Sherlock · Season 2 · Episode 3 · 15 January 2012
S2E3 The Reichenbach Fall
THE MOMENT The pavement. Watson walking away. Two years of global waiting began in that single cut.
Moriarty's endgame arrives and Sherlock's reputation is systematically dismantled before the confrontation. The rooftop is earned - this is a finale that understood you must take everything from a character before you can have an audience beg for their return.
Full episode analysis below. Spoiler-light verdict above.
Updated
Sherlock Season 2 Episode 3 'The Reichenbach Fall' aired January 15, 2012 on BBC One as the Season 2 finale. Rotten Tomatoes holds Season 2 at 94 percent. The RT consensus described the cliffhanger as generating 'more audience anticipation than almost any television event of the decade.' The finale works because the preceding two seasons built Sherlock's public reputation with enough detail that its systematic dismantling by Moriarty carries genuine weight - not just as plot but as a moral argument about celebrity, credibility, and institutional trust. Andrew Scott's Moriarty, whose villainy is rooted in nihilistic playfulness rather than conventional menace, is fully operational here. The rooftop scene and the pavement cut launched a two-year audience wait that became a cultural event in its own right.