| “ | You look at people and you see puzzles. I see games. You? You're a game I'll win every time. | „ |
| ~ Jamie Moriarty to Sherlock Holmes. |
Jamie Moriarty, initially known to Sherlock as Irene Adler, is the main antagonist of the crime drama Elementary. She is the head of an international criminal organization, the lover and the former archenemy of Sherlock Holmes.
She was portrayed by Natalie Dormer.
Overview[]
As Irene, she is Sherlock's former lover, while in her true identity as Moriarty she is a criminal mastermind who romanced Sherlock and then faked Irene's death to draw his investigations away from her criminal activities. It was her supposed death as Irene that caused Sherlock's already established drug use to escalate.
"Irene" is first introduced as a beautiful, intelligent woman who showed a bright side of life to Holmes. It doesn't last. Her "death" led Holmes to addiction and destroyed his life and career in London. Just to get better, two years later Holmes discovers that she was faking everything and "Irene" never existed at all. Her persona was meticulously constructed to fool Holmes and push him away from her plans, and her "death" was designed to break him.
Despite Sherlock discovering her true identity, and her subsequent imprisonment, the two continue to have conflicting feelings for each other. Holmes mentions during a conversation with Bell that "the love of [his] life is an unrepentant homicidal maniac" and great mutual respect for each other's intellectual powers. Even if she lacks empathy and morality, Moriaty is not pure evil. Her one unambiguously good act was giving up her daughter for adoption, knowing full well that not only would a child interfere with her career but that her career plus evil nature would make her a terrible mother for the child, and she actually did want better for the girl.
She has also gained an amount of respect for Joan Watson, as the latter's ability to fool her is what got her arrested; when Joan's life is threatened by drug kingpin Elana March, she arranges the criminal's death in her cell. At the end of Season 4, Sherlock's father, Morland Holmes, took over Moriarty's crime organization which will help him to dismantle the group and guarantee safety of his son from further harm. In Season 6 Moriarty attempts to have Morland killed, but Sherlock forces her to back down by threatening to take over her organization if his father is killed. Following Morland's death on the orders of Odin Reichenbach in the final season, Moriarty retakes control of her organization. Years later, she is presumed to have died, but Sherlock disputes this.
Trivia[]
- Despite being the main antagonist of the show, Moriarty only appears in 4 episodes in the flesh, and in 2 others only as a voice-over. This is true to Moriarty's literacy counterpart, who only appears in two stories (the second being a mention) but is regarded as the main antagonist of the novels and Sherlock's most dangerous nemesis. Despite Moriarty's absence, she still plays an off-screen role in season 4, season 6 and the final episode of season 7 and is quite frequently referenced to by Sherlock.
- She is a composite character of the original Professor James Moriarty and Irene Adler, and had significant changes on both sides:
- She is the first female version of Moriarty and also the main hero's former lover. This version of Moriarty has a more personal connection to Holmes than just being his rival. In addition to being a criminal mastermind, she also seduced him with a false persona, causing the reveal of her true nature to hit him close to home.
- In the original stories, Irene was nothing more than an unusually clever opera singer who happened to get her hands on a compromising photograph, and was smart enough to prevent Holmes from stealing it back. Here, she is a persona deliberately created by her true identity, Moriarty, to seduce and fool Holmes.
- She is one of the very few versions of Moriarty not to officially be killed off. Despite the final episode implying she has died, Sherlock doesn't believe this and series writers confirm she is still alive.
