Episode 4.3 "The Final Problem"

[Janine M. Adler]

am I the only one who thinks this episode is nothing but Sherlock's nightmare?

@Archedia, 3 time rewatch didn't impove the episode except the last 5 mins. That is the only part feels real.

[T.o.b.y]

I like Euros. Of course I don't find her likable, but I like the idea of her character.

 

She's a villain, but an interesting one and not one who is just evil for evil's sake, wants to take over the world or any of that.

 

She comes across as supremely isolated. She may be very clever, "too clever", but unfortunately, she lacks the ability to use that cleverness to promote her own well-being. Other people may be "goldfish" to Mycroft, what are they to her? Ants? Bacteria?

 

I didn't think the little girl on the plane and the cruel woman at the asylum were a contradiction. Extreme and prolonged loneliness would make a person mad, sad and desperate for some kind of human connection, but since other humans can't match up to her, interaction with them cannot really alleviate her condition.

 

Real people can be both very vulnerable and sad and very nasty at the same time. Also, it actually makes sense to me that her "experiments" seemingly sought to prove that morality and compassion are meaningless, yet in the end, it was only morality and compassion that could solve her final riddle (morality being manifest here in the urge to help the little girl at all). She didn't believe in these things and she set up a series of scenarios to test her theory that they were useless, but that doesn't mean deep down inside, she can't have wished to be proven wrong.

 

I also really wonder if she can be called sadistic. She didn't know what pain was and couldn't tell the difference between laughing and screaming. She tore a human being apart and assumed she was having sex (without having even known what sexual organs that person had, apparently). Does she even understand emotions and suffering enough to get a kick out of it?

 

She scared the shit of me in The Lying Detective, but this episode, I wasn't much scared, I just felt increasingly sorry for her as it went on.

 

Btw, did you guys also get the impression that the other people on the plane were actually dead instead of sleeping?

[jadpdr]

Euros has many characteristics of severe schizophrenia and a schizoid personality, no redeeming features whatsoever and likes to toy with her food... Sorry, meant to say, her brothers! For me, Sherlock did the one impossible thing he talked to her about in TLD by showing Jesus-like powers of forgiveness, seeing as she had caused the death of his childhood friend out of spite and jealousy, a complete social misfit and a dangerous role-model for potential younger viewers, and she was created as a joke, both creators confessed, thereby adding insult to injury in a most antisocial way! Makes one wonder whether it was Mr Moffat or Mr Gatiss who liked pulling wings off flies and legs off spiders more as a child!

[Bankomas]

I say Eurus did't even kill Redbeard. She just put him in a well and was waiting for Sherlock to come to her for assistance. She didn't actually plan on killing him. That wasn't her goal. And she was just a five year old. Secondly, she burnt the house. Not a big deal. In human history there have been worse things done out of jealousy. Even "normal" children sometimes do weird things. She was just a child misunderstood, lacking attention from her brother and family. The biggest mistake was made when Eurus was taken away from home and locked up. They could have chanelled her in the right way. Instead they chose to isolate her. This is not fair. I want Eurus free!

Moreover, I believe it is possible for her to adapt in the world without killing. She is not a killer by passion. She doesn't take pleasure in it. It was just a means for her of observing Sherlock, studying his reaction. She sees a blurry line between what's good and what's evil. She is not hopeless. If just one hug by Sherlock had such an impact on her, i suppose, a course of therapy from him can cure her. It looks like Sherlock's started that course through violin duets. Provided we have another season, I hope Sherlock gets Eurus out of Sherrinford.

[Surelock]

Even if Euros is healed of her psychosis and is allowed to leave Sherrinford, she should be thrown into a regular prison. She still killed innocent people and has to face justice.

 

This is why I have trouble seeing Euros ever actually leaving Sherrinford. The most I can see is Mycroft allowing her to leave temporarily to help Sherlock on a case maybe in a Suicide Squad-esque style?

