Sherlock season 4 had a lot of twists and big revelations, including the backstory and real identity of Redbeard – and here’s who it was. Sherlock Holmes has been around long enough to have been adapted to all types of media, and recent versions have revived interest in the cases of the Great Detective. Among those is the BBC’s Sherlock, which gave a twist to the famous detective and his most famous stories.
Sherlock was created by Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat and ran for four seasons with one special episode in between. Sherlock brought the title character (played by Benedict Cumberbatch) and John Watson (Martin Freeman) to the present day, with modern London as the main setting. Following Sherlock’s "death" in season 2’s finale “The Reichenbach Fall”, the quality of the series went down, and the stories were not believable anymore. Everything got more confusing in season 4, with the introduction of a third Holmes sibling and Redbeard, who turned out to be someone completely different from what Sherlock remembered.
Redbeard was introduced through Sherlock’s memories in season 3 after he was shot by Mary. Redbeard was Sherlock’s childhood dog, and it’s worth noting that he treated him very differently from how he treats people, as he smiled at him and called him “a clever boy”, whereas he always called people “stupid”. It was established since Redbeard’s first appearance that Sherlock was very close to him, and it’s implied that the dog had to be put down as Sherlock told him they “were putting him down too”. Mycroft used Redbeard whenever he couldn’t manage Sherlock, but in the series finale, “The Final Problem”, the real identity and backstory of Redbeard was revealed – and he wasn’t a dog, but a real person, very close to young Sherlock.
“The Final Problem” also confirmed that there was a third Holmes sibling, and was actually the most intelligent and dangerous of the family. Eurus Holmes had been following Sherlock and John closely, and it was thanks to a series of tests she put them and Mycroft through that Sherlock finally confronted the memory of Redbeard, who was actually Victor Trevor, his childhood friend. Sherlock and Victor used to play pirates together, with Sherlock being Yellowbeard and Victor being Redbeard. Eurus was jealous of their friendship and trapped Victor at the bottom of a well. She then gave Sherlock and Mycroft a riddle called “The Musgrave Ritual” which would lead them to Victor’s body, but they didn’t find him until many years later. This experience prompted Sherlock to “rewrite” his memory and make himself believe that Redbeard was a dog, while Mycroft did his best to block Eurus from his mind and faked her death so he could keep her confined in a high-security facility called Sherrinford.
Sherlock wasn’t the same after the death of Redbeard, and the addition of this storyline in the series served to show a bit more about Sherlock’s family background and explain why he is the way he is, as he went through some traumatic experiences at a very young age. Sadly, a lot of things happened in Sherlock season 4, mostly in “The Final Problem”, and the Redbeard story can be easily forgotten, but it does play an important role in Sherlock’s arc.