Review: The Empty Hearse
It's out!!!
--Spoilery review! Please watch the episode first! :)--
Loved it. I had to keep taking little breaks from it because I was smiling and my face hurt. Yeah. I’m tearing up just thinking about it now.
I’m one of those shippers who just loves Sherlock so much I’ll read him with anybody, so my true OTP is really Anybody/bottom!Sherlock, and this episode was pretty special to me because, well, let me just give this list to you of possible pairings from this episode.
We get:
-An actual (though imaginary, but it’s still onscreen) kiss with Molly/Sherlock, and then Molly getting engaged to a psuedo-Sherlock lookalike (sorry, not nearly as attractive, though!) whom she implied was maybe also a sociopath. Think about that-she loves Sherlock, but she’s finally realized she can’t have him romantically and should stop wasting her time with him, though they are still good friends. But he is her type, so she finds someone similar enough to turn her on and then puts a ring on it. Love it.
-Actual (though imaginary) smiles and extreme sexual tension leading to an almost-kiss between Moriarty and Sherlock. Not going to lie, this was my favorite scene in the whole episode. This is possibly my favorite scene in the whole show. I actually wanted more fake theories played out onscreen, they were so entertaining.
-A Lestrade/Sherlock hug and what looks like immediate forgiveness there. I had doubted that we’d get a hug between John and Sherlock, but God, I’m so pleased that somebody hugs him.
-Mycroft/Sherlock. Holy Christ. Did they just make incesty BDSM with sub!Sherlock canon? I think they may have. They play games together (having it not be chess was some sort of genius). And I think Mystrade shippers can easily interpret that “loneliness” scene (whoaaa) as Sherlock trying to set up Mycroft and Lestrade. (Also, I’m delighted that Anthea was in this!!! Yay!) EDIT: Oh my God, it has just occurred to me that Sherlock’s “How would you know [what having friends is like]?” question to Mycroft is a direct callback to Mycroft saying that exact same thing in Buckingham Palace to Sherlock about sex. Holy shit, these brothers.
-Mary being delightful and saying she actually likes Sherlock to John. But Mary, you don’t understand-nobody likes Sherlock right off the bat...oh right, except John. And then saying she would help convince John to let Sherlock back in, awww. And decoding the phone message by herself and knowing exactly where to go and what to do under pressure (immediately go to Sherlock, give him the message)...wonderful.
-You could probably even ship Phillip (yay, we have a name!) Anderson/Sherlock based on that little interview scene which may or may not have been real. Sherlock distastefully patting him on the back was fantastic.
-And below it all, the string tying up the whole package, the underlying theme flowing through it all, is Sherlock’s love for John, and John’s right back for Sherlock. Even Mary ships it (“Six months of bristly kisses for me, and then His Nibs turns up!”).
Let me also talk about Mrs. Hudson for a moment here. Mrs. Hudson is the most angry we’ve ever seen her-at John. For not visiting. For letting the little relationship network/family that Sherlock built up...slide in the tidal wave of his own grief. But then Sherlock comes back after faking his death and she’s all smiles (after getting over her shock). I just...I can’t tell you how happy that makes me.
I feel completely vindicated in my treasured list of post-Reichenbach recs with vulnerable!Sherlock-which new canon, to my knowledge, has not actually jossed many of. Because Sherlock was dismantling Moriarty’s network and was tortured and does, it seem, have at least a mild form of PTSD-not from being away, though! Oh no, he’s disturbed and having little auditory hallucinations from temporarily losing John as a partner.
I know we all spent a lot of time putting together speculative theories and things ( here’s mine, which wasn’t that far off), but the truth is in the end that it doesn’t matter, just like the cases and villains and train bombs and-can we please ban all flashlights on this show in the future?!-don’t really matter. Because at its heart, this is a show about a loyal and loving little family held together by one person who likes to solve crimes, who can’t help from getting involved in other people’s lives, who fancies himself a sociopath and yet so clearly is not.
All my fears about Sherlock inevitably sitting alone in the dark in Baker Street while Mary and John and everybody else fucks off and does whatever without him? Dashed. 221B has never been fuller than that last scene there, with Molly and her fiancé, John, Mary, Lestrade, and Mrs. Hudson, all there as a team for Sherlock. Even Sherlock’s parents (played by Benedict’s real parents, lol) came to visit him. Welcome back.
EDIT: In short, read this review by the masterful earlgreytea68. It’s everything I wanted to say but so much more perfect. I also love this review by pennswoods and this review by raina-at. And ivyblossom has some lovely words on the fandom representations in this brilliant meta.
