With top level security breaches at the Tower of London, the Bank of England and Pentonville Prison, the criminal mastermind James Moriarty returns with a flourish. The goal behind his elaborate scheme; to bring down Sherlock Holmes. In the final episode of Sherlock’s second series, scripted by Steve Thompson, this modern reworking of The Final Problem - Holmes and Moriarty’s final battle - was the perfect finale for this superb series.
Having gained the attention of the authorities by staging a number of high profile security breaches - set to the tune of The Thieving Magpie Overture by Gioachino Rossini, and adorning himself in the crown jewels after breaking into the Tower of London - Jim Moriarty is taken into custody and put on trial. The star witness; one mister Sherlock Holmes. Heralded as the Hero of Reichenbach after retrieving the stolen Turner painting, The Great Falls of Reichenbach (a nod to previous adaptations, with Holmes and Moriarty duelling against this alpine backdrop) Sherlock is gaining greater recognition for his work, rising to celebrity status and being pestered by journalists for an exclusive scoop (such as Kitty Riley, played by Katherine Parkinson). And now he’s summoned to provide evidence against his arch-nemesis in court...
However, despite having no defence whatsoever and overwhelming evidence stacked against him, Moriarty is acquitted of his crimes and walks free. This is just phase one of Moriarty’s game, having used people on the inside to help orchestrate his elaborate break-ins, and blackmailing the jury to affect their verdict - as he put it; “every person has their pressure point.” Alluding to owe Sherlock a fall, the consulting criminal leaves the great detective a trail of bread crumbs, leading him into a web of deception. As he comes to his ever-astounding deductions, Sherlock brings the case to a close, but Moriarty’s plan runs far deeper than that... People are beginning to have doubts, and as things go on they become more and more convinced - Sherlock Holmes is a fraud. His deductions are so impossibly accurate that people begin to suspect that Sherlock has been creating these cases himself in order to appear like the world’s greatest detective, and Sherlock soon finds himself on the run.
Systematically dismantling Sherlock’s reputation and credibility, Moriarty is all but done with bringing about the defeat of his only worthy rival. Atop the roof of St Bartholomew’s Hospital, Holmes and Moriarty meet for their final battle, and the master criminal forces his nemesis into a checkmate; if Sherlock Holmes doesn’t take his own life on this very rooftop, then the lives of those he holds dear will be at risk...
The Reichenbach Fall was a phenomenal adaptation of what Conan Doyle had intended to be his last Sherlock Holmes story. The title provided not only an allusion to the original tale, but both the literal and metaphorical fall of Sherlock Holmes - the Hero of Reichenbach. Masterfully scripted and beautifully paced, The Reichenbach Fall provided an exemplary battle between the two geniuses - not with guns or swords, but with words and mind games. How else would Sherlock Holmes do battle with the one man capable of matching his intellect?
This episode saw the return of Andrew Scott as Jim Moriarty, and in much greater capacity than before. As remarked on in my review of A Scandal in Belgravia, Scott’s Moriarty doesn’t conform to the regulation of being a stiff, gentlemanly villain of other adaptations, but delves down the route of being playfully insane and disturbing. As the Yin to Sherlock’s Yang (or is it the other way around?), the duality of Moriarty’s mania and Sherlock’s seriousness makes for quite a juxtaposition between the two characters. There’s something tantalisingly unhinged about Scott’s Moriarty, with each line delightfully laced with a cocktail of eccentricity and menace. Although it would require a lot of explaining, and breaking the Conan Doyle canon, it would be a shame for this to be the end of Sherlock’s greatest nemesis and his joyous portrayal by Andrew Scott.
Again revealing another side to Sherlock, Benedict Cumberbatch’s spectacular performance gave a glimpse of the stoic detective knowing that he was involved in a conflict he couldn’t hope to win. Unlike the crippling fear of The Hound, The Fall showed a man acknowledging his death was likely to be close at hand, but keeping it bottled up to save face. Surprisingly, in his time of dire need, Sherlock turns to Molly Hooper, the woman both hopelessly in love with and rejected by the ineffable detective, and fantastically portrayed by Louise Brealey. In the taut climatic scene on the roof of the hospital, Cumberbatch’s shaken Sherlock leaves his suicide note by way of a phone-call to John - who’s stood helplessly below - in his last moments before he jumps...
