FADE IN:

INT. DETECTIVE AGENCY, VICTORIAN ENGLAND

MILLIE BOBBIE BROWN is desperately trying to get CLIENTS for her DETECTIVE AGENCY.

MILLIE BOBBIE BROWN

Holy cow would you look at this, Netflix actually followed through with one of their planned sequels for a change! Take that Bright 2, Bird Box 2, Extraction 2, Greenland 2, and all the other projects that can’t seem to get their shit together!

(client walks out)

You might remember last time I ended up starting my own detective agency. But to my surprise, it turns out people don’t want to hire completely inexperienced teenage girls to handle their most sensitive personal crises. Sheesh, small-minded much?

(tuts)

Meanwhile my older brother Henry Cavill, the world-famous detective who everybody trusts and who wants my agency to succeed, is swamped with work, getting so many cases thrown at him that he probably wishes he could offload a few! So as you can see, we’re both plain fucked and there is no simple solution for either of us.

(sighs)

Oh well, as befitting a character defined by my stubbornness and fierce determination, I guess I’ll pack it in and close my agency forever.

But then SERRANA SU-LING BLISS bursts in just in time to stop MILLIE from imploding THE ENTIRE FRANCHISE.

SERRANA SU-LING BLISS

You have to help me, my adoptive sister Hannah Dodd has disappeared! I heard you find people, and I was hoping you’d do it for whatever spare change a penniless Victorian match girl could scrounge up. So basically free. Do you do free?

MILLIE BOBBIE BROWN

You’re lucky I’m desperate, kid.

INT. POVERTY SHACK

SERRANA shows MILLIE to the TINY HOVEL she shared with HANNAH, as well as third roommate ABBIE HERN.

ABBIE HERN

What’s this? A professional detective has agreed to help find our surrogate sister for no money? BOO! FUCK OFF! THAT IS NOT A THING I WANT!

(pause)

Or, y’know, a version of that which doesn’t make me seem shifty as fuck, preferably.

SERRANA SU-LING BLISS

Not long before Hannah disappeared, she broke into the office at the match factory where we all work, and I’m pretty sure she stole something out of the safe. You should use your spycraft to sneak in at night and check out the safe at your leisure.

MILLIE BOBBIE BROWN

That’s one approach, sure. BUT, what if instead I pose as a worker during daylight hours, act real weird and suspicious the whole time, then basically yell “HEY LOOK OVER THERE” and crouch-dash upstairs while everybody’s looking the other way?

SERRANA SU-LING BLISS

An equally elegant strategy!

INT. MATCH FACTORY

SERRANA escorts MILLIE into the FACTORY.

MILLIE BOBBIE BROWN

Here I am, on a factory floor on a random workday. Guess I might as well head straight upstairs, as no important clues are likely to drop into my lap at a humdrum location like-

DAVID WESTHEAD

(bursting in)

I AM THE FANCY RICH OWNER OF THIS FACTORY, BOY IT’S SAD THAT THERE IS CURRENTLY AN OUTBREAK OF TYPHUS

TIM MCMULLAN

(following on his heels)

YES AS A GOVERNMENT GUY WHO IS YOUR CRONY I CONCUR THAT IT’S A SHAME THAT GIRLS HAVE BEEN DYING OF TYPHUS FOR TWO YEARS NOW, BUT ONLY GIRLS FROM THIS FUME-FILLED FACTORY

GABRIEL TIERNEY

(entering as well)

YES AND ONLY WITH SYMPTOMS THAT DON’T AT ALL RESEMBLE TYPHUS, I AM DAVID’S SON BTW

SHARON DUNCAN-BREWSTER

(also there)

Oh, never mind me! I’m nobody, they obviously gave me screentime and lines completely by accident and I will undoubtedly never matter to the plot, please pay no attention to me.

(whistles innocently)

MILLIE BOBBIE BROWN

Okay, well. I guess we had to jam all that in somewhere.

She causes a distraction and sneaks into the OFFICE, in full view of ANYBODY WHO MIGHT TURN THEIR HEADS SLIGHTLY, then searches the SAFE.

