ebaeschnbliah:gosherlocked:isitandwonder:Friendly reminder that Moffat and Gatiss dedicated...

ebaeschnbliah:

gosherlocked:

isitandwonder:

Friendly reminder that Moffat and Gatiss dedicated shitloads of time, money and resources to one scene in TAB that to most viewers didn’t make any sense at all. They even filmed a whole extra clip about the production of that scene.

Yes, I’m talking about their go at Reichenbach. Because that’s where most casual viewers I talked to lost it completely; because, to them, this scene doesn’t serve any purpose. It is not even a true to canon re-enactment of the Reichenbach scene from Final Problem.

It looks like it is - being built like the famous Paget drawing. But it’s not - as the whole show is not ACD Holmes with iPhones.

Mofftiss took this scene and made it their own. That’s why they were so excited. In terms of plot development of the surface narrative - is Moriarty alive or dead / how can he be back? - this scene does nothing, especially when taking into account what Sherlock says in the last scene at the tarmac before getting into the car. And yet Gatiss said about the Reichenbach scene in TAB: 
‘Got everything we wanted in terms of telling the story.’

They wrote a literally wet dream in which Sherlock overcomes his fears (Moriarty) with the help of John. This is not an update of the ACD story; this is so far removed from Reichenbach in Final Problem as one can imagine! 

This is finally the turning point of the whole series as it leaves ACD behind and becomes its own story. John is suddenly there, he kicks Moriarty off the precipice and Sherlock first throws his deerstalker away before taking a leap of faith…

This is what Mofftiss do with canon - they take the famous names, the props, some pieces from proverbial cases - but they don’t just update them; they fill them with new, contemporary content. To tell the story they’ve mapped out from the beginning. I’m not even sure that this is a Sherlock Holmes show anymore (which is not meant in a derogatory way).

Because in this scene it becomes batantly obvious that Moffat and Gatiss are telling a love story, not just a romance or a story about a detective (and his blogger). This is a story about what love can do to people, that it is possible for anyone - how damaged or strange or afraid they might seem - to find someone to love and be loved in return; to become whole and free through love. Using Sherlock Holmes and John Watson as a famous vehicle to get this message across just adds prominence.

And I’m not even sure if it is about Sherlock and John being straight or gay or asexual or bi or celibate - and perhaps that’s why Mofftiss always argue against the assumption of making a ‘gay’ show - because perhaps it doesn’t matter (and in the universe where the show is set it certainly doesn’t) who you love or what gender the person you love identifies?

To me this is what Sherlock understood at the waterfall:

WATSON: Actually … would you mind?
HOLMES: Not at all.

 

And I’m sure by the end or the series - be it after S4 or S5 - most viewers will have arrived at the same conclusion. They won’t mind - there won’t BE anything to mind at all, because these two men are in love (and I’m not talking a platonic kind of love here, don’t get me wrong. I mean full on physical and mental LOVE in capital letters). Mofftiss will dish out a story so irresistible that even ‘antis’ will be happy for Sherlock and John. Because this is not about two middle-aged blokes snogging or political representation of minorities (as important as these issues are) - this is about how two people save and complete one another. And this is eternal and way grander than time or gender concepts. 

Before the Reichenbach scene Sherlock tells himself that it’s not the fall that will kill him - the act of fallig in love - but the landing - the actual consequence of acting upon his feelings. But these are Sherlock’s treacherous fears speaking (his inner Moriarty). At the waterfall, when John shows up to save him, he understands that neither the fall nor the landing will kill him. And therefore he jumps.

We’ll see him land in S4 (or S5). And it will be a good one.

Transcripts by Ariane Devere.

This. Is. So. Very. Beautiful.

Absolutely  T.H.I.S.