Phoenix_Torn Talks TV

Here’s today’s thing that I can’t seem to get over.

Eurus is basically magic. Fine. Heightened reality. Whatever. It’s lazy writing to make her so powerful that she can so easily manipulate the entire prison, but if that’s what we’re doing, sure. I’m not happy about it but might be able to accept it IF they made that the rule and followed through. They don’t.

They tell us specifically that anyone who spends any bit of time with Eurus will be manipulated by her. When Sherlock goes to her cell, they show us a line on the floor he shouldn’t cross (ignoring the phantom glass for this rant). Then John warns Sherlock that he’s in danger. He uses Vatican Cameos and we’re supposed to be afraid. Sherlock ignores it and walks closer…and nothing happens. 

Sure, she captures them, but that’s because she’s brainwashed the staff of the facility, not because she’s done anything to Sherlock. She’s convinced the staff to do all this. Why give us Vatican cameos to just ignore it? If they’re making Eurus out to be so much more intelligent than Mycroft or Sherlock, why not have her manipulate Sherlock to take out Mycroft and John? Hell, you could have made it a fake out of Sherlock turning on Mycroft and John, while actually heading the warning and thinking his way out of it.

Then we have John. John spent time in therapy with Eurus. She should have been able to control/manipulate John through the back half of the series, but she doesn’t. There is no evidence that she has done anything to john or with john at all. If mycroft and Sherlock are immune because of intelligence or family connection or whatnot, fine, but John shouldn’t be.

If you’re going to set up your bad guy as something, follow through. Use it. For god sake, write something interesting with it. A surprising reveal that Mycroft was somehow manipulated to bring Sherlock and John to the Island would have been a good moment. Show us that she’s in charge instead of telling us “oh, by the way she can manipulate anyone she comes in contact with”. Hell, she spent the day with Sherlock, pretending to be Faith Smith, which almost lead to Sherlock dying and she doesn’t even bring it up to him. She tells John instead.

Eurus is a disappointing villain because they didn’t know how to use her and didn’t define what she was or what she was capable of. Instead, her motivations, plan (?), and capabilities changed to fit whatever the script apparently needed…and also ended when the script needed to end.

Imagine if all along Sherlock had been playing her game. The game of his secret hidden twin (because why bring up again and again that it’s never twins and then not invert it and give Sherlock a twin?) Eurus, the spider at the centre of the web. She never left the island because she didn’t need to. She had access to government technology, the elite criminals who couldn’t be locked up in “normal” prisons, as well as frequent visits from her big brother who practically is the British Government. She could have been this amazing criminal mastermind - an awesome villain for Sherlock to face.

Imagine if Moriary was Eurus’s Moran? If they were in this together, if there was an explained, thought out, interesting connection between the two of them. Even that would have been interesting. But the explanation of “5 minutes with Moriarty caused all this” isn’t an emotional or story driven pay-off.

I could (and probably will) rant about the confusing characterization of Mary throughout season 3 and 4, but I agree. If we found out Mary was working for Eurus (or anyone really) I would have less questions.

What was even going on with the plane trick/metaphor? 

Why would Molly ever talk to any of them ever again?

Where do all these Mary tapes keep coming from?

In a show supposedly set in the real world, why do we suddenly have secret island prisons?

Where does one get an unbrellaswordgun?

In a show supposedly set in the real world, how does Eurus basically have the power of mind control?

and how does Sherlock suddenly have the power to predict the future?

How did Eurus meet Culverton Smith to gain all that information in TLD?

What was Eurus’s plan exactly?

Why introduce a memory warping drug, have your protagonist have missing memories, and not have those two connected in some way?

How did John get out of the well by rope without having his feet unchained?

Why did Doctor John Watson not recognize human remains sooner?

Why was no one looking for poor Victor Trevor?

How did Eurus build a fake bunker identical to the real bunker on the family estate, that was flimsy enough to be kicked down by Sherlock but not flimsy enough to be blown over?

How does Mycroft still have a job?

What happened with Mycroft and Lady Smallwood?

Did he ever buy groceries?

What were Sherlock’s recurring dreams?

Did Sherlock get help for his drug problem? Or his health problems that Molly deduced cause by his drug problems?

Did anyone find that pearl?

How did Lestrade and Hopkin’s date go?

Where’s Anderson?

Did anyone catch those bank robbers from last season?

When Sherlock said he knew exactly what Moriarty was going to do next, it was a lie right? He didn’t know Moriarty was going to become a plot device, and scare tactic planned 5 years before that by a psychotic sister that Sherlock had blocked out all memories of, so that said sister could torture Sherlock because he had a friend as a child?

Why make a joke in the first episode that Sherlock was like a baby and then in the third episode say he’s always been the adult?

What friends has Rosie been staying with?

How did everyone survive the grenade at 221B? 

What is Mrs Hudson’s favourite heavy metal song?

Why the stress on Sherlock tweeting? It didn’t add anything to the series.

If the final problem was to burn the heart out of Sherlock, why wasn’t that addressed?

If no one knew redbeard/victor was stuck in a well, why was Sherlock hallucinating water imagery?

What was that movie Mycroft was watching at the beginning?

Why clowns?

What was this season actually about?