Characters introduced in Enola Holmes 2. For returning characters from the first film, see that character sheet.
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Matchgirls
Bess Chapman
Played by: Serrana Su-Ling Bliss
A young factory worker who enlists Enola to find her missing sister, Sarah.
- Action Survivor: Bess is just a little girl who lacks the strength and training to fight when grown men are after her. She still gets to shine in the climax, biting Grail when he's holding her hostage, and playing keep-away with the incriminating documents.
- Affectionate Nickname: Those close to her call her Bessie.
- Big Sister Worship: She adores her older sister Sarah.
- Heartwarming Orphan: Bessie is a little girl who doesn't have any family besides her adoptive sister and toils every day in a harmful factory. Enola is extremely moved by her situation, noting that nobody looks after girls like Bessie.
Mae
Played by: Abbie Hern
Bessie and Sarah's neighbor and fellow factory worker.
- Almost Dead Guy: Enola finds her in her death throes having been ordered murdered by Moriarty, and Mae manages to pass on a clue to her.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Mae is aggressive, rude, and dismissive towards Enola, even threatening her with a knife when she starts poking her nose in. She was also an active collaborator in Sarah's plan to save the match girls. Also, the knife was just a theatre prop.
Sarah Chapman
Played by: Hannah Dodd
Bessie's missing adoptive sister.
- Historical Domain Character: She's a fictionalized version of Sarah Chapman
, who led the 1888 Bryant & May Matchgirls' strike. - Informed Attractiveness: Bessie's description of her includes noting that she's "very pretty".
- Living MacGuffin: Enola's search for Sarah on Bess' request drives the plot.
- Nice Girl: She adopts and raises Bess despite not being blood related, and it's revealed she snuck into the factory office to steal the list of girls who had been killed by phosphorus so they wouldn't be forgotten.
- Redhead In Green: Enola imagines her with bright red hair and a green dress after hearing Bessie's description of her.Enola: Red hair, green dress, makeup, science books, 12th March. Whatever you've been up to...the game is afoot.
- She Knows Too Much: Lampshaded by Eudoria, who comments that the match-girls are generally expendable and the factory owners wouldn't normally bat an eye at one or two dying or going missing. That there seems to be such a fuss around Sarah's disappearance means that Sarah knows something they want to keep hidden. Specifically, Sarah had discovered that the shift to white phosphorus was killing the workers.
- Significant Greeneyed Redhead: She's a pivotal character in the film and Bessie calls attention to her sister's striking green eyes and red hair. Enola notes it with surprise (since Bessie is Asian) before it's clarified that Sarah is her adoptive sister.
- Uptown Girl: Sarah, a match girl and cabaret singer, is in a Secret Relationship with William Lyon, the son of the match factory's owner.
- Wig, Dress, Accent: Sarah + a posh accent + a wig + a ballgown = Cicely, the friendly noblewoman trying to catch Tewksebury's attention at the ball.
Police
Superintendent Grail
Played by: David Thewlis
A thuggish police superintendent.
- Asshole Victim: Nobody mourns his vicious personality or his corrupt behavior, even his own employers. Moriarty in particular disdainfully refers to him as a blunt instrument.
- Corrupt Cop: An officer of the law who is paid by a dangerous individual to murder and threaten young girls.
- Dastardly Dapper Derby: A Rabid Cop and Dirty Cop on top of that who wears a bowler with an upturned brim.
- Disney Villain Death: After he gets slammed into the theater ceiling from a catwalk, his corpse tumbles all the way to the stage floor.
- Evil Cripple: A ruthless antagonist who walks with a distinctive cane.
- Groin Attack: Is unlucky enough to be on the receiving end of this on two separate occasions. The second time, with a hook!
- The Heavy: The most immediate threat Enola faces in the sequel as he doggedly pursues her for suspicion for Mae's murder. In reality, he's working for the Big Bad. He and his men murdered Mae and sought to frame Enola for the deed. He pursues her during her prison escape and is the one to fight her in the final battle.
- Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: Superintendent Grail at first just seems like a rude police officer. However, it is revealed that he is an assassin who kills match girls who come close to exposing the Lyon factory conspiracy.
- Sword Cane: Rifle cane. The reason for his cane's distinctive metal ferrule is that it doubles as a barrel.
