The Final Problem: Death, Fear, Love and being alive
I know a lot of people have talked about the second series in the context of this one. We talk about them doing Reichenbach again and doing it differently in The Final Problem. But I want to talk about this series in the context of these quotes about the second series:
So we talked, didn’t we, about how – for this series of three - [it would be] Sherlock and love, Sherlock and fear, Sherlock and death. And this was an area we wanted to play with, that the arch-rationalist is going to be confronted by what appears to be impossible, so what does he do about it?
–Mark, in The Hounds of Baskerville Commentary (x)
“That also means we see three different sides to Sherlock. We have Sherlock and love, Sherlock and fear and Sherlock and death. He definitely goes through the mill in this new series.”
-Steven Moffat (x)
First, it’s interesting that while I agree Sherlock may have gone through the mill in that series, he didn’t really necessarily experience all those things to their fullest. He saw love, but he saw it as a chemical reaction. “Sentiment is a chemical defect found in the losing side,” he said. He saw fear, experienced it even, but only as the result of a drug.
“Look at me. I’m afraid, John. Afraid. Always been able to keep myself distant …divorce myself from … feelings. But look, you see … [my] body’s betraying me. Interesting, yes? Emotions. The grit on the lens, the fly in the ointment.”
He sees fear as something to avoid, something to divorce himself from, just another chemical reaction. We do not find out what it is that Sherlock Holmes fears. He doesn’t really face it, the drug just wears off.
And death…well. He fakes his death and he doesn’t expect it to have consequences. He appears to escape that too.
But The Six Thatchers was all about the idea that actions have consequences, and that death is inescapable:
“There was once a famous merchant in the famous market at Baghdad. One day he saw a stranger looking at him in surprise, and he knew that the stranger was Death. Pale and trembling, the merchant fled the marketplace and made his way many many miles to the city of Samarra. For there he was sure death could not find him. But when at last he came to Samarra, the merchant saw, waiting for him, the grim figure of Death. “Very well,” said the merchant. “I give in. I am yours. But tell me, why did you look surprised when you saw me this morning in Baghdad?” “Because’” said Death, “I had an appointment with you tonight in Samarra.”
What if we’re getting a mirror image of those episode themes? First death, than fear, and finally love.
What if that’s the final problem? What if this time, Sherlock Holmes finds that you cannot actually escape death, or fear or love, because they’re all integral, inevitable parts of being alive. They’re what it means to be human.
