Eurus, Sherlolly and “I Love You” 

 (Sherlock meta by strawberrypatty)

So a lot is going to be made of THAT SCENE, in several different ways. But we really need to break it down.

Sherlock declares that he won, by getting Molly to tell him “I love you”. But Eurus claims the victory and reveals that Molly was never in any physical danger.

All of Eurus’ games had been lethal ones up until then. But then she forced Sherlock to get Molly to say 'I love you'. With how intelligent Eurus is, she KNEW Sherlock was going to have to say 'I love you' first.

Sherlock says it. Twice. The first time, he says it because Molly told him to say it. And then the second time… There’s a difference in him. Finally he’s said the words and he knows they’re true.

Eurus grew up in a family where “Sentiment is a chemical defect found in the losing side”. The reason why she didn’t have to hurt Molly physically, why she thinks she won, is because Sherlock and Molly DO love each other. It reminds me of the exchange from Batman Returns: “Mistletoe can be deadly if you eat it.” “But a kiss can be even deadlier if you mean it.”

Getting Sherlock to say he loves Molly and for her to say it back is the most destructive thing Eurus can think of, because they both MEAN IT.

Even after Sherlock finds out Molly was never in any danger, he lashes out, destroying the coffin. I think there is an element of wanting to destroy a coffin meant for Molly, but more than that… Eurus has forced Sherlock to expose himself. He’s stripped to the nerve and he’s never been in that position before.

When we next see Molly, she’s coming into 221B, smiling and happy. Eurus hasn’t destroyed the two of them. Their relationship is okay.

Because Eurus is wrong. That kind of reveal isn’t something destructive. Sherlock did win.

They might not have made it 100% crystal clear, but Molly and Sherlock are a couple by the end of The Final Problem.

Eurus wanted him to face his feelings 

 (Sherlock meta by cherish--these--times)

Don’t tell me that someone who presumably convinced Jim Moriarty, in the spam of five minutes, to kill himself if necessary and predicted three terrorist attacks on twitter in less than an hour did not foresee Sherlock having to say 'I love you' first. That was the whole point. Eurus wanted him to face his feelings and prove to him how detrimental they are to his thought process. The prospect of losing Molly Hooper made him lose his cool and his logic. (Duh, of course there was no bomb in her flat you dummy).

He knew that Molly loved him. He knew that asking her to say the words was cruel. And that’s why the whole make-her-say-it procedure took far longer than it should have.. He hesitated, rambled, begged. He was a mess of emotions. A disconnected Sherlock would have lied to her face in order to save her life 10 seconds into the conversation. This is what he is best at. Seeing the bigger picture and putting feelings aside to achieve the goal. Being a soldier. And he is brilliant at it. But this is the woman he loves. Hurting her hurts him too. That’s how it works. Add a death threat on top of it that turned out to be a scam and that’s what you get.

“I saved Molly Hooper!”

 (Sherlock meta by waytoomanyhobbies, thequietone0008 and celticmoonbeam)

celticmoonbeam:

My thoughts on the end of the ILY scene….

She said it. The timer stops. Mycroft steps forward and tries to comfort his brother. “Sherlock, however hard that was…” (Of course we’ll never know what he was going to say, but in my head it was “you did the right thing.”)

But Sherlock cuts him off. “Eurus, I won. I won. Come on, play fair. The girl on the plane. I need to talk to her.” Then, with a little more emotion, “I won. I saved Molly Hooper!”

Why does Sherlock want to move on so quickly? My take on this… With the other two challenges, he thought he’d won, only for there to be a sudden twist. The Governor was dead, but because he didn’t die by John or Mycroft’s hand, Eurus still killed his wife. Sherlock identified the Garrideb brother who was a murderer–only for Eurus to kill the two innocents.

I think he is terrified of another twist, one that results in Molly’s death after all. He wants to move Eurus on quickly and get back to the girl on the plane and make sure that Molly stays safe in her kitchen. I think his desperation shows through when he says, “I saved Molly Hooper!” He wants her to be saved–no surprises, no tricks. Because it would be very uncharacteristic of Eurus to spare Molly after all.

But then, Eurus shows her hand. There was a twist indeed–fortunately not one that will cost Molly her life. This was psychological torture. Molly was never in danger, and Sherlock just hurt her for no reason. He just damaged their relationship–maybe irrevocably–not to save her life, but just for his sister’s whim. And he’s just been forced to realize how very much Molly means to him. He loves her. He loves her and even though she’s alive, he may have lost her all the same.

He lost the game because he didn’t see through Eurus’s ploy. Molly is his blind spot.

thequietone0008:

OMG that’s exactly it . He was ensuing there were no after effects like the other two.. And look at his reaction to the countdown ending.. compare to the boy on the phone at the art gallery . Done over…next.. even gallery owner was more sickened.

waytoomanyhobbies:

So much yes! Sherlock is obviously terrifed for Molly throughout this scene. Molly is the woman who repeatedly saves him, and he both relies upon her and loves her–as he realizes during the scene. This is a Sherlock who is desperately trying to save Molly this time.

Downplaying Molly’s importance seemingly kept her off Moriarty’s radar, so it is a logical strategy for him to attempt here. As celticmoonbeam pointed out, Eurus has twisted both of her previous “tests” to hurt him. He can’t let that happen again with Molly’s safety in the balance. So trying to distract Eurus before she can turn this around is the most natural way he could respond here.

Sherlock is thinking so loudly in that moment that you can practically hear his thoughts screaming, “Get Eurus’s attention off Molly. Cajole Eurus into not cheating again. Make Eurus move along before she can go back on her word!”

And, while Sherlock knows that Molly can see through his facades and bullshit, he’s in uncharted emotional territory now. Platonic love took him time to wrap his head around, and he’s just been thrown into the deep waters of romantic love in a terrifying way. Someone previously described this scene as their feelings… their “I love you"s … as having been ripped from them, and that is such a perfect description. He never expected to be someone’s best friend even, let alone the love of someone’s life. He’s been denying for years that emotional entanglement had any meaning for his life, and now he’s forced to admit that it most certainly does have meaning to him and how human he is.

He’s going to have all the normal fears. Can he even do this whole relationship thing? Does he want to or feel ready to, knowing how painful it can be (Mary’s death devasted everyone, but Sherlock nearly killed himself trying to bring John back from it per Mary’s request) and how vulnerable it can make him? Will Molly even still want him after all the pain he’s caused her? He hasn’t had time to process any of it yet, and he’s trying to protect that fresh emotional wound that Eurus has made. (I think that is another reason he cut Mycroft off.) Instead, Eurus’s twist is to rub that emotional wound raw.

As Benedict Cumberbatch said Sherlock’s weakness is failing to see what’s right in front of him. Oh how many times that has bitten him in the butt regarding Molly! Meanwhile, Eurus doesn’t understand how to make connections with others, but she certainly can recognize them between others and exploit them.

Sherlock at John's therapist's house

 (Sherlock meta by half-past-chaffinch)

"How did you know?! How? On Monday, I decided to get a new therapist. Tuesday afternoon, I chose her. Wednesday morning, I booked today’s session. Now, today is Friday. So two weeks ago, two weeks before you were abducted at gunpoint and brought here against your will, over a week before I even thought of coming here, you knew exactly where you’d need to be picked up for lunch?!" 

