Archive for Sherlock

Sherlock 2.3: The most ambitious 30 minutes on television

Posted in Reviews, TV with tags , , , , , , on May 21, 2012 by Sarah

The Cliffhanger from Hell discussion goes here. And also, SPOILERS.

Sherlock’s second season wraps up with “The Final Problem”, rewritten as “The Reichenbach Fall” by Steve Thompson (who also wrote “The Blind Banker”) and as directed by Toby Haynes (veteran of Doctor Who and Wallander). It’s a clever title—fans of Arthur Conan Doyle will recognize the name as the location where Sherlock Holmes met his fate with his arch-nemesis James Moriarty, but if you hadn’t read the stories it wouldn’t give anything away. For me, as a reader of the ACD books, I knew immediately what this episode would bring, and yet I was still totally floored by the final half-hour of the episode.

This is easily the best episode of the six in the series so far. As good as this series is in general, this episode is nothing short of astonishing in specific. Everything is working at maximum capacity, with a special nod to the beautiful original scoring provided by David Arnold and Michael Price, and Doug Sinclair and his sound team for putting together one of the best give-and-take sequences between music, silence and sound at Sherlock’s climactic moment. Like, I want to hug everyone who worked on this episode for creating something so perfect (they get hugs along with everyone involved with Buffy’s “The Body” and “Hush”, the only other television episodes that come close to this level of ambition and execution).

I define ambitious TV as anything that has no way out but one (if any at all—“The Body” had no out as Buffy’s mother was always going to be dead). The reason The Sopranos finale or anything on The Wire or Justified, or even Game of Thrones, can’t match what Sherlock (and Buffy before it) does is because there is always a multiple-choice solution to any problem presented. It’s either this or that, or even another thing (and this isn’t to knock those other shows—they’re all really excellent TV). But Sherlock has left us with the cliffhanger from hell, a problem already solved that we must unwind to understand, and there is only one, very specific solution. We’re left trying to outguess Sherlock Holmes himself and that is just not going to happen. It’s brilliant.

What bad can be said about this episode? Nothing. I’ve got no complaints. I can’t think of one thing that could be bettered. And when it comes to the acting, it’s a fucking masterclass from every participant. I cannot overstate what a monster talent Benedict Cumberbatch is—he’s a legit screen tyrant—and this episode is the climax of Sherlock’s undoing. But for all that, Martin Freeman is so good that I would hand him all the awards for supporting actor for this episode. He’s the emotional core of the show and Watson’s scenes with Mycroft (Mark Gatiss) are some of the most satisfying in the series yet. And even still, between those two, Andrew Scott manages to make an enormous impression as Moriarty. I didn’t like his take on Moriarty at first; I thought him too nutty and weird to be a credible criminal mastermind. But the turn he takes in “Reichenbach” is startling, revealing the true sinister nature underneath the campy attitude. When Sherlock calls Moriarty a spider and Moriarty just sneers at him—that pretty much captures Moriarty’s essence.

I’ve dubbed season two the “tearing down of Sherlock” and after the mistakes of “A Scandal in Belgravia” and the self-doubt of “The Hound of Baskerville”, “Reichenbach” shows us the world around Sherlock coming down as others begin to doubt him. The episode starts with an emotionally devastating moment with Dr. Watson, as he struggles to say the words out loud—Sherlock Holmes is dead. We then skip back in time to see how, over three months, Moriarty unravels Sherlock’s life. It’s Moriarty’s “final problem” and his best-laid plan, and is especially topical in the UK as it involves the participation of the tabloid press and less-than-stellar sources. The Macguffin of the episode is an all-access computer code that allows Moriarty to break into anything he wants, and the way that thread is resolved is especially satisfying for anyone who has ever been annoyed at how easy film technology makes hacking look. Moriarty uses the code to simultaneously break into the Tower of London, the Bank of England and Pentonville Prison, but that isn’t the most important case. No, that goes to the kidnapping of a pair of children belonging to the ambassador to the US. It’s that case, solved off a single footprint Sherlock uncovers, that gives Sergeant Donovan the opportunity to finally one-up Sherlock.

