BBC Sherlock Fan Forum - Serving Sherlockians since February 2012 » Does The Empty Hearse ruin this episode?

besleybean · November 10, 2014 6:04 pm

I certainly always saw it that way.

maryagrawatson · November 10, 2014 7:17 pm

Liberty wrote:
About how far ahead of behind Sherlock is - I've watched a few times and it's difficult to tell, but I think some of his demeanour is explained if you think that fairly early on he realised he was going to have to disappear undercover and keep it secret.

At face value, this would resolve TRF for me. But that dang comment by Moffat rather contradicts that. But this is the closest I think I'll be to making my peace with this episode. Thanks!

Mary

Lilith · November 10, 2014 7:31 pm

Zatoichi wrote:
I wouldn´t say TEH ruined TRF for me.. I just can´t get them together somehow. I take what I see in TRF at face value, and none of the explanations given in TEH changes any of the feelings I have for it.. it´s completely disconnected for me. Maybe it changes in S4, when we get more information about the whole thing.

In a way I stopped taking the show serious after TRF.. Everything that comes next feels just like goofing around. It was entertaining, but it didn´t have any emotional impact (except for Sherlock´s near-death.. but as it turned out to be just a happy little accident made by a loving friend I´ll probably get over it someday, too). Up until the end of TRF the show feels like a good wine that is to be slowly discovered and savoured in all its nuances, afterwards it´s more like a big dose of sherbet powder.. fizzy, surprising, and somewhere between really good and really awful ^^. (No offense to anyone who loves it, just my personal feelings.) It feels like the show I fell for so hard stopped after S2, but luckily nothing I see in S3 changes the way I feel for things happening in S1 and S2.

Well, it is now rather pointless to write my own post because you have summed it up what i feel
Actually i still cry reichenbach falls at the end of The Reichenbach Fall but mostly over John's sadness *sigh*

besleybean · November 10, 2014 7:40 pm

Well I suppose it's always possible to get a rogue series in any show.
But otherwise I would like to see at least a maintaining of standards, if not an improvement.
I see at least that standard being maintained, in this case.

lil · November 10, 2014 8:08 pm

@The emotional fakery.
The writers want to show Sherlock pre SO3 as a man who wears sociopathy like an armoured coat...we get the emotions are a mistake...how will being emotional help, I don't do emotions Sherlock persona. One of the writers described him as a bit of a monster even....this is because they wish to show a sort of metamorphosis into a 'good' man .

In S03 we see Sherlock is giving the caring lark a bit of a go...to get Johns forgiveness - hence Molly ,Greg,@ making an effort with Mary etc and hence his mistakes...and his it's always you JW revelation..-the real Sherlock under the sociopathic coat is being allowed out more.....thus BC called S03 Freudian and said Sherlocks biggest fear was a loss of control.
I see where they are coming from and suppose I wonder how much real emotion Sherlock was hiding under the fakery on the roof....or if at that point he was fully capable of expressing or understanding genuine emotion.
Because as we all know the sociopathic persona Sherlock put on.....was not quite true , the Moriarty line from the pool that sort of undermines the writers comments....perhaps this time the audience worked it out (emotionally) before Sherlock himself did.

Kittyhawk · April 25, 2015 6:08 pm

Liberty wrote:
..... I think he was planning to get Moriarty's network (rather than just Moriarty) right from the beginning. ....

Or maybe even before - depending on whether Mycroft decided all alone to feed Moriarty information about Sherlock (THoB) or whether the brothers planned that together.

As for the OP's question: For me there is nothing to ruin about TRF. It's easily my least favorite episode. I hated it when I first saw it (right from the beginning - John at the therapist - and why does he go back to the woman who got it all wrong? - which immediately destroys the illusion that maybe this time Sherlock might not die), and I hated it when re-watching it last night. For me this episode has absolutely no redeeming features. Okay, Benedict deserves a BAFTA award for his reaction to Richard Brook, but those few seconds are not enough for me to put up with a plot that makes no sense whatsoever and people behaving completely erratically.

Starting with John going on about Sherlock's celebrity status - when HE f***ing started it in the first place with his blog! Then there's Moriarty playing the fool in the Tower (and what did they charge him with? Destruction of a showcase and lèse-majesté? He didn't steal anything...), Sherlock behaving like an absolute idiot in court - and again when Lestrade wants to ask him a few questions... (the talk with Kitty Riley wasn't exactly clever, either, but at least in character... Disrespecting the judge shows a level of idiocy that makes me wonder how Sherlock managed to graduate...)