[Bankomas]

Even if Euros is healed of her psychosis and is allowed to leave Sherrinford, she should be thrown into a regular prison. She still killed innocent people and has to face justice.

 

This is why I have trouble seeing Euros ever actually leaving Sherrinford. The most I can see is Mycroft allowing her to leave temporarily to help Sherlock on a case maybe in a Suicide Squad-esque style?

Oh common! We had worse characters roam the world in the history of cinematography. Let the nice baby girl walk free! If we are being this fair, Sherlock also has to be in prison. He killed. Tortured.

[T.o.b.y]

:lol: I doubt letting Euros out into the wild again would be very wise or safe... If I lived in Sherlock's world, I'd rather not risk it.

 

Can I just say something immature and petulant? If I read another snotty review of this episode or series 4 or Sherlock as a whole, I am going to scream. Especially if there is more complaining about how much "fanservice" was in the finale and how self-referential it has become. Dear critics, has it ever crossed your mind that this wasn't written for you? It was for us. For the fans. The people who would actually get why Mycroft having a sword inside his umbrella is funny or who would squeal at the sight of an actual "flight of the dead" (even though the little girl thinks they are asleep), who would recognize the "tick-tock, tick-tock" from The Great Game?

 

Not that all fans liked it, I am aware of that. I didn't like some things either. But I for one am grateful for what I perceive as a series of very friendly nods to people like me who obsess about this little show for ever and a day. Makes me feel less weird...

 

And even though I think the "you know where to find me" text was to Lestrade (an echo of "A Study in Pink"), I really like the idea that it could be meant for us. Yes, Sherlock, because they mercifully put you back where you belong doing what you love with the people who belong at your side, I do know where to find you and will continue to do so for ever and ever, whether I can't find my glow-in-the-dark rabbit of am trapped on a plane full of corpses and need someone to talk me through the landing.

[MycroftsUmbrella]

 

I say Eurus did't even kill Redbeard. She just put him in a well and was waiting for Sherlock to come to her for assistance. She didn't actually plan on killing him. That wasn't her goal. And she was just a five year old. Secondly, she burnt the house. Not a big deal. In human history there have been worse things done out of jealousy. Even "normal" children sometimes do weird things. She was just a child misunderstood, lacking attention from her brother and family. The biggest mistake was made when Eurus was taken away from home and locked up. They could have chanelled her in the right way. Instead they chose to isolate her. This is not fair. I want Eurus free!

Moreover, I believe it is possible for her to adapt in the world without killing. She is not a killer by passion. She doesn't take pleasure in it. It was just a means for her of observing Sherlock, studying his reaction. She sees a blurry line between what's good and what's evil. She is not hopeless. If just one hug by Sherlock had such an impact on her, i suppose, a course of therapy from him can cure her. It looks like Sherlock's started that course through violin duets. Provided we have another season, I hope Sherlock gets Eurus out of Sherrinford.

 

 

I agree that I'm not convinced she has any passion for killing but she has the tendency to use people and their lives to try and understand other people's emotions and morals as she can't make sense of them as 'normal' people would. That makes her equally dangerous, if not arguabley more so. A human life is entirely meaningless to her (or that is how she came across to me). She lacks any empathy, as she's hardly able to distinguish her own emotions, even less to 'feel' them, as such. A case in point being the story that Mycroft told Sherlock and John about her when she was young and she cut her arm open to understand how muscles work; When he asks if she feels pain and she answers 'Which one is it?' (or something along thoselines), which shows she clearly doesn't experience certain emotions normally or at all.

 

That partly what characterises a sociopath, the complete lack of being able to experiece empathy/ positive emotions towards people. Not all sociopaths end up being murderers, but they are more likely to do so, as can be seen in her experiments. So even if she didn't kill Redbeard deliberatly back then, she would be way to dangerous ot be free. She'd just use the entire world as her lab rats to figure things out due to her natural curiousity.

