Jim Moriarty (BBC series) (2025)

James "Jim" Moriarty is the main antagonist of the BBC series Sherlock.

He is an eccentric, sadistic and cunning criminal mastermind who is also the archenemy of Sherlock Holmes.

He was portrayed by Andrew Scott, who also played Max Denbigh in Spectre, Tom Ripley in Ripley, and Obakein Big Hero 6: The Series.

Biography[]

Background[]

Prior to the events of Sherlock Moriarty's earliest known crime was when he killed a schoolboy in his year known as Carl Powers, who Moriarty claimed "laughed at him" so stopped him laughing. Putting a poison in Carl's medication this caused the lad to drown in a swimming pool. This occurred in 1989, and this case got Sherlock Holmes interested in crime solving, the man that Moriarty would become the arch nemesis of nearly 20 years later.

The Consulting Criminal[]

Moriarty was first mentioned in the first episode of Series 1, A Study in Pink, when the murderer - a taxi driver - revealed he had a sponsor to Sherlock Holmes and that the person in question was a huge fan. When John Watson shot the taxi driver, Sherlock got him to give a name by stepping on his gunshot wound. Eventually, the driver gave into the pain and screamed "Moriarty!" before dying.

In the second episode, The Blind Banker, Moriarty found a safe entrance into Britain for an ancient Chinese gang. In the end, Moriarty had the leader of the gang killed, not wanting to risk his identity getting out should the leader be interrogated.

The Great Game[]

Moriarty made his first appearance in the third episode of Series 1 as Jim from I.T. He seemed to be dating Molly Hooper at the hospital. On first glance, Sherlock didn't deduce Jim as being Moriarty, due to him posing as being a possible repressed homosexual. However, he did believe that Jim was gay due to the way that Jim wore his underwear and how he left his phone number under a dish next to where Sherlock was working.

After a series of tasks, which consisted of Holmes being forced to solve crimes committed by Moriarty. He was alerted of these tasks by different phone calls. Each phone call began with a certain number of 'pips', an old system of warning others of danger. The person calling was never Moriarty himself. Instead, it was a person, who had a timed bomb secured onto their torso, reading text sent to them from Moriarty.

After solving the final task, Sherlock came face to face Moriarty at the swimming pool where Moriarty killed Carl Powers. Moriarty had people to point snipers point at both Sherlock and John Watson, telling them they wouldn't be allowed to continue. Moriarty finally left. Sherlock quickly went to John and tore off the bomb device strapped onto him. They stand together. Suddenly, Moriarry reappears, shouting, "I'm so changable!". Minutes after Moriarty reappears, Sherlock points his gun at an explosive device between him and Moriarty, which ended on a cliffhanger.

Series 2[]

In the first episode, A Scandal In Belgravia, the cliffhanger from Series 1 was resolved when Moriarty got a better offer from Irene Adler over a phone call. He then called off the snipers.

At the end of the second episode, The Hounds of Baskerville, Moriarty was seen being released by Mycroft Holmes from custody. In his cell, Sherlock's name could be seen scrawled all over the walls.

The Final Problem[]

In the third episode of Series 2, "The Reichenbach Fall", Moriarty appeared to be seen as an American tourist visiting The Tower of London. He goes through security without any issues. Inside the room, he puts in his earplugs and starts listening to a song. On his phone, he clicks something and, supposedly using those significant lines of binary code, manages to crash the security system. The security guard hurries everyone out but Moriarty knocks him unconscious by spraying something in the guard's mouth. He then uses his phone to open a vault at The Bank of England. Finally, he opens all the gates at Pentonville Prison. Back at the tower, he writes backwards, on the case containing the crown jewels, "Get Sherlock.". Next, Moriarty takes out his gum, presses it on the glass and secures a diamond onto it. Using a fire hydrant, he hits it onto the glass and it shatters, allowing him access to the jewels. Finally, he is caught. When this happens, he is sitting on the throne, inside the glass, wearing the crown and a cape as well as holding the sceptre and the orb. Instead of trying to run or escape, he gives himself up to the police. After threatening the jury at his trial for a not guilty verdict, Moriarty began setting up Sherlock as a fraud and tore apart his life over a 24 hour period.

He even posed as an actor, named Richard Brook, in order to fool everyone into thinking Sherlock created Moriarty out of boredom. Unfortunately, everybody believes him. Sherlock thinks that Moriarty was able to forward this thanks to those few lines of binary code that allowed him to break into all those places. Sherlock figures out the code and tells Moriarty that he has something [the code] that Moriarty wants back. He tells him to meet him on the roof of St Bart's Hospital. Moriarty agrees to meet him there. Sherlock comes to the roof where Moriarty is already sitting and waiting. When approached, Moriarty takes out his earplugs (he was listening to 'Staying Alive by the BeeGees'). He then tells Sherlock that he finds staying alive "boring" and says that "it's just staying.". Both of the men had a standoff on the rooftop, in which Moriarty wanted Sherlock to jump to his death or he will have Sherlock's friends (Mrs Hudson, John and Lestrade) killed. Sherlock concludes that he doesn't have to jump and tells that to Moriarty. To make sure that he wouldn't have to call off his snipers, Moriarty shoots himself in the mouth, blowing the back of his head off. Moriarty dies right there.

Legacy[]

Regardless of Moriarty's death, Sherlock managed to fake his death. He spends the next two years trying to take down Moriarty's whole operation. During this time, everyone believes Sherlock to be dead.

In the final scene of Series 3, "His Last Vow", it's implied that Moriarty may have faked his death as well. This implication begins when pictures of Moriarty's face began appearing over London with a high pitched voice saying "Did you miss me?". His face and message is seen on every screen in London at exactly the same time. His 'return' is what got Mycroft to bring Sherlock out of his exile. In the episode's credits, Moriarty turns to look at the audience say "Miss me?". As misleading as this seems, it has been confirmed that Moriarty is, in fact, dead.

