Eurus and Mycroft’s Gambit in The Final Problem 

 (Sherlock meta by mild-lunacy)

I was thinking of the recent @thepurplecarbuncle post about what Mycroft told Sherlock at Baker Street in The Final Problem: “the man you are today is your memory of Eurus”. I agree with her incredulous response, in that I can see how it sounds false, like a pure retcon– it sounds ridiculous– because it *is* ridiculous and it’s meant to be, on one level. Obviously, if it’s taken to be literally about Sherlock’s deepest self, his best self, that can’t be true. Sherlock is a kind man, a ‘good man’, as Lestrade says later in the same episode. So it’s textually not *literally* true. But at the same time, Sherlock’s not *only* that man that he’d become thanks in part to John Watson, is he? As Ivy told me so eloquently, the whole point, whether here or in Mary’s reference to who Sherlock and John 'really are’, is about the *duality* in Sherlock and John’s natures.

Sherlock is kind and good, but that hasn’t always been the persona he’s been inhabiting, is it? Him standing with Moriarty on that rooftop, promising Moriarty that he’s not one of 'the angels’ wasn’t all that long ago, and Sherlock had shot Magnussen while proclaiming himself to be a 'high-functioning sociopath’ just recently. And that persona, including Mycroft’s spiel in A Scandal in Belgravia about heartbreak being inevitable and how 'caring is not an advantage’, had always seemed to be tied to Mycroft and his influence. Still, you can’t just take Mycroft at face value, 'cause he’s playing the role he’s always played. If anything, he’s more obvious about it in The Final Problem than ever before, explicitly taunting John to Sherlock’s face 'cause he knows Sherlock would always choose John– would always choose *sentiment*– and he wants to make it easier on Sherlock. As usual, Mycroft tests and prods both John and Sherlock at Baker Street, rather than being straightforward. Mycroft certainly isn’t simply saying that Sherlock is some kind of Eurus lite™, and he always has been his whole adult life. He’d just called Sherlock a 'dragon slayer’ in His Las Vow; he *knows* Sherlock for real. The point is that he *hasn’t* been like Eurus, but Sherlock’s made some deeply unnatural and unnecessary choices to shut himself off from friendship and emotional intimacy because of trauma from events related to Eurus he cannot remember. Of course… that’s not established text, at least until The Final Problem. We just have clues and foreshadowing. In The Abominable Bride, Sherlock insists 'I made me’ (although he then thinks of Redbeard when there’s a dog barking in his Mind Palace). And indeed, Sherlock’s choices in response to Eurus– at the beginning and the end, in The Final Problem– are shown to be very much his own. He certainly made himself what he is by *choice*, even if he’s not conscious of it afterwards.

The Final Problem has various callbacks and parallels (the big one to The Hounds of Baskerville, for example, that I’ve discussed recently). Besides the differences in the vector (Sherlock’s own mind rather than a hallucinogenic drug with Henry), I think it’s important to note that Sherlock *chose* to forget in a way Henry didn’t. Sherlock isn’t just a victim of a crime, but still the active protagonist. His conversation with Mycroft at Baker Street can also be a callback to A Study in Pink. That’s where we first heard Mycroft say John could be the 'making of’ his brother, 'or make him worse than ever’. As Ivy summarized, The Final Problem works as the resolution of Sherlock’s arc, and so we had to answer the question of why does Sherlock actually say he’s a 'high-functioning sociopath’? Why does he say being alone 'protects’ him? When people dismiss the entirety of The Final Problem, it’s easy to miss the issues of characterization continuity and the sense in which things may actually make sense in unexpected ways.

I should emphasize that I don’t think Sherlock’s trauma is meant to be definitive to his personality. The question of whether Mofftiss always intended this reveal since Series 1 is interesting but ultimately irrelevant in practice. It’s enough to say that Sherlock’s always worn part of his 'Sherlock Holmes’ persona, the 'high-functioning sociopath’ self, as armor. It’s never been natural. It’s not because he’s naturally a misanthropic loner (like Mycroft), who thinks of other humans like goldfish. This doesn’t mean that he’s *not* different in his own way, or that he didn’t mean it when he told Mycroft in The Empty Hearse 'why would anyone mind?’ But unfortunately, Sherlock struggles to fully accept or accommodate his own humanity even after The Empty Hearse (though the process has begun at that point). In His Last Vow, he regressed from his touching, emotionally open wedding speech to tell John that romantic love was 'human error’, and in The Abominable Bride he actually cries, overcome when Watson acknowledged his humanity. John has had a tendency to believe Sherlock could work miracles– in The Reichenbach Fall, he wanted him to not be dead as 'one more miracle’– which had long been an ongoing issue, as @stephisanerd described in her classic meta. So it’s more like this childhood trauma is just the specific trigger to what was always an ill-fitting illusion of all-knowing supremacy that Sherlock put on as a defense mechanism. And *that* is Eurus’s fault (indirectly, at least); essentially, Eurus herself is the DFP personality with nothing underneath, in a much more personal, less metaphorical way than Moriarty had been. If Moriarty is the 'virus in the data’ in The Abominable Bride, Sherlock’s response to Eurus had corrupted his operating system in this metaphor.

Whether Eurus was intended from the start or not, I essentially think she is simply the mechanism. It was always pretty clear that Sherlock was carrying around some pretty toxic ideas about what kind of things he should aspire to for himself. There were some unrealistic standards he held himself to, but he also has some extreme convictions about sentiment and 'romantic entanglement’ leading only to heartbreak. In a sense, we’d always blamed a sibling for this: we’d just blamed *Mycroft*. Mycroft said lots of insensitive things and provided a sense that Sherlock’s family life was cold, or at least complicated (especially pre-S3). Then we met the Holmes parents, and it seemed like Mycroft and Sherlock were actually a product of a 'normal’, happy home… if one with a math genius mother. But Mycroft’s clear resentment at Christmas (and his 'file’ of complaints about his parents) and Sherlock’s avoidance and awkwardness still seemed… a bit odd. Clearly, some kind of issues were not being addressed. A lot of issues, as it turned out, although in some ways the Holmeses really were a supportive, even ordinary family. The parents just really didn’t know what to do with Mycroft and Sherlock, let alone a girl like Eurus, it appears.

I think it’s clear that Mycroft always felt he had to take care of things invisibly, to be 'the adult’ (even if Mummy didn’t appreciate it in the end: another statement there’s no need to simply accept at face value). He couldn’t just tell Sherlock that he thought he wasn’t dealing with the issue properly; if anything, sentiment really isn’t Mycroft’s area, as he said in The Empty Hearse. But he worries about Sherlock… 'constantly’, as he told John from the start. Mycroft has always placed a lot of stock on other people’s potential influence on his little brother. He’s seen how sensitive he is; how deeply he can be hurt. So of course, if he thought John Watson could be 'the making of’ Sherlock after 24 hours, he’s the type to blame Eurus’s bad influence for Sherlock’s unfortunate conviction he was a 'high-functioning sociopath’ (a descriptor he’d be most likely to have heard applied to Eurus, not himself). Mycroft’s gambit in A Study in Pink was that John could break through to him, somehow, though this didn’t mean he’d start suggesting Sherlock open his heart anytime soon. Both brothers had been burned, and Mycroft was very, *very* protective (after Eurus came the drugs, after all). Mycroft always knew how much both John and Sherlock resisted and doubted him and anything he said, so he *couldn’t* be straightforward even if he wanted to. It’s true that even at the wedding, Mycroft still warned Sherlock not to 'get involved’. It’s not that he meant the opposite, necessarily– but he really does worry about Sherlock and his tendency to have 'danger nights’, after all, and this wasn’t baseless, as His Last Vow demonstrated. However, surely Mycroft still believed John to have been a good influence. Even if both of them admired Eurus a little too much, surely Mycroft knew Sherlock would need to choose John, and could be counted on to choose John in The Sign of Three.

