Episode 4.3 "The Final Problem"

[bedelia1984]

 

 

Respect and empathy are derivatives of love (of others).  They are aspects of it.  Love is the "base emotion".

 

Not in conventional scientific wisdom, where the base emotions are that people, as can be seen from their facial expressions feel happy, surprised, afraid, disgusted, angry, and sad.

You missed my meaning.  I was simply trying to state that one cannot have the emotions of respect and empathy absent the emotion love.  Love is the -foundational- (base) emotion of which the other two are mere aspects - ie particular forms of love, of valuation.

 

 

This is fun, because here we can talk about the nature of what love is.

 

The reason I originally separated love out from shallower emotions, like anger and fear, is is that love is more complex. Love is not always just an emotion- you describe that when you talk about how it can be respect, empathy- and I agree with that, to me they are higher forms of love. They have other aspects than just emotion. Then, there is lust, which is not love, but sometimes is combined with it.

 

If I can give an example from another context in this thread, when BC says he doesn't think Sherlock has decided if he loves Molly. That goes to show how love can defy definition sometimes, between what kinds of love we are talking about. But further than that, people decide whether to love at all or not sometimes- they make a choice, they with-hold it etc. It's not something they do so much with anger or fear, which have an almost animalistic impulse.

 

Shallow emotions tend to have a short shelf life, which Eurus shows when her rage is spent. Love is something that endures, sometimes beyond all hope. I see it when you give Molly as an example, certainly, but not for Eurus, the situation is just not the same. she has plotted to kill this man and have him kill his friends and family. How is that love?

 

I just don't see Eurus as operating at that level, where she is capable of the higher kinds of love, of knowing what it is and how to feel it. Something about her inner workings seems to not function in a way that allows her to love. I don't know that she is capable of controlling any of her emotions at all, which may have been her undoing in the end.

[BLS_Pro]

 

 Love is something that endures, sometimes beyond all hope. I see it when you give Molly as an example, certainly, but not for Eurus, the situation is just not the same. she has plotted to kill this man and have him kill his friends and family. How is that love?

 

No.  She hasn't plotted to kill this man (ex - she knew Moriarty would fail).  If she wanted Sherlock dead, he would be dead.  From the beginning, she has sought his love (which is why when he threatened to kill himself she panicked - his death is not her goal).  She has certainly plotted, in the games, to kill those he loves (as well as those whom he didn't even know, thus indicating SHE knows respect and empathy are derivatives of love).  And that is both anger (at him NOT rescuing her, not loving her as she loves him - ie unrequited love) and love together (as you say, love can mix with multiple other emotions as well).  She uses the threats to everyone else as a clue for Sherlock to her love (and her desperate need of it from him) as well as an impetus for him to solve her 'game' and save her from being alone - from being tortured by a senseless and meaningless existence.

 

[bedelia1984]

 

 

 Love is something that endures, sometimes beyond all hope. I see it when you give Molly as an example, certainly, but not for Eurus, the situation is just not the same. she has plotted to kill this man and have him kill his friends and family. How is that love?

 

No.  She hasn't plotted to kill this man.  If she wanted Sherlock dead, he would be dead.  From the beginning, she has sought his love (which is why when he threatened to kill himself she panicked - it isn't her goal).  She has certainly plotted, in the games, to kill those he loves.  And that is both anger (at him NOT rescuing her, not loving her as she loves him - ie unrequited love) and love together (as you say, love can mix with multiple other emotions as well).  She uses the threats to everyone else as a clue for Sherlock to her love (and her desperate need of it from him) as well as an impetus for him to solve her 'game' and save her from being alone.

 

 

 

But what do you make of her burning down the family home? Conceivably, she could have killed every member of her family? If she has attempted to murder him, and he managed to survive, that doesn't mean she didn't try, nor does it suggest love.

 

She also set a bomb in his home- with the drone. Again, I think she thought he might escape. but she couldn't know for sure. Do you really feel certain that she knew he would survive?

 

Also, curious, how do you think she feels about Mycroft? Do you feel she loves him too? 

[BLS_Pro]

 

But what do you make of her burning down the family home? Conceivably, she could have killed every member of her family? If she has attempted to murder him, and he managed to survive, that doesn't mean she didn't try, nor does it suggest love.

