Review: The Empty Hearse

[shadowfireflame]

It's out!!!


--Spoilery review! Please watch the episode first! :)--

Loved it. I had to keep taking little breaks from it because I was smiling and my face hurt. Yeah. I’m tearing up just thinking about it now.

I’m one of those shippers who just loves Sherlock so much I’ll read him with anybody, so my true OTP is really Anybody/bottom!Sherlock, and this episode was pretty special to me because, well, let me just give this list to you of possible pairings from this episode.

We get:

—An actual (though imaginary, but it’s still onscreen) kiss with Molly/Sherlock, and then Molly getting engaged to a psuedo-Sherlock lookalike (sorry, not nearly as attractive, though!) whom she implied was maybe also a sociopath. Think about that—she loves Sherlock, but she’s finally realized she can’t have him romantically and should stop wasting her time with him, though they are still good friends. But he is her type, so she finds someone similar enough to turn her on and then puts a ring on it. Love it.

—Actual (though imaginary) smiles and extreme sexual tension leading to an almost-kiss between Moriarty and Sherlock. Not going to lie, this was my favorite scene in the whole episode. This is possibly my favorite scene in the whole show. I actually wanted more fake theories played out onscreen, they were so entertaining.

—A Lestrade/Sherlock hug and what looks like immediate forgiveness there. I had doubted that we’d get a hug between John and Sherlock, but God, I’m so pleased that somebody hugs him.

—Mycroft/Sherlock. Holy Christ. Did they just make incesty BDSM with sub!Sherlock canon? I think they may have. They play games together (having it not be chess was some sort of genius). And I think Mystrade shippers can easily interpret that “loneliness” scene (whoaaa) as Sherlock trying to set up Mycroft and Lestrade. (Also, I’m delighted that Anthea was in this!!! Yay!) EDIT: Oh my God, it has just occurred to me that Sherlock’s “How would you know [what having friends is like]?” question to Mycroft is a direct callback to Mycroft saying that exact same thing in Buckingham Palace to Sherlock about sex. Holy shit, these brothers.

—Mary being delightful and saying she actually likes Sherlock to John. But Mary, you don’t understand—nobody likes Sherlock right off the bat...oh right, except John. And then saying she would help convince John to let Sherlock back in, awww. And decoding the phone message by herself and knowing exactly where to go and what to do under pressure (immediately go to Sherlock, give him the message)...wonderful.

—You could probably even ship Phillip (yay, we have a name!) Anderson/Sherlock based on that little interview scene which may or may not have been real. Sherlock distastefully patting him on the back was fantastic.

—And below it all, the string tying up the whole package, the underlying theme flowing through it all, is Sherlock’s love for John, and John’s right back for Sherlock. Even Mary ships it (“Six months of bristly kisses for me, and then His Nibs turns up!”).

Let me also talk about Mrs. Hudson for a moment here. Mrs. Hudson is the most angry we’ve ever seen her—at John. For not visiting. For letting the little relationship network/family that Sherlock built up...slide in the tidal wave of his own grief. But then Sherlock comes back after faking his death and she’s all smiles (after getting over her shock). I just...I can’t tell you how happy that makes me.

I feel completely vindicated in my treasured list of post-Reichenbach recs with vulnerable!Sherlock—which new canon, to my knowledge, has not actually jossed many of. Because Sherlock was dismantling Moriarty’s network and was tortured and does, it seem, have at least a mild form of PTSD—not from being away, though! Oh no, he’s disturbed and having little auditory hallucinations from temporarily losing John as a partner.

I know we all spent a lot of time putting together speculative theories and things (here’s mine, which wasn’t that far off), but the truth is in the end that it doesn’t matter, just like the cases and villains and train bombs and—can we please ban all flashlights on this show in the future?!—don’t really matter. Because at its heart, this is a show about a loyal and loving little family held together by one person who likes to solve crimes, who can’t help from getting involved in other people’s lives, who fancies himself a sociopath and yet so clearly is not.

