Can we talk about Mycroft Holmes?

 (Sherlock Meta from before S3 by ibelieveinmycroft)

As you may have gathered, I believe in Mycroft Holmes. Many do not. There has been a lot of hate towards the eldest Holmes brother since Reichenbach and I’m not of the opinion that any of it is deserved. While we may have a year to wait to discover the truth, and it is a capital offence for a Sherlockian to theorise without data, it is inconceivable to me that the events surrounding Mycroft during Reichenbach should be taken at face value.

I am slowly becoming aware that what I think occurred during The Fall is something of a marginal theory, (I don’t understand why, it makes perfect sense to me) so please allow me to detail the reasons why I believe Mycroft is in on The Fall.

It is quite long, and contains pictures and quotes, so see under the cut. Some of it is convoluted; some of it is pure speculation….enjoy!

First things first – the canon.

This should be the first clue to everyone. While Sherlock itself is, at times, lovingly irreverent, skewing with names and reversing deductions, Moffat and Gatiss always tell Arthur Conan Doyle’s tales and never stray too far from the canon. We’re all rather expecting an adaptation of The Empty House, the story that followed The Final Problem, when Sherlock returns in 2013. Mycroft is referred to in this tale – the final mention of him in the original canon – just after Holmes reveals himself to Watson:

“I had only one confidant — my brother Mycroft. I owe you many apologies, my dear Watson, but it was all-important that it should be thought I was dead, and it is quite certain that you would not have written so convincing an account of my unhappy end had you not yourself thought that it was true. […] As to Mycroft, I had to confide in him in order to obtain the money which I needed. […] I came over at once to London, called in my own person at Baker Street, threw Mrs. Hudson into violent hysterics, and found that Mycroft had preserved my rooms and my papers exactly as they had always been.”

While it would be quite a simple thing to leave out, should the writers want to go in a different direction and, say, cast Molly in the role of Sherlock’s confidant, in their version of Mycroft they have created a character with the infinite wealth, power and resources to be of assistance in a way that other characters cannot. Even if it transpires that all Sherlock asked of his brother is to maintain the flat and send him enough money, those small acts alone are more than Molly is capable of. Although the likelihood is Sherlock would need far more.

Mycroft vs. Moriarty

The main accusation laid at Mycroft’s door is that he sold out his younger brother to Moriarty. John charges Mycroft with giving Moriarty the “perfect ammunition” to destroy Sherlock.

I may have believed this, had they key code existed. Faced with a mad man with a weapon that could “blow up NATO in alphabetical order”, what is Mycroft prepared to sacrifice for the good of millions? But it didn’t – as many commentators on this episode have pointed out, computers do not work that way. Jim is clever enough to fool every criminal the world over into believing that he has the key to every locked door. And I agree with why Sherlock could fall for it, just wanting everything to be clever, instead of base and criminal and vulgar – it’s straight out of the canon, from Abbey Grange.

“Perhaps, when a man has special knowledge and special powers like my own, it rather encourages him to seek a complex explanation when a simpler one is at hand.” - all thanks to the amazing I Bovary You for tracking this quote down for me. It was driving me crazy.

(The lovely A-Study-In-Teal tracked down a similar quote from The Woman in Green, the Rathbone film which provided a lot of inspiration to this episode, in which Moriarty remarks “Holmes has one weakness, his insatiable curiosity. If you can rouse that, you can lead him anywhere.”)

But how did it fool Mycroft? Particularly as this took place prior to Jim’s big stunt at the Tower. He had no proof that it worked.

I have little doubt that Jim Moriarty got himself locked up under his own terms – he was only in Mycroft’s prison because he wanted to get to Mycroft, to have a word, (can I just take a moment to say that goes a long way in confirming Mycroft’s standing…that the greatest criminal mind the world has ever seen had to get himself put in an interrogation room just to meet the minor government official…) to con the information he wanted out of him. Even if Mycroft hasn’t realised this, though, he is still too clever to just give information of any kind away. Although we know very little of Mycroft’s background and training, we must assume that he knows how to negotiate. Negotiation does not include telling your prisoner about your brother’s childhood.

And more to the point – why did Mycroft release him? A mad man who had scratched his brother’s name all over the cell.

