Time for another speculative theory about the Christmas scene

 (Sherlock meta by kathleenkellly)

Time for another speculative theory… In A Scandal in Belgravia prior to the Christmas scene, suppose Sherlock had been mistakenly informed that Molly had a boyfriend. He was especially agitated during this scene. Now this was probably due to the fact that all these people were in his flat. But maybe there was more to it. Why did he go after Molly here unless there was something that we don’t know about. He seemed so determined to prove that Molly’s present was for her boyfriend that it completely blinded him from the fact that it could be for anyone else (or himself!).

Let’s work through the whole scene. It starts out with Sherlock playing the violin near the window. As others have pointed out, every time Sherlock is expecting Molly at Baker St., he is near or looking out the window prior to her arrival. In this scene, it cuts away right after he steps toward the window and shows the outside of the building just as a cab drives by. I watched this very closely and it appears that he looks out just as it cuts away. In the previous scene, Sherlock is playing the violin and watches out the window as Mycroft leaves so it would make sense that in this scene he would be playing as he watches for as someone arrives. Playing the violin would give him an excuse to casually walk around and look out the window for Molly without anyone noticing. I’m guessing this party is just a casual, drop-by-whenever type of get-together. We know that Molly was invited because no one was surprised to see her, so Sherlock would have known to expect her. He finishes playing his song and proceeds with trying to figure out Jeanette’s name in his slightly annoyed mood (which gets worse when Molly arrives), not caring about her or John’s feelings. In fact, he seems to want to ruin everyone’s relationships as he later informs Lestrade that his wife is sleeping with a p.e. teacher and that John’s sister is still drinking, again all without remorse.

Molly arrives all dressed up, bearing gifts. “Oh, dear Lord.” Now this comment can be taken different ways. I think it’s due to her fancy appearance. Look at his eyes when he sees her walk in. They’re wide open and he stares at her for a minute. He wasn’t expecting her to be so dressed up and he’s probably never seen her like this before, since he mostly sees her at work. He says it sarcastically, but I think he is hiding his genuine surprise. After Molly walks in, Sherlock avoids looking at her. She takes off her coat with everyone in awe. She tries to make eye contact with Sherlock, but he busies himself with the computer, deliberately trying to distract himself. He can’t help but listen to the conversation though and add his biting remarks.

Molly makes conversation with everyone. She makes the joke to Mrs. Hudson about doing post-mortems. “Don’t make jokes, Molly” Sherlock says almost affectionately. I think Sherlock liked this joke. He couldn’t help commenting. He has a morbid sense of humor just like Molly. To me the subtext here is “I appreciate the joke but these people don’t, so it’s probably not a good idea”. We find out that Sherlock chats with Molly, possibly as they work together at Barts, and has told her about everyone’s holiday plans. She finally gets Sherlock to look over at her briefly by teasing about his complaining.

Sherlock proceeds to get crankier until he finally can’t stand it anymore. He has to find out who Molly’s boyfriend is. He has been thinking about it since she walked in and has now reached the breaking point. He picks up the present to peek at the label, but not before showing off a little. His deductions seem like rather a stretch unless he had heard something about a possible boyfriend. He jumps to some pretty hasty conclusions (she’s serious about him? long-term hopes?… getting a little ahead of ourselves aren’t we, Sherlock?). He thinks the reason she’s dressed up is because she’s seeing him later. This would explain why he’s gotten more agitated since she’s arrived. His jealousy has manifested itself as annoyance with everyone and trying to prove he is right.

Sherlock has a reason to worry about Molly having a boyfriend. The last guy Molly dated was Moriarty so Sherlock is probably feeling protective of her knowing what he does now. I wonder if he’s told Molly who Jim from I.T. really is. Either way, he has now met Moriarty and knows this same man went out with Molly. It would seem natural that he would worry about her since they work together often.

Sherlock’s focus on Molly’s boyfriend causes him to be wrong. His jealousy has gotten in the way of his deductions and causes him to hurt her. For the first time we see his feelings get in the way of his reasoning, the very thing he tries to avoid.

Sherlock is shocked. You can see it on his face. Not only is he wrong, but even worse he has hurt Molly. What started out as friendly teasing ended up going horribly wrong. She calls him out on the awful things he says. He tries to walk away, but can’t. Whether he was aware of it before or not, Sherlock realizes now that he cares for Molly and that he really screwed up. He apologizes and kisses her on the cheek to the shock of everyone else. His phone goes off and he gets distracted with Irene’s present still feeling awful. John tries joking with him about about the number of texts he’s gotten, but he’s not in the mood. He sets Molly’s present on his desk and we are left to guess what it could be. I also wonder what would have happened had his phone not gone off…

Later on in the episode Molly asks him about Irene’s phone: “Is it your girlfriend’s?”. “You think she’s my girlfriend because I’m x-raying her possessions.” Molly says “well, we all do silly things”. I think Molly is referring to how he deduced she had a boyfriend because of how she wrapped a present. They were both trying to figure out if the other was seeing someone or not and made hasty deductions. They are both interested in each other’s relationship status.

This is all before the big breakthrough Sherlock has with Molly in TRF, but I think it’s where their relationship really starts to change. Sherlock, who has never cared about what he says to others, including everyone else he taunted at Christmas, realizes Molly is different. He didn’t like how he felt after he hurt Molly and I think at this moment he resolves to treat her better. And Molly knows that she can stand up for herself and challenges Sherlock to be the better man that she knows he can be.

A thought: why did Sherlock go to Molly for help in S2?

 (Sherlock meta by therealbucky05, irisang and bassfanimation)

irisang:

I mean, he didn’t go to her because he had to fake his death. According to him later in S3, he and his brother had already been working on that. But he still went to Molly just moments before he jumped off that roof. He didnt go to her because of her profession. Because he and Mycroft must have already arranged everything they needed. So, the question remains.

What did he really mean when he said he needed her?

therealbucky05:

Moffat said in one interview that the emotional display on the rooftop was a show for John, but that the emotions with Molly where real - in my opinion he wanted a reassuring presence during that trial.

irisang:

I agree. He didn’t really need anything technical from her when he faked his death. Molly was about to leave her work place when he went to her. And we know that the building was supposed to be closed for other people when he jumped. But Sherlock wanted her on board.

bassfanimation:

This is probably a good post to talk about something that I thought about at 221B Con, during the Molly Hooper panel.

This gif shows exactly why Molly Hooper is in Sherlock’s mind palace, and why he goes to her for help when there’s no one else to turn to. It also shows why Lestrade, and more specifically John, are not in Sherlock’s mind palace.