All my fears about Sherlock inevitably sitting alone in the dark in Baker Street while Mary and John and everybody else fucks off and does whatever without him? Dashed. 221B has never been fuller than that last scene there, with Molly and her fiancé, John, Mary, Lestrade, and Mrs. Hudson, all there as a team for Sherlock. Even Sherlock’s parents (played by Benedict’s real parents, lol) came to visit him. Welcome back.

EDIT: In short, read this review by the masterful earlgreytea68. It’s everything I wanted to say but so much more perfect. I also love this review by pennswoods and this review by raina_at. And ivyblossom has some lovely words on the fandom representations in this brilliant meta.

Happy New Year’s, everyone.

Comments

[yalumesse]

*HUGS*

The Sherlock/Moriarty fake flashback was side-splittingly hillarious. I think the writers couldn't decide which theories to illustrate and just tried to do them all :D

Hadn't twigged on Sherlock echoing what Mycroft said in Buckingham! OOOOOOO that opens up so many layers. *has to stop and think for a while*

Vulnerable!Sherlock is so interesting and so so so tricky to portray, Benedict should be getting kudos boquets for months. He seriously nailed it.

Blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah I am flailing and cannot form sentences properly. THIS WAS SO GREAT :D

[shadowfireflame.livejournal.com]

I'm dying to really dig through the implications of Sherlock and Mycroft having "normal" parents and both thinking Sherlock was an idiot and the "How would you know?" callback to Scandal and playing board games and Mycroft saying "bugger," and Les Mis, and both of them enjoying the scene in Serbia at least a little and, ugh, just everything about that relationship. It's been deepened so very much, which is the main thing I wanted from this series, so yeah, I couldn't be happier.

And the Sherlock/Moriarty thing...just, yes. I've re-watched it so many times and don't think I can ever get sick of it. Moriarty's expressions when Sherlock's talking to John on the phone, my God. And Sherlock's pure callousness when he says, "Goodbye, John," and just jams the off button has me in stitches, it's so wonderfully perverse.

Sherlock's vulnerability here is pretty subtle. I saw a review somewhere where they were talking about how they hated that Sherlock was tortured and just seemed to bounce back--but I think they're missing the fact that yes, he seems to bounce back, but that's because he's, like, determinedly cheerful, almost desperate to get things back to normal, in this episode. He's made the decision not to dwell on things haunting him in the past, but the trauma does sometimes slip through the cracks. Which is what we've always seen Sherlock do in the past as well.

Blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah I am flailing and cannot form sentences properly. THIS WAS SO GREAT :D

^^^^BASICALLY ALL OF THIS.

That's it, I'm off to watch it again. I'm getting twitchy without it. :DDDD

[yalumesse]

The fanfic exploring all this will be GLORIOUS.

It's really weird, the Holmes' being normal. Fandom at large really assumed they wouldn't be, didn't we? Every fic or discussion I've read involving them has assumed they're rich and eccentric and probably geniuses too. Only the "eccentric" part has been disproven, but that was pretty much the defining trait. Like Sherlock and Mycroft couldn't be who they are without unusual parents. But it's just as weird trying to work out how they could BOTH have turned out this way - one brilliant and strange child, yeah, but two? In almost the same way? If it's not upbringing, then they did they have some miraculous genetics? Thinky thoughts! :D

Getting inside Sherlock's head is so hard, but I think you nailed it. He suffers but acts like it's impossible. I really don't know if all his talking to John while working with Mary was a result of that - I mean, I can buy that he acts like John is there until he notices it's Molly, but here he was almost actually unaware, which to me says some kind of trauma reaction? Hiding in the memory world he's comfortable in and being totally in denial? IDK, but it's SUCH fun to think about.

REWATCH! :D

[shadowfireflame.livejournal.com]

Yes yes yes, the trauma reaction!! And the John in his head is so mean, too. "Show off," etc. Everything the John in his head says is cruel or unsupportive. Like Sherlock is unable to emulate John's praise in his head. So sad.

[yalumesse]

It's true. And while John might say those actual things, he wouldn't say them so meanly. "Show off" from real!him would be at least half affectionate. Well, except when he's in headbutting mode. Poor Sherlock.