Mycroft, The CIA and... Mrs. Hudson

 (Sherlock Meta by thenorwoodbuilder)

Violet1110:

Hello dear! It's always a pleasure to read your articles. There's a scene in A Scandal in Belgravia that really confuses me. The CIA agents beat Mrs Hudson for the whereabouts of Irene Adler's phone. Do you think the torture on the lovely old lady is an standard CIA way of handling things or did they get order from Mycroft, to do whatever they can to exact information from anyone that stand in the way? Due to Mycroft's lack of empaty, do you think it is a possibility?

thenorwoodbuilder:

Hallo dear!

Thanks for your kind words! It’s nice to hear from you again!

Now, in order to answer your question, I must preliminary say that, even since the first time I watched A Scandal in Belgravia, I never seriously thought the CIA men took orders from Mycroft - instead, my impression has always been that they had not informed him about both the e-mail leakage, and their surveillance over Irene’s house, till after their break-in and their violent attempt at recovering the camera phone when Sherlock and John were with Irene in Belgravia, and, therefore, that Mycroft only learned about both the leakage, and their plans about Ms. Adler, AFTER, and AS A CONSEQUENCE, of their failed attempt in Belgravia. Similarly, thus, when they lost patience and decided to search Sherlock’s flat for the phone, they probably did it on their own initiative.

As I’ve already illustrated here and there the reasons behind this persuasion of mine, I should probably, as a first step, address you to those previous posts for a complete explanation - assured, of course, that I’m fully available at discussing whatever might result not clear or unconvincing in them (some of them are quite long, but, by searching the text by “CIA”, you’ll be able to find the relevant passages):

“Ok: Long Sunday Reichenbachian (and Mycroftian, of course) post!” contains (in two parts, linked together) my first exhaustive explanation of the reasons why, after having initially believed that Mycroft had really been fooled by Moriarty and that Sherlock and his elder brother had kept fighting Moriarty each one on his own, I changed my mind – after an accurate re-watch of the episodes – and now I’m fully persuaded that there is more than we were shown, behind the scenes of The Reichenbach Fall, and that the Holmes Brothers have been conspiring against Moriarty since the end of A Scandal in Belgravia.

“Queer Sunday Sherlockian post: Of pools and death wishes (and aliens as well)” contains some more speculations about Sherlock’s addiction to adrenaline and his possible “death wish”, through a comparison with canonical Sherlock Holmes’ attitude towards danger, and some specific musings about the scene at the pool at the end of The Great Game. References to Star Trek – The Next Generation for Sci-Fi lovers.

"Modern Sherlock vs. canonical Holmes" is a long debate with tookmyskull about the merits and faults of modern BBC Sherlock. Personally, I find the changes that were made into the character mainly reasonable and plausible in the light of the very different context in which our modern Sherlock lives and works. The debate was very long, so you might find useful separate links to its different stages: 1 – 2 – 3 – 4. [Particularly part 1]

“A Ticket to Hell - Or: The Holmes Brothers’ strange communication code" is an answer to an interesting question by nicbooful about the meaning of the flight ticket sent by Mycroft to Sherlock in order to summon him in A Scandal in Belgravia, before their confrontation on the ‘Bond Air’. Further insight in the Holmes Brothers’ relationship is provided (of course…).

“Moriarty & Irene Adler" is an answer to the question, posed by a kind Anon, whether Moriarty dictated every step in Irene’s strategy to deal with Sherlock, in A Scandal in Belgravia, or it was Irene, instead, the main author of her own plan to defeat Sherlock, apart from the initial information and indications about how to approach the British Government that Moriarty gave her.

However, just to summarize those scattered considerations, here is a brief list of the elements which induced me to think that Mycroft had far less control over the CIA men, in A Scandal in Belgravia, than people usually think:






* When Mycroft sends Sherlock to retrieve Irene’s photographs (at the time of their meeting at Buckingham Palace), it’s apparent that he doesn’t know where Irene keeps the compromising material (Sherlock has to deduce it), while, when the CIA agents break into her house, they appear to know not only that she keeps all her secret documents in the safe in the sitting room, but also that her safe is connected through an anti-theft device with the police.

