![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fluffyllamaI was going to put this behind separate cuts, but since the cut text would be spoilery I gave up on that. I imagine people are more concerned about spoilers with this ep, at least about certain things.
I have lots of questions as well, like 'how much does Mycroft know?' and observations like 'just how cool was John Having Words with Mycroft?' More urgently, I have the need to wallow in another 50 rewatches of this episode interspersed with every fic in the world that shows me What Happens Next. Seriously, there cannot be enough fic. GIMME NOW. And although I want massive, massive amounts of How ******** Gets Back to **** and There is Lots of Shouting Followed by Enthusiastic Sex fic (*'s there to make it hopefully non-spoilery enough on the important parts), I want everything else too. I want to know what happens to everyone.
Randomly, I also like it when you can see a writer's odd little favourite devices / plot whatevers showing up. Clearly this one likes his graffiti and messages, and I liked them here too.
Please excuse me if these thoughts are a bit jumbled – if you saw my notes you'd realise this is a big improvement. Most of it is probably blindingly obvious, but as long as it vaguely makes sense I'm happy ;-)
Anyway, on to The Reichenbach Fall, with some stuff about the series as a whole. Pretty much continues from my 2.01 post.
Now that we've had our three episodes for S2 (wah!), a few things are obvious. Sherlock has changed. Moriarty had to die. And Moriarty really must be dead, whether we want him to be or not.
In the first series, Moriarty is the darker reflection of Sherlock. We've already talked about A Scandal in Belgravia presenting Irene as his direct reflection instead (*1), and wondered if Moriarty was being shifted to be more Mycroft's opposite instead. There's some support for that, with their scope being comparatively broad and their connection that is revealed, but it's incidental, I think.
The main thing is that Sherlock is the one who has shifted: he's moved along the scale from 'monster' to just a bit closer to 'human'.
I know those are loaded terms, I'm just using them in a very broad sense. I have to say that I don't think any of the terms thrown around with abandon in the show, fics or fandom at large, from sociopath down, are remotely applicable to Sherlock (*2). John might be where my heart lies, but I love Sherlock too, no less in S1 than in S2. One of the reasons John Watson is so fascinating to me is to see what it takes to not just put up with but genuinely accept, like and admire someone who is so infuriating and difficult to get to know. I think most of us want to know why people love us at some point, and this is an interesting way to have perspective on what makes a relationship work – Sherlock may have even less understanding of why people care about him than the average person does, but love is a mystery to everyone to some extent, not just him.
I don't think there's anything wrong with Sherlock, even if he'd like there to be a nice neat box he can shove it into as much as anyone else. For me he's just too clever for his own good and poorly socialised, because people hate smartarses. You all know this, because my flist is full of intelligent people, and if you come from a background where that doesn't fit you know how unpleasant it can be. Sherlock might be cleverer than us, but the difference is probably enough to create the same effect. He rejects people, but I think other people rejected him first. It's not woobiefication, it's a fact. People who are different are very often ostracised, and there's a lot of anger in his contempt. One of the few things I actually liked (in a 'thought it was appropriate and telling' way, not the enjoyment way) in 1.02 was Sebastian's careless 'we hated him' line. Ouch.
Moriarty seems to have a similar lack of need for other human company as we see Sherlock demonstrate at the start of the series. Sherlock needs someone to help pay the rent, then be something of an audience, then help him prove a point, and so on, but he doesn't need more than that until he gets it. Sherlock doesn't expect to get anything, because I imagine people 1. sooner or later can't stand him if they spend much time with him and 2. then they leave. Mrs Hudson and random others owe him favours, that makes his life easier, makes it easier to concentrate on work. Molly provides him with bodies and god knows what else, and Lestrade with cases. They're all work connections and he doesn't need to attribute any personal feelings to continuing association with any of them.
But over the course of the series, those people around Sherlock have all contributed to the change in him just by being there, showing Sherlock all the ways he hurts them or causes them difficulties, but not walking away. They call him on it, but their friendship isn't truly conditional on him changing, and that's why it very gradually happens. Ultimatums would never get them anywhere, and we see Mycroft's pushing is the best way to make Sherlock do the exact opposite.