MILLIE BOBBIE BROWN

Hey look, there are some pages torn out of this ledger! And just in case you’re all thick, let’s painfully hammer home the significance of this by showing one of Hannah’s red hairs stuck in the book.

(frowns)

No, that’s still giving you too much credit! We should also include a flashback to the part where Serrana mentioned that Hannah had red hair, which happened about four minutes ago! DO YOU UNDERSTAND YET, DUMMIES?!

INT. DANCE HALL

MILLIE follows some clues to a GIRLY DANCE SHOW, where it turns out HANNAH and ABBIE also work.

ABBIE HERN

Yeah, Hannah never wanted Serrana to know she worked at a joint like this. She actually fell in love with one of the regulars and ran away with him.

(sighs)

Now, wouldn’t that have been a plausible explanation for everything, hm? It’s actually not far from the truth in fact, and would probably have satisfied you and led you to end your investigation. But instead my approach is

(pulls knife)

STOP YER SNOOPIN’, OR I’LL CUT YA!! BLARGH!!

She departs, fuming. MILLIE instead bribes some intel out of TOM HOLLANDER.

MILLIE BOBBIE BROWN

Aha, establishing a character with a memorably eccentric appearance, played by a fairly famous actor. It’ll be no surprise when you come back in a significant way later on!

TOM HOLLANDER

You’d think so, but

(phases out of existence)

MILLIE BOBBIE BROWN

Oh well, at least he told me about Hannah’s mysterious suitor before he stopped existing. Would you look at me, following concrete leads, visiting Hannah’s workplace and questioning people who knew her, like a real detective! Much better than the half-baked Riddler nonsense from last time. Now let’s look at this love letter the suitor left Hannah.

(reads)

“As we two ate of the fruit of love, A Bell did ring” AW FUCK IT’S MORE GODDAMN SUNDAY-PAPER WORD PUZZLES, JESUS FUCKING CHRIST.

She storms out of there, and happens to run into HENRY CAVILL.

MILLIE BOBBIE BROWN

Why brother, you seem to be drunk!

HENRY CAVILL

Sherlock Holmes, drunk? Wouldn’t it be more logical for me to be coked out of my-

MILLIE BOBBIE BROWN

Dude, PG-13, c’mon. What’s got you in this funk?

HENRY CAVILL

I’m frustrated about a case. I’m chasing somebody who stole from the government, but they keep moving the money from bank to bank and always seem to be one step ahead of me, as though they were some kind of evil genius toying with - okay you get the idea, it’s Moriarty, we’re doing Moriarty.

MILLIE BOBBIE BROWN

Well at least we made it to the second installment of a Sherlock Holmes fanfic before roping Moriarty in, that may be a record. But wouldn’t it have been better to give me my own nemesis for this franchise? Isn’t it a little underwhelming for me to just ride the coattails of your rivalry?

HENRY CAVILL

Maybe, but you have to admit it’s sort of your brand.

INT. FLAT

MILLIE enters the address revealed by the LAME CROSSWORD PUZZLE CLUE from the DUMB POEM. There she finds ABBIE is stabbed and dying!

MILLIE BOBBIE BROWN

Oh shit! I better get out of here, this feels a lot like that thing from every episode of Perry Mason and about one in three Rockford Files where-

The COPS burst in just as MILLIE is standing over a MURDER VICTIM with BLOOD all over her hands.

ADEEL AKTAR

Hi, it’s me again, this franchise’s Lestrade! I guess there’s only one detective inspector in London?

DAVID THEWLIS

Also there’s me, the superintendent, and I’m arresting you for murder! Which might seem like a totally understandable thing for me to do under the circumstances, but given the whole Judge Doom vibe I’m giving off, I’m obviously very evil so anything you do to me to evade capture is justified.

MILLIE BOBBIE BROWN

Awesome, thanks!

(kicks him in the balls, runs)

INT. 221B BAKER STREET

MILLIE lays low at HENRY’S for a bit.

