Should Sherlock End With 'The Final Problem'?
After a three years hiatus, Sherlock finally returned in 2017 with a new season. Last night saw [...]
Should Sherlock End With 'The Final Problem?'
"I know who you really are: a junkie who solves crimes to get high, and the doctor who never came home from the war," Mary says, offering the Sherlock creators' analysis of the characters of Sherlock and Watson through the insight of a wife and friend. "Who you really are, it doesn't matter. It's all about the legend, the stories, the adventures. There is a last refuge for the desperate, the unloved, the persecuted. There is a final court of appeal for everyone. When life gets too strange, too impossible, too frightening, there is always one last hope. When all else fails, there are two men sitting arguing in a scruffy flat like they've always been there, and they always will. The best and wisest men I have ever known, the Baker Street boys, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson."
That this metatextual case for the importance of Sherlock Holmes stories seems opposed to the entire premise of Sherlock Season 4 doesn't change the fact that this monolog - delivered over a montage of Sherlock and Watson's future cases and continued friendship, as well as Sherlock's visits with Euros – is a summation of everything Sherlock has come to be about.
Holmes' growth as a character and this statement of why his stories matter both serve to give Sherlock a new relevance in the character's mythology. Where Sherlock could once be summed up as "Sherlock Holmes if he lived in the 21st century," it is now positioned as "Sherlock Homes: Year One." Sherlock is about how the Sherlock Holmes first introduced in 2010's "A Study In Pink" grew up to become the Sherlock Holmes of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, at least in character if not in chronological placement. This is a context that Gatiss seems well aware of it.
"I think what has actually happened is we have now done the story of how the Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson that you've always known became those men," Gatiss said at a press event. "It's actually a backstory and we never intended it to be, but the reason to leave it at that place is that actually if we do come back — and we'd love to come back — then we could have it absolutely start with a knock on the door and Sherlock saying, 'Do you want to come out and play?'"
While "The Final Solution" may be a great stopping point for Sherlock, Gatiss here has the right idea for what to do should he and Moffat return to Sherlock again. Despite Mary's monolog pointing out that who Sherlock and Watson are isn't all that important compared to the adventures they embark on, Sherlock's fourth season was bogged down by plots that dealt specifically with questions about Sherlock and Watson's identities. Sherlock Season 4 traded mystery stories for soap opera, complete with melodramatic death scenes, amnesia, and secret siblings.
Perhaps Mary's monolog is really meant to show that Sherlock is over that phase now. Sherlock's "Baker Street Boys" are now fully formed and able to participate in the kind of adventures that fans should expect from a Sherlock Holmes story.
If Sherlock does return again then it should dispense with the pretense of these slow burn stories with shocking twist reveals that are casually undone within the span of the next episode's first act. Let it be an episodic adventure series about a very clever man who solves mysteries and his close friend who keeps him grounded and helps him see the things he would otherwise see through.
Otherwise, while Sherlock Season 4 wasn't quite what many were hoping for, "The Final Problem" is as serviceable of a sendoff as Sherlock is likely to get.
prev