She could easily have killed them in any number of ways in which they could not have escaped.  This is the 'I hate you, I hate you, I hate you' rage of love denied.  The rage is because of the love.  It is exactly what we saw when she attacks him in Sherrinford.  Eurus hates that Sherlock doesn't love her and beats him.  But she also knows that she does love him and doesn't want to kill him, so explicitly tells everyone to prevent her, not from hurting him, but from killing him.

 

Edit: Just as John must have orderlies pull him off of Sherlock.

 

 

She also set a bomb in his home- with the drone. Again, I think she thought he might escape. but she couldn't know for sure. Do you really feel certain that she knew she would survive?

Yes.  Just as she knew Moriarty would not succeed in trying to cause Sherlock's death and thus had Moriarty record messages for her - knowing HE, not Sherlock, would be dead.  The bomb scenario would be much easier to predict the outcome. 

 

 

Also, curious, how do you think she feels about Mycroft? Do you feel she loves him too?

We are never shown that Mycroft had a "best friend" ie exhibited love to others in a way Eurus would recognize.  BECAUSE Sherlock exhibited emotional "context" with others is probably one of the reasons WHY Eurus loved him.  She recognized a capacity in him like the one she had.  The difference between Sherlock and Eurus was not ability, but circumstance.  He had someone who loved him back.  She did not.  So Sherlock was able to exercise that ability - to love and be loved - where she could not.  Mycroft is not shown to have had that capacity - and still is shown to struggle with it even today.  Sherlock was the kindred spirit, not Mycroft.  That is likely why she loved him rather than Mycroft.

Edited January 21, 2017 by BLS_Pro

[J.P.]

 

The revelation about Eurus felt, to me, as if the writers had written themselves into a corner and had to find a way out.  It happens, sometimes.

Yes.  Its all just a mishmash they threw together.  The complete and astonishing level of integration, down to every small detail, including the joke "The Hungry Donkey" is just pure coincidence.  It's happenstance.  The writers aren't intelligent.  They didn't write their story to be unified so absolutely that every action and word they wrote can be explained by the one theme.  They didn't plan it.  That's just an accident (just as Bride actually being ALL about Eurus is just an accident).

:facepalm:

 

This comes across quite harsh. In fact we don't know, what was intended and what was a coincidence. You would have to go through the whole series, and ask every person that decided about the show's final form, and you surely would get different answers. We also don't know what they planned to do, and what they could, with all the restrictions of filmmaking. (that's why I want to read the scripts so much)

I want to come back to a story I told once (sorry for repeating)

 

 

As I was in school, we had to prepare a short play for an event. Nobody wanted to, but finally our teacher tricked us into a kind of brainstorming and we ended with absolutely ridiculous story.

 

The event was apparently covered by local press. Later our teacher read us a part of an article, dealing with our play afterwards: the analysis was actually longer that the play itself, and praised how we dealt with all the "urgent problems of the modern world". We've listened with our mouths open, because nobody never ever thought of any problems at all. We just wanted to have the task fulfilled at the least cost possible. 

 

The funniest thing about the article was - the reviewer was right. Even if we didn't intended it, the story actually made a lot of sense.

I'm a bit cautious with statements about intent in arts ever since.

[BLS_Pro]

 

 

The revelation about Eurus felt, to me, as if the writers had written themselves into a corner and had to find a way out.  It happens, sometimes.

Yes.  Its all just a mishmash they threw together.  The complete and astonishing level of integration, down to every small detail, including the joke "The Hungry Donkey" is just pure coincidence.  It's happenstance.  The writers aren't intelligent.  They didn't write their story to be unified so absolutely that every action and word they wrote can be explained by the one theme.  They didn't plan it.  That's just an accident (just as Bride actually being ALL about Eurus is just an accident).

:facepalm:

 

This comes across quite harsh. In fact we don't know, what was intended and what was a coincidence.

When a story is completely integrated to this level, where even the smallest of details is unified to the theme, to claim one can't know if that integration was purposeful or just an accident is a bizarre assertion.

 

But hey, if you want to believe things like the entirety of TAB was just a total coincidence in turning out to be all about Eurus, if you wish to believe you can't know if it was actually planned or was an accident - if you want to be a skeptic absent evidence and in contradiction to the evidence - I can't do anything about that.  I can only point TO the evidence.

