Sherlock Reactions: The Reichenbach Fall

My reaction to the third episode of Sherlock, split into two sections for both before and after seeing the episode. Remember, this reaction will be spoilerific, so if you haven't seen the episode yet I'd suggest reading my Sherlock 2-Season Review instead. You can also read my reactions for A Scandal in Belgravia and The Hounds of Baskerville.

BEFORE

After looking up gifs on Tumblr for the previous episode, The Hounds of Baskerville, I found a lot of people who were exceptionally anxious the third episode, The Reichenbach Fall. As I've probably mentioned before, I'm not really familiar with the original stories, so while I could tell that this was more than just the average 'season finale' anxiety, I wasn't sure what the cause was.

It didn't take too much research to find out that Reichenbach Falls is the location where Sir Arthur Conan Doyle pushed Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty over a cliff to their death. Sherlock fans, then, are reasonably anxious that this episode might spell the end for both the character and the series. This anxiety is well founded for multiple reasons:
1 - British televisions series, I've noticed, have a tendency to end early, despite high ratings. This would never fly in America, where we milk the plot out of every show until ratings finally drop and the show is canceled. This means that British shows tend to have higher quality, but seemingly no guaranteed new seasons.
2 - Steven Moffat, who co-created the modernized Sherlock, seems to be known for his more daring plot moves. He wrote all the darker, 'gritter' episodes of Davies' Doctor Who, and it never seems beyond him to kill off a major character, no matter what color their shirt is.

I don't actually think Moffat will kill off his series here, however, mainly because Conan Doyle himself was unable to put his famous detective down. Fan outcry at the time (1893) forced Conan Doyle to bring Sherlock Holmes back, using Watson's limited storytelling perspective as a loop-hole. While I wouldn't put it past Moffat to actually do the deed and kill Sherlock off, it seems highly more likely that he'll just do what the original character did, and fake his death. This doesn't mean that Moffat wont try to convince us otherwise, however.

AFTER

So I'm a bit emotionally drained at the moment.

I'm writing this directly after seeing the episode, and on the one hand that means this episode is still really fresh in my mind, and on the other hand that means I'm a bit emotionally drained, and will probably remain so for quite a while. That's the price for investing in quality fiction.

First I want to mention that I was kind of expecting Irene Adler to at least make an appearance, and was surprised that she didn't. I guess this makes sense, as she originally only appeared in the one Conan Doyle story, A Scandal in Bohemia, but I'm just going to assume Moffat and Gatiss will be making more use out of her in the next season.

One person did come back, contrary to expectation: Anderson. He showed up in A Study in Pink and despite being a character everyone loved to hate, he hadn't made an appearance since then. I would say it was a joy to see him again, but I'd be lying; as per his character requirements, he showed up and I already wanted him to go away. Hopefully we'll get even more of him next season.

We know we're getting a third season because Steven Moffat himself tweeted about it after the episode aired. Moffat also trolled his twitter followers quite a bit before the episode came out, saying things like "Two tributes to the past, in tonight's Sherlock. True devotees will spot them. THROUGH THEIR TEARS!!!" and "Not long now! Remember it's just a TV show. Only the emotional damage is real," after posting a picture of two kittens "to help you through the night."

I can now confidently say that Moffat has great PR.

Some of my favorite moments, or moments that I just want to point out:

-Sherlock getting the hat as a gift from Lestrade and the other detectives. I just think it's great to see Sherlock disliking his own hat, especially since the audience and everyone else loves it so much.

-Introducing the Diogenes Club. Luckily someone on Tumblr managed to inform me on the subject before this episode aired, so I was able to have a bit of background knowledge before seeing the club formally introduced to the series. I love the quirky nature of this place, even if it plays such a small role in the narrative. The Diogenes Club also made a brief appearance in The Hounds of Baskerville, when Mycroft texts Sherlock to find out what's going on, even though we know he would rather call.

-Katherine Parkinson playing the investigative reporter stalking trying to question Sherlock. I just started watching The IT Crowd this last month so I recognized her voice right away. There was nothing totally exceptional about her character here, I was just excited to see her.

-Favorite quote: "Listen, I'm not actually that angry." I've been choosing a favorite quote from every episode so far, but this time it was a bit harder. I finally decided on this because of how funny it was as comic relief during a scene that I was still crying over.

At this point there's nothing left to talk about except for how emotional this episode was. I went in knowing that Sherlock would live (not just for the reasons above, but because I happened to see Moffat's tweet confirming the third season), yet I still ended up crying during the scene with John and Sherlock's final conversation.

Of course I was crying, though; so was Sherlock. That just about broke my heart, already tender after having to watch John at the beginning of the episode unable to speak through his emotion. Though I knew he wasn't really going to die, the fact that Sherlock was willing to, well, if not exactly die for his friends then at least risk his life pretending to die, was heart-wrenching, especially as he spends those last moments trying to convince John that it was all a lie.

I consoled myself during those moments by reminding myself that we still didn't know what Molly was doing. Molly in this episode was amazing; there aren't even words. I may have demoted her last week to 'Major Reoccurring Character' and I'm standing by that, but she is definitely one of my favorite characters, and it was wonderful seeing her in this episode speaking candidly, knowing exactly what it was Sherlock needed at those moments.

We can reasonably assume Sherlock needed Molly to help fake his death, but I was sad that we never got to see what exactly it was she ended up doing. However, I was primarily distressed that the episode would end with John never learning that Sherlock was indeed alive; this means that John will have to spend the entire season break thinking Sherlock is really dead (though the time in-universe will probably be much less).

This year's cliff-hanger was much worse than last season's cliff-hanger, if only by a small thread. I'm probably going to see these episodes again several times over before season 3 starts, and the show writers are going to have a tough time topping themselves.

I'm also wondering what they're going to do now that creepy Moriarty has offed himself. Most Sherlock Holmes adaptations portray Moriarty as the primary antagonist, though he only directly appeared in the one Conan Doyle story, so I think it'll be a bit strange having another enemy show up and try to appear more difficult to beat. I have a hard time believing they'll manage to be creepier (and there is the smallest chance that 'Jim from IT' will end up not being the real Moriarty).