but says he doesn’t know him better than John. So basically, talking about Lestrade, he obviously knew him when Sherlock had a drug problem because it’s alluded to that Sherlock was a junkie. So what’s your head canon on how they actually met? Is it as extreme as Lestrade finding him in an alleyway going, “Aaaaaah!” or is it something a little less dramatic?
Katherine: I like to think that Mycroft might have stepped in and kind of pushed him towards the police, because obviously my personal head canon is that particular Sherlock got into drugs because he was bored, because he seems to do a lot of things because he was bored. So obviously the logical thing would be he got into drugs because he was bored, so Mycroft pushed him towards, possibly even made something happen so that him and Lestrade meet–
Kristina: Intentionally got him arrested.
Katherine: Yeah, could possibly have intentionally gotten him arrested, and Lestrade realizes somehow through their interaction that Sherlock is a genius, like maybe he takes him into the police station and immediately Sherlock sees a board with something on it. And he solves the crime there and then.
Lyndsay: Oh, I love that.
Katherine: And Lestrade is like, “Who are you? What are you doing?”
Ardy: Yeah, my head canon is quite similar to this. Not necessarily with the deliberate Mycroft element, not so much finding Sherlock in an alleyway but maybe busting him for possession, locking him up, and when he comes back to look in on him after half an hour Sherlock figures out who everybody else in the cell is and what crimes they have and haven’t committed. And Lestrade would realize that he’s got something different that would pique his interest.
Lyndsay: I like that, because it’s obvious that he cares about Sherlock, and that he cares about his career, and whether he’s being disgraced or not in the final episode, in Reichenbach Fall. It’s clear that they have a long-standing, very cool professional relationship, and it makes sense that he saw him at his worst, and then realized there was potential there.
Katherine: And also he was one of the three bullets, wasn’t he? He was one of the people who was Sherlock’s friend.
Lyndsay: Exactly. Which is amazing because Mycroft is nowhere in there.
Katherine: Yeah, exactly.
Ardy: And nobody’s surprised.
Kristina: You have any head canons, Melinda?
Melinda: No, but I was going to say I think, not to downplay the friendship between Sherlock and Lestrade, but I think that third bullet would have gone to Mycroft if [Moriarty] had been able to get to Mycroft.
Lyndsay: Oh, sure.
Katherine: Oh, yeah, possibly.
Melinda: Because the others will be a lot easier to kill. That’s a fact.
Katherine: Yeah, that’s an interesting point.
Melinda: Yeah, Mycroft would be a hard target. (laughter)
Kristina: You can’t catch me!
Melinda: Because he’s so slender.
Katherine: He’s so slim!
Melinda: Send him a cake, and then try again.
Kristina: My head canon is so dramatic, because it’s like finding this high kid in an alleyway, and maybe being tipped off by Mycroft, like “Can you find my brother, please?” But I’m just a masochist, so I like seeing my characters in pain.
Lyndsay: Oh, totally. It’s completely plausible that it’s something like that, you know?
Kristina: But we’ll never know–
Lyndsay: We might.
Katherine: Flashback!
Kristina: I don’t know. They said so many times that they’re never going to reveal any past stuff.
Lyndsay: They might not.
Lyndsay: But there’s a moment in Belgravia, the Mycroft cigarette thing–
Kristina: Danger night.
Lyndsay: Danger night. And it’s so clear that Mycroft and John have had this conversation, and it’s happened before. And you know that Greg Lestrade is in on it. This is just something that happens from time to time with Sherlock Holmes and they need to deal with it. We talked about it at the Epilogues meeting last night, we were doing the Missing Three Quarter case and, and in the Missing Three Quarter Watson basically says, “Look, this is a drug mania that once threatened to end his remarkable career,” more or less, and it is a real canonical problem. And it’s really cool in the BBC version that Lestrade is savvy to it and aware of it and still really respects him as a criminal investigator.
Kristina: Yeah, and he uses it against him: “It’s a drugs bust!”
Katherine: Yeah, that’s one of my favorite bits.
Ardy: Yeah, that’s really good.
Melinda: What I thought was a nice touch in Elementary, since we get the whole “Gregson and Lestrade are the same character,” is that there’s a moment, I forget who does it, it’s probably Sherlock Holmes himself, but he actually tells [Gregson], I used to be a drug user, and [Gregson’s] response is, “Well, duh, of course I knew that. I’m an investigator, you’re forgetting that I’m not a complete idiot, and yes I knew this, actually.”
Lyndsay: That’s great, that scene was awesome. Yeah, thanks Captain Obvious. Gracias. In the canon version he’s not really aware of Holmes’s drug problem, it’s only Watson who is aware of it. And the Granada series was basically taking canon and photocopying it as much as they could, which is fucking awesome. Sorry, not safe for work!
Melinda: Do you think he would have even tried to hide it?
Lyndsay: Well, no, because it was completely legal in the Victorian era, so it wouldn’t have been a problem in the first place. So even if Lestrade had known about it, it would have been not an issue.
Katherine: It wasn’t really seen as a vice, either, was it? It was almost normal, like people took laudanum and all sorts of crazy stuff.
