9) How Exactly Did Sherlock And John Turn Mycroft’s Home Into A Haunted House?
“The Final Problem” begins with Mycroft enjoying an old movie on a projector in his house. Things quickly turn spooky, though, when ghostly children start running up the stairs, a sword-wielding clown attacks him and the portraits on the walls start weeping blood.
In the end, it turns out to be a rather cruel prank by Sherlock and John – along with a couple of stooges – who wanted to scare Mycroft into telling the truth. Seems a bit unnecessarily cruel to me, but the big question is how they set about pulling off the prank in the first place.
Sure, Sherlock has displayed many amazing talents over the course of the show but, up until now, he hadn’t displayed an aptitude for brilliant set design and stage direction. Everything here can be explained away, but it’s odd that we didn’t get a scene showing us how clever Sherlock had been in setting it all up. If nothing else, we imagine that making the portraits weep blood must have been tricky to do.