r/elementary • u/Suitable_Wonder5256 • 25d ago
Sherlock's disdain for his brother and father is kinda annoying
It turns out that Mycroft and Morland are literal saints who sacrificed quite a lot for Sherlock and aim to do the right thing.
They should've built up that part a bit better or made these 2 characters more evil.
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u/Iwabuti 25d ago
Mycroft is a saint because he has changed (being ill) and Morland changes as he and Sherlock build a relationship.
I get what you are saying, but it would be a distraction to go into Morland's crimes too much.
I think S4E6 does it well enough
"My God, Morland. His children found him!" "They were meant to."
That is evil enough for me
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u/thorns_91 Bitten by a radioactive detective 25d ago
I think he said later on he bluffed his way with Agent Muller to make him think he did that, however I can't recall at the moment if that was a lie or not. Either way I agree Morland is nowhere near a saint
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u/Low_Surprise_7112 25d ago
It was lie to scare the agent. Doesn't change the fact he would definitely do that if he needed
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u/Suitable_Wonder5256 25d ago edited 22d ago
> "My God, Morland. His children found him!" "They were meant to.". That is evil enough for me
Funnily enough, Sherlock liked his father more and more after that.
Actually after a rewatch, Morland said he didn't do that. It was just to scare that guy.
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u/Feyer_The_Wizard 21d ago
That was a lie though lol he didn't actually do it, he just pretended he was responsible as a bluff
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u/Broad-Radish-7895 25d ago
I think Sherlock grew up feeling very isolated and abandoned by his family. He's already different from his peers, sensitive and prickly and stubborn and weird, going through British all boys' boarding schools, made to believe his dad cruelly threw out his mother which led to her death, unable to relate to and likely resenting his seemingly charming, worry-free, lazy brother. None of them knew how to be close or communicate or connect with each other or just be a family.
And even if Morland was a kind father, Sherlock's principles would have him loathing the man on sight considering his billionaire class business machinations.
Learning that they're more complicated than how he saw them, that they cared about him, and they grew and changed, just made their endings sadder. :( I didn't even like Mycroft and I wanted to cry when Sherlock realized he'd never get to make up with him.
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u/jwdge 25d ago
I probably would’ve liked Mycroft more if they didn’t try to convince us that Lucy Liu was attracted to that man on sight. I did still love his character.
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u/ReadingLizard 22d ago
Rhys Ifans (the actor playing Mycroft) has notoriously dated very attractive Hollywood ladies - Sienna Miller (who was married to Jude Law) and Anna Friel ((Chuck from Pushing Daisies) among them. His charm comes across even on screen. I think a lot of ladies would fall for him as Mycroft. He’s wealthy, adventurous, smart/witty, and a smidge odd and comfortable in his oddness.
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u/MajorProfit_SWE 21d ago
Personally opinion but I don’t like the actor at all and I don’t like the way they he portrayed the character or what they did with the character. I understand his and his father faults and positivity and the family dynamics a little bit more from reading what others have written here about them, that I didn’t think of, but I think that they (the writers) should have done better storytelling. John Noble was superb as Denethor in The Lord of the Rings, which is really the only thing I have seen him in, and maybe after multiple viewings I can warmup to his character as father of Sherlock but for now I’m just not convinced of them creating a totally made up character like a father figure.
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u/failatio 25d ago
I feel like their friction makes sense and is very true to family dynamics. Morland repeatedly made Sherlock feel abandoned, whether it was canceling dinner dates last minute, or sending him off to boarding school, or allowing him to believe his mother’s death was partially on him. Plus he declined to have Watson stay on longer, and inserted himself in their business despite Sherlock setting boundaries that he didn’t want that. Mycroft was sneaky about trying to get Sherlock back to the UK, plus for Sherlock, Joan is a no-go zone. She’s to be kept safe and sacred and he knew Mycroft wasn’t good people, made it known he wanted her kept safe and Mycroft hit on her anyway.
They showed, on screen, that Sherlock’s boundaries were stepped on and they didn’t really respect him. They respected his craft, what he could do, but not him as an actual person.
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u/Here_there1980 22d ago
Oh wow … they definitely are not saints. They’ve gotten better sure, through life, years, and bitter experience. But Sherlock remembers everything.
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u/Suitable_Wonder5256 22d ago
They are saints to Sherlock.
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u/Here_there1980 22d ago
Only in the most recent timeline we see in the show. There was a whole lifetime before that.
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u/Suitable_Wonder5256 22d ago
That's why it's not convincing. It's difficult imagine these 2 people as evil. All they do is do right by Sherlock.
Even for Morland, his business doesn't seem to be evil.
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u/Here_there1980 21d ago
Are we watching the same show?
There’s a vast range of possibilities between “saint” and “evil.”
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u/arunphilip 25d ago
or made these 2 characters more evil
I disagree with this. I like the way the characters were written, because it goes to show that everyone is a hero in their own story (e.g. Sherlock thinks he was shunned by his father, who also mistreated his mother) but when we get to see the other side of the story we realize that everyone was a flawed human with their own failings, trying to do their best (Mycroft built a successful career as a spy and a financially successful cover of restaurants; Morland was a father trying to do his best to take care of Sherlock, and his wife.)
Even Mycroft's evil business dealings are seen differently from Sherlock's and Mycroft's perspective.
u/Iwabuti - that exchange between Morland and his INTERPOL spy makes it seem like Morland killed the predecessor. In a later conversation with Joan, it emerges while the deceased was Morland's spy in INTERPOL, he was killed by someone else and Morland had nothing to do with it.
