Sherlock Season 4 (1 Viewer)

[Stan]

I tried to phrase things in an ambiguous enough way to not suggest what happened or didn't happen in the episode, and honestly, even if I'd described it in detail, without the preceding 85+ minutes, you likely wouldn't get the same feel as I did.

Letting it sit for a night and into the next morning, I feel even moreso in that direction. I watched the show with a friend of mine (first one I'd watched with her), and she made the comment that it felt like they were throwing everything into this story and episode.

I'm looking forward to the new shows. Still playing catch up and trying to watch things in order.

I seriously don't mind spoilers with certain shows. I'm still a bit behind on this one. Even have one episode from 2012!!!

I know enough to avoid certain topics if it's a show I don't want spoiled, but "Sherlock" stories go way back, well over 100 years, maybe a few new twists here and there, but the earth keeps spinning.

One thing I've come across is people speculating that Sherlock might be gay. Looking back, you never know. Very subtle hints, maybe he is, maybe he isn't. Something that never occurred to me until the newer shows "came out"

 

[joshEH]

I liked it, though not as much as "The Lying Detective," which I've come to agree was one of the best this show has ever produced. In contrast, "The Final Problem" is good but (in my eyes), but not quite great. Sian Brooke is seven shades of awesome as Sherlock's dead-eyed sister, and the script is full of Moffat's usual trickery which I've come to love from him (I especially like the Moriarty-scene, which plays like the character's actual return, only for the "Five years earlier..." tag to appear well over a minute or so later).

Still, as a wrap-up for the season (if not the series), I'm more than happy with it.

I got a strong feeling by the end that they were doing the series wrapup. That's what the last five minutes felt like to me.

Apparently the BBC ordered two further seasons at the end of Series 3, so there should be at least one more coming eventually (actors' schedules permitting, of course).

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

I loved this finale. Excellent payoff, and a deep dive in the complicated Holmes family history, which is always like catnip for me.

Well, that was certainly a complex and tension-filled finale. While I enjoyed the multiple puzzles, one did have to suspend disbelief rather deeply for this episode over several aspects of the narrative: she's SO mesmerizing that she can bewitch anybody? She can construct these elaborate puzzles and get on and off the island and money is no object?

One thing that I admired about this finale is the idea that there is a spectrum of "Holmes-ness", with Sherlock on one side and Eros on the other, and Mycroft in the middle. The effect of their particular strain of genius has the result that the cleverer you are, the more disconnected you are from humanity. And so she was very brilliant but very disconnected. Sherlock, both extremely brilliant and and extremely disconnected from our perspective, had just enough humanity to bridge the gap which had inspired a five year old girl, unmoored from everything that makes civilized people civilized, commit a horrific act.

I didn't see what she did as bewitching them. She's just so brilliant that even brief exposure to a person allows her to deconstruct a person, grab their attention, and then systematically manipulate them in whatever way they're most susceptible to. How long did she watch John in order to deduce that the woman on the bus persona would the one he was most susceptible to? When she took over the therapist's practice, she clearly did the same predictive analysis Sherlock did to deduce that that would be the therapist John would choose. What happened on Sherrinford is basically the same principle. Once she had bent the governor to her will, getting on and off the island becomes no object; the resources of Sherrinford became her resources. It helped that she didn't have some big diabolical scheme to topple governments or upend the social order. Once she was back in England, her sole purpose was to force her older brother to play with her.

I got a strong feeling by the end that they were doing the series wrapup. That's what the last five minutes felt like to me.

I thought the end worked equally well as a series finale or a season finale. If they decide to do more down the road, the status quo has been reestablished, with them living together in 221B Baker Street and solving mysteries when a interesting case walks into their parlor. If not, seeing them together doing what they do best is exactly how we want to remember them.