Happy New Year’s, everyone.
--Spoilery review! Please watch the episode first! :)--
Loved it. I had to keep taking little breaks from it because I was smiling and my face hurt. Yeah. I’m tearing up just thinking about it now.
I’m one of those shippers who just loves Sherlock so much I’ll read him with anybody, so my true OTP is really Anybody/bottom!Sherlock, and this episode was pretty special to me because, well, let me just give this list to you of possible pairings from this episode.
We get:
-An actual (though imaginary, but it’s still onscreen) kiss with Molly/Sherlock, and then Molly getting engaged to a psuedo-Sherlock lookalike (sorry, not nearly as attractive, though!) whom she implied was maybe also a sociopath. Think about that-she loves Sherlock, but she’s finally realized she can’t have him romantically and should stop wasting her time with him, though they are still good friends. But he is her type, so she finds someone similar enough to turn her on and then puts a ring on it. Love it.
-Actual (though imaginary) smiles and extreme sexual tension leading to an almost-kiss between Moriarty and Sherlock. Not going to lie, this was my favorite scene in the whole episode. This is possibly my favorite scene in the whole show. I actually wanted more fake theories played out onscreen, they were so entertaining.
-A Lestrade/Sherlock hug and what looks like immediate forgiveness there. I had doubted that we’d get a hug between John and Sherlock, but God, I’m so pleased that somebody hugs him.
-Mycroft/Sherlock. Holy Christ. Did they just make incesty BDSM with sub!Sherlock canon? I think they may have. They play games together (having it not be chess was some sort of genius). And I think Mystrade shippers can easily interpret that “loneliness” scene (whoaaa) as Sherlock trying to set up Mycroft and Lestrade. (Also, I’m delighted that Anthea was in this!!! Yay!) EDIT: Oh my God, it has just occurred to me that Sherlock’s “How would you know [what having friends is like]?” question to Mycroft is a direct callback to Mycroft saying that exact same thing in Buckingham Palace to Sherlock about sex. Holy shit, these brothers.
-Mary being delightful and saying she actually likes Sherlock to John. But Mary, you don’t understand-nobody likes Sherlock right off the bat...oh right, except John. And then saying she would help convince John to let Sherlock back in, awww. And decoding the phone message by herself and knowing exactly where to go and what to do under pressure (immediately go to Sherlock, give him the message)...wonderful.
-You could probably even ship Phillip (yay, we have a name!) Anderson/Sherlock based on that little interview scene which may or may not have been real. Sherlock distastefully patting him on the back was fantastic.
-And below it all, the string tying up the whole package, the underlying theme flowing through it all, is Sherlock’s love for John, and John’s right back for Sherlock. Even Mary ships it (“Six months of bristly kisses for me, and then His Nibs turns up!”).
Let me also talk about Mrs. Hudson for a moment here. Mrs. Hudson is the most angry we’ve ever seen her-at John. For not visiting. For letting the little relationship network/family that Sherlock built up...slide in the tidal wave of his own grief. But then Sherlock comes back after faking his death and she’s all smiles (after getting over her shock). I just...I can’t tell you how happy that makes me.
I feel completely vindicated in my treasured list of post-Reichenbach recs with vulnerable!Sherlock-which new canon, to my knowledge, has not actually jossed many of. Because Sherlock was dismantling Moriarty’s network and was tortured and does, it seem, have at least a mild form of PTSD-not from being away, though! Oh no, he’s disturbed and having little auditory hallucinations from temporarily losing John as a partner.
I know we all spent a lot of time putting together speculative theories and things ( here’s mine, which wasn’t that far off), but the truth is in the end that it doesn’t matter, just like the cases and villains and train bombs and-can we please ban all flashlights on this show in the future?!-don’t really matter. Because at its heart, this is a show about a loyal and loving little family held together by one person who likes to solve crimes, who can’t help from getting involved in other people’s lives, who fancies himself a sociopath and yet so clearly is not.
All my fears about Sherlock inevitably sitting alone in the dark in Baker Street while Mary and John and everybody else fucks off and does whatever without him? Dashed. 221B has never been fuller than that last scene there, with Molly and her fiancé, John, Mary, Lestrade, and Mrs. Hudson, all there as a team for Sherlock. Even Sherlock’s parents (played by Benedict’s real parents, lol) came to visit him. Welcome back.
EDIT: In short, read this review by the masterful earlgreytea68. It’s everything I wanted to say but so much more perfect. I also love this review by pennswoods and this review by raina-at. And ivyblossom has some lovely words on the fandom representations in this brilliant meta.
Happy New Year’s, everyone.