Inference: they have not updated Mycroft about what they know on Irene’s home and habits, as well as about their surveillance on her (which, evidently, has been going on for some time) and their plans.





* Mycroft knows Sherlock, knows how ‘explosive’ and unmanageable he can be, and through all the series we see him fretting over the risks he takes (since A Study in Pink) and shielding him from the negative consequences of his recklessness (end of A Scandal in Belgravia, The Hounds of Baskerville): how likely is it, that he knowingly sent his little brother into a CIA operation handled by rather ruthless American agents?



* At Irene’s place the behaviour of Neilson and the other CIA men is quite strange, for people assumed to act on behalf and under the orders of Mycroft: they break in as soon as Sherlock appears to be close to open the safe (which means, too, that they had cameras in the house, probably - certainly they had bugs) and retrieve the phone, instead of simply letting him do and, at the utmost, watch him closely in order to be certain that he would then bring the phone to Mycroft. This seems quite irrational, doesn’t it?

UNLESS they knew something the British Secret Service - and thus Mycroft - still didn’t know (i.e.: the British MoD man’s leakage), and, knowing it, they no more trusted the British, and had thus decided to act on their own to plug the gap into the Bond Air Project… An arrogant and supercilious attitude that is quite well known about the American Secret Service…






* As soon as possible after the mess at Irene’s place - that is, the very morning after, when Sherlock and John have just sat at the breakfast table - Mycroft hurries to 221b, presumably to ascertain how his brother is and to get a first-hand narriation of the whole botch. ONLY when he is already there he receives a phonecall, at the end of which he gives order for the Bond Air Operation to go on, and AFTER which he suddenly changes tone and attitude with Sherlock, intimating him to drop the Adler case.

Inference: till that moment, Mycroft didn’t know that Irene had ALSO the MoD man’s e-mail and thus was involved in the Bond Air Project, too (he only knew about the photographs); the phonecall is from the CIA men, or from Mycroft’s own superiors who have just been updated about this further problem, and it’s ONLY during that phonecall that Mycroft, too, learns about the threat Irene poses to his Bond Air plan; as author of such plan and person in charge of THAT operation, he is finally updated about the reasons behind the CIA meddling, and asked instructions about what to do with the Bond Air Operation, which he orders to be still pursued (“Bond Air is go”); he, then, having realized how much bigger, and how much more dangerous, the Adler affair is, and knowing his little brother well enough, uses his “emergency big brother look" to make him understand that he HAS to quit - and for a while Sherlock even listens to him…








* The same morning, there is another ‘incident’ at 221b which is very significant, according to me: when Mrs. Hudson reproaches Mycroft accusing him of having knowingly “sent his brother into danger”, in the middle of a bunch of “CIA trained killers” (these are John’s words), and adding “family is all we have in the end”, Mycroft, VERY UNLIKE HIMSELF, snarls harshly at her “Shut up, Mrs. Hudson!”. Everyone appears shocked - Mycroft, too, appears a bit shocked, as soon as his brother’s rebuke brings him back to himself, and he apologizes - and actually we NEVER see Mycroft losing his temper in this way in the whole series: Mrs. Hudson has evidently hit a nerve! But Mycroft’s reaction DOESN’T display simple guilt, on one hand, or just an authoritarian attitude that can’t allow criticism, on the other…

Inference: Mycroft is struck by Mrs. Hudson’s rebuke as unfair and untrue. His reaction is the reaction of a man unjustly accused of something he would never dream to do - with his spontaneous outburst he is crying “Oh, shut up! As if I didn’t know that! How can you be so blind and stupid not to see I could never have knowingly sent Sherlock into deathly danger! How can you not see that I worry about his safety constantly, that I’m by far more worried than you about what could have happened!”. But could a man like Mycroft said out loud such things? No, he couldn’t. But, in this case, he can’t hold back a cry of frustration and exasperation - “Shut up!”.

And the other thing worth noticing, here, is that, after having teased Mycroft about the CIA men, and having rebuked his rude answer to Mrs. Hudson, Sherlock himself appears to aknowledge Mycroft’s distress, and the sincerity of his reaction, as he - not unkindly, but yet firmly - too, bids Mrs. Hudson to “shut up”: in his own, devious, holmesian way he appears to aknowledge that Mrs. Hudson has gone too far, and that Mycroft didn’t really deserve her reproach.