(In other news, if they do continue with this every few years, it'll be interesting to see what kind of person Rosie becomes, growing up with such unorthodox parent figures)

 

[Hollywoodaholic]

Yikes, apparently viewers are eviscerating this episode on other recap sites. I just can't go along with that. At some point, you just have to go along for the ride, and this was a great ride. The 'puzzle room' bits were compelling, the acting great as always, the villain out-Moriarityed Moriarity, Sherlock told someone he loved them, and the whole thing re-booted back to Holmes and Watson sprinting out with the game afoot. So back off, haters over-analyzing everything and be grateful for a damn entertaining series that would have been impossible to satisfy everyone with a finale. I had a spectacular ride.

 

[Stan]

I loved this finale. Excellent payoff, and a deep dive in the complicated Holmes family history, which is always like catnip for me.


One thing that I admired about this finale is the idea that there is a spectrum of "Holmes-ness", with Sherlock on one side and Eros on the other, and Mycroft in the middle. The effect of their particular strain of genius has the result that the cleverer you are, the more disconnected you are from humanity. And so she was very brilliant but very disconnected. Sherlock, both extremely brilliant and and extremely disconnected from our perspective, had just enough humanity to bridge the gap which had inspired a five year old girl, unmoored from everything that makes civilized people civilized, commit a horrific act.

I didn't see what she did as bewitching them. She's just so brilliant that even brief exposure to a person allows her to deconstruct a person, grab their attention, and then systematically manipulate them in whatever way they're most susceptible to. How long did she watch John in order to deduce that the woman on the bus persona would the one he was most susceptible to? When she took over the therapist's practice, she clearly did the same predictive analysis Sherlock did to deduce that that would be the therapist John would choose. What happened on Sherrinford is basically the same principle. Once she had bent the governor to her will, getting on and off the island becomes no object; the resources of Sherrinford became her resources. It helped that she didn't have some big diabolical scheme to topple governments or upend the social order. Once she was back in England, her sole purpose was to force her older brother to play with her.

I thought the end worked equally well as a series finale or a season finale. If they decide to do more down the road, the status quo has been reestablished, with them living together in 221B Baker Street and solving mysteries when a interesting case walks into their parlor. If not, seeing them together doing what they do best is exactly how we want to remember them.

(In other news, if they do continue with this every few years, it'll be interesting to see what kind of person Rosie becomes, growing up with such unorthodox parent figures)

I am so looking forward to this finale. It's described as a "Season Finale", not a "Series Finale" so hoping the show continues.

Still a few episodes behind, have no idea who the "she" is you mention, but sounds like it's a really good episode.

 

[AndyMcKinney]

Moffatt was quoted recently as saying that he and Gatiss would also be game to do more of them, but of course, it all depends on the planets aligning and everyone being available. That said, he went on to say that in the previous three series, they each sort of left on a cliff-hanger, and were working, in a way, on the backstory of "how the dynamic duo got together." The last few minutes of "The FInal Problem" gets us to the end of that narrative, so in one respect, it represents a natural end to that backstory, but also can act as the beginning of their continuing adventures.

 

[Johnny Angell]

Did Eros, or whatever here name was, bewitch Moriarity? Or was he acting on free will when he killed himself?

This was not my favorite episode, mostly because I have a personal dislike of the all powerful and omnipresence villain. True she ended up with quite a weakness, but...

 

[AndyMcKinney]

Did Eros, or whatever here name was, bewitch Moriarity? Or was he acting on free will when he killed himself?

There was a line of dialogue where she stated that Moriarity didn't much care about whether he carried on living or not, so I didn't necessarily take it that he was 'bewitched', just that the two of them had a common interest (Sherlock).

 

[joshEH]

^ Yeah, Moriarty was mentioned as always being his own thing, even after his "meeting" with Eurus.

 

[Keith Cobby]

Finally caught up with Season 4, which is easily the worst for me. I hope everybody enjoyed seeing Sherlock's actual parents at the end. Nice homage to the greatest Sherlock of them all at the very end.

 

[Carabimero]

I thought the first two movies of the season were extremely good, with the ending of episode two absolutely fantastic. But the finale was downright awful, IMHO. So implausible, on so many levels.
I thought it was too unlikely to be dramatic, too dishonest with the audience (the airliner) ultimately to satisfy me at the end, and worst of all, not the kind of overly violent adventure I want to see Holmes and Watson engaged in (once the sister broke her own rules, my diminishing interest waned).