 

Even her helping Sherlock at the end to free John was, to me as far as her character was set up, more a means to turn Sherlock around and gain his affection maybe, than a good hearted action because she cared about John or realised that killing him would be considered wrong in 'normal' human interactions. She can clearly still feel some things, like jealousy, and understand what brings her some sort of gain, maybe in form of attention from Sherlock, which I guess is the closest thing she can experience to love in her mind.

Her characterisation kind of reminded me of an Law and Order SVU episode I watched a while ago called 'Born Psychopath'. It's not an entirely acurate comparison, but the basic jist being that some people/ children are just born extremely intelligence, lacking empathy and manipulating for personal gain (e.g attention form their parents to get rid of a sibling they are jealous of). To me it felt kind of like that in the extremest extreme.

 

But it's obviously a matter of interpretation of the Euros character and I guess this is just how I see it.

[sfmpco]

Molly's house and where it was filmed.

 

http://coffeewithsugarplease.tumblr.com/post/156041529916/mollys-house-i-found-where-they-filmed-it-and

[MycroftsUmbrella]

:lol: I doubt letting Euros out into the wild again would be very wise or safe... If I lived in Sherlock's world, I'd rather not risk it.

 

Can I just say something immature and petulant? If I read another snotty review of this episode or series 4 or Sherlock as a whole, I am going to scream. Especially if there is more complaining about how much "fanservice" was in the finale and how self-referential it has become. Dear critics, has it ever crossed your mind that this wasn't written for you? It was for us. For the fans. The people who would actually get why Mycroft having a sword inside his umbrella is funny or who would squeal at the sight of an actual "flight of the dead" (even though the little girl thinks they are asleep), who would recognize the "tick-tock, tick-tock" from The Great Game?

 

Not that all fans liked it, I am aware of that. I didn't like some things either. But I for one am grateful for what I perceive as a series of very friendly nods to people like me who obsess about this little show for ever and a day. Makes me feel less weird...

 

And even though I think the "you know where to find me" text was to Lestrade (an echo of "A Study in Pink"), I really like the idea that it could be meant for us. Yes, Sherlock, because they mercifully put you back where you belong doing what you love with the people who belong at your side, I do know where to find you and will continue to do so for ever and ever, whether I can't find my glow-in-the-dark rabbit of am trapped on a plane full of corpses and need someone to talk me through the landing.

 

I'd just like to add a heartfelt thank you for that post. Pretty much summerizes how I feel, I just didn't dare to say it. Sure there is stuff I didn't like and flaws, but I did love it overall, despite everything. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and I think constructive criticism is actually a great thing. In fact I love how it is all of it being discussed here, both the positive and negative aspects and to see different options about all the little and big things that came up in the episode, no matter if it is characterisation, storyline, etc. But I have seen so many people (especially critics) who just downright talk it down without seeing all the little references and great bits and it really started to annoy me. So thanks you for that post!

 

And by the way I can't posibly understand why anyone could not love Mycroft's sword/ gun umbrella construction. It's hillarious and totally something Mycroft's character would do, if you ask me ;)

[Bankomas]

I agree that I'm not convinced she has any passion for killing but she has the tendency to use people and their lives to try and understand other people's emotions and morals as she can't make sense of them as 'normal' people would. That makes her equally dangerous, if not arguabley more so. A human life is entirely meaningless to her (or that is how she came across to me). She lacks any empathy, as she's hardly able to distinguish her own emotions, even less to 'feel' them, as such. A case in point being the story that Mycroft told Sherlock and John about her when she was young and she cut her arm open to understand how muscles work; When he asks if she feels pain and she answers 'Which one is it?' (or something along thoselines), which shows she clearly doesn't experience certain emotions normally or at all.