“If I wasn’t everything that you think I am, everything that I think I am…” 

Sherlock, for all intents and purposes, appears to be superhuman, almost a magician, to John and Lestrade. You see it in how Lestrade looks at him, and how John looks at him. They really do think it’s all magic, that Sherlock alone has this amazing ability to dodge death and figure out every single problem on Earth with little or no assistance. They think he alone can rid the world of every evil. They truly ‘believe’ he is more than what he really is. Sherlock himself, as stated by Irene Adler, believes he is a higher power. Lestrade and John believe this as well, whether they admit it or not.

In this scene, Sherlock is effectively lifting the veil for someone he trusts. He’s showing Molly Hooper (and the audience) that he isn’t the Wizard of Oz…he’s just a man who needs help. Despite everything he has built around his reputation, his facade, his image, he is simply still a man, and he can’t do it all on his own. He is showing Molly, “This is actually something I can’t do, because I’m not a higher power…and I want to know if you are ok with that. Will you still care for me? Will you still help me even though I’m showing you what I am behind the curtain?” The funny thing is, Molly already saw what was behind the curtain…he is simply saying she was right.

Molly accepts Sherlock, without the magic, without the curtain, just as we, the audience have.

John and Lestrade are not allowed to see how the sausage is made (sorry, people said not to use that analogy for obvious reasons, but it’s so apt here). They can’t see behind the curtain. Sherlock is quite addicted to the feeling of people thinking he’s super human. John and Lestrade’s opinion of him, and what he can do, means more to him than logic at this point. He needs at least someone to believe he’s special, that he’s THE genius, THE BEST. We saw in His Last Vow that Mycroft constantly taunted Sherlock, calling him stupid, making him second guess himself. John and Lestrade believe Sherlock is not only not-intelligent, but they truly see him as the very pinnacle of the best. He must preserve that for them. For himself…and even for them. (It’s actually hugely selfish of all three of them to feed into this, but that’s another discussion.)

Lestrade and John, both having been in services that show the worst of humanity, need to believe in something good. Something far, far better than the humanity they’ve come to know. Sherlock is that answer for them.

For Molly Hooper, she’s also seen death, but it’s the aftermath. Because of her natural optimism, she doesn’t need all this reassurance that humanity is amazing or magical. She sees beneath the curtain all the time, in a very odd way. Her job is to see to what other people miss. To see inside. She does this with living human beings as well, and she’s not afraid of it. Sherlock, I think, notices this about her very slowly, but it becomes something very special to him later. This scene marks the real turn. He is allowing her to see inside him, because he trusts her to see inside him and not hate what she sees, as so many others have before.

This is why Molly, Mycroft, and even Anderson are in Sherlock’s mind palace. Most importantly, Molly is the only one who consistently encourages him. She’s the one who he trusts every time.

You know Jawnlockers

 (Sherlock meta by rosamundi)

The biggest moment I fell in fierce love for Molly Hooper was the moment she said, “I don’t count.” I’ve always loved her until that point, but this is when it stopped being a crush and became “I will twist someone’s balls for you” kind of affection.

Look at her face when she said that. She is terribly self-aware of her worth in Sherlock’s life. She knows she is only useful to Sherlock at some instances. She knows he is not interested in a relationship. But she doesn’t demand anything more from him. She goes on dates, she dresses up, has fun etc. She doesn’t sulk and cry about it, because that to me, that is demanding something from the other person. “Why am I not happy? This person should make me happy, look at all I do for him!” Molly Hooper isn’t like that. She just simply… Cares. I daresay it makes her happy and content to be able to care for someone. All she wants is the opportunity to help her friend, Sherlock, when he needs it. Even as the episodes progress from that moment, I have never seen Molly demand for anything. She doesn’t act like anybody to Sherlock, but a friend. If there were any romantic undertones at all, it is very subtle. This is the kind of angle we like. Sherlock is a difficult man. But we find Molly Hooper’s love for him pure and redemptive. Maybe… Just maybe, this is the kind of love Sherlock needs. A love that understands. Doesnt demand. Doesn’t challenge. Simple and straightforward. Just a constant, quiet force that he can rely on when he needs to. We fantasize about the eventual catharsis, yes: The moment Sherlock decides he needs this kind love and returns it back. But like our hero Molly Hooper, we are content to simply… be.

You know what this reminds me of? The Sherlolly fandom. Like Molly, most of us are terribly self-aware of our worth. Molly Hooper is not an ACD character so we know that she will always take less preference than the canon ones. Most of us don’t even want our ship to be canon. What we want, really, is to be happy to ship two characters we like. We don’t deserve judgement or chastising. We don’t deserve mockery. We most certainly don’t deserve hate. We are content in our place, and while we hope and want things, we certainly don’t demand it.

So please, just let us ship in peace. Let us continue being ourselves and liking the stuff we like. Like Molly Hooper, we are content with our place under the sun.

Why ship Sherlolly?

 (Sherlock meta by drinkingcocoa)

[...]

Most importantly to me: Molly is strange. This is the priceless thing about her. She is smart, too; from her winces and eye-rolls during the best man’s speech in TSOT, we see that she’s far closer to Sherlock’s league than Lestrade’s and Tom’s. But it’s her strangeness that makes her such a blessing to Sherlock’s life. He’s patronizing to her, but he’s patronizing to everybody. She perceives things so differently from most people that even though he hurts her feelings, that’s not the only thing that’s important to her.

Their relationship turned in the lab scenes of The Reichenbach Fall when it transpired that she was the only one who could see him for his true self, at a time when even John was fooled. Sherlock pushed her away and tried to dismiss her or shut her out, but she persevered and got through to him. He turned and looked at her with completely new perceptions after that, trusted her with his life, and understood retroactively that he’d always trusted her. Besides, pushing people away is part of how Sherlock involuntarily tests people, so her ability to withstand that defense mechanism of his, dislike it but not give it more power than it deserves, and still be steadfast for him makes her just the kind of thing he needs in his life.

When Sherlock asks if Molly would still want to help him if he wasn’t everything she thought him to be, and everything he thought himself to be – and she said, “What do you need?” – that boils down, essentially, to “Do you love me or my genius?” and “I love you and believe in you whether or not you’re a genius.”

Meanwhile, ships can only benefit from character growth, so when Molly shows rising confidence in her interactions with him, like her deliberate teasing when she puts him on the spot by saying she and Tom have been having “quite a lot of sex,” that’s a good example of the kind of dynamic that makes for delicious fic.

Anyone who is the person who appears to Sherlock when he’s about to die and talks him through everything has got to have some great significance in his life.