Irene is 99% self-interest but the tiny bit of human feeling she can't help having (whatever we want to call it, something is there on both sides) makes her less of a monster than Moriarty. It's a large part of her downfall in her final play against Mycroft, it leads to her having to give up her identity by finally and properly faking her own death, and it comes within a whisker of actually leading to her death. She's saved because despite her always amoral and sometimes downright cruel and callous words and actions, there is just enough similar sentiment in Sherlock that he will do what he knows she hoped and planned for, but couldn't guarantee – he'll go and save her. (*3)
And so of course, Sherlock is trapped not just by the fame he inevitably attracts but by fact that he has friends. He doesn't want them to die because of him, even if he wasn't sure they all were his friends until he was forced to confront the fact, whether here by Moriarty or by his thoughtless outburst in 2.02. He's become the kiss of death again, and it didn't matter when it was just some random assassins that were bumping each other off because of him (I'm considering this foreshadowing! And I can't help wondering if the two that died were meant to be going after Mycroft and Molly(*4)?), but it matters now. It almost kills him for real, because the way I see his fake death being set up (*5) , it was incredibly risky. It was nowhere near a sure thing. He might have come up with other ways to fake his death, but since we have to assume from what information we have to work with that it was down to Molly to pull most of it off, then he was saved because one of those friends he didn't know he had was still there despite the number of times he's been cruel, callous and thoughtless in his treatment of her.
So like Irene, he's both destroyed and saved by the little bit of sentiment he's allowed to creep in. I'm counting it as saving him because who's to say that the way he treated Molly at the Christmas party might not have been enough to make her walk away if he hadn't found it in him to realise what he'd done and apologise? I think that might have been too much even for her if he'd continued obliviously as he would very likely have done at one time. (All credit to Molly though, for not becoming bitter like Donovan and Anderson clearly are.) Even John – I don't think he would have walked if Sherlock hadn't corrected his stupid statement about not having friends, but it was a risk. It's the closest he's come to losing that friendship, a friendship with someone who he knows has killed for him and effectively offered to die for him. Without it he'd have a much harder time getting people to believe he was really dead.
Poor Sherlock, his life is so complicated with these pesky feelings.
But the feelings are why Moriarty had to try to destroy Sherlock, and it's also why Moriarty had to die -- Sherlock has outgrown him, effectively. I know Moriarty died in the books so it was to be expected anyway, but a lot has changed for this series, so it was a possibility he'd stick around. He's been such a unifying theme as a villain (playing a part in every episode, even if it was miniscule and last second in 2.02) that it would normally be a risk killing him off.
But he has to die here, because whatever Sherlock tries to convince him of on that roof, we know Sherlock isn't all that much like Moriarty any more. He's still capable of being callous and doing what he thinks is necessary at someone else's expense (as we saw in Hounds), and he's still got no time or consideration for people he doesn't know or have a reason to like or find useful (his reaction to Kitty in this episode), but he's moving ever further away from that detached attitude they used to share. Sherlock pulls out every bit of that contempt for other people he can still find in himself to convince Moriarty he could get what he wants out of him, and he's not lying – he still has plenty of that and he'd do whatever it took… anything except sacrifice the people who give a damn about him despite the crappy way Sherlock treats them.
I've seen some speculation that Moriarty isn't really dead, and from a general TV watching point of view that's fair enough. It's been done before, it'll be done again, and they might decide to go that way. There certainly wasn't any mention of another body shown, and I think it would have been if the body had been found. If someone jumps off a roof, you investigate the roof—someone worked fast to deal with that.
So no body, no death, it's fair enough and you could build a plausible scenario without any great effort. But I don't think Moriarty faked the shot. I believe he really is permanently dead, not because it couldn’t be done, but because given what I've described above, there's only one place he can be that makes any sense to me -- in Sherlock's grave. He's the dead and buried reflection of Sherlock-that-was, because that's the real death that happened here.
(*1) Yes, I still think she won. She may not win against Mycroft, but she wins in the subtler power struggle there with Sherlock, and I don't think I can be convinced otherwise!
(*2) This shift in Sherlock isn't to say that we'll necessarily see Irene again, though I've seen it suggested she might be back as an adversary. I think it's unlikely. As we all discussed talking about 2.01, she shows us as much about Sherlock as she does about herself, if not more, and it may well be that there's a line drawn under that as well by Sherlock's 'death'. And really, by what he's done, he moves considerably past Irene on the monster-to-human scale, so I'm not sure she would be as relevant in future. I rather like the idea of her being off having mad adventures with a string of female partner sidekicks for ever and ever until she's the most dangerous little old lady in the universe. Yay Irene. (Also, someone should write that.)
(*3) Though I do like that in the first series we got 'sociopath' and this time we get 'Asperger's' thrown out in the show, though I don't think we need to think either is accurate. Just another highlighting of the shift in Sherlock.
(*4) I could also go for the idea that Molly was overlooked by Moriarty the same way Sherlock overlooked her for so long, and that Mycroft wasn't targeted because Sherlock effectively rejected him in favour of his John and Mrs Hudson adopted family (as we were pretty clearly shown in AsiB.)