That partly what characterises a sociopath, the complete lack of being able to experiece empathy/ positive emotions towards people. Not all sociopaths end up being murderers, but they are more likely to do so, as can be seen in her experiments. So even if she didn't kill Redbeard deliberatly back then, she would be way to dangerous ot be free. She'd just use the entire world as her lab rats to figure things out due to her natural curiousity.

 

Even her helping Sherlock at the end to free John was, to me as far as her character was set up, more a means to turn Sherlock around and gain his affection maybe, than a good hearted action because she cared about John or realised that killing him would be considered wrong in 'normal' human interactions. She can clearly still feel some things, like jealousy, and understand what brings her some sort of gain, maybe in form of attention from Sherlock, which I guess is the closest thing she can experience to love in her mind.

Her characterisation kind of reminded me of an Law and Order SVU episode I watched a while ago called 'Born Psychopath'. It's not an entirely acurate comparison, but the basic jist being that some people/ children are just born extremely intelligence, lacking empathy and manipulating for personal gain (e.g attention form their parents to get rid of a sibling they are jealous of). To me it felt kind of like that in the extremest extreme.

 

But it's obviously a matter of interpretation of the Euros character and I guess this is just how I see it.

 

I share some points you've made. But also want to add that I believe having such a powerful brain Eurus can be taught to tell apart good from bad. And can be taught how to behave. By a loving person,

[kornmuhme]

 

I think we can actually watch the whole series again and see something new. I remember this happened to me after TEH, when suddenly I realized Mycroft is not only annoying and powerful, but also smarter than Sherlock.

 

I'm planning to do with Sherlock what I did with Harry Potter.  After I read the final HP book, I just couldn't go back for a while; it was all so dark, even with it ending in a good place.  Then, I finally went back and read the whole series of books again, but this time I read them as Snape's story rather than Harry's story, and that changed my feeling quite a bit.

 

I think I"m going to give watching Sherlock a break for a bit (not talking about it, obviously  :D ), and then rewatch all 10 episodes as being the story of Sherlock with a repressed traumatic memory that impacts his trust and how he deals with emotion.  I think it will be fun to view it that way.

 

 

I do think, that's a very good idea! Planning to do the same after a little break. I'm sure I/we will recognize details that make more sense in the complete context - and I'm really looking forward to this revelations!

[kornmuhme]

Having read most of the posts here there is one thing I still don't get: How does Eurus do her mind control stuff? Only by using her voice? By saying special combinations of words/phrases? Is it a kind of hypnosis?

[J.P.]

Okay, finally re-viewed. Dear God, what they do to my brain? Because I feel like I've seen a different film and hardy understand what the hell the drama was about. Blame it on that Redbeard hidden somewhere in my memory.

 

Anyway, things that jumped at me:

 

It hit me as John lifted the skull from the well: remember what Sherlock said of Billy? *insert drumroll* "A friend of mine"

Sherlock is obsessed with death.

 

And then the Samara story: Sherlock hated the story, so he rewrote it. Like his memory. Which makes me wonder if there was another outcome initially written for the dog, like that he had to be put to sleep (HLV) but they decided to change it. And I wonder why Sherlock didn't rewrote his memory into something happier than this, if he got trough the trouble.

 

 

[J.P.]

What I still can't vorgive is that they dumped Molly. It reminds me of the cinema version of Return of the King and Eowyn cheering Aragorn marrying Arwen. The same WTF moment like seeing happy Molly at 221B. It got better with the LOTR extended version, but we don't expect them from Sherlock. :(

 

It's clear they planned the whole thing from the beginning, where Molly was only a comedy figure, but maybe they forgot they gave her more importance in the meantime. A bit not good. Why was she so miserable? She was supposed to take care of Sherlock in TLD, what happened? Someone please, get me the beeping scripts!

[Pamela]

Boton, at least twice now you've talked about "all 10 episodes." Are you just ignoring these last three because you don't like them?

