Sherlock may be one of the best dramas of the modern TV era, but it has also been wildly inconsistent. When it’s good, it’s amazing. And when it’s bad, it is endlessly frustrating.

It’s been a raucous ride hanging out with Sherlock Holmes (Benedict Cumberbatch) and Dr. John Watson (Martin Freeman) over the past four season and almost seven years. There have been highs. There have been lows. (Often, those happen in the same episode.) There have been Victorian-set, drug-induced mind palace hallucinations, and there have been weddings and babies, too. Above all, there has been an incomparable friendship.

After 13-ish episodes, where do each of the installments fall? Here is our definitive ranking of every episode of Sherlock so far…

13. The Empty Hearse (Season 3, Episode 1)

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Going into Season 3, Sherlock was riding a two-year hiatus wave of anticipation and expectation following the excellent Season 2 finale. As we learned in the most recent episode of Sherlock, emotional context matters, which is why “The Empty Hearse” was such a disappointment. After a Season 2 cliffhanger that saw Sherlock fake his own death in front of John, breaking his best friend’s heart, this episode had one major job: to deal with the emotional fallout from that decision and Sherlock’s inevitable return in a satisfying manner. It didn’t.

“The Empty Hearse” was the first episode of Sherlock that really failed at what it needed to do, marking an unfortunate downturn in quality (or, if you’re being generous, a shift in the kinds of stories this show is interested in telling). Inevitably, Sherlock manipulated John into forgiving him by making him think they were both going to die in a fiery explosion, which is not really how emotions work. It didn’t feel like John’s forgiveness was truly earned, or like we understood what Sherlock’s time on the run (without John) was like. Sherlock took a dramatically-rich narrative twist and brushed right by it. More than anything, it was a missed opportunity. In an alternate universe, Sherlock was brave and doubled down on its character drama going into Season 3. Unfortunately, we are not in that alternate universe. We are in The Darkest Timeline.

Every episode of Sherlock has highlights and, for “The Empty Hearse,” they included: the introduction of Mary Morstan (Amanda Abbington); Sherlock’s hilarious, pun-filled return from the dead; and Mycroft (Mark Gatiss) and Sherlock’s brotherly game of Operation. If post-Season 2 Sherlock has done anything right, it is the slow, steady development of the Sherlock/Mycroft relationship. “The Empty Hearse,” despite its other flaws, was an excellent example of this.

12. His Last Vow (Season 3, Episode 3)

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The Season 3 finale was filled with intrigue and action. It was also a hot mess of an episode to cap a hot mess of a season. It tried to do far too much, and therefore succeeded at very little. Mary shoots Sherlock, revealing herself to be a former assassin. John is then forced to decide if he will forgive his pregnant wife for her deception (and, you know, for shooting his best friend). In addition to it all, Sherlock works to get Mary (and, by extension, John) out from under Charles Magnussen’s thumb. At some point in there, Magnussen pees in the Baker Street fireplace and licks John’s face.

Like much of the rest of Sherlock Season 3, “His Last Vow” had some good moments, but was weighed down by its larger-than-life plot twists. Ultimately, however, its biggest crime was in having Sherlock solve the Magnussen problem not with his brain, but with a bullet. The episode ends with Sherlock shooting Magnussen point-blank in front of the British government.

It was disappointing to see a show that had once been so finely focused on the play between intellect (as represented by Sherlock) and emotion (as represented by John) as integral to the problem-solving process, introduce a third, all-too-common element to the mix: violence/murder as a solution. We have enough movies and TV shows that solve problems with bullets. One of the reasons why Sherlock was so refreshing was because it glorified other things.

As if Sherlock’s assassination of Magnussen wasn’t enough, the episode ended by absolving Sherlock of all possible consequences for the crime. When a message from Moriarty shows up, Sherlock’s exile to Eastern Europe minutes into the trip is canceled. Apparently, all you have to do to get out of a murder charge in the world of Sherlock is have a big brain (and Mycroft as a big brother).