The Virgin Genius and the Power of Molly’s Desire 

 (Sherlock meta by drinkingcocoa)

The first time I watched “A Scandal in Belgravia,” I was startled by Sherlock’s viciously personal putdowns of Molly Hooper. Who is he to comment on the size of her mouth and breasts? “Don’t make jokes, Molly”? It’s not as though dating or small talk are Sherlock’s forté, either.

Ah.

In a discussion on LiveJournal, dis_quiet commented about the Christmas party scene: “Sherlock got a little jealous, or in any case, left behind. He thought he could always rely on Molly, in a way she’d never know, but there she was, all dressed up, ready for a date. I think Sherlock felt, or wanted to think that there was a sort of kinship between him and Molly. How he loved emphasizing her awkwardness. All your future attempts at a relationship, Molly, should be nipped in the bud. For him she was that Other that he felt comfortable with as far as sexual inadequacies were concerned.”

This is one of the many instances of mirroring in Steven Moffat’s beautifully structured script. Having been bested, for the moment, by a far more sexually savvy opponent, the suddenly inadequate Sherlock is sensitized to Molly’s similar shortcomings. Sexual knowledge has been on Sherlock’s mind.

He learns so much from the ways in which Molly and Irene are doubles. Where Irene hides her heart behind a mirrored safe, elicits desire from people and reflects it back to them, Molly is the opposite: her Freudian slips and blunders are a constant betrayal of her desire. So that’s how desire looks when it’s real. The same red lipstick as Irene, the same small breasts, but with nothing hidden, from her bra straps to her stammers…and the same arousal at Sherlock’s touch.

Ah.

The wince of shame on Sherlock’s face when he realizes what he’s done to Molly at the party – it’s not unrelated to his shame when he’s disgraced in Mycroft’s office. His dismissal of the relevance of sexual knowledge has hurt people, perhaps destroyed them. Whether one reads this virginal Sherlock as sexual, asexual, or celibate, he has avoided sexual interaction at least in part because it involves interpersonal communication. That has always been a source of disconnection and torment for him, an area so fraught that it’s too stressful to bother.

And he thought himself detached from sex because the rest of the world had passed him by so long ago in this area, in all its irrational stupidity and mess, and none of this folly had anything to do with him…until it did. Molly’s desire implicates him and he hadn’t seen it and look how he brutalized her honest overture. She desired him as though he were…valid. A part of all this. She was inviting him into the dance. Whether he wanted the dance or not, he’d thought himself apart from it. And then he showed that we must not ever underestimate Sherlock Holmes; we must not think that just because sometimes he doesn’t understand sentiment, he is always incapable of it. He crossed over and apologized and kissed her. And if he overshot and the quality of that physical contact was more sexual than it should have been, well, he didn’t have much experience, did he? He didn’t know yet how it feels when the object of one’s fantasies comes close and touches lips to the face and speaks one’s name, close and low. He didn’t know he was being seductive. How was he to have known? He didn’t mean to be. He only felt dreadful, and sorry.

But he learns from Molly’s undone response to his inadvertent intimacy. He recalls it when he takes Irene’s pulse. He learns more, to his shame, when Irene kisses his left cheek as he spills state secrets. And in a glorious bit of actor improvisation, when it comes time to undo Irene, Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock comes close to her in the same way he kissed Molly, on the right cheek, which is more emotional for most people than the left. But this time, the proximity is completely intentional in its intimacy: dangerous, fully knowing. He has learned Irene’s game.

It was not Irene, then, but Molly whose desire pulled him into mortality and sexual knowledge.

In “The Reichenbach Fall,” Molly asks what he needs and his answer, “You,” is laden with portentous meaning, verging on sexual. Whether this was intentional or appropriate, the intimacy seemed to acknowledge the sexual content of every anguished slip Molly has made over two seasons about her desire for him, amplifying and dignifying that desire. Molly sees Sherlock at his worst, sees him more clearly even than John Watson does, and still loves him. She sees him not as an overgrown child, a virgin to mock, or an unfeeling genius, but as a romantically valid adult. Whatever illusions she has about the kind of lover he’d be…oh, would you look at that. She doesn’t have any. She knows him.

That is what Moriarty cannot imagine even though he has played at romance with Molly. Nobody could see the true Moriarty and love him. The kind of sexual desire that can know the whole person and grow only stronger: Moriarty cannot see that at all. But now, Sherlock can. It is Molly’s desire that brings about Sherlock’s fall into sexual awareness, a fall in the most classic apple-of-knowledge cast-out-of-paradise sense, never again to be an angel. Not that he will necessarily desire Molly in return or be physically involved, but now he knows the thrilling humility of having been known truly and truly desired, not only in spite of but because. He’s part of the mortal world now.

A toast. To Molly Hooper.

To be, or not to be… 

 (Sherlock meta by bassfanimation)

Something else interesting to note about Sherlock and Molly, and who they ‘pretend’ to be in the real world:

Sherlock only likes himself when he’s something he’s not. When he’s dressed up in his detective identity. He hates himself, or is terribly uncomfortable, as anything else.

Molly is only not herself one time in the series, during the Christmas episode. She dressed up in a ‘costume’, to try and be something she really wasn’t. It’s the only time we see her look completely and utterly uncomfortable.

In The Empty Hearse, when Sherlock shyly asks Molly to come and participate in a case with him, she asks him what John usually does. By this point, Sherlock knows Molly. He remembers the last time she was at 221B, trying so hard to be someone she wasn’t, for him. This time, he makes sure she knows all he wants is for her to be herself. “You’re not being John, you’re being yourself.”

Molly is only comfortable when she’s herself. Something I think Sherlock admires greatly about her.

Sherlock is never comfortable, never okay when he’s himself…except when he’s with Molly.

Sherlock trusting Molly enough to be himself with her is in itself a kind of love. It’s not an everyday romantic kind of love, but I think for Molly, it’s worth far more than any dinner date or night at the pub. To her, it’s pure diamonds.

You. 

 (Sherlock meta by mae-jones)

Molly asks, “What do you need?”

Sherlock Answers, “You.”

Not, ‘your help’. Not, ‘help’. Not anything else.

Sherlock needed Molly, not just her assistance. I would argue there were agents Mycroft could have employed better than Molly. She was actually a huge liability and potentially detrimental to his plan. She’s not experienced in subterfuge. In fact, she wears her heart on her sleeve. I tend to doubt very much that she flitted around acting all cool and collected that day. Also, she would have been exhausted after pulling a double shift. Molly Hooper’s activities should have raised some serious red flags regardless of how ‘important’ anyone thought she was to Sherlock.