[Caya]

Like in this xkxd comic (in this case about The Matrix, last line of panels)? ;)

 

[Surelock]

What is especially dissappointing to me: The existence of Eurus changes the perspective of the whole show. But instead of "Aha!" it made me go "Urgs" :/

 

Instead of making Sherlock's past and the fragile relationship with Mycroft complete, it reduces them to a fallout of a childhood tragedy so unbelievable that it makes them, and the whole story, unbelievable too. That is what made me feel as if someone suddenly turned off the light.

 

If we were going to have a Tardis landing at Sherrinford, we should have been shown a reality that allows it in S1-3 already.

 

It's not the kind of "I made me" I hoped to see. It makes Sherlock a victim.

 

Slap me if I start to repeat myself.

 

It also ties into The Hound of Baskerville. Fans were already speculating that Sherlock was just imagining having a dog named Redbeard (I posted about that last week).

 

At the end of The Hound of Baskerville, Sherlock explained to Henry how he imagined the hound because he was a child and couldn't deal with the traumatic experience of watching his father die. Sherlock subconsciously referenced himself during this explanation.

 

Sherlock did pretty much the same thing as Henry when he was a kid. Sherlock couldn't deal with the traumatic experience of losing his best friend because his sister hid him away and refused to say where he was unless Sherlock could solve her puzzle. Similarly to how Henry reimagined his father's killer as a ghostly hound, Sherlock reimagined his best friend as his pet dog Redbeard that was 'put down'.

 

[Inge l-w]

Dear Pamela, if I had Sherlock's ability to delete what he doesn't like in his life, even a sister (don't get me started on the Euros thing!), I would gladly delete all three of them, with the exception of the first third of TST.

As for the critics, they are not fans, and they see things more objectively, which is good, because I, for example, who am not a great fan of the creative duo's work, will still get the DVDs and torture myself watching their hyperbole and their hubris. The average viewer simply switches channels (my friend in Chiswick started watching Endeavour last Sunday, switched to BBC to watch and switched back to Endeavour inside half an hour.) For an old lady, she certainly knows her way around English swear-words, for her waste of time watching TFP instead of simply continuing with Endeavour. Critics reflect the average viewer, not us, the addicts!

[ilosh]

This episode of Sherlock was the most not Sherlock episode of all time. There was SAW and The Ring. However, the more Sherlock got control the more the episode got Sherlocked. 

The usage of musics were a.... awesome though. The moment "I Want to Break Free" started playing, you feel Moriarty.

My heart couldn't take 3 seconds of him though. I needed to process it again and again because it was so beautiful and captivating.

I can write an article about how good this Sherlock episode was. 

 

Last, but not least... I wish there will be a special episode at some point because I don't know what to do. 

 

And as you all know,

The game never ends.

[sfmpco]

I don't think they dumped on Molly at all.  She took control of that situation by asking Sherlock to say "I love you" first.  Why would she ask him to say those words first?  Because out of some unrequited love fantasy she just wanted him to say the words to her once?  No.  It was because she has always seen through his BS and would know if he was being sincere.  And he was sincere the second time, which is why she finally said it in return.

 

People will say that Molly isn't canon and they'd never do anything with her, but Eurus isn't canon and they did a ton with her.  

 

Molly isn't the last person on Sherlock's mind.  As in TLD, he clearly had her in mind long before John thought he would.  She didn't break up with Tom in HLV not to be completely available for something to happen in S4.  And something DID happen.  The only person in 13 episodes that he said "I love you" to was the one person who also said it in return.  Yes, it was forced out of him, but the 2nd time he said it, he meant it.  

 

Eurus is just playing mind games with him at this point.  Eurus, in fact, is finally playing with the brother she always wanted to play with, even if she is a total psychopath.

 

Interesting side-note that I saw on Tumblr is that Eurus killed a child via drowning in her youth just as Moriarty killed the swimmer via drowning in his youth.

[sfmpco]

Interesting interview with Moffat about TFP.