11. The Final Problem (Season 4, Episode 3)

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Image via PBS

Sherlock meets Saw is an episode of the detective drama you probably never thought you would get. Enter “The Final Problem,” which properly introduces Eurus Holmes to us (and to Sherlock) as Sherlock’s personal torturer. (This brings the torturous big sibling trope to an all-new level.) In some ways, it was nice to see Sherlock so manipulated after an episode that saw him so intensely manipulating John. In other ways, this felt like a whole season of emotional context crammed into one episode.

We could have spent the entire season getting to know Eurus Holmes. Instead, we got most of her backstory and characterization stuffed into one episode, which made her feel much more like a plot device than a living, breathing character — the product of a “The Smartest Holmes” pitch than an organic development of this world. (How the well-adjusted Holmes parents ended up with Sherlock, Mycroft, and Eurus as children, I will never know. This actually feels like a plot hole to me.)

As Emily Asher-Perrin points out in her excellent review of the episode over at Tor.com, this flat depiction of Eurus not only feels like a plot hole, but undermines one of Sherlock’s underlying themes:

By painting [Eurus’] extreme intelligence as this frightening problem, the episode lands a vague assertion that once a person hits a certain level of genius they are automatically a sociopath, incapable of seeing the value in life and morality (not a particularly interesting or accurate assumption to go on). When you’ve spent an entire television show proving that just because Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes are smart doesn’t mean that they don’t have feelings or value people, drawing their sister in a way that deliberately conflates her remarkable intelligence with an ability to place value on life is neither smart nor believable.

“The Final Problem” has some highlights, of course. The acting is as phenomenal as ever. We see a brief, well-explained return of Moriarty. We catch some glimpses of the adorable, pirate-obsessed Little Sherlock. And, perhaps most interestingly, we get to see what Mycroft looks like in high-stress situations that are out of his control.

Overall, “The Final Problem” was an interesting thought experiment, but a disappointing episode of Sherlock.

10. The Six Thatchers (Season 4, Episode 1)

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Image via BBC

Like other installments on this list, “The Six Thatchers” is one of those Sherlock episodes that might have ranked higher if not for its ending.

The premiere to Sherlock Season 3, “The Six Thatchers” started out with a more traditional Sherlock structure. We got to see Sherlock, John, and Mary solving cases, the birth of Rosie Watson, Sherlock interacting with Rosie Watson, and the introduction of Balloon!John. If only we could have continued liked this forever. (Or, you know, at least for one episode.)

Instead, “The Six Thatchers” quickly devolved into a spy melodrama, with Mary taking off on a round-the-world trip, Sherlock and John tracking her down in Morocco, and Mary eventually defying the laws of physics to jump in front of a bullet meant for Sherlock. Mary’s death wasn’t necessarily the problem (we all knew it was coming), but the way her death was used to create drama between John and Sherlock was not only offensive and lazy, but redundant.

The real low point of the episode, however, was John’s out-of-nowhere text flirtation with a stranger he meets on the bus, known only, at this point, as “E.” Not only did this make John — the father of a newborn child with a wife who is at home taking care of the aforementioned newborn — seem like a complete ass, but we later find out it was mostly there to set up the Eurus storyline. Sherlock probably could have found a better way of doing this that didn’t borderline character-assassinate John Watson.

9. The Abominable Bride (Special Episode)

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Image via PBS

The follow-up to “His Last Vow,” “The Abominable Bride” was a fun look into what Sherlock might have been like if it were set in the original era of the Sherlock Holmes stories: Victorian England.

Of course, this all proves to be a frame tale when, halfway through the episode, it’s revealed that we are actually inside of Sherlock’s mind palace. The detective is still on the plane we saw him on at the end of “His Last Vow,” trying to decide if there is any chance Moriarty is still alive by playing through an unsolved case of a woman who seemed to rise from the dead to kill her husband in Victorian England. It’s a drug-induced thought experiment, a world and set of characters that are hugely informed by Sherlock’s own reality.

