16 Times Sherlock Drove Us All Crazy

A screenshot of Sherlock’s grave at the end of “The Reichenbach Fall”. With some sad John for good measure. (Photo: BBC)

When Sherlock Died In Front of Everybody

Sherlock drives its fans crazy pretty often, but it’s not always in a bad way. Sometimes it’s in a great television kind of way. After Season 2 finale “The Reichenbach Fall”, everyone who watched Sherlock went nuts. E-V-E-R-Y-O-N-E. Not only did the episode feature a great, complicated story to end the season, it destroyed its viewers emotionally too. We had to watch Sherlock throw himself off a roof in front of his horrified best friend. We had to listen to their goodbye phone call beforehand. And we had to watch John grieve at Sherlock’s grave. If that weren’t enough to ruin us forever, we had to spend two years after that trying to figure out how Sherlock wasn’t actually dead.

The frenzy following “Reichenbach” was nuts. In the best possible way. Fans wrote ridiculously long speculation posts. They passionately argued theories. They were smart and dedicated and it was a gloriously fun time to be a Sherlock fan. The two-year hiatus, however, eventually took its toll. The theories and discussions got wilder and weirder as the wait went on. Some of that was fun. Some of it wasn’t.

The lengthy hiatus also meant that fans had entirely too much time to set their expectations sky high for the series’ return. No matter what Sherlock did after this episode, it probably wouldn’t have mattered. People were invested by this point. In their particular theory, in the elaborateness of the event, in which characters must have helped Sherlock survive afterward. There was never going to be an explanation for Sherlock’s fall that made everyone happy. “The Empty Hearse” was never going to be all things to all fans. (This does NOT absolve the show for the awful act of simply not providing one, however.)

But the ride sure was fun while it lasted.

Number of eyerolls: 0