 

http://www.vulture.com/2017/01/sherlock-showrunner-steven-moffat-the-final-problem.html?mid=facebook_nymag

[Redbeard]

 

What is especially dissappointing to me: The existence of Eurus changes the perspective of the whole show. But instead of "Aha!" it made me go "Urgs" :/

 

Instead of making Sherlock's past and the fragile relationship with Mycroft complete, it reduces them to a fallout of a childhood tragedy so unbelievable that it makes them, and the whole story, unbelievable too. That is what made me feel as if someone suddenly turned off the light.

 

If we were going to have a Tardis landing at Sherrinford, we should have been shown a reality that allows it in S1-3 already.

 

It's not the kind of "I made me" I hoped to see. It makes Sherlock a victim.

 

Slap me if I start to repeat myself.

 

It also ties into The Hound of Baskerville. Fans were already speculating that Sherlock was just imagining having a dog named Redbeard (I posted about that last week).

 

At the end of The Hound of Baskerville, Sherlock explained to Henry how he imagined the hound because he was a child and couldn't deal with the traumatic experience of watching his father die. Sherlock subconsciously referenced himself during this explanation.

 

Sherlock did pretty much the same thing as Henry when he was a kid. Sherlock couldn't deal with the traumatic experience of losing his best friend because his sister hid him away and refused to say where he was unless Sherlock could solve her puzzle. Similarly to how Henry reimagined his father's killer as a ghostly hound, Sherlock reimagined his best friend as his pet dog Redbeard that was 'put down'.

 

 

Yes it is fascinating, and will forever change that Baskerville episode won't it?  In fact I am looking forward to re-watching that one and I will this weekend.  Heck, we know Sherlock took that case specifically because he was intrigued by the use of the word "Hound", so maybe he didn't realize at the time but deep down kind of "knew" something was up. 

[T.o.b.y]

Interesting interview with Moffat about TFP.

 

http://www.vulture.com/2017/01/sherlock-showrunner-steven-moffat-the-final-problem.html?mid=facebook_nymag

Thank you! I liked that. I liked that a lot. Not all interviews with him are irritating, fortunately, and this one I think is spot on about Sherlock Holmes the character. Also, I like how he gives "fun" as a reason for a lot of their choices.

 

:-D It's a TV show. It's supposed to be fun. And I think it is. Like I said, I was giggling my way through the last episode.

[Boton]

 

 

It hit me as John lifted the skull from the well: remember what Sherlock said of Billy? *insert drumroll* "A friend of mine"

Sherlock is obsessed with death.

 

And then the Samara story: Sherlock hated the story, so he rewrote it. 

 

Oh, a couple of excellent points!  I wonder, on total show re-view, how many things we will pick up that fit with the idea that his repressed memory is resurfacing.  (I don't really think Moftiss had this in mind in S1 and S2, but retconning is sometimes fun!)

 

 

Boton, at least twice now you've talked about "all 10 episodes." Are you just ignoring these last three because you don't like them?

 

Gah, thanks for pointing that out!  I think I got so used to there just being ten, I didn't bother to update my "mind beach house."   Thirteen, thirteen, thirteen.  FWIW, I liked TLD second only to HLV, TFP is my fourth ranked, and I'm not sure where TST lands, but I certainly didn't hate it like so many did.

 

ETA:  OK, I need everyone's opinion on something.  Mycroft says that he periodically drops certain keywords to Sherlock to see whether or not the repressed memories are coming back.  So that works for him saying "Do you remember Redbeard?" when he was on the phone with Sherlock during John's wedding reception.  But how do you square that with Mycroft having a childhood story about the East Wind coming to take the unworthy, namely Sherlock.  So, a young Mycroft knew that his little brother was traumatized by the death of his best friend at the hands of his in-real-life-turning-homicidal younger sister who happened to be named "East Wind," and he thought that threatening Sherlock that he was next was a good way to check in on Sherlock's mental stability?  Mycroft really was a rubbish big brother.