“You can’t spend 90 minutes explaining how he did it. Everybody’s very excited about it now but I guarantee everybody will forget about it as soon as it’s done because for us [the episode] was about restoring the friendship between John and Sherlock.”

• Not explaining how Sherlock fell is all well and good because it’s true, it’s really not that important. But the whole thing with Anderson and the conspiracy theorists felt like they were mocking fans’ speculations and altogether left a bad taste in my mouth.
• There’s another, less charitable explanation for why they never explained how Sherlock faked his death, and it’s that they actually don’t know themselves, and frankly, with how little sense it actually makes if you think about it for two seconds, that seems a likely explanation.
• If their goal was to ‘fix’ Sherlock and John’s friendship, I honestly think they failed. What you see is Sherlock mocking John’s grief, then being impatient that John isn’t over it after ten seconds, and then manipulating him into saying he forgives Sherlock because he thinks they’re about to die. Sherlock never honestly apologises, takes accountability, or wins back John’s trust. The rest of the series suffers from the shortcuts taken here, because John never truly trusts Sherlock again. The relationship remains broken, it’s just superficially fixed. Just because John says ‘I forgive you’ out loud doesn’t mean he actually does.
• The torture scene in the beginning is incredibly manipulative, because it sets up ‘Oh poor Sherlock suffered so much and John is a bit meanie for not forgiving him right away’. But how would John have even known? It’s never addressed in the series whether John ever learns why Sherlock jumped, and what happened to him while he was Away.
• Lestrade and Mrs Hudson instantly forgiving Sherlock makes it seem like John is being unreasonable for being angry for longer. They get over Sherlock faking his death in an instant, why can’t John?
• TEH is the start of Sherlock and John’s dynamic getting a bit toxic, honestly. Sherlock’s disregard for John’s feelings, John still going back to him even though he’s still so angry, Sherlock’s inability to leave John alone to process his emotions in his own time, Sherlock’s lying and his manipulation, Sherlock as the martyr who suffers to save John, who’s 'ungrateful’ because he doesn’t know and didn’t ask for the sacrifices…. it’s all there from TEH.

• The catharsis of John’s anger at being lied to and left to grieve never happens because his reaction is treated with disregard and flippancy by both Mary and Sherlock
• So we never get resolution of that anger by revealing the grief, hurt and sadness underlying it - because its impact never truly lands
• Sherlock is stunned and disappointed but never reckons with the damage, and never trusts John with the truth. It’s all lies and manipulation here on out.
• The audience is given the information about Sherlock’s sacrifices but John isn’t
• This sets up a situation where sympathy is skewed towards Sherlock and away from John to keep the audience on board with his character despite Sherlock’s actions and their effects on John
• Mary is used here to contrast John’s sense of betrayal and outrage with her sangfroid
• As was pointed out, this makes John seem unreasonable for very understandable and appropriate emotions
• Any sincere beats where there might be potential for reveal and reconciliation are brushed aside in favor of jokes, action sequences and peril
• The train sequence is breathtaking in its emotional cruelty to John
• Someone with trust issues who must have been devastated by being played for a fool for years, all that grief, guilt and loss for nothing
• Being lied to, fooled, manipulated into emotional distress and disclosure again by the same person