Lyndsday: Oh, if your kid was crying–
Katherine: Drug him! (laughter)
Lyndsay: I mean, Kristina is a nanny. I’ve given her mad tips. Just a little opiate.
Kristina: Just a little Jack Daniels on that binky.
Lyndsay: They were very substance friendly back in the Victorian era, so it wouldn’t have been a problem.
Ardy: That’s putting it mildly.
Katherine: Next question.
Kristina: In the next part, Lestrade says he’s known [Sherlock] for five years and he doesn’t know [Sherlock] as well as John does after [John’s] known him for a day. Do we agree with that, do we believe that?
Lyndsay: Oh, I totally believe that.
Kristina: Yeah, because John obviously got more of that connect thing, the other side of the coin, whereas Lestrade is the person who picked up the coin and is now carrying it in his pocket.
Lyndsay: That is an amazing metaphor.
All: Cheers!
Kristina: We’re not drinking.
Katherine: Nope. They’ve seen the photographs of us after a night out.
Lyndsay: That’s a great way of putting it, though. And it’s completely canonical, because John Watson when he meets Sherlock Holmes is instantly fascinated. And Sherlock Holmes is instantly fascinated by John Watson. So, it’s this sort of love at first sight, I need you in my life, and this is the other half of me that didn’t exist before. And it’s beautiful. And it’s completely canonical, and it’s one of those things where Lestrade is a character who gets to sort of watch that happen. And that’s super sexy, I think.
Kristina: And he hangs out with them, too. More so in the BBC version, but–
Lyndsay: I don’t think more so in the BBC version, because in the beginning of Six Napoleons he’s hanging out–
Kristina: You know you have this Six Napoleons fetish. (laughter)
Lyndsay: That’s because it’s amazing, but at the beginning of Six Napoleons he’s hanging out with them at Baker Street because that’s a thing they do where he comes over and just chills with them. And so that’s the case where you learn that’s a thing where Lestrade comes over and he’s like, “Hey, guys,” and they’re like, “Hey.”
Katherine: Hey girlfriend!
Lyndsay: But it’s completely canonical. That’s the case where you find that out, where they’re bros. Okay, can we talk about Beth Lestrade?
Kristina: (laughs) Yes, Lyndsay. If you don’t know, Holmes in the 22nd Century is a lovely animated adaptation, and Lestrade is a lady.
All: A lady.
Kristina: And her name is Beth. And in the Watson and Holmes comic she’s a lady, too.
Lyndsay: Yes, her name is Leslie Strad.
Kristina: Yep, see what they did there?
Katherine: Oh, that’s clever, I like that.
Lyndsay: I love the lady Lestrades, they’re so cool. I was rolling back through Tumblr, looking for ways to incorporate Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century, and someone had tagged that title and they said, “If I was to cosplay Beth Lestrade, would anyone know or care?” And I was like, “Ahhhh!” I was making whale noises. I care. I totally doubt I would be in the same room with you, but if you took pictures I would look.
Kristina: I’ve only seen one episode of that, but she’s pretty badass.
Lyndsay: Oh, God, she’s great.
Kristina: Is it her, or am I thinking of someone else, she has either a giant gun or a bionic arm?
Lyndsay: The bionic arm is Watson — it’s kind of steampunk, and he’s a robot in Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century.
Kristina: That’s right. Does she have a giant gun? I’m going to say she has a giant gun.
Lyndsay: Well, metaphorically if not literally.
Katherine: She’s got guns. (laughter)
Ardy: There’s the Russian show, but if there was a Lestrade he wasn’t very memorable.
Lyndsay: I don’t remember him from the Russian show at all.
Kristina: There is one.
Katherine: In the first episode, and then I don’t think he appears in it.
Kristina: I will tell you in a moment. (pauses to look it up) That’s not how you spell that.
Lyndsay: (drawls) Lestrid.
Katherine: Is there a Lestrade in The Great Mouse Detective? I was just thinking of it, and there isn’t one unless you count Toby the dog. I don’t know.
Kristina: but that’s Toby. Toby is Toby.
Katherine: Hmm, yeah, so that’s one of the only ones I can think of that doesn’t have a Lestrade in it for obvious reasons. It’s for children, so they kind of have to keep the characters down to a minimum.
Lyndsay: That’s true — it’s about efficiency, I think.
Kristina: Okay, so in the Russian series Lestrade was played by Borislav Brondukov. He played him in all five films of the Adventures.
Lyndsay: Why don’t I remember that Lestrade?
Kristina: Poor Borislav.
Katherine: He has the most epic Russian name I’ve ever heard. So I think we can respect him just for that.
Kristina: He was born in the village of Dubava. Cool.
Ardy: Wherever that is.
Kristina: So here are all the other Lestrades — oh! So, John Colicos played both Lestrade and Professor Moriarty at the same time in the 1989 TV role of My Dearest Watson.
Lydsay: That’s…a fair title.
Kristina: Apparently Colin Jeavons also played Moriarty at some point.
Lyndsay: Are you kidding?
Katherine: All right!
Kristina: It says Colicos and Jeavons are so far the only actors to play both the policeman and the villain. That’s nuts.
Lyndsay: When did Colin Jeavons play Moriarty?
Kristina: I’m finding out, I’m finding out. This is important.
