Sherlock: The Final Problem (4x03)

I'm not going to discuss all the scandal what with the leaked episode and all that. I'm going to do my best to look at this episode on its own merits, and not get in to all the extra-diegetic aspects at work here. And... I gotta say, I was pleasantly surprised. I liked this episode way more than the first two in the season. I had a few little things that I strongly disliked, but they were minor. A few things gave me pause, but the bulk of the episode... I really loved. I'm going to go a bit off-script and break this into three sections instead of two...

Stuff I Hated:

There wasn't much, but there were a few things. So, Eurus spends the whole episode torturing Sherlock, John, and Mycroft. There are various ways she goes about doing this. One of them is by threatening to kill Molly Hooper. The way to save her is for Sherlock to call her and get her to say "I love you" to him. This will stop the bomb. This is the only scene Molly gets in the whole episode, and it's such a shame. Imagine that phone call from her perspective. She thinks Sherlock is just using her in a case, and she says "I love you" anyway, because she's just so pathetically in love with him that she wants to live in a fantasy for a moment? It's such a lame way to leave her character. I mean, come on. She's a competent scientist and a good person. I can't believe her only moment in the episode was about her unending love for Sherlock Holmes. (Apparently Moffat called this the "best scene in the episode" which is just... ugh. Another mark against that horrifically cocky and sexist man).

There was this tiny little moment at the end, when everything is happy and cheesy, where Sherlock sends a text that says "You know where to find me." It's strongly implied that he's texting Irene Adler. I don't want to repeat myself here, but... NO. Come on. Irene is GAY. She said she was GAY. And now we get this suggestion that she and Sherlock are going to hook up? For the sake of my sanity, I'm going to ignore this mercifully brief moment, since without it, the whole ending is very indicative of domestic bliss between Sherlock and John. I need that to be the truth, okay? I need it.

Mary sent John a post-death message that talks all about what Sherlock and John will be if she dies. They will go back to being the 221B Baker Street Boys. It's important that they be that way because it's always been about the legend, the stories, and not about the people they really are. This speech is accompanied by a montage. The montage I didn't mind. The words Mary was saying? Oh my word. Too cheesy. Way way too cheesy. Nothing else about this episode earned that kind of ridiculous sendoff. And what is Mary talking about? The legend and the story are what's important? Not the people that Sherlock and John truly are? What a weird message! It was almost meta, like Mary was talking about the characters of Holmes and Watson through the ages.  But why? And why would Mary have said such unforgivably cheesy stuff in a goodbye message for John in the first place? She didn't so much as mention her relationship with John herself. It was all about him and Sherlock. Unrealistic bullshit.

So-So Stuff:

The "Stuff I Hate" section is mercifully filled with things that are not big parts of the plot. They are small scenes or moments that I could have done without. In this So-So Section, I need to confront a few more small things, and then one larger complaint.

If this is indeed the final episode of Sherlock that we'll ever get, then I'm disappointed that a few things never got resolved. In the first episode of this year, John gave Molly a letter to give to Sherlock. Are we never going to see what was in that letter? Also, there was an underutilization of many characters, especially Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade, and Molly, who I already mentioned. Mycroft was given a lot of screen time, but his part of the montage at the end was very limited, and didn't give a sense for his continued role in Sherlock's life. I hate to say this, but the fact that Mycroft doesn't die in this episode was actually a fairly large wasted opportunity.

This is maybe a nitpick, but I found some of the transitions a bit abrupt. Last episode's cliffhanger showed John being shot by Eurus, and this week we learn that it was just a tranquilizer, and we don't get to see any of the immediate aftermath of that. John and Sherlock are together and safe, and we can just assume that John filled Sherlock in offscreen. Same thing after the flat explodes - a great scene, full of tension, that is then immediately supplanted by John, Sherlock, and Mycroft going to see Eurus at Sherringford. We don't get to see any of them recovering from their injuries, or even see Mrs. Hudson's reaction to the explosion. It was a lot of jumping from one big scene to the next, with not a lot of room to let these scenes breathe.

And my biggest structural complaint goes to the resolution of the plot. Eurus is a formidable, evil foe who kills multiple people and puts Sherlock in a state of psychological turmoil for the bulk of the episode. In the end, Sherlock deduces that Eurus is in some ways still stuck as a child, and is lost and confused in her own mind. Sherlock tells Eurus she's not alone anymore, gives her a hug, and... she's suddenly willing to help Sherlock. She's not magically cured or anything, as she stops communicating with words and is severely damaged after this prolonged incident. But the fact that Eurus basically stops being the villain because Sherlock gave her a bit of affection is... well, it's a  bit anticlimactic, and there wasn't quite enough time and detail put in to the whole thing. Throughout the episode, we come to understand that Eurus is not just a genius like Sherlock or Moriarty, or even a mega-genius like Mycroft. She's practically supernatural in her ability to corrupt people. She convinces the entire staff at the Sherringford holding facility to help her. She's like a God to them. This is a bit off the rails, even for Sherlock. It also makes the resolution feel even more flimsy.