So, why did he risk it? He told us.

“You.”

He needed Molly Hooper. He wanted to be in the company of someone who loved him absolutely unreservedly in what might be the final hours of his life. He needed her emotional strength and support. He needed someone to save him while he saved others. No one else would do.

The significance of Molly's jumper

 (Sherlock meta by kathleenkellly)

I made a comment on this before but I wanted to elaborate. I think it’s very significant that they had Molly [in the ILY scene] wearing the jumper from The Empty Hearse.

“You thought he was the one though, the love of your life.”

Sherlock’s thank you to Molly was a day solving crimes together. One of the cases just happens to be a man catfishing his own step-daughter and Sherlock, well aware of Molly in the room, unleashes on him. He will not tolerate someone playing with another person’s heart and by doing so he shows Molly that he values her love.

Then that hallway scene. He brings up her engagement at last. It feels like it’s supposed to be a goodbye. He’s happy for her because she deserves love and she lays out all the reasons why she should be happy, but it doesn’t really feel like she is. They walk away with what feels like a lot of things left unsaid, because they can’t.

And then Molly breaks off the engagement. It’s not over.

Fast forward to The Final Problem, she’s had a bad day and wearing the jumper again. They finally say “I love you”. We’ve known it about Molly all along, but to hear Sherlock say it, especially that second time - it’s real. Whether you see it as friendship or something more, it was real then and it’s real now.

Sherlock notices Molly in a different way than other people

 (Sherlock meta by kathleenkellly)

It has always seemed to me that Sherlock notices Molly in a different way than other people. Of course he notices everything about everyone, but the way he goes about it with Molly feels different. When he deduces other people, he is either showing off or proving his point when working on a case (or we only see these deductions written on the screen as he does not reveal them out loud, which never happens with Molly!). With Molly, it seems like he does it for himself, like he’s just thinking out loud, not like he’s performing for a crowd. He holds Molly in high regard. Molly was there before he met John and Sherlock trusts her enough (meaning a lot!) to help him with his experiments which are very important to him and his work (“I need to know what bruises form in the next twenty minutes, a man’s alibi depends upon it”).

He seems to comment on her appearance more than anyone else (lipstick, hair, weight, etc) and not for any purpose. Sherlock only fills his mind palace with information that he deems useful. Molly’s appearance and her presence take up a part of it (and this was proven in His Last Vow after he was shot). And why does he feel the need to tell her these comments if she is insignificant to him? It is as if he is, either consciously or unconsciously, letting her know he thinks about her. In the lab scene in The Reichenbach Fall (“I don’t matter”), he suddenly becomes aware of her importance to him and realizes that he has been taking her for granted. Sherlock lacks social awareness and I think this was a very eye-opening moment for him. We, the audience, could see this transformation (mostly starting with season 2 and the Christmas scene) and at that moment he saw it himself.

Also, this scene in The Sign of  Three shows how much their relationship has developed. The scene in The Blind Banker where he compliments her new hairstyle was basically him trying to sweet-talk his way into the morgue. He needed to show the inspector the tattoos on the feet of both of the victims to would prove that the crimes were connected. Molly is flattered and willingly complies with his request, even though she was probably breaking the rules (“the paperwork has already gone through”). In contrast, this scene in The Sign of Three, when he tells her she looks well, doesn’t have that same manipulative aspect to it. To me, he is being genuine here and wants her to know that she looks good (also he pauses after “you look” which might mean he was going to use another compliment and settled for “well”). Molly is no longer so acquiescent, she stands up for herself. I love that she responds “I am” to this compliment. She knows she looks good and not just because he tells her so. She is also more comfortable with their relationship which she proves by teasing him and making him flustered. They have a more balanced relationship. It is not just her having a crush on him anymore. They respect each other.

Sherlock is not one to dole out a lot of compliments. I’m trying recall other instances of him doing so (besides his best man speech) and can’t think of a specific one at the moment (there might be some I just can’t think of right now). Ever since Sherlock became aware of Molly’s importance to him, he has complimented her several times (and of course we will never forget that she is the “ONE person that mattered the most”).

Also in this scene, he acts like he barely remembers Tom, but to me, he’s feigning indifference. I think he’s interested in hearing how their relationship is going. Sherlock doesn’t enjoy small talk. In The Sign of Three, he tries “chatting” with John (about Sholto) and then says he “won’t be trying that again”. Why would he bother asking about Tom, and therefore Molly and Tom’s relationship, unless he is genuinely interested in her and her life? Molly wonders why he is even there requesting her assistance. He is a graduate chemist and could probably figure out the calculations on his own. He says that he lacks the “practical experience”, but I think Sherlock enjoys Molly’s company and uses this as an excuse to spend time with her.

‘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.

'I Love You' by Sherlock is in a Romantic Way. Of Course it’s Forced. It meant to be Forced.

 (Sherlock meta by adahgee)

After the ‘I love You’ phone call, Mycroft said: “Sherlock, however hard that was…”

It was hard for Sherlock to say I love you because he actually means it. Romantically. Or in between Platonic and romantic sense, I don’t know what it’s called, but definitely not platonic.

If Sherlock doesn’t mean it, of course he knows he might be giving Molly false hope or he might hurt her, he might open wounds in her, etc. or whatever, by saying 'I love you' too her. But hear me out. Given the urgency of things, his friend might just die in less than 30 secs, I know sherlock would immediately say it because his friend will die if he won’t say it at the expense of hurting her feelings. Sherlock would immediately choose to hurt her feelings to save his friend. He can say that without difficulty if just to save a friend’s life considering that they are running out of time.

But. But. But. It’s not just about saving Molly, (but of course it’s primarily and most importantly about saving Molly) it’s also about acknowledging what he truly feels for her. He would not stammer if he didn’t mean it. He is struggling to open up, to bare his emotions, but finally the fear of losing the one he ought to say those words to, forced those complicated emotions out of him. (bonus: he gently touched the coffin, then went berserked. Need I say more?)

So what if the “I love you" is forced? That’s the point, isn’t it? To corner Sherlock, to bare his feelings, that he himself may not even be fully aware he has.

[...]

The fact that Sherlock said 'I love you’ twice says so much 

 (Sherlock meta by yourpersonalintelligentelephant

[...]

I think the fact that Sherlock said 'I love you’ twice says so much.

Let’s observe the way he reacts when she tells him she’s not an experiment. He is flustered as he says “No, I know you’re not an experiment! You’re my friend!” He is being the most sincere, I think, than he’s ever been with her. He’s so against the thought of her believing he only sees her as an experiment, that he doesn’t care for her at all that he must clarify that he’s not just trying to use her or manipulate her. This line, right here, is proof that he does not want to give her the wrong idea. That he wants to be truthful and honest and to not wreck the friendship they have. That he does not, in fact, want to manipulate or use her.