Explaining in the next episode that Sherlock's behaviour was part of a grand plan doesn't help with that - I'm too much in the moment when I watch an episode. And in the moment nothing makes sense. Moriarty probably had a nice life - so why does he insist on getting locked up? And doesn't the Crown Prosection Service have a way to detain criminals in the case of a jury misjudging? A tiny little bit of computer code to get into any system???? Really????

Neferu wrote:
I´m sure I don´t want Moriarty back. In my eyes he is nothing but a child in puberty, ...

I've never liked this version of Moriarty either. For me a master criminal "playing" against Sherlock would look much more like CAM as protrayed by the wonderful Lars Mikkelsen (getting rid of him within one episode was a waste). IF Moriarty comes back in season 4, then "I shall turn absolutely monstrous". The guy shot himself in the head, we saw him fall, Sherlock said he was dead (and I sure hope Sherlock didn't limit himself to checking the pulse at the wrist...) - that's it. (I much preferthis explantion for what happens at the end of HLV.)

So between too much screen time for Moriarty, a nonsensical plot and the depressed feeling of the whole episode I'll most probably never watch TRF again.

Liberty · April 25, 2015 7:14 pm

Oh, I like that explanation!

RavenMorganLeigh · April 30, 2015 11:48 pm

Kittyhawk wrote:
Liberty wrote:
..... I think he was planning to get Moriarty's network (rather than just Moriarty) right from the beginning. ....
Or maybe even before - depending on whether Mycroft decided all alone to feed Moriarty information about Sherlock (THoB) or whether the brothers planned that together.

As for the OP's question: For me there is nothing to ruin about TRF. It's easily my least favorite episode. I hated it when I first saw it (right from the beginning - John at the therapist - and why does he go back to the woman who got it all wrong? - which immediately destroys the illusion that maybe this time Sherlock might not die), and I hated it when re-watching it last night. For me this episode has absolutely no redeeming features. Okay, Benedict deserves a BAFTA award for his reaction to Richard Brook, but those few seconds are not enough for me to put up with a plot that makes no sense whatsoever and people behaving completely erratically.

Starting with John going on about Sherlock's celebrity status - when HE f***ing started it in the first place with his blog! Then there's Moriarty playing the fool in the Tower (and what did they charge him with? Destruction of a showcase and lèse-majesté? He didn't steal anything...), Sherlock behaving like an absolute idiot in court - and again when Lestrade wants to ask him a few questions... (the talk with Kitty Riley wasn't exactly clever, either, but at least in character... Disrespecting the judge shows a level of idiocy that makes me wonder how Sherlock managed to graduate...)

Explaining in the next episode that Sherlock's behaviour was part of a grand plan doesn't help with that - I'm too much in the moment when I watch an episode. And in the moment nothing makes sense. Moriarty probably had a nice life - so why does he insist on getting locked up? And doesn't the Crown Prosection Service have a way to detain criminals in the case of a jury misjudging? A tiny little bit of computer code to get into any system???? Really????

Neferu wrote:
I´m sure I don´t want Moriarty back. In my eyes he is nothing but a child in puberty, ...
I've never liked this version of Moriarty either. For me a master criminal "playing" against Sherlock would look much more like CAM as protrayed by the wonderful Lars Mikkelsen (getting rid of him within one episode was a waste). IF Moriarty comes back in season 4, then "I shall turn absolutely monstrous". The guy shot himself in the head, we saw him fall, Sherlock said he was dead (and I sure hope Sherlock didn't limit himself to checking the pulse at the wrist...) - that's it. (I much preferthis explantion for what happens at the end of HLV.)

So between too much screen time for Moriarty, a nonsensical plot and the depressed feeling of the whole episode I'll most probably never watch TRF again.

Priceless comment. Well said!!!!

Kittyhawk · May 1, 2015 12:18 pm

Thank you!

Of course, after claiming I'd never watch the episode again, I had to do so, paying more attention to the end: How can Sherlock not notice that Moriarty is armed (on the rooftop)? And why, for heaven's sake, does Moriarty shoot himself instead of Sherlock? It would have been easy enough to to and they were close enough to make it look like suicide (of course we wouldn't have gotten a season 3...)?

Btw, regarding Sherlock in court the "Casebook" (in a "newspaper article" )says: "...Mr Holmes then proceeded to lecture the prosecuting counsel about their jobs before, in response to a dressing down from the Judge, describing, in brutal detail, the Right Honourable gentlemen's bedroom habits and how they involved the clerk of the court, Mr. Lionel Forrester." Now that's so far beyond idiocy that I need to get my dictionary of synonyms...

