The real Reichenbach mystery 

(Sherlock meta by marsdaydream)

Lately I’ve been loving the reading that Sherlock didn’t realize what he meant to John until the “best friend / best man” scene. Which means the real mystery unfolds on a rewatch of Reichenbach: what’s going on in Sherlock’s head in this episode if he doesn’t truly know how John feels about him?

I had always assumed that Sherlock was breaking down on the roof of Barts because he knew what his suicide was going to do to John. But even if those were crocodile tears, and even if he didn’t grasp John’s feelings for him at all, I don’t think it means Sherlock was an unfeeling machine. I think we got to watch his heart break earlier in the episode — but it was long before he jumped.

We know, based on Lazarus, that  Sherlock was in control of the Moriarty situation from the start. But even if Sherlock always knew the endgame, I don’t think he’d dealt with the reality of his decision until the moment after Kitty’s flat.

This moment is for the viewer, not for John. Here, John can’t see Sherlock’s face, and we get a clear pause to watch Sherlock’s expression, which says: this is it. Maybe it’s different to make a theoretical plan, and then realize you have to go through with it? He looks stricken.

The combination of that shot, and the next scene with Molly, gives us the sense that Sherlock is, as he says, “not okay.” He’s heartbroken. He has no real reason to cry when he comes to Molly — we know she would help Sherlock regardless. And yet Sherlock’s eyes are filled with tears throughout this scene. He might not know what his death will do to John, but he still doesn’t want to leave him. He loves him. He’s just clueless.

The one question mark that remains, for me, is what Sherlock could be thinking when he listens to John make the speech at his grave. Why, after hearing this speech, does he still not understand what he means to John? Even after “The best man I ever knew… please don’t be dead…”  Sherlock still doesn’t seem to get it, if he can come back and think he can just pop out of a cake. According to what we see in S3, Sherlock really doesn’t understand until after the reunion that he deeply broke John.

That, to me, is the real mystery of Reichenbach: not how did he survive, but given this moment, why didn’t Sherlock figure out how John feels?

Because the one thing we do know, from the end of The Empty Hearse, is: “I heard you.” Sherlock heard this entire speech. How did this process, for him? Did he have to compartmentalize it, put it away, knowing he’d just committed to lengthy undercover work? How did he watch John break down and not think, “this man loves me?”

And if he did grasp it somehow, at the gravesite, did he convince himself during his time away that it just couldn’t be true? Did he somehow regress, thinking that he must have imagined those feelings, that someone like John couldn’t really feel that way about him?

What we do know is: by the end of The Empty Hearse, Sherlock has started to understand what he did to John. And so what I’d initially seen as a scene that fell a bit flat (“I heard you,” is that all?) might possibly take on a different meaning.

What if Sherlock is saying: "I heard you". Not in the distant past — but in the present. As in — now he’s starting to understand.