The mind palace frame tale actually works pretty well. It’s fun to see the slight tweaks on Sherlock’s characters, and tells us a lot about how Sherlock himself views the people in his life. Furthermore, it was nice that the special episode had some connection to the larger, serialized plot when we were led to believe it was going to be a one-off, Victorian-set Sherlock special.

What’s less effective is the mystery itself, which starts off well enough, but soon devolves into Sherlock mansplaining proto-feminism to a bunch of murderous Suffragettes. You can tell that Sherlock co-creators Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss were trying to respond to criticisms that women aren’t fully articulated in the world of Sherlock, and often fall into harmful tropes and lazy characterization, but are kind of clueless about how to do that. (Pro Tip: Rather than trying to imagine what it is like to experience the world as a woman, hire some female writers who don’t have to imagine it.)

In the end, “The Abominable Bride” had its delights (not to mention classic Holmes references), but it was hard not to reconcile the necessity of an “It was all a dream” episode when we get so few installments of this detective drama to begin with.

8. The Blind Banker (Season 1, Episode 2)

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Image via PBS

The Season 1 episode you probably don’t remember that well, “The Blind Banker” is a vestige of a show that was at its peak creatively, but still managed to fall into some seriously lazy Orientalism.

“The Blind Banker” is the second installment of the detective drama, and the first episode that really sees Sherlock and John settling down into some kind of crime-solving-roommates routine. This was a simpler time, when the show was still grounded in reality, when John had fights with self-checkout machines at the supermarket and went on bad dates with his clinic boss, Sarah, that turned into kidnappings.

The plot involves antiquities expert Soo-Lin, Sherlock’s douchey ex-classmate Sebastian, and an underground antiquities smuggling ring, but it’s really all about how Sherlock and John are better together. Their co-dependency has officially begun, but it's in the throes of its honeymoon period so, even though in hindsight you know it’s going to cause some serious problems down the road, you can’t help but get caught up in the giddy wonder of it all.

7. The Hounds of Baskerville (Season 2, Episode 2)

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Image via PBS

A perfectly competent case episode, “The Hounds of the Baskerville” is as close as Sherlock will probably ever get to a procedural. It transcends the typical TV case-of-the-week episode, however, with some nice character moments, as we see both Sherlock and John forced to deal with real, raw fear. (In John’s case, Sherlock is manipulating him into a terrifying situation, setting a dangerous precedent.)

Though Sherlock will always work best amidst the streets of London, it’s nice to get out of London for an episode, bringing the mystery and danger into the spooky English countryside. It’s also refreshing on this show to get such a direct translation of one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s original stories. Obviously, “The Hounds of the Baskerville” takes some serious liberties with the original tale, but it more or less sticks to one Conan Doyle story for this episode, unlike many of the other Sherlock episodes, which end up being a hybrid of many cases and stories.

Ultimately, the “Hound of Baskervilles” is a fun, memorable episode of Sherlock that isn’t overly ambitious, but tells an entertaining, grounded story. Also, the always welcome Russell Tovey appears as poor, frightened Henry Knight, which gives this episode extra guest star points.

6. The Lying Detective (Season 4, Episode 2)

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Image via PBS

In a reverse of the first two seasons of Sherlock, Seasons 3 and 4 have had considerably better middles than beginnings or ends. “The Lying Detective,” the second episode in the most recent season of Sherlock, is the perfect example.

“The Lying Detective” tells the story of Culverton Smith, a billionaire philanthropist who also happens to be a serial killer (not to mention a cereal killer). Toby Jones brings what could have been a lackluster, underdeveloped villain to chilling heights with his performance, as Sherlock uses the master criminal to manipulate John Watson into forgiving him for Mary’s death. It’s a classic Sherlock move that makes his character less and less likable the longer you think about it, but also serves to provide an over-arching focus for this episode, which has become a rarity in recent seasons.