That narrowing of the eyes – Mycroft’s plainly not happy about it. Although the mention of a cabinet reshuffle earlier in the episode is an almost-convincing explanation for the sudden release, I don’t see why that wouldn’t have been explained in the confrontation scene between Mycroft and John. I am of the opinion the release was at Sherlock’s request (see below…)

The Baskerville Conundrum

I keep coming back to Baskerville. There was an odd discussion about the basement in Baskerville near the beginning of the episode and it was never mentioned again. Sherlock noticed the lift goes all the way down, and then John asks about it, only to be told that’s where the bins are kept and…that’s it. That was weird.

Unless that’s where Mycroft was keeping Moriarty.

Sherlock only has to make a phone call to his brother to get himself let back into a top secret military base that he’d already broken into the previous day. We don’t get to hear the content of this phone call, or what makes Mycroft acquiesce to such a ludicrous demand so quickly, and then Sherlock is off screen for some time. Although Sherlock was conducting experiments on poor John, that doesn’t quite account for all the time he was offstage.

I am of the opinion that Mycroft came up from London at the same time as Lestrade (save your Mystrade giggling for later!) and invited his brother down to Baskerville’s basement, to show him where he was keeping the criminal mastermind. Mycroft may have been making plans to make Moriarty just disappear, but Sherlock is already aware of the criminal network Moriarty has spun around himself; killing him would only be the beginning. And so this is where the brothers cooked up something fiendishly clever to dismantle Moriarty’s web. Sherlock persuades his brother to release Moriarty, and the final game begins.

This is further borne out by Moriarty’s appearance to Sherlock in the woods. Drugged, and provoked by fear and stimulus, Sherlock hallucinates his nemesis’ face. But why? The drug works through suggestion:

Sherlock: I made up the bit about glowing. You saw what you expected to see because I told you.

So why would Sherlock see Moriarty out on the deserted moor, during a case that is entirely unrelated to him? Unless Sherlock had seen him earlier in the day, in that same place.

I think I’m going to die…

We mustn’t forget, in Reichenbach, Sherlock knew he might have to “die” before he went up to the roof, and so went to Molly.

Far earlier in the episode, during the case with the Ambassador’s children, Molly comments that Sherlock looks sad, like her dying father, when John isn’t looking – Sherlock already knows, even before the little girl screams, and Moriarty’s plan really begins to come to life, that he might have to die. His plan, to fake his own suicide, pre-dates Moriarty’s attempts to discredit and destroy him.

In addition, on the roof, Moriarty mentions Mycroft:

“Sherlock, your big brother and all the King’s horses couldn’t make me do a thing I didn’t want to.”

Sherlock isn’t surprised by the mention of his brother, even though we never saw John deliver the information that his brother made a terrible mistake that risked Sherlock’s life. It could feasibly have been done off screen, but I am of the opinion that Sherlock already knew. He had already planned for this.

Whenever the plan for surviving the fall was formulated, it was before this point and, for my money, before the episode itself, in Baskerville.

Faking a death in London in 2012 is much harder that faking a death in Switzerland in 1891.

Whatever Sherlock’s plan was, in getting from the roof to the pavement while remaining alive, it had to fool three people. Moriarty from the rooftop (Sherlock couldn’t have known he was about to shoot himself), John from the ground and the sniper (Moran? Please be Moran) from his vantage point opposite. So far, so simple (if you’re Sherlock) – an obscured field of vision here, a cyclist giving a blow to the head there and, hey presto. But if he was out to fool his brother too? Mycroft has a legion of CCTV cameras and a deductive ability that surpasses Sherlock’s own. I think it would be a near impossibility to fool Mycroft in this way. And while it’s entirely possible that Sherlock didn’t consult his brother before jumping, knowing Mycroft would work it out later, that seems a bit careless, even for Sherlock. Leaving incriminating CCTV footage outside of Mycroft’s capable hands, where any of Moriarty’s web might get hold of it, would be foolish and likely derail anything he was hoping to achieve
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Not to mention the family connection. In cases like this, it is normal to get a family member - not a friend or colleague - in to identify the body, and Mycroft is the only blood relative that we know Sherlock to have. He would have to come in to identify his brother, and the ever-observant Mycroft would detect a fake in three seconds flat. He knows what his brother looks like.