I'm inclined not to give too much weight to this flaw, because I actually quite like many of the things they did with the character of Eurus. If we can just accept that her mega-genius mind can basically control people, then we can go on with the rest of the episode in peace. It might be ridiculously unrealistic, but I was able to suspend my disbelief for the sake of the storytelling. Still, I can't deny that the intensity of her genius coupled with the ease of her redemption made for a bit of a lazy conclusion to this whole thing.

Stuff I Loved:

Um. The premise. Oh my God. This is something straight out of a fanfiction but in a good way. When I first saw promo clips of this season of Sherlock, I was hoping and praying that the scene where Sherlock, Mycroft, and John were all in a room together would be this exact scenario. Sherlock has to choose between shooting Mycroft and John, and instead threatens to kill himself to stop it from happening. Yes. This is my dream come true. I could go on and on forever about all the stuff with the trio - Sherlock, Mycroft, and John work off each other so well, and each of these scenes was so intense and memorable and important.

Some highlights:

Sherlock must make either Mycroft or John kill another man. He tries to make Mycroft do it, but he won't. John is about to do it, but he can't go through with it. The man then kills himself, and Eurus shoots his wife anyway (the conditions under which she would spare his wife was that Mycroft or John had to be the one to kill him). This was such an intense scene, and it went on for just long enough to make me really anxious. I really loved the way Sherlock acted in this scene. He didn't get frustrated or angry with Mycroft and John for being unable to do the deed. He maintained a calm demeanor the whole time.

Mycroft was the character displaying the most outrage and fear during most of the scenes trapped in Sherringford, which was just perfect. He would be the one who had the hardest time adjusting. Sherlock and John are both used to situations like this. One of my favorite moments is when Mycroft is rambling on, saying "this is inhuman, this is insane!" John interrupts him, cuttingly: "Mycroft! We know."

Sherlock and John have this back-and-forth during all the torture scenes where they remind each other to be "soldiers." They are doing this to save a little girl who is alone on a plane full of unconscious people. Eurus keeps cutting back to audio of this poor girl, adding urgency and "context" to this web of torture she's weaved for Sherlock. It means that they don't get to care what happens to them - they need to do the right thing to save an innocent child's life. I like that John acknowledged that Sherlock was being tortured. The lack of physical abuse was not really a factor - the psychological nightmare of this scenario was more than enough to constitute true torture.

The scene where Sherlock has to choose to kill either Mycroft or John... it was just... it was everything I ever wanted. Mycroft immediately starts telling Sherlock to kill John, using his cruelest, most sneering tones. Sherlock knows what Mycroft is doing - he's trying to make it easy for Sherlock to kill his big brother. This sacrifice, of course, making it all the more difficult for Sherlock to do that. But, that's the choice he initially makes. He holds the gun on Mycroft, appearing to never contemplate the idea of killing John. There's something so powerful in this. It's not about Sherlock loving John more than he loves Mycroft. It's about Mycroft owning up to his own culpability. He's the reason they're in this situation. He's the one who concealed Eurus all these years. If anything, Sherlock is giving Mycroft the ultimate sign of respect by adhering to his wishes. Killing Mycroft is something Sherlock never would have recovered from. Of course, in the end he takes option #3, holding the gun under his own chin and counting down from ten, calling Eurus' bluff. She arranges to have the three men shot with tranquilizer darts before Sherlock can actually pull the trigger.

We should talk more about Eurus, and the twist with Redbeard. The episode begins in sort of hilarious fashion, with Sherlock and John concocting a fake break-in to scare Mycroft into admitting the truth about Eurus. We then have a prolonged explanation, where we learn that Eurus killed Sherlock's dog Redbeard, and then burned down their family's home. She was then taken away. Mycroft lied to his parents and said that Eurus had started another fire and that she had perished. Sherlock was so young and so traumatized by what had happened that he repressed his memories of Eurus. We later learn the truth: Redbeard wasn't a dog. Redbeard was the pirate nick-name of Sherlock's best childhood friend. Eurus trapped him down a well and he drowned. The reveal of this truth is brilliantly done right at the very end of the episode. John is trapped down that same well, and Sherlock is faced with the very real fear that Eurus may be about to kill his best friend - for the second time. This is all intercut with Sherlock believing that a plane is about to crash... until he realizes that this is all Eurus' elaborate cry for help.