In the end, Mycroft asked John to 'take care’ of Sherlock after his overdose in The Abominable Bride: the ultimate sign of trust. He definitely thinks John has fulfilled his early promise in A Study in Pink, and could be trusted with Sherlock’s future– Mycroft’s only pressure point. Even so, in The Final Problem Mycroft suggests Eurus remained a hugely formative influence, primarily in negative ways. And in certain ways, I’m sure that’s true. The man Sherlock is today is a product of his past, just like any other man. However, that’s not *all* he is, and I think that by the end of The Final Problem, Sherlock’s made peace with that.

On Reading Sherlock’s Face 

 (Sherlock meta by mild-lunacy, leapingcat and renniejoy)

mild-lunacy: 

I’m not a fan of metas based on reading faces. I’ve seen other people do it well, but I’ve never liked actually basing conclusions off expressions alone. Everything exists in context, but especially facial expressions. They’re also the easiest thing to project onto– you can read a lot of things into a facial expression, and I’m very wary of that sort of thing in analysis. I am particularly wary when shippers do it and/or there’s an agenda involved (and usually there is an agenda involved, in fandom). My point: I don’t really do facial analysis if I can help it, and certainly not alone. But there’s definitely a point in TFP where the show kinda begs you to look at Sherlock’s face, and I can’t deny it’s interesting.

In a general sense, I’m also kinda going through the things that seem off or are interesting in Series 4 (in no particular order), and of course, I haven’t addressed this yet:

 I remember being struck by this when I saw it in the trailer, and analyzing it a bit. It was obvious to me it wasn’t to John, because John is behind Sherlock. In thinking about it before I knew the context, I thought it was weird, because Sherlock looked so unhappy. His whole expression is… tense, disturbed at something. It’s not the kind of face (or set-up) one associates with an ‘I love you’, so I thought something rather dark must be going on.

Now, I agree with the analysis that this isn’t Sherlock’s ‘lying face’, or the over-the-top acting Sherlock was doing with Janine in His Last Vow. This is definitely different. But the only two options aren’t ‘he’s lying’ vs ‘he’s just realized he means it’. The difference between The Final Problem and His Last Vow is context: in His Last Vow, Sherlock went on to dismiss John’s horror at his callousness, and say love was ‘human error’. In The Final Problem, Sherlock no longer thinks so. That is the point.

A lot of people (no matter what they ship) don’t understand this scene– they either seem to think it’s gratuitous emotional torture, bad Molly characterization (because she’s apparently not gotten over her feelings, though as I’ve said, there’s no reason to think she had), or– I suppose– there to show us that Sherlock just loves Molly back, all appearances to the contrary. Of course, many fans essentially believe there doesn’t really need to be a reason for that last option, particularly seeing as it’s about a heterosexual couple, so I’ll just say that no, there actually does need to be a reason, not to mention build-up. Besides, if Sherlock simply… meant it, that would kill the drama (and the intended darkness) of the scene. In general, no matter what Sherlock’s face says, the narrative has to support it or it makes no sense and constitutes bad writing. But for what it’s worth, his face doesn’t really say ‘I love you’. He looks sad and disturbed, but I do believe he also looks like he’s realizing something on some level. It’s a form of his serious deduction face, except we don’t get as much of an inward look as we did the last time this happened, during the wedding speech in The Sign of Three (as I once wrote extensively about).

So what is Sherlock realizing, in context? 

That question is closely tied to asking why that scene is there. I mean, I’ve seen plenty of Johnlock shippers sort of riff on the fact that the deduction of the person meant for the casket could have been about John– he too is short and practical, and he loves Sherlock! But I think bringing John into it is a derailment. It’s not about John, but it’s not about Molly, either, not directly. Like I said in my John analysis in The Lying Detective, it’s not about John ‘cause it’s about Sherlock. Obviously, this applies to this scene: we’re focused on Sherlock’s face here, full screen. That certainly suggests that we’re meant to be focusing on him (and his arc).

And yes, that’s what I think it’s about. I realize most people who’re not Johnlockers seem unaware there’s an arc, but even though we’ve been wrong about various things, the one thing I’ve been right about is the importance of Sherlock’s arc. Moffat has explicitly referred to it and its relevance to The Final Problem, too. This is Sherlock’s test, his final test (as administered by Eurus, the embodiment of the ‘high-functioning sociopath’ persona). The Final Problem is becoming human.

So what does that have to do with Molly? He’s already told Eurus that he realizes his life is not his own: “Your own death is something that happens to everybody else.” So he’s learned the lesson of Reichenbach. The ‘human error’ thing is about people like Janine and Molly though, in the show. He doesn’t really have a problem accepting his feelings about John (however you want to read them); as soon as he realized them, around The Empty Hearse and The Sign of Three, he accepted them. John is always the exception. It’s everyone else’s feelings– and feeling in general– that Sherlock hasn’t taken seriously or accepted as valid, as important, as worth empathizing with. So this is the final step: he’d already felt bad for Molly in The Empty Hearse, but he didn’t take her feelings fully seriously, because then there was Janine. Love was still ‘human error’… but then Sherlock kept making that error. You don’t have to read this romantically, though it’s certainly not been about Molly. He’s made the error about John, about Mary, and even about Eurus (in The Lying Detective). That’s what he was telling Mrs Hudson with ‘Norbury’. He knows that ‘human error’ is something he has to take into account. Heartbreak is something Sherlock is now very familiar with. He has to feel it, but he doesn’t have to fear it (as Moriarty said).

Sherlock fake-smiled when he proposed to Janine because he was dissociating, essentially. Here, he wasn’t. But that doesn’t mean he was confessing his love. It means he was fully feeling the awfulness of what he was doing to Molly, and that he was aware he was using his real feelings– because he really does care about her as a friend– to hurt her, essentially. This is the realization he started to have at the end of The Abominable Bride, about how many women he’d hurt. This is the consequence: it hurts. It burns. It aches, being human. But it allows him to reach his sister, in the end, so the point is not about avoiding the pain but embracing it.

leapingcat:

So basically you are reducing Molly into nothing more than a plot device.

There are several ways to read this and they don’t all lead to the same conclusion. You also negate the concept of Platonic love. Love doesn’t come in just one flavor and yet you always go for romantic love as being that between John and Sherlock. This is too simplistic an explanation and it’s clear to me anyway, that your endgame is no matter what, Johnlock. Yet the truth of the matter is that a lot of what happened in this show, have two and three meanings, if not more. When you put it all together, how do you know that you went down the “right path”? Before The Final Problem, its really is clear as mud. The things that are stumbling blocks to Johnlock being the end game, are many, and many which have been conveniently brushed away, ignored taken out of context, or thrown, under the proverbial carpet..

It doesn’t explain why or how Anderson “knew” before Sherlock ever told him that Molly was involved in his fake suicide. There are things in this show that seem to “happen” completely off screen. Even Louise Brealey in her interview with Masterpiece said as much. Yes, the actress who plays that part. You’d think she’d know more than us “out here”, yes? Anyway, these things aren’t shown, only subtly hinted at, blink and you’ve missed it; if we are to believe that nothing happens in a vacuum, that idea that Molly and Sherlock shared a kiss must have come from some where. It doesn’t matter that it wasn’t real. The foundation for that idea exists “somewhere”. Anderson didn’t just pull it out of thin air. He saw or heard something, maybe the “grapevine”?

The whole episode of A Scandal In Belgravia, say what you will, generally also gets the once over. Yet there is something to be said for the grieving that Sherlock apparently undergoes… John describes it as doesn’t eat, doesn’t talk, writes/plays sad music. Sounds like situational depression to me. It took up a large part of the episode. If he was “in love with John” why would he travel a long distance, risk life and limb to rescue Irene from the executioner’s sword? That’s a lot of work for someone he couldn’t care less about. Not only that, he kept her phone as a memento. If John is his one and only true love, what would he want with her phone. Yep sure give it back to Mycroft.