[bedelia1984]

 

We are never shown that Mycroft had a "best friend" ie exhibited love to others in a way Eurus would recognize.  BECAUSE Sherlock exhibited emotional "context" with others is probably one of the reasons WHY Eurus loved him.  She recognized a capacity in him like the one she had.  The difference between Sherlock and Eurus was not ability, but circumstance.  He had someone who loved him back.  She did not.  So Sherlock was able to exercise that ability - to love and be loved - where she could not.  Mycroft is not shown to have had that capacity - and still is shown to struggle with it even today.  Sherlock was the kindred spirit, not Mycroft.  That is likely why she loved him rather than Mycroft.

 

 

But Mycroft loved Sherlock, didn't he? There is an example of two brothers who did love each other. And their parents presumably loved them all.  Eurus was cruel to Mycroft when they were kids, telling him that he had looked funny. Yet, we still see Mycroft all these years later has been trying in his way to protect her and give her a chance to do something constructive with her intellect. And what does he get in exchange? Sherlock being asked to put a bullet in him.

 

 

 

 

I'm a bit cautious with statements about intent in arts ever since.

 

 

Such caution is probably especially well-advised with Moftiss. If and when they do another season, they can easily ascribe a new intent to a lot of things, especially the aspects they have deliberately left ambiguous. They can either give us a further explanation of the Holmes family, or ignore them, we just don't know.

[Inge l-w]

@ J.P. A bit like Andorra by Max Frisch, then. But that is in German, not Polish, definitely not existentialist, but oh, so very true, in terms of where intolerance can lead!

@BLS_Pro: And what do you mean Mycroft never had anybody? The whole sequence in TEH where they start with chess and end up playing Operation is Sherlock mercilessly teasing Mycroft about a (failed) relationship, possibly a same-gender one ('doesn't mind being different' dig).

[BLS_Pro]

 

But Mycroft loved Sherlock, didn't he? There is an example of two brothers who did love each other.

Mycroft did not evince it - certainly not like Sherlock and his best friend (and the same is possibly true of the parents).  Even Sherlock was surprised by Mycroft's expression of brotherly love in Final Vow.

[BLS_Pro]

@BLS_Pro: And what do you mean Mycroft never had anybody? The whole sequence in TEH where they start with chess and end up playing Operation is Sherlock mercilessly teasing Mycroft about a (failed) relationship, possibly a same-gender one ('doesn't mind being different' dig).

I never suggested Mycroft has never had a relationship with others, any more than I ever suggested he doesn't have a relationship with Sherlock or his parents.

 

Do you think Mycroft has EVER had a relationship like Sherlock and John? 

 

No.  And that's the point.  Eurus has the capacity and need for a love like Sherlock had with his best friend.  But, just like Molly, the person she loved did not return that love.  And, like Molly, a pale substitute would simply not do.  It isn't the same.  She would never get from Mycroft what she needed because he is not a loving soul.  Sherlock was and, thanks to John saving him, is again.

[bedelia1984]

 

 

But Mycroft loved Sherlock, didn't he? There is an example of two brothers who did love each other.

Mycroft did not evince it - certainly not like Sherlock and his best friend (and probably the same with the parents).  Even Sherlock was surprised by Mycroft's expression of brotherly love in Final Vow.

 

 

The problem with that is that there is so much love around her that she can't/won't see. I don't think you can dismiss the parents love so readily. The mother was quite demonstrative at Christmas, she would have been the same when they were children. And Sherlock spent a lot of his youth with Mycroft saving him from his drug habit. To be surprised that someone usually quite reserved expresses a strong emotion is quite different to being surprised that they feel it at all.

 

Actually, this episode made me like Mycroft and Sherlock's relationship infinitely more. Look at the fact that Sherlock remembered Mycroft's Lady Bracknell, and praised him for it- that shows a wonderful sort of closeness that I didn't realise they had. I think they spent a lot of their younger years sparring, but there has always been a lot of caring underlying it. Maybe Mycroft was misguided to keep so many secrets, but he went to such crazy lengths to protect Sherlock, that I can't dislike him for it. And Sherlock actually defends Mycroft to his parents. It is so lovely to see them finally, openly, on the same side.