Everyone is hung up on the cliffhanger and trying to solve it, but I refuse to get sucked into that, simply because I know I won’t figure it out. Instead, I’m stuck on trying to figure out what Sherlock knew when. As Sherlock’s world begins collapsing, Molly Hooper (Loo Brealey) identifies his sense of impending doom, so it would seem that Sherlock was preparing for the worst days before his confrontation with Moriarty on the St. Bart’s roof. But when he does finally square off with Moriarty, when they each make their final play, I can’t tell if Sherlock is faking his confusion or not. Does he really think the computer key is real, or is he playing Moriarty the whole time? I’m inclined to think he really did think the computer key was the solution, and that he didn’t really accept the inevitably of having to jump until Moriarty killed himself (and yes, I do think he’s really dead). It’s at that moment that Sherlock seems to come really undone, as if he’s run through all his options and possibilities only to arrive at the least-desired outcome.

And what an outcome it is. The phone call with Watson, Watson’s words at Sherlock’s grave, and that last image of Sherlock looking over the cemetery—it’s an emotional triple-strike. The episode is pitch-perfect throughout, with tension building steadily as more and more of Moriarty’s plan is unveiled and Sherlock pieces together the web closing in around him. As good as the whole episode is, the final half-hour is stunning. Every second of seasons one and two has built toward these thirty minutes and the payoff is enormous. Moriarty’s manic behavior on the roof, the range of subtle facial reactions and visible thinking Sherlock goes through, and (my favorite) Watson’s confrontation with Mycroft—it’s just gorgeous television. This is go big or go home TV, and that the technical and craft elements match the writing and acting so beautifully only makes it better. Not one thing was left undone in this episode.

Sherlock season two ends with an emotional sucker punch on top of an episode that was a series of shocks and surprises. We’ve been posed a problem—the real final problem—of trying to figure out how Sherlock survived the fall. At least we have a long time to work it out. Because season three won’t air until the latter half of 2013.

TORTURE.

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Sherlock 2.2: The Hounds of Baskerville

Posted in Reviews, TV with tags , , , , , , on May 14, 2012 by Sarah

In season one of Sherlock, the second of the three episodes, “The Blind Banker”, was generally considered the weakest of the three. I think the same goes for season two. “The Hounds of Baskerville”, an update of Arthur Conan Doyle’s most famous Holmes story, as written by series co-creator and the man behind Mycroft, Mark Gatiss, is the weakest link. To be fair to both “Banker” and “Hounds”, though, saying one is the weakest episode of Sherlock is like saying that Henry VIII is Shakespeare’s worst play—it’s still better than 98% of all the things in the world. And really, what drags down “Hounds” is not any substantial misfire in Gatiss’ script and it is certainly not anything to do with the actors or even Paul McGuigan’s direction, it’s more a matter of tone and one stupefyingly bad decision.

I actually really like this episode. Sherlock season two is super depressing, and “Hounds” is a nice respite between two darker, weightier episodes (“Banker” occupied the same spot in season one). It reminds me of a quote about Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata—when referencing the sweeter, lighter second movement, one critic described it as a “flower betwixt two abysses”. That’s “Hounds”—a flower between two abysses. This is part of why I think it, and “Banker”, draws some of the criticism aimed their way. The stakes in “Hounds” are not nearly as high as they were in “Belgravia” and they’re not even remotely close to what goes on in the finale, “The Reichenbach Fall”. There is a real, playful humor throughout Sherlock but it’s mostly gallows humor (“We can’t giggle, it’s a crime scene!”). But in “Hounds”, when there are no stakes beyond Sherlock inevitably solving the case, the humor plays off much lighter and, in a contextual sense, less urgent. That lack of urgency makes it feel not as important, not as vital to the ongoing story, and any kind of lowering of those stakes feels like a step back. Case in point: The most memorable, impactful moment of the episode is at the very end and does not feature Sherlock or John, but Moriarty. Because Sherlock and John are off in the country having a holiday while Moriarty is actually doing something to advance the larger plot.