Now, the stairwell scene with Molly, the expression on his face, on spotting her engagement ring. Why the forlorn expression? He wished she would be happy, but he really didn’t look happy or do you think he’s just given to bouts of melancholia for no reason? And there’s the business with the bolthole and who knows how that arrangement came about or what happened behind closed doors? Again it’s all off screen. Much of their “relationship” how ever you want to characterize it, is off screen.

So you see, why so many people read this differently?

I don’t feel Molly was simply a plot device and nothing more. The “I love you” scene. Much has been written about this, but simply the second time he says is significant. It’s how he said it, and the fact he did not have to say it twice to just to get the job done. Oh sure why not, that’s what men do, they are goal oriented and they get the job done. But the thing no one in this fandom pays any attention to is male conversational styles even though there whole books written on the subject. When men say things there is no subtext, unless they are blatantly trying to get away with something. Generally, they mean what they say. When John says he’s not gay, he’s telling you the truth; you don’t need to question it. When the second ''I love you'' came freely flowing out of Sherlock’s mouth, he wasn’t dissembling. He meant it. That was the point behind the supposed genius of all geniuses, Eurus’ wanted to get across or did you not get the meaning behind her words, “It will be a tragedy, so many days un-lived, so many words unsaid…”. On Molly suddenly turning the tables on Sherlock’s request; how do you extract an “I love you” from someone who is nothing more than a friend? Most people would not go there. If there’s nothing there and you did that, they’d laugh in your face… unless, there was something more that happened between them that we were not privy to… again, off screen stuff.

Molly is key to what I think is a “hero’s journey” type of story, Love in all its forms is the elixir that the hero emerges at end of his ordeal/cycle… The last scene with her walking into 221B with that wide sunny smile. Open to interpretation, yes, but maybe the more likely explanation is that she’s with him. Or as Moffat said, "she got over it". Oh give me a break! She was in love with the man. You don’t get over that just like nothing…

renniejoy:

How insulting to say that only Johnlockers realize that Sherlock has a character arc. No shit he has an arc, that’s the whole point of the entire show!

Why can’t that scene be about Sherlock *and* Molly? That is how it’s shown, a conversation between (and therefore about) *two* people. Oh right, you have decided that Molly doesn’t count. Well, the story has told us the opposite since S2.

There is no in-text reason to believe that it is not romantic. Declarations that Sherlock couldn’t possibly love Molly in that way are based on pre-conceived notions that dismiss an awful lot of textual evidence that Sherlock does take her seriously (including the agreement between John and Sherlock that Molly sees through *all* Sherlock’s bullshit).

But yes, once you’ve decided that Sherlock doesn’t mean that he’s in love with Molly, because he’s in love with someone else or he’ll never be in love with anyone, then you can find all kinds of reasons to back up your opinion.

Sherlock needs Molly to love him

 (Sherlock meta by ohmyolicity, mortifying-mischief, justanotherfangirls and celticmoonbeam)

ohmyolicity: 

Can we talk about how Sherlock was offended because Molly Hooper didn’t pick up the phone?

mortifying-mischief:

“It’s me calling!”

justanotherfangirls:

He may not be conscious of it, but her attention (and love) is clearly not unwanted. See how even before, he expected molly to cancel her lunch date so she could have crisps while solving crimes with him. Or how he was unnecessarily cruel to her when he thought she’s seeing someone she likes that is not him in A Scandal in Belgravia. In The Empty Hearse after their “date” he was trying to come to terms with not being the center of her world anymore. He’s not happy about it.

He needs her to love him and not give up on him even when he’s being what he believes to be the worst person in the world. (He had repeatedly implied it, and that level of self destruction with drugs can only be born from a considerable amount of self hatred). And in that same scene, she showed that she will always do, even when from her point of view, he was again being a cruel manipulative bastard who doesn’t care about her feelings. She could not be more wrong.

celticmoonbeam:

Yes, great thoughts!!

Molly has always been there for him, ALWAYS, no matter what. There are SO many examples of this, but a few highlights…. Even after he humiliates her at the Christmas party (although I guess he does apologize!) she comes in to the Morgue on Christmas to help with fake!Irene’s body. She’s the one he turns to when he needs help faking his death in The Reichenbach Fall. She’s the one he brings along to solve cases when John isn’t available (and no one will ever convince me the beginning of The Empty Hearse wasn’t a date!). He goes to her home as one of his bolt holes, seemingly even while she is engaged. He even turns to Molly when he needs help planning John’s stag night.

Molly told him that if he ever needs help, she is there for him–and she always has been.

And now, she’s screening his phone call. The one person he could always count on is ignoring him–and that cuts deep.

Before the ILY’s tho… 

 (Sherlock meta by heart-knows-no-shame)

I was too busy crying over the “I love you” to process this bit of the scene, but then somehow I starting thinking about it earlier today and couldn’t wait to get home to talk about the moment Sherlock realizes, it’s Molly.

He had already analyzed the coffin and it’s specifications, he knew all the criteria, but then when they added that it was someone who loves him, John went right to Irene but Sherlock, he knew…

And even more than he knew, he had to admit it that he knew…Molly Hooper is in love with him.

When it comes to the idea of “love”, for Sherlock, it is simply that. An idea. One that can be pushed aside and ignored. And even more than that, the idea that someone loves him, well I’m sure that just seems ridiculous to him, admire him yes, be in enamored by him, of course, but to truly love him, he’ll just laugh it off as an infatuation. But he can’t do that with Molly, [because] he knows, and honestly he figured it out quite a bit ago.

But now he has to face this, really face it, and get her to admit it, which he knows is cruel, he knows it’s going to hurt her, and he hates it, but he does it, to save her life.

And I also really love John’s “No.” because he just caught up with all that thought process that Sherlock just went through and subsequently Sherlock answers back with a stern “Yes.” and stares right at John because it’s what has to be done.

Sherlock probably feels like he would have rather lived out his days side stepping Molly’s affections because he feels he can’t offer her true love or happiness that should come with it, because he probably doesn’t think he knows how, that’s where Sherlock still has a long way to go. But this scene, this entire episode, was absolutely a step in the right direction towards a happier and healthier Sherlock, and maybe even, Sherlolly.

Sherlock's face says it all

 (Sherlock meta by interstellar-wanderer)

His face in the last gifs killed me.

Molly’s confession is so sincere, and has totally disarmed him. It is a cathartic moment for him, that is when he begins to lose all control over himself and his wall begin to collapse.

Is not only the horror of knowing that Molly is in danger and if she does not do what he says to her, she will die in front of his eyes, she has just confessed that she loves him wholeheartedly and he thinks that he will see her die in minutes.

He is going to lose a person who loves him completely and unconditionally, a person who has always been there for him, and it’s at that moment, ladies and gentlemen that Sherlock realizes that he loves her too, that he has always loved her. Because the mere thought of losing her, both physically and emotionally, shocks him in such a way that he smashed the coffin with his bare hands.

The coffin that was meant to bury her, a person who loved him completely, and the name of the coffin is not added by the person who dies, but by the people who love them. And the word that was written on the coffin was “I Love You”. Because if she had died, not only would he have been burying Molly Hooper, pathologist and friend, he would also have been burying the love that he had so far refused to feel.

And he can not resist the physical reminder of that possibility, seated in the middle of a cold room, that so cruelly has dissected his heart, leaving an exposed core of feelings indescribable to him.

A reminder of that that spark of thriving emotions.

That realization that had raced through his consciousness.

In just a few seconds all those emotions all that love.

Would have died with her

Yes, things were addressed and paid off

 (Sherlock meta by bbcatemysoul and tiltedsyllogism)

bbcatemysoul:

Also like in HLV John is shocked when he sees Magnussen’s video of Sherlock pulling him from the bonfire. John witnesses Sherlock shooting Magnussen and has the context to know Sherlock was throwing his life away to keep him and Mary safe. John knows that Sherlock tried to kill himself when he was exiled and was literally spending the supposed last moments of his life reading the story of how he met John. John saw Mary’s video saying “the man we both love” and knows that Sherlock put himself in the hands of a serial killer for the sake of saving John Watson (from… whatever, I guess). John knows that Sherlock let down his guard completely to hold him while he cried. John knows that Sherlock considers him family. John was present when Sherlock repeatedly was more willing to sacrifice Mycroft than to sacrifice John. John was there to hear that Mycroft knows Sherlock loves John more than his own flesh and blood. And then none of that was ever addressed or paid off in any way. Ok.

tiltedsyllogism:

Not in any way at all? One week ago in our time - maybe 48 hours ago, in the world of the show - John was so deep in a hole of rage and despair that he was ready to push away his best friend, and lay the blame for his wife’s death at that friend’s feet.

