John as seen in the opening credits. Credit: capsanyone
I’m a little traumatized by the end of “The Reichenbach Fall,” but, then again, I’m not. This is probably better suited to the canon and fanon posts, but since we do have The Adventure of the Empty House, which sees the return of our beloved Sherlock, I’m not too traumatized. Actually, all in all, it was a very good episode. It was a good way to end a series that has been actually rather somber compared to the raucous, fun-filled first series. If you haven’t guessed by now, there be spoilers afoot, so CLICK AWAY if you haven’t watched the episode.
The episode itself is one that gripping to the final second, and, in a weird way, one that is more contemporary than any of the other episodes put together. We’ve gotten more popular music in this episode than we’ve ever gotten. Even the classical music helps us shake the rhythm of the show up. Very interesting. And I’m not going to pretend that I was ever a Nina Simone fan–I admit that I haven’t listened to a lot of her music–but I found that this song, “Sinnerman,” was very good, and possibly the best usage of a popular song in Sherlock yet.
I think I’m still amazed at how sad and uplifting this episode managed to be, and I’m glad I don’t have to be sad about Sherlock’s “death” since he’s still alive. Still, everything surrounding the final act of the show was pretty graphic (which leads me to say that there are images that might not be good for some people to watch), and I’m very curious to see just how Sherlock survived. I guess I’d better get to reading “The Empty House.”
Let’s give a hearty round of applause to Louise Brealey who plays Molly, a character who gets a lot of character depth (and is possibly Sherlock’s accomplice in his literally death-defying act) and let’s give a kajillion rounds of applause to Martin Freeman, who shows why he won his BAFTA for his role as John Watson. I really felt his emotion on a gut level–it actually triggered me most of all, due to my personal experiences with death and funerals–and his level of emotion is still sticking with me after the fact.
Overall, a horrifying, sad, tragic, and well-written and acted way to end the second series.
I’ll have my two other posts related to this episode up later–right now, I’ve got to erase my own emotions and get back to my usual analytical online persona in order to actually write about this episode.