The 6th gif, though. Eurus is warily looking on as Sherlock says “I correctly anticipated the responses of people I know well to scenarios I devised. Can’t everyone do that?” Well, she can. She’s studied them long enough, she set her plan in motion, and here they are. She’s (supposedly) a Holmes after all.

Yet she’s nervous… she’s trying to make herself tiny, insignificant, unnoticeable. She’s a tiny bit afraid of being caught in the act.

But I suspect that if Mrs Hudson hadn’t had Sherlock thrown in the boot, throwing him a bit off his game (further than the lack of sleep and drugs already had), he might have caught on that something was off about the therapist. Maybe recognized her as “Faith”, maybe not. But he would have noticed that something was up.

Note that when he comes into the therapist’s house, he asks “who is this one? Is she new?” He had already researched the therapist when he figured out which one John would visit. He knew who the therapist was. So why did he ask “who’s this one? Is she new?” Sherlock recognized on some level that this was not the therapist. But he was too distracted (enjoying his scheme playing out) and rattled (from being drug addled and tossed in the boot) to pick up on things consciously.

You Clearly Don’t Understand. Play You. 

(Or: Things That Everybody Thinks Make Sherlock Canonically Straight But They Really Really Don’t...)

 (Sherlock meta by moffat-rocks)

[...] I. Loved. Series. Four!!! In particular, I loved The Final Problem. I loved Sherlock calling John family, I loved the smashing of the casket, the touching of non-existent glass, the air plane metaphor, Mycroft outside his comfort zone, etcetera etcetera etcetera. I loved the whole bloody thing.

But my favourite, favourite moment was the one when Eurus asks Sherlock to “play you”. And he plays the theme of The Woman. 

Because it is the bravest thing Sherlock has ever done. And it makes this moment incredibly powerful. 

MIND OVER MATTER 

Irene Adler - “The Woman” - is, mildly put, a disputed character of the modern adaptation. Among other things, she is thought to be Moffat’s attempt to make Sherlock “ungay”.

But it really is quite the opposite. The Woman is not a love interest for Sherlock - she is a psychological interest, because she is everything that Sherlock is not. Or more precisely, she is everything Sherlock does not allow himself to be.

Sherlock is a man who suppresses his emotional and physical desires - not the sociopath he would like everyone to believe, but still someone who views emotional and physical desire as a distraction from the true power that is his mind.

Irene fundamentally challenges this belief by being all about desire and being extremely powerful because of it. If Sherlock cannot beat her, it would be an existential defeat to him, as it would question the very foundation of his self-imposed refrain and celibacy.

And so it is no coincidence that Irene is wearing Sherlock’s coat and that her dark hair and blue eyes mimic those of Sherlock. Irene Adler, in a way, is Sherlock. She is the human version of his desires. And A Scandal In Belgravia is entirely about Sherlock’s internal battle between his heart and his head. 

Let me make it very clear at this point that I she is not the human version of Sherlock’s wet dreams. This is an easy confusion to make, but Sherlock does not at any moment show any sign of sexual attraction towards her. (He really doesn’t. Go back and watch it again.)

He is mesmerised by her, yes, and flustered when she calls him sexy, yes, but when she flirts with him, he doesn’t flirt back, when she wants to have dinner, he is not hungry, when they spend a would-be intimate moment in the living room, Sherlock asks for John. Because that is who he really wants to see, as we can tell - not least by the fact that the human version of Sherlock’s desires is, very specifically: gay. 

But what is really interesting about A Scandal In Belgravia is, again, how incredibly powerful Irene is and how much Sherlock underestimates her. Because it shows us just how strong Sherlock’s emotions are and how hard he has to work to contain them. And now that we have seen The Final Problem, we can understand just how tragic Sherlock’s story really is. 

WHAT MIGHT WE DEDUCE ABOUT HIS HEART?

The moment when Mycroft tells the story of Redbeard, we finally learn really why Sherlock chooses to suppress his emotions:

Mycroft: “Sherlock was traumatised. Natural, I suppose. He was, in the early days, an emotional child. But after that he was different.” (The Final Problem) 

Sherlock, the child that is taunted for his lack of cleverness, is traumatised and blames himself for not solving the riddle that could have saved his friend. Sherlock blames himself for being too emotional. 

And from that moment on, he puts his entire existence into getting it right, into becoming a calculated, unattached, high-functioning sociopath, who is above all physical needs and the very best at solving crimes. Sherlock is a consulting detective - not out of vanity, but out of guilt. 

But his emotions, his desires, his yearning for affection - they have never left him. They distract him, they slow him down, they burst out of him. I think even Sherlock’s constant state of withdrawal is a conscious choice made by the writers to symbolise just how bad his mental state really is. Sherlock is forcing himself not to give in to any emotion or physical desire. And it is tormenting him. (Trust Moffat to make me tear up over a nicotine patch…)

In the form of Irene Adler, Sherlock’s emotions tease him, flirt with him, and frequently try to get his attention. But he never ever allows himself to act on it. He never texts back. Or almost never. Because sometimes, he can’t help it. Deep down, Sherlock wants to let his emotional side win.

PLAY YOU 

And then comes the moment when Sherlock finally faces the demons of his past; when he meets his long forgotten torturer, the sister who has forced him to incarcerate himself inside his own mind, the person who, according to Mycroft, has influenced Sherlock’s every choice ever made and every path ever taken. And she asks him to “play you”. 

And at first, Sherlock does put up a front and plays Bach. Look at me, sis, I play highly complex, mathematically structured pieces. Even the name, “Bach”, fits beautifully here: Water from the past creating Sherlock’s rational façade.

But Eurus interrupts him. No, you clearly don’t understand. Play you. 

And at that moment, Sherlock decides to play the theme of Irene Adler. 

The mastermind, the high-functioning sociopath, the consulting detective is told to “play you”. And his answer is: I am emotion. I am desire. I am love. 

He doesn’t know it at that moment, but Sherlock is standing in front of the person who has caused him the greatest damage of his entire life. But instead of hiding himself away as he has done all his life, Sherlock finally shows his true self. The man he wants to be. The man he really is.

Sherlock is coming out as a human being. And it is the bravest and most beautiful thing he has ever done.

Eurus and Sherlock’s Relationship and The Game 

 (Sherlock meta by strawberrypatty)

I am fascinated by the character of Eurus. I’ve seen a lot of disparaging comments about her, but I think she’s incredibly interesting. She changed what we know about Sherlock, Mycroft and the Holmes family. I think this is part of why people are so resistant to the idea of her. We don’t like when the status quo is changed. But the introduction of Eurus does explain quite a few things and deepens our understanding of the characters.

(NOTE: I am not a psychologist. I have tried to leave psychoanalysis out of this. I am just trying to read the text provided to us by the episode)

Many Holmes pastiches have tried to explain the cause of Sherlock Holmes shunning interpersonal relationships. This is often done by having him with a tragic romance as a young man. He lost the woman he loved and thus has shut himself off from feelings for anyone. This is being reflected in Sherlock’s childhood trauma as the cause in Sherlock. This makes a lot of sense. In fact, having childhood trauma being the cause makes even more sense than a tragic romance as it is a far more scarring experience for him. Not only does Sherlock lose his best friend, it is because of the sister who tormented him. When he blocked the memories out, instead of getting Sherlock proper help to deal with his trauma, Mycroft just reinforced it for what he felt was Sherlock’s own safety.