[BLS_Pro]

 

The problem with that is that there is so much love around her that she can't/won't see.

That doesn't change the fact or nature of unrequited love.  The fact that you see others who ARE in love the way you seek to be in love only makes that unrequited love all the more painful in contrast.  Not only are you alone, but you see some others are not.  Thus the jealousy part of her 'murderous jealousy'.

 

Again, Eurus does not see in Mycroft a kindred soul - any more than Molly sees a kindred soul in Mycroft rather than Sherlock.  Neither loves Mycroft.  That doesn't mean Mycroft can't love or doesn't love in his own way. 

[Surelock]

 

The premise that Eurus just wants to be loved by Sherlock is a facile plot resolution.  Not only does it make very little psychological sense - inside every psychopath is a child who just wants to be loved? - but it feels fake from an artistic point of view.  Eurus shows every sign of a very severe anti social personality disorder from earliest childhood, either intending to kill Victor or being indifferent to his death, and expressing a death wish for Sherlock before committing arson in her own home.  Presumably she intended him to die and, based on her previous behaviour, was probably indifferent to the fate of the others.  As an adult, we know she was responsible for the murders of at least six people, whom she killed without a shred of emotion.  So far, so textbook.  And then she turns into a little girl weeping for the love of her brother?  If I thought the website would let me, I would use a very rude word to express my opinion of that plotline.  It feels like a cheap way out.

 

The only way that storyline can make any sense is if Eurus has two personalities and one of them is a psychopathic killer.  This is a popular fictional use of dissociative identity disorder, of course, the latest being James McAvoy's film "Split", despite objections from mental health professionals who say there is no evidence that people with DID are prone to violence.  Assuming that this is Eurus's condition, how does one of her personalities manage to be aware of the other one and to exploit it as a way to increase the pressure on Sherlock?  Even if one personality is aware - as adult-Eurus is aware of child-Eurus but not vice versa - it seems very unlikely that she could switch at will for the purpose of pressurising her brother.  It's another aspect of the story which requires a massive suspension of belief.

 

I do love the show as a whole, even though you could drive a bus through the plot holes, and I'm prepared to suspend belief pretty often - even to the extent of believing that Sherlock's heart could magically restart several minutes after flatlining!  Even when it was at its silliest, it had emotional resonance that held the story together.  It just didn't work in TFP.  The revelation about Eurus felt, to me, as if the writers had written themselves into a corner and had to find a way out.  It happens, sometimes.

 

 

TBH Euros said  that every time she closed her eyes she was on the plane again so she could switch to her little girl persona quite easily. She just has to close her eyes. It's a contrived explanation but this episode is full of them. 

 

I also find it weird that Adult Euros knows everything about Child Euros but Child Euros doesn't seem to know anything about Adult Euros. This is evident when Sherlock mentions Redbeard to Child Euros and Child Euros says 'Who's Redbeard?'

 

I also don't find Euros to be as sympathetic as the writers seem to want her to be.

 

Euros hid Victor, a little boy, away and refused to say where he was unless people could solve her puzzle. Victor was never found and that traumatised Sherlock. We don't get all the information of how Euros responded after committing this atrocity. However when Sherlock first meets her in this episode, Euros says that the last thing she told him was to go get her favourite hairband from mummy. Judging by the fact that her mum had her hairband, I'd say it's probable that her mum was punishing her (by taking her favourite hairband away) for not telling them about Victor. 

 

Euros said she made this request to Sherlock on the day that she was taken away. So it was the same day she burnt the house down. In the flashback of when she lights the matches, we hear background conversations of presumably her parents  arguing. Her mum mentions how they can't make Euros tell them or do anything. Her mum presumably took away her favourite hairband to try and coerce Euros to cooperate but it Euros still refused.

 

 I'm guessing what happened on Euros' last day with the Holmes is:

 

1. Euros was being punished by her mum by having her favourite hairband taken away. Her mum said 'I'll only return it if you tell us where Victor is.' However Euros refused to say.

 

2. Sherlock couldn't wait. He begged Euros for information of where Victor was because he couldn't solve her puzzle. Then Euros responded by saying something like 'I'll give you another clue if you can get my favourite hairband back from mummy.'