It’s revealed in the very last second of the episode that, unbeknownst to everyone (except presumably Molly, if my deductions are correct - which they often are!), Sherlock has somehow cheated death. So why is it that the audience is in tears by the end? Simple; Martin Freeman’s outstanding performance. He’s always been fantastic as John Watson throughout both series, but in these final scenes we see a former military man truly distraught at the death of his friend, completely broken hearted and attempting to maintain his composure. As the body crumpled on the pavement is turned over to reveal it’s Sherlock’s corpse, Freeman captured the melancholic essence of realisation and devastation at his deep sense of loss and mourning just by uttering the simple words; “Jesus no. God no.” This is truly another BAFTA worthy performance from Freeman!
And so, with it evident that there will be a third series, the question on the lips of the audience is “how did he manage to cheat death?” In The Final Problem, the death of Sherlock Holmes was dealt with by two trails of footprints leading up the mountain path, but none returning - leaving it open enough for his return. However, as The Reichenbach Fall showed the supposed death of Sherlock, it begs to question how the great detective managed to achieve this ultimate deception, and how the writers will resolve this next series.
I have developed a couple of theories which may explain how Sherlock managed to fake his death... There's a small, open-topped truck filled with bags of rubbish parked just next to where Sherlock's corpse supposedly landed. Jumping from the roof of the hospital, the detective lands in the back of the truck – the refuse is likely to have come from the hospital, so a large degree of it may be discarded scrubs - the rubbish breaking Sherlock's fall. Having requested Molly's help earlier, she may have thrown a cadaver adorned in Sherlock-esque clothes from a lower window, thus providing the corpse (alternatively, it may have been the mannequin seen hanging from a noose in 221b Baker Street earlier). The truck pulls away shortly afterwards - if a body lands next to your truck, you don’t just drive off! Sherlock had asked John to stand in a particular place, one which conveniently concealed where his body was found, presumably ensuring John couldn’t observe the stunt accurately, subsequently obscuring the assassin's view too.
As for why the body resembled Sherlock (if we presume it was not actually Sherlock's body), this is where the theory begins to fall down... It could've been an incredibly good lookalike - unlikely - or, seeing as the kidnapped girl was terrified by the sight of Sherlock, it could be an incredibly accurate mask created and worn by Moriarty during the kidnapping, recovered by Sherlock and used to help stage his death... Neither of these seem particularly likely.
A far more likely (and quite possibly my favourite) theory, is that the body is in fact Sherlock's and, having had his fall broken by the rubbish truck as in the above paragraph, he uses the time that John is on the floor to arrange himself convincingly on the pavement. The body that initially hits the floor (as there must be one for this theory to work; when he jumps, Sherlock is perpendicular to the hospital but the body that hits the floor is parallel to it, plus John sees a body on the pavement from a distance, just prior to being knocked over), was merely a decoy to fill the gap in between Sherlock landing in the rubbish truck and getting into position on the floor. The gathering crowd - stooges hired to aid in the deception. In order to appear convincingly dead, Sherlock uses an age old magic trick; squeezing a squash ball (as seen earlier in the episode, with Sherlock bouncing it against a cabinet) beneath his armpit, tight enough to temporarily cut off his pulse.
(Another, and more far-fetched, theory is that some time before his confrontation with Moriarty, Sherlock may have ingested rhododendron ponticum - traces of which were found in Moriarty's footprint earlier on -, the pollen of which can, if consumed in sufficient quantities, bring about severe hypotension and bradycardia - conditions which lower the blood pressure and slow the heart-beat to abnormal levels. Hypothetically, this would cause Sherlock's body to exhibit a death-like state when the paramedics arrived at the scene. All that would remain then would be for Molly to falsify the post-mortem.)
Admittedly, it all becomes horribly convoluted when trying to explain this great deception... But when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth! Personally, my money's on the rhododendron hypothesis... I could be entirely wrong (first time for everything, I suppose!), but we’re just going to have to wait until series three to find out. Bugger.
Ultimately, The Reichenbach Fall was nothing short of phenomenal, and was surely a worthy conclusion to what has been a spectacular second series. Series three can’t come soon enough!
If you missed the outstanding conclusion to Sherlock, The Reichenbach Fall is available on iPlayer here.
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