Back to me liking this episode. My favorite stuff in Sherlock, I have decided, comes down to two things. 1) Sherlock and John being dudebros, and 2) the last half-hour of “Reichenbach” (OMG next Sunday, get here already!). Sherlock and John are really, really good dudebros. Sherlock is unapologetically a world of men, and Sherlock and John are both Very Manly Men. John’s masculinity is obvious—he’s a soldier and a doctor and a shot-caller and he’s a dead shot with his illegal firearm, because that’s how Dr. Watson rolls. With illegal firearms. Sherlock is, on the surface, the more effete of the two men. He’s a snazzy dresser (the impact of series costume designer Sarah Arthur’s work in conjunction with Savile Row label Spencer Hart for Sherlock’s bespoke look has had on menswear cannot be understated), he’s posh and snobby, and, on the surface, a bit of a ponce. But then Sherlock is also deadly in hand-to-hand combat and well-versed with a variety of weapons, and then there’s that whole thing where he solves crimes for fun. They’re a regular couple of alphas.

So it’s nice to see the dynamic of their friendship. And yes, I do think they’re just friends. I could write a whole other treatise on the Holmes/Watson relationship (should I? Would you care?), but for the purposes of the BBC show, I don’t think this is an undercover lovers situation, but really just a very deep friendship between two straight dudes. And “Hounds” is all about that friendship and the various ways it gets tested, most of which is Sherlock’s doing. The story revolves around Henry Knight, a young man who is haunted by the violent death of his father twenty years before. Sherlock is in a state and in desperate need of a good case, which Henry’s story about a monstrous hound in the moors of Devon turns out to be. The spin here is nice—instead of actual hounds Henry’s experiences tie into the nearby Army weapons testing site at Baskerville. It’s a solid plot that links to a seemingly-innocuous case enquiry from the beginning of the episode.

The purpose, though, is to get Sherlock and John out of London and in the English countryside so that tall Benedict Cumberbatch in his swirly coat with his cheekbones and windswept hair can be framed against a backdrop of rocky hillsides and wild blue skies. It seems inevitable that he will one day interpret Heathcliff for us. Showing continued awareness of Cumberbatch’s position as a Very Desirable Man, this episode has a great line about Sherlock’s move with his coat collar, delivered with just the right touch of exasperation by John: “You being all mysterious with your cheekbones, and turning your coat collar up so you look cool.” (This episode also has one of my favorite dialogue exchanges, between John and Lestrade about whatever conditions Sherlock may or may not have. Gatiss is a deft hand with one-liners.) The point of this episode feels less about solving the case—thus, those decreased stakes—and more about giving us some time to live with John and Sherlock.

There is, however, a darker aspect. In my review of “Belgravia” I said that season two is all about tearing down Sherlock. The first episode shows us Sherlock making bad decisions and mistakes, and this episode introduces Sherlock’s doubt into the scenario. The goings-on at Baskerville force Sherlock to confront the notion that he might not be as reliable as he thinks he is. He can’t trust his own observations and he reacts with cagey fury, and it’s quite shocking to see him so undone. Ultimately, of course, he pulls himself together and solves the case but the bitter taint is there—Sherlock has doubted himself. It’s a subtle stroke but that the doubt comes from the idea that perception and reality are two different things ties in neatly with “The Reichenbach Fall”, which explodes that in the worst way possible. Truly, after seeing “Reichenbach”, go back and watch “Belgravia” and “Hound” and see all the ways the events in “Reichenbach” are foreshadowed. It’s quite brilliant.

And now for that stupefyingly bad decision: The CGI dog at the end of the episode. It is RIDICULOUS. It’s terrible, terrible CGI and is so laughable that it ruins what is otherwise a tense and creepy denouement. This is what really puts “Hounds” on the back foot with me. It’s just such a horrifying choice, when there are a lot of practical effects that would have not only worked better, but also enhanced the horror-movie vibe working throughout the episode. If I never see SFX that shitty in Sherlock again, it will be too soon. Overall, though, “Hounds” is a nice respite before going into the TOTAL HEARTFAIL of “The Reichenbach Fall”, and the scenes of John and Sherlock palling around are always fun.