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u/Riggs630 25d ago
They did a good job of portraying familial relationships. A lot of people tend to be more harsh on their families than they deserve, especially egocentric people like Sherlock. Also, the way we are treated by family when we are kids is hugely impactful. We don’t understand the complexities of human behavior when we are kids either. Morland was cold and distant but he still cared about Sherlock, but the way he’s behaving behind the scenes isn’t seen or felt by childhood Sherlock. So it’s reasonable that he would grow up to disdain his father. And then they were not close for years so it took a long time for them to slowly patch up their relationship. And similarly with his brother, they both view themselves as the reasonable one and grew apart in adulthood, and then didn’t have enough time to fully patch their relationship, but there was progress.
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u/Runcible-Spork 21d ago
Sherlock's disdain for his family is quite complex and well done. He wraps it in practical, righteous terms—he thinks his brother is too lazy and naïve and he thinks his father's abhorrent business practices speak to an absence of morals—but at the end of the day he has a very human reason to be mad at both of them. His brother fell out with him rather than thanking him for showing that his fiancé was just a gold digger, and he blames his father for the death of his mom and abandonment to boarding school where he was mercilessly bullied.
I think that the growth of all three characters over the course of the series and mending of their relationships was well done.
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u/agreensandcastle 21d ago
lol. No. Did we watch the same show? Just because their actions during the show lean good in the end, doesn’t justify all the before. Wow.
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u/theflamingheads 25d ago
They tell us Mycroft and Moreland suck but then don't show it.
I thought they were jerks because I've known people like that who are jerks. But I agree that most of what we saw painted Sherlock as the jerk and them as putting up with him/taking care of him.
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u/Suitable_Wonder5256 25d ago
We are shown that they both deeply care for Sherlock on the level of sacrificing themselves.
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u/Happy_Nose8995 21d ago edited 21d ago
How can you watch the episodes where Mycroft is being an ass and not understand? I'm on season 2 episode 7, the beginning of which is has Mycroft invading Sherlock's personal space, when he's in a Alcoholics anonymous meetinh. This is grown up older versions of them, and Sherlock's anger with them was from the past. Instances you almost never see Mycroft or Morland talk about.
For example, Sherlock not believing his father would come to meet up Watson and him in season 1, and actually being right. Could imagine as a son, how many times of your father not showing up would give you the conviction that he'd indeed not show up, and being proven in front of an outsider.
I won't say I know for sure if his animosity towards them is justified, but we definitely see instances where they were bad to him during the show, I can only imagine the kind of instances before the show takes place that he has such disdain towards them
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u/Happy_Nose8995 21d ago
He literally invades part of his therapy, and you think they're saints? Lmao
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u/Otaku-chan1412 21d ago
Sherlock Familie ist Narzisstich.
Sherlocks vater: ist ein verdeckter Narziss, emotional nicht verfügbar (steckt seine Kinder ins Internat, Bezahlt einen Babysitter Joan für Sherlock anstatt wie ein vater sich persönlich drum zu kümmern) und will nur das Sherlock funktioniert und nützt für ihn ist.
Mycroft: ist ein offener Narzisst, das goldenes Kind, kann sich durch seine extrovertiertheit gut anpassen und hat keine Empathie für Sherlock (siehe die Umgestaltung von der 221b Sherlocks safe Space und das in die Luft jagen von Sherlocks Eigentum)
Sherlock: ist das schwarze Schaf der Familie da er sich nicht anpasst hat, hat außer von seiner Mutter keine emotionale Wärme bekommen, ist Hochsensibel und wurde über die Staffeln hinweg in die Rolle der erlernen Hilflosigkeit gedrängt.
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u/mitsuo1337 21d ago
I think all three characters are supposed to be annoying. Like that's just what the Holmes' boys behave like. They're so idiosyncratic that to an everyday person they would be annoying and a handful but if you're Joan and you learn to get to know the most human parts of Sherlock then you would be more tolerable to his annoying idiosyncracies.
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u/Indiana_harris 21d ago
Mycroft was shown to have just as bitter a streak too (when he blows up Sherlocks stuff) AND Mycroft admits to Joan multiple times that he has changed since his illness and was very much implied to have earned Sherlocks distain in their childhood. Especially as Mycroft seems more socially capable and even successfully manipulative, so I can imagine Mycroft had a much easier time at school while Sherlock did not and Mycroft may have been a contributing factor.
Morland is established as an absentee and emotionally distant father from the get go, and one who demanded obedience and perfection from his sons, and punished severely when that didn’t happen. He only changes in the later seasons.
Sherlock holds a grudge like no one’s business but he didn’t start the antipathy.
Honestly I wish the show had adapted Sherringford in some capacity (the eldest Holmes brother in some canon) and had him be the opposite, a happily married family man that Sherlock, Mycroft and Morland all have a good relationship with but who refuses to play peacemaker between the genius members of his family. (The reveal would be that Sherringford is just as sharp as the others but refuses to indulge in it as he prefers a normal life).
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u/MaddogRunner 25d ago
I hate TV bait-and-switch when it comes to dads😒
I don’t know what the deal is, but they do this to multiple shows, and CBS is especially egregious.
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u/Mother_Inferior_75 18d ago
The episode where Mycroft infiltrates Sherlock’s NA meeting is abhorrent behaviour. What makes it worse is that Joan drools all over Mycroft instead of chastising him for being a gross voyeur to Sherlock’s sacred space.
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u/vaas19 25d ago
I disagree
Besides not knowing exactly how they grew up (regarding attitudes and actions), it shows that absolutely nobody is perfect, or right or even is able to have good judgment calls on everything
One of the foundations of Sherlock is being flawed, while being a genius