I use the word “tormented” to describe Sherlock’s interactions with Eurus. While Eurus wanted to play with Sherlock, we don’t know HOW she wanted to play with Sherlock. She doesn’t understand what pain is. She wanted to make Sherlock laugh, but she doesn’t understand the concept of pain so instead she took screaming as laughter. She lacks the ability to recognize the difference between negative and positive stimuli.

To her, giving him the mystery of what happened to Victor Trevor is a gift to Sherlock. She’s giving him a puzzle to figure out. She understands that Sherlock has an attachment to him which will spur him to search. Only, Eurus doesn’t understand that Victor is a living, breathing human being. We see even as an adult that Eurus can’t grasp that other people are anything more than unconscious bags of meat, as witnessed by her “jet” and calling the governor a prisoner of his own meat. There is of course also an element of jealousy. Sherlock and Victor were inseparable. Eurus wanted to play, but she didn’t know how to.

Sherlock was described as an emotional child. I think this was something intriguing to Eurus. It is why she focused on him rather than Mycroft. During the entire Final Problem, Mycroft is as much collateral damage as John or Molly or the Governor. To Eurus, emotions are a puzzle that she has to figure out. All of the tests she sets are psychological and focused on Sherlock.

There is no need for Eurus to spend the night with Sherlock after giving him the Culverton Smith mystery. I believe this is a mix of wanting to understand how he treats a normal person and also a need to be around him. It is the first time in her life she is treated as normal, even if she is in disguise at the time.

When she talks to Sherlock in her cell, she looks betrayed when he doesn’t remember that she taught him to play the violin. She also wants to hear him when he’s playing violin. Eurus is trying to figure out who Sherlock is. He is not to her level, because no one is, but there is still a connection. Sherlock understand the things that she can’t— emotions.

Mycroft can understand Eurus on an intellectual level for the most part (she says if she went a bit slow he would get it). But Sherlock is still her favourite brother. There are think a few reasons for this:

(1) I know they say it’s never twins, but Sherlock and Eurus are [twins]. The only reason they had them a year apart (“Irish Twins”) is because Moffat and Gatiss I’m SURE didn’t want to read “Sherlock’s evil twin” in every single review, but every interaction between them is written as if they were twins. There is a deep connection between them that comes from being close siblings.

(2) While Sherlock is the “idiot”, Eurus doesn’t completely understand him. While she is incredibly intelligent, intelligence can’t help someone understand emotion since emotion and logic often work independently. Eurus’ understanding of emotion comes experimenting on Sherlock and examining him.

She speaks of emotional context, but Eurus doesn’t understand what emotional context truly is herself. There is no way she could. She is “beyond Newton” in terms of intellect, but she has been locked up in isolation since childhood. The most she has interacted with people has been to be used as a tool by Mycroft (this might also explain some of her coldness towards Mycroft. Since he used her as a tool, she will use him as the same).

She wants to understand emotional context, which for all of her talk about it turning the third test she does NOT understand. That is the purpose of the tests, so she can find out what Sherlock’s emotional reactions will be. Witness the people she uses in her test: the three people who are most likely to evoke an emotional responce from Sherlock, save for Mrs Hudson (however, I wonder if Eurus has meant for Mrs Hudson to have been killed in the blast on 221B, it’s just that Mycroft was able to rescue her).

There is one thing that is important to keep in mind through all of The Final Problem: The “idiot” Holmes sibling is able to predict the movements of his friends weeks in advance. We also get hints of this from Eurus, being told she spent an hour on Twitter and predicted terrorist attacks. There is an element of this in everything Eurus does. She is attempting to predict what Sherlock will do and what those around him will as well.

The first test is who Sherlock will choose to turn into a murderer (or multiple murderer). She is interested to know how everyone in the room is reacting. She asks for updates on their anxiety levels and suggests she should have fit them for cardiographs. This is how Eurus sees emotion, as physical responces.

Eurus is also completely and utterly in control of the test. I didn’t realize this until my third viewing. She said she’s providing a countdown, but it’s not verbal. Then I realized… The Governor himself is the countdown. Eurus has used her hypnotic suggestion on the Governor to take over Sherrinford. It is completely plausible that she would also set him to kill himself if John or Mycroft fail to kill him within the allotted timespan. That way, the Governor is out of the way for the next tests and John (and Sherlock) culpable of murder by proxy for their inaction.

Eurus says that the Governor is as interesting dead as he was alive. There is the same cavalier attitude towards anyone who is not Sherlock. The interest in John and Mycroft is still focused on Sherlock, as it will tie into Eurus’ finale. She gets into this during The Three Garridebs: “Make use of your friends. I want to see you interact with people you’re close to. Also, you may have to choose which one to keep.”.

In the first test, Eurus is instructing Sherlock to murder someone using either John or Mycroft as a murder weapon. She will be aware of Sherlock’s murder of Magnussen, so she knows that Sherlock is capable of murder. But what she is interested in is which one Sherlock will choose to use. I believe this ties into the final test.

With the Garridebs, Eurus says exactly why she does the test: She wants to see him repress his emotions in order for his reasoning to work. So she gives him the “context” that his actions will condemn someone to die. The Sherlock that Eurus is familiar with was quite emotional. But she’s heard and seen that he has turned himself into a cold, calculating man of logic. Mostly likely Mycroft has told her it is because of her. She wants to test that, see how far it goes, how much influence she has had on him.

In the end, her killing of all three Garridebs is because they don’t matter. What matters is Sherlock.

And now, the scene I have already written SO MUCH about. This is such a fascinating scene to me: the one with Molly Hooper. I will try not to repeat myself too much, but it is bound to happen. It is important to note that Eurus has SEEN Sherlock interact with Molly, albeit briefly. She heard John say that Molly is the one person able to see through Sherlock’s bullshit. We also don’t know what kind of information Eurus has received on Sherlock. However, it is clear to me that Eurus knew Sherlock harboured feelings for Molly. Why is this? Because Molly doesn’t matter to Eurus. She is— like everyone who is not Sherlock— just meat. Sherlock lying to Molly doesn’t make sense because

1. Molly would’ve seen through it.  
2. Guilt over playing with Molly’s affections isn’t enough for Eurus. 

Her previous two tests have been about Sherlock and life and death. Each subsequent test chips away more and more at him emotionally. Just making Sherlock revert back to who he was in Series 1 is not a strong enough test. Eurus is intelligent enough to know that Molly will want Sherlock to say it first and that Sherlock does in fact mean it. He doesn’t know what it means, but that is the reaction she wants.

Eurus claims a victory, because Sherlock has failed to figure out that she wouldn’t have wired Molly’s house with explosives. He was too blinded with panic to think logically, because someone he absolutely loved was in danger. He fails because he couldn’t come up with a way to get Molly to say the words without admitting his own feelings. (“Look what you did to yourself. All of those complicated little emotions.”)

Before Eurus mocks Sherlock, she has a fascinating reaction to Sherlock and Molly admitting their love. I’ve provided a screencap because of how important I believe this is.

That is not the look of an cold, removed scientist. In trying to evoke an emotional responce out of Sherlock using Molly, Eurus I believe has felt something herself. Eurus said that she liked to make Sherlock “laugh”. She has now gotten another emotional reaction from him.

The final test is whether or not Sherlock will kill John or Mycroft. This is Eurus’ true test, because she doesn’t actually know what Sherlock’s reaction is going to be. When Sherlock makes his choice, she says that is was Jim who predicted Sherlock would kill Mycroft. If she had thought that was the case, wouldn’t she say that herself?

