Lt. Col. Richard Sharpe is to have his last fight against the French in June of 1815 - Waterloo. Sharpe rejoins his old friend and partner Sgt. Harper both who are assigned to Prince of Orange's staff for this final battle.

This is not historically accurate - it is a work of historical fiction meaning that it's a fictional story taking place in a historical event with some people from history.

7/10.

Rather than focusing upon one of the most significant battles in history, Cornwell's purpose seems to be to degrade the memory of the men who fought at Waterloo.

Much of this episode is dedicated to disparaging the man who would later become king William II of Holland. The opening scene shows him with a prostitute, and an ugly boil on his rear. Later, William's Dutch cavalry at Quatre Bras are portrayed as cowardly and refusing to charge when ordered to do so.

Cornwell gives William the nickname "Silly Billy" and portrays him as being a arrogant fool, but in reality, William's courage and good nature made him very popular with the British, who nicknamed him "Slender Billy".

The age 23 Prince William is shown as being responsible for losing the La Haye Sainte farm and the death of two of Sharpe's men. The fact is, William wasn't even in the farm when it was taken (about 6 PM). The farm was mostly burned by Napoleon's artillery and the area taken after an extremely fierce struggle. Sharpe is shown shooting William to get him off the battlefield, with MacDuff looking on from a wooden roof window at La Haye Sainte (but the French had just taken La Haye Sainte, and in reality, all the wooden buildings at the farm were burned by the time the French occupied the area). William was actually wounded about a half hour later, in a courageous but futile attempt to take back La Haye Sainte.

Cornwell and Clegg have Wellington say "humbug" five times in about 3 minutes. Although it is true Welington did say something like that (but not to Sharpe) it seems Cornwell wanted to over-emphasize that Wellington had been surprised by the speed of Napoleon's advance, by having him repeat it no less than FIVE times and sound foolish.

Later at the critical moment when the Imperial Guard was approaching the Allied lines, Sharpe makes the decision for the men who had been laying low on the ground to fire. The person who really gave the order at that moment was the allied commander Wellington.

They also portray as a pathetic coward Wellington's relative who recorded the times of the events of the battle. In reality, he was at the forefront of the battle facing the field and was eventually killed by cannon fire.

Typical of Cornwell, he does not portray Lord Uxbridge as courageous, despite the fact that at a critical time in the battle at 2:30 PM he led a charge that stopped a French advance. Uxbridge was extremely brave, he had eight or nine horses shot from under him during the Battle of Waterloo, and eventually lost a leg. But Cornwell for some reason usually portrays real historical leaders in a negative way.

And Cornwell and Clegg's portrayal of the very brave Frenchmen that day is also demeaning. He has Sharpe repeatedly refer to them as "frogs" and portrays them as slow marching, rigid, easy targets (even the Imperial Guard, considered the finest troops in Europe at the time). Several times, the episode shows French troops marching into fire without even trying to shoot back.

On a positive note, the costumes, locations and sets were very good, although what they show as La Haye Sainte looks more like the Hougoumont Château on Napoleon's left side, with the larger stone wall and the more extensive woods nearby. The initial battle at La Haye Sainte in the episode looks more like the historical description of the fighting at Hougoumont.

A book that covers the details of the Battle of Waterloo is 24 Hours at Waterloo by Robert Kershaw.

It was always going to end like this. After four years and thirteen movies, battling all over France and Spain, it was inevitable that Richard Sharpe and the chosen men would find themselves fighting at Waterloo, one of the most famous battles in military history. Given that the previous two episodes had been a bit lacklustre, the pressure to give Sharpe a good send off must have been tremendous but they needn't have worried, as Sharpe's Waterloo is a glorious culmination to the initial run.

Considering what an epic clash Waterloo was, all that needed to be done for this particular film was take the familiar characters and drop them into the thick of it and by and large, that's what they do, but that isn't to say there's no storyline here. Promoted to Colonel, Sharpe comes face to face with his treacherous wife Jane and her lover, the pathetic Lord Rossendale once more. Tempers flaring, Sharpe demands his money back and soon, Jane is plotting to have Rossendale kill him in the confusion of the coming battle. At the same time, Sharpe must deal with his new commanding officer, the inept Prince of Orange who seems determined to pay no attention to advice whatsoever. And the armies of Napoleon are marching ever closer.

Okay, it might not be the most in-depth narrative but nevertheless it delivers on everything you'd expect from a Sharpe movie. The officer class who disapprove of Sharpe are toffee nosed imbeciles all, Abigail Cruttenden's heaving breasts appear to have become even larger and nearly half the episode is dedicated to the titanic battle itself. Come to think of it, the only ingredient missing is a woman in peril...

All of this talk though is just window dressing for what is the chief appeal of this chapter: the battle of Waterloo itself. The production team had worked wonders with their limited budget before but they outdo themselves on this one. You might not see thousands of men massacring each other on the killing fields, but nevertheless there is a tremendous sense of scale this time around. The skirmishers clash in rifle exchanges in the woods before withdrawing to their main regiment for some bloody brawls around farmhouses. Gun smoke drifts across the field, shells explode amid packed formations to tear men to pieces, bodies fly from rooftops and massive French marauders swing axes into the fray, giving the carnage a sense of total chaos. Elsewhere, cavalry runs down fleeing infantry and the recurring sight of corpse strewn plains make this the most apocalyptic fight of the series. It really feels like the world is ending.

In short then, a triumphant end to a great set of movies. It might not exactly have a storyline worthy of Shakespeare, but it succeeds partly because of this. After all, it's a story about Waterloo and the men who fought there, so all that was ever necessary was a massive fight and reliable old characters. It's not the best entry (Sharpe's Company and Sharpe's Battle are still superior) but the reputation remains intact...provided nobody points out the glaring pot hole of Harry Price magically coming back to life after getting his head blown off earlier in the series.