The series finale of the BBC’s Sherlock was full of plot holes, but there’s one in particular that has made way for a lot of complaints from fans, and it’s all about John Watson’s rescue from the well. Sherlock Holmes was created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and made his debut in A Study in Scarlet in 1887, and went on to appear in a total of four novels and 56 short stories, becoming one of the most popular and beloved characters in literature. The Great Detective has been adapted to all types of media for over a hundred years, and recent adaptations have reignited interest in Conan Doyle’s stories.
Among those is the BBC’s Sherlock, created by Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat, and which aired from 2010 to 2017, with a total of four seasons and one special episode titled “The Abominable Bride”. What made Sherlock stand out was that it brought Holmes and company to modern-day London, adapting the detective to the present and its technological advances, without him relying too much on them. Sherlock took inspiration from many of the character’s book cases, often combining them to make more complex cases that fit the show’s style. The series didn’t forget about some of the most important events in Sherlock Holmes’ life, such as his fake death and return – but unlike in the books, where his return was successful and made way for more stories, the series’ quality declined after it.
Sherlock’s death happened in season 2’s finale “The Reichenbach Fall”, and he returned in season 3’s first episode “The Empty Hearse”. From there, the stories became too unbelievable and messy, but that peaked in the series finale, appropriately titled “The Final Problem”. In it, viewers (and Watson) met Eurus Holmes, the third Holmes sibling who spent most of her life locked in a maximum-security psychiatric facility... from which she escaped. Given her intellect and manipulative skills, Eurus came up with a genuinely complex plan in which she set up a number of riddles, traps, and more for Sherlock, Mycroft, and John. The final part of her plan took them to the remains of the old Holmes estate, where Watson was in great danger as he was chained at the bottom of the well where Eurus drowned Sherlock’s childhood friend, Victor Trevor.
John told Sherlock he couldn’t climb out of the wall because his feet were chained to the bottom of it, and this was with the purpose of drowning him, just like Eurus did with Victor. Eurus began to raise the water level in the well, revealing the skull of Victor. After a brother-and-sister moment between Sherlock and Eurus, in which he realized that the “girl in the plane” was a metaphor of how lonely she had felt her whole life, Eurus broke down, and as all her puzzles had been solved, she was sent back to the psychiatric facility and John was rescued – but he was rescued a bit too easily, simply by throwing a rope and pulling him up, which shouldn’t have been possible as he was chained at the bottom of the well. This is one of many plot holes found in “The Final Problem” and one that bothered Sherlock fans for a long time, with some joking that Watson was just being “overdramatic”.
Of course, the easiest way to solve this particular plot hole is to assume that Watson somehow – between fighting for his life and dealing with the shock of finding human remains in the well – managed to break free, making it possible for him to be rescued with a rope. Sherlock’s series finale has been criticized for being unbelievable and quite messy, leaving a lot of plot holes and unsolved questions, and while Watson’s rescue is a minor plot hole, it was the last straw for fans after the whole episode wasn’t what they had been expecting.