Crazy over Janine.

Upon further introspection upon yesterday's blog, I started to think I went too far.

Janine, the "Agatha" of BBC Sherlock, is a regular gal, right? Just going to weddings looking for someone to date, grabbing her moment as a tabloid celeb and cashing in . . . calling her "a second Irene Adler" was surely an exaggeration. A trickster? An "agent of chaos?" Oh, come on, Brad, did you even watch those episodes? 

But then I considered her further this morning.

Everybody seems to use Janine for their own purposes, yes. But we're never entirely clear on how she came into their lives to begin with. Sherlock points her toward some likely dating material at John and Mary's wedding reception, and yet she winds up in a relationship with Sherlock . . . whom she obviously knows would be a bad choice. And as I wrote yesterday, there's still that bit where she's the one person in London who doesn't seem to be afraid of Magnussen.

Janine has just too many loose ends about her. And I keep coming back to Holmes's seemingly misogynistic quote: "And yet the motives of women are so inscrutable. You remember the woman at Margate whom I suspected for the same reason. No powder on her nose - that proved to be the correct solution. How can you build on such a quicksand? Their most trivial action may mean volumes, or their most extraordinary conduct may depend upon a hairpin or a curling-tong." Janine seems, at first, to be of that level of ordinarily inscrutable that is merely based on hairpins and curling-tongs . . . but then something deeper emerges.

Why "Janine?"  Why not "Agatha" or "Aggie" or "Agamena?"

Roll the sound of "Janine" around in your head for a moment.

Janine. James. Irene. Janine.

There's an old thesis in the Sherlockian world that James Moriarty had two other brothers, also named James. We find evidence of at least one in "The Empty House." But this time, in this alternate reality of a modern Sherlock, what if one of those siblings was a sister?

Janine Moriarty.

Of course, she's the one person in London who's not afraid of Magnussen. And of course, Jim Moriarty would suddenly return once Magnussen was gone and Sherlock being sent into exile. Who else is connected to both of those men and would be quick to set a "return" into motion?

But in our modern Sherlockian world, I'm just one of a million monkeys pounding on keyboards. A quick Google search shows that Janine Moriarty theories were showing up as early as January 14th of this year.  (Congratulations introspectivenights ! You are a quick one.)

I was wondering yesterday what an Irene/Janine encounter would look like. And now I'm really wondering. And while that match-up may be yet a mystery, I'm sure of one thing. Janine Moriarty would kick Jamie Moriarty's portrait-painting ass all over London. 

But then, I've gone just a bit mad over Janine this weekend. Missing out on 221B Con will do that sort of thing to you.