I think the reason why people praise Martin Freeman so much for this episode is evident in this gifset. Sure, the episode is primarily about Sherlock’s fall from grace, his demise. But what about the people he leaves behind?
Look at the middle gif. Here you’ve got Martin expressing a thousand words and emotions in one single look. There’s the furrowed eyebrows of confusion followed by wide eyes of understanding. First there’s, Why would Sherlock lie about something like this? overlapped with the realization that He had to send me away. Distract me, to the inevitable Oh, God. He’s in trouble.
And then in his uttering of “Oh, my God,” there’s a part of him wondering—with whatever’s going on, whatever Sherlock’s doing or about to do—if he might be too late.
tl;dr: Martin Freeman, how do you ACTING?
