#rob doherty

ET: It must be bittersweet saying goodbye to Elementary. What was your approach for the final episode in wrapping up Sherlock and Joan's story?

Rob Doherty: As you recall, we thought season six was our last season and it meant telling a lot of our stories in a certain way. Season seven was an opportunity to know that the end was coming, to go into a season and look ahead and try to build everything piece by piece. We had to talk a lot about the 13th episode before we could talk about the first. We knew that there were elements from canon that we wanted to utilize. Specifically, we looked at two stories in particular, "The Final Problem" and "The Ins and Outs," that we borrowed liberally.

In canon, Sherlock did drop off the map for three years. He was thought to be dead. His Watson was in the dark on that front. That felt too cruel to do to our Watson and it also felt inappropriate. I think she would've known better. We knew we wanted a three-year window where they were separated and changing, making new choices and then bringing them back together so each could do a bit of self-analysis. Who were they apart and who might they be now that they are together again?

It's very clear from the three-year time jump that a lot has changed for both Sherlock and Joan. Joan has a young son, Arthur, now. Why was it important for her to accomplish one of her main goals of having a family?

It was a story that we started in season six and it's a story we would've told a different way if we had known at the time that it was potentially the final season. When it did look like the end for us, that was something that we had to move away from -- not abandon completely, but pin it, for lack of a better term. Season seven was a great opportunity to revisit it and hopefully, punctuate it. It was important a year ago and it was important this year because it just felt so true to who Joan is. Becoming a parent seemed like a very natural progression for her. Despite the dangers that come with her job and despite living with an addict in recovery, we felt she could be an incredible parent. With just 13 episodes in season seven, it didn't feel like something we could start at the top. Odin Reichenbach took up a lot of real estate and so it became, in our eyes, more appropriate to return to Joan after three years and find out she has Arthur in her life in the finale.

It was surprising to learn that Joan had been diagnosed with cancer, something she chose to hide from Sherlock when he returns. Why did you make the decision to have her go through a major health struggle in the final episode?

We've seen their lives in danger on multiple occasions over the course of the series, but more often than not, they are threatened by criminals and villains. Not many of us are stalked by guilds of assassins. I liked telling a story about a real-life threat to one of the partners. We all worry about getting sick or we all worry about a loved one getting sick, and so many people go through it, fight it and come back from it. Sherlock and Joan are, in their own ways, superheroes. It was interesting to put them in a situation where they're dealing with a much more grounded threat.

Joan reluctantly telling Sherlock that she's sick also seemed to be the main catalyst for Sherlock's decision to ultimately stay in New York. Was that actually the case?

Even with three years of separation, I wanted them back together again. I wanted them to ride off into the sunset together. I didn't want fans to come out of the final episode feeling like they thought, "It's good we've been apart. Our lives are better for having been apart." The problem is, for each character, they worry that they're putting the other in a bad position. Joan doesn't want to tell Sherlock's she's sick because it appears to her that his life is going great. And when Sherlock looks at Joan, he sees the same thing. He sees someone who has drive. But, when someone's sick, all of that falls away. No one has to be polite at that point. It brings them both right back down to earth. It clears the decks. Especially for Sherlock, he sees what's really important, understanding that his partner, his greatest friend and virtual family member needs help. It doesn't matter what else is going on in his life. He's going to step away from it to help her.

Sherlock says he relapsed during his time away and that, like Joan, he was secretly struggling. Was it important to highlight that these two were better together?

As far as Sherlock relapsing, we never wanted to suggest that it was because Joan wasn't there. She's not his heroin-proof vest, for lack of a better term. He relapsed when they were together, he relapsed when they were apart. It was more than anything, us being true to the disease of addiction. And yet, I think it was important that it happened because it informed his concerns about staying with Joan. Potentially doing it now that Joan has a child in the house, Sherlock just can't wrap his head around that possibility. He doesn't want to expose her son to any of that baggage that he carries.

Was Sherlock always going to stay, even if Joan wasn't sick?

That's a great question. The short answer is yes, they would have gone their separate ways again if the captain hadn't shared Joan's secret with Sherlock,. Each would have returned to their lives, not because it's what they truly wanted. The way I always looked at it was, they're thinking about each other. Now, Sherlock is about to leave New York because he thinks Joan is better off without him. Joan is going to keep her secret to herself because she doesn't want to disrupt what appears to be success and happiness on his part. Of course, that's not the least bit true and it takes someone who knows them as well as they know themselves to shed appropriate light on the situation, which is, Joan is ill and could use help. Gregson is the one who can look down and see the truth of the situation. Gregson knows each one is not being entirely honest with the other and he knows it's because of good intentions, but also, he knows the veil has to fall away. Sherlock has to know what's going on and he has to make a decision that factors that unfortunate truth in.