As a quick aside, can we just quickly clear something up here – Molly is not a pathologist, she is not a doctor. Twice in the series she is referred to as Miss Hooper – and one of those times is by Mycroft, who is genteel enough to at least ensure he address her correctly. Molly may have been necessary for the initial cover-up, when Sherlock’s body is first pulled into the morgue, and perhaps she even provided a fake corpse, but that is as far as her influence goes. A death certificate would have to come from someone else. The British Government himself could easily pull some strings to obtain this.

He is the British Government

While we’re on the subject, Mycroft is essentially a deus ex machina in a suit. His levels of power, much less his job title, have never quite been clarified on screen, but what we do know is he can walk into a top-secret military base just by flashing his ID card, seems to be on personable terms with the Queen, handles cases involving MI6 and runs aeroplane-themed counter-intelligence operations despite claiming to work for the government (Whitehall and the Secret Service are quite separate operations…for people who aren’t Mycroft, anyway) and, also, is involved with the clandestine interrogations of criminal masterminds.

So, we’ve seen him do all that, and yet he couldn’t neutralise Kitty Riley, the failing tabloid hack? Without this story, Sherlock’s problem, of being accused of being a fake, unravels. Yet, Mycroft doesn’t stop it. Instead, he is seen reading it.

In fact, he is seen reading the tabloids twice in Reichenbach. While I believe that, were nothing more sinister afoot, he would probably read the press coverage on his brother, the focus of this episode on the press is quite telling. Sherlock, despite saying at the beginning of this series, in Scandal, that, being a private detective he “doesn’t need a public image,” is now seen in the opening of Reichenbach posing (grudgingly) for pictures with John. This courting of the press is, for my money, the ‘out of character’ thing Sherlock does. That Mycroft is keeping up with the press reports, and that he doesn’t kill Kitty’s story, for me, points to this forming a part of the brothers’ plan.

John…

Poor John. I feel so bad for John. So does Mycroft. He was collateral damage in the Holmes brothers war against Moriarty.

The scene is gut-wrenching….but if Sherlock can cry on cue, then Mycroft can act too. I am reminded of Mycroft’s brief appearance in The Final Problem:

“Did you recognize your coachman?”
“No.”
“It was my brother Mycroft. It is an advantage to get about in such a case without taking a mercenary into your confidence. But we must plan what we are to do about Moriarty now.”

Mycroft can play a role as well as his brother, and if this scene demands for him to play the villain, then he can. He slips momentarily, though - when Mycroft says “John, I’m sorry…” he’s not apologising to Sherlock. His apology is for John and what the brothers are about to do to him.

Silence is Golden

After two episodes exchanging insults, favours and one tender moment, suddenly the brothers are no longer on speaking terms. John actually draws attention to this repeatedly, questioning both brothers on this on separate occasions:

John: Why don’t you talk to Sherlock if you’re so concerned about him?… Oh God, don’t tell me.
Mycroft: Too much history between us, John. Old scores; resentments.
John: What about Mycroft? He could help us.
Sherlock: A big family reconciliation? Now’s not really the moment.

Mycroft’s presence at the Diogenes Club throughout this episode reinforces the mantra Silence is Golden. Of the three scenes Mycroft appears in, all of them are in his club. For a man facing the loss of his younger brother, for whom he cares deeply – this series went out of its way to confirm that – he seems decidedly static, sat in his silent club, reading the paper and drinking scotch and sharing nothing.

Staying away from each other, pretending to hate each other, reinforcing their perceived estrangement, keeps Mycroft out of Moriarty’s line of fire. I can’t help but think the writers had good reason to keep him off screen during the crucial moment, just as Molly – also unthreatened and indisputably involved somehow – was nowhere to be seen.

And finally…

The final scenes from Reichenbach do not show a Mycroft in anguish. We saw him upset, after Sherlock inadvertently grounded his flight of the dead in the opening episode of this series: in his shirt sleeves, with a glass of brandy and a look of horror in his eyes. But this Mycroft is one who is deep in thought, mirroring Sherlock’s own “thinking gesture”, hands together in silent prayer after he folds the paper away, the plan complete. It’s a lovely touch, and shows Mycroft scheming, strategizing, planning their next move.

…I really need series three to hurry up and put me out of my misery.