Sherlock 2.03: "The Reichenbach Fall"

[aelfgyfu_mead]

Thanks are due once again to arianedevere for her transcript, against which I corrected my quotations.


Yes, it is just as painful the second time around. In fact, I put off watching it for the second time because I didn't want the pain.

Martin Freeman is absolutely awesome. He owns this episode, no matter how good anyone else is.

What I didn't like:
• The misogyny is back. Yes, Molly is a heroine (even if Sherlock doesn't believe in them), but that really doesn't make up for almost every other woman in the story being stupid, malicious, or both. We have:
- Kitty Riley, who tries to play Sherlock to get an exclusive and fails miserably. She then falls completely for the tale spun by "Richard Brook," despite the fact that Sherlock demonstrated his skills on her and had no way to know to research her in advance. She's an idiot and malicious: "You repel me." (Of course, Sherlock was an idiot to say that to her in the first place, though not actually malicious; he just didn't care. I'm not sure which is worse.)
- Sally Donovan, who shows precious little skill in this episode but quite effectively undermines her superior and has the gall to wind John up right before the Chief Superintendent arrives in the flat so that John takes it out on the latter. Anderson goes along with Donovan, but Donovan is clearly the instigator: stupid and jealous, if not actually malicious.
- The girl who is kidnapped. The boy is the useful one: he leaves clues that Sherlock uses to find them. The girl screams at Sherlock but won't say a word. This is the character that made up my mind about this episode's misogyny. It would have been so easy to let the girl do something clever, especially when she's two years older than her brother, but no: she just gets kidnapped. Stupid but not malicious. I can't blame the girl, but I can blame the writer who decided that girls are useless.
- Even brave Mrs. Hudson, who saves Irene's phone from the bad guys in "Scandal," seems to be in this episode no more than the ditzy old woman she pretends to be in other stories.
- We don't see Ella the Therapist being particularly helpful—although we don't see John looking as though he particularly wants help. In defense of Ella, a therapist needs something to work with, and John gives her very little. We see nothing Holmes brothers' impression of her: useless. It's Sherlock to whom John says he owes everything. I'm left wondering why on earth he even went to Ella.

Indeed, Molly's usefulness hinges on all the characters expecting that girls and women are useless. Moriarty doesn't count her, and indeed, I think Sherlock very nearly doesn't count her. If she hadn't offered to help Sherlock before he realized that he needed help, I don't think that he would ever have thought to ask.

If you can find more redeeming features in the women in this story, please, let me know! I'd like to see them in a more positive light. In my head, Sally Donovan must have a lot going for her: Lestrade clearly values her, and he's not stupid or incompetent. She must be doing good work, but of course when the police are at their best, they don't call Sherlock Holmes. I also like to think that when she and Anderson are grinning at Sherlock's "death frisbee," it's not at all malicious, just all in good fun. And Molly rules. Still, the story feels pretty antifeminist to me.

• My second complaint is that I have trouble believing all twelve jurors would crack so easily and that, weeks later, not one would tell his or her story to the authorities or the press. Yes, we all have pressure points. I have a hard time believing that everyone can be brought low at the same time. (See also Torchwood: Children of Earth, rant with spoilers.)

Minor complaint: John has just hung up when the police cars pull up outside 221B, but we were shown Lestrade pulling out his phone to make the call at Scotland Yard. The police cars are actually transporters!

Only three complaints? That's actually pretty darned light for a second viewing of a ninety-minute show!

What I thought worked
Note that I'm not calling this "what I liked," because some of it is just to painful to "like."
• Sherlock consistently underestimates John. He honestly thinks John doubts him back at Baker Street, before Lestrade comes to arrest him, but he's wrong. What I really like here is that Sherlock tries to understand John: first to understand why he's upset about the press, and then about John doubting him. John's thoughts matter to him in a way that no one else's do—and I like the tension between caring about those thoughts and inability to understand them fully.

• Andrew Scott does have a very good scene in 221B. I have a little trouble with him winning the Best Supporting Actor BAFTA over Martin Freeman, because he chews so much scenery I'm afraid he needed dental work by the time the series finished filming. I did like his scene with Sherlock at the flat, though. And Scott really sells the rest, even though it's completely over the top. At the BAFTAs, when presenting Steven Moffat with his special award, Benedict Cumberbatch and Matt Smith said that Moffat writes scripts that actors can't act. It's the truth, but he has some pretty stellar cast who almost cover over the fact that one can't act this stuff.

I think this is Benedict Cumberbatch's best episode, too. I thought he went a bit too far in "Hounds," but here he hit the right notes.

Speaking of notes: the music for the capers (crown jewels, Bank of England, prison break) is Rossini's "Thieving Magpie"—thanks to Brilliant Husband for telling me. (You can hear a performance of the Overture here; you need to be at least six minutes in to get to the part where Sherlock uses it, I think.)

Mycroft's face is priceless, especially when John says, "Nicked all his Smurfs? Broke his Action Man?" Mark Gatiss gives an understated performance throughout, which works very well for his character.

Lestrade is a mensch. He doesn't even look surprised when Sherlock grabs the gun; he tells everyone to get down but is the last one down himself, because he knows what's really happening here.

I love John's unwavering faith. That Moriarty as Brook appeals to John as "a good man" works well: he's not really appealing to John, but to Kitty Riley as witness.

Moriarty is indeed The Storyteller. He tells the story of Sir Boast-a-Lot to Sherlock. He sets up the fairy-tale abduction and the wider fairy tale in which he has enmeshed Sherlock. But, in a Terry-Pratchett-like twist, the tale gets away from its teller when a major character won't cooperate.

I don't really understand Moriarty's insistence on IOU. "I owe you a fall." What does he mean? I still honestly don't get that. Is he really paying Sherlock back for something? Sherlock has not effectively foiled him or caused him to fall. Maybe in the end it doesn't make sense.
SHERLOCK: You’re insane.
(Jim blinks.)
JIM: You’re just getting that now?

What makes the IOU into something more is John's unknowing echo of it in his words to the gravestone: "I was so alone, and I owe you so much." He completely transforms the motif.


Questions for discussion:
1. What does Jim's IOU mean? What or why does he think he owes Sherlock?

2. Is Jim really afraid he'll give in to Sherlock, or afraid he'll be bored to death without Sherlock, or both? Why kill himself?

3. Why does Sherlock say what he does to John?
The newspapers were right all along. I want you to tell Lestrade; I want you to tell Mrs Hudson, and Molly ... in fact, tell anyone who will listen to you that I created Moriarty for my own purposes. . . .
I researched you. Before we met I discovered everything that I could to impress you. It’s a trick. Just a magic trick.
Does he hope that John will believe him and that it will be less painful for John if he thinks himself duped?
Does he want to alienate John so that John isn't tempted to look further into his death?
Or is it the exact opposite: he says something so calculated to ring false to John that John will mull over his words until he decides the "magic trick" is not what happened before the call but after?
Or does Sherlock want John to argue with him one last time, to insist on his faith in Sherlock so that Sherlock has that memory to carry him through what is to come?

4. How will Sherlock reveal himself in the next series, and how will John react? Will John suspect before Sherlock reveals himself?