But at the beginning of this episode, he has teamed up with Sherlock for the lunatic and high-risk enterprise of pranking Mycroft (which is itself serious business, given Mycroft’s likely home security) and then follows him to a gothic island prison for the criminally insane, basically on the strength of love and trust – and, very likely, on the strength of Sherlock’s insistence that he is family. And in the end he and Sherlock are living together joyously in 221b, raising his daughter together.

I understand that it’s not exactly what you wanted. I know we didn’t hear the words “I love you” spoken between them, or see a kiss. I get that Mary’s voice-over does not actually say “please start banging if you haven’t yet,” (although it felt pretty on the nose to me, to be honest.) I know how high the expectations were, and I get being disappointed – for that reason, or simply because this episode was even more off-the-wall hyperbolic and manipulative than anything that preceded it (which is a high bar.)

But surely there is some daylight between “onscreen kiss” and “it doesn’t matter that John had those experiences, they had no impact,” isn’t there? To me, it’s pretty clear John did understand. We see John and Sherlock take the time to restore 221b to its S1 glory, piece by piece. We see them commit to a shared future, in which they share family commitments, their friendship with others, and ongoing adventure. There might be sexual intimacy in the mix, or there might not; I think it’s left open to interpretation. But their commitment to each other is, I think, indisputable. The joy in their shared home is palpable. The love between them is indisputable.

So this is an honest question, because I really don’t understand. Why does that resolution feel like nothing?

Sherlock and John at the end of TLD

 (Sherlock meta by unreconstructedfangirl)

[In TLD] John completely lost his mind and acted like the world’s biggest gold medal dickhead, and then admitted that he doesn’t know how to be the man they all think he is, but he wants to be that man. Meanwhile, Sherlock continued his campaign of ridiculous self-abnegation in an effort to save John, showing that he is not only heroically selfless, but also completely stupid and desperately needy. He really, really can’t do it alone. He will do anything.

Then get this! These two massive fuck ups hugged, and went out to have some cake. 

I feel like so many of us around here are over-leaping this massive development to demand something more definitive, but this was John Hamish Watson ugly snot crying into the front of Sherlock’s pretty, pretty shirt, and Sherlock (!!) physically comforting him with his big beautiful hands. It was huge! It was beautiful! It moved me! It was love and tenderness, and actual inyimacy, and real change in these two characters who, let’s face it, are seriously emotionally challenged, but who love each other despite it all. [...]

Personally, this kind of painful, incremental movement and understated cataclysm is what, the more I think about it, I want! I’ve watched it three times now, and it slays me. Oh my god, they are [...] idiots, and I love them. I am getting what I want from this story. I hope they all manage to continue to make it very clear what this relationship is in a fundamental way, and at the same time letting it simply have it’s own, deeply affecting nature, even if that is undefined and unlabeled and open to interpretation and full of problems. All I want is for them to be together.

I don’t need more proof. I can see a church by daylight.

His Last Vow Sherlolly Analysis

 (Sherlok meta by coffeewithsugarplease)

[...]

The first instance of Molly in this episode is when John says he is going to ring her. Now, this was interesting. John now calls Molly by just “Molly”, instead of her full name like in previous episodes. They have spent more time together and they are more familiar with eachother. He relies on her to provide him with a proper test result, knowing she will do it well and won’t try to protect Sherlock. When John says he’s abut to ring Molly the camera shows us Sherlock and you can see his reaction. He seems like he’s annoyed that John is making such a fuss and now he’s gotten Molly involved. He’s almost cringing that Molly will have to get a way from work to handle his piss and she also knows then he’s been back on the drugs. He doesn’t want Molly involved. He doesn’t seem to care Mary is there, but he doesn’t want Molly to know.

Now, onto the lab. A drugs test can take hours, but that is only if they are looking for particular substances. Molly was just looking to see if there was anything in his urine. The time- passed isn’t that long as Mary is still wrapping up ‘Billy’s’ wrist. So I would say about 15-30 mins have passed while they are all in the room, as Mary would have had to find the bandage – perhaps Molly provided it after she found out what has happened.

Here is the good bits… You ready… I watched this on slow-mo to ensure I got it all right. This is MUCH better than I thought it was.

While Molly is doing the test, Sherlock is looking away from everyone. Now this man is high, quiet, looking and smelling worse for wear. He’s embarrassed it has come to this, and perhaps a little annoyed. He didn’t seem to mind John finding him on drugs (he introduced himself), he didn’t mind when Mary saw him… but now he minds. Because Molly is there. Molly is taking time out of her day to test his own piss for drugs and he hates it.

Molly is now visibly angry. By the way she answers John I would say he wasn’t just a little bit high, he had a lot in his system. She snaps off her gloves and strides over to him. She squares up to him. No longer is Molly afraid to be close to him. She is so angry, because she risked her job and her freedom (what she did was illegal) to save this mans life and he is throwing it away. She’s upset and furious. If you look at Sherlock here he doesn’t make eye contact. When John speaks about the test “Clean?” he looks at John, but then back at the floor. He doesn’t look at Molly. Not until she is right infront of him about to slap him. She squares up to him. The camera shows us both their stances.

The first slap takes him by surprise. In this shot we see them both.

Then the second time Molly licks her lips and slaps him again. It is interesting to note that we are shown Molly’s face when she slaps him, and his face afterwards. It’s all about her hitting him, and all about him receiving it and realizing something. If you look closely at his face after the second slap he doesn’t look as shocked as before. It’s like he’s realizing her slaps are bringing him out of his high a little. He’s focusing. (might be why she does it in the mind palace but more about that later). After the second slap though she STILL cannot look her in the eye. When his head comes back around his eyes either go above her, or down at her coat. He can’t meet her eyes.

We see John’s reaction now, John actually gulps after the second slap. The final time she slaps him we see her face again, but this time it’s not anger, it’s pain. Her face is different. Sherlock then decides he doesn’t want to be hit anymore and nurses his face. Stopping her from continuing. He’s trying to focus and make sense of things – he’s still high, he looks away blinking. But her expression is still firm. Still no eye contact. He’s uncomfortable because he’s hurt her. Molly is fierce and calls the shots. We see both of them again now. Sherlock is still leaning on the counter, rubbing his face and Molly is still standing unyielding and straight.

We then get another glimpse of John, he’s watching them, watching the obvious change in their relationship. Note that when we see them again John is in the foreground, he’s behind Sherlock. He could he shown to be in-between them, but they have decided to put him off to the side – Sherlock’s side. John is not getting between them.

Molly speaks now, “How dare you…” She uses strong words. Dare, betray. Demanding he says sorry. She is truly hurt he has done this to himself. She cares enough about him to behave like this. But then he goes on the offence.

Only here does he make eye contact… briefly. When he mentions her engagement, infact it’s even on the word “engagement” he looks at her and then proceeds to either look to the side or above her.

Now she is really angry, the pain has gone and she’s angry again. Her teeth are gritted, her eyebrows are dipped and her nose is scrunched up. That’s an angry face of ever I have seen one. Molly Hooper is not backing down.

John then chimes in, we see Sherlock once again looking above Molly and not at her. Then Sherlock makes eye contact with John, then to the floor, then to Molly’s coat. Only for a few moments of John talking he gets frustrated. Now Molly had a go at him for a lot longer. Sherlock closes his eyes and gets visibly angry, then he turns to John (with his eyes still closed) and opens them on John and releases his anger on him, NOT Molly. They bicker for a bit and Molly seems surprised Sherlock can still deuce I this state.

