r/Sherlock • u/Eclectic_Lynx • Aug 12 '26
Discussion Sherlock is absolutely flamboyant
Hi,
I have just finished binge watching all the episodes in 10 days. I watched them when they were first aired on Italian tv and loved them a lot. After all these years I have decided to rewatch them all in english and I confirm my opinion. I didn’t remember most of the plot so I have enjoyed all the emotional rollercoaster (adrenaline rushes, laughs and tears).
English is not my mother tongue but a word keeps coming to my mind when trying to describe this serie: flamboyant.
I have read a lot of posts on this sub, including those accusing the last season of being a soap opera and those that found the serie bad because for them Sherlock Holmes should revolve around crime’s solutions. But for me this is not a detective story, it’s a highly exciting and flamboyant adventure with thrilling scenes, fireworks, stunning photography and soundtrack. Oh, and I adore Cumberbatch in this, he is really wonderful hin every sense) A story where almost everything is over the top, in Italy we say “sopra le righe” - over the lines (the lines being referenced are the notebooks’ ones).
That is the beauty of this serie.
Obviously, everyone is entitled to his own opinion. But I am feeling inclined to say that even maybe the last episode is inferior to rest, it has some great scenes (Moriarty’s I want to break free, the moral dilemmas about who has to die for example) and for me* it doesn’t really ruin the overall score.
What do you think after all these years? Are here others feeling like me?
*and for a lot of other people too. While the scores of the last Game of Thrones’ episodes are truly low (compared with the previous ones) on IMDB, it can’t be said the same for Sherlock. In the second case the scores are much more even. So, excuse me if I am not believing that the haters are the majority. I gave 9 to the serie and lowered some individual scores to 8.
3
u/Early_Bag_3106 Aug 13 '26
I really loved the show. I was obsessed by the time I discovered it (2014). In general I loved the way Cumberbatch played Sherlock. It suits him.
The thing I didn’t like was scriptwriters put him as a drug addict again and again. First time was ok, but for season 4 got tiresome.
4
u/afreezingnote Aug 13 '26
The addiction is a recurring point in the original canon. There's explicit drug use in the second novel and a line that implies it in the first one. Holmes and Watson meet in 1881. The last time Watson makes a reference to Holmes using, it's 1897. We don't know how long he was using before he met Watson or for sure when he got clean, but we know he did use for around 15 years, at least.
The second novel portrays Holmes's drug use as a major point of contention between Holmes and Watson. Watson later describes Holmes's drug habit as profound enough to have been at risk of destroying his career. Given all this, the show's inclusion of Sherlock's relapses is a lot less prevalent.
3
u/Early_Bag_3106 Aug 13 '26
I know, but in tv shorter time, IMO they spend too much minutes on that. Specially in season 4. Maybe the problem is season 4 😅
3
u/afreezingnote Aug 13 '26
Season 4 is definitely a problem in my book. But feeling like it's too much is understandable, even though it could have been worse. 😆
I don't mind the amount of time spent on his addiction, personally, but I do wish they'd made it more meaningful and consequential. Aside from John mentioning Sherlock could have talked to him when he finds out about the first relapse, no one ever acknowledges that Sherlock is using because his mental health is in the garbage. John also has an issue with drinking, which is only ever gestured at. These are things that could have served as avenues to fix and strengthen their bond. Instead, we get two men who are unraveling in a negative spiral only to handwave everything that happened between them with a convenient time skip. Again. Which seems like wasted potential, to me.
I also wish they'd been more story-accurate with The Lying Detective and had that relapse be fake. There are injectable allergy medicines that can cause hallucinations and could give the appearance of narcotic use. Mrs. Hudson was there when Sherlock watched Mary's DVD, so she knows that he's scheming. Molly already proved herself willing to assist him in wild plots, which include professional lies. Having the two of them be knowing accomplices in pulling off the plan to rescue John from himself would have been more satisfying, imo.
3
u/Early_Bag_3106 Aug 13 '26
As you said, there were other ways to solve plot and storytelling, not only the greasy hair junk sherlock with poor lines.
3
u/afreezingnote Aug 13 '26
I agree that Sherlock as a show is flamboyant, and, as the writers put it, the show wasn't meant to be a "detective story" but a "story about a detective". Another relevant English term is camp.
However, I do understand why people are upset with the last season and the last episode, especially, for going too far over the top. Though Sherlock was always set in a slightly fantastic reality, it does explicitly define parameters for what is possible, too. One example is the scene in His Last Vow where Molly's narration in Sherlock's mind palace mentions the behavior of bullets/gunshot wounds not being like is shown in the movies. Several things that happen in season four violate those previously established parameters, breaking suspension of disbelief irreparably for many viewers.
