Harry Bradbeer, the director of “Enola Holmes 2,” has earnestly tried to make the film meatier than its first part. The story once again follows the adventurous journey of the teenage detective, Enola Holmes, only this time, the events have been inspired by a true story. In 1888, the girls working in a matchstick factory in London went on strike under the leadership of Sarah Chapman. It was probably one of the first acts of defiance seen in the country that was orchestrated by female workers. “Enola Holmes 2” is the story of girls who refused to bow down and bear all the oppression. It is the story of how the courageous girls refused to be a part of a misogynistic society and fought for their rights. So, let’s see if Enola is able to help the cause of underprivileged girls and save them from getting further exploited.
Spoilers Ahead
‘Enola Holmes 2’ Plot Summary: What Is The Film About?
After solving the Tewkesbury case, Enola decided that it was about time she opened her own agency. She loved solving cases, and she wanted to build her credibility as a detective in English society. She was intelligent and skilled, and she knew Jijitsu, yet there was one thing that stood against her: she was a woman. The misogynistic society didn’t believe that a woman was capable of solving a case or doing any such thing independently. At times, people mistook her for being a secretary or junior assistant to Sherlock Holmes. People didn’t feel safe depending on her. Enola felt disappointed. It was not like she was given an opportunity, and she failed. She was rejected even before being tested. She realized that maybe she was delusional like her mother, who believed in the concept of a just society. She started to question her own worth. She knew she was different, but the world was adamant about making her believe that she was not worthy enough. Her dream of joining the pantheon of great Victorian detectives was shattered. But moreover, she had to put aside her desire to prove herself in front of her brother, Sherlock Holmes. But one fine day, the unimaginable happened. A little girl named Bessie came to her office. She wanted Enola to find her missing sister. Enola knew that maybe this was the opportunity she had been waiting for. But the case was not as simple as she had thought it would be. There were many dark and dirty secrets of the world and the men that inhibited it, that Enola was completely unaware of. She didn’t know the perilous nature of the profession she had chosen as her career.
Finding Sarah Chapman And A Challenge For Sherlock
Sarah Chapman had been missing for a week. Bessie was not her real sister. Sarah had somewhat adopted Bessie, and since then, the two had been inseparable. Sarah was a kindhearted girl, and there was no plausible reason why she would have been kidnapped. The girls worked in the match factory, and Bessie told Enola that a week ago, Sarah had a fight with Mr. Crouch, the foreman at the factory. Enola was shocked to see the poverty-stricken lifestyle of the girls. She met Mae, who also lived in the same building as Sarah. Mae knew Sarah, but she had a very hostile attitude. She didn’t want Enola snooping around the place, but since Bessie wanted her, Mae couldn’t do much about it. Enola asked Bessie to take her to the match factory, where she pretended to be a new employee. Enola went inside the main office when nobody was looking and found a register that was kept in the vault. She noticed that a few pages of that register were missing, and somebody had torn them. Enola overheard a conversation between Henry Lyon, William Lyon, Charles McIntyre, and Mira Troy. Somebody had stolen something of value, and the match factory administration was being blackmailed. Henry Lyon and others came to meet their employees, and we came to know that a lot of girls had lost their lives due to typhus fever that had spread in the community. The administration was very concerned about their health, and it seemed like they wanted to do something about it. Enola, by observing the behavioral traits of Mae, had realized that she was up to something. Later, she came to know that Mae had caused a distraction and helped Sarah enter the office, where she took the pages from the register. Enola followed Mae to a theater named Paragon, where the latter used to work. Enola had a scuffle with Mae, and she realized that Sarah also used to work there. Enola found a letter on the table where Sarah used to do her makeup. There was poetry written on it, but Enola knew that there was some hidden meaning that she was not able to decipher. That night, Enola was followed by an anonymous man, and while trying to outrun him, she bumped into her brother Sherlock Holmes too.
Enola figured out that there was an address hidden inside the poetry. She went to 28 Bell Place in Whitechapel and found Mae, who had been stabbed by someone. Before she could do anything else, Inspector Lestrade and Superintendent Grail arrived at the scene. Enola had her suspicions that Grail was the same man who had followed her the other night. Enola had found a paper with musical notations in Mae’s pocket. Before Grail and others could take her into custody, she escaped.
Enola went and hid in Sherlock’s house, knowing that it was the only place where she would be safe. The siblings entered into a barter deal. It was decided that Sherlock would tell her about the financial scam case that he was investigating, and Enola would tell him about Sarah Chapman. Sherlock told Enola that there were unaccounted money transfers across multiple banks. There had been separate filings via five different accounts, and it all went to a private bank via a treasury. Sherlock had figured out that whoever was behind it was a genius who knew how to cover their tracks. It was not like Sherlock had no leads, but still every time he was hitting a dead end. There had been a break-in at the Treasury Office a week before the first transaction. There was a man wearing a tapered crown hat who had stolen some very important documents. Sherlock didn’t know how the break-in was connected to the money-laundering case. Enola told Sherlock about the Sarah Chapman case and what she had discovered about it. She showed him the letter and the paper with musical symbols. Sherlock went to the crime scene and knew instantly that his case and Enola’s were connected. There was a cryptic message hidden inside all the evidence, and the perpetrator wanted Sherlock to find it. Sherlock converted the original account number to its corresponding alphabet of English language and found out that the schemer was called Moriarty. It was a challenge, and Sherlock knew instantly that Moriarty was doing so only because he or she was quite confident about the plan. Enola had also deciphered that William Lyon, the son of the match factory owner, Henry Lyon, had a role to play in the scheme of things. William was the one who sent that cryptic letter to Sarah Chapman. Enola went to a ball organized by the match factory owners. She met a suspicious woman named Cicely at the ball, who was quite keen on talking to Tewkesbury. It made Enola a bit jealous that Tewkesbury was getting so much attention from the females. Before Enola could get any more leads, she was arrested by the police officers and taken to prison.
