Sherlock Post-TFP

 (Sherlock meta by strawberrypatty)

The Final Problem has its problems, but I think the reason I find it so fascinating is because of the implications as to why Sherlock is the way that he is.

In The Abominable Bride, Sherlock says— in his Mind Palace— that “I made me”, but we hear the sound of a dog and Sherlock questions it with “Redbeard?”, setting up that yes, Sherlock’s issues with Eurus and Victor defined who he is. Mycroft says outright that “Every choice you’ve ever made, every path you’ve ever taken, the man you are today is your memory of Eurus.”

This actually does make a lot of sense. Sherlock has shied away from getting close to people, because of the pain he suffered losing his best friend.

I mentioned in my meta about Eurus that I think Sherlock’s trauma over the things Eurus did to him and blocking out her memory caused him to subconsciously remake himself in her image. He’s cold and calculating and does horrible things to the people around him. Only, he’s not Eurus, so he forms emotional attachments anyway.

There is also the cases. Sherlock takes cases constantly because he doesn’t want to be bored. Eurus tells him that he dreams of deep waters because of what happened to Victor. I extrapolate from that Sherlock has a constant need to solve cases because of the one case he never solved. His first one remained unsolved, but he wasn’t aware of it, so it gave him a subconscious need to push himself to solve more and more cases. This also potentially tie to his drug use. Sherlock using drugs to quite down his mind— keep his memories surpressed.

All of this makes you wonder… What is Sherlock going to be like now that he’s gotten rid of the mental and emotional block caused by Eurus and Victor’s death? We see him in the montage at the end of The Final Problem, holding Rosie and smiling, something that it doesn’t seem Sherlock BEFORE would do. But he is able to do that now.

So I’m wondering… What is Sherlock like now? Granted, you can’t just have a sudden breakthrough and then everything is hunky dory. Well, I guess you can on television, but for the purposes of meta I’d rather not use tropes like that.

We saw Sherlock going to see Ella in The Six Thachers. Might he go to see her in order to sort out his thoughts and feelings regarding Eurus? But more importantly… Is Sherlock going to feel the same drive to do cases? Of course, he still DOES do cases. But is it an addiction anymore? Can he actually have down time?

Mary talks about the Legend of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson. But Sherlock’s own Mind Palace acknowledges in The Abominable Bride that the Legend of Sherlock Holmes is not the actual man he is.

So what kind of man IS Sherlock Holmes now that he is no longer weighted down by the Final Problem?