Another good moment was when Sherlock got a text message he looks at his phone as says “finally”, then Molly asks “finally what”. Billy then says “good news?” Sherlock replies to Billy not Molly by saying “excellent news” and looking at him. He only looks at Molly again when he says “excuse me” Molly is the last person he sees in the room, as he gazes over her last. Then flings “for a second” into the air above them.

Ahhhh the mind palace…

I had this thought. “Betray the love of your friends”. When Mary shoots him, he feels betrayed. Might mean something, might mean nothing – but who said that to Sherlock… Molly. Then all of a sudden we see her. It’s also good to note that Sherlock only looks at her once during his mind palace scenes. Just once also.

Molly pops up with humor. In her coat. Ready for business. Behind him – always behind him. She’s got his back. Wearing the SAME CLOTHES as she was when she slapped him, wearing the same hair style and the same lipstick. It was THAT MOLLY that engraved it’s way into his mind. They have known each other for years, and she has worn some pretty colorful stuff in the past. But he didn’t want to remember those moments of Molly – He wanted to have THE moment of Molly, when she stood up to him. When she showed she was no longer a mouse. As seen here.

It goes all white and she gets serious and sciencey, Sherlock is on the table, but she is talking to the standing Sherlock. She is telling him about the wound. Then she starts talking to the Sherlock on the table. It goes all blurry when she talks to the table Sherlock. She slaps him to make him focus. Then a second time. She notes she’s in his mind palace, then tells him how much time he has. This is the 2nd time he makes eye contact in the whole episode. When he NEEDS her. She is standing over his body and talking to his standing self.

Then she’s asking the questions. But when she tells him he’s right about the blood loss, he looks surprised she’s there. She’s supportive when she’s asks about the exit wounds. Mycroft isn’t, he’s logic in Sherlock’s mind. Molly is reassuring him, asking him questions and keeping him focused. Mycroft is smarmy, insulting and belittling him too. Molly tells him to fall on his back, then she and Anderson swap.

Molly is once again behind him as he falls. Like a trusting exercise. Molly is calm, when he goes into shock. Sherlock s not. Once again Mycroft is smarmy “don’t go into shock, obviously”.

Then he starts to fit and MOLLY is in the same place as Redbeard. When he went to the dog it was some sort of corridor. That was him finding something to relax. Then he starts to lose his cool and he falls onto the carpet in the room. But then Molly shows up in the same ‘lets be calm, think of something calming’ corridor and instructs him again, once again behind him.

When Moriarty is in that little room, he tells Sherlock about the people who will cry. He mentions, Mrs. Hudson, The Woman, Mary and John. No mention of Molly.

I’m not sure why, but it’s something I picked up.

Then onto the bolt hole…

Right after his Brother, we see Molly. She was the next person to go to after his own brother. She has a sandwich, Satsuma, coffee and no ring. It's not known who is talking to her. But her hair is off to the side. Her fingers are fidgeting.

“Just the spare bedroom, well my bedroom. We agreed he needs the space.”

This is after he is shot. So it’s natural she is worried about him. The only bolt hole she might now of is her room. When she mentions her room she get a mixture of seriousness and fangirling. She then takes a drink to stop herself saying anymore and looks off into the distance, trying not to make eye contact with whoever is interviewing her.

Now I took this as Sherlock might stay over [at] hers, but he might kick her out of her room, or use it when she’s [working] nights. I don’t think it means they share a bed platonically. It also might mean that she knew about Janine and that Sherlock needed to escape from her now and then, and felt jealousy towards Janine. Again I don’t know for certain. Perhaps you can shed some light on it.

I personally think it’s telling he made minimum eye contact with her. He was clearly ashamed of how she saw him. Considering during the first episode before she comes over he is tidying himself up the mirror for her arrival at 221b. Now he looks like shit and she is seeing it.

Well there you go. [...]

I’d like to have a discussion... (about Sherlock's sex life)

 (Sherlock meta by sherlollymouse, emmyjeanb, justanotherfangirls, poetattemptsfiction and 

waitingforthemaninthebluebox)

sherlollymouse:

See, I wouldn’t be surprised either way if found out for sure some way that Sherlock and Irene definitely had sex, but, I always lean towards ‘no’ because I think trust is incredibly important to Sherlock and I’m not convinced he trusted Irene.

She played the same types of games with him people all his life did, before John… Remember Sebastian in The Blind Banker? The letter was very friendly, but he even said they hated Sherlock at uni (“Put the wind up everyone, we hated him.”)… but Sherlock still tried to be friendly (calling him Seb) and felt obviously slighted by John when Sherlock went to great lengths to introduce him as his friend and he corrected him….

Now, don’t get me wrong, I know that you don’t have to trust someone to sleep with them. Thats not my point, I just am not sure Sherlock is the type of man that would…

Also, there’s the is he or isn’t a virgin debate.

Heres where I stand:

- If he has had sex, it probably wasn’t the best experience or he regretted it later. (perhaps it was someone he mistakenly thought he could trust or couldn’t)

-He may not have been sober… perhaps he exchanged sex for drugs at some point when he needed a fix and couldn’t pickpocket enough money

-He finds it a distraction and the more he has, the more it’ll distract so, having as little as possible and fulfilling these urges with masterbation instead of involving another person is always preferable.

But, yes, it is bothering me a bit. It feels so silly, not being able to sleep because of the thoughts I’m having about a fictional characters sex life, but it is really bothering me.

Moffat has said something along the lines of not being able to ask Sherlock whether or not he was a virgin and Benedict seems to think he probably had sex with Irene… well, then why not Janine as well?

Again, I think it all comes down to trust with Sherlock when dealing with interpersonal relationships, so, I’m very curious to talk to others about this.The upside is IF he did have sex with Irene, than he definitely had sex with Molly (unless she turned him down) because he’s told us he trusts her and needed her for something pertaining to faking his death.

Does anyone out there agree with me on my thoughts or have more to add?

emmyjeanb:

I enjoyed reading your analysis. BUT, I’m going to have to go against the curve. Here’s my analysis, for what it’s worth:

I think that if he’d never had sex, then it would be indicative that he has some sort of hangup about sex itself. Based on things show people have said about Sherlock’s sexuality and why he is the way he is, I’m more inclined to think that celibacy is a personal choice that he didn’t always make. Part of the whole ‘the body is transport’ thing. He has eaten rich meals, had good nights sleep and had sex before…he’s just mostly cut them out as 'bad for brainwork’. My impression is that this started post-drugs and before that, he didn’t impose these strict rules on himself. Not to say it’s a religious conviction either…every once in awhile, he partakes in each, or at least thinks of doing so. Of the three, sex is the one that’s the most troublesome to come by, so it’s definitely a 'once in a blue moon’ thing.

I think that Irene was one of those times, the first woman in a long while to attract him to the point that he decided to press pause on his monk-like existence. I don’t see Irene and Sherlock’s relationship as love, more like a strong mutual attraction/admiration (their interactions were very sexually charged). They dueled, flirted, he saved her life and it culminated in consummating their attraction, at which point they both went on their merry way. I doubt either of them regrets it at all, in fact I think it’s probably a source of some very fond, tingly memories (hence Irene’s cameo in Sherlock’s mind in The Sign of Three) but not something either of them pine after in an emotional sense.

He didn’t sleep with Janine, per say. Even if he were inclined to deny it out of some sort of shame or pride, it was Janine herself who said she wished she’d gotten at least one shot at it. I’ve heard people come up with ways to read what she said in a different way that changes the meaning, but I personally think any other reading is a stretch. Although I do think it’s obvious there was some stuff going on - she slept in his bed and had no problem getting in the bathtub with him. Maybe even some non-penetrative stuff, which I guess could be called sex, depending on your classification. Janine seemed to think she was ripped off in that sense, though, so there’s that.