Ardy: This is relevant to my interests.
Lyndsay: (mutters) Relevant to interests.
Ardy: I think everything is relevant to my interests, but that’s beside the point.
Katherine: It’s not the point right now! It’s not important.
Kristina: It’s not telling me. To IMDb! This is really important.
Lyndsay: When they play multiple roles, it’s kind of cute, like Jeremy Brett played Watson, for instance, in that one — on stage. That one with Charlton Heston.
Katherine: I can’t even imagine that, it’s really weird.
Lyndsay: I know he had a sexy mustache.
Ardy: Was that Crucible of Blood?
Lyndsay: Yeah, that was it.
Ardy: That is such a weird film.
Lyndsay: So weird. Seriously.
Kristina: Colin Jeavons is still alive.
Lynsday: Let’s get him.
Kristina: Right?
Lyndsay: (dramatically) “LET’S GET HIM!” (laughter)
Kristina: Okay, he was Professor Moriarty in the TV series The Baker Street Boys, from 1983.
Lyndsay: What the actual fuck is that?
Kristina: I don’t know, I’m finding out. This is exciting, guys! Oh, it’s about the Baker Street Irregulars! (cheers)
Sarah: Of course it is! Oh, beautiful!
Kristina: It only got a 6.2 rating, but–
Lyndsay: We don’t care.
Melinda: We’ll watch anything.
Kristina: The only person who has pictures is a guy who played Wiggins, Jay Simpson?
Katherine: Isn’t that the one that Tony Lee was telling us about, Ardy, or was that a different one? About a murder mystery and the Baker Street Irregulars?
Ardy: That’s a comic that he’s written.
Katherine: Oh, yeah.
Lyndsay: And you know, there’s also the Jonathan Pryce version. Which is Jonathan Pryce and Sherlock Holmes, and it’s the Baker Street Irregulars, basically their point of view solving a case. I don’t remember the title.
Katherine: There definitely should be more things about the Baker Street Irregulars solving crime.
Kristina: So, this series ran for just one season and centered on the band of street-dwelling orphans who occasionally assisted Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson in solving their cases. In this series they got the chance to do some detection of their own, as well as dealing with the Conan Doyle regulars Lestrade and Moriarty, confusingly played by Colin Jeavons, who was of course Lestrade in the long-running Granada Holmes series.
Lyndsay: I need this, like, now. I need to mainline this.
Kristina: We need to find this. The Baker Street Boys. So, fun fact, everyone. Dennis Hoey played Lestrade in the Basil Rathbone films.
Lyndsay: You know what, he was great. We should totally talk about him, he was awesome.
Kristina: I’ve actually never seen any of the Rathbone films.
Katherine: I have them on DVD and you can watch them when you come back to England. (cheers)
Lyndsay: Yeah, you guys should have a Basil party. It was his birthday on the 13th and so I made a post about him. I was looking up biographical information, and the guy was a fucking badass. He was a superspy in WWI, and a master of disguise, apparently, and they gave him a medal of honor for daring and courage on patrol because he was a BAMF, and then he comes back and gets arrested for being in a play featuring a gay character and he’s outraged because homosexuality should be open and totally legal. Basil Rathbone owned all his shit, he was awesome. And in that series of films, the Lestrade is actually really cool. He’s a competent police office, he’s a fun character, and you have Nigel Bruce as the guy who if there’s a banana peel, Nigel Bruce is gonna step on it. So Lestrade actually came off really well in the Rathbone films because Watson is the guy who’s going to take the fucking faceplant on the banana peel. Yeah, Lestrade was great, and he was this little guy who totally, I think it’s the one point Watson doesn’t compare Lestrade to a rat, I think he says a terrier, and the guy is totally like this little terrier with a mustache, it’s perfect. I don’t recall his name, you just said it.
Kristina: Dennis Hoey.
Lyndsay: Dennis Hoey, he was great, a really great Lestrade. I just don’t know how to say Lestrade.
Kristina: It’s confusing.
Lyndsay: Just let it collapse.
Kristina: Lestrid. Lestrudel. Here’s another double act — Frank Finlay played him twice, in A Study in Terror and Murder by Decree, both focusing on non-canon stories of Holmes investigating the Jack the Ripper murders.
Lyndsay: Yeah! So the first one is based on the Ellery Queen novel, and the second one is the, um–
Kristina: The Chrisopher Plummer one?
Lyndsay: Yeah, the Christopher Plummer one. Which is really interesting, and actually [name] did the talk at UCLA, she compared and contrasted the two films, and how the male gaze is extremely different. They’re seven or eight years apart, and yet the two films are dramatically different. The whores who are being killed in A Study in Terror are kind of sexy/saucy, and by the time you get to Murder by Decree it’s like, no, this is real. It’s really interesting to look at those two films side by side. That’s cool, though, that it was the same Lestrade, I had no idea.
Kristina: Roger Aston-Griffiths played Lestrade in Young Sherlock Holmes. His taking credit for solving the mystery earned him a promotion from detective to inspector. Jeffrey Jones played Lestrade in Without a Clue.
Lyndsay: I love that movie.
Kristina: Lestrade was played by Peter Madden opposite Peter Cushing in the BBC series.
