(The last post about) The Reichenbach Fall (...for at least a day)
Let's talk about John some more. Because I adore him.
John needs to punch people more often when he's defending Sherlock's honor. Or just for general reasons. It's a bit wonderful, either way. And him totally cowing Mycroft Holmes for giving Moriarty his ammunition is downright incredible. His speech at Sherlock's grave breaks my heart into tiny, irretrievable pieces. Especially the moment when he turns, straightens his posture, and soldiers on.
ALL THE BAFTAS, MR. FREEMAN. ALL OF THEM.
lunchy_munchy and I have decided that he needs to adopt a little bulldog pup named Gladstone to help him cope while Sherlock is away.
Speaking of people who deserve BAFTAs, save some for Andrew Scott. No one else emanates unhinged as well as he does. He feels legitimately dangerous, even when he's handcuffed and surrounded by police officers. It's his intellect that's genuinely terrifying. The various high profile security breaches just to get Sherlock's attention are stylish and utterly divine. The entire rooftop scene. The deranged and giddy looks that cross his face when he realizes Sherlock's backed him into a corner where the only option is his death and then calls his bluff on it. And the shamming being an actor being Moriarty?! sdjadhkshfkdsjhgkfjghksdfhsdf. INCREDIBLE. YOU ARE INCREDIBLE, SIR.
I might have been inclined to lightly criticize the use of the musical overlay in the scene where he's being arrested as breaking the tone and being a bit over the top, but I can't. Because Nina Simone. I really want to know everything that's on Moriarty's playlist between that, Rossini, and the Beegees.
I'm sort of upset with Mycroft this season. I always thought Sherlock's safety is a line he wouldn't cross, but he should have known better with Moriarty. He underestimated Moriarty, which to me seems wholly unlike him. And then why would he ever let the man go on top of that? We're never given a reason for it. John doesn't ask because he doesn't even know Mycroft let him go. I can't pin down Mycroft anymore and I think I need fic to help me sort him out again.
I haven't talked nearly enough about the Met in this episode. Oodles of Lestrade! Do not disturb him! It's not his jurisdiction and he is having a pastry, dammit! There's a brief mention of Gregson bringing Sherlock in on cases too from the scene where his boss is chewing him out. Maybe we'll actually see Gregson in series 3. I'm a bit disappointed in them for further demonizing Sally. I'd sort of settled on a headcanon version where she becomes not friendly, but less antagonistic toward Sherlock because of John. For the record, Anderson is still a dick in my headcanon.
That really is the dangerous thing about this fandom. I have years to form all this headcanon and then new episodes come along and trod all over it.
But moving on, the hand holding and running through the streets in handcuffs! Unbelievably, I'd forgotten about the handcuff thing between when the spoilers came around and when the series started airing. Suppose that's one good thing about the long wait period.
This version of the ending is very Dark Knight, isn't it? Sherlock accepts the public shame and disappears in order to keep the people he cares about safe. There's debate over whether Mycroft knows or not. In the books, of course he does. He's the one who arranges all the necessities for Sherlock to disappear so thoroughly. But here? I'm not so sure. This is a different sort of Mycroft who has proven himself rather untrustworthy. Takes a Holmes to fool a Holmes after all, and Sherlock's already shown he can pull one over on Mycroft.
Someone needs to write some Sherlock and Irene meet abroad having faked their own deaths fic. Do iiiiiiiit.
There's lots of speculation out there already about how Sherlock managed to fake his death. We see him jump and we see a body, but there's a moment before we see him on the ground where he disappears behind a shorter building. There's a truck on the periphery of the frame filled with what looks like trash bags, so common interpretation so far seems to be that he actually jumped into that. There's also lots of questions about whose body that is if it's not Sherlock's.
Moffat has said he's been following the speculation and supposedly there's a big hint where Sherlock is doing something very OOC that no one has mentioned. He may be hinting at the business with bouncing a rubber ball around the Bart's lab. Which is sort of weird for him and unexplained. Tumblr informs me that applying pressure to a rubber ball under your arm is actually a trick to lower your pulse in one or both arms and something Houdini used to do. Take all that as you will though, since it's Moffat who is the biggest trollpony to ever troll.
So if that's the case, maybe it is actually him on the ground, covered in fake blood and controlling his pulse so (disoriented) John thinks he's really dead. Or it could be a different body. (Not Moriarty's,
blacksquirrel! There's no way it could be.) Or it could be a really eerily accurate mannequin. (See: The mannequin hanging in 221b earlier in the episode.)
Anyway, as I was telling
crocodile before I even saw this episode, I'd already started worrying about how they're going to bring Sherlock back. And for fandom, that's going to be our new Pool scene. Everybody's going to have a take on it. Here's hoping whatever it ends up being has a bit more emotional resonance than Staying Alive. If John doesn't punch someone over it, then they're doing it wrong.
SERIES THREE. YOU NEED TO GET IN MY TV. Alas, the Hobbit will need to come first. Here we go again, Fandom That Waited. But on the plus side: The Hobbit.
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