In 1893 Dr John Watson wrote “with a heavy heart” that any attempt at recovering the bodies of Sherlock Holmes and his adversary Moriarty was absolutely hopeless,after they had plunged “locked in each other’s arms” down Reichenbach Falls (“that dreadful caldron of swirling water and seething foam”).
Can this really be the end? Of course not, silly!
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle must have had an inkling at the backlash news of Holmes’ demise would cause and by not having a body allowed him the option of a miraculous (yet unexplained) death defying escape (which also conveniently helped Doyle survive his own financial difficulties).
Money/ratings lie at the heart of Holmes’ apparent indestructible qualities in the second Guy Ritchie movie with Robert Downey Jr and at the end of the second series of BBC’s Sherlock starring Benedict Cumberbatch.
Of the three, the TV resurrection is the one that stretches credibility the most because we see him jump of a building and get a close-up of his bloody body on the ground. Theories abound on the forum pages of how he cheated the Grim Reaper this time while in an interview with The Guardian , one of the show’s scriptwriters Steven Moffat says smugly “There is a clue everybody’s missed,……….we’ve worked out how Sherlock survives, and actually shot part of what really happened. It all makes sense.”
While we await season three to see if he is as good as his word, one forum comment sets another conundrum : “The biggest mystery in last night’s episode was how the reincarnated Sherlock managed to get his hands on the EXACT same Belstaff coat. Particularly when they are no longer making them”.
That’s the kind of elementary observational genius that made Sherlock the man he is.
There’s a case to be made for nominating Sherlock Holmes as the first true superhero. His costume may not have been as silly or sexy but he made up for this with his awesome powers of perception.