Lyndsay: That’s not one that I’ve actually seen sufficiently. I’ve seen clips of it, but…
Kristina: Oh, so we should actually talk about this. For the Clive Merison series they gave Lestrade a first name, and they called him Giles.
Katherine: Ah, really?
Lyndsay: Well, his first initial is G, that’s canonical.
Melinda: It’s funny with a name like that, because you’re going “Giles, Jiles” — we don’t know how to pronounce this guy’s first name OR his last name.
Kristina: What’s your name!
Lyndsay: My head canon is that he’s Geoffrey with a G.
Kristina: Really? I go with the Gregory.
Lyndsay: Well that is sexy, because that’s a shout-out to the other best Yarder. So they’re giving that to the Sherlockians.
Kristina: So, what do you guys think, what’s his first name?
Katherine: I always thought Greg.
Ardy: It depends which version. BBC just looked like a Greg?
Katherine: He doesn’t look like a Geoff. But for the others I think Geoffrey is more of a Victorian name.
Lyndsay: Oh, I just love the spelling.
Katherine: It’s one of those things where Arthur Conan Doyle, if you’d asked him he would have made it up on the spot, he would have been like, “Uhhh…” and it would have been something that none of us would have expected. It would have been something like, I don’t know, Gaylord.
Melinda: It was Jayden, spelled with a G.
Katherine: Gregor.
Lyndsay: What?
Katherine: Well, his last name is sort of French, so I don’t know what he would have had as a first name. People, send in your ideas.
Melinda: Guy.
Katherine: Oh, Guy, sure.
Lyndsay: G-U-Y, totally. Because he’s French. Clearly, Lestrade is a French name. I mean, he has French ancestry. And that harks back to Sherlock Holmes, because Sherlock Holmes has French ancestry as well.
Kristina. Mais oui, monsieur. Je suis desole to all our French listeners.
Katherine: Pardon moi.
Kristina: But we have to make a very important statement here. The best Lestrade is William Huw, who played Lestrade in the Asylum version. The best — he cried on screen.
Lyndsay: Well, I cried watching it. (laughter)
Katherine: We don’t know what kind of tears they were.
Lyndsay: (mutters) Favorite. Adaptation.
Katherine: I still haven’t seen that, you know.
Lyndsay: Oh, my God. How have you not seen the Asylum Sherlock Holmes?
Katherine: You promised that you’d show it to me, and then it never happened.
Lyndsay: I don’t even know who you are.
Katherine: I’m Skyping from a different country!
Lyndsay: I can’t reach you. It’s too far. But yeah, that is a … profound adaptation. Lestrade is very, very good. He is as good as the rest of the thing. (laughter)
Kristina: He does have a nice bowler hat.
Lyndsay: He really, really does.
Ardy: They should make up a drinking game for that films, and then Kafers you need to come to my house and we’ll watch it and get wasted.
Katherine: I am totally game for that.
Lyndsay: Can I be invited to this?
Katherine: Listeners, drink responsibly.
Kristina: Every time something ridiculous happens.
Melinda: Every time someone arrives onscreen in a costume that doesn’t fit. (laughter)
Ardy: Every time someone uses a canon line, and then put a ridiculously long pause after it to make sure everyone knows.
Lyndsay: Every time a totally ludicrous monster and/or weapon appears, like a Gatling gun or a dinosaur.
Kristina: Our first commentary is going to be the pilot, but after that we’re gonna do Asylum.
Lyndsay: Oh, totally.
Kristina: And just be drunk the entire time. Okay, next question — let’s get one that’s not Rupert Graves. Okay, this is from Commish24 — in canon and films he’s always portrayed as lower class than Holmes or Watson. Why does this Victorian prejudice continue?
Lyndsay: Interesting. He’s kind of an everyman, a guy’s guy. He is typical of the police at the time, if you’re going to talk history. The police were not paid all that well, so it was a working class job and it was not a job a gentleman would go into, if you were a police officer.
Kristina: If you were a gentleman, you’d be a judge.
Lyndsay: Oh, totally. So culturally that made perfect sense. You wouldn’t become a police inspector — well, first of all he would have risen through the ranks from being a roundsman. So he would have been a roundsman first, and he would have shown aptitude and grit and awesomeness, and then eventually he would have been promoted to being a detective or an inspector. And to go into that job in the first place meant that you were working class. It also meant that you were somebody who needed a day job, you needed a paycheck. So this was not necessarily like a profession that, say for example, Sherlock Holmes would have felt the need to enter. Sherlock Holmes had some money troubles in A Study in Scarlet, but not sufficiently that he needed a day job, and Lestrade would have, culturally speaking. So that actually makes sense.
Kristina: Also on top of that, the police force was still quite young in London at that point as an organization.
Lyndsay: Sure. The Peelers had been founded in the 1820s, I think.
Kristina: So relatively speaking it was less than a hundred years old.
Lyndsay: Absolutely. It was something like 16 years old when Lestrade would have been joining them, so it was not a system that was particularly well-liked, it was not a system that was particularly well-organized, but they were intuitive and they were awesome. They were one of the earliest police forces, actually — Paris and London were very, very early for forming police. It took until 1845 for the New York police force to be founded. The Peelers were a model for everyone thereafter, and they should get mad credit. Lestrade’s peeps, they changed law enforcement. The London force really did.