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Sherlock 2.1: A Scandal in Belgravia

Posted in Reviews, TV with tags , , , , , , on May 8, 2012 by Sarah

First and foremost let me express my deep disappointment with whoever made the call to edit Sherlock for American television. Not only is it supremely annoying to not receive the same program as was originally aired, but in this day and age, when everything is online, you simply can’t do that kind of thing without getting caught out and made to look stupid. There’s no good reason for that kind of tampering. It bothers me because one of the cuts removed a key character moment. The scenes between John and Sherlock with the ashtray, while funny, really don’t have anything to do with the plot, but the scene between Mycroft and Sherlock when Sherlock says, “Sex doesn’t alarm me,” and Mycroft responds, “How would you know?” not only illuminates something about Sherlock, but about his relationship with Mycroft. It’s a key moment and I cannot believe it was cut.  Whatever, that happened and it’s shitty, and now let’s talk about Sherlock season two, episode one.

I’m saving the particular discussion about Irene Adler for its own post because she is a monster to deal with. For the purposes of this review, I’ll go with—I like the basic idea of the Irene Adler series creators Steven Moffat, who also wrote this episode, and Mark Gatiss developed. They present her as a dominatrix who keeps incriminating photos on her cell phone as a means of insurance. That works. “A Scandal in Belgravia” is an update of one of Arthur Conan Doyle’s best Holmes short stories (in fact, season two adapts the only Holmes stories really worth reading), “A Scandal in Bohemia”, in which Sherlock matches wits with a clever woman of ambiguous morals, Irene Adler. Here, Adler is decidedly more amoral than Doyle’s original, but she retains all of the wit and cunning that are the trademarks of “the woman”. And Adler is well cast, played by Lara Pulver (True Blood’s Claudine), who is beautiful in a sharp, cutting kind of way. She gives Adler a lot of verve and is sexy without being base. She also manages not to get swallowed up by series star Benedict Cumberbatch, which is no mean feat.

The episode picks up immediately where season one’s cliffhanger ended, with Moriarty cornering Sherlock and John at the swimming pool, surrounded by snipers and a bomb vest. We don’t get much Moriarty in this episode, but the way he hisses “If you don’t have it, I’ll make you into shoes,” as he exits the scene is enough of a moment. I have a lot to say about Andrew Scott’s (John Adams) take on Moriarty but I’ll save it for “The Reichenbach Fall”. That’s his show, after all. I found the first act of this episode to be a little rocky. Adler’s introduction into Sherlock’s life is shoe-horned in among montages and time lapses depicting Sherlock’s rise as an internet phenomenon thanks to John Watson’s (Martin Freeman) blog. I think the main issue is simply one of rhythm. Adler is introduced, gets the better of Sherlock, and then disappears and we go through the time jump. The phone call with Moriarty, though, is enough of a setup for her, and I think it would have worked better, rhythmically, if Adler and Sherlock’s confrontation wasn’t halved but was just one crazy week. Splitting the timing gave the first act a fits-and-starts feel.

But it’s not the end of the world because nearly everything else in this episode is firing on all cylinders (what isn’t working pertains to Adler and will be addressed separately). Season one established Sherlock as a genius and near-bulletproof crime fighter. He’s a very contained man of few weaknesses.  Season two is all about finding the few chinks in his armor and prying until everything falls apart. “Belgravia” is the first step down that road as it’s the first time we see Sherlock make a real, grievous error. To be fair to him, he does have plenty of moments where he’s cool and in charge—and one painful moment where he’s absolutely awful to timid Molly Hooper (Loo Brealey, Bleak House). Cumberbatch manages to bring even more style to Sherlock and swings easily between Holmes’ manic moments and his periods of ironclad control. There’s a comfort he has in this role that didn’t exist in season one, a confidence probably borne of the widespread approval he received after the first series (there’s a fun motif throughout the episode playing on his newly-minted status as a thinking woman’s sex symbol—“brainy is the new sexy”). He pushes Sherlock’s mood swings harder, infuses his moments of calculation with more ice, and when he does take that misstep with Adler, his surprise and disbelief would be funny if you didn’t also see how keenly he felt the error.