You also did another one-year time jump in the finale and I was worried for a second that it was Joan in the casket, so you did your job there. But it's Moriarty's death Sherlock is mourning, even though he believes she's not actually dead. Are you leaving that as a mystery?

I don't have it in me to leave it a mystery. I guarantee you Moriarty's alive. We'll never see it, but Sherlock absolutely goes back and digs up that grave and finds an empty casket. The intention was for that to be the takeaway. My hope was that people would, when they think about all stories we're not going to tell, those stories will include lots of Moriarty. Sherlock and Joan should be going into this future with her as an adversary.

Did you try to get Natalie Dormer back for one last appearance as Moriarty?

As a staff, we talked about it very briefly at the beginning of the season and ultimately, the concern was we would be telling a last story about three people and not two. Nothing is more important, at the end of the day, than Sherlock and Joan's relationship and yet Moriarty carries so much history that in a weird way, it felt like she would distract from the ending Sherlock and Joan really deserve.

Earlier this year, I asked you about Lucy's blonde hair. In the series finale, we see her character, after the one-year time jump, rocking a short black bob of a wig. How much thought did you put in Joan's post-cancer remission look?

I wanted her appearance to speak for itself and remind everyone that she has spent a year fighting cancer, she had experienced hair loss and she fought through it. The wig helps tell that story a little bit. What was amazing to me was how good it looked. Very early in the series, we had Lucy in a wig, when we were showing a flashback to another part of her life and it's one of my great regrets over the course of the series, so I was a little nervous. I was like, "Oh, man, I hope this wig is better." But the team in New York found something perfect.

When did you know you wanted the final image of Elementary to be Sherlock and Joan walking into Captain Bell's office and asking to be consultants again?

The final image is probably something we didn't settle on until we were actually breaking the episode. I don't think it's something I had in my head for a long time, unlike season six where we thought, if this is the end, we wanted to see them walking down the street in London. Knowing this would be a story set in New York, at the brownstone and the 11th precinct, those sets take over. The only real question was which space would be the last one? While I'm extremely partial to the brownstone, the story dictated a final beat at the precinct.

Looking back at the last seven seasons, are there any lingering stories you wish you could have had time to tell or could have told?

One thing I would have liked to have done is seeing more of Moriarty. Over the course of the series there were bigger, more serialized stories we wanted to tell about her, Sherlock and Joan. But we made the grave mistake of hiring an outrageously talented and very in-demand actress for the role. Natalie has had an incredible seven years. Every success had been much deserved and yet, it made it hard for our calendars to jive with hers. We love the character. We love Natalie. Selfishly, it would've been so much fun to have a little more time with her over the course of the series.

Joan becoming a parent was really a story I thought would begin and end in season six. It was something I felt we could serialize in the course of a year; circumstances changed and we had to put it to the side. But one notion I was really intrigued by is the very unique living situation that would have resulted for Sherlock and Joan. It would've been interesting to have a kid in the house for a season, not just to see how good Joan is at being a mom, but to show that Sherlock can do this too. I wanted to see what it would do to the living situation and I thought it would have been fun to see him try to be helpful in his own way. He would have had a lot of plans for Joan's kid.

You talked about how you saw this season as a "blessing." I'm curious if where Bell, Gregson, Joan and Sherlock ultimately end up is where you originally envisioned the characters' final chapters would be when you first started on this journey?

More than anything, I wanted everyone at peace in the end. I'm sure peace could be made that separating Sherlock and Joan would be more dramatic than killing someone off. It might've made a bigger splash. But as we got into it, it just felt right to settle everyone, to show how they've changed and to put them in good places as the series came to a conclusion. We're certainly hinting that there are adventures ahead, but people who watched the show and cared about Sherlock and Joan can turn off their TVs on Thursday night knowing that the most important story we told, which is the relationship between Sherlock and Joan, is going to continue. That's always going to be moving forward. That's not going to end. Creatively, I get it when [showrunners want to shake things up]. Sometimes, it makes all the sense in the world but other times, it just leaves the audience cold and I wanted a happier ending.

At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if 10 years down the line an Elementary revival comes to fruition.

What did you want to accomplish in the series’ final episode?

Rob Doherty: It was important to me that in the final episode of the series there was less a mystery to solve and more appreciation and assessment of what Sherlock and Joan have built over the years. It was less about what they did professionally and more to do with where they landed personally.

That was a pretty happy ending personally for Sherlock and Joan. Why did you decide to jump ahead three years when the episode opened, and then one year more?

After the legendary canonical story, “The Final Problem,” in which Sherlock and Moriarity tumble over Reichenbach Falls, the world believed Sherlock Holmes was gone forever. But eventually Conan Doyle brought him back in “The Empty House.” When our story began, three years have passed, which was perfect for us. It’s a nod to the canon, but also enough time for the partners to carve out new and very different lives. It was interesting to see what’s the same and what’s different.