I think Eurus thought that Sherlock would kill John, because Mycroft is family. Deep down, what Eurus is looking for is familial affection and she believed that Sherlock would choose family. He would choose HER in the end.

But Sherlock has been put through so much by this point that he’s managed to deduce enough about Eurus. He knows she still wants— needs— him alive. So he decides to kill himself. Rather than just doing it straight off, he gives her a verbal countdown, the thing she robbed them of when killing the Governor and his wife. He knows Eurus will stop him and thus both Mycroft and John will be saved.

Either way, someone was going to end up in the well. Eurus has stripped Sherlock down emotionally and mentally for two purposes:

1. Getting him to really remember her and her game. 
2. Motivate him to finish it.

 And in the end, her game is for Sherlock to come to her. Because she needs Sherlock. She is the girl in the jet with unconscious people around her. She is crashing, because she doesn’t understand her feelings. She has been locked away since she was five years old, just used as a pawn for Mycroft. Mycroft hasn’t had any interest in her emotional wellbeing. He has written her off. He doesn’t know how to deal with it, just like he believed the answer to Sherlock’s problems were to let him forget his childhood trauma rather than work through it.

In the end, I think the relationship of Eurus and Sherlock comes down to the fact that Sherlock is a bridge between Eurus and everyone else. Sherlock is in essence Eurus’ John. It is through John that Sherlock really learns how to form interpersonal relationships. When we meet him in A Study in Pink, he’s not able to find a flatmate, he can’t tell when a girl is asking him out for coffee. But it is through his relationship with John that he has managed to get to this point, where he calls Mary and Molly is friends, where he is able to admit his love for Molly, where he can talk to Mycroft without snarking. Sherlock is the only person who can speak on Eurus’ level, but teach her about the parts of life that she doesn’t understand, emotions and how to be able to live in the world.

Unfortunately, Eurus has done so much that she will have to remain locked up. But we see at the end that Sherlock and Eurus finally play together, this time with their violins. The Holmes family comes together, finally able to start to mend themselves after so many years of heartache.

And Sherlock himself has come to a new place in his life. He has subconsciously tried to make himself into Eurus, albeit a much more controlled one. He cuts himself off from people. He uses his intelligence as an excuse to not socialize with people because they bore him. He has even done experiments on his friends. He drugs John with terror toxin to see his reaction, he has drugged him in the past. He has even done the exact same thing Eurus did, threatening John with a bomb to get him to reveal his true feelings about Sherlock’s faked death, with Eurus does to Sherlock by threatening Molly with an explosive. As Mycroft said, the man Sherlock is comes from his hidden memory of Eurus. The emotional trauma of losing his friend, his home and his sister was too much for him to bear and he cut himself off, instead forming himself into a less version of Eurus.

But that’s not who he is. He’s Sherlock Holmes, the detective in the funny hat. He is a man with friends, with emotions. By the end montage we see him smiling, happy. He has accepted who he really is. He can still be the detective in the silly hat, but he had been able to let go of the things that have held him back from being who he truly is.

“The man you are today is your memory of Eurus” 

  (Sherlock meta by thepurplecarbuncle and bassfanimation)

thepurplecarbuncle:

[...]  Absolutely not. Incorrect. How and why is that supposed to be true if he can’t even remember her? [...] You can’t make shit up as you go along and then pretend the random backstory you wrote into episode 13 has been some sort of unmentioned character arc from the beginning. [...]

bassfanimation:

It actually makes quite a lot of sense, especially if you take into account the series as an entire whole story. All of Sherlock’s choices make sense.

His preoccupation with solving murders = never being able to figure out what happened to his childhood best friend.

His temper tantrums and outbursts, failure to behave like a mature adult = childhood trauma at an early enough age that it essentially froze his emotional development.

His need for John = represents the best friend he lost, circling back around to Sherlock being essentially emotionally stunted at age 5 or 6.

His keeping all emotion and love away over cold hard logic = fear of loss, abandonment. Science and facts are always trustworthy and never leave you.

Mycroft’s preoccupation with Sherlock’s well being and safety = witnessing what loss did to his very small brother, and knowing it has damaged him terribly.

It’s understandable that many people didn’t like the character arc of Sherlock and don’t feel it was rolled out very well. It wasn’t done as well as it should have been, but I think the writers knew that getting everyone back together for a S5 was going to be virtually impossible. I do think they rushed forth with the Eurus storyline too quickly, and resolved it too quickly, I don’t think they had a choice.

Still, everything about it still made perfect sense, at least to me. I’ve had similar childhood trauma though, so maybe that’s why it feels so valid to me. I’m fully aware that I might be projecting, but the text of the storyline is really very clear to someone like me. It might be worth exploring along the lines of trauma though, and not so much about the cases or the villains, etc.

‘I love you’ thoughts

 (Sherlock meta by lolafiction)

Euros is putting Sherlock to the test with each task. Up front the task involving Molly seems easy- she loves him, everyone knows it, and all Sherlock has to do is get her to say it.

But the problem is that because it’s true, it’s hard for her to say it to him.

So Sherlock tries to approach it from a detective angle- “it’s an experiment, it’s for a case" etc etc. But she’s all like “No Sherlock, I’m sick of your bull shit- if you really want me to say it you have to give me something real back.” He’s always using her, toying with her emotions to help him with his work. But their relationship is beyond that now. Euros knows this too- she heard John say “the one person who saw through your bullshit long ago” or something to that effect. So Molly is all “tell me you love me first and say it like you mean it- you want me to be vulnerable, you need to be vulnerable too.”

Sherlock freaks as does Mycroft because they both know that it’s incredibly hard for Sherlock to say “I love you” and mean it because he has locked away his emotions for his whole life. And he really DOES have to mean it because Molly can see through his bullshit. So he forces it out. But once he’s said it, he’s realised that it’s easy to say it again, because it’s true. Whether he means it in a romantic sense or not it doesn’t matter because it’s true. Sherlock loves Molly and he finally was able to tell her, for her sake.

When Sherlock realises it’s all for nothing he cracks because he just put himself and Molly through all that for nothing. Making him open up, forcing her to say it to him when it was breaking her.

I think Euros knew that Molly was the only one that could get Sherlock to open up emotionally and torture him in that way.

About the coffin-smashing scene

 (Sherlock meta by justaminion)

Having seen various posts on this topic, I wanted to add my thoughts on why Sherlock “lost it” over Molly Hooper. I think it was because Eurus forced Sherlock and Molly to fast-forward through a potential romantic relationship and act out several intensely emotional moments that could really happen between them. As she said: “So many days not lived, so many words unsaid…”

In this scene Eurus is literally making them live those moments and say those words.

All of these potential moments scare the life out of Sherlock, and are the (possibly unconscious) reasons he’s afraid a relationship with Molly would be doomed to fail, (the irony being that his fears are completely human and normal, in fact, sweeter than normal, because that’s who he really is).

1. Sherlock’s request for Molly to say ‘I love you.’

In a relationship Sherlock is afraid he would be cruel to her, like this, he might hurt her, make her cry, and not understand why. If he is sociopath; she deserves better than him, and he won’t be able to avoid hurting her.

2. His first 'I love you.’

 In real life he might be terrified because he knows he has to say it, because she expects it, but he’s not sure if he does love her or even if he can love her in that way. He can’t lie to her; she sees right through him, so she’ll be able to tell if he doesn’t mean it, and then, no matter how much he wants her, he won’t be able to have her.

