Sherlock: The Final Problem (2017) - Written Review
I'm going to cut to the chase: The Final Problem is an exhilarating roller coaster of emotions and revelations, but is sadly so fragile in its plot construction and writing that a if you were to concentrate just a little you'd notice the cracks almost instantly, meaning that Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat's teleplay is oddly enough one of their least tight. I'm not sure if it's the weakest in its construction, and certainly doesn't falter to the levels of The Abominable Bride, nor does it have the rather poor structure of The Six Thatchers, but The Final Problem just doesn't hold up to much, if any scrutiny.
So, Sherlock has discovered that he had a sister when he was younger, and that Mycroft had kept her hidden away in a facility called Sherrinford since her and Sherlock were young children. At first the questions are raised about Sherlock's ignorance, but the episode puts it down to a rather flimsy excuse that the trauma caused a certain level of psychosis within Sherlock. He didn't want to remember her, and he didn't want to remember his childhood friend either, so created a fiction with him and Redbeard the dog. This just about works...right up until you realize that in all those years no one told Sherlock that Redbeard wasn't actually a dog. It's a bit of a leap that in so many years nothing ever didn't click for Sherlock or his family talking to him about the event. It's the episode's excuse for Sherlock's emotional detachment and in that sense it does almost work.
But, regrettably the episode pulls out another few twists surrounding this as it goes along. Redbeard, Sherlock's dog, never in fact existed. The dog that Euros supposedly drowned and tormented Sherlock about it for ages afterwards in fact didn't exist. Now, my instant thought was that Redbeard was Sherlock's imaginary friend, and that Euros had mentally traumatised Sherlock by somehow 'killing' him. But, no, the episode pushes in the revelation that Redbeard was in fact the nickname given to Sherlock's childhood friend, whom Euros drowned in a well. Now, for Sherlock to suppress such a memory he would have to forget this person's entire existence and the murder enquiry afterwards and its difficult to believe he could suppress it that far. Also, the episode never shows Sherlock and his friend together, so the emotional connection is lost.
See? The episode sets up something that on the surface is really clever and shocking and...it doesn't make much sense. It's flimsy writing.
Mycroft is essentially tortured by John and Sherlock into explaining Euros' existence in a sequence that's surprisingly well-directed, given how over-done some of the mind-palace sequences can be. Mark Gatiss delivers an excellent performance throughout, and the cinematography looks stunning. Then, the episode gets interrupted with a bomb, in a sequence that tries to juggle tension and drama with Mrs Hudson dancing to rock music downstairs whilst vacuum cleaning. The tonal inconsistencies in the scene mean that a consistent response is very difficult, and is highlighted further with the hilariously bad green-screen shot of Sherlock and John jumping away from an exploding 221b. Regrettably, it's been done before and done better, and the episode casually moves on and everything's fine by the end. In fact, when Sherlock and John re-enter the flat at the end of the episode, most of their stuff is still in-tact, which contradicts the heightened drama of the scene. Then, after such an awful VFX shot, the episode then tries to punch us in the gut by saying Mycroft nearly died, before then showing Sherlock and John boarding a ship as "pirates" to get to Sherrinford, where Mycroft is disguised as an old man in a scene with such a painfully obvious revelation I'll be amazed if anyone was stunned by the twist.
Sherlock then confronts Euros to find out how she escaped, while John and Mycroft discover that she in fact mentally manipulates people into doing her will - meaning that the staff of the entire facility do as she says. How she's able to maintain while she escapes (somehow) and pretends to be John's bus companion and therapist (with a tranquiliser gun, in a resolution so weak I just sighed in exasperation) and then gets back into her cell where she gets the glass removed. Oh, and if anyone didn't see the glass twist coming...it doesn't make much sense with the whole voice thing anyway so I'll let you off.
Euros herself as a character sadly feels a bit...underwhelming. She's the last Sherlock 'villain', but she comes across as another Moffat female villain who's so overpowered its incredible that the episode can even end. She almost forgets she has these strange manipulation powers towards the end, and the whole aeroplane segment is the apitamy of a cop-out on Sherlock's part. She created a whole metaphor for Sherlock to solve for her? Umm...that sounds like complete rubbish, if you ask me.
The whole trial case segment of the episode lasts for most of the running time, yet it's difficult to really understand how it could've been achieved. Euros' mental "powers" would have to be really strong to pull any of it off, yet the character magically forgets this when she's arrested in the end. The episode does a cheat 'death' scene where Mycroft tries to get Sherlock to shoot him, but Sherlock doesn't. Mycroft is alive and well at the end, making the scene a little redundant. Mycroft barely faces any consequences for his actions at all in the episode, and that just doesn't seem quite right in my opinion.
Then Mycroft just...vanishes from the episode and John is somehow chained up in a well. Ummm...how did Euros get down there with unconscious John, chain him up and get out and still look the same as she did in Sherrinford? Not to mention, how was she pouring water into the well to drown him? How did she build a Sherrinford set outside her old house? How on earth does the whole grave date thing actually work? And what the hell made her stop all of this? Sherlock just sort of goes up and says "yeah, I'm going to be here for you now", and him visiting every so often to play the violin with her is...what Euros wanted all along? Now, granted, she's insane, but...that's no kind of pay-off, is it?
Again, interesting ideas, but not pulled off by Gatiss and Moffat.
What is pulled off is the stellar visuals in the episode (aside from the terrible explosion effect). The sets in Sherrinford are eerie and cold-looking, with very shadowed lighting and the brief glimpses of red, making each shot in the facility look unnerving. All of the cinematography looks stunning, and this fourth season has looked incredible in comparison to other BBC Dramas. The extra money being poured in is definitely go up on-screen, and one can only hope that the BBC will put this kind of cinematography money into the next series of Doctor Who. The direction was consistently great, and while I'm looking at the production aspects, I still have yet to say a bad word about David Arnold and Michael Price's score for the series.
The Final Problem highlights the best and worst of Sherlock. It's shocking, engaging and thrilling in a way that so rarely can be captured in television, but it's also clunky, and fan-baity, and doesn't make a huge amount of sense. The performances are stellar, with Cumberbatch and Freeman throwing themselves into the drama of the episode, and a nice cameo from Andrew Scott to help end the series summarising itself. Bringing back Mary was arguably a step too far, but if the ending proved anything it's that Sherlock has always been about Sherlock and John solving crimes together as a duo, even if the crimes have taken a back-seat since the third season. It's an oddly fitting end to the show. 7/10
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