One thing Joan did  during that time was write a book tribute to Sherlock. Won’t that need an addendum now that people will know he’s alive?

[Laughs] That is true. That’s another nod to the original Watson who was constantly writing about Sherlock Holmes. We had established this book many years ago when Sherlock realized that Joan was recording their cases. We thought it would be fun to revive it for the final episode.

You also decided to give Joan the child she always wanted. Finally.

It was a story I wanted to tell  in Season 6 but we were never quite sure how many episodes we were going to have and that fell by the wayside. I was grateful to have one more opportunity to punctuate that sentence.

Didn’t Lucy really want that storyline?

Yes. I had watched Lucy become a mom over the run of the show. Obviously she and Joan Watson are completely different people and yet it felt so appropriate to who Joan is and what she brings to any relationship. It seemed a shame to not make her a parent for all the work we had done in Season 6.

Who ever thought Sherlock was meant to be a parent?

Sherlock had certainly emphasized he wasn’t, more than once. But it’s one thing to say all those things and it’s another for your partner to come home with a child one day. I had actually thought about introducing her son much earlier in Season 7, but with just 13 episodes we didn’t have the real estate.

You also gave Joan cancer! Was it a way to keep Sherlock around?

Ultimately it’s because cosmically they are two people who belong together and yet they’re both incredibly proud at different times. It’s been incredibly difficult for one to tell the other, “I need you,” or “I’m a better version of myself with you.” The final episode is an exploration of that. They were together for a long time. Now they’ve been separated for three years. They’ve each flourished in different ways and each worries that they’re potentially harmful to each other. Joan doesn’t want him to give up everything he’s done to help her, but when you bring something as serious as cancer into the mix, all of those things drop away. You focus on what matters and ultimately that’s what I wanted Sherlock and Joan to do. For Sherlock, it was an act of love. He realizes he’s in the place he’s supposed to be and that’s why he and Joan try to head back to work in the end.

What are we to make of Sherlock and Joan’s relationship at series end? There was no kiss, but hugs and tears and a future life together.

It’s safe to assume that their friendship persists. I just don’t believe in my heart that they are meant to be romantic partners. And that’s from having spent seven years in each of their skulls and what I think about when I think about them now in the aftermath. I wanted to write about a powerful platonic relationship. Maybe I’m bad at writing romance, but that felt more expected and therefore I rejected it early and often.

What have you heard on the subject from fans?

I talked to people over the years who had different takes. I will say the people who are anti-romance are more obstreperous. I would say I hear from those folks more often and at greater volume.

As a fan, I was pleased that you brought back such characters as Morland Holmes (John Noble) and Kitty (Ophelia Lovibond). We saw Moriarity’s supposed coffin in the finale. I assume Natalie Dormer wasn’t available. Did you want to do some kind of salute to Sherlock’s iconic adversary?

I adore Natalie, but there was never a plan to bring her back. Ultimately I didn’t want to resolve the story of Sherlock, Joan, and Moriarty. I wanted to focus on the partners. The reason we dared invoke her name in the final episode is it seemed appropriate to at least drop the name of Sherlock’s greatest enemy from canon. But it’s also a great misdirect. For some people, there’s an expectation that you can only complete your Sherlockian franchise with a confrontation between Sherlock and Moriarty. Because it’s potentially expected I wanted to push it in that direction and then head in a different one.

The casket itself was a misdirection, since we saw it after Joan was diagnosed with cancer. Whoever is in that coffin, it seemed that Sherlock doesn’t believe his old lover turned nemesis is really dead.

I’m with Sherlock on this one. I absolutely believe Moriarty is alive and well.

Could we possibly see more  Sherlock and Joan in any form?

TVLINE | We’ve talked about how you thought the Season 6 finale was going to be the series finale, and then you were renewed and had to come up with a new series finale. What did you like about this series finale that you weren’t able to do in the previous one? It was an opportunity to end everything on better terms for our core cast of characters. Things ended badly between Sherlock and Gregson, and having a seventh season and a second series finale was an opportunity to address that. The other opportunity it represented was jumping ahead in time to give everyone who’s watched the show so faithfully a glimpse at how people’s lives had turned out, how they progressed and changed and stayed the same. The Season 6 finale wasn’t really built to jump forward, so I was glad we got to do it in Season 7.

TVLINE | When it came to Bell, did you decide it was just more of a natural fit for him to be the new captain rather than going off into the Marshals like he originally planned? Yeah. We may have strained credibility just a bit in that he rose to captain relatively quickly. I think there are more hoops that one has to jump through to get that sort of promotion in the span of three years. But it was worth it. The 11th Precinct always felt, to us, like his home, and New York City was where he belonged. It’s frankly more fun to see him take the position that his mentor once held. Gregson has stepped aside, but everything is still in excellent hands because Marcus is there. As far as planning the finale, we wouldn’t have gotten as much out of a Marcus who works for the Marshals.

