Honestly, until the last minute of the episode, Paint It Black, I didn’t see it coming at all.

Warning

Spoilers Alert! Don’t read if you haven’t watch it.

Apparently, Mycroft isn’t what you think whom he is, not even Sherlock sees the brother he thinks was, not a restaurateur he seems to be, not someone who is trying to taking care of employees by being in bed with French crime syndicate.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/69/Elementary_intertitle.png

Certainly, not someone who is thinking to selling the list to someone else other than just saving Joan Watson.

It looks like to me, Mycroft Holmes is with British intelligence service, a very secretive one, just like the Mycroft in Sherlock of BBC. However, the true identity of this Mycroft is still unknown to us, what he really works for, the only thing we are sure is, he is undercover and the team calls him by “Sir.”

Nevertheless, Sherlock is still right, because Mycroft never intends to hand over the real list for the exchange. Even Sherlock fails to see his brother’s cover and intention, nor can NSA.

A few questions besides the undercover remain:

  • Is Mycroft really interested in Watson?
  • Why did Mycroft try to get Sherlock leave New York?
  • Whom was he actually talking to on the phone?

But I have to doubt every I thought I knew about the storyline, maybe this was going far back. Is he really a bone marrow transplant recipent? Or was that just part of his plot to make Sherlock stay at the time. Maybe that’s true, that’s when he started to work with government.

By the way, Paint It Black is directed by Lucy Liu, her directorial debut, the actress who plays Watson:

Perhaps, Mycroft’s primary objective is get Sherlock back to UK, and the undercover for French criminals is just, well, a side-job? Hopefully, many questions would be answered in next episode, Art in the Blood.