Episode 6: The Speckled Band
In the 6th episode of season one, Holmes and Watson come face to face with the Speckled Band, we get to know Mrs. Hudson (Rosalie Williams), and Gus and Luke take a deep dive into this classic story.
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I love the very real concern in Brett’s voice when he expresses his scruples about allowing Watson to accompany him into Helen Stoner’s room at night. The scenes where he is exploring the estate are masterful, and Watson’s attempt to look for footprints is just adorable.
The obsession with correct timetables is so bizarre among a certain kind of Sherlockian scholar. What I love so much about this story is its psychologically accurate portrayal of an abusive man who has his entire household in a state of terror, and the women around him constantly hide his behaviors and make excuses, even while they suffer. It’s terrifyingly realistic, psychologically, and for that I (and generations of readers and viewers) are willing to forgive milk-drinking trained snake who apparently don’t need air holes to breathe in a safe.
This story was one of the ones in my first SH book when I was nine, so I must have read it dozens of times.
Are they twins in the adaptation? Helen does say something like “her hair was going prematurely grey, just like mine is beginning to”, so the color was certainly intentional, and she just came out of bed, so of course her hair was disarrayed. But yeah, going to look at it, it does have something real silly going on with the fringe.
It’s true that from this episode on I keep noticing them using mirrors to get more thing into frame. Maaybe a little too much.
I do love all the scenes when someone’s sleeping. It’s just cute. Brett with his hair in his eyes, Watson conking out anywhere (he’s a soldier afterall, he easily falls asleep on an armchair, or on the floor of that hut, and then wakes up ready to go.)
This was a fun and interesting podcast ep, thanks.
After listening to your podcast I watched the episode again, to see the little details you mentioned. One detail you didn’t talk about is the moment the camera shows Dr Grimesby Roylott dead with the Speckled Band wrapped around his neck. Look at the actor’s eyes the moment the camera is on him! Thank you for the wonderful podcasts, I love to see when you’ve produced a new one. Please keep them coming.
I have just caught up with your podcasts and I must confess, I am not a podcast kind of guy, but I am satisfied that your conversations are not of typical modern day culture, inane chatter riding on embarrassingly atrocious vocabulary and grammar, which would rot my teeth to repeat. I have just listened to your job on “The Speckled Band,” and after saying what I have to say I believe that you might be compelled to subtract a full slipper from not only the television episode but from yourselves and Conan Doyle as well. Here it is: how is it that the coroner never saw the snake bites on Julie Stoner’s body?
As you frequently throw in the ideas of writers who aim to make sense of moments like these, here is my theory: the coroner was in fact a blood relative of Doctor Watson, and the same genetic makeup that set him to pursue a career in the medical field was also, unfortunately, responsible for his shared inherited farsightedness.
Hello Gregory! Hah! Great theory and very much on par with those found in the annotated books/journals. Some episodes/stories require a deeper suspension of disbelief than others. And this one certainly does. After all, snakes also don’t drink milk and can’t breathe in air-tight safes. But. We generally overlook those tidbits in exchange for a fun, tall tale. But, there is no arguing that you are certainly in the right. It would take a coroner of rare ineptitude to miss a snakebite.