Freeman, too, displays an increased ease of action and presence as John. He won a BAFTA for his work in series one and it’s clear why—in the face of Cumberbatch’s looming screen tyrant tendencies, Freeman more than holds his own. To American audiences he’s best known as a comedic actor—“that guy from The Office” or “the naked guy in Love Actually”—so his performance in the first season was quite shocking. Who knew Martin Freeman was THAT good of an actor? And now that I am expecting that level of work from him, he doesn’t disappoint. He’s a brilliant foil for Sherlock, and I am amazed every time I watch this show that he is able to go toe-to-toe with Cumberbatch and come out looking like an equal. No one else on the show quite manages that.

The episode ends on quite a dark note. Season one was not particularly dark, even when we got our first glimpse of Moriarty. But “Belgravia” puts us on a darker path, entering the forest of Sherlock’s destruction. It’s a solid episode even if I’m not wildly in love with Adler, and the pacing problems at the beginning are overcome by the otherwise excellent direction from Paul McGuigan (responsible for season one’s “A Study in Pink” and “The Great Game”). There is a lot of clever foreshadowing built in that will come to fruition in “The Reichenbach Fall”, which makes this episode worth revisiting after watching that one. Overall, “Belgravia” proves that series one of Sherlock was not a fluke and that this really is exceptional television, anchored by Cumberbatch and Freeman, who have never been better.

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Sherlock goes from interest to obsession with the cliffhanger from hell

Posted in TV with tags , , , , on January 26, 2012 by Sarah

SPOILERY SPOILERS THAT WILL SPOIL EVERYTHING.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Since I could go on and on about Sherlock at this point, I’ve decided the best way to handle the newly-attained crushing obsession I have is to limit this discussion to season two as a whole, and when it airs in North America in the summer, I’ll recap each episode so we can hash over every tiny detail and electrically hug one another to get through what could be a very long wait for season 3. In the meantime, though, we have plenty to talk about. For instance, this:

Mycroft is such an asshole

In the lore of Sherlock Holmes, older brother Mycroft is even more brilliant than Sherlock but he doesn’t like “legwork” (which he acknowledged in “The Great Game” with the line, “It involves legwork”). Arthur Conan Doyle never goes in depth about the Holmes boys’ childhood and through the various iterations of Sherlock Holmes over the years, Mycroft, like Lestrade, is often re-imagined since his original character is merely sketched in. Personally, the television Mycroft is my favorite. Played by series co-creator Mark Gatiss, he’s dapper and posh and a huge snob and the most condescending bastard you’ll meet this side of Sherlock himself. I also like that they’ve made him a grey eminence in the British government—of course Mycroft would be a behind-the-scenes king maker. When he was first introduced, I thought yes, this is PRECISELY what a modern-day Mycroft would be doing.

But god, do we hate Mycroft! I’ve seen some people bitching about his shocking error in telling Moriarty Sherlock’s actual history, saying it was out of character, but if you think about it, it actually makes sense. Mycroft is kinda sorta likeable at times, such as when he conspires with Watson to take care of Sherlock after Irene Adler’s “death”, but on the whole, I don’t like him. Further, I don’t think we’re supposed to like him all that much. Sherlock is a grown man—in his THIRTIES—who is capable of taking care of himself (despite constantly making Watson and Mrs. Hudson do minor tasks for him—that’s just laziness). Yet Mycroft consistently talks down to Sherlock, condescends to him, belittles his efforts solving crimes, many of which are police cases, and tries to manage Sherlock’s life in a way that suggests Mycroft doesn’t think much of his brother’s decisions.

