4 Great Things And 4 Abominable Things About The Sherlock Special

2. The Consequences

It no longer matters what kind of resolution we are given because at the end of it there will never be proof - only Sherlock's theories based on a very distorted version of historical events (remember he replaced real people with people he knows).

Apart from proving to himself that there is no way Moriarty could have come back from the dead, nothing we have not seen before happens in the episode. Sherlock faces a struggle and is on the verge of giving up until he is either helped by or decides not to give up because of John. And in this case the John we spend the majority of the episode with is not real, and acts only as Sherlock believes he would.