Katherine: Do you guys want to know a weird fact about Peelers? On my wall in my bedroom I have a painting that I got from my grandparents after my grandmother died, and it is a painting of the town center of a place called Tamworth, and the statue in the town center is of Robert Peel. I’m looking at him right now — I have a painting of a statue of Sir Robert Peel on my wall.
Melinda: And now we have an audio description of a painting of a statue of Robert Peel. (laughter)
Katherine: So weird, weird coinkidink. There you go. But yeah, it’s fascinating, because obviously nowadays Lestrade as he’s portrayed in the BBC Sherlock series still has that London accent. He’s a London boy, and it kind of makes sense for him to have gone into the Met, really, because if you’re a London lad he’s probably got quite good grades at school, was driven in that direction. It makes sense that he would be, he’s almost part of London itself, whereas Sherlock Holmes sees himself as loving London, but he stands outside of it as this kind of thing that looks over it, whereas Lestrade is part of London, part of the system.
Kristina: Lestrade is a lad in the BBC version.
Katherine: Yeah. That was a very metaphysical way of saying what you just said. (laughter)
Kristina: Question from Hollamac_ on Twitter, or not really a question but asking if we can talk about Lestrade being a father figure to Sherlock in the BBC version. And you were just talking about he’s sort of a lad, but hearkening back to what we were talking about earlier when Lestrade found him when Sherlock was down and out, and I think he definitely had a very intense part in bringing him back into the working world, in a way.
Lyndsay: Well, Watson says explicitly that the problem is not the crimesolving and the cases — the problem is boredom. He says explicitly in the Missing Three Quarter that it’s far more dangerous for him to be inactive than for him to be running around solving crimes in a potentially dangerous setting, and it’s worse when he doesn’t have that. So yeah, it would have been a really key part of him finding himself, I think, to be able to work at the Met.
Kristina. Yes. And then also, I figure it was geared for the BBC, the line “Sherlock Holmes is a great man, and one day, if we’re very lucky, he’ll be a good one.” He’ll get there eventually.
Lyndsay: Which is great. Because those bullets, I love that one of those bullets was for Lestrade
Kristina: I love that he was about to get shot. (laughter)
Lyndsay: It means he’s worth noticing. So that someone who hadn’t necessarily seen their friendship develop knew that there was one there, and that he was worth killing in order to hurt [Sherlock].
Kristina: And that’s even emphasized when Lestrade obviously doesn’t want to arrest Sherlock. He has that intense “Arrgh, this is not okay” attitude, and he goes so far as to warn John that they’re coming. So just in case Sherlock wanted to run away, he gave them that opportunity — which he takes later.
Melinda: Hostage. (laughter)
Lyndsay: That works.
Kristina: I just love the facepalm, and Lestrade’s like, “ARRRGH! Why?”
Katherine: it’s beautiful.
Lyndsay: It is. “Why did you do this?”
Kristina: The only other question I have for BBC is from Mystradedoodles asking us to talk about his hair.
Katherine. (singsong) Love it. I don’t think anyone here apart from Jen is qualified to talk about the hair.
Ardy: No, I don’t really have words to do it justice, you know.
Kristina: But the sad face, and I don’t necessarily think this is a spoiler — is it a spoiler about Lestrade’s hair for Series Three?
Lyndsay: It’s not, come on.
Ardy: You’re going to say it like not, just say it.
Kristina: It’s gone. He’s got, like, a buzz cut.
Katherine: Oh, yeah.
Kristina: But no, his hair is gone for Series Three and it just makes me really upset. And I shouldn’t be upset over such a little aesthetic thing, but I am.
Lyndsay: Well, because it was beautiful.
Kristina: It is!
Melinda: It was a thing of perfection.
Kristina: But yeah, the hair’s gone, so that’s, yeah. I’m lamenting it.
Melinda: Where’s my sackcloth?
Lyndsay: Seriously! Where are the ashes? Bring me ashes.
Katherine: Oh, bless.
Sarah: I’m so ready to watch Colin Jeavons again. Because he was such the canonical Lestrade to me. And he was charming and annoying and annoyed.
Kristina: He does a really good annoyed face.
Lyndsay: Oh, God! His frown face is perfect.
Melinda: Which episode was it where he was with them on a stakeout?
Lyndsay: Oh, God, that’s brilliant! The humbugs!
Melinda: Yeah, the humbugs thing.
Katherine: “Watson, this is not the time for humbugs.” (laughter)
Kristina: Question to Katherine, because you’re British — what are humbugs?
Lyndsay: Candies, they’re candies.
Katherine: It’s a hardboiled sweet. You see photographs of them, they’re black and white striped flavored. The hardboiled sweets were really quite popular back in the day because they were quite easy to make. It’s just boiled sugar and a bit of flavor, so. People had them because they were a bit of a sugar hit. That’s a humbug.
