Is CBS’s Elementary inching closer to the edge as season 3 comes to a close? Here’s why we think Reichenbach is not far off the show’s radar.

“The Final Problem” is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes story in which the famed London based detective and his nemesis Moriarty meet their end. When the story was first published in 1893 the uproar was not unlike the cries the BBC heard for years as the credits rolled on the mini-series Sherlock. The people wanted to know, where is Sherlock?

Elementary has, over the course of its three season run, taken bits a pieces from canon, slipping them seamlessly into the folds of their narrative. Joan Watson was a former surgeon, but she turned to a sober companion facing another type of battlefield than the army. Moriarty turned out not only to be Sherlock’s most brilliant opponent, but also his one and only romantic love, Irene Adler. The threads are there, but where Doyle’s overseas reimagining clings closely to the canon story by story, Elementary flips it on its head giving viewers 24 new and exciting tales each season.

So how will Elementary tackle the greatest fall of Sherlock’s timeline? We feel confident enough to say that Elementary‘s Reichenbach already happened. In fact it was the fall that served as the catalyst for Elementary‘s beginning. However, while nods to Reichenbach exist already in the show’s narrative, an explicit reference to the Reichenbach is still available for the taking.

Elementary‘s season finales and premieres have given us the building blocks on which to construct the Reichenbach narrative atop. Here are the pieces that we have and the final blocks that season 3’s finale may provide us with.

On page 2: The Reichenbach we’ve seen

What we already know:

Moriarty and Sherlock go off the cliff:

Though Sherlock was not aware that Irene Adler and Jaime Moriarty shared the same DNA and wardrobe, both were equally responsible for pushing and pulling Sherlock over the cliff prior to his meeting with Watson. In London, after Irene Adler was murdered, Moriarty watched as Sherlock drove himself from his homeland across the ocean to rock bottom drug addict in New York City. He hit the bottom of the cliff and hit it hard.

Following this event, Sherlock worked in season 1 to dismantle Moriarty’s network until ultimately meeting her face to face in the finale. Another fall, imitating the one that kicked off the detective’s recovery, lands Sherlock in the hospital where he comes back from faking a drug overdose and captures Moriarty. But the game is, as we saw this season, still afoot.

The shadow of the famed detective:

As much as “For All You Know” gave viewers and Watson this season, one foggy illusion remains, we do not know the Sherlock that existed at the height of his drug addiction. We can pull at the frays that remain from his past, but all we will see is the shadow that follows the Sherlock Holmes Joan and Elementary viewers have grown to know.

A grand return, or two:

Sherlock took his eight month leave at the close of season 2, giving the story “The Empty House” some significance in the season 3 opener. As Sherlock returns to jest with Lestrade in the Doyle story, Holmes makes a point of solving Bell’s case from his desk drawer making sure it is noted that his presence has indeed returned. Joan Watson has some difficulty accepting Sherlock’s apology for leaving without so much as a goodbye in person. But he returns to find her in a similar place that the Holmes of Doyle’s universe finds Watson — working in a private practice.

If this return did not feel as deserved as it is, there is another that we were privy to, roughly 60 episodes ago. The series premiere was the detective’s grand return from the confines rehab, his place of hiding following the fall. Just like in canon, the detective arrives noting the former doctor’s presence and jumps immediately into his work. Unlike the shadowy man of the past, Sherlock has new relationships to forge in both instances with Watson.

Next page: What is missing from ‘Elementary’s’ jump?

What we want to see:

Benedict Cumberbatch saved the painting, Jeremey Brett physically went over the falls, so how will Elementary bring in the namesake?

A crazy Reichenbach fan theory:

Do not fear, the work is not falling on you! This author has one particularly crazy tab combination that lead to one specific destination. Rhinebeck, NY. More specifically, Rhinebeck Cliffs, NY. It isn’t a waterfall per say, but the over look across the Hudson is the perfect New York counterpart in both namesake and description to the Swiss falls.

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Update: As this author was editing, Elementary‘s Sherlock Holmes, Jonny Lee Miller, shared a photo of the Kingston Police badge. Where is Kingston, NY? Across the Hudson River from Rhinecliff, NY.

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That may be a stretch, but the titles of the final episodes are not. Five new episodes remain in the third season before Elementary‘s May 14 conclusion, with the final two titles being, “Absconded” and “A Controlled Decent.” Where Sherlock’s first fall to open the series was radical and messy, these pieces of the finale seem calculated and secretive. Much more on the nose for a Reichenbach style storyline.

Watch Elementary season 3, episode 19, “A Stitch in Time,” Thursday, April 16 at 10:00 p.m. ET on CBS.

Do you think Elementary is heading for a fall?