3. His second 'I love you.'

 Here is the realisation that he’s an idiot: it felt the most natural thing in the world to say, because of course he truly does love her. He’s stunned, he’s human after all, and he would be joyful, if it were not for the fact that…

4. She’s about to die, because of him.

He loves her, and now he faces the prospect of losing her, just as he lost Mary, and this time it’s entirely his fault for putting her at risk. By loving her, he’s shown he’s just as human as everyone else, and therefore just as vulnerable. Losing her will destroy him.

So Eurus made Sherlock live all of that, in three minutes. That’s why it felt like vivisection. She pressed on his most sensitive nerves and made him dance like an ordinary human being.

She opened up his beating heart and found sweet little Molly Hooper.

It’s interesting to note that… (Regarding Sherlock's type)

 (Sherlock meta by justaminion, mychakk and theleftpill)

justaminion:

When Eurus wanted John’s attention, she impersonated a vivacious, confident woman who found him attractive.

When Eurus wanted Sherlock’s attention, she impersonated a slightly awkward, pretty, but vulnerable woman who needed him to save her.

What, therefore, might we deduce about Sherlock’s “type?”

mychakk:

Wow, that’s a pretty interesting observation. Meta bunnies attack, sorry, they make my hijack this post….

Notice that the description of the woman Eurus impersonated for John fits Mary exactly to the bone. She was John’s type through and through. Warstan <3

Also, which other woman on the show fits that description? A certain Dominatrix. But instead of John, she finds Sherlock being attractive. And since John wants Sherlock to be happy, what does he do? He shoves Sherlock toward her. In John’s mind it’s a perfect match, but in reality, it’s him himself who subconsciously finds her attractive. He’s projecting his own type onto Sherlock when he thinks of his best friend in a relationship with a woman. That’s why John’s first thought is Irene when he makes his speech in TLD, why he thinks of her first when they deduce the coffin. She’s [...] John’s type. It’s also why, Molly never crosses John’s mind.

For all his consideration, John has never found Molly attractive, she’s too stammering and stuttering, too eager to please, too shy for his liking. He’s always dismissing her importance, because subconsciously she’s not the type of woman worth his noticing. It may sound harsh, but it’s simple rules of attractions I suppose. And, like I said, John has never been attracted to Molly that way. Well, except that one Christmas, when Molly dolled herself up projecting false confidence. Both John and Lestrade drolled over her while it was the only time Sherlock openly disliked what he saw regarding Molly. Because the thing is, that’s not what Sherlock actually finds attractive.

I’m probably in the very minority of our fandom, but I’ve never seen any attraction toward Irene on Sherlock’s part. That’s was my very first impression when I watched ASiB, then I went online and was bombarded with all the Adl0ck stuff, even in the Sherlolly stories/posts and it made me start doubting myself. Must have missed something, I thought. It took me a while to rewatch ASiB, as I needed to brace myself for all the supposed Adl0ck there, and surprise, surprise, my first impression was only confirmed on my second and third viewing.

I will never deny that Sherlock was very intrigued by Irene and fascinated by her intelligence, brainy is the new sexy indeed, but she was intriguing only as a case. She’s not his type, so while it stroked his ego, her obvious attraction to him, he wasn’t moved that much by it. I do think that by the end of the episode, he was seriously entertaining the thought of giving it a go with her, but then she showed him her cards when they met in the plane - she had ruthlessly played him in order to get to Mycroft for Moriarty.

I think in this moment Irene herself destroyed any future possibilities for Adl0ck. Her betrayal was like a bucket of cold water that allowed Sherlock to crack her pass code. She was a worthy and capable, not-to-be-underestimated adversary and having her in his corner owing him her life was too much an opportunity to pass up, so he saved her in Pakistan. Plus, no matter what, he’s a caring man, and she was vulnerable and in need of being saved.

Do I think they did the deed in Karachi? No. He denied her once again. She betrayed his trust, and trust is something he values very much. Was it hard for him to turn her down? Definitely. Like I said, she was vulnerable and in need of being saved, and that IS his type.

Now what is really Sherlock’s type? A slightly awkward, pretty, vulnerable woman who needs him to save her. But that’s only the surface. Notice, that Eurus impersonated a woman with morals stronger than family bonds, a woman strong enough to do what’s right no matter the cost and consequences for her (she was supposedly betraying her own father). That takes courage, inner strength, and determination. And that’s even more attractive to Sherlock than the initial description.

We all know who fits that bill. Molly. Time and time again she has proved to him her strength, resilience, her determination. She has stood by him, catered to him, but has never been afraid to stand up to him, even back in season 1 she called him on his behaviour when Jim was introduced. Even back then she was quite determined in asking him out. And courageous. On top of that she’s awkward and pretty. And yes, Sherlock has always found Molly pretty – you do not notice lipsticks, pounds gaining, breasts, etc, just because. And even if you do, you do not point it out loud. Sherlock finds Molly physically attractive, her character traits are also ones he values much (those can also be applied to John, Lestrade, Mrs. H), and she’s the most trustworthy person he knows. And this is the final seal on the deal.

I mentioned above that trust is something Sherlock values very much if not even the highest. Irene destroyed any possibilities for any future Adl0ck by betraying Sherlock’s trust. And I think Sherlock is incapable of being intimate with someone he cannot trust. Molly on the other hand is someone who saved him, his friends, and maybe even England. Molly took all in stride and for two years harboured his secret. Molly welcomes him at Barts trusting him with her work place, welcomes him at her own home, trusting him with her private life. And Sherlock trusts her in return, with his life, with his plans, with his vulnerability. It’s canon he trust her more than he does even John.

Molly’s always been his type, Molly's always been the one.

theleftpill:

I disagree with your take on Adl0ck - while I do agree that the attraction isn’t an emotional one, I do think Sherlock is physically and definitely intellectually attracted to her. My pov is that Irene opens the door to the possibility of connection and attachment for him; she’s a safe person to experiment with, to indulge with, because there are no stakes attached. I agree that she’s destroyed any trust he could have in her, but that wouldn’t preclude him from exploring the involvement. (And I don’t feel Irene has a problem with this.) She definitely echoes for him - appearing in his mind palace, the picture in the Victorian watch, still texting after all these years. There is something there that can’t be dismissed.

But your observation about John is a revelation - yes, [...] I completely see Mary in Elizabeth. But wow, John - It makes perfect sense that John would encourage Sherlock to go after a woman he felt was attractive. And why he doesn’t see Molly.

But Sherlock does. You’ve nailed that completely.

mychakk:

It’s fine to disagree, I know I’m in minority on this Also formulating reply clarifies my own views. I definitely see your point, especially if your take on Sherlock is that he can be intimate without a shared trust. I can’t. And I just realized it ties up with my view of him being unable to find himself worthy of love in any form. I explained this in one of my earlier posts, just don’t know how to link it here yet… But I definitely agree with you about Irene opening Sherlock to a possibility - I also wrote that in the post I cannot link here. But to me Irene opened Sherlock to the possibility of being attractive to someone the way he is (brilliant, passionate, driven etc, not just for his looks), she finally managed to convince him, and then she betrayed him. (Also Molly does exactly the same thing in her quiet unassuming way - she shows her attraction to him, except she doesn’t betray him, and later on in The Reichenbach Fall she proves to be trustworthy like no one else). I think that Irene is a double edged sword in Sherlock’s Mind Palace - on one hand she represents a captivating woman being attracted to him, his indulgence in being attractive to someone (The Sign of Three) on the other hand she’s a harsh reminder of sentiment being a disadvantage that can kill you (the locket in The Abominable Bride). But that’s me. The best part in fandom is we can have different opinions.

justaminion:

I’m so glad my little post helped start this insightful discussion! (and that people can disagree so politely, Sherlollians are the best).