“The Lying Detective” is also one of the only recent episodes of Sherlock to effectively pull off a twist that is both surprising and interesting with the reveal of Eurus Holmes. Though the character would go on to be sloppily and inconsistently developed, her turns as a fake Faith Culverton and John’s German therapist in “The Lying Detective” are masterful. And, again, though the cliffhanger that sees Eurus shooting John after revealing her identity to him is anti-climactically resolved off-screen, it was a chilling end to this episode.

Perhaps the best part of “The Lying Detective” was its return to a novel, cohesive visual style that made early episode of Sherlock so impressive. Cinematically, the episode succeeds in bringing new visual language to the Sherlock universe that doesn’t feel contrived or over-the-top, but helps to illustrate how Sherlock’s mind works. The episode infuses flashes of Culverton Smith’s public appearances as interjections into the very structure of the episode, mimicking the drug-induced racing of Sherlock’s scattered mind on a formal level.

Much has been written and said about the dip in quality of Sherlock’s writing in recent seasons, but I don’t think enough has been said about the dip in quality when it comes to direction. Early seasons of Sherlock succeeded not only because they had a cohesive narrative (mostly), but because they had a cohesive visual language. It wasn’t stylized for stylized visuals’ sake. It told us something about this central character. When you lose that cohesive visual style, Sherlock’s character doesn’t work as well. “The Lying Detective” reminded of this with its return to visual form.

5.5. “Many Happy Returns” (pre-Season 3 Mini-Episode)

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This Sherlock mini-episode released in December 2013, a week before the Season 3 premiere, did a much better job dealing with the emotional fallout of the Season 2 cliffhanger than Season 3 did. It gave us some insight into what Sherlock had been up to in his absence (or at least Anderson’s speculation on what he might be up to), as well as into John’s mental state a few years post-Sherlock’s “suicide.”

The best part of “Many Happy Returns,” however? The fact that it has Lestrade as the main character who ties everything together. In Sherlock’s absence and John’s grief, Lestrade seemed to step up to do a lot of the emotional labor. He meets up with Anderson and patiently, yet sternly listens to his theories about Sherlock’s not-death. He checks in on John, bringing him some of Sherlock’s things from the police station. Sherlock could use a lot more Lestrade in its stories, and “Many Happy Returns” gave it to us. It was also a small, character-driven snippet that seems like the last small story Sherlock told before it went full-on superhero show.

5. The Great Game (Season 1, Episode 3)

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Image via PBS

The conclusion to Sherlock Season 1, “The Great Game” was the episode that tied the Moriarty clues together and gave us the first appearance of the consulting criminal played masterfully by Andrew Scott. After a season of relative low-stakes fun, everything became much more intense in “The Great Game” as Moriarty led Sherlock on a devastating goose chase where real people’s lives were at stake.

Inevitably, Moriarty kidnapped John and strapped some bombs to him for good measure, forcing a hostage situation that articulated just how much these two had come to mean to one another over the course of their short friendship. Thematically, it was the perfect cap to the season, hammering home the point that, while Sherlock might act like he doesn’t care, he really, really does.

4. The Sign of Three (Season 3, Episode 2)

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Image via PBS

Also known as the one where John Watson and Mary Morstan get married, “The Sign of the Three” uses Sherlock’s best man speech as a frame tale for much of the action of this episode, as he tries to solve the case of The Mayfly Man in front of an entire wedding hall of people.

Sherlock has never been as hilarious or as heart-rending was in “The Sign of Three,” which keeps the focus on Sherlock and John’s relationship amidst the major addition of Mary into their lives. Refreshingly, it doesn’t present Mary as an obstacle to their friendship, but rather incorporates her into the two-now-threesome, while also giving some time to the central duo. The absolute highlight of this episode is John’s stag party which sees Sherlock trying to drunkenly solve a case, complete with fuzzy, unhelpful word tags (another example of using the visual style to effectively tell us something about Sherlock, rather than as a gimmick).