MILLIE BOBBIE BROWN

At least I was able to pry a clue off of Abbie’s corpse before I got out of there. Check it out, it’s a page of sheet music.

HENRY CAVILL

(plays)

Eugh, it’s bad. Just as bad as that poem from earlier. The one that was actually a disguised clue. We literally point this out in the movie.

MILLIE BOBBIE BROWN

...So we figure out what that means, right? Being two detective geniuses and all?

HENRY CAVILL

Nope. A whole hour from now, your love interest has to point it out to us.

MILLIE BOBBIE BROWN

Well that’s just embarrassing.

INT. BALLROOM

MILLIE follows her latest CLUE to a FANCY BALL. There, she runs into said love interest, LOUIS PARTRIDGE from the FIRST MOVIE.

MILLIE BOBBIE BROWN

Ooh, perfect timing, I only just remembered that I have no idea how to fancy-schmancy. So if you could quickly tell me how to dance, how to talk, basically all the rules of social etiquette, that’d be great thanks.

LOUIS PARTRIDGE

I see they haven’t exactly given you your brother’s genius for disguise and infiltration.

MILLIE BOBBIE BROWN

Nope. I can do Junior Jumbles and punch dudes in the face and that’s about it.

(spots another clue)

Aha, I just figured out who Hannah’s secret boyfriend is! She’s been seeing Gabriel!

LOUIS PARTRIDGE

...

MILLIE BOBBIE BROWN

You know, David Westhead’s son? ...David Westhead? Owns the match factory? I promise you these are people from this movie.

SHARON DUNCAN-BREWSTER

As am I! Hello everybody, I’m in this scene too, just a reminder that I’m a thing.

(waves)

BLONDE LADY

And I’m also a thing! Remember this face for later!

(fans self)

MILLIE goes to talk to GABRIEL, but before he can explain to her LITERALLY THE ENTIRE MYSTERY and END THE MOVIE, ADEEL materializes and arrests her and hauls her off to PRISON.

EXT. PRISON YARD

MILLIE is in the YARD of a WOMEN’S PRISON. All the other inmates ENCIRLE HER, and for a moment it looks like she might get PRISON MURDERED, but then the PRISON WALL EXPLODES and MILLIE’S MOTHER HELENA BONHAM CARTER arrives!

HELENA BONHAM CARTER

Yes, we’re breaking you out! We had all these inmates shield you from the explosion, by exposing themselves directly to the explosion.

MILLIE BOBBIE BROWN

Uh okay, why was literally everybody in the prison told about the breakout except the person being broken out?

They go on the run, fending off DAVID THEWLIS and his pursuing GOONS with yet more EXPLOSIONS.

MILLIE BOBBIE BROWN

Oh, so after the first movie left us with the troubling implication that you were some kind of bomb-hurling terrorist, the answer turns out to be... yes, you’re a bomb-hurling terrorist.

HELENA BONHAM CARTER

No, it’s fine, these are all harmless explosions made of smoke and sparkles, used to confuse and disorient! And maybe get them thrown from their charging horses and killed. Whatever, the point is that I’m not the mad bomber the first movie suggested I might be.

(sets off the massive gunpowder charge hidden in the carriage, nearly kills David and all his men)

Just ignore that.

MILLIE BOBBIE BROWN

DUDE. We were sitting RIGHT ON TOP OF THAT while it was getting SHOT AT. We should be DEAD.

MILLIE and HELENA get away.

HELENA BONHAM CARTER

(checks watch)

And that’s all the time they payed me for for this movie. See you in part three, kid!

(leaves)

INT. POVERTY SHACK

MILLIE goes back to HANNAH’S HOVEL to look for more CLUES.

MILLIE BOBBIE BROWN

Wait a minute, looking around a second time I can see that Hannah and Abbie were using this place to run experiments testing the effects of different types of chemicals on plants and bugs and rats, in order to prove that the so-called typhus outbreak at the factory is actually caused by the new sulphur match heads!

(pause)

So I’m supposed to be a deductive genius who can analyze a crime scene in seconds, and yet the first time I was here I didn’t notice it was a fucking science lab? Jesus I can be thick sometimes.