I like the Steven Moffat quote about Sherlock and Irene’s idea of a night of passion being to meet up every so often to rescue the other one and then run off again.

Regarding intimacy and trust, I agree with you. I think it’s interesting that the “I don’t count scene” with Molly demonstrates that Sherlock already lets Molly see his vulnerabilities, which he hides even from John. He doesn’t make the conscious decision to trust her, he just does.

“I made me” vs. “Eurus made you”: some rambling and likely incoherent thoughts on this apparent contradiction

 (Sherlock meta by unreconstructedfangirl and anarfea)

unreconstructedfangirl:

Something I really liked in the story from The Abominable Bride to The Final Problem is the whole question of what made Sherlock what he is – and indeed, I think it’s the central question in The Final Problem. I’ve read lots of comments on this in people’s meta around here, and wanted to have a go at saying what I liked about the storytelling in this particular regard.

Many have noted the apparent contradiction between Sherlock’s “Nothing made me. I made me” and Mycroft’s saying that everything Sherlock is, ever decision he’s ever made is because of Eurus. I feel like a mistake we make is taking everything the text tells us as a thing we are being told directly by the text, rather than thinking about how reliable what the text is telling us really is, considering the source and the character who says it.

I loved Sherlock’s “I made me” in The Abominable Bride. It was one of my favourite moments. I loved the idea that in his mind, he was able to take responsibility for himself, and know, somewhere deep inside, that he was the one making the decisions that kept him separate and alone. I feel like, if we can realise that WE choose things, then we have some kind of agency, and power over them, and I like the idea of his having that kind of power over his own narrative. So, when this story of Eurus and young Victor comes along, and Mycroft tells us of that this isn’t true – in fact, Eurus made him? If I’m to take that at face value, it’s disappointing – childhood trauma made Sherlock what he is.

Dull – and done to death, right?

The thing I love, though, is that they are both right, and both wrong, and I really enjoyed thinking about what the constellations are in the spaces between them.

What we all do, every day (and I think being in love with and retelling this story is part of this effort for many of us) is tell ourselves the daily story of what we mean and who we are. In the words of Neurologist Oliver Sacks, we “throw bridges of meaning over abysses of meaninglessness” and create ourselves via narrative – the stories we tell ourselves about who we are. This is what makes us human beings – this continual myth-making – and this narrative of who we are and what we mean is a construct of our minds.

So…Sherlock told himself a story – he made himself. It was a defensive mechanism, and it coincided with his emotional withdrawal, a mechanism he used to protect himself from the pain of love, loss, grief, and importantly, horror. Sherlock made himself, and part of making himself was denying the fact that other people have the power to shape us, and reshape our narrative. He radically claimed agency in defiance of pain. But, it’s not quite true, and what’s more he can’t quite stay away from a world full of horror, can he? As a detective and a junkie, he tries to solve the mystery of horror and pain over and over again while keeping emotional reality at a distance.

Mycroft, meanwhile, sees Sherlock from the outside – sees him as a victim of trauma whose subsequent decision not to feel has kept him safe from further trauma, and he encourages it: “…caring is not an advantage … don’t get involved … Redbeard!” Mycroft sees Sherlock as fragile, prone to self-destruction, and in need of protection – as powerless, and he’s not wrong. Sherlock is compulsive, an addict, and a person in denial of his own heart. Mycroft acts out of love in a paternalistic manner towards not only Sherlock, but the whole family, because that’s the story Mycroft told himself… and the story tells us that this is “limited”, and it is. It’s nice that in the end, Sherlock is able to see that Mycroft did his best, though. That’s real progress.

The fact that both of these things “made” Sherlock isn’t a contradiction, it’s two seemingly contradictory things that are both true from different perspectives; two data points that allow us to see what’s happening when Sherlock remembers Victor and opens his heart to his Eurus, and then chooses the path that will allow him to remake himself, having integrated what he knows into a truer version of events. He DID make himself, and also, she made him. We are not impervious to others, but we do choose which way we go. Sherlock chooses love.

The experiments Eurus runs to try to find out who Sherlock is – what he will do given the choices she gives him all lead to this question of what he will do with her when he knows the truth – and she needs him to know, or she can never come down from her metaphorical plane. She loves him and she needs his love, so she is trying to find out how his love works throughout the episode. Because, Eurus did something terribly damaging, and she needs her brother to know it. She also loves him, and needs him to love her. I love that Sherlock, because of everything that he has been through and felt and experienced is able to have the empathetic response that he has. That he realises that he has a role in healing something in her, as she has healed something in him by finally helping him to see that he is not, never has been, and can never be an island.

And I love, at the end, seeing Sherlock embrace the fact that who we are is a co-creation – a relationship between the people we love and our responses to them. We are not islands of independent myth-making. Sherlock Holmes is not an isolated freakish genius – he is a person of some experience and the wisdom that came from it – he has a past, he lived a life.

The final scenes, in which John and Sherlock embrace what they can be together, and rebuild their home and their hearts to include all that they have experienced and become because of love, and they are surrounded by their village of loved ones were really moving to me. In fact, when I watched it again, I didn’t even hate Mary’s voice over – she was an important part of their shared story, she loved them both, and she belongs there. I really like this as the beginning of them BEING WHAT THEY ARE in legend – a brilliant, humane detective and his astute storyteller who is smarter than he looks, and now the myth they are making is their partnership. It’s a story with both horror and love, and the only way it is what it is, is in partnership. I mean… I loved that! [...]

anarfea:

So, I agree with your analysis but one of the things that always got me about the line, “you do remember her, in a way. Every choice you ever made, every path you’ve ever taken, the man you are today: is your memory of Eurus.” is how true this is –of Mycroft. 

Mycroft says, “what Uncle Rudi began, I thought it best to continue.” Locking Eurus up wasn’t Mycroft’s choice. If we decide that they took Eurus away when she was five (which I’m basing solely on child Eurus’ apparent age and Mycroft’s comment to the governor that “she’s been capable of [enslaving people] since she was five”), then Mycroft was thirteen. He was a child. Rudi decided to lock Eurus up in Sherrinford with the “uncontainables” and lie to Mr and Mrs Holmes about the fate of their daughter. Mycroft simply carried on the lie. Again, he was thirteen and presumably traumatized by knowing that his sister killed his brother’s best friend and his brother no longer remembered her. Presumably he thought it would be best if his parents could also, if not forget that Eurus existed, then move on with their lives thinking she was gone.

But that decision irrevocably changed Mycroft’s relationship with his parents, and with Sherlock. It isolated him from his entire family (ironically, except for Eurus, the only one in on his secret). Mycroft spent Christmas with Eurus and Jim Moriarty and then went home to drink alone while Sherlock celebrated at 221b surrounded by friends.

Uncle Rudi also seems to have set Mycroft on his career path. He seems to have been some kind of shadowy government spook, and put Mycroft on the path to shadowy government spook. Who knows who or what he might have been if he hadn’t spent his entire life protecting this secret.

