Young Sherlock Review: Why One Man Chooses Darkness
Prime Video’s Young Sherlock explores the origin story of the Baker Street legend — and something far deeper about the human psyche
When it comes to Sherlock Holmes, there are many iterations, versions and retellings to pick from — as befitting one of fiction’s most beloved characters. However, very few do it as well as Guy Ritchie. With Young Sherlock, now streaming on Prime Video, Ritchie and showrunner Matthew Parkhill embark on a journey to the late 1800s, when the detective was just a young boy, finding his bearings and navigating the many curveballs that life throws his way.
Parkhill’s Sherlock (portrayed by Hero Fiennes Tiffin) is intractable, has a penchant for falling into trouble, displays superior cognitive abilities and all the other things that we know Holmes to possess. However, what sets this one apart is that Sherlock, at 19, is hopeful, loving, and rather comedic. He also enjoys a warm relationship with his brother, Mycroft Holmes (Max Irons), and his mother, Cordelia (Natascha McElhone). Through the course of the show, Sherlock finds himself in prison multiple times, has to clean rooms and lavatories at Oxford, is suspected of multiple murders, but what makes this even more interesting is that he is joined in his escapades by his best friend…James Moriarty (played by the scene-stealing Dónal Finn). Yes, you read that right.
In the world of Young Sherlock, Holmes and Moriarty are not just friends but comrades-in-arms who regularly save each other from bullets, prison and falling prey to their own self-defeating beliefs.
The heart of the plot may be the conspiracy surrounding the disappearance of Chinese princess Shou’an (played to perfection by Zine Tseng) but truly, the soul of the show is “why one man chooses darkness and the other doesn’t, and also how easy it is to trip over into the dark part,” as Parkhill told Esquire India in an exclusive conversation.
In the show, almost all of the characters — Sherlock, Moriarty, Mycroft, Shou’an, Cordelia and even Silas Holmes — face incredible troubles. The Holmeses are dealing with the death of Beatrice at a young age, Shou’an with the effects of colonialism, and Mycroft is caught between being a good human being and a dutiful government official. Moriarty is an Irishman who is given a scholarship to study at Oxford in the 1800s and then discarded. However, each of these characters responds very differently to these circumstances.
What the show does marvellously is handle all of the above without ever coming across as self-important or dense. It is still an incredibly fun eight-episode series packed with action, cross-country chases, multiple levels of subterfuge and a weapon that could end the world.
It also aims to answer humanity’s favourite interrogative — why. Why does Holmes become the way he is? Why does Moriarty become a super-villain? Why does Mycroft drift away from his brother? Why does Shou’an put up a front? Why does one choose light over dark? Why are we so obsessed with trying to understand what makes a person…themselves?
And for the most part, it doesn't just succeed, it does so splendidly.