Watson, the Baker Street boys, out solving mysteries. With this quite possibly being the show's final episode, it's understandable that Moffat and Gatiss wanted to end on an uplifting note – Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Even 221b – devastated by an explosion – is improbably rebuilt, just as it was. Take Mycroft's fate – the character's more central here than ever before and Gatiss responds by delivering a series-best performance, both sharply comic and enormously poignant.īut after heavily teasing the character's heroic, redemptive demise, Sherlock can't quite go through with it – and in the end, no-one of any real import bites the bullet.

It's a resolution which highlights that, for all its good qualities (and there are many), 'The Final Problem' is a story oddly without consequences. The whole thing's so swift and simple that, as Eurus is whisked back to Sherrinford, you find yourself waiting for one last twist. She's murdered dozens of innocent people. She's tortured him, John, their friends and family. She's arguably the most clever and calculating adversary that Sherlock's ever faced.

After following a suitably explosive set-up with a whole heap of wonderful tension, 'The Final Problem' peters out, delivering an oddly anti-climactic showdown between Sherlock and his sis. Mark Gatiss might've rejected comparisons between ' The Six Thatchers' and the super-spy antics of James Bond – quite rightly – but once Sherlock, John (Martin Freeman) and Mycroft take the trip to Sherrinford, 'The Final Problem' starts to absolutely reek of agent 007's adventures.Ī supervillain with a phenomenal brain, an army of soldiers and a top-secret HQ? This is unquestionably Gatiss and co-writer Steven Moffat having their cake and eating it by telling a Sherlock Holmes story that also indulges their Bond fandom.īut then. Mycroft (Mark Gatiss) would later lock Eurus away in the prison island of Sherrinford to keep Sherlock safe, but her supreme powers of manipulation still allowed her to collaborate with Moriarty on everything we saw from (at least) ' The Reichenbach Fall' onwards. Sherlock's since buried all of this – his repressed trauma explaining why he doesn't remember Eurus and presumably why his powers of deduction couldn't unravel her various disguises.

Review sherlock season 4