Just a thought about Euros and the "I love you" scene

 (Sherlock meta by creamocrop)

Eurus didn’t rig Molly’s flat although she did install cameras inside, which means getting in and rigging it is not really a problem.

Eurus is supposed to be the most intelligent Holmes. One of the most impressive ability of both Holmes brothers - which they repeatedly showcase in different episodes - is that they can anticipate outcomes and choose which is the most likely one to occur. If they could do it, surely Eurus could do as well.

Eurus didn’t rig Molly’s flat because she anticipated that she didn’t need to. She predicted that her brother can and will make Molly say ‘I love you.’

But the whole point of the exercise is to inflict pain to Sherlock by showing him his vulnerability. As she said to him later on “Look at what you did to yourself”. 

She predicted that in the process of making Molly say those words, Sherlock will also hurt himself.

But how?

If anything, it’s obviously Molly who’s going to get hurt, because she is being forced to say I love you to the man who she believes does not return her sentiment! If she willingly says "I love you" to him, she does get hurt but she lives and Sherlock wins easily without the burden of guilt because Molly willingly said it. If she adamantly refuses to say it, when the time runs out, no bombs will blow up, so Molly still lives. The worst that could happen in that scenario is that a fall out occurs between Sherlock and Molly, but that is an aftermath - something that would hurt him later, not then, not within that room.

So how did Eurus anticipate that this would hurt Sherlock? How did she predict that his emotions would destroy him? “Emotional context, Sherlock. It destroys you every time.”

Answer: Exactly how it went. With this:

This realization.

Eurus knew that this would happen. She knew that in the process of making Molly say "I love you", Sherlock would come to his own realization.

Now here is the clever part that made me realize how fantastically manipulative Eurus was.

Since she knew that this would happen, she just had to reveal to Sherlock that there were no bombs. It allowed her the opportunity to throw Sherlock’s so called ‘win’, to his face. “You lost.” 

Sherlock is now on the losing side.

Basically Eurus is scary. She realized Sherlock's feeling before he did, so she decided to play this cruel game.