Okay, about that last episode of SHERLOCK . . .

[xiphias]

I wanna talk about "The Reichenbach Fall".

So here's a cut-tag.

Specifically, I want to start speculating on "how did Sherlock fake his death at the end"?

What do we know? What can we assume? Now, I've only seen it once, so I'm going off of my memory here, which can be flaky for details, but let's see. . .

Let's start by assuming that Sherlock predicted that Moriarity was going to put him in some sort of situation where one or both of them would die, and he therefore had already set up his fake suicide -- it wasn't a spur-of-the-moment thing, but was already in place when they got there.

As I recall, Holmes was the one who chose the meeting spot. So we can assume that he'd planted whatever he needed already.

He asked for a big favor from Molly, who runs the morgue. We can probably guess that the thing that he got from her was a corpse of approximately his height and build.

Let's further assume that Holmes was behind the fake call saying that Mrs Hudson had been shot. Holmes would know how long it would take Watson to leave and come back, and probably which direction he'd be arriving from, so if he was going to stage something for Dr Watson's benefit, he had a specific angle to work from. Supporting this idea is that Holmes was keeping Watson in a specific place, at a specific viewing angle. Controlling the audience's line of sight can be a VERY important part of a magic trick.

Of course, we all noticed that Watson was hit by a bicycle and disoriented, and then, when he ran toward the body, explaining that he was a doctor and he wanted to help, the paramedics -- who GOT THERE EVEN BEFORE HE COULD MAKE IT ACROSS THE STREET -- kept pushing him back and blocking his view. The paramedics were clearly part of the trick, otherwise, they couldn't have been there and formed a perimeter less than a minute after the bodies hit the floor. Sure, they're right outside a hospital, but even so -- getting the perimeter set up even before the guy across the street can get there, even WITH being hit by a bike? They HAD to be prepped to go.

Now, in reality, it's REAL hard to keep a secret among THAT many people. In real life, the story would have leaked out, but we're dealing with a world in which a person can claim to have been a moderately successful children's actor, and nobody is going to twig to the fact that nobody ever saw his stuff. So, we can afford to be a little fantastical in the ability of random people to keep secrets.

So, let's list what resources we know Holmes had at his disposal: whatever it was that Molly did for him, a network of homeless people, enough time to set up the area, and, for that matter, Moriarity's body. I don't actually think that Moriarity's body was part of the plan, because I genuinely don't think that Holmes predicted Moriarity's suicide. In any case, if Holmes' plan was to use Moriarity's body, what was the favor that he needed from Molly?

In support of the "Moriarity's body" hypothesis, though, we can look at the care that Holmes took to position himself above Watson and silhouetted with his back to the sun. That would not only obscure the features, but also the height.

Anyway.

Let us assume that the body that hit the pavement was not Holmes'. That means that either the body that jumped/fell/was pushed off the roof was not Holmes, or that the body was switched on the way down. I didn't see any significant moment of occlusion, so that means that the switch was performed before falling off. It might well be that the form that Watson saw was never Sherlock in the first place -- that Holmes was doing a bit of morbid puppetry, out of Watson's line of sight.

So, that's my theory. Moriarity kills himself, Molly brings up a corpse that was previously prepared and dressed to look something like Holmes, OR said corpse was already placed somewhere on the roof that Moriarity didn't notice (I think option 1 works better), Holmes waits for Watson to show up at the point where he will be the audience for the magic trick, Holmes phones him from elsewhere on the roof, dumps the body off the roof, Watson rushes forward, a confederate knocks Watson down with a bicycle, and, by the time he stands up, the other confederates have already surrounded the body, and managed to cart it off before anybody, especially Dr Watson, has a chance to get a good look at it.

Mycroft, of course, needs to be involved to deal with the paperwork in making a body disappear, and/or have another body buried in its place -- which, of course, was EXACTLY what he'd been doing in the PREVIOUS episode, anyway. That's why Molly doesn't get fired and arrested for body-snatching.

What this DOESN'T explain, of course, is "what was Holmes doing with that rubber ball?"

Comments

[querldox.livejournal.com]

It's been pointed out elsewhere that there's an old magician's trick where tightly holding a rubber ball in one's armpit so that it chokes off an artery causes one to have no pulse in the associated wrist.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I've practiced that trick, yeah. It works, but it's kinda uncomfortable, and your arm falls asleep. Of course, that would suggest that it WAS Sherlock who hit the ground.

[navrins]

It's been a while since I watched it, but I recall my assumption being was that it WAS Holmes who hit the pavement, but he knew how to cushion his fall well enough to survive it. Watson (who was doctor enough to notice he was alive) was kept away (the bicyclist was probably an accomplice), Holmes had prepared lots of fake blood, and I didn't really think about the paramedics but it's not too hard to assume they were either set up by Holmes (possibly via Molly?) or he whispered something very persuasive while lying on the ground, along the lines of "pretend I'm dead and I'll explain once you get me inside."

[ykats.livejournal.com]

Apparently there is a garbage truck that's parked there and immediately drives away. You can see a glimpse of it if you pause. So the theory is that he did jump himself, but landed on a pile of soft garbage bags inside the truck, then got out and placed himself on the sidewalk, in the short time that Watson was delayed by the bike accident (staged, of course). He would then pretend to be dead (as did Adler in an earlier episode) and Molly would help him get out of the morgue.