Memory thieves: Solos saves the best for last as Stuart and Otto face demons from their past and threads are woven together.

I love a satisfying story arc, especially one that sneaks up on me – that’s not an easy thing to do these days as we’ve all ‘seen it all before’ – but this series finale provides a cleverly written link between the episodes that I didn’t even know I needed.

This time we have an acting giant from the US: Morgan Freeman, our eponymous Stuart, and it’s a two-hander with Dan Stevens, who plays Otto. The latter appears to be somewhere he technically shouldn’t be and seems to react oddly to Stuart in terms of his expressions and body language, to the extent that it’s initially unclear if he is friend or foe to Stuart.

Stuart is demonstrating all the signs of Alzheimer’s, an awful disease that takes a person from their loved ones slowly over many years, but leaves them alive to become a shell, a shadow of their former selves. The essence of their life, their experiences and their knowledge of their loved ones is all stripped away as they lose access to their memories one brain cell at a time. Morgan Freeman perfectly portrays the tragedy and sadness that this causes and my word, there’s a reason he is held in such high esteem.

A point to note: Morgan Freeman has been providing the brief introductory voice-over for this and each preceding episode of Solos. No, that’s not just because he has one of the finest and most recognisable voices in the entire industry: it’s relevant to Stuart. Nicely done, writers, you got me.

If you’ve read my review of episode 5, ‘Jenny’, I described the concluding ‘memory upload’ scene as a ‘tenuous link’ to the genre. I feel the need to apologise to this episode for these comments now because the ability to upload and subsequently download one’s memories to another person is a crucial overarching plot point. It has lea to a new crime in the Solos universe – that of memory theft. Stuart steals memories, it’s an addiction – did he steal all the memories we have explored? That’s ultimately left up to the audience to ponder but there are enough clues are sprinkled into the dialogue for that to be a strong hint. It’s cleverly done.

Verdict: A satisfying yet poignant end as forgiveness, mercy and redemption bring Stuart’s – and our soloists’ tales – to a close. 10/10

Claire Smith