Sherlock was scared for her sister. He was a pragmatic man, and he didn’t want her to become like him. Her obsession with the profession was somewhere scaring Sherlock. Enola wanted to work independently, but Sherlock knew she would need all the help she could get for the case, as there were many big players involved. The reality was getting darker and there was an imminent threat of death.
‘Enola Holmes 2’ Ending Explained: Who Did Sarah Chapman Want To Expose? Who Was Moriarty?
The match factory has doubled its profit in the last couple of years. Enola knew that there was something fishy about the whole typhus situation, too. Sherlock contacted Edith (Eudoria Holmes’ friend from Part 1) when Enola was arrested by the police. Eudoria and Edith broke into the prison and helped Enola make an escape. Enola once again went back to Bessie and told her to find a different accommodation until the case was solved. Enola feared that Bessie’s life could be in danger. Enola figured out something that she hadn’t been able to see, up until then. Everything was right under her nose. She went through all the details once again in her mind. She figured out that the woman she had met at the ball, who called herself Cicely, was, in reality, Sarah Chapman. Sarah and William Lyon were in love, and together they wanted to expose Henry Lyon and others who were involved in the crime. The phosphorus that was being used to make the white heads of the matchsticks was the cause of the deaths of several female workers. The administration was putting the blame on the Typhus plague, but the pandemic was just an illusion, a camouflage to escape culpability. William Lyon was a radical, just like Tewkesbury. He had invited Tewkesbury to the ball on purpose. He wanted his help in reforming the factory laws. Enola went to the matchstick factory and once again bumped into her brother Sherlock. They found that William had been killed. Sherlock figured out that William Lyon was the one who had broken into the Treasury Office and stolen those important documents. The treasury office came under Lord McIntyre, who was the treasury minister. Henry Lyon and McIntyre were conspiring together, and the proof was hidden in those stolen documents. White Phosphorus was cheaply available, and the factory owners knew that they could make huge profits if they used it in production. Though the evidence led them to McIntyre, Sherlock knew that it had all been staged to mislead them. Enola found a torn piece of paper with the same musical symbols that she had found earlier in Mae’s possession. The musical piece was called The Truth of the Gods, and Tewkesbury thought that could be referring to the top row of the theater auditorium, which was often referred to as the gods. Enola had an epiphany of sorts. She realized that it was not music but a map. The map led them to the theater auditorium where Enola found something under one of the seats. Sarah, who was also at the auditorium, told Enola that it had the papers that were stolen from the Treasury Office and also the torn pages of the factory register, which had the names of all the girls who had been killed by phosphorus. Henry, McIntyre, and others knew everything, and they chose not to speak about it all along.
McIntyre arrived at the scene, and he tried to take Sarah into custody for blackmailing him by stealing personal information, i.e., the original contract papers which was proof that he had conspired with Henry Lyon. But McIntyre was mistaken. Sarah was not his blackmailer. It was his assistant, Mira Troy, who had orchestrated everything. Mira Troy was Moriarty, an exceptional accountant, who had challenged Sherlock. Moriarty had a lot of arrogance and had always believed that her intellect was unparalleled. For years she had been serving McIntyre, but it hadn’t led her anywhere. She believed herself to be a genius. She wanted a share of his riches and also wanted to teach him a lesson. She used the corrupt Superintendent Grail for her purposes. Moriarty had been oppressed for years and denied what she felt she was deserving of. She was done living in the shadows of incompetent men. She was done serving the men who undermined her own authority. Though McIntyre burned the contract papers, and he couldn’t be charged for conspiring against the female workers, Tewkesbury brought his corruption to light and got him arrested.
‘Enola Holmes 2’ End Credit Scene Explained: What We Can Expect In The Third Film?
Though the direct involvement of McIntyre in the deaths of the girls couldn’t be proved, Sarah convinced all the female factory workers to walk out of the factories and protest against the corrupt lords. Sherlock Holmes made an offer to Enola to work with him, something that she had wanted since the very beginning. But Enola refused the offer. She thought that it was imperative for her to establish her own credibility. She wanted to prove herself that she was capable of solving cases independently. She wanted to make her own mark in society. Maybe in the future, we will see the siblings opening an office together, though unofficially, they will keep taking each other’s help. Sherlock, too, had grown to respect and admire the exceptional skills of his younger sister. He saw a flare in her, unlike any other person he had met. He knew that one day she would become a great detective. In the credit scene, we see that Enola had sent a roommate for her brother. Enola felt that Sherlock was in dire need of a company and being lonely wasn’t doing him much good. Work took a toll on him, and he was also a human at the end of the day. He needed to confide in someone and share the baggage that he carried on his shoulders. That person’s name was Dr. John Watson (whom we all know from the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle), a former army doctor who would eventually become Sherlock’s best friend and a trusted ally. It is necessary to raise a voice against oppression. It is not an easy thing to do. What Sarah Chapman did was nothing less than an act of bravery. William Lyon supported her cause even though he knew that he would incriminate his own father. William sacrificed his life while fighting for a worthy cause, and Enola made sure that his sacrifice didn’t go in vain. Hopefully in the third installment we would once again see the fierce feminist fighting against all the odds and becoming the voice of the oppressed.
“Enola Holmes 2” is a 2022 Drama Action film directed by Harry Bradbeer.