As for Molly - that relationship is the most complicated, in my opinion. Basically, I don’t think Molly and Sherlock’s relationship is sexual. I think you’re right in that trust is huge for Sherlock, which puts Molly on a different level than either of the other two because he doesn’t/didn’t trust Janine or Irene. Molly isn’t someone he could have 'fun’ with without lasting emotional impact/consequences, and he would never use her in that way at this point. The tone of their most recent interactions is tinged with a kind of fondness, gravity and a respectful deference that is unique to Sherlock’s interactions on the show, IMO. Something’s simmering there that hints very vaguely (tantalizingly, to me) of romantic yearnings on both sides, but it’s not exactly sexual. Yet. Of all three, Molly is the least likely person to have had sex with him, because it would never be 'just’ sex. She’s the one with whom he shares the deepest emotional connection by far.

[...]

sherlollymouse:

I don’t think you went against the curve at all… in fact I agree with you about having sex with Molly being more than sex.

I’m just trying to make sense of the obvious reactions he has when sex is brought up.

I’m inclined to think he doesn’t have the fondest memories because Janine was right, it wasn’t just discomfort, there was a bit of fear… as if those comments made her seem predatory to him.

Irene just boggles my mind… because I genuinely do think they were attracted to each other, but I still think trust is paramount to him BECAUSE he doesn’t have sex that often.

I dunno…like I said, it wouldn’t surprise me either way, I just wouldn’t get it because of the things I mentioned.

justanotherfangirls:

I do think that Benedict and Moffat heavily implied that Sherlock and Irene had sex in Karachi, so I had found it a bit inconsistent that the Irene in his mind palace had the hairstyle she had when he saw her naked the first time they met. I would have expected her with her hair down like what we saw of her in Karachi, because surely that memory would be fonder than when he met her for the first time. Unless she fixed her hair like that after Sherlock saved her life, I am inclined to believe that’s the only time they confirmed that he saw her naked. And he had memorized how she looked because he is attracted to her. I mean, I’m a straight girl but I’m attracted to her. Also his porn preference is basically “normal” in canon, whatever that means it is not the dominatrix wild kinky thing I would associate with sex with Irene. They left it open like that so viewers would think what they want, I mean you could believe that they did, but you could also believe that they didn’t. Much like what they implied with him having sex with Molly as I have previously written in another post. You could believe that they did, or you could believe that they did not.

poetattemptsfiction:

Interesting. I don’t think that he slept with Irene or Molly. I don’t think he’s a virgin, but I think he likely stopped having sex once he became a detective and was off drugs (I’m assuming here the two coincided as he alluded to the fact that he solves crimes to stay clean in His Last Vow). I think he’s stubborn, and he’s convinced that sexual intimacy would interfere with his work, so he’s celibate. Dunno, though. He could be a total slut and has had sex with the lot of them.

waitingforthemaninthebluebox:

I think it’s highly unlikely (even if his asshole does clench up at the mention of it) that at 35 or whatever age Sherlock is supposed to be that he is a virgin. I think your theory about bad experiences/trust issues is pretty solid. I know people that HAVE had sex but still don’t like to talk about or have other people talk about it. As for not having sex with Janine some girls like Janine (confident, successful and sexually confident as well) would probably get frustrated being in a relationship for a month and not having had sex or discussion about it.

[...]

If it does turn out to be revealed that he’s a virgin I dunno it makes me feel a little weird. Like I was a late bloomer but damn in your 30's? He must have had sex.

On Irene, Molly, And Mary...

 (Sherlock meta by throughtheparadox)

 Ah, these women! What more can I say? I love them and it’s the very reason why I feel like I needed to talk about them, especially in light of “recent events.”

[...]

Molly Hooper 

For someone who was intended to be a side character (since she was not a part of the ACD canon), Molly stood out because even before anyone else (even Lestrade who thought that Sherlock was a great, but not good, man in S1) saw the detective’s capacity for good, she was already there, admiring him. I honestly don’t think it was just his brilliance or his amazing cheekbones that captivated her, but it was the belief that Sherlock is something more than he what he leads on. He had his eccentricities, but she was able to look past that.

And if there’s one thing that I found compelling about her, it’s her character development. She didn’t dwell on her unrequited love, she wasn’t a martyr, she dated other people (shoutout to Jim from IT), she called out Sherlock for being an arse during that Christmas (ASiB), and by season 3 and 4, she became an all around BAMF.

So I don’t understand why I’ve seen people calling her weak. Because I personally believe that loving someone does not prevent you from being a strong and independent person. Molly never changed her ways for Sherlock. Sure, she swiped lipstick that one time, or she dressed up that Christmas, but it was to boost her own confidence. She knows that Sherlock doesn’t notice these things in a ‘I want to impress him’ kind of level, so I personally believe she was doing those things because she wants to – not for him, but for herself.

And seeing her in The Final Problem hurt me like hell. She looked like she was having a rough day, and then Sherlock just pops in a request like that – it was disheartening to watch. But Molly Hooper handled it like a boss. Even if it hurts, she was in control of herself. She was angry, she didn’t want to be treated like a toy – she wanted him to know that saying those words are not and should not be easy. Even in pain and distress, she was able to teach Sherlock Holmes a lesson.

So if that makes her weak, then they should change the definition of the word in the dictionary, because there’s a huge amount of courage in there.

P.S. To be fair, Sherlock did say ‘I love you’ twice. Now, I’m an Adlock shipper, but so far, Sherlolly shippers had that dramatic Anderson-imagination kiss and two ‘I love you’s so cheers to y’all!

Irene Adler 

[Queen!] I just love this woman.

Personally, I fell in love with the idea of Adlock ever since I first read A Scandal In Bohemia. I never liked my ships to be ‘canon’ in a way that they’ll run off into the sunset and be all cheesy, and that’s why Sherlock and Irene’s dynamic resonated with me so much. I do blame them for developing my now logical and complicated approach on the subject of love, but I digress.

There has been a lot of criticism about the modern adaptations of Irene Adler, but I will simply focus on the BBC one for this post. Irene was, and still is, being reprimanded for being a dominatrix, but to me, it just made sense. Her initial role was to distract Sherlock and to lure him into unfamiliar territory, but sex isn’t the element that became the foundation of their relationship – it was their instant intellectual connection.

And this is also the very reason why we’re not dismissing Irene or Sherlock’s sexuality in shipping them, contrary to the common criticisms of these pairing. Even if Irene is a dominatrix, sex isn’t really what they are about. I know I’ve stressed this many times, but Sherlock admitted that he is captivated by Irene (”Craving the distraction of the game, I sympathise entirely…” his words, not mine) and Irene was also very much smitten with Sherlock, so it may not be romance (or whatever it is that normal people do), but they are indeed attracted to each other in a very complex level that I think even they don’t understand. To add to this, we already have an entire discourse regarding Irene being “gay” etc. etc. which I think makes her even more amazing because she’s like f*ck all your stereotypes, I’m going to swing all ways possible and be badass at it and I can’t… I just can’t deal with that point even anymore… She is more than that frickin’ label, for God’s sake.

Anyway, another commentary about Irene that pisses me off the most is the one about her being weak – again, similar to Molly’s. She didn’t ask for Sherlock to rescue her, and he absolutely didn’t beat her. In fact, he broke almost every single one of his personal rules when it came to her: flew thousands of miles to get to her, kept her Vertu (”If she’d left him, he would keep it. People do. Sentiment.”), thinks about her out of the blue, the TEXTING, and I could go on and on and on…. And she did make Sherlock “I haven’t begged in my life” Holmes beg twice in the most mundane, interesting, and sentimental way possible: “But I will have the camera phone.” “Please.”

This is a woman who can get by on her own, who has managed to stay alive despite the circumstance that she’s constantly on the run, and she is her own person, whether or not she has crossed paths with Sherlock Holmes.

So to put this in full-circle, I’ll just say it again: QUEEN!

Mary Watson 

I never really appreciated Mary’s character in the ACD canon because she was barely even there. It wasn’t even explicit if she died or not, but there was a line that expressed Watson’s bereavement, leading to that conclusion in the books.