However, in Series 4, it was confirmed that Moriarty was indeed deceased. However, it was also revealed that he was planning the posthumous plots after his suicide and they would be executed by Sherlock's sister,Eurus Holmes, whoused his image to cause chaos.

Personality[]

Moriarty was clearly a psychopathic and sadistic individual; his psychopathic behavior was easily seen by the following traits: intense egomania, grandiosity, extreme self-importance and incapacity for remorse of mercy. Moriarty possessed a cynical, sarcastic and childish sense of humor which was similar to Sherlock but much darker and at the expense of others' pain or misery. He spoke very softly but normally changed the pitch of his voice during sentences for effect.

Moriarty also seemed to enjoy the anonymity he surrounded himself with. He would never kill a target himself, instead, he hired a taxi driver to become a serial killer and murder three people to get Sherlock's attention. He also murdered a Chinese gang leader as to not risk his identity being compromised. He was also clever enough to not use his real voice while forcing Sherlock to complete his tasks. Instead, he strapped explosives to his hostages and made them read from a manuscript; he actually murdered one of them when she described his voice as "soft", indicating he was either emphatic about his anonymity, or paranoid. Moriarty was a master of blackmail and a skilled actor. He was aware of people's weak points and used this to his advantage, to the point where he strapped an explosive device to John Watson during his confrontation with Sherlock at the swimming pool. He was also able to pretend to be gay while acting as Jim from IT.

Moriarty was easily bored by life, and he entertained himself with distractions, which involved the callous, chaotic and sadistic disasters that he created globally, considering the destruction he caused and the effort to keep himself anonymous to be thrilling. He was instantly attracted to Sherlock, claiming that he was the best distraction; however, he could easily kill him if he was bored with him. He admitted to Sherlock that he revelled in the murderous game he'd been playing with the man.

Moriarty saw him as an equal to match his own startling intellect, but often accused him of being slow and boring, mostly to torment the detective. He later began to see himself as "an old-fashioned villain" and that without either one of them, they were nothing. In this sense, unlike most villains, Moriarty embraces his status as an antagonist to Sherlock's life. Additionally, he was one of the few individuals to talk with Eurus Holmes without being reprogrammed by her, indicating his psychopathic nature and acceptance of his status as an evil man.

Moriarty's lack of morality or ethics makes him vastly unpredictable, even for Sherlock and Mycroft (the most intelligent characters in the series). Moriarty was extremely intelligent and this made him practically impossible to pin down without anyone questioning whether or not he wanted to be pinned down so that he could inflict the next stage of his plan. Even after he was arrested and caught red-handed with all evidence screaming his name, Moriarty managed to create a web of corruption within the court so that the result made him a free man.

From the beginning, Moriarty showed himself to have zero consideration for the lives of others, with no exceptions whatsoever. When he was young, he murdered Carl Powers for 'laughing at him', and covered up the crime brilliantly but kept the boy's shoes as a trophy. When Sherlock confronted him about people dying in his crimes, Moriarty loudly retorted 'That's what people do!'. As stated beforehand, he was never above threatening or murdering children, no matter how cruelly or how slowly, or whether they were aware that they were in danger. He even traumatized one child enough to scream uncontrollably when she saw Sherlock in person. Moriarty's genuine apathy towards other people's lives divided him from Sherlock, who underneath his cold exterior was capable of caring about other people, which Moriarty only ever saw as a foolish weakness to exploit.

Moriarty's complete and utter disregard for human life, ultimately, in a way, even applied to himself. He harbored a death wish because of how boring he found the world, and this, coupled with his desire to cause chaos, lead to Jim not even hesitating to commit suicide. Even Eurus commented that Moriarty never had much interest in staying alive, especially when he knew he could cause more problems while dead.

Skills[]

A genius criminal mastermind, cunningly resourceful and remorseless, and one of the only ones in the world who could match Sherlock Holmes' intellect, Moriarty possessed an intelligence perhaps exceeding that of the greatest geniuses on earth. Although unseen, it's probable that he has amazing deduction skills and notes for observation, as he was able to expertly give himself minor traits that passed him off as a gay man to Sherlock without arousing suspicion.

He had an incredible ability to change several times the tone of voice and behavior into a single sentence for psychological warfare - ranging from serenity, humor, mockery, childish, relaxed, to violence.

At a young age, Moriarty proved that he was incredibly calculating. He was able to poison his schoolmate Carl Powers, but make it look like he was having a fit and use a nearly untraceable poison.

Quotes[]

Trivia[]

• James Moriarty is based upon Professor Moriarty who had first appeared in the short story The Final Problem which was to originally mark the end of Sherlock Holmes (the episode The Reichenbach Fall is based upon this story). He also appeared in the fourth novel The Valley of Fear which took place before The Final Problem.
• Moriarty appeared in The Empty Hearse in flashback and imaginary sequences when some members of the Empty Hearse club came up with theories Moriarty was somewhat involved in Sherlock faking his death. Anderson's theory is that Moriarty was placed at the bottom of the building where Sherlock jumped from wearing a face mask with the likeness of Sherlock. In a fan girl's (obviously dismissed) theory, Moriarty and Sherlock threw a dummy off the roof and proceeded to kiss.
• Moriarty says he was playing gay while posing as Molly's fake in-the-closet boyfriend. However, fans noted some feminine quirks such as his high tone and calling Sherlock "my dear" and "honey"; implying he's metrosexual or attracted specifically to Sherlock at least.

External Links[]

• Jim Moriarty on the Pure Evil Wiki
• Jim Moriarty on the Baker Street Wiki

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