Elementary’s final season will air in 2019. The CBS procedural will take its bow after seven seasons and 154 episodes.

Elementary is the best adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective and doctor duo. Over the last seven seasons the series has taken the gruff detective from Doyle’s pages and worked diligently to give audiences the truest version of the character. With their own unique flare, the series writers gave Sherlock the mind and heart that readers of canon will recognize.

Sherlock Holmes is one of my all-time favorite characters. My interest began in the pages of a collected works volume of the detective’s cases, then moved into the BBC series Sherlock, followed by a fascination with the films of Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce. I’ve seen just about every incarnation since that time and have read many, many retellings of the Baker Street legend.

In 2014, however, I discovered that somehow a show had slipped my radar. A show that not only was a modern day adaptation of Sherlock Holmes, but one that starred Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu. The realization came to me in the form of a gif on a lazy Tumblr scroll. In the clip, Miller’s Holmes was asking Liu’s Watson to consider going to London with him, to finish what they started together, because they tapped into a partnership that was nothing short of extraordinary.

Needless to say, in three days I caught up on one and a half seasons worth of cases and finished out watching the second season live on CBS. The chemistry between the two actors, the vulnerability in Sherlock’s delivery, the patience and safety provided by Joan’s presence, were all there in a gif set. A silent out of context moment is what drew me to the series. And the continued delivery of all of those aspects (in droves) by the writers, directors, actors, and crew is what keeps me tuned in all these years later.

When it comes to creating mysteries fit for Sherlock Holmes, Elementary is unmatched. On average the team behind the scenes put together nearly 20 mysteries, give or take a couple multi-episode arcs, per season. That’s figuring out the who, what, where, when why, and how a series of seemingly unconnected events led to a single conclusion.

There were horse impersonations that led to dealings with a drug cartel, Federal Reserve robberies during a blizzard, and people using an art studio and a cinnamon smell to cover up the decomposition of bodies in a sink. Not to mention the twists on the tales from the pages of Doyle including “The Five Orange Pips” and The Hound of the Baskervilles.

Some were taken in name, others only borrowed plot devices, and some even launched an entirely new arc and turned the fleeting mention of a name into a character who would change the course of Sherlock’s life – Kitty Winter.

Mycroft Holmes, Moriarty, Morland Holmes all made their way into the picture, shaping the narrative of both Joan and Sherlock in the process.

It’s important to note that heart of Sherlock Holmes extends it’s beyond one or two people. The puzzles are important, but they are not the show. If you strip away all the files, the breaking and entering violations, and the case of the week structure, you’re left with Holmes and Watson in their best form.

The show did not experience an easy run on the network. The series was beloved abroad, making up for the US viewership numbers in international streaming deals. Therefore, if you lived in the states, you could barely watch season 5 as it burned off episodes on Saturday nights, aired others back-to-back. But then, somehow, the show came back for a sixth season. In the final hour of network renewal announcements.

A shortened order of 13 episodes left the creators with just the right amount of restraints to wrap up the series and tell what they felt was the final chapter of Sherlock Holmes and Joan Watson’s brownstone adventures. And they accomplished that mission with the best strong of season-ending episodes since Moriarty made her debut.

When an order for additional episodes came through, the series quickly set to work adding in more cases and moments that did not dilute the messaging of the finale but enhanced it.

And that enhancement was the final scene between Sherlock and Joan in the brownstone. All signals pointed to the end of the line for Joan as she became implicated in a case that left a murder pinned on her. Sherlock, recognizing that their working partnership, and perhaps their personal one, was at stake in the final hour, decided not to pat her on the shoulder, or leave her with a knowing glance.

Instead he told her, “I was dying, and no one could see it but you. You saved my life, Joan.” It’s no mystery that Sherlock loves Joan and vice-versa. But to then have Sherlock go on to say it aloud, “We’re two people who love each other,” makes the relationship that much more tangible. They are family and in the face of losing the one person who means the most to you, what other possible way can you convey that then to let them know directly.

“I thought it was time for Sherlock to stop beating around the bushes and let the subtext be the text for once. When you look at any of our seasons, what you see or feel between them is love. I think that’s the way it is for all Watsons and Holmes, or Holmeses,” creator Rob Doherty told TVLine following the finale.

In the final moments before the credits, Joan mocks Sherlock a bit about saying it, but the two are not in any worse shape than they were before those words existed between them. “I don’t think it’s anything Sherlock regretted saying. But it’s something that they’ll both compartmentalize and put away as they continue to move forward together,” Doherty continued in his recap of the episode.

And so, when Elementary received a very early renewal for a seventh season, an episode that could have been the period on the end of a conclusive statement, was now a question mark for what’s to come. The duo is in London, residing side-by-side in 221B (and A). It’s unlikely that they will stay there for the entire season as production has wrapped and the pair are standing in the NYPD precinct. But for a while at least, the canon will play out on screen and Baker Street will have its most famous residents back.

I’m thankful for a series that took two beloved figures from canon and shaped them into characters who are more fully-realized versions of their counterparts on the page. The writers who came on in season one and are now executive producers have done the leg work to keep Holmes and Watson true to vision laid out in the first season.

Elementary will air its final season in 2019.