Lola Red · May 1, 2015 2:33 pm

Well, if Moriarty is alive, he knew what Sherlock and Mycroft had planned. Sherlock might note that Moriarty is armed, but if he does never guess that the gun is there to be aimed at Moriarty, there is no point in mentioning it. Sherlock came to that rooftop to "die". Sherlock also knew he would have to kill himself to end Moriarty's game, so in his mind the gun could have only been used to get him to jump off the building, which he was planning to do anyway. Therefore, the gun became unimportant to him. Why would Moriarty not shoot Sherlock? Because, if Moriarty is still alive, he must have known about "Lazarus" (which in itself only made sense if Sherlock and Mycroft knew that Moriarty would kill himself, it keeps going in circles) otherwise his fake suicide does not make sense (also the gun might or might not be real). Which also means, he never wanted Sherlock to actually die (in fact he would have known he wouldn't). So if Moriarty is still alive, the game is still on and the final problem remains unsolved.

I don't have the casebook, but it is hardly the first time that Sherlock's show-off tendencies make him behave less-than-smart, isn't it? But this time it was likely carefully planned. If Sherlock and Mycroft had planned the Fall ever since before Baskerville, than it was vital that the public would first fall in love with Sherlock and than turn on him. At the time of the trail, they no longer needed to fall in love, so Sherlock could start being less likable, so when the turn came, the public would be willing to believe it. That is why Anderson and Donovan where so ideal to seed doubt in NSY, because they disliked Sherlock. It is so much easier to believe that someone you don’t like is a bad person than the other way around.

Liberty · May 1, 2015 5:45 pm

I got the feeling that Sherlock knowingly talked Moriarty into suicide, so I don't think the gun was a big surprise. Sherlock needed Moriarty dead so that he could stage his own suicide. It wouldn't work with Moriarty watching.

I do agree that Magnussen is a better villain. Both Magnussen and Moriarty underestimate Sherlock. Magnussen didn't expect that Sherlock would simply shoot him - I don't think many people would expect that he do that. (I can see why he did it, but it's still surprising). Whereas Moriarty underestimated how clever Sherlock could be which was a bit remiss - of course Sherlock is going to be clever! And I'm not completely convinced that Sherlock WOULD have committed suicide if he hadn't had another plan. I think he would make great sacrifices to save other people, but killing himself just on Moriarty's word about the snipers is kind of pointless - if he did kill himself there would be no guarantee Moriarty would call them off, but worse, there would be nobody who could deal with Moriarty and his network. Moriarty had studied Sherlock. He should have known him better than Magnussen.

But you're right, Lola Red: perhaps Moriarty is going to turn that all around in S4 and show that it was part of his plan all along.

RavenMorganLeigh · May 1, 2015 5:53 pm

I'm not sure that Sherlock talked Moriarty into suicide, because of how shocked--horrified Sherlock looked when Moriarty pulled the trigger. If he talked Moriarty into it-- and he and Mycroft anticipated it-- then why the suprise? Why horrified? Why all the pacing and tearing at his hair, and growling in frustration, and why the look of terror and resignation when he realized that he was going to have to jump?

And why the tears? John couldn't see them.

And, Sherlock tried to get John away from St. Barts-- by setting John up to think that Mrs. Hudson had been shot. John was the one who, upon discovering Sherlock's ruse, boomeranged back to St. Barts and became the unwilling witness to Sherlock's fall.

See, this is the stuff that keeps me up at night. TEH doesn't match up with what I saw in TRF. Arrrghhhh!!

( Commences Gnashing of Teeth, Tearing at Hair, Rending of Garments, Wailing)

Last edited by RavenMorganLeigh (May 1, 2015 5:58 pm)

Liberty · May 1, 2015 6:56 pm

My head canon for most of those things was that Sherlock (knew he was) being watched. That's one of the things Sherlock Holmes is supposed to be expert at - acting, disguise.