 

3. Euros wasn't cooperating so her parents got into an argument on what to do with her. Mr. Holmes seemed insistent on punishing her (as he said 'She knows where he is') while Mrs. Holmes seemed to realise that coercion wasn't going to work on Euros (she said 'We can't make her do anything').

 

4. Euros was upset because she overheard her parents' argument. It didn't sound like she was going to get her hairband back anytime soon because her parents were divided on how to deal with her. Also it's clear that Sherlock didn't get her hairband back.

 

5. Thus Euros decided to burn the house down in rage. After that Uncle Ruddi decides to take her away to an asylum. However Euros then decides to burn down that asylum as well so then she's moved to Sherrinford.

 

^This is why I don't like Euros. When she doesn't get what she wants, she just lashes out at anyone even if they have nothing to do with it. It also looks like she didn't care about Sherlock being traumatised for losing Victor. All she cared about was herself. If that isn't selfish then I don't know what is.

 

 

 

Also I think it should be noted that Euros probably was more closer to her mother than father. Remember in that flashback of her lighting the matches, her father seems to be the one who's more insistent on punishing her. Additionally when Mycroft tells them about Euros being alive in the end, it's only Mrs. Holmes who gets out of her chair. I'd say that Euros had a more negative opinion of her father because he was more strict with her.

 

This dislike for her father and closeness to her mother may have materialised in her Child Euros persona. Child Euros only talks about her mum and never her dad. 

[Surelock]

 

 

The problem with that is that there is so much love around her that she can't/won't see.

That doesn't change the fact or nature of unrequited love.  The fact that you see others who ARE in love the way you seek to be in love only makes that unrequited love all the more painful in contrast.  Not only are you alone, but you see some others are not.  Thus the jealousy part of her 'murderous jealousy'.

 

Again, Eurus does not see in Mycroft a kindred soul - any more than Molly sees a kindred soul in Mycroft rather than Sherlock.  Neither loves Mycroft.  That doesn't mean Mycroft can't love or doesn't love in his own way. 

 

 

You seem to be very forgiving of this episode because of its thematic focus on love.

 

I have to ask: Do you consider yourself to be a fan of love-conquers-all stories?

 

Personally I strongly dislike stories like that. It's become such a cliche theme that it just feels lazy when writers resort to it.

[Loekie]

This has the video with the actors about the ILY you scene. I think someone asked for the reference.

 

http://jeni2727.tumblr.com/post/155957319627/alphielj-this-played-after-the-tfp-i-saw-a-few

 

Fantastic, thanks!

I think the love feelings of Sherlock have yet to be cultivated. Molly is happy anyway.

[J.P.]

When a story is completely integrated to this level, where even the smallest of details is unified to the theme, to claim one can't know if that integration was purposeful or just an accident is a bizarre assertion.

 

But hey, if you want to believe things like TAB was just a total coincidence to be all about Eurus, you can't know if it was actually planned or was an accident - if you want to be a skeptic absent evidence and in contradiction to the evidence - I can't do anything about that.  I can only point TO the evidence.

 

I don't say they didn't planned Eurus from the beginning. I will have to watch TAB again to see if I agree that all of it is about Eurus. I didn't say they had no plan. I only say that some of our interpretations are based upon things that might have happened by chance.

 

When I met Arwel, the first thing I asked him was about the dog statue he had at 221B from the first episode. He said, no, it's not Redbeard, at least it wasn't intended this way.

 

The picture hanging on the wall opposite to Mr Blue Skull: I asked what it shows, because it's really hard to see. He told me he had no idea himself, just liked the picture. I found out the picture shows a cenote. And it had no link to the story until TFP, when it being nothing less than a natural well filled with water turns it into another hint. Now - did Arwel lie to me?

 

In TAB Mycroft's tie and scarf are different from those from the end of HLV. Turns out the prop department lost them (sic!) And this little goof, along of the different plane interiors between HLV and TAB, became a fundament of a whole fan theory.

 

Mark had not the slightest idea what was on Mycroft's laptop - and we've been wondering, if the map of Poland had something to do with Sherlock's deadly mission in East Europe (aka Ugly Duckling)

 

At the end of TFP they put a chair into restored 221B, that is almost identical with the one from TAB. Almost. Because it has the same shape and is covered by the same fabric, only that the pattern is positioned differently. Does it mean anything or they just run out of chairs?