So if that is true, then why does he say he loves her twice? He is being backed into a corner and made to say it once even though he does not want to give her the wrong idea, but he does not have to say it again nor does he have to say it so emotionally. He is being 100% sincere when he says he loves her and if you think otherwise, then you have an awful understanding of the scene.

Of course, whether he means it platonically or romantically is up to you but I believe the way he breaks down and destroys the coffin is a clue that he is disappointed in himself for feeling the way he feels. He always thought romantic feelings were for boring, mundane people and I think the destruction of the coffin was him realizing he cannot deny what he feels anymore and that he can’t hide his feelings from himself any longer.

[...]
.

Let’s talk a little about “I Love You.” 

 (Sherlock meta by sherlocklian and the-deplorable-707)

sherlocklian:

First off, I’m talking from a point of view of writing and storytelling. I’m no expert, but there is logic that goes into writing scenes and arcs and setting up and paying off various things. Scenes are finely tuned machines. Decisions have been made. Words were put down in a deliberate order to create a specific effect.

So. The show introduces a concept in the “I love you” scene:

It’s hard to say “I love you” when you actually mean it. 

What I mean is, this is presented as a truth within the show, within the scene. It doesn’t really matter if it’s true in real life, or true all the time. Within the context of the show, and this scene, we are presented with a truth:

It’s hard to say “I love you” when you actually mean it. 

Note that this also implies:

It’s not hard to say “I love you” if you don’t really mean it. 

So, based on that, why would Sherlock struggle to tell Molly he loves her?

Because he means it. 

Think about it logically:

Is Molly his friend? Yes she is. He says so.

Does he love his friends? Yes he does. He’s said so before, in John’s best man’s speech.

Has he had a female friend before? Yes he has, in Mary. He loved her, too.

Would he have struggled telling these people he loved them? No, I don’t believe so. We saw him do it publicly at the wedding. Forgive my memory but I think he may say it about Mary during series 4, too.

Why, then, is it so hard for Sherlock to tell Molly, “I love you” ? 

Is it because he knows she loves him romantically and he doesn’t want to give her false hope? Maybe. But isn’t it more important to save her life? Can’t he just ask for forgiveness later, explain things to her? She’s reasonable. He’s been cruel to her before, for no reason. He has the best possible reason to be cruel to her now, if it will save her. Not to mention, “Will caring about them save them? Then I’ll continue not to make that mistake.” (I know, he’s had character growth, he’s not that cold now. Except… he was, just 5 minutes ago, in every previous room Eurus had set up for him.)

Is he afraid he’ll lose a very good friend if he tells her “I love you” and it’s a lie and she never forgives him? Sure. Is it mean to make her say it to him when he at first has no intention of saying it back? Sure. (Although, none of this is really his choice, either; he’s not just fucking with her.)

But I want to remind you again:

It’s hard to say “I love you” when you actually mean it. 

It was hard for Sherlock to say “I love you” because he actually meant it.

What’s more, we were told in the previous episode that Molly Hooper is the only one who can see through Sherlock’s bullshit. We were told this by John, generally considered to be the voice of reason. We were told in the last episode that she wasn’t important, even though we as viewers know she’s the one who “mattered the most,” the one who apparently can’t solve crimes with Sherlock when she’s engaged (which makes no sense if it’s a platonic friendship).

So, Molly can see through Sherlock’s bullshit, and she won’t say “I love you” to him until he says it to her first, and says it like he means it.

But she did say it back to him. Because he said it like he meant it. And it was hard for him to say it, because it’s hard to say it if you mean it. 

The first time he said it, he was just trying it out. He’d never said it before. And he didn’t need to say it again. But he did. He said it again. And that time, he meant it.

We all thought in the trailer it looked like he’d had a revelation when he said it. Well, he did. He realized what he feels for her is love. And it must, in some way, be different from the love he feels for his friends, or else he wouldn’t have had so much trouble saying it.

Just my two cents.

the-deplorable-707:

I agree with all of this except just one little thing. I don’t think he struggled saying it because he thought she would believe him, because she’s the one who’s telling him TO say it. She told him to say it “like” he means it, implying that she doesn’t think he DOES. So, Sherlock struggling to say it, can’t be that. And I mean, he knows that if he doesn’t say it, she won’t, and Euros will kill her. So, why wouldn’t Sherlock just say it immediately? It’s so weird to see him struggle to get it out, knowing this. I think it’s because of what you said, it’s exactly the same reason Molly didn’t want to say it: because he means it. That second 'I love you' was as genuine as you can get. Sherlock is in love with Molly Hooper and his body language, the tone of his voice, that look of wonder in his eyes says everything we need to know.

sherlocklian:

Well, the reason I brought that up is because I saw a few other theories and I was trying to list them for completion’s sake, but I was in a hurry and I screwed up and didn’t actually write them all out! I also didn’t want to get too off topic.

But the specific thing you’re referring to, the reason I brought it up was because I’ve seen a theory which suggested that Molly already mostly KNEW he loved her, and that her telling him to say it like he means it, is her forcing him to admit what she already knows to be true. I consider this an interesting but unlikely theory.

But the vagueness of their relationship, and all the empty gaps in our knowledge allows us to imagine all sorts of things, which the show doesn’t prove OR disprove. (Though of course some theories are more plausible than others.)

Additionally, if we choose to think Molly’s “bad day” was because she was pregnant with Sherlock’s child, another theory I’ve heard [...], then having Molly force Sherlock to admit he loves her makes a lot more sense. On the other hand, there’s not any actual proof they’ve ever slept together! Unless you think that’s why her flat was one of his bolt holes.

For the record, I don’t like to assume too much is happening offscreen… I like to have proof. So I didn’t mention this stuff in my post, because it implies that Sherlock and Molly would be having sex before he knew he loved her, and that’s not my favorite kind of thing. But obviously, people do that in real life. So I suppose it’s not impossible.

[...]

Post ILY fall-out meta

 (Sherlock meta by mychakk)

 I’ve stumbled upon a couple of fics where the author chooses to kind of gloss over the post-ILY months aka Sherlock and Molly decided to just ignore it, pretend it didn’t happen, etc. It doesn’t seem right to me so it got me thinking and here is the result.

There is this basic group formation/evolution theory that outlines a simple formula:

1.  A group is formed 
2.  The group’s bonds strengthen 
3.  A crisis arrives 
4.  The crisis is resolved 
5.  The group either becomes stronger than before or disintegrate. 

