#Season 4 review sherlock series

She's soon returned to Sherrinford, where she's allowed visitors, as if she no longer poses a danger despite her near-supernatural ability to control the minds of others. In a single moment Eurus pivots from a cold murderer вЂ“ beyond all morality вЂ“ to a terrified girl who needs a hug from her big bro to make things better. ItвЂ™s a surprising and interesting reveal, though perhaps a little hard to swallow.

It was a cry for help in a cryptic language she knew he would understand. In the final act, Eurus is revealed to be the terrified girl aboard the plane вЂ“ her outrageous intellect translates her experience into a metaphorical puzzle for Sherlock to solve. Everyone else aboard is unconscious, and he must race against time to work out a way to save her. (ItвЂ™s as if the Jigsaw killer has been left to run amok in a Bond villainвЂ™s lair.) And at the end of each problem, Sherlock is dropped a bigger problem: he can talk to a little girl who's on a plane thatвЂ™s rapidly losing altitude.

#Season 4 review sherlock series

What follows is a series of elaborate and cruel conundrums designed to test SherlockвЂ™s deductive and reasoning faculties. The madwoman is, in fact, running the asylum, and Sherlock, Watson, and Mycroft quickly become her prisoners. Eurus's genius allows her to 'reprogram' anyone she comes into contact with вЂ“ it's how she was able to visit London in secret, whether it was to flirt with John on a bus or share a bag of chips with Sherlock. But we soon learn this is far from a prison. (Incidentally, Sherrinford was one of the names Conan-Doyle toyed with for Sherlock, and has been used to refer to a proposed elder brother in the extended Holmes canon.) The majority of the episode takes place within this grim prison located on a remote Scottish island. He even lied to their parents, telling them Eurus has died in a fire. We learn that Mycroft locked Eurus away in a secret facility known as Sherrinford вЂ“ a place, according to him, where demons are kept. Friendship, family, and the messy emotional entanglements they create dominate the episode. The whole show can now be read as the story of Sherlock returning to a place where he is ready to have a friend. John has been giving Sherlock back something he lost violently as a child.

Situated within this new context, Holmes and WatsonвЂ™s friendship acquires a renewed and more powerful significance. Cold, analytical, detached вЂ“ he was forever changed by that event. As a young girl, Eurus drowned 'Redbeard' вЂ“ eventually revealed not to be the family dog but SherlockвЂ™s childhood friend, Victor Trevor вЂ“ and in the process, Eurus created the Sherlock we know. We also discover the reason Sherlock has no memory of her is due to a traumatic incident that occurred during their childhood.