 

What if the Hungry Donkey was just a bizarre allusion to the Nativity play (the donkey in Jim's version just ate the baby, which was gore-y, simple and very much up to Mark's strasse). To really know, you would have to ask the writers. Both of them.

[BLS_Pro]

 

 

 

The problem with that is that there is so much love around her that she can't/won't see.

That doesn't change the fact or nature of unrequited love.  The fact that you see others who ARE in love the way you seek to be in love only makes that unrequited love all the more painful in contrast.  Not only are you alone, but you see some others are not.  Thus the jealousy part of her 'murderous jealousy'.

 

Again, Eurus does not see in Mycroft a kindred soul - any more than Molly sees a kindred soul in Mycroft rather than Sherlock.  Neither loves Mycroft.  That doesn't mean Mycroft can't love or doesn't love in his own way. 

 

 

You seem to be very forgiving of this episode because of its thematic focus on love.

 

I have to ask: Do you consider yourself to be a fan of love-conquers-all stories?

 

Personally I strongly dislike stories like that. It's become such a cliche theme that it just feels lazy when writers resort to it.

Sigh.

 

Identifying a writer's theme is not the same as agreeing with that theme.  However, if you think the integration they did achieve is "lazy" I suggest you try it some time.  It is one of THE most difficult things in the world to achieve.  It is one of the reasons Great Art is so rare (note: one does not have to agree with the themes of Art to identify it as Great.  One can HATE a theme - can disagree with it completely - and still recognize the greatness of the work, of its execution.)

 

This is Great but Flawed Art.  It is flawed because it sacrifices plot and characterization to theme.  That is what is wrong with it.  But even there, the sacrifices are made because of the theme.  The contradictions or absurdities serve to place us in the nightmare world of the character.

 

I am not an existentialist.  Nor do I believe love of others is what gives meaning to existence.  I reject these principles.  However, my disagreement with the ideas expressed in this art have nothing to do with whether that art is good or bad. 

 

A work of Art can be great AND one can still dislike it because of WHAT it depicts.

 

[BLS_Pro]

 

What if the Hungry Donkey was just a bizarre allusion to the Nativity play (the donkey in Jim's version just ate the baby, which was gore-y, simple and very much up to Mark's strasse). To really know, you would have to ask the writers. Both of them.

If it was JUST the Hungry Donkey example, you would have to ask.  It isn't.  That's the point. 

 

I am not claiming that every single detail on screen is unified to the theme.  I haven't claimed that a pillow on one side of the couch instead of another is thematic, etc.  I have identified all the overwhelming number of things which are unified with the theme - all the facts which support the conclusion and which explain every plot and character action.  You are free to claim that some examples might be coincidental.  But to suggest (and dismiss) them ALL as just an accident is, as I stated, BIZARRE.

 

Ironically, it is the view that one can never be certain of anything - that because there is the capacity for error, there can never be certainty about anything - which is the philosophic foundation of existentialism and its dread.  And, like Moffat, your solution to that problem is to look to Others.  No matter what evidence, no matter how much of it exists, you "can not KNOW" anything unless you are informed BY others.  You can't deduce.  You have to be told - which is exactly what happened to Sherlock in this episode.  They're simply illustrating YOUR philosophy.  ;)

 

(It's interesting to note that this is the exact opposite of the philosophy of the film  "The Man Without a Face" - a film whose theme I believe Doyle's Holmes would agree)

[BLS_Pro]

Another BTW - Molly, in this episode, is the mirror of Eurus.  Both are a "unmarried woman, distant from her close relatives...acquainted with the process of death, but unsentimental about the necessity of disposal" "unmarried; practical about death; alone."  "I Love You" is "true" about how both Molly and Eurus feel about Sherlock.  Both love Sherlock but are not loved by him.

[J.P.]

 

But to suggest (and dismiss) them ALL as just an accident is, as I stated, BIZARRE.

Never said that. I said SOME might be accidental, and we can't be 100% which of them. That's all.

[BLS_Pro]

 

 

But to suggest (and dismiss) them ALL as just an accident is, as I stated, BIZARRE.

Never said that. I said SOME might be accidental, and we can't be 100% which of them. That's all.

