The likelihood is that Sherrington, or possibly Sir James Walter – a namesake of The Adventure Of The Bruce Partington Plans, the Doyle story that partially inspired this episode, and to whom we were briefly introduced at Diogenes – will either be sniffed out by Sherlock’s traitor-detecting nose next week and revealed as the mole, a revelation unlikely to elicit much response from us as we’ve barely got to know either. While Mycroft being a white hat makes sense for the character, it remains something of a disappointment that with just one episode of this season left, we’re yet to meet a proper end-level boss. If, as I suspect it will, Mycroft’s story about the deal he made to protect Sherlock turns out to have been the case, that puts the MI6 chef firmly in the ‘good guys’ corner. (All that talking though, what bad form). An entertaining volley of insults from opposite ends of the kitchen table followed Sherlock and Mycroft all the way to the show’s more faithful version of the original Diogenes Club, a plush palace for misanthropes to retire to. Much better was Elementary’s series of brittle exchanges between – as handler Sherrington calls them – “the Holmes boys”. Even if his latest version of events – the one in which he saved a heroin-addled Sherlock from a lengthy prison sentence on terrorism charges by returning to British Intelligence – is correct, after all those lies, why on Earth would Watson believe him? Being charitable, you could say her expertise in lie-detection convinced her of his honesty, but not much about Watson and Mycroft’s chemistry-free romance inspires charity. Which is why it was frustrating to watch Joan, who’d given Mycroft a deserved ticking off just hours before, capitulate in record time and wind up back in his bed.
Sherlock’s evidence must have pointed to a set-up, because after all of the episode’s shilly-shallying with the elder Holmes sibling’s character, there was no reason for Sherlock, or us, to trust Mycroft. Just as it seemed that Sherlock was piecing together the evidence to convict his brother (he’d already wished Mycroft dead, why would he hesitate to have him charged for suspected murder?) instead he arrived to warn him that he was being framed. Spy is a given after the revelations of the past two episodes, which saw the arrow swing wildly around Mycroft’s character dial from hero to villain and back again before appearing to settle on ‘wronged man’.
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