The MP Waterfall Scene is the key to the entire series

therealmartinsgrrrl:

I know I’m risking being super repetitive, because I’ve been blogging about this scene all weekend, but honestly. It is So Important.

Up until that scene, MP John has been, frankly, pretty much of a dick to Sherlock. And Sherlock hasn’t been very kind to John, either. Their normal affectionate bickering has been replaced by anger, true irritation, a nagging exasperation with each other.

They’re fed up with not being able to let themselves be who they’re meant to be together. And as an old school Holmes Ian geek, it thrills me that Mofftiss made them this way in Victorian times. They are fed up with 150 years of repression, they are ready to be together.

But back to the Waterfall Scene.

Sherlock is trying to defeat Moriarty on his own. Again. And he’s losing. He’s getting choked, drowned in a waterfall, he’s about to go over the edge with Moriarty again, history repeating itself. Moriarty says it always comes down to the two of them…

And out steps John. Cool, calm, absolutely BAMF, but different than he’s been in Sherlock’s mind palace before. He’s softer, he’s smiling, affectionate. Everything is coming together in this moment for Sherlock, his acceptance of himself, his understanding of his and John’s relationship, it’s all coalescing.

“That’s not fair, there’s two of you,” says MP Moriarty.

“There’s always two of us. Don’t you read The Strand?” replies MP John.

This is Sherlock’s moment of epiphany. There are two of them. There have always been. And critically, Sherlock is realising that in John’s mind, it’s always been the two of them. John is the one who writes the stories in the Strand, John has always made it about both of them, and Sherlock’s always tried to keep himself separate. Alone is what protects me. This is Sherlock understanding that alone not only doesn’t protect him, but is actually destroying him.

And John handing him his deerstalker, his public persona, is the last vestige of his holding onto the idea that John needs him to be anything other than exactly who he is. Sherlock cedes control of the Moriarty situation to John, he allows John to kill his self loathing, his fear, his terror at being wrong, his fear of his own sexuality. All that goes over the cliff with Moriarty.

And Sherlock stays with John.

Because he understands fully, for the first time, that John will always be there for him, no matter what. And that’s why MP John is different in this scene, because Sherlock is seeing the Real John here. The John that cares, that never leaves him, that loves him beyond measure, that is his one fixed point in a changing age.

This is a huge moment for Mofftiss as writers, because this is the first complete divergence from ACD canon. This is the fix-it moment. It is the pivot point around which the entire series spins, and has from the beginning. This is the moment that Sherlock chooses not to be alone. He’s changed his own destiny, and Mofftiss has thus changed the whole trajectory of the Holmes/Watson stories.

This episode doesn’t end as ACD canon ends, with Sherlock alone, John gone. It ends with them sitting together, in their home, looking toward a future where they can be together.

Spot on. I too was so pleased to see that in the BBC Sherlock verse, these two Victorian men are where they should be, where they should have been for 135 years, together in 221B. I know Mark and Steven HAD to do this, this was why it had to be 1895. Because it is ALWAYS 1895, and these two survive; together, in love, and they will never die.