She then FLASHBACK-REALIZES that the BLONDE WOMAN from the BALL was actually HANNAH IN DISGUISE.

MILLIE BOBBIE BROWN

Oh well how was I supposed to know that, her name was “Cicely” and that’s not an anagram for anything! It would have been more on brand for her to have reversed the letters in her first and last names or something, and gone by “Hannah Ddod”! Oh wait.

INT. MATCH FACTORY

MILLIE and LOUIS go to the FACTORY for more information about all the POISONING, where she finds HENRY is already there.

HENRY CAVILL

So you know my case, with the money being put in banks all over London? Well I noticed that a few of those banks were vaguely in the vicinity of the factory, which means our cases must be related, according to some kind of space dragon logic which makes perfect sense if you do as many drugs as I do!

MILLIE BOBBIE BROWN

Okay, I’ll just go along with that. Have you had any developments in that banks case?

HENRY CAVILL

Well, yeah, but - ugh, it’s so stupid. See, I looked at the zig-zagging pattern of where on the map of London the money was moving, and determined that the movements represented different dances.

MILLIE BOBBIE BROWN

What the hell led you to that conclusion?

HENRY CAVILL

Random guess, basically. Anyway, by linking each dance to a different letter of the alphabet, then substituting those in, I was able to find that the movement of this money spells out “Good to meet you, Sherlock Holmes”.

(hangs head)

I told you it was stupid.

MILLIE BOBBIE BROWN

I’ll say! That’s twenty-seven letters. How many steps do you need to distinguish a specific dance? Three or four at bare minimum, right? So he’s moved his money to more than a hundred different London banks? All of which were arranged in the exact specific way needed for him to make this intricate pattern? All so he could basically send you a message saying “Hi there”?

HENRY CAVILL

Plus it’s ridiculous that the timing works out so perfectly. If I’d figured this out earlier, the message would be “Good to meet you Sherlo” or something.

MILLIE BOBBIE BROWN

Or if you’d worked it out later, what would it have even said? “Good to meet you Sherlock Holmes, uh geez I thought you’d have caught me by now so now I don’t know what else to say, I like your hat I guess, also I thi”. Would’ve been pretty lame.

HENRY CAVILL

Seriously, it’s all so idiotic, let’s just move on with the story and try to forget this ever happened.

Heading up to the OFFICE, they find GABRIEL has been MURDERED!

LOUIS PARTRIDGE

Dang, it looks like he was onto his dad’s coverup and got killed before he could spill the beans! Tell me, why hadn’t he and Hannah shown anybody their evidence yet?

MILLIE BOBBIE BROWN

Apparently he wanted you to do it, because you’re a lord, and in this country at this point of history we’re so hypnotized by class worship that we lend credit to what a lord says even if he’s barely old enough to shave.

LOUIS PARTRIDGE

Oh sure, I guess people would have no reason to believe damning evidence about the factory if it came from an unauthoritative source like THE FACTORY OWNER’S OWN SON.

MILLIE BOBBIE BROWN

Anyway, as indicated earlier, Henry and I are now out of clues and at a total loss, and now must rely on you to point out what that sheet music clue means. Since the music itself is unlistenable, I’m guessing the music notes spell out something?

LOUIS PARTRIDGE

That would require one of the clues in this movie to be even slightly clever. No, Gabriel basically just scribbled a little map on the sheet music showing where he hid the evidence against his dad.

MILLIE BOBBIE BROWN

Ah. So the music didn’t need to be unplayable, or indeed to be music, and this is just an superficially-disguised note saying “go here next, you dopes”. How utterly unsatisfying.

INT. THEATRE

MILLIE, HENRY, and LOUIS all head to the place from the MAP, a SEAT in a THEATRE where they find a PACKET OF EVIDENCE.

MILLIE BOBBIE BROWN

Hey look, the pages stolen from the factory ledger! Turns out it’s an official record documenting every single worker they killed with their poison! Why the hell did they write any of that down? Seriously, what a perfectly stupid piece of evidence to exist.