Frankly, just like Irene, I’ve been waiting for her character to make an appearance, and was almost settled by the idea that she might have been replaced with Sarah (John’s girlfriend in S1), but I still had my hopes up. So when she arrived in Season 3, imagine my excitement.

But it wasn’t until that scene in The Empty Hearse where she was obviously amused by Sherlock that made me love her. Now, just a quick segue, I’ve always hated Sally Donovan because she was cruel to Sherlock and she didn’t really seem to have a redemption arc unlike Anderson. She was a representation of the world that treats Sherlock Holmes as an outsider. And Mary wasn’t like that at all. She was accepting and understanding, and unlike the common cause of hatred towards her, she wasn’t keeping Sherlock and John apart. In fact, she was trying so hard to assure them that things are not going to change – that they would still be Sherlock Holmes and John Watson.

Then we discover that she’s not as she seems, that she has secrets, and it explained why she cared for Sherlock– it’s because broken people try to fix other broken people through each other’s company. She was willing to compromise anything, she was greedy to not let John know, she was desperate which led to her shooting Sherlock – overall, her character has dimension. She’s not a bad or good, she has her own demons that she’s trying to overcome. When Sherlock told John that “you chose her”, it felt haunting because it resonates to our own horrors – we attract what we seek. And to me, it’s what made Mary – BBC’s Mary – a brilliant character.

These are just a few reasons why I can’t accept any hate towards these characters, their roles in relation to Sherlock and John, or even hate addressed to the people who adore them.

Overall, these three women were introduced to us in a sequence that also relates to Sherlock’s own development: Molly signified the value of trust, respect, and regard for his life; Irene embodied incredible wit, surrendering to the whims of sentiment, and finding a remarkable connection; and Mary provided the feeling of warmth, acceptance, and the balance between danger and redemption.

And again, dear haters, this is why they matter.

Sherlock and Molly: The Great Game of Attraction

 (Sherlock meta by penelope1730)

 A friend and I were recently talking Sherlock, when I said I thought The Great Game was one of the most shippiest Sherlolly episodes that tends to get over-looked. Not in the romantic sense, but one that indicates Sherlock is attracted to Molly. It’s always been easy to see Molly’s attraction and she’s caught a lot of flack for her ‘unrequited’ love. But, now it’s time to put Sherlock’s feet to the fire to show she’s not the only one. While I’m convinced, I’ll let you all decide for yourselves.

Fair warning – this is long, but there’s a lot of ground to cover.

The Great Game was the first episode that demonstrated, to me, Molly’s attraction toward Sherlock is not one-sided. That he, too, has been attracted to her, possibly from the very beginning, causing feelings he’d rather suppress, than address. Even more so, it gives the audience an incredible amount of data about Sherlock’s thoughts and emotional journey. Hints and signs were present prior to this episode, but they were so small as to be over-looked or dismissed.

As with most episodes of Sherlock, the primary focus and storytelling centers on he and John Watson’s adventures. This doesn’t mean other things aren’t happening in the background – giving the audience a plethora of information. That’s the beauty of subtext, off-screen implication, and finding clues the writers gives us. After all, no one knew Sherlock was investigating Mycroft’s stolen missile defense plans until the episode was almost over.

The Great Game begins in Belarus. Sherlock is interviewing a man in prison for murdering his wife by stabbing. It was a crime of blinded anger and jealousy. By Sherlock’s account, this man will be hanged. What might be missed is that this episode’s emotional theme is JEALOUSY - which is entangled throughout the various story-plots and characters. 

The next scene begins at 221B Baker St. Sherlock is slumped in his chair, looking rather disheveled and maybe even slightly despondent. In the background we hear a door close and John Watson comes up the stairs. Before he reaches the flat, viewers see Sherlock has a gun and begins shooting a yellow Happy Face painted on the wall above the couch. John is – “What the hell is the matter with you?!” while Sherlock tells us he’s bored. Bored. Bored. Because, you know, that’s what [...] Sherlock Holmes does when he’s bored. He shoots up walls.

Not.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying this to solely judge when Sherlock is bored or not, or even how he should act. That’s up to the writers. What I can say is that Sherlock’s behavior, given the evidence, seems more agitated than bored. Then again, Sherlock is rarely a happy camper when he’s bored and he can become a loose canon without something to occupy his mind. More about this later.

John takes the gun from Sherlock, removes the clip, and then heads to the kitchen for food. He asks Sherlock about the case in Russia – Sherlock corrects him and says, “Belarus.” John opens the fridge where he’s shocked to see a severed head. Sherlock tells him he got the head from St. Bart’s morgue and that he’s measuring the coagulation of saliva after death. Let’s just pause for a minute to ponder the fact Sherlock has a severed head and yet he’s bored. Hmmm. Not sure about anyone else but this seems like a pretty big kudos in terms of smuggled bio-hazard. Just saying.

The above recounting of how The Great Game opens is packed with clues regarding Sherlock’s state of mind, who and what he might be thinking about, as well as a timeline.

****Information is going to jump around quite a bit, but it’s been my intention to lay it out in the most coherent way possible. Evidence comes from several different episodes, sources and timelines within the show. So, we have to follow the dates and what was taking place on-screen and off-screen. It does wrap up nicely, tho, and just want to give fair warning as the dots are connected.****

Let’s start with Timeline and ask when did The Great Game begin? Not the ‘official’ beginning, but the one that isn’t seen – the one that’s taking place in the background, but nevertheless canon in the show.

March 25th – Molly Hooper’s blog. Just before midnight (yes, time is important)

In her blog entry, Molly talks about her day, but also about Sherlock and how she knows he flirts with her as a manipulative ploy to get what he wants. She’s upset because she wants to tell him to stop, but also because she wrote his name and doesn’t know how to delete her entry.

It’s now a few minutes past midnight, officially March 26th, and a comment has been left for Molly. Through this comment, we’re officially introduced to Jim from I.T. aka James Moriarty.

Molly’s blog entry, however, tells us a few other things that are taking place concurrently in Sherlock’s life. He’s in the middle of The Blind Banker. The manipulation Molly writes about is Sherlock wanting to see the bodies of Eddie Van Coon and Brian Lukis to show Inspector Dimmock the Black Lotus tattoos. Given the timeline of The Blind Banker, we know the case was resolved sometime during the late evening of March 26th, or very early on March 27th. I could say I’m making an educated guess about this, but I’m not. Not only does Molly’s blog suggest this, evidence at the beginning of The Great Game supports it as well.

So, why is this information important? Because it tells us several things:

First, it let’s us know when Sherlock was in Belarus. It also lets us know the last time he saw Molly before receiving a severed head.

Lastly, it lets us know Jim Moriarty had placed himself at St. Bart’s Hospital where he’d been watching Sherlock and, especially, Molly from the sidelines for sometime. Including following her blog. *It might also indicate that Moriarty has other people placed within the hospital to keep an eye on Sherlock / Molly, activity. It’s not only possible, but reasonable to conclude.

(*This would explain why Sherlock wanted Molly’s help at the lab with the kidnapped children during The Reichenbach Fall. Given what happened to John during The Great Game, he was uncertain what Moriarty would do. He wanted to keep her close by, at the hospital, under his watch and around people. He was worried and scared – Molly saw it. Sherlock also tells us this much in The Empty Hearse – “Moriarty made a mistake. The one person he didn’t think mattered to me, was the one person who mattered the most.”)

March 27th: Sherlock solves The Blind Banker case, recovers the jade hairpin and receives a hefty six figure check from Sebastian. It was a great case, he got to save John and Sarah, so he’s pleased as punch with himself. This much the episode shows us.

March 27th / 28th – Somewhere in this timeframe Sherlock flies off to Belarus to meet with a potential client. How the case came about is anyone’s guess but, ultimately, viewers know what happened. We can make an argument that Sherlock was gone for at least two days – a day to leave, and a day to return. What’s clear however, is his return date.

