Fair warning to those reading, this post will contain a metric ton of spoilers on the third season (or series as it’s called here for some reason) of Sherlock. In it, I will discuss three absurdly stupid things that happened. If this sounds to you like it’s going to be an angry rant from some nerd who cares way too much about British TV shows, well congratulations on cracking the case there buddy, did Scoobs help you out with that one?

Did you enjoy that condescending tone I just addressed you with? Would it be more acceptable if I was British, played by a guy with an exceptionally dirty last name, and talked extremely quickly? No? Well that’s who you’re left with in BBC’s Sherlock. He’s rude, he’s annoying, he has zero emotional intelligence, but at least he’s  good at what he does right? At least he’s competent? He pretty much has to be, because otherwise, he’s just some arrogant tool that spouts nonsense… And that is exactly what he became in that dreadful finale. Here are 3 reasons why.

1. Surgery

So Holme’s partner Watson’s fiancé turns out to be a trained assassin who happens to be after the same criminal mastermind and prolific blackmailer as he is. Sure that’s fine, but when Sherlock crosses paths with her just as she is about to kill him (because he feels this ridiculous need to ask a bunch of silly questions), he gets shot and nearly goes into shock and dies. Luckily for him, he focuses really intensely and manages to avoid losing consciousness and dying from the gunshot wound.

What’s ridiculous comes later in what is without a doubt the dumbest scene in the series where Sherlock tries to argue on the behalf of Watson’s fiancé (the one that nearly killed him) because she never intended to kill him, but merely stun him for long enough to escape. You see, according to Sherlock, since she’s a trained assassin, she was able to nonfatally shoot him in the chest with perfect precision and call the ambulance before leaving. After having to sit through about 10 minutes of Sherlock fighting to stay alive and not go into shock from the gunshot, I really don’t want to have to explain why that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.

2. You Love It

When Watson inevitably finds out the truth about his assassin fiancé (Mary), he’s understandably outraged. Unfortunately, in a brazen act of unparalleled stupidity, Sherlock comes to her defence by mentioning her “surgical” gunshot to his chest was never meant to kill him (even though it came very close to doing so) and most bafflingly of all, by saying that it’s Watson’s fault that this kind of thing happened. Sherlock goes into this idiotic point about how Watson secretly wants this chaotic and dangerous element in his life which is why he sought out Sherlock and why he ended up engaged to an assassin (despite having zero reason to think that this was the case with her). And with that dumb argument, all of Watson’s grievances are swept under a rug, everything he is going through becomes trivialized, and he resumes his relationship with Mary after he’s “calmed down” from the fact that she’s a murderer. Ok then.

3. I’m not a Hero

Alright, in this finale, the principle antagonist was a man named Charles Augustus Magnussen. He’s essentially a bad guy that spies on everybody, knows all their dirty secrets, and threatens to expose them at every chance he gets. Think of a very rich and very European Randall from Recess and you have Magnussen.

After Sherlock bungles Mary’s opportunity to kill him, Magnussen continues on being the blackmailing scumbag that he is. Eventually he and Sherlock have a final mental battle in which they try and outplay each other. In the end, Sherlock gets completely demolished since he underestimated Magnussen and assumed he had all of his blackmailing dirt on file when in reality he just memorizes it all. So after being completely and utterly bested, our lead pulls out a gun and shoots Magnussen in the head while screaming an incredibly bad one-liner.

This is stupid for a number of reasons:

a) Magnussen let Sherlock into his home without having his bodyguards search him first, told him that all the information he has on people is only in his head, and then just sat there grinning like an idiot while telling him he’ll be sent to prison for life for trying to mess with him. So this master blackmailer who was the victim of a recent assassination attempt took literally no precautions when dealing with people he made sure had nothing to lose by killing him? There’s being arrogant and careless, and then there’s being an idiot.

b) Sherlock preventing Mary from shooting the man months ago just seems pointless in hindsight when he ends up doing the exact same thing. Giving him a meaningful defeat by bringing his crimes to light is one thing, but just straight up shooting him in the face seemed a little too easy.

c) Sherlock is supposed to be a genius that is well-versed in numerous fields, and yet he calls back to that awful season one line where he proudly states “I’m not a psychopath, I’m a high-functioning sociopath”. There is no difference between psychopathy and sociopathy. The word “sociopath” is just another term to denote the same damn thing, and it isn’t something a respectable psychologist would use in place of “psychopath” which is the official term for what he is describing. And even then, he isn’t even close to what one would consider a psychopath. And finally, that is just a dumb thing to say before shooting someone.

There, I let it all out. And that isn’t even all the dumb things that were in the finale, this is just all off the top of my head. Normally, this would be the part where I recommend the show anyways and say “the earlier seasons were great” but you know what? I won’t do that. Not because the first two seasons weren’t great, but because the episode I discussed here featured a scene where the villain walked into our hero’s house, unzipped his pants, and took a leak right in their fireplace. I really wish I was lying.

Quote of the Day:

My friends, we are about to embark on the most odious, the most evil, the most diabolical scheme of my illustrious career. A crime to top all crimes, a crime that will live in infamy! 

-Ratigan, The Great Mouse Detective