HANNAH DODD

(appearing)

And look, it’s me, who knew exactly where to find this evidence and was already planning on getting it to the authorities, revealing that I was alive and well in the process! So wow Millie, it turns out that nothing you did in the entire movie really changes anything.

DAVID THEWLIS

(also appearing, with goons)

Not exactly, as it’s implied that it’s by tracking Millie down that I’m now able to find both the evidence and you, and dispose of both! So her contribution to the film is ruining everything. Great job Millie!

HENRY and LOUIS pair off against a random goon each, leaving MILLIE to get chased up to the RAFTERS by DAVID. Once up there, she’s able to use some of her miscellaneous SCIENCE KNOWLEDGE to cobble together a COUNTER-ATTACK.

MILLIE BOBBIE BROWN

Hey everybody, remember how in the first movie I tried to knock a bad guy down and incapacitate him, but in the process I managed to kill him by total accident? Well:

She intentionally and methodically JAMS A GIANT HOOK INTO DAVID’S CROTCH and HOISTS HIM UP so that his HEAD IS FATALLY SMASHED ON THE ROOF, and then DROPS HIM THIRTY FEET TO LAND IN A TWISTED HEAP ON THE STAGE BELOW, and pretty much does everything short of TORCHING HIS CORPSE and PISSING ON THE ASHES.

MILLIE BOBBIE BROWN

Yes, I just killed a policeman! ...We do have any proof at all he was evil, right?

TIM MCMULLAN

(arriving)

Don’t worry, I (who am Gabriel’s dad’s government crony, if you’ve forgotten) believe you! Clearly Hannah stole that evidence, then blackmailed me over it, then David tried to kill her and destroy the evidence, uh... entirely for the hell of it, seems to be my theory?

HENRY CAVILL

False! Hannah wasn’t the one blackmailing you. The one who blackmailed you, and then with David as their puppet mounted this campaign to stop Gabriel and Hannah from exposing the truth and ending their gravy train, was - MORIARTY, also known as SHARON DUNCAN-BREWSTER, who for like the fifth time this movie is just standing in the room for no reason!

SHARON DUNCAN-BREWSTER

Well I never! How dare you throw out such a wild accusation, without a shred of evidence to back it up. BWAH HA HA, I IMMEDIATELY ADMIT TO EVERYTHING!! That’s right, our Moriarty is a black lady! Isn’t that an empowering piece of representation? Believe in your dreams, girls, and maybe you too can grow up to be a homicidal criminal mastermind!

MILLIE BOBBIE BROWN

You know what, maybe some glass ceilings should just stay right where they are.

TIM MCMULLAN

Oh fine, we won’t arrest Hannah I suppose. We’ll arrest Sharon of course, and we’ll arrest David’s goons, and naturally we’ll arrest me and David Westhead for poisoning all those girls, as per that evidence which is now on fire OH WHOOPS HOW DID THAT HAPPEN GOODNESS ME

(nonchalantly examines fingernails)

LOUIS PARTRIDGE

Fret not, justice will prevail! We may have no evidence, but I’ll have Tim arrested anyway, on no evidence! Because I’m a lord and I can subvert the course of justice as I see fit! This is meant to be inspiring, apparently.

HANNAH DODD

And I’ll raise awareness of the match girls’ plight, by organising one of the first ever labour strikes! You know, like I did in real life.

MILLIE BOBBIE BROWN

In real life? Wait a minute, was this silly Nancy Drew adventure based on a real-life drama where actual people died?

HANNAH DODD

Yeah, it’s a little tasteless I guess, but-

MILLIE BOBBIE BROWN

Shush, let me check something.

(pulls out card)

Let’s see, I’ve got “way more action scenes than the original stories ever had”, “Sherlock’s personality completely wrong”, “clues are mostly word games and riddles”, “Moriarty involved somehow”, and now “tying Holmes to an actual historical crime story”! Hooray, I just got Sherlock Holmes Fan Fiction Bingo!!

(wins deerstalker hat)

END.