- Would Hit a Girl: He doesn't hesitate to physically attack Enola, even maiming her with a large hook. Keep in mind this is Victorian London — his colleague Lestrade doesn't even want to pat her down.
- Would Hurt a Child: Makes repeated attempts to kill Bess during the climax.
Lyon Family and Associates
Henry Lyon
Played by: David Westhead
The owner of the Lyon Matchstick Factory.- Bad Boss: He shifted the production to white phosphorus for profit, not caring that it was killing his workers.
- Beard of Evil: A Corrupt Corporate Executive with a full white beard.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: He's involved in a corruption scheme with the treasury minister, who now profits off his factory.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He loves his son. He stays silent with a remorseful expression during Sarah's Rousing Speech, implying he understands his crimes are what led to William's murder.
William Lyon
Played by: Gabriel Tierney
Henry Lyon's son.- Flower Motifs: He's associated with the sweet William flower, for his name and romance with Sarah.
- Interclass Romance: Was in a Secret Relationship with Sarah, one of the workers at his father's factory.
- Like Father, Unlike Son: His father is a heartless businessman who only cares about profit, while William is a kind-hearted radical who wants to reform working conditions and falls in love with a matchgirl.
- Rich Kid Turned Social Activist: William is a rich factory owner's son who turns out to be a radical. He wanted to expose his father's corruption scheme and save the matchgirls who worked in the factory along with Sarah, but is killed before that plan can come to fruition.
- Terrible Artist: Enola derides his poetry and sheet music as terrible. Subverted, because they're not artistic pieces in their own right, but coded messages.
Charles McIntyre, Viscount McIntyre
Played by: Tim Mc Mullan
- Cigar Chomper: An antagonist who smokes a distinctive cigar.
- Corrupt Bureaucrat: He's the minister of the treasury, but still feels the need to double-dip and profit off the Lyons' business, even if it means the deaths of several girls.
- Foil: He's the older corrupt aristocrat to Tewkesbury's young progressive aristocrat. The latter has him smugly arrested at the end of the second film.
Ms. Mira Troy
Played by: Sharon Duncan-Brewster
The secretary to Mr. McIntyre, one of the co-owners of the Lyon Matchstick Factory.
- Adaptational Job Change: Moriarty is a secretary instead of a professor as a day job.
- Adaptational Name Change: The character was named James Moriarty in the original stories, here Moriarty is just an anagram of her real name, Mira Troy.
- Adaptational Sympathy: In the Sherlock Holmes novels Moriarty was truly just a criminal, a very smart one, but he made no excuses about what he did or held delusions of a moral high ground. Here Mira quite rightly points out that there are very little advantages in their era for either a person of color or a woman and she happens to be both, positing criminal activity as her best choice and implying had she been a white man, as the character was in the books, she would have made her success legitimately.
- Affably Evil: She's the Big Bad all along but makes it a point to reach out to Enola at the dance and give her friendly advice on playing "the game" of society.
- Beneath Notice: She's a black woman and a secretary, so nobody realizes she's been using her position to steal from her boss.
- Canon Character All Along: She's introduced as an original character like the rest of the characters from this sequel, but the ending reveals she's the continuity's version of James Moriarty from the Holmes canon.
- Gender Flip: Moriarty, normally portrayed as male, is revealed to be the female Mira Troy in this continuity, thus making The Reveal of her true identity in the climax even more unexpected.
- In Name Only: Aside from being an enemy of Sherlock Holmes, the character has very little in common with the literary character to the point Moriarty isn't even her real name.
- Significant Anagram: Her name is Mira Troy. She goes by the alias Moriarty.
Other
Dr. John Watson
Played by: Himesh Patel
Sherlock's new flatmate at Baker Street.
- Adaptational Late Appearance: Despite being a vital part of the Sherlock Holmes franchise, he doesn't make his first appearance in the Enola Holmes film series until the second movie, and even then it's only in the mid-credits scene. Furthermore, he's mentioned in the first Enola Holmes book where he's already Sherlock's flatmate and publishing the latter's adventures before he appears early on in the second book. Here Sherlock has already gained fame and notoriety even before meeting the man who will ultimately become his biographer.
- Race Lift: He is implicitly white in the original stories, but is of South Asian descent here.