3. A Scandal in Belgravia (Season 2, Episode 1)

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“A Scandal in Belgravia” is a near-perfect episode of Sherlock that unfortunately doesn’t stick its landing, as it gives us an adaptation Irene Adler who manages to be even less progressive than the one depicted in Conan Doyle’s original work. Thematically, “A Scandal in Belgravia” would work so much better if Irene had bested Sherlock. Instead, Sherlock chickens out in the final minutes, having Holmes save The Woman instead — a much less interesting or boldly told ending.

Still, up until that point, “A Scandal in Belgravia” is sheer genius, a visually-mesmerizing hour of television that starts with a refreshingly anti-climactic resolution of the Moriarty cliffhanger, and goes on to explore how one person can unsettle Sherlock’s stubbornly-held beliefs about himself and the world.

It does all this while also giving us a nice helping of 221B Baker Street’s goings-on (including a memorable visit to Buckingham Palace). We see Sherlock and John celebrate Christmas and New Year’s. We listen as John and Mrs. Hudson wonder about Sherlock’s history of intimacy. We get a deeper understanding of what exactly Mycroft does for the British government and beyond.

Again, it’s all tied together by the visuals. “A Scandal in Belgravia” has the best, most innovative direction of any Sherlock episode. (The episode is helmed by Paul McGuigan, who crafted the visual style of Sherlock.)

2. A Study in Pink (Season 1, Episode 1)

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The episode that started it all,“A Study in Pink” gives us a Sherlock Holmes adaptation thoroughly grounded in the modern day. Sherlock texts. John Watson blogs. They track down killers using cell phone GPS.

Sherlock is one of those shows that got it right from the beginning. (Or the second beginning, if you count the unaired pilot, which proves just how much this show’s visual style matters to its story.) Cumberbatch and Freeman nail these iconic roles, though its Freeman in particular in this first season who is asked to do a lot of subtle heavy lifting at the audience surrogate.

“A Study in Pink” does a great job of ambiguously introducing the character of Sherlock. It’s hard to get a read on this guy. Is he a jerk? Does he care? Does it matter? This is the real mystery that needs solving in “A Study in Pink,” as John Watson gathers evidence for us from people like Greg Lestrade, Sally Donovan, and Mycroft Holmes.

There’s something heady and addicting about the idea that Sherlock Holmes is the true mystery of this show, and no one but John Watson has ever stuck around long enough or been given enough vulnerability to answer it. Sherlock is at its best when it stuck close to Sherlock Holmes as human mystery, and it has never been more solely focused on that investigation than in “A Study in Pink.”

1. The Reichenbach Fall (Season 2, Episode 3)

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Image via PBS

“The Great Game” may have been the first Sherlock episode that upped the stakes, but it was “The Reichenbach Fall” that pulled the trigger. If post-Season 2 Sherlock has too often been a show without consequence (and, therefore, without a tangible sense of stakes), then “The Reichenbach Fall” demonstrated how good Sherlock can be when every decision, every action has weight, like when there is no easy or good solution, only the lesser of two terrible choices (something “The Final Problem” tried to repeat, badly). From the episode’s opening minutes when a broken John Watson tells his therapist that Sherlock Holmes, his best friend, is dead, you know that this is one adventure Sherlock and John aren’t going to get out of unscathed.

It can be hard to divorce this episode from what came after — i.e. the gutting of consequence and stakes, emotionally, physically, and logistically (faking your own death must come with legal consequences) — but I think it’s important to remember how well “The Reichenbach Fall” worked at effectively building the tension. It started with Moriarty’s stylish robbery “attempt” of the Crown Jewels and slowly escalated until every one but John Watson believed that Sherlock was the criminal.

Ultimately, Sherlock had to take the most drastic of measures to keep his friend safe, not only breaking his best friend’s heart, but also betraying his trust at a visceral level in order to “win” (or come as close as possible) at Moriarty’s no-win game. “The Reichenbach Fall” cliffhanger may have been poorly resolved, but it kept fans talking for literally two years as they waited for the next episode. It was Sherlock, and TV drama, at its very best.