Lyndsay: I want to throw out my favorite Lestrade moment from the canon, just because reasons. In the Hound of the Baskervilles, he shows up and the glowing hound is terrifying, and it’s very obvious that he’s afraid of it. He cowers for a moment, then he gets up and runs TOWARD the Hound. And that’s beautiful because he’s brave. Because bravery is not about not being afraid, it’s about being afraid and getting over it and doing that shit anyway. And I love that moment in Hound of the Baskervilles where Lestrade is terrified of the Hound, and he thinks, “Nope, doesn’t matter.”
Kristina: Gotta get her done.
Lyndsay: Get ‘er done. And it’s a beautiful character moment. And it’s so subtly written, and it’s really nice, because there’s a reason why Sherlock Holmes hangs out with this guy.
Katherine: Yeah, because he’s awesome.
Lyndsay: Well, there’s that brilliant bit in The Noble Bachelor where —
Melinda: Yes, where he arrives with the soaked dress. And I love Sidney Paget’s drawing of the moment where he’s standing there and you can see how frustrated he is.
Lyndsay: He’s so mad!
Melinda: With Holmes just being a jerk and, “Well, what would you have done!”
Lyndsay: And Holmes is just being a dick as usual.
Melinda: As he’s wont to do.
Lyndsay: I love The Noble Bachelor, but he’s being such a prick to Lestrade the whole time, and Lestrade’s just like, “ARRGH!”
Melinda: Are you going to HELP?
Lyndsay: Exactly.
Melinda: Or are you going to be a dick?
Lyndsay: Exactly.
Kristina: Both. (laughter)
Katherine: Amazing.
Melinda: That’s a great Lestrade case. But the drawing itself, he doesn’t look, well, he’s obviously pretyy handsome–
Lyndsay: He’s very handsome in that drawing.
Melinda: He’s very handsome, he’s not ratlike at all.
Lyndsay: No, that Paget drawing … Sidney Paget, making everyone sexier than they should have been since the 19th Century.
Melinda: I think Sidney Paget can take a very sizeable claim as to why Sherlock Holmes has endured. Because if he was drawing nothing but rat-faced, ugly people, I don’t want to read that, I want to look at something nice.
Lyndsay: Yeah, I think you’re completely right. They were very beautiful, evocative, moment of truth illustrations that were just, you know, apt.
Melinda: Graham Monroe! With double fists in the air!
Lyndsay: You can’t see Melinda and I, but we’re both very stiff with our fists in the air.
Melinda: And it was shockingly #bad. It was one of the most uncomfortable illustrations I’ve ever seen. And I want it really bad. I would love to get that one framed.
Lyndsay: Oh, God. I saw a Sidney Paget once, it was a crazy, crazy thing because my friend Jerry Margolin, who’s an Irregular, lives in the same town as my in-laws. He lives in Portland, Oregon. So I visited his house, and he has the biggest Sherlockian art collection probably in the world. And he has a Paget, and it was just me standing there, staring at an actual original Sidney Paget, framed on the wall.
Melinda: Wait, wait — of the stories?
Lyndsay: Yeah. I think it was from Reigate Squires. But I was, “Keepittogetherkeepittogetherkeepittogether.”
Kristina: Melinda has lost her jaw.
Lyndsay: Yeah, it was sick. He has a Door Steel, too, but that’s not as cool as a legit, real Paget.
Kristina: I have another fact.
All: Cool, bring the fact.
Kristina: Fucking Windows 8. Seriously!
Lyndsay: Fact. (laughter)
Kristina: The author M.J. Trow wrote a series of sixteen books using Lestrade as the central character. [discussion] Did you say that you have them, Ardy?
Ardy: Not all of them, but I have two of them.
Kristina: Yeah, the Adventures of Inspector Lestrade.
Lyndsay: Do you like them, Ardy?
Lyndsay: They’re really cute.
Ardy: I read the first one, and I found it really funny. They’re really enjoyable, good fun.
Kristina: His first name is Sholto?
Katherine: See, I told you it would be something weird.
Melinda: That doesn’t start with a G.
Kristina: No, it doesn’t
Lyndsay: Well, apparently it does.
Melinda: The G is silent. G-S-H-O… (laughter)
Kristina: And he has a young daughter whom he seldom sees.
Lyndsay: It’s a great series, really, really funny, and Sherlock Holmes is a maniac. It’s the trope where Sherlock Holmes is the guy shooting at the wall for no clear reason, and so in all the M.J. Trow books, Lestrade is the hero of them, and he just has to deal with this guy. They’re so funny.
Katherine: This appeals to my love of role reversal.
Lyndsay: Exactly. And it’s so satisfying, it’s like watching Without a Clue.
Katherine: Amazing.
Kristina: Yeah, apparently in one of these he suffers a broken leg in a fall from the gangplank of the Titanic. So Lestrade was on the Titanic, everyone.
Lyndsay: Canon accepted. (laughter)
Katherine: He came over to America to further his career as a detective.
Lyndsay: It must have been something like that, yes. That M.J. Trow series is actually a really good idea because it’s such a fun thing to reimagine how Lestrade looked at Sherlock Holmes, and Sherlock Holmes is a crazy person in that series. And it’s Lestrade picking up after his shit.
Melinda: So it would be like the real Holmes minus all of Watson’s editing.
Lyndsay: Exactly.
Melinda: We can’t let people know about this, or this, or… He was really mean to me, now, so I’m only going to put a little bit of that in.