Too many gaping holes in logic. If the sister didn't want Sherlock killed, why blow up Baker Street and risk it? All the planning with Moriarty, all those years, and she risks it all by blowing up his flat? Why? In the cold light of day, that episode is so improbable in so many ways. I like SH because he is the smartest guy in the room. It's certainly okay--and even interesting--to find someone smarter, but the sister didn't work for me in the finale. It was too chaotic and too needlessly violent for it to be dramatically effective for this viewer.

I did think the sister's appearance at the end of episode 2 was freaking brilliant, however.

 

[Dheiner]

I thought the first two movies of the season were extremely good, with the ending of episode two absolutely fantastic. But the finale was downright awful, IMHO. So implausible, on so many levels.
I thought it was too unlikely to be dramatic, too dishonest with the audience (the airliner) ultimately to satisfy me at the end, and worst of all, not the kind of overly violent adventure I want to see Holmes and Watson engaged in (once the sister broke her own rules, my diminishing interest waned).

Too many gaping holes in logic. If the sister didn't want Sherlock killed, why blow up Baker Street and risk it? All the planning with Moriarty, all those years, and she risks it all by blowing up his flat? Why? In the cold light of day, that episode is so improbable in so many ways. I like SH because he is the smartest guy in the room. It's certainly okay--and even interesting--to find someone smarter, but the sister didn't work for me in the finale. It was too chaotic and too needlessly violent for it to be dramatically effective for this viewer.

I did think the sister's appearance at the end of episode 2 was freaking brilliant, however.

I agree with most of what you say about the last episode, but I disagree about the sister. I had problems with the way she (and Sherlock) were written even before the last episode.
How, for instance, did the sister know about the murderous villain? And his daughter? I really found the whole "She predicted that Sherlock would predict that John would go to this exact Therapist, months before Sherlock even knew that HE would need to predict what John would do" bullshit completely ridiculous.

Sherlock is a deductive genius, not a fucking precog.

 

[Carabimero]

I really found the whole "She predicted that Sherlock would predict that John would go to this exact Therapist, months before Sherlock even knew that HE would need to predict what John would do" bullshit completely ridiculous.

Yes, but it's degrees of plausibility. As degrees go, I could live with that one. But I don't begrudge you feeling that way at all. We all draw the line of willing suspension of disbelief at different places. But wherever one draws the line, that finale was ridiculous.

 

[joshEH]

I agree with most of what you say about the last episode, but I disagree about the sister. I had problems with the way she (and Sherlock) were written even before the last episode.
How, for instance, did the sister know about the murderous villain? And his daughter?

For that part, at least, it's explained in the episode that Mycroft had been giving Eurus access to top-secret, classified government intel for years while in captivity in order to use her gifts to help prevent attacks, etc. Her knowing everything about major threats makes sense as a result of this (which backfires on Mycroft and Sherlock in the end).

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

Well, I feel like the show can now actually begin not that it has just concluded. They basically used 4 seasons to tell the Holmes/Watson backstory and now they can go out and solve mysteries with their well established rapport.

On the final episode of season 4...

Spoiler: SPOILERS

To me it seemed less a written episode than a borrowed bunch of pieces from other shows/movies/stories assembled into a kind of greatest hits package. Take a little Hannibal Lector, a little Saw, a little Skyfall, toss in a pinch of this, a twist of that and mix with some references to Sherlock Holmes mysteries and boom...there's your episode.

I enjoyed it but there was a lot of stuff on loan there I think.

 

[Garysb]

The Complete Series Blu Ray is now $19.99 from Amazon

See on Amazon

 

[NeilO]

The Complete Series Blu Ray is now $19.99 from Amazon

See on Amazon

Must have been a flash sale as it is back to $71.74

 

[Garysb]

Must have been a flash sale as it is back to $71.74

Apparently Amazon was matching Best Buy and Best Buy sold out.