WARNING: spoilers for Young Sherlock ahead.
Out of all 8 episodes of Young Sherlock on Prime Video, episodes 6 and 7 are my favorites. Without giving too much away, the gang heads to Paris — which is in the grip of the French Revolution — stopping by the infamous cabaret hall Folies Bergère on the way.
By the time we get to this stage of the new TV show, Sherlock (Hero Fiennes Tiffin) and Moriarty (Dónal Finn) are thick as thieves. Across multiple other adaptations of the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle stories, the pair are sworn enemies, with Moriarty more akin to a MCU villain as an adult.
However, while the two are "the Chuckle Brothers of the detective world" (Hero's words as well as mine), episode 7 is the possible turning point for the moment that made the man evil... and Finn agrees.
"This is a really pivotal moment in his life"
With the gang needing to scarper from the Folies Bergère after an explosive reveal at the end of episode 6, Moriarty gets caught up in the French Revolution crossfire and instinctively kills a solider running towards him and Gulun (Zine Tseng) at the start of episode 7.
It's a moment Moriarty finds difficult to reconcile, but the more time passes, the more a subtle smile masks his face.
"I think it is like a really pivotal moment in his life," Finn explains. "Without saying too much, I also think there are some moments earlier in this series which give us a window into why we think someone could operate in that way. I think it's the actors' job, to do it without judgment.
"He was presented with difficult decisions and situations. You have to fight to get to where you need to be when you come from a certain place. He's also really motivated by being a great friend. If he was more interested in pursuing chaos, I think he would have left Sherlock a lot earlier."
It's a marvel to watch how well Sherlock and Moriarty work together when they're trying to solve the same crime, and it almost makes us yearn for that to have historically been the case.
"We did use the reference of Chuckle Brothers," Tiffin adds about making the unexpected bromance work. "[Creator] Matthew Parker would often say Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, but yeah, the Chuckle Brothers has impact for me.
I'll leave a trailer for classic 90s British TV show ChuckleVision below so you can see what I'm talking about. Their catchphrase was "To me, to you," and that level of dependency is just as apparent in Young Sherlock.
"The familiarity and cohesion was something that Guy [Ritchie] and Matthew were always really conscious of, and they were really helpful about helping us get there. But I think specifically me and Dónal always wanted to feel like they almost have the same mind.
"We tried to achieve that at times if we each had a chunk each of dialog, we might share and let's go line by line. They're really intertwined with how they speak and then physically we'd spend time in blocking rehearsals, making sure that the timing and speed of our turns, or when we look at something around the corner, happen at the same time. You really feel this kind of synchronicity between them."
To me, to you, indeed.
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