So yes, Mycroft is the man he is today because of Eurus. And IMO, he’s projecting when he says that about Sherlock. It’s true for him, so he thinks it’s true for his brother. And on some level, it is. Someone on my dash (i think @themissadventurer?) was saying that when Sherlock says “I made me,” in The Abominable Bride, we hear a dog barking in the background and he says “Redbeard,” immediately after. Of course his childhood trauma influenced him. We are all shaped by our childhood traumas (or at least I know I was). So Eurus having shaped them is the truth.

But the truth, as Oscar Wilde said, and The Final Problem keeps reminding us, is rarely pure, and never simple.

“Moriarty slipped up, he made a mistake…”

 (Sherlock meta by eugeniebatch and anarfea)

eugeniebatch:

Oh, no. He didn’t.
He told Eurus about Molly.

In those 5 minutes, he told her about the things that would drive Sherlock out of his mind. And of course, he also told her about the person who mattered the most, giving her the opportunity to play with Sherlock’s emotions.

Thus, even after death, Moriarty managed to “burn the heart out of him”.

anarfea:

I thought that Eurus deduced this herself. Sherlock made the mistake of having Molly show up at John’s therapy session to diagnose him. And John refers to her as “the one person who can see through your bullshit.” Eurus watches the whole exchange after she examines him where Molly says “I’m stressed; you’re dying.” She sees what they mean to each other, when they exchange those dark, meaningful looks at the ambulance.

Jim thought that John was Sherlock’s heart, IMO. He connected John to Victor via Redbeard (hence the referring to John as a ‘pet.’ as does Eurus). He thought John is the person who matters the most to Sherlock, and he thought that Sherlock would kill Mycroft to save John, and that he would suffer terribly.

Eurus says that “Moriarty thought you would make this choice.” I think she was hoping that Sherlock would kill John to save Mycroft, because she wanted him to chose his family over his friend. The way she wanted him to chose her over Victor when they were children.

I think that Jim and Eurus had a post-mortem bet going on, about who Sherlock would kill. And I think they both lost, because in the end Sherlock chose to kill himself before he’d kill either Mycroft or Sherlock.

And as for Molly. I like to think that Jim didn’t realize that Molly mattered, and that Eurus did. But the real catch of course, is that neither of them succeeded in burning Sherlock’s heart out in the end. He came to the realization that he loves her. And you can see at the end of The Final Problem that she knows it. If anything, they help Sherlock find his heart again, after it was broken in The Lying Detective by his grief over Mary’s death and John’s cruelty towards him.

"Don’t be alarmed, it’s to do with sex"

 (Sherlock meta by mae-jones and o0katiekins0o)

[Mycroft: Don't be alarmed, it's to do with sex.
Sherlock: Sex doesn't alarm me.
Mycroft: How would you know?]

mae-jones:

Some took this to mean Sherlock was a virgin, especially with Sherlock being referred to as “the virgin” later. However, one could extrapolate many things from these exchanges.

Mycroft’s “how would you know?” could be a dig at how Sherlock has utilized sex to get what he wants. Sherlock is the ultimate control freak at this point in time. He has never been in love with a potential partner. He very well could have had sex a million times but I imagine he would have done so for perfunctory reasons. So, of course sex wouldn’t alarm Sherlock if it was always on his terms and he was in complete control of his emotions.

Mycroft’s ‘how would you know?” could very well be, “how would you know what it’s like to be so desperate for someone that you lose your mind with them and get turned inside out by your physical desires?”

As per “the virgin” comment, it could be the same vein of thought. Without being into someone, with having the emotional connection to them, sex would be functional for someone like Sherlock. Sherlock, for all intents and purposes, is a virgin when it comes to romantic love and I think that is the ultimate message they were trying to instill in us as viewers.

In series 3, this comes full circle when Mycroft says, “I’m not lonely!” Sherlock uses his brother’s words against him. Again, it’s a parallel in emotions, not physicality. Sherlock is stepping out of the “virgin” emotional role. It shows how his feelings are developing, how he’s come to recognize the absence of romantic love in other people’s lives.

Sherlock’s physical virginity is ultimately irrelevant (as it really is irl). The sex part of the equation is unimportant, it always has been. ie/ Emotional context.

PS - From a Sherlolly standpoint, it’s kinda cool to think that the creators may have ALWAYS intended for Sherlock to fall in love romantically. These little hints are insights into where they were going with the show, not just opening Sherlock up, but a complete transformation. That’s what the virginity trope has always been about, not the fetishism of the physical, but how love can change us.

o0katiekins0o:

And it was brought up again in The Final Problem when Mycroft said he’d asked Eurus if she felt pain and she said “Which one’s [pain]?”

How would you know if sex alarms you if you have never been able to make the connection between sexual expression and romantic love?

How would you know that you’re lonely if you fail to connect your isolation with your unhappiness?

How do you know what pain is when you feel so intensely that you can’t suss out one emotional state from another?

I have said for a long time that the Holmes weren’t born with the empathic connection of emotional state and cognition.

Sherlock actually tries to make the connection on a very basic level aided by John: X means happy, Y means sad, Z means angry. We watch him learn to form these connections through the progression of the series.

The only emotional-physical state Sherlock seems to inherently understand and respect is fear. In The Hounds of Baskerville he gives his “body betrays me” speech and in The Abominable Bride when he told Lestrade “Fear is Wisdom in the face of danger”.

If you subscribe to the notion that all emotions exist on a spectrum between fear and love, then it starts to look as though the entire show is Sherlock starting at fear and working his way through the entire spectrum leaving “The Final Problem” aka Love.

Eurus wanted him to snap 

 (sherlock meta by jennifer-lily through fuckyeahsherlolly)

If Eurus wanted Sherlock to snap why didn’t she use Irene Adler? I love both women, but giving John speech about Irene’s texts in TLD I thought his true weakness was her - The Woman.

I don’t buy at all the “his outburst was because of the stressed situation/because he hurt a friend” explanations ‘cause he remained impassive when people actually died, but lost control because of words, his and Molly’s feelings. Words.

Giving his rational mind, words and love confessions should be nothing compared to actual death. He’d prefer to break her heart than to having her killed. If he didn’t feel anything of the sort, he’d have simply found a tricky way to make her say it. But no, he suddenly went emotional, tricked himself and almost fucked up.

They could have used his deep friendship with John (which they did, but not in this way, not to cause him this level of frustration, hurt and anger), but they chose Molly. Why?

“Look what you did to her. Look what you did to yourself, all those complicated little emotions. I lost count. Emotional context, Sherlock. It destroys you every time.” 

In fact, it did.

It’s the first time I take Molly's and Sherlock's relationship seriously - in a level that contemplates possible romantic feelings. This scene was so powerful that it’s hard not to see all the nuances. I truly never thought Molly as such a weakness for him.

Three ILY's from Sherlock with three different meanings, in which is clear that the last one is some kind of revelation he has never really thought about before. His feelings actually came out through words.

This is a confession about something not exactly clear in his mind yet. It’s completely new, he still doesn’t know what to do with this particular emotion.

Somehow, Sherlolly doesn’t seem such a strange ship, not even for himself.

Why Sherlock broke the coffin in anger

 (Sherlock meta by mae-jones)

Q: Why do you think Sherlock broke the coffin in anger TFP? [...]

A. [...] Sherlock and the coffin smashing - well, why does anyone break anything? It’s a release. He had reached a breaking point and needed to inflict his rage on something.

