Warning: SPOILERS ahead for Enola Holmes.

Enola Holmes explored a part of Sherlock Holmes' life that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle never talked about: his family. The movie gave the Great Detective (and Mycroft) a younger sister and also introduced their mother, Eudoria, who was involved in a secret society and turned out to be a very dangerous woman. Since his debut in A Study in Scarlet in 1887, Sherlock Holmes has become a very popular character, to the point where he has been adapted to all types of media – and there have also been many artists who have taken Conan Doyle’s characters and given them a new life.

Among those is Nancy Springer, who through her book series The Enola Holmes Mysteries explored the family of the Great Detective. Springer decided to give Sherlock and Mycroft a younger sister, Enola, who they stopped seeing when she was very young. Enola grew up with their mother, Eudoria, but she disappeared on Enola’s 14th birthday, prompting a reunion of Holmes siblings and sending Enola on a journey of self-discovery. Enola decided to investigate her mother’s disappearance on her own, while also running away from Mycroft and his plans of sending her to a school for young ladies.

Related: Who Is Enola Holmes? Millie Bobby Brown's Sherlock Character Explained

Enola has now made the jump to film in the movie simply titled Enola Holmes, which covers the first book in the series. In addition to the above description of the event that kickstarts Enola’s journey, the youngest Holmes, played by Millie Bobby Brown, meets Lord Tewkesbury (Louis Patridge) and decides to help him as someone wanted him dead. The movie also added a subplot involving Eudoria Holmes (Helena Bonham Carter) and her work with a secret society. Sadly, the movie failed to solve this part of the story, leaving viewers wondering what Eudoria’s secret society was about and what they were planning to do with a bunch of explosives.

Eudoria Holmes Used Mycroft’s Money To Fund A Secret Society

Enola Holmes Sherlock Mycroft

Although Sherlock and Mycroft left their family home about a decade before the events of Enola Holmes, they didn’t forget about their mother and sister. Mycroft sent them money regularly, but when he returned following Eudoria’s disappearance, he found out that she had been tricking him and his money was being used for very different purposes. Mycroft explained that his mother kept requesting money for household expenses, including some remodeling and installation of various things around the house, such as a tub – and none of those happened. Eudoria also told Mycroft she needed money to pay Enola’s tutors, and to his horror, Enola had never had a tutor and was raised and educated by their mother and only her.

Mycroft’s money, then, had been used to fund a secret society, which gathered at Eudoria’s home a couple of times. Enola believed Eudoria told her everything, but there was a dangerous side to her mother, and the secret society was only a small part of that. As for Mycroft, he was so upset about not knowing what his money was used for that he took on the role of guardian of Enola and sent her to what she dreaded the most: a school for young ladies.

Eudoria Belongs To A Group Of Militant Suffragettes

Enola Holmes Millie Bobby Brown and He

During the aforementioned meeting at Eudoria’s home, the group was planning something, with maps and codes as to make extra sure that whatever they were looking to do wouldn’t be discovered. When investigating where her mother could have gone, Enola ended up at the tea house of one of the members of her mother’s club: Edith (Susie Wokoma). Viewers found out that upstairs the calm tea room were women training in combat, and Edith mentioned that she trained Enola when she was little. Enola then arrived at Limehouse Lane, one of the places she heard her mother mention in code during that cryptic meeting at their house, and found a bunch of bombs and gunpowder, confirming her brother’s comments about their mother being a dangerous woman. Eudoria, then, was part (and perhaps the leader) of a group of militant suffragettes, who were planning to go to extremes to make themselves heard and make a change.

Related: Enola Holmes Cast & Character Guide

Why Enola’s Mother Was Building Bombs

Enola Holmes Millie Bobby Brown Netflix

Eudoria Holmes was a free spirit who refused to fit into society’s standards of what a woman must think, do, and act like, so with that in mind, it’s not surprising to learn that she was part of a group of suffragettes – what’s surprising is the militant part of it. As mentioned above, Enola found a stockpile of explosives at Limehouse Lane, along with a pamphlet with instructions for bomb-making that called for “protest, unrest, and civil disobedience”. Eudoria saw this as the only way to be heard and thus make a change, confirmed when she told Enola at the end of the movie that “you have to make some noise if you want to be heard”, but Enola never asked her about her bombing plans. Enola Holmes left that part of Eudoria’s subplot unsolved, but if a sequel is to happen, it can address it.

The Importance Of The Reform Bill

Enola Holmes Eudoria

The connecting link between the cases of Eudoria’s disappearance and the plot to kill Lord Tewkesbury is a vote on an upcoming reform bill – Tewkesbury’s grandmother didn’t approve of her son and grandson’s forward-thinking views, so she wanted her grandson dead, just like she did with Tewkesbury’s father, while Eudoria’s secret group was all about making big changes in society. Enola Holmes is set in 1884, so the bill in question is the Representation of the People Act 1884, or simply, Third Reform Act. These were laws that extended the suffrage in the UK, which along with the Redistribution Act of the following year, extended the same voting qualifications as existed in the towns to the countryside. This paved the way for women’s suffrage many years later, so it’s not surprising that Eudoria Holmes was involved in this, in some way.

Enola Holmes addresses topics like gender equality and feminism, with young Enola and Edith giving Sherlock Holmes a reality check on male privilege and Eudoria and Enola doing their best to not be boxed into what society thought a “lady” should be like. Eudoria and her group were firm believers of equality, so the reform bill and the voting were crucial to their plans and ideals. The results of the voting will surely have an impact on the events of Enola Holmes 2, as Enola will continue building her own path, far away from her brothers, and Eudoria will surely continue fighting in her own (quite possibly violent) way, hiding from the public eye.

Next: Enola Holmes Ending, Murder Plot & Killer Identity Explained