This formula can be also applied to relationship (friendship, workship, siblings, etc). And of course the crisises appear regularly (not necessarily frequently, just that they are not a one time thing - unless the group disintegrate).

So I think the ILY scene was the crisis/milestone for Sherlolly to overcome in S4. Afterwards either they move forward or go separate ways. It needs a resolution if some kind and it needs it pretty much. If it’s not solved then the relationship (however we define it) will simply dissolve and stop to be.

There can be a couple of outcomes with the crisis of s4:

1. Sherlock and Molly talk, they clear the air and move forward as friends, lovers etc. 
2.  Sherlock avoids Molly or Molly avoids Sherlock, they ignore it, they fall apart and essencially their relationship is destroyed 
3.  They talk and realise they are at different pages in their hopes toward the relationship which at this point is quite fractured; ultimatley they separate and the friendship ends - the crisis is solved but it brought an ending. 

I believe, that since Molly showed her cards, was forced to come out clean about her feelings, she got freed from her burden, liberated from harbouring her feelings. And this means, that if Sherlock doesn’t give her any kind of indication about his feelings, she’s ready to truly move on (and probably away). The talk about their feelings toward each other must have taken place because with that one camera shot of Molly entering 221B BS, the show clearly indicates the solution no 1 took place. Sherlock and Molly must have a resolution to their crisis, and moved together forward. How deep the connection between them is at this point it’s up to our interpratation. Sherlock could have finally denied any possibility for them being together, but I don’t think Molly would heave beamed so widely and headed toward him in that short shot of her if this was the case, so the other logical conclusion is, they moved forward in the romantic sense.

[This little meta made me realize that for me personally, any post season 4 fic will feel ooc if Sherlock and Molly are not together or slowly on their way to get there. (it can be either Sherlock’s need to sort out his feelings, his drug abuse etc, to slow down the process, or it can be Molly’s need to process it all - read a wonderful little one-shot of Sherlock waiting and wooing Molly subtlety in order to make her believe his feelings were true and it took him almost a year.). It just doesn’t feel right anymore to have them separated with their relationship status still unresloved like it could have been being done after every of previous seasons].

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.

Another reading on the Coffin Smashing Scene

 (Sherlock meta by natasomewhere1401, sillier-things and bassfanimation)

natasomewhere1401:

So here is one more opinion about this particular “coffin smashing” scene. I definitely like it and I think Mofftiss totally can use it, because such a heartbreaking and open continuation fits them perfectly:

Dads coffin smashing explanation: "The coffin is Molly's. And the words engraved on it... are Sherlock's. The reason he smashes it is because it's inevitable, her death... any way he may act on his newly discovereed feeling for her will always leave her to be targeted. To be killed by someone after Sherlock. The coffin bares truth. In the end, the coffin will be Molly's with Sherlock's "I love you" engraved on it if he ever chooses to 'be' with her. He can't explore this feeling for her because he knows, deep down, it will end with her dying because of him. Perhaps even FOR him. There will be no happy ending with them being together. This scene results in him learning two things. He loves her (differently from anyone else). And it won't change anything. Because he won't act on it. Even though he WANTS to. Sherlock doesn't like 'not knowing', right? This includes him not knowing how this feeling for Molly is somehow different from all the other feelings he has experienced. He WANTS to know more about this new feeling and what it 'is'. But he values her life more than he values exploring this feeling, however confusing to him it may be. And it tears him apart."  X

sillier-things:

I like so much about this interpretation and if the show did have a season 5, I could see this.

However, if we take episode 3 by itself, there is a very important message about hiding things to protect people you love: don’t do it. Mary and her past, Mycroft and Eurus…they didn’t save their loved ones any pain. There is always going to be pain in love. Instead, they denied the others the joy of loving freely and openly despite the pain. Poor Mycroft…hiding Eurus from their parents, counseling Sherlock not to care, so cut off from his emotions himself.

So, no, now that Sherlock has learned this lesson, I tend to think he’s going to carpe that diem for though you cannot make the sun stand still, you can make him run!

bassfanimation:

This is a very valid reading, and an extremely angsty one, which we all tend to love here. It could definitely be an outcome, but I don’t think it’s the most likely for a few reasons.

Season 4 of Sherlock was very much about love, and loss of love. Sherlock experiences deep familial love, trust, and friendship, only to see what it does when it’s taken suddenly away. The loss of Mary…seeing what that loss does to John…seeing what the loss then forces John to do to him. Of course then we have Eurus and Mycroft, exposing Mycroft’s fear of loss. Loss of Sherlock just like he lost Eurus. It’s all about love and fear of losing love. That has already been what’s kept Sherlock as the “machine” all these years. He was already there…but Season 4 was about breaking that down, not reaffirming it.

Back to the coffin scene, remember that before Sherlock smashed the coffin, he carefully places the lid upon it, with the words “I love you” on the lid. I think, in that moment, he was thinking very much along the lines of “I can’t be with you, or this will happen, so I’m placing the lid upon your coffin because that’s what I know will come to you if I love you. I have to say goodbye to you.” But, as soon as we think he’s about to leave it that way, and continue onward with Eurus’s tests, he defies all of his reasoning, all of his logic, all of his own fears of loss and he smashes that coffin with his bare hands. In that moment, I think he chose to do as John suggested he do: stop running from this thing you’ve been running from, or you WILL lose her, and it’ll be too late. Even Eurus’s own words to him, “So many regrets, so [many] words unsaid, so many days not lived.” That’s what Sherlock would have chosen, and what he almost did choose.

The reason I think the angsty reading above isn’t the most likely one, is that I think Sherlock’s smashing of the coffin was him saying “No, I won’t be afraid of loss any longer. Being afraid of loss has been what has led me here. Being afraid of loss is what led me to believe alone protects me, that alone is better. No. I refuse to stay here, alone with my fear, any longer.”

One more thing to support this…in His Last Vow, the mind palace scene with Moriarty chained in what looks like Sherlock’s personal little insane asylum. I think Moriarty there is like a human embodiment of loneliness…and what it’s done to him. Remember Moriarty often lamenting how lonely he felt…that there was no one really on the same level as him. He seemed ok with it, but he wasn’t. He was actually more willing to die than to live being in a world full of ‘ordinary’ people. That’s the culmination of that loneliness…which is the one true thing he shared with Sherlock. I think that scares the hell out of Sherlock…hence how horrified he looked in his own mind palace, in that dank, padded room, facing the mirror of his own outcome if he chooses loneliness.