Lola Red · May 1, 2015 8:22 pm

I just realised I forgot to say anything on topic. For me, the thing with TEH is that the explanation just does not make sense. All was planned, except Moriarty’s suicide. But Lazarus only makes sense if Moriarty was a) nowhere near or b) at the exact same position where John was at any given point in time. Yet Sherlock invites him to the rooftop. So the one thing that was not planned actually made the plan possible. Maybe one of the other 13 (?) possibilities would have worked with Moriarty still around, but why wouldn’t it work without him? Why have a plan laid out that has as sole purpose to convince John of Sherlock’s death. Was that really so important there was a whole plan just for that purpose? Fool John in case Moriarty is not around? A plan that would fail if Moriarty was anywhere near?
I would possibly just accept Lazarus and write it off as careless writing, but has anyone noticed how Mark Gatiss is always grinning when they talk about the solution and even hints that they did not give one and how Moffat is exhausting himself in saying that this was the only possible solution (not unsimilar to “Moriarty IS dead. He blew his own brains out”, also there Mark could rarely keep a straight face). So I still hope for a better explanation, at least until next season is over. If I don’t get one I will for always believe in the explanation Sherlock gave John “You know my methods John: I am known to be indestructible.”
But I don’t believe in newer episodes ruining old ones. For example, the 9th season of Scrubs was not that good, but the 8th had on of the most perfect sitcom endings I ever saw. The 9th season does not make me “unenjoy” the 8 previous ones. I simply do not re-watch season 9 (in fact I keep insisting it is a spin off- which it basically is). I really liked HIMYM, but hated the finale. But it did not make me “unenjoy” the show, though everything will possibly have another feeling to it if I ever decide to re-watch. For me TEH does not make too much sense, but the worst damage it has done to me is that I overanalyse TRF, but honestly, once you join a forum you usually end up overanalysing everything anyway, so at lest for me, there is really no harm done.

Kittyhawk · May 2, 2015 12:29 pm

Unfortunately, very little makes sense... I'm convinced that Sherlock did NOT want Moriarty to commit suicide, for the same reasons as RavenMorganLeigh - Sherlock is too visibly horrified. I was thinking the idea was to arrest Moriarty and then get him to call the snipers off (and I'm not going to think about exactly how Sherlock would have done that...). But Lola Red has a point - the Lazarus plan wouldn't have made any sense whatsoever in that case.

Why did John have to stop Sherlock from explaining all 13 possibilities in TEH? We'd know so much more.... <g> I listened to the DVD commentary to TEH yesterday, and unless Mofiss are flat out lying, the third explanation is the correct one and we won't get another one.

I'll simply stop thinking about TRF, it's by far my least favourite episode.

Vhanja · May 2, 2015 1:00 pm

Lola Red wrote:
I All was planned, except Moriarty’s suicide. But Lazarus only makes sense if Moriarty was a) nowhere near or b) at the exact same position where John was at any given point in time. Yet Sherlock invites him to the rooftop. So the one thing that was not planned actually made the plan possible.

Sherlock doesn't text Mycroft about Lazarus before Moriarty has killed himself, does he? That means that Lazarus was a plan meant only for an occasion such as this.

Lola Red · May 2, 2015 1:38 pm

Which is why, for me, it does not make any sense. Why call Moriarty to the rooftop when he needed him on the other side of the ambulance station? Lazarus only works if the person that needs to be convinced of Sherlock’s death is placed on a very specific location and then proceeds to move with a very specific speed towards the place where Sherlock’s body lies. There cannot be any other person around, because from every position but John’s the blue cushion is visible. It is just a very unlikely plan to ever come into action. In itself it kind of works, but the preconditions are incredibly specific. I just think other plans could have worked in a broader variety of situations. But that is just me being stubborn.

@Kittyhawk: Moftiss would never lie, they do, however, go to great lengths to never spoil a surprise. I think they have almost as much fun teasing the fans than they have making the show (and they will forever have my love for both).

Vhanja · May 2, 2015 2:06 pm

It is a very unlikely plan, but that makes it in a way even more awesome - they planned for even the unlikely.

Having that said, I don't think we should delve too deep into this. I think the "Rule of Cool" applies here just as much as anything else.

Last edited by Vhanja (May 2, 2015 2:37 pm)

Vhanja · May 2, 2015 7:56 pm

Have to say - there is one thing in TEH that doesn't make sense at all compared to TRF.

When Sherlock explains it all to Anderson, he's asked about the sniper aiming at John. Sherlock says that "Mycroft intervened before he could make the shot". That makes NO sense, because the whole point of Sherlock jumping was to prevent the shot. There shouldn't be any need of Mycroft to intervene at all, the jump would be the cue for the sniper to not take the shot.

Lola Red · May 2, 2015 8:22 pm

Yes, but the sniper would have seen the cushion while it was being moved out of John’s sight after the jump. So Mycroft had to control the sniper to call off his two colleagues. The point of Sherlock jumping was not to call off the sniper (Mycroft apparently could do that just fine), it was to convince the world of his death. But I get the feeling that this discussion (though I enjoy it) drifts into realms that might be better placed in one of the TRF theory threads.