We get two prime examples of just how poorly Mycroft rates Sherlock in the season two opener, “A Scandal in Belgravia”. Yes, he and his palace flunkies call Sherlock to help with Irene Adler, but I got the feeling that Mycroft only did that because he didn’t want to involve any official personnel in the delicate matter of a royal family member caught in a sex scandal (who do you suppose they were alluding to?), or call the police for the same reason. Mycroft wanted to keep the Adler Situation in house, so to speak, but couldn’t actually use anyone from his house. So he calls Sherlock. But as the situation spirals out of control, he ends up apologizing to Sherlock for putting him in the way of Adler, having underestimated the effect a sexy dominatrix would have on his asexual brother.

And that’s the second point when we see Mycroft’s disparaging treatment of Sherlock. At the beginning of the episode Sherlock says, “Sex doesn’t intimidate me,” and Mycroft responds, “How would you know?” Next time you watch this episode, pause on Sherlock’s face. He isn’t mad at Mycroft for saying that, he’s HURT. It’s a split-second reaction from Benedict Cumberbatch (who, it cannot be said enough, is not only one of the best actors out there, but is PHENOMENAL as Sherlock) and it’s clearly a look of deep hurt and mortification, that Mycroft would make such a casual, mean-spirited remark about something so private to Sherlock. Although, it did solve the mystery of Sherlock’s sexuality. He’s a virgin! Which is kind of funny, admit it. The way Cumberbatch plays Sherlock, it easily could have gone the other way and he’d be a closet sex freak. But the virgin route allows for Sherlock to be a bit vulnerable. He can say it doesn’t intimidate him, but obviously something about sex scares him or he wouldn’t have blocked it out of his life entirely (readers of the ACD books probably have an inkling as to why Sherlock would choose not to have sex). Also, it gave us this:

Since Mycroft has already underestimated Sherlock and the kind of people that are drawn to him once with the Adler Situation, should it really be such a surprise that he’d underestimate Moriarty, too? Mycroft doesn’t take Sherlock seriously, so why should he take the obvious nutter who’s fixated on him seriously? He doesn’t, not really, which is why he spills his guts about Sherlock, giving Moriarty all the ammunition he’ll need to take him down. Watson’s disbelief at this betrayal is palpable (and beautifully acted by Martin Freeman) but there’s also an edge of frustrated anger, a subtext of, why don’t you understand how serious this all is. One thing I’m really looking forward to in season 3 is how Mycroft and Sherlock’s relationship changes in the wake of Mycroft’s staggering stupidity.

Moriarty’s plan is totally full of holes

“Unhinged” is not how Moriarty is usually described. But as written for the 21st century and as played by Andrew Scott, Moriarty is the Joker to Sherlock’s Batman. He’s the kind of person who just wants to watch the world burn. Color me shocked that there are people—and not an insignificant number of them—who don’t like the Moriarty in Sherlock. At first, I admit, I didn’t really understand the need for such a fey, loony take on Moriarty. But as “The Reichenbach Fall” played out, it became clear that Moriarty had to be nuts. Crazy like a fox, certainly, but also willing to blow his brains out in order to best Sherlock. He has to be willing to go to those lengths and only a crazy person could go there. Therefore, Moriarty + Batshit Insane = Perfectly Acceptable.

Obviously once the shock wore off from the ending of the final episode, “The Reichenbach Fall”, I began to think over how Sherlock’s life unraveled at the hands of Moriarty and I quickly realized that Moriarty’s entire plot was full of huge, gaping holes. I’m sure you did, too. There are big logic gaps, not the least of which is: If Richard Brook was a television presenter, why didn’t anyone recognize him at his trial? Further, since Sherlock’s motives are now in question, at some point Scotland Yard will have to review all the cases he worked on and as they clear the cases, surely someone would say, “Hey, maybe Sherlock wasn’t full of shit after all.” And let’s not forget about Moriarty’s body on the same rooftop from which Sherlock jumped. Eventually someone’s going to find it and wonder what the hell happened. In fact, the more you think over Moriarty’s plan, the more you realize it’s a house of cards. It doesn’t hold up at all.