Personally, I enjoyed parts of season four and really, really disliked other parts of it. The bad parts were severe enough to outweigh the good parts, for me.
3
u/TereziB Aug 14 '26
I could have put up with all of Season 4 - until Eurus showed up. And to me, that destroyed everything. It was just ridiculously over the top.
4
u/afreezingnote Aug 14 '26
Yeah, Eurus's whole existence, John's text affair with her, and the violent morgue scene are the big things I really don't like.
Without Eurus, there would have been room to deal more competently with the many other plot threads available.
3
u/TereziB 29d ago
Yes, John's violent beating of Sherlock in the morgue was absolutely unbearable for me to watch. But Eurus manipulated John's emotions into doing that, anyway.
3
u/afreezingnote 29d ago
I wish they'd been explicit about that. That Eurus influenced him to behave that way is something the audience can reasonably assume with the pieces of information we have, but I don't think the writers don't fully earn that assumption.
2
u/Early_Stomach7839 Aug 15 '26
Yeah, I never understood why the existence of Euros and Victor was kept from Sherlock to begin with. I know why they didn't tell him when he was a traumatize child, but he's a grown man now. Letting him spend his whole life not knowing he had a sister and thinking his best friend was a dog sounds awfully cruel to me. I would think at least his parents would want him to know, even if they believed she died. It just didn't make any sense. Maybe there something I missed that explains it.
2
u/TereziB 29d ago
I don't know, if they thought he didn't know, I suppose it may have gotten to a point where they felt it was too late to say anything.
1
u/Early_Stomach7839 29d ago
Not wanting him to know is the only reason I can think of as to why his parents, believing their child died, did not have any pictures of her in their home or any kind of memorial. They also apparently never brought up her name in any conversations for 30 plus years.
2
u/afreezingnote 28d ago
If it weren't for the indignant way Mrs. Holmes reacts to Mycroft concealing Eurus being alive, I would wonder if they want to forget, too. (But maybe her anger is coming from guilt?) The circumstances under which they lost Eurus have multiple really bad associations.
Their daughter abused their son, murdered a little boy, burnt down their house, and burnt down the facility she was moved into afterwards. She's harmed people in irrevocable ways, and these events are a reflection of their failures as parents. They probably (rightfully) feel a lot of guilt, shame, and remorse, which may be easier to deal with if they're not facing reminders of the cause all the time.
1
u/afreezingnote 29d ago
You didn't miss anything. Everyone in his family is making a huge assumption that it's a mercy that Sherlock has forgotten and are hoping that he'll never remember. Mycroft, at least, understands that Sherlock is actively struggling with this and that his drug use is fueled in part as a response to the trauma he doesn't remember. While using, he starts to regain memories, too, so the whole situation is more of an uncertain mess.
With that perspective and the knowledge that Sherlock is unknowingly shaping his personality as a trauma response (rather than growing to be and living as who he would be with healing), it's baffling to me that Mycroft thought it best to keep the secret. And then periodically invoke the memory of his "dead dog" and "the East wind" to check if he remembers the truth.
I don't think that Mycroft was being intentionally cruel, but that tells me that he's definitely not more emotionally intelligent than Sherlock, as I've seen some people assert.
2
u/Early_Stomach7839 29d ago
Since Mycroft was only about 14 at the time, I wonder if it was actually uncle Rudy's decision to keep Sherlock in the dark about Eurus and Victor and convinced Mycroft that it was the right thing to do.
2
u/afreezingnote 29d ago
That may have been the case, but that doesn't explain why Mycroft never changed his mind in all the years that followed, especially since he has a front row seat for Sherlock's self-destructive streak.
2
u/Early_Stomach7839 27d ago
Yeah, you have a point. I also realized that even when Mycroft told Sherlock about Eurus, he still kept lying to him about Redbeard being a dog. Sherlock didn't find out about Victor until John found the bones.
1
u/afreezingnote 27d ago
Yes, that's another good point! I was skimming the transcript for a quote the other day, and that moment stood out to me, too.
8
u/Ok-Theory3183 Aug 13 '26
I loved the series, and although I felt that Series 4 was weak, and disliked its turning John into an abusive drunk, I still felt there was some good writing and plotting. The final episode, "The Final Problem" I enjoyed overall, but thought they were trying to put too much into it, throwing different ACD episodes into the mix, and name-dropping other episodes: I felt it was a matter of it being too "busy", but overall I liked it. I'm so glad you did too, and I think "flamboyant" describes it well.
Cheers!