Lyndsay: Highly recommended, so much fun. Fantastic pastiches. And you can probably track down paperbacks for not too much. [discussion about where to track down books] I feel like my love for Lestrade isn’t over.
Katherine: Oh, it’ll never be over.
Kristina: We have a question — is Rupert Graves really good at football. And apparently he is, Nicole Brader.
Sarah: Well, he’s good at balancing shit, we know that.
Lyndsay: Subtle, innocuous…
Katherine: And he has five children.
Kristina: He has five children. That is a true statement.
Lyndsay: Tell us about Rupert Graves.
Kristina: Rupert Graves is very good at football and has five children.
Lyndsay: I just want to know how many times Benedict Cumberbatch was dropped as a child. He’s such a perfect human being and he’s such a beautiful, beautiful spaz.
Katherine: He is.
Kristina: He is. What do we want to see from the BBC Lestrade in Series Three?
Melinda: More shirts off scenes. [transcriptionist’s note: HELL TO THE YEAH.]
All: (start clapping)
Lyndsay: Slow clap it out.
Katherine: More him interacting with John — you know, them going out to the pub together, not inviting Sherlock. Bitching about him behind his back.
Lyndsay: I kinda ship him with Molly. [transcriptionist’s note: yeah, you, me, half of Sherlock fandom, and Louise Brealey.]
Kristina: I’d really, yes.
Lyndsay: Right?
Kristina: I want that badly. Because obviously his wife is cheating on him.
Lyndsay: Well, obviously now that Sherlock’s told him.
Kristina: That second time. I love that, because you can just see it going through his head, like, “…shit, he’s right.” And then you can see John just being, “Arrgh.”
Lyndsay: Not kind, that was not kind.
Katherine: Yeah, you see, Molly would understand his need to work long hours, because she’s a pathologist and works in the lab. They’d be beautiful together.
Melinda: Oh, my God, they’d be adorable.
Lyndsay: And you know they would have so much in common to bitch about.
Kristina: they could bitch about Sherlock, they could bitch about dead people, they could — you know, all sorts of things. And maybe he likes her cat, or Glee, maybe he’s into Glee. I’m imagining Lestrade watching Glee, now, and that’s very amusing.
Katherine: Well, he’s very tolerant, like when he stands there and talks to Mrs. Hudson about her fashion, he stands there and nods.
Melinda: That’s one of my favorite scenes.
Kristina: It’s like, “…colors?” (laughter)
Katherine: It’s very sweet.
Lyndsay: Let’s just be real here, I ship that hard.
Melinda: Mrs. Hudson? Yeah, totally. (laughter)
Ardy: I kinda want apart from the romantic stuff, I mean, I can totally see him with Molly, but in realistic terms I want to see him more competent and reining Sherlock in. Because he did that a little bit before, when Sherlock walked all over him. And I’l like him to not let Sherlock do that.
Lyndsay: Also I’d like to see a bit of wrangling for Donovan.
Sarah: It’s going to be really interesting to see how all those relationships change in Series Three once they realize that he’s not dead.
Lyndsay: Awkward moment.
Ardy: I want some real pissed off-ness form Lestrade. I mean, I want pissed off-ness from John, but I want it from Lestrade, too.
Katherine: Maybe he can get to punch Sherlock as well, and then he can join that club.
Lyndsay: “I always hear’ punch me in the face’ when you’re talking, but it’s usually subtext.”
Ardy: Best line or best line?
Lyndsay: Perfection. #awesome.
Sarah: I’m wondering what the whole fallout from the Richard Brook thing will have done to Lestrade’s career, because I doubt that he can just get away with nothing. He’s lucky if he still has a job.
Lyndsay: For sure.
Katherine: Maybe he could get demoted, and Sherlock could help him get his career back.
Kristina: Yeah, be back to like a paper pusher or something.
Katherine: I don’t know, maybe he gets moved out of London and that’s the plot, to get Lestrade back to London.
Kristina: He’s in Dorchester or something. I don’t know why I picked Dorchester, it was the first thing that came to my mind.
Katherine: I was thinking of the whole first movie, actually.
Kristina: He’s the detective for this little town where nothing happens, where kids spray graffiti on the local convenience store.
Lyndsay: Speaking of Hot Fuzz, how good is that film first, and second, how awesome a Lestrade would Simon Pegg be? (gasps)
Melinda: Oh, he would be fantastic!
Lyndsay: I know, right?
Katherine: Yeah, he’d play it straight as well.
Lyndsay: He would, he’d do it so well.
Melinda: He was born for that.
Lyndsay: Dear Simon Pegg–
Kristina: Hold on, tweeting.
Katherine: When the Baker Street Babes write their adaptation of Sherlock Holmes, would you like to be–
Lyndsay: Exactly.
Kristina: I just wrote, “We think you should play Lestrade.”
Lyndsay: Tweet the man.
Kristina: Oh, God, I didn’t put play. I wrote, “Dear Simon, we think you should do Lestrade.”
Lyndsay: You better delete that one.
Kristina: Yeah, I deleted that.
Katherine: Yeah, you might want to rephrase that to a Brit, it sounds a bit odd.