(*5) I'm going with the leap into the laundry truck and that really being him on the ground with fake blood. I think it works, but I'm interested in other plausible theories!
I have lots of questions as well, like 'how much does Mycroft know?' and observations like 'just how cool was John Having Words with Mycroft?' More urgently, I have the need to wallow in another 50 rewatches of this episode interspersed with every fic in the world that shows me What Happens Next. Seriously, there cannot be enough fic. GIMME NOW. And although I want massive, massive amounts of How ******** Gets Back to **** and There is Lots of Shouting Followed by Enthusiastic Sex fic (*'s there to make it hopefully non-spoilery enough on the important parts), I want everything else too. I want to know what happens to everyone.
Randomly, I also like it when you can see a writer's odd little favourite devices / plot whatevers showing up. Clearly this one likes his graffiti and messages, and I liked them here too.
Please excuse me if these thoughts are a bit jumbled – if you saw my notes you'd realise this is a big improvement. Most of it is probably blindingly obvious, but as long as it vaguely makes sense I'm happy ;-)
Anyway, on to The Reichenbach Fall, with some stuff about the series as a whole. Pretty much continues from my 2.01 post.
Now that we've had our three episodes for S2 (wah!), a few things are obvious. Sherlock has changed. Moriarty had to die. And Moriarty really must be dead, whether we want him to be or not.
In the first series, Moriarty is the darker reflection of Sherlock. We've already talked about A Scandal in Belgravia presenting Irene as his direct reflection instead (*1), and wondered if Moriarty was being shifted to be more Mycroft's opposite instead. There's some support for that, with their scope being comparatively broad and their connection that is revealed, but it's incidental, I think.
The main thing is that Sherlock is the one who has shifted: he's moved along the scale from 'monster' to just a bit closer to 'human'.
I know those are loaded terms, I'm just using them in a very broad sense. I have to say that I don't think any of the terms thrown around with abandon in the show, fics or fandom at large, from sociopath down, are remotely applicable to Sherlock (*2). John might be where my heart lies, but I love Sherlock too, no less in S1 than in S2. One of the reasons John Watson is so fascinating to me is to see what it takes to not just put up with but genuinely accept, like and admire someone who is so infuriating and difficult to get to know. I think most of us want to know why people love us at some point, and this is an interesting way to have perspective on what makes a relationship work – Sherlock may have even less understanding of why people care about him than the average person does, but love is a mystery to everyone to some extent, not just him.
I don't think there's anything wrong with Sherlock, even if he'd like there to be a nice neat box he can shove it into as much as anyone else. For me he's just too clever for his own good and poorly socialised, because people hate smartarses. You all know this, because my flist is full of intelligent people, and if you come from a background where that doesn't fit you know how unpleasant it can be. Sherlock might be cleverer than us, but the difference is probably enough to create the same effect. He rejects people, but I think other people rejected him first. It's not woobiefication, it's a fact. People who are different are very often ostracised, and there's a lot of anger in his contempt. One of the few things I actually liked (in a 'thought it was appropriate and telling' way, not the enjoyment way) in 1.02 was Sebastian's careless 'we hated him' line. Ouch.
Moriarty seems to have a similar lack of need for other human company as we see Sherlock demonstrate at the start of the series. Sherlock needs someone to help pay the rent, then be something of an audience, then help him prove a point, and so on, but he doesn't need more than that until he gets it. Sherlock doesn't expect to get anything, because I imagine people 1. sooner or later can't stand him if they spend much time with him and 2. then they leave. Mrs Hudson and random others owe him favours, that makes his life easier, makes it easier to concentrate on work. Molly provides him with bodies and god knows what else, and Lestrade with cases. They're all work connections and he doesn't need to attribute any personal feelings to continuing association with any of them.
But over the course of the series, those people around Sherlock have all contributed to the change in him just by being there, showing Sherlock all the ways he hurts them or causes them difficulties, but not walking away. They call him on it, but their friendship isn't truly conditional on him changing, and that's why it very gradually happens. Ultimatums would never get them anywhere, and we see Mycroft's pushing is the best way to make Sherlock do the exact opposite.