TVLINE | I was very happy to see that Joan was finally able to start the family that she’s always wanted. Was it important for you to find a way to balance those two parts of her life in the end? Yeah. That was another upside of a seventh season. I think it’s possible she would have become a parent in Season 6 if we had had a little more control of our schedule and number of episodes. It’s something that had to be put on a back-burner. If [Season] 6 had been the end, it just would have fallen away completely. So yes, we were glad to have a chance to tell a little bit more of that story and bring all of the work she did in Season 6 to become a parent to fruition. And yeah, balance is absolutely important, and it’s certainly true to who Joan is. I think if she ever thought that her work as a detective was negatively impacting her parenting of Arthur, she would make adjustments. She would find a way to put her son ahead of all of that. In that way, it’s also true to who Lucy [Liu] is as a parent. I’ve watched her so gracefully become a parent over the lifetime of the show. The show is a lot of work, but it’s also obviously a lot of work to be a parent, and she handled it so smoothly. I think what you see in Joan at the end of the series, it’s truer to who Lucy is.

TVLINE | Since we didn’t see what happens in that one year that Sherlock decides to stay and help Joan, can you talk about what kind of a role he plays in Arthur’s life? Are they a non-traditional family? I believe, first and foremost, he was her support system over the course of that year that we didn’t get to see. In a lot of respects, he was what Joan was to him in the first season of the show. Obviously, each would have been dealing with very different problems, but having lived with Joan for seven years and having become, essentially, a part of her family, our present-day Sherlock is equipped to be that for someone. So I’m sure it was a lot of tending to Arthur, as needed, while she underwent chemo and whenever she felt sick. I also imagine work probably fell away for a while for both of them, which for the Sherlock of seven years ago would have been impossible. He thought that’s what he needed, that was his oxygen. But Joan is his family, and has been for quite some time, and so that makes Arthur his family as well.

TVLINE | And it’s nice that they can be a couple without being romantic, which is something that you’ve stuck to throughout the series run. I wish I could say it was really hard, but when you know what you want to do, that makes it quite a bit easier. There was never any pressure from on high. Certainly, there was a section of the fanbase that looked for it. But it was always more interesting to me to keep things platonic, show a great friendship instead of a great romance.

TVLINE | Moriarty played a big role in the finale, even though we didn’t actually ever see her. Why did you decide to focus so heavily on her? Our last two episodes borrowed a lot of elements from stories in canon, and these were stories in which Moriarty played an important part. It felt canonically appropriate to, in some small way, make Moriarty a part of the end of our story about Holmes and Watson. Beyond that, logistically, we thought the stakes needed to be appropriately high for Joan to beckon Sherlock out of hiding. It’s hard to beat the stakes of a returned Moriarty. She really fit the bill, in that respect. For the most part, a lot of what we’re hearing about her in the finale is true — she is out there, she’s a threat — but ultimately, it’s her name that’s being invoked. She’s not really behind anything that’s happening. And yet, I think it’s pretty clear that she’s someone that Sherlock and Joan will continue to come up against. We won’t be able to see those episodes, but I liked the idea of her being out there and continuing to be a foe to Sherlock and Joan.

TVLINE | So it’s definitely settled: She’s still alive? She has to be! Yes, I will say she’s absolutely still alive.

TVLINE | Were there any discussion or attempts made to bring her back in the flesh? Or did you prefer to have her be this looming offscreen presence? We talked about it very briefly, and to be honest, I was worried that too much spotlight would be stolen from the people who really matter. We spent seven years with Sherlock and Joan. We spent a handful of episodes with Moriarty. Natalie [Dormer] is so amazing, and she was an exceptional Moriarty. It can distract if you’re utilizing her and that character at the wrong time. I really wanted this to feel like the end of a story about Sherlock and Joan, and not the end of a story about Sherlock and Joan and Jamie Moriarty.

TVLINE | Did you ever think about having Sherlock or Joan possibly die? Or did you really want there to be a happy ending? I confess I thought about one of them dying before all was said and done. I won’t tell you which one. It was something I felt we at least had to talk about and explore. But I worked at a show called Medium for six years prior to creating Elementary, and I got to co-write the series finale for that show. We, ultimately, settled on a story in which the husband of the main character dies. It felt incredibly appropriate to a show about ghosts and the afterlife and marriage. But there have been times over the years where I felt guilty about the way we ended it. As appropriate as it was and as proud as I was of what we did, it was heartbreaking that one character had lost her partner. Ultimately, that was a big reason for us telling the kind of story that we did [on Elementary]. [I don’t] regret the Medium finale. It was a highlight of my career, being a part of it. And yet, I didn’t want to kill off another beloved character for the sake of ending a series.