But then, it doesn’t have to. Moriarty’s goal wasn’t just the destruction of Sherlock’s reputation; it was to get Sherlock to jump off that rooftop. By destroying his reputation, he makes the fact of Sherlock’s suicide believable. Character assassination was the means, not the end. But that’s what made Moriarty’s plan so brilliant. It didn’t have to hold together, it only had to work. And it did work, because Sherlock’s besetting sin is vanity and essentially Moriarty got to him by turning his vanity against him. It works really well in the short term but with even a minimal-effort second look it falls apart quickly. I’ve seen some people dismiss this as poor plotting but I think they’re missing the elegance of Moriarty’s thinking. How much worse will those who turned against Sherlock feel when they realize they fell for a really stupid story? Moriarty didn’t just succeed in getting rid of Sherlock—he left those who knew him with a nasty mix of guilt and grief as a bonus. And yes, I think Moriarty is dead for realsies. He dies in the ACD stories and Moffat and Gatiss are pretty loyal to that framework. Also, if you look, you can see a bit of brain matter in the blood pool. Gross, but effective.

How did he DO that

So who else was a crying mess at the end of “The Reichenbach Fall”? Having read the ACD stories, when I saw the title of the episode I knew something like that was coming, but I still wasn’t ready for the phone call between Sherlock and Watson, or Watson’s speech at Sherlock’s grave. And then that final shot of Sherlock—I literally gasped and said “what the fuck” out loud. And then I promptly began trawling the internets for theories and speculation on just how Sherlock faked his death. Theories range from the simple—he landed in the laundry truck—to the complex—there’s a clone! I’m afraid to speculate fully because we’ve been left with the challenge of trying to out-guess Sherlock Holmes and I mean, COME ON.

I do think that the solution to Sherlock’s riddle is both simpler and more complex than any theory I’ve heard so far. I definitely think that truck was involved, and the guy who knocked down Watson clearly did that on purpose, to delay him. Sherlock was adamant that Watson stay in a particular place to watch him jump, that’s going to matter. I don’t think Mycroft was in on it, though. No real reason, except he’s a giant asshole who sold out his brother. I think Molly is the only person who knows the truth about what Sherlock did. And no, I don’t think there was ever any kind of body switch. Sherlock jumped, Sherlock fell, Sherlock landed, Sherlock was on the stretcher. The only question is how did he not die?

The thing I can’t get over is why he told Watson he’d been faking all along on the phone at the end. What point did that serve? And he made sure to toss the phone on the roof before he jumped. To preserve it? THIS IS THE CLIFFHANGER FROM HELL. And what did Molly do? (OMG Molly. How much do we love her?! I wanted to punch Sherlock in the face in “Scandal” when he humiliated Molly at the Christmas party, but he made up for that and every other slight he’s dealt her when he turned to her for help.) The obvious answer is that she faked a death certificate for him and helped him out of the hospital, but she’s the only person he trusted to know what he was doing before he went to the roof to meet Moriarty. The secrets Molly must be keeping…

We never see Molly after that, which I put down to it being too revealing of Sherlock’s plan, but we also never saw Lestrade, except for a brief glimpse from the assassin’s point of view. His faith in Sherlock was badly shaken but ultimately, even though he had to turn him in, Lestrade still believed in Sherlock. And it was kind of sweet, in a backwards way, that Moriarty identified Lestrade as a friend of Sherlock’s. Their relationship definitely warmed up throughout season two, and Lestrade got one of the best lines in the series: “That fits with his…Asperger’s?” Makes me wonder how much Lestrade will have to do with restoring Sherlock’s reputation. Also makes me wonder if the phone wasn’t left more for Lestrade than for Watson. I can’t let the phone go—he threw it so deliberately. And WHY did he lie to Watson at the end? That bugs me more than thinking about how he survived the fall.

And now we wait

Ugh. Season three is at least a year away, the emphasis on “at least”. Cumberbatch and Freeman are both extremely busy and shooting season two was difficult enough, sandwiched in between filming periods for The Hobbit. They did film some scenes while working on “Reichenbach”, though, which was probably done for continuity’s sake (Sherlock’s reveal, perhaps?). So I suspect season three will open as two did, by picking immediately where we left off then skipping ahead in time. But the wait. Dear lord, THE WAIT. Nothing to do but stand around, speculating. And waiting.

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