(spoilers and review for the final problem below)
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:
I thoroughly enjoyed The Final Problem.
It was emotionally and intellectually and brilliant, with the right levels of sarcasm, humour, and suspense that truly makes a good episode of Sherlock. Plot holes? Yeah, definitely. Weird special effects? Obviously. But for me, that was made up for by superior acting (I applaud Ben, Martin, Sian, and Loo specifically), an interesting plot and character storylines, and a level of emotion and true humanity from the show that I hadn’t seen and had been awaiting for a very long time.
It also dealt with morally questionable acts. Choose one between shooting the governor, a good man, to save his wife or take no action (passive) and condemn them both? Threaten to murder someone that your brother is close to just to measure his emotions? Kill your brother’s childhood best friend for the sake of jealousy? Who can you live without: your amazingly intelligent brother or your loyal, kind best friend? Will (or should) you kill yourself to save the ones you love
Heart over mind? Emotion over intellect? Which shall it be?
Eurus Holmes is wondrous in her cruelty and cleverness, something that surpasses Sherlock’s and Mycroft’s. She’s more cunning and more cruel than Jim Moriarty, measuring and controlling and always analyzing the heroes of the story- not physically, in the way we’ve seen villains in the past- but emotionally, adding a whole new layer of depth to the show. Yet she’s just as lonely as Sherlock was when we first met him in 2010. It is rather sad to think about- someone becoming as cruel as Eurus was because they aren’t treated with the love that others are imbued with. Sian Brooke perfectly captures the harm that one can do when not treated with love, something that resonates with everyday bullies or real-life murderers choosing their victims out of a lust for revenge. Her storyline is interesting in this way and stays with the viewer until the end.
We see a different side to John Watson, a man who’s always struggled with the meaning of good. Martin Freeman, as usual, excels with the one-liners, looks, and fear that make Dr. Watson feel genuine and real and human. In this episode, John is asked to do a lot of horrible things, but, at the end of the day, he is still John Watson- soldier, doctor, loyal, kind: a good man, a good friend.
And then we get to the humane Sherlock Holmes that we’ve been waiting for a very long time. We’ve always known that he was there, but we’ve never seen him in this level of vulnerability until this series. We see him gently comfort and guide a little girl on a plane that’s almost certainly going to crash. We see him forgive and understand and love his younger sister, even though she did unspeakable things to him and his loved ones. We see him struggle with morally compromising choices. We see him be the only one to communicate with Eurus, because even if Sherlock isn’t the smart one, he’s definitely the more loving one out of the three. Benedict Cumberbatch shines in this deeper look at the detective and exemplifies all the best aspects of his acting- ranging from the guttural screams of frustration to the unspoken words that he shares with Sian Brooke during a duet for two violins, where you can see the emotions etched in Sherlock/Cumberbatch’s face and body language. This Sherlock Holmes isn’t the one that we met in “A Study In Pink” seven years ago. He’s become not only a great man, but a good one. This is a perfect example of what we call “character development”, and I applaud Moffat and Gatiss on this seven-year arc.
That leaves us with the final question, if you will: does “The Final Problem” satisfy? I think it did, for me. Personally, it is not as breath-taking or impossible as series 2′s “The Reichenbach Fall”, but it struck all the right emotional chords in me. It’s not in the same vein as the past three series have been, and has definitely been more Bond-like than it really needed to be, but the final five minutes, especially with the duet and Mary’s voiceover, leaves all the remaining characters in a good place for now.
If, hypothetically, the worldwide phenomenon known as BBC’s Sherlock was to totally end here (I hope not), I think that we would be in a good place- right back where we started, with Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson of 221B Baker Street, solving crimes and laughing in the midst of the darkness of the world.
Descrição e crítica perfeitaaaaas