Irene is 99% self-interest but the tiny bit of human feeling she can't help having (whatever we want to call it, something is there on both sides) makes her less of a monster than Moriarty. It's a large part of her downfall in her final play against Mycroft, it leads to her having to give up her identity by finally and properly faking her own death, and it comes within a whisker of actually leading to her death. She's saved because despite her always amoral and sometimes downright cruel and callous words and actions, there is just enough similar sentiment in Sherlock that he will do what he knows she hoped and planned for, but couldn't guarantee – he'll go and save her. (*3)
And so of course, Sherlock is trapped not just by the fame he inevitably attracts but by fact that he has friends. He doesn't want them to die because of him, even if he wasn't sure they all were his friends until he was forced to confront the fact, whether here by Moriarty or by his thoughtless outburst in 2.02. He's become the kiss of death again, and it didn't matter when it was just some random assassins that were bumping each other off because of him (I'm considering this foreshadowing! And I can't help wondering if the two that died were meant to be going after Mycroft and Molly(*4)?), but it matters now. It almost kills him for real, because the way I see his fake death being set up (*5) , it was incredibly risky. It was nowhere near a sure thing. He might have come up with other ways to fake his death, but since we have to assume from what information we have to work with that it was down to Molly to pull most of it off, then he was saved because one of those friends he didn't know he had was still there despite the number of times he's been cruel, callous and thoughtless in his treatment of her.
So like Irene, he's both destroyed and saved by the little bit of sentiment he's allowed to creep in. I'm counting it as saving him because who's to say that the way he treated Molly at the Christmas party might not have been enough to make her walk away if he hadn't found it in him to realise what he'd done and apologise? I think that might have been too much even for her if he'd continued obliviously as he would very likely have done at one time. (All credit to Molly though, for not becoming bitter like Donovan and Anderson clearly are.) Even John – I don't think he would have walked if Sherlock hadn't corrected his stupid statement about not having friends, but it was a risk. It's the closest he's come to losing that friendship, a friendship with someone who he knows has killed for him and effectively offered to die for him. Without it he'd have a much harder time getting people to believe he was really dead.
Poor Sherlock, his life is so complicated with these pesky feelings.
But the feelings are why Moriarty had to try to destroy Sherlock, and it's also why Moriarty had to die -- Sherlock has outgrown him, effectively. I know Moriarty died in the books so it was to be expected anyway, but a lot has changed for this series, so it was a possibility he'd stick around. He's been such a unifying theme as a villain (playing a part in every episode, even if it was miniscule and last second in 2.02) that it would normally be a risk killing him off.
But he has to die here, because whatever Sherlock tries to convince him of on that roof, we know Sherlock isn't all that much like Moriarty any more. He's still capable of being callous and doing what he thinks is necessary at someone else's expense (as we saw in Hounds), and he's still got no time or consideration for people he doesn't know or have a reason to like or find useful (his reaction to Kitty in this episode), but he's moving ever further away from that detached attitude they used to share. Sherlock pulls out every bit of that contempt for other people he can still find in himself to convince Moriarty he could get what he wants out of him, and he's not lying – he still has plenty of that and he'd do whatever it took… anything except sacrifice the people who give a damn about him despite the crappy way Sherlock treats them.
I've seen some speculation that Moriarty isn't really dead, and from a general TV watching point of view that's fair enough. It's been done before, it'll be done again, and they might decide to go that way. There certainly wasn't any mention of another body shown, and I think it would have been if the body had been found. If someone jumps off a roof, you investigate the roof—someone worked fast to deal with that.
So no body, no death, it's fair enough and you could build a plausible scenario without any great effort. But I don't think Moriarty faked the shot. I believe he really is permanently dead, not because it couldn’t be done, but because given what I've described above, there's only one place he can be that makes any sense to me -- in Sherlock's grave. He's the dead and buried reflection of Sherlock-that-was, because that's the real death that happened here.
(*1) Yes, I still think she won. She may not win against Mycroft, but she wins in the subtler power struggle there with Sherlock, and I don't think I can be convinced otherwise!
(*2) This shift in Sherlock isn't to say that we'll necessarily see Irene again, though I've seen it suggested she might be back as an adversary. I think it's unlikely. As we all discussed talking about 2.01, she shows us as much about Sherlock as she does about herself, if not more, and it may well be that there's a line drawn under that as well by Sherlock's 'death'. And really, by what he's done, he moves considerably past Irene on the monster-to-human scale, so I'm not sure she would be as relevant in future. I rather like the idea of her being off having mad adventures with a string of female partner sidekicks for ever and ever until she's the most dangerous little old lady in the universe. Yay Irene. (Also, someone should write that.)
(*3) Though I do like that in the first series we got 'sociopath' and this time we get 'Asperger's' thrown out in the show, though I don't think we need to think either is accurate. Just another highlighting of the shift in Sherlock.
(*4) I could also go for the idea that Molly was overlooked by Moriarty the same way Sherlock overlooked her for so long, and that Mycroft wasn't targeted because Sherlock effectively rejected him in favour of his John and Mrs Hudson adopted family (as we were pretty clearly shown in AsiB.)
(*5) I'm going with the leap into the laundry truck and that really being him on the ground with fake blood. I think it works, but I'm interested in other plausible theories!