Like I mentioned above, I'm not super thrilled with the resolution here, but the fast-paced intensity of the climax was really amazing to watch. Sherlock is trying to stop a plane from crashing, he's panicked about John's impending drowning, and it's all colliding together with the realization that his little sister once killed his best friend. I loved it all.

Mycroft and Sherlock's relationship got so much beautiful, intricate attention in this episode. One of the best scenes comes relatively early on, when Sherlock, Mycroft, and John are all trapped in 221B by the presence of a bomb that will go off if any of them moves, since it's powered by a motion sensor. They decide to try and move when Mrs. Hudson moves to the back of her flat below, since that will be the least dangerous place for her, in the event the blast is stronger than anticipated. John and Sherlock will jump out the windows, while Mycroft will take the door, since he's closest. They have this very intense planning session, and then John mentions Oscar Wilde, identifying the source of a quote that Mycroft had used earlier about the nature of truth. Sherlock and Mycroft then reminisce about a time that Mycroft was in The Importance of Being Earnest, and Sherlock gives him a genuine, un-sarcastic compliment about his performance. Mycroft seems genuinely pleased. Sherlock wants to know if John might be able to move enough to make a phone call to say goodbye to his daughter, but it's not possible. The time comes, Sherlock says "good luck, boys," and they all move at the same time.

The acting, the pacing, the genuineness of these final moments... it was so beautiful. Sherlock thought of Rosie, Mycroft and Sherlock shared a moment of unabashed affection for one another. They made a plan to survive that included giving Mrs. Hudson her best chance, knowing that they might very well be saying goodbye to each other. It was such a perfectly constructed scene, and it began the long list of great scenes exploring the dynamics between these three men. I understand that some people might be pissed that this episode didn't focus as much on the John/Sherlock dynamic, as it did the Holmes family dynamic. But I was surprisingly okay with that. Mycroft has become my very favorite part of this show. I was more than thrilled to get so much time with him.

We should talk about Moriarty. Some people might be annoyed at the fact that he was built up and then didn't really appear. But I was actually pretty okay with it. The basic idea is that once, years ago, Mycroft exchanged important information from his genius sister for five minutes unmonitored communication with James Moriarty. During that time, Moriarty recorded little clips that Eurus uses throughout the torture sequences in order to shake Sherlock up, including the "did you miss me?" clip that started this whole thing. They even predicted Sherlock's choice to kill Mycroft instead of John, and got Moriarty saying "Holmes killing Holmes!" We see Moriarty and Mycroft in a flashback to five years previously, so we do get a couple of solid minutes with good ol' Jim. But he's not in it for long, and he's really there just to serve as another tool that Eurus uses to complete her psychological torment. For me, it really worked. For big Moriarty fans, I can understand why you would be disappointed.

The resolution of Eurus was nicely handled. I mean, the fact that a hug stopped her from her evil tirade was a little disappointing, as I've discussed, but everything that happens after that is great. She basically shuts down, refusing to talk to anybody. Mycroft and Sherlock reveal the truth to their parents, that their daughter is not in fact dead. We learn that Eurus will respond to Sherlock playing the violin, and we see a shot of the two of them playing, as Mycroft and their parents sit by and watch. That scene of the whole family being back together was surprisingly affecting. This episode could have gone further into the fact that Eurus is quite mentally ill, but the idea that she stops talking to people due to her traumatic experiences, and instead just communicates through music behind an impenetrable wall of glass is actually quite the fitting end for a character like her.

Then let's discuss the ending. I mentioned that Mary's little epilogue speech was unforgivably cheesy, but there was one nice thing about it: she does say, quite clearly, that she's thought about what the two of them could be, if she's gone. That implies that she understands the two of them will spend their lives together, even if we don't get a kiss or anything like that between them. We see this play out in the way that the two of them work together to repair the blown up flat. We see Sherlock holding and playing with baby Rosie. We see little details, like John repainting the yellow smiley face on the wall, and Molly, Mrs. Hudson, and Lestrade all stopping by to see them. Even if it's not explicitly stated, we can infer that John and Rosie are actually living with Sherlock, and from there the possibilities are endless for our imagination. As groundbreaking as it would have been to have the two of them romantically connected, I never thought that was going to happen. I never for one second believed they would follow through with that. So, if I look at what we were given, I'm actually pretty happy with it.

I'll stop there. If this really is the last time I'll ever get to review Sherlock, then I'm oddly okay with that. It felt like a good ending. The superb acting and the cool visuals made up for any plot stupidness, and this episode actually had a lot less to piss me off than I might have expected. I'll miss these guys, despite my conflicting feelings for this show and its creators!

8.5/10