* When, then, Irene sends her phone to Sherlock, it’s to Mycroft - NOT to John, whose concern he, instead, rejects - that Shrerlock turns, as I’ve already observed more than once; and Mycroft hurries to go with his brother to the morgue, where, however, he FAILS to press him for the camera-phone! Yes, he asks Sherlock where “the item” is, but when Sherlock doesn’t answer, Mycroft drops the subject, and all their conversation turns out to have a very private, personal tone. Of course, one might think that Mycroft passed over the topic of the phone because he was already scheeming to have it forcibly taken from Sherlock; yet, this explanation don’t seem so likely, when one considers all the expressions of trust in his brother Mycroft uses in the conversation at the Palace and, even more, how NOTHING is done by him to retrieve the phone in the MONTHS following the clumsy, violent, and failed attempt by the CIA men.

Inference: Mycroft decided not to press the topic of the phone because he knew BOTH that this would probably only antagonize his brother more, and that, in any case, that was not the right moment to insist (it was a “danger night”, after all); AND that Sherlock, once managed to solve the puzzle and crack the password, would probably spontaneously surrender the phone and its contents to him, not being the kind of person who would knowingly endanger national security. ALSO, the CIA men acted, again, on their own initiative, when they raided 221b, out of despair because they had not been able to find the phone anywhere else, and because they knew about Sherlock’s keen interest in Irene (and possibly about her texts to him). The fact that no more attempts were made, after this failed one, suggests that, once their break-in was made known to Mycroft, this latter managed to persuade their superiors within the CIA to order them to leave Sherlock be, once and for all.



* Also: can we seriously think that that same Sherlock who almost killed a man to avenge Mrs’ Hudson’s bruises would not have stormed his brother’s club and office and made a scene, had he been persuaded that Mycroft was the one behind that assault?



* Finally, the lenghts to which Mycroft was disposed to go in order to shield Sherlock from the consequences of his mistake, once Irene had tricked him into ‘decoding’ the e-mail and all seemed lost, should be evidence enough of his will to protect his brother from ANY kind of harm…

Thus, once said that I really cannot believe that there was Mycroft behind the CIA’s break in and aggression to Mrs. Hudson, the remaining question is whether it is standard procedure for the CIA to beat helpless old ladies into giving them information, or not.




Well, having never been in the CIA’s employ, I can’t vouch for their protocols and standard procedures… ;-)

All I know is what everybody who reads a newspaper and history books knows: that they, just like any other secret service, are no strangers to the use of torture, and more generally of violence and intimidation, whenever they deem it necessary AND feel that the situation will likely allow them to get by without consequences of note.

Now, in the present case, Neilson (the CIA operative in charge) probably felt that a couple of back handers to an unimportant nobody of an old landlady, as well as the break into 221b, would easily have been silenced, had he managed, through them, to retrieve the precious phone; and, even in case he had not found the phone, once the deed was done no one would have had an interest to make a public scandal of it, being the whole Bond Air Operation so important and so secret - so that he was confident enough that both his own superiors and Mycroft would have, in the end, to cover up for him and his agents, if not to ratify a posteriori his actions. After all, since his first appearance Neilson is depicted as a ruthless, AND reckless, AND arrogant man: just look at how he forced his way into Irene’s house and threatened with death three unarmed civilians…



A final note: just rewatch the scene of the Christmas phonecall, in A Scandal in Belgravia (I have a specific post about it boiling in my kitchen, but it would be too long to insert it here…), and tell me if you seriously can believe Mycroft a man without feelings and empathy… The very words he utters when answering the phone reveal a man who’d desperately like to believe that his brother has finally aknowledged him as… well, brother, and yet dares not believe that, having been scorched too many times, and thus reacts with a defensive, prehemptive strike (“We are not going to have Christmas phonecalls, are we? Have they passed a new law?”). And yet, from the few words Sherlock says to him, and from the very fact of him having called, Mycroft understands the deep turmoil of his little brother, and immediately acts out of concern and sympathy. The fact that, then, he is so blocked in expressing it doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel it: it’s just part of the way he is, of his education and nature.



(Ok, in the end, this post is actually very long! Sorry!)

Cheers!