 

Good.  So you CAN know the theme as I've stated it, because of the overwhelming number of the examples in accord with that theme (how it serves to explain the words and actions seen on screen throughout the episode), even if you aren't sure as to perhaps one particular or another. You CAN know that such integration is NOT a coincidence - is not an accident.  You are NOT dismissing the theme as UNknowable UNLESS you ask the writers.

 

Good to know.

[jadpdr]

Would that be the same writers who showed Sherlock jumping through his schizophrenic sister's hoops in his suit but was actually magically dropped back in Musgrave land in his Belstaff? Evros must have had some pretty serious muscle to help her transport three dead-weights back to the mainland and be considerate enough to wrap her brother in his coat. Wonder if it was done st Sherrinford, or before they dropped Dr Watson down the well, where he's apparently chained down, but then, miracle of miracles, is able to grab the rope Sherlock throws him and get back on dry land. Alice in Wonderland or Through The Looking Glass have a lot to be jealous of TFP!

[BLS_Pro]

Dr Watson down the well, where he's apparently chained down, but then, miracle of miracles, is able to grab the rope Sherlock throws him and get back on dry land

 

It's statement's like this which must be what drive the writers insane:  'You showed me the rope being lowered into the well.  But you didn't show me someone climbing down the rope!  You didn't show me someone unlocking John with the keys to the chains which Eurus gave Sherlock!  You didn't show me them then climbing back out of the well!!   Without showing me that, I MUST conclude that John "miraculously" just climbed up on his own with no problem - that the chains somehow MAGICALLY were no longer binding him - despite the irrationality of such a blatant contradiction.  It can't be my conclusion!  It can't be you think I'm smart enough to figure this basic stuff out on my own!  I'm NOT!  I have to be show EVERYTHING.  So if you don't show it to me, then it MUST be a PLOT HOLE!  Stupid writers!!!!'

 

Double Sigh.

[Surelock]

Another reason why I think this episode feels different from other Sherlock episodes is because of how it's titled. Each Sherlock episode is usually given the same title as one of the Sherlock Holmes' stories (not necessarily the one it's basing itself of). However the title is altered slightly. Usually this is because Moffatiss change one word in the title. 

 

For example, 'The Six Thatchers' gets its name from the short story, 'The Six Napoleons'.

 

Similarly, 'The Lying Detective' gets its  name from the short story, 'The Dying Detective'.

 

However Moffatiss decides to break this formula with this episode. This episode directly takes its title from the short story, 'The Final Problem'.

 

However I think a more fitting title would have been 'The First Problem'. After all Euros says that her song puzzle was Sherlock's first case. I'm not sure why they emphasise it as 'The Final Problem'. Yes I know that Euros places it as her last game in the episode but originally it was the first game she played. That's why I personally believe it would make more sense for this episode to be labelled 'The First Problem'.

 

'The Final Problem' just build up my expectations a lot. It makes me expect a sense of finality in this episode. However I don't think it delivered enough on these fronts.

[sherlockandjohn]

 

Dr Watson down the well, where he's apparently chained down, but then, miracle of miracles, is able to grab the rope Sherlock throws him and get back on dry land

 

It's statement's like this which must be what drive the writers insane:  'You showed me the rope being lowered into the well.  But you didn't show me someone climbing down the rope!  You didn't show me someone unlocking John with the keys to the chains which Eurus gave Sherlock!  You didn't show me them then climbing back out of the well!!   Without showing me that, I MUST conclude that John "miraculously" just climbed up on his own with no problem - that the chains somehow MAGICALLY were no longer binding him - despite the irrationality of such a contradiction.  It can't be my conclusion!  It can't be you think I'm smart enough to figure this basic stuff out on my own!  I'm NOT!  I have to be show EVERYTHING.  So if you don't show it to me, then it MUST be a PLOT HOLE!  Stupid writers!!!!'

 

Double Sigh.

 

 

Yeah, I have to admit, I feel bad that the writers are given such a hard time. I too have had little imagination concerning certain things... like how Mary didn't seem to be sorry for what she did to Sherlock in HLV (not until TST, anyway). But HLV didn't portray Mary as a villain, just a very desperate person, and Sherlock forgave her, so that should have been enough for me.

 

Point is, I get why people obsess over the little things - it's because we care so much about the show - but I also think the writers deserve more credit than they are currently getting over series 4.