Elementary Scoop: How Mycroft's Introduction Will Change Everything for Sherlock

London is calling on Thursday night!

Elementaryreturns for its second season Thursday night (10/9c, CBS), and like the Parks and Recreation premiere on NBC, it will feature a trip to merry old England when Sherlock Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller) and Joan Watson (Lucy Liu) venture across the pond.

Elementary Sneak Peek: Joan is shocked to meet Sherlock's brother

When a former colleague hits a spot of trouble, Sherlock returns to his homeland but then finds himself  in trouble when he crosses paths with his brother Mycroft (Rhys Ifans), whom he hasn't spoken to, much less even mentioned to Joan, in years. Will the brothers be able to reconcile? TVGuide.com caught up with executive producer Rob Doherty to get the scoop on Season 2:

How much time has passed since the finale?
Rob Doherty: I'd say we're playing the hiatus as real time. Summer has passed for the audience, so summer has passed for Sherlock and Joan.

Talk about what brings Sherlock and Joan to London.
Doherty: Sherlock gets a call from a former colleague in Scotland Yard who informs him that another former colleague, Inspector Lestrade (Sean Pertwee), has fallen on hard times, which is really the premise of the episode. People who are familiar with the canon will know that Inspector Lestrade was the policeman that Holmes collaborated with the most. So we asked ourselves what happens to Inspector Lestrade when he loses his Sherlock Holmes? In the world of Elementary, things go poorly. Lestrade had grown accustom to getting the credit for Sherlock's successes. So when Sherlock left to go to New York, Lestrade was a bit exposed. He's struggled to claim the level of quality work he was doing when he had Sherlock consulting for him. When Sherlock finds out that Lestrade is struggling and has actually gotten himself into some trouble, he feels he owes it to the inspector to head to London and try to help him in the difficult time.

London is where Sherlock's downward spiral began. Will he have a tough time returning?
Doherty: One of Sherlock's many talents is the ability to compartmentalize, so he's able to hand a lot of that down in order to help his friend and attack his friend's case. London definitely stirs up some bad memories, but I don't think Sherlock blames the city. It's strange for him to be in familiar haunts. If anything, he feels some embarrassment because he's about to cross paths with people who saw him at his worst. For the most part, we've seen the best of Sherlock, but in the U.K. it's a different story for the people who've worked with him.

What can you tell us about Sherlock's reunion with his brother?
Doherty: It won't be the sunniest of reunions. Sherlock's expecting to go to London and never even mention to his brother that he's there. Circumstances put them in front of each other, and Sherlock has to confess to Joan he has a brother. It's news to her. He's never mentioned anyone in his family outside of his father. So it's suddenly a surprise for Mycroft, who had no idea Sherlock was headed his way. But it's also a surprise for Joan, who figured they were past secrets like this.

We find out there's some bad blood between the Holmes' boys and they have not spoken in several years. We tell a story about Mycroft and Joan in the first episode. For her, it's fascinating to meet somebody else in the Holmes' family. For him, it's very strange to meet someone who Sherlock actually considers a friend. They just want to compare notes, but Sherlock, of course, is an intensely private man and does not like to think any information is being exchanged between these two.

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How does Joan and Sherlock's relationship change this season in the wake of the Moriarty (Natalie Dormer) scandal?
Doherty: There are some new things to haunt him for the most part. We absolutely wanted the finale to be the punctuation mark at the end of the sentence from the first season. We wanted a sense of closure as we came into the second season. We wanted to the best of our ability to clear the debts and have a really fun and separate adventure in London. Now is Sherlock completely over everything that's happened? No. But like I said, he tends to internalize and compartmentalize everything. We definitely would like to see our wonderful Moriarty again over the course of this season. There's more of that story to tell. But is it going to be happening early part of the season? Probably not. We adore Natalie. She could not have done a better job for us so we're absolutely going to figure that out.

Will either Sherlock or Joan get new love interests this season?
Doherty: We are most definitely interested in pursuing love interests for both characters. Not necessarily at the same time. I think it's safe to say you'll see someone in Joan's life before Sherlock's. 

Joan is going to have to face the son (Jeremy Jordan) of the patient she killed. How is she going to be dealing with that?
Doherty: We've known since the pilot that Joan lost a patient and that it changed the way she felt about her job. We've touched on it here and there over the course of the season. We wanted to put a face on it for the first time. It's difficult to cross paths with the son of her former patient. But, as you'll see, they've maintained a somewhat cordial relationship. It doesn't make it easier for Joan to meet this kid's eye, but it's not exactly what one might expect.

What's going on at the precinct once Joan and Sherlock return from London?
Doherty: Joan is perceived as more of a consultant in her own way and much less an appendage of Sherlock's. Gregson (Aidan Quinn) and Bell (Jon Michael Hill) would welcome her insight as much as they would his. But as far as the day-to-day relationship, it's at least, for now, about the same.

If last season was about getting to the Moriarty reveal, what will this season's big story be?
Doherty: We absolutely have big plans for Mycroft. As thrilling as it is for us to have Rhys aboard, we will have to work around his schedule, so that may dictate the pace of that story to some degree. We've been looking forward to having Mycroft on board for some time, so we want to tally a longer story about him and his relationship with Sherlock and some of the secrets that Mycroft has perhaps been keeping from his brother.

Elementary Surprise: Moriarty revealed!

Are we ever going to meet Sherlock's dad?
Doherty: At the moment, no, not in the first half of the season. Yet it's awfully tempting now that we have the two brothers together. It's definitely something we want to look at and think on.

What stories from the Holmes lore will you be pulling from this season?
Doherty: We will always drop in our Easter eggs, but we won't be building to another Moriarty climax. We're going to be poring over the original stories looking to see if there are more characters we can pull in and put up against Sherlock. We will always allow ourselves room to come up with our own nemesis.

Elementary returns Thursday at 10/9c on CBS.

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