Ardy: You are not actually tweeting-
Kristina: HELL YES I AM! Okay, okay. It’s done. He’s not going to reply, but other people will see that and think, “Oh, yeah!” Well, who would be the Sherlock to Simon Pegg’s Lestrade?
Lyndsay: This is a good question.
Ardy: I’m seeing Zachary Quinto, but that’s nothing to do with it. (laughter)
Katherine: Matt Smith’s quite good. I think he auditioned for the role of Watson, didn’t he?
Kristina: Yeah, he did, but he’s much more of a Sherlock. I’m trying to imagine him as Watson, and it’s just hysterical and so weird and definitely wouldn’t work.
Lyndsay: Well, it’s the classic interview where they were talking about how they only ever wanted Benedict Cumberbatch for Sherlock, and then they saw a kajillion Watsons, and then the minute Martin Freeman walked in they were like, “Yeah, that.”
Katherine: That one. We should leave it to our listeners — send in your ideas if Simon Pegg was Lestrade, who do you think should play the other characters? [transcriptionist’s note: Tom Hiddleston as Sherlock, Hugh Dancy as John, and Hugo Weaving as Moriarty. Hey, I can dream.]
Lyndsay: Good idea, as we’re clearly baffled. I mean, we already posited the idea of queer Ben Whishaw/Eddie Redmayne version.
Kristina: I want that to be a thing. Backstory — we’re doing a questionnaire about what our first commentary should be, and some people were upset that we didn’t put the Ritchie version as an option to vote for. And it wasn’t a slight against Ritchie, it was just I didn’t think of it when I made my list because I was thinking of things like Asylum Holmes and Great Mouse Detective. Because it’s me. So, then–
Lyndsay: There was a kerfuffle.
Kristina: There was a kerfuffle, and then Lyndsay had the hysterical idea about why can’t we have this, why isn’t William Gillette still touring, why can’t we have a queer version of Sherlock Holmes with Ben Whishaw and Eddie Redmayne? And someone asked, well, why can’t we? And I said good question, and so I immediately went and found gifs–
Lyndsay: She found the best gifs!
Kristina: One of Ben Whishaw when he played Keats, and he’s eating something very phallic, and the next one of Eddie Redmayne doing that sideways cocky smile of his. And it was good.
Lyndsay: I was demanding to know all kinds of things, like why can’t we have Jude law shirtless? On Mount Rushmore. Like, why is that not a thing? It’s weird when people question content that is just accidentally relevant to our own interests as opposed to deliberately — it’s like if you’re going to talk about Sherlock Holmes you will automatically be leaving out some adaptation.
Kristina: There’s a gazillion of them.
Lyndsay: There’s a gazillion of them. There’s probably six or seven Lestrades that we’ve missed.
Kristina: Sorry.
Lyndsay: …Colin Jeavons. (laughter)
Kristina: Yes, so that’s where that thing came from.
Lyndsay: But we do need that.
Ardy: Yeah, I need that very deeply, thank you.
Lyndsay: You’re welcome, Ardy.
Katherine: I need those gifs.
Ardy: That too.
Katherine: I also need a cup of tea. Can I be free, Kristina? I just want to have a cup of tea.
Kristina: Yes, Katherine, you can go drink your goddamn cup of tea. (laughter) So, in short, Lestrade is a badass, more than competent, sassy, sometimes rat faced, sometimes devilishly handsome.
Lyndsay: Sometimes terrier-like.
Kristina: But all around super awesome.
Lyndsay: He really is one of the closest people to Sherlock Holmes in the canon apart from John Watson. It’s like they got it so perfect in BBC Sherlock because it’s him, it’s Mrs. Hudson, and John. That’s the trifecta of people that he really cares about. And it was beautiful that they got that right. And in the canon cases he appears more often than any of the other inspectors. There’s other cool inspectors, you know — there’s Hopkins, Stanley Hopkins–
Kristina: Bradstreet.
Lyndsay: Yeah, Bradstreet is awesome. And Bradstreet is one of those people who really tolerates Sherlock Holmes and is like, “Yeah, this guy’s cool. He looks crazy, but it’s fine.” He’s great, Atheny Jones is ridiculous, Gregson is okay, he’s not the most competent inspector in the canon but Holmes respects him. But Lestrade is a friend. And you have that moment at the beginning of, I think it’s Five Orange Pips, where there’s the knock at the door in the middle of the storm, and Watson is like, “Is that a friend of yours coming over?” And Holmes says, “Uh, friend? Save yourself, I have none.”
All: “I don’t have friends!”
Lyndsay: Yeah, totally. And said with nine chins. And he’s wrong, and that’s beautiful because Lestrade is his friend. And you really see that later in Six Napoleons. And that’s a lovely thing, and in Hound of the Baskervilles when [Sherlock] says, “There’s a devil hound, I need you,” and Lestrade’s like, “Cool. No problem. Scared, but okay, gonna run toward it because, you know–”
Ardy: Yeah.
Katherine: I’ll be there.
Lyndsay: And it’s lovely. It’s the one person other than John Watson that [Sherlock] would turn to.
Melinda: And that he could rely on him.
Lyndsay: Yeah. The best of the Yarders, as he says.