I truly think Season 4 was Sherlock facing that, yes, losses occur. But running away from that means you will deny yourself so much happiness, so much love, so much joy. Look at John Watson. He could have left Mary upon Sherlock’s return, due to fear for Mary’s safety. In fact I even talked to my hub about, how I felt if John truly wanted to keep Mary safe, he could have fled with her and his daughter, away from Sherlock and everyone they knew. But that would have left such a void for John, so he stayed. Mary stayed too, even knowing the dangers of staying. They gambled…and they still lost some…but they also gained so many amazing memories and experiences, not to mention a wonderful baby daughter.

After Mary died, John almost made the choice Sherlock did long ago…to shut himself away, to abandon his child…but he came back from the darkness because he knew the consequences if he didn’t. Even Mary herself tried to run away from those who loved her, and in the end, it did not prevent a single thing. Her staying with John though, and with Sherlock, brought her so, so much love.

The Final Problem (and Sherlock as a series) was Sherlock coming back from the darkness, just like John had (several times now). I think Sherlock finally chose not to go further into it, because that itself would have left him truly alone, forever. That, I believe, is and always has been his greatest fear: being alone. This fear was born out of the loss of his best friend as a small child. Now though, he has this whole new family, a chance to love someone who loves him unconditionally, he has a godchild, and so much more. S4 is totally about happy endings, in the fullest way. I really think that was the point…not for everyone to have a happy ending except Sherlock.

The Joys of Things Unseen

 (Sherlock meta by Ivy Blossom)

I really enjoyed Sherlock the moment I first saw it, and I enjoyed playing in its universe. But the moment I truly fell in love with it was A Scandal in Belgravia, not just for what we saw, but the things we didn’t see. I love all the scenes that are implied, or easily imagined, that fit so perfectly into the story that it seems to rely on them. You can frame the unseen things in a number of ways, and far be it from me to judge the best way to do so, but for me the unseen things are a gift to the discerning audience: it’s up to you what goes here, it says. Imagine what you will. And so, of course, I do.

Disclaimer: I realize this is unsatisfying and frustrating to some, and you’re more than welcome to those feelings. I understand them and respect them, but do not share them, perhaps because I enjoy these hidden places and closed doors. I like them to be mine to uncover over and over again. I am just a greedy fan writer who likes to keep filling in these critical gaps in different ways. Your mileage may vary. This is not a statement about what should or shouldn’t have happened in the story, I’m just not that sort of fan. We have what we have, and I am still very much enjoying burrowing into it.

There are two key places in the story that my mind keeps drifting to: the space immediately after The Lying Detective, and the what comes after John is rescued from the well and the final montage in The Final Problem.

Something changes fundamentally in Sherlock and John’s relationship at the end of The Lying Detective, and while it is left open to multiple interpretations, I am very comfortable with mine. To me, The Final Problem shows us two people who have always meant to slot into each other who finally have. They trust each other completely and function together perfectly. They no longer have any real tension between them. The things that had kept them from this level of closeness are gone. The story about building that closeness, or rejecting it, or pining for it, or denying it, is over; this part of the story simply relies on it as a fact, and so it is.

I saw The Final Problem as two people in a very new phase of a relationship. It’s too new to talk about, but too wonderful not to be brimming with. Their interaction at Mycroft’s house felt very much like this to me. The rest of the episode is too fast and furious to confirm or deny my hypothesis, except to say that they are in no way uncertain about each other, and that they are emotionally in each other’s pockets and reach for each other when they are in need. They are each other’s mainstays. They are family.

This is not the case when we leave them in The Lying Detective, not quite. John nearly walks away from Sherlock for good, twice. Something happens between The Lying Detective and The Final Problem to cement that relationship. I find it difficult not to imagine what that is, and how it happened. That is a door I enjoy prying open.

The second place I find myself lingering is after Sherlock discovers who he really is. One can only imagine that it would take Sherlock a bit of time to adjust to the knowledge that his entire personality and self-image has been constructed on top of a self-protective fantasy. Except that I think he already knows it; not the why or the how, not the horror of the specifics, but certainly he knows that he isn’t the man he pretend he is. That has been the theme of the entire series, after all, but he especially knows it just prior to The Final Problem, and John knows it, too. John knows why Sherlock destroys the coffin at Sherrinford. He knows that Sherlock is hurting, and he understands why. They do not have those kinds of secrets from each other anymore; John will not make the mistake of thinking that Sherlock “doesn’t feel things that way” again.

But understanding his own origin story must be a shattering experience for Sherlock. Another door I like to wedge open is the one where Sherlock goes home and processes this, and lets his vulnerable self out in the safety of John’s presence. That part of him will influence everything he does from that point on, and will make him kinder and more empathetic. But I can only imagine that the person who knows the vulnerable Sherlock completely will be John.

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.

Sherlolly Rambles post s3

 (Sherlock meta by novyzivot)

Lets talk about Molly because I love her.

So, in my opinion, it doesn’t seem like Molly gets many lines. Really, when she’s in a scene she mostly acts through reaction shots. When she does speak, it’s always something important. That’s why, recently, I’ve been thinking about Molly’s father. She mentions that she can see that Sherlock is hurting, because she watched her father pretend to be cheerful while he was dying.

Like John, Molly has the gift of being able to observe human emotions. Unlike John, Molly has a hard time understanding what is and what isn’t appropriate to say. When she gets nervous, she makes jokes that no one laughs at, and sometimes mixes up her sentences in such a way that often she is used as a comedic device. We love her for it, because we’ve all been there. Of course, she spends all her time around a slowly-maturing narcissist savant and dead people, so her version of normal conversation is naturally skewed.

This is one of the reasons I really love Sherlolly, because we have two intelligent people, who are quietly outsiders, and yet beloved among their friends. Sherlock has limited body-reading ability, which causes trouble with all his love interests. Molly’s job is taboo in that she enjoys working with corpses, and has a different way of viewing people and situations. The job therefore attracts abnormal lovers (we know that Molly has had a string of unsuccessful lovers, despite her obvious infatuation with many of them).

I wonder how often Sherlock used to visit Molly, before he met John. He seemed at home in her lab, and it must have been such a comfort and a thrill for Molly to meet an attractive man who not only shared her interest in work, but accepted the work she did as something that was “normal”. Although people saw her as a doormat, it was Molly who moved in first and asked Sherlock for coffee. She really valued Sherlock’s companionship, and she wasn’t afraid to ask for more.