If he were enraged at Eurus, he would probably have smashed the focus of his rage, ie/ the television screen or the cameras. No, this was anger and frustration directed at himself and in that moment, the coffin represented everything he had failed at. He had failed to anticipate getting himself into this conundrum, to deduce Eurus’ true intentions of the game, to protect Molly (even if she wasn’t ever in real danger), and most of all, he had failed to protect his heart. Thus, smashing the coffin was an attempt to make it all ‘go away’.

What he realized shortly thereafter as he slunk to the floor with shaking hands, is that out of sight does not mean out of mind and an idea once it takes hold, it cannot be destroyed. The vivisection he referred to, was the extraction of something he had thought didn’t exist - his capacity for romantic love.

Eurus proved to him it did.

Why did Eurus flirt with John?

 (Sherlock meta by theleftpill and anarfea)

Q: Hi! Why do you think Eurus flirted with John? I mean... if she wanted to know more about him or his relationship with Sherlock she just needed to read John's blog, right?

theleftpill:

I don’t know, really. I haven’t let myself delve too much into Eurus’ storyline, because I’m not really resolved to embrace it yet. (I’m not really a fan of the retconning required.) But to explore it a bit -

Reading the blog gets you only so far in knowing John. It’s clear that there’s a lot that John is leaving out: whether out of privacy or laziness or forgetfulness, the blog entries are not the whole picture. And when you’re writing for an audience, you write with a “persona”, you present a picture of yourself to the world which may not be entirely genuine. You don’t see interactions, body language, emotion, etc. So reading the blog wouldn’t necessarily give Eurus a complete picture of John, or his relationship with Sherlock.

A big question about why she flirted with John is WHY? Was she trying to understand him, and for his own sake or Sherlock’s? Was she looking for material for her game? Did she just want to know her brother’s best friend? Was she testing his loyalty in his marriage? I think this is one of the major elements that suffered in (my imagined) compression of the stories into S4. As it stands now, for me, the flirting has no reason, doesn’t really go anywhere (except to make John guilty), and just serves no purpose. At least to my mind.

I’d like to hear others’ opinions on this - I know a lot of you have been exploring Eurus’ storyline and motivations a lot more than I have. Thoughts?

anarfea:

@drinkingcocoa-tpp had an excellent answer to this question on the most recent episode of 3 Patch Podcast during the S4 reaction roundtable. In a nutshell, Eurus understands that Sherlock’s friendship with John is the thing that separates him from her and Mycroft (and also Moriarty). John is what grounds Sherlock (not saying I agree, but I think that’s the point the creators are trying to make) and Eurus is alone in the sky with nowhere to land.

So I think on some level she’s trying to figure out what’s so special about John, and if it will work for her, too. Like, if she seduces him, if she can be close to him, can she get something like what Sherlock has with John? And the answer is no, because Eurus isn’t actually capable of connecting with people because she sees them all as unconscious bags of meat.

But it’s Sherlock’s ability to connect with John that convinces her of his ability to help her. Sherlock functions as a bridge between Eurus (the sky) and ordinary people (the ground). John is what makes Eurus think that Sherlock will be able to talk her down. And I think this is why she shows up as “Faith” with the cane and the gun in her handbag and is basically re-creating the circumstances under which Sherlock met John, in a way. And Sherlock is nice to her. Like, he reaches out with such genuine kindness, and I do think that she genuinely does like him. She got what she was looking for–the goal of her game wasn’t actually for Sherlock to kill Mycroft (that was a test that she hoped he would pass and that Jim thought he would fail). She wants him to find her room. She wants him to talk her down. And John is what convinces her that’s possible.

Love is not a game

 (Sherlock meta by heart-knows-no-shame, cumbercougars and bassfanimation)

heart-knows-no-shame:

It’s been weeks and I’m just so struck by the fact that the whole theme of Sherlock throughout the years was…“The game is on!”. Sherlock using the distraction of his detective work as a substitute high, and honestly a way to keep himself at arms length from ‘humans’ and any emotional and/or romantic relationships of course.

And then there’s The Final Problem and in comes Eurus Holmes, setting up this game for Sherlock, and putting Molly Hooper’s life in danger, and during that call we get all this…

• Is this one of your stupid games? No, it’s not a game. 
• I’m not an experiment, Sherlock. No, I know you’re not an experiment, you’re my friend, we’re friends. 
• You know why. No, I don’t know why. 
• Because it’s true, Sherlock. It’s always been true. Well if it’s true then just say it anyway. 
• Say it like you mean it. I love you. I love you. 

He spends the whole phone call worried and pleading and as soon as it’s done he tries to shut all that off and get back to the game so he says…”Eurus, I won, I won…I won, I saved Molly Hooper.” 

But then you have Eurus coming back with that emotional context speech and being like, Haha nope, silly boy, you just lost, you proved yourself wrong, you have emotions, you do care. 

And the writers had Eurus use Molly Hooper against Sherlock, like this, to facilitate this exact epiphany, (disapproving everything he’s said over the years, that he’s not a hero, that he doesn’t have a heart) because Molly Hooper does count, she matters the most, he loves her, and love is not a game.

And  I just can’t get over how important that scene was [...] for Sherlock’s  entire arc of character development !

cumbercougars:

The “…if it’s true, say it anyway…” is even more poignant in repeated watchings because that’s when the penny drops with him. It makes my heart ache for both of them.

bassfanimation:

I still cant get over the fact that this scene essentially broke down Sherlock’s character into it’s purest, rawest form. A man finally letting himself love. For real. The game is over, his game with himself is over. This finally frees him from his own cold chains and he sees that the game never was fun, it was never who he was supposed to be. Molly saw that from the beginning…saw through his “bullshit”, his "game". Now everyone else knows Sherlock does have a heart…all thanks to Eurus Holmes and Molly Hooper, and of course everyone who loves Sherlock. But Molly was the key…the last door that unlocked that made it all possible. “You made it all possible.” “What do you need?” “You.”

Your life is not your own. Keep your hands off it. 

 (Sherlock meta by ablack-reblogs)

Taking your own life. Interesting expression, taking it from who? Once it’s over, it’s not you who’ll miss it. Your own death is something that happens to everybody else. Your life is not your own. Keep your hands off it. 

As a person with depression who is constantly grappling my worth in the world - whether suicide would make the lives of those around me easier - this was such an important bit of the episode. Hearing Sherlock Holmes, a character I truly admire in every single way, speak and address suicide (suicidal tendencies) was phenomenally powerful.

He makes it clear that taking one’s life is not a proper resolution. Sherlock, a man who is a threat to himself, is the embodiment of every suicidal person in the world. He would quickly let himself die in any of his crazy stunts, studies, or cases - knowing that it could happen, maybe even hoping for it occasionally. But he would never let another person commit suicide, which he proves by telling her to pay with the gun in her purse.

We know he’s genuine about stopping this woman from killing herself simply because he has no idea that it’s a hoax - that this is just a moment within a larger game. At the time he wants to help her solve a case but also save her from herself. She liked him, and that surprises him later, but he had to care first.

Sherlock had to care about her well-being before she could like him, before she could keep him company. That’s how it was in his mind. Sherlock cares so much more than he gets credit for most of the time. Mrs. Hudson tells us that this season - “it’s more emotional than that.”

I cried watching these small moments. As someone who wants to write and get into screenwriting eventually, this felt like a specific message to the audience. It felt personal. In that 90 minutes I was watching, those scenes captured me and felt directed at me.

I felt represented and noticed. And that is so important to have that, especially with mental illness. It wasn’t profound or overbearing but it was there and it matters.

It matters so much.