Although everyone else thinks of Sherlock as a the strange one, to Molly, she is the outsider in his world. She wants to give back to him the friendship and comradery that she felt when he visited her all the time in the lab. Not to say that she was lonely before he came along–I’m sure she had other friends–just that all the extraordinarily nice things she does for him go beyond the fleeting feelings of a crush. She likes him as a person and as a friend, she respects his opinion, and above all, she believes he has a kind heart. These are the ingredients for something a bit more long term.

I think it must have been very sad for Molly to have gone without that particular brand of social connection for the whole of two years, and even harder to have kept that he was still alive from the rest of her friends, like John, who was always kind to her. She must have felt extremely isolated. To her, a person who can read emotions so clearly, it would have been devastating to watch them mourn. She was mourning too, in a different way. She lost a good friend, she probably realized he may never come back.

Her fiance Tom was clearly an unconscious response to the isolation of knowing that a man she had admired, and perhaps even loved as a friend, was still alive and may choose to never come back.

The first couple of weeks in the quiet lab without Sherlock–she did feel a bit abandoned? Did she hope for texts, or mail, or an anonymous phone call? When he showed up in the mirror of her locker, was her first thought that she must have been mistaken? She reacted as if she had seen a ghost.

The screen cuts away and we are invited to invent our own versions of their first greeting. I like to think she may have unconsciously moved closer to look at his face. I think he must have noticed and given her his tight-lipped, adoring little smile. I think that must have been enough for both of them, in that moment.

So Molly moves on, and John moves on, and Sherlock realizes that he was actually the only one who had stayed stagnant. Cue the Holmes Midlife Crisis Episode where Mycroft worries about his weight and Sherlock obsesses over napkins. They both realize they may want something more then what they had always been comfortable with before. Sherlock realizes it before Mycroft, in my absolute favorite moment of the whole series, where he fools Mycroft into admitting that different does not equal isolation. Then he echos this sentiment again when he asks his brother if he has found a “goldfish”.

In a roundabout way, Sherlock admits in this moment that without his friends (John and Molly) he gets lonely. He misses them, he wants to be on their level, and he’s willing to see John’s wedding as another chapter in life in order to stay by their sides. He’s even willing to accept Molly’s boyfriend, who looks exactly like him, in order to keep in her good graces. It’s a truly beautiful moment in Sherlock’s maturation. Maybe he was able to tell, with certainty, that Molly and Tom would break up, but because he didn’t wish ill on her, he let her handle her own business.

We can read him kissing Molly’s cheek and leaving into the cold in two ways: 

In the first, Sherlock has realized over the two years he’s been gone that he misses Molly on par or a bit lower then his missing of his best friend, John. He realizes that she stuck her neck out for him, could get fired from her job for him, and isolates herself for him. He is in awe that someone would ever go so far for anyone else. He begins to respect her on the same level she has respected him all this time. When he sees her engagement ring, his heart sinks in his chest and he is incapable of making an excuse for it. He kisses her cheek and leaves, defeated.

In the second, all the first bit is still true, but when he sees her engagement ring he realizes he’ll have a more difficult time approaching her even though he’s absolute convinced she’s loyal to him.
To test his theory, he invites her out for fish and chips. She doesn’t say no. At first, he is glad, excited, and he smiles and teases her. Then, he feels a bit bad. He notices that she is fighting herself. He points out to her that he knows she’s engaged. They share a moment where they both realize something has changed between them. He tells her his real feelings because he feels safe knowing she will reject him. He isn’t actually ready for a real relationship, although he has realized he wants one.

Sherlock leans in to kiss Molly, and she feels it as a goodbye. Sherlock experiences it as something else, he is trying to comfort her for whats to come: her eventual breakup with Tom. He leaves, and he feels conflicted and confused.

When he meets Tom again, he is not threatened at all by his appearance or his relationship to Molly, but is rather shocked on Molly’s behalf. Sherlock is too intelligent not to realize that she’s fucking someone who looks like him because she missed him when he was gone. He has a moment where he tells John not to talk about it–the tables have turned here quite a lot if he’s asking John to do the socially appropriate thing. Here we see Sherlock waiting patiently for Molly to be able to see him again.

What would a relationship between Molly and Sherlock look like? We don’t need to wonder too much because they already have one. It’s complicated, it’s honest, it’s a bit funny, but overall it is based on mutual respect, and at least for Sherlock, complete trust.

He knew about the engagement ring

 (Sherlock meta by audreyagnes2)

There’s a haunting question among the sherlolly shippers: [Did] Sherlock know about the engagement ring before he mentioned its existence at the train guy's flat? 

I think yes, he knew it and I bet it was when he went to St. Barts after his reunion with John.

There are a couple of moments that can confirm my theory, but the only one that it’s in the same episode is the brief moment with the host in TEH.

 Remember when Sherlock stepped in to the restaurant and he barely saw the host? At [that] exact moment the words “expectant father” appeared on his shoulders and then he received a phone call.

In conclusion he actually observed, even if it was just a few seconds of sideways. (Nothing that you didin’t know before). 

My theory is, at the exact moment she entered in the lockers room, he could see the amount of gained weight she had (Sherlock pointed [out at] different [occations] to Molly and John, the amount of weight they gained by domestic bliss), and other things she added in to her life during his absence, including the engagement ring.

Why isn’t it showed at the moment? Well, the show needs the surprise factor (a regular basis in the show), but in this season we can see how much Sherlock learnt to be kinder with his friends and with Molly.

So, the look he gave to her when she asked “have dinner?” it’s a look of restriction and now fits perfectly.

“Molly, you’re engaged, you have a fiancé to think about before going out with me the love of your life”. 

You will ask: but what was the flirty look they shared in the train guy's flat? Sherlock was flirting with someone who was engaged? Remember: forbidden is tempting.

Maybe it was the next kick he needed to reach another step [towards] Molly, because he asked at the end of their day to go for fish and chips, and if she wouldn’t have asked him about [why he wanted to] work with her, we don’t know if they actually would’ve been eating fish and chips, because that talk lead to the engagement ring thing, and how wrong [it] was [for him to] ask her out for dinner, and obviously how dreadfully wrong she was accepting it, because they actually enjoyed their day working together more than they should. 

Maybe you will ask again: but, if he saw her ring before [he] asked her [to be his] crime solving companion, was [it not equally] wrong [for him to] ask her to go for Fish and Chips? Not necessarily. 

We saw his expression when she arrived to his flat and before he had turned around, [we saw] the face of someone who was aware of something, maybe nervous, but when he faced her, it [was] someone who *thought* he had everything in control.

Again, fits perfectly.

Maybe he was in control at that time or he thought he could control himself, but for sure he wasn’t expecting [to] enjoy the day with Molly.