March 29th: Sherlock returns from Belarus. He stopped at St. Bart’s morgue on his way home to get a very cool gift from Molly: a severed head - w00t!

How do we know this? By how events unfold in the beginning of The Great Game and Molly Hooper’s blog.

Now, if you’re reading or referring to Molly’s blog, you might be asking – how did I come up with the 29th? Molly didn’t write anything significant on that date. The only entry for that day shows she and Jim conversing about a hidden grid code message on Sherlock’s website. So, it’s not what she tells us from her blog entry on the 29th, but instead what she writes on April 1st.

We can take an educated leap to assert some other facts:

The severed head is brand new. It’s bio-hazard and won’t keep for very long in residential refrigeration. Sherlock got it that day – which he pretty much told us. If he’s measuring the coagulation of saliva, he’s probably taking samples at timed variables. At least that’s something to keep his mind occupied.

John has not seen Sherlock since he left for Belarus. John tells us this by asking Sherlock how the trip went. When my friend and I were talking about this, she asked that perhaps John hadn’t seen Sherlock because he was staying with his girlfriend? It’s a great question, but didn’t present a plausible answer. John just started seeing Sarah during The Blind Banker – their relationship is very new. Plus, when Sherlock and John quarrel that evening, John goes to Sarah’s house and spends the night on the sofa. Their conversation implies this is the first time John has spent the night and if there’s a next time, maybe Sarah will let him “kip at the end of her bed.”

 So, let’s get back to 221B Baker St and what unfolds. It’s good.

Sherlock is bored – that’s already been established. He even looks a bit bored, but his behavior tells us a very different story: He’s agitated, surly, angry and frustrated. He wants to pick a fight – which is exactly what he does with John.

Nothing tells it better than pictures, so let’s look at face of boredom and you can draw your own conclusions:

John asks: So you take it out on the wall?

Sherlock responds: The wall had it coming.

I want to take a moment to talk about the Wall. I’ve mentioned this in other blogs, but it’s worth bringing up again – the Wall behind the couch is important to Sherlock because this is his visual study. It’s where he places the chain of evidence of all his cases – usually the big ones, or those that are perplexing. (As a sidenote – this is also why he probably chose to use Molly’s place as a bolt-hole in His Last Vow. He had no place to keep a visual wall of the complicated evidence in the Magnussen case, especially with Janine staying at this flat. His place was too exposed. I wrote about this in an earlier blog.)

So, on his visual wall of evidence, he’s painted a big yellow smiley face, with a can of paint left over from The Blind Banker. That tells us a couple things, one of which he says: the criminal class is boring and it’s a good thing he’s not one of them.

While that might be true, in part, it’s not the whole story. What Sherlock isn’t telling us is that big, yellow smiley face is Molly.

This might seem like a leap, but it’s really not- if you follow the evidence.

As an audience, we’ve seen Sherlock bored and sometimes it’s not pretty. He tends to become hyper, he wants to smoke, he paces and deduces anything and everything in sight. We know he doesn’t like to sit idle – his mind races and needs something to focus upon.

He just closed a fairly big case, however, and then spent two days going to and from Belarus. Maybe he knew he’d need a distraction, so he stopped off at St. Bart’s morgue to get himself a little project: the head in the fridge. But, even this isn’t enough to distract Sherlock from whatever is going on.

Sherlock isn’t bored. Something happened between the time he left for Belarus and the time he returned. He wants a fight. He wants to sneer and snap. He does this with John over his blog update on The Study in Pink. John wrote about Sherlock’s genius, but also how he can be spectacularly ignorant about things like the solar system. Sherlock, of course, takes offense and snaps at John by saying he doesn’t care about who’s Prime Minister or who’s sleeping with who.

 Basically, what Sherlock is saying is that if the information isn’t important, he’s going to delete it from his brain – he only wants useful data. In this, he compares the workings of the Universe and politics with gossip. But, it’s his comment about “who’s sleeping with who” that’s out of place. John would never call Sherlock spectacularly ignorant about gossip. It’s something that would never occur to him. And, yet, Sherlock includes it in his diatribe.

We could see this is as a throw-away comment. It would be easy to do and believe what Sherlock says at face value. But, it isn’t – because things are happening around Sherlock over which he has no control: John is dating and Molly found herself an admirer.

Let’s look at the timeline again.

The last time Sherlock saw Molly was the evening of March 25th. He flattered her to get something he wanted and then off he went. It’s easy for him to do – he knows Molly is attracted to him, Molly knows he knows, she continues to get sucked in and is getting tired of his arrogance. Sherlock likes having Molly admire him. It probably feels good. And, down the road (The Reichenbach Fall), we learn Sherlock likes Molly and he’s always trusted her. So, there’s a mutual thing going on, but Sherlock likes having the upper hand - it keep Molly malleable to whatever he wants, and she always gives in. It’s very much one-sided, his side, and he takes Molly for granted. This is not speculation, but canon.

But, something changed in the four days since he’s last seen her:

Molly found herself a man. Yes, he’s a seriously dangerous, bad ass, psychopath that turns out to be Sherlock’s biggest nemesis, but at this point – no one knows that.

Let’s quickly go over how things played out, in short order, because there was a lot of set-up and information to take in.

A) Sherlock closes the The Blind Banker case and takes off for Belarus. Travel – awesome! He didn’t get the severed head before he left because 1) John would not have been surprised to see it when he came home from work; and 2) The head wouldn’t stay fresh, thereby invalidating Sherlock’s saliva experiment. If anyone questions this – just read up on the Jeffrey Dahmer case.

B) Sherlock returns from Belarus and visits St, Bart’s morgue, where he sees Molly and gets a very cool treat. But, it’s not a happy reunion in the way Sherlock is accustom. Something’s changed with Molly. She’s different. Sherlock can see it all over her: She’s happy (yellow smiley face), which is normal for her, but now she’s more bubbly – distracted – she’s feeling the first rush and blush of attraction. Molly has a mystery man, she’s not talking, but some guy is honing in on Sherlock’s ‘territory.’

C) Molly’s been busy. She hasn’t updated her blog between March 25th and March 29th. She’s been going out with Jim. He even came to her house and watched Glee with her. They’re giving each other lots of kisses ‘xxxxx’ on her blog. She and Jim have become fast friends and maybe some intimacy has taken place – like kissing.

The above isn’t all assumption, btw, it’s what the episode and Molly’s blog tells and shows us. Molly’s blog was amazing – too bad she’s (BBC) not updating it anymore.

Sherlock returns to Baker St, and what do you suppose he does when he wants to know something? He researches. Maybe he checked Molly’s blog? Does he even know she has one? Probably. I mean, if he sent away for John’s birth certificate to find out his middle name, it’s safe to say Sherlock might check to see if Molly has a blog and what she’s writing about. That, btw, is an assumption. No proof.

So, let’s just say he didn’t check her blog, doesn’t know about it, he still knows she’s seeing someone and that it’s a romantic attachment. It’s leaving him feeling a pissy. John has a girlfriend and now Molly. Molly has something going on. There’s certain things Sherlock can count on with John, but Molly is an unknown variable. He has no idea how this romance of hers will effect their relationship and, more than that, he doesn’t like it. At all. It bothers him, he’s stewing in it. This would be a good time to re-visit those pics (above) shooting up the happy face on the wall and compare his facial expression with the mental health chart on emotions (below). I said it before, but he doesn’t look bored to me. He looks angry, jealous, aggressive, disgusted, enraged – just to name a few.

Then there’s the gun. Shooting up the smiley face. He’s a dead mark, btw. He got the eyes, nose and was making his way through the mouth when John stopped him. Sorry, Sherlock, the criminal class is just not that happy or content.

Sherlock is upset. Molly is on his mind. He’s angry with her. He paints her perpetually happy face on the wall and shoots it. He might be upset with himself for having feelings of attraction toward her, especially when he’s worked very hard at suppressing those emotions. He might be feeling threatened that someone else has her attention. He might be even more agitated that he doesn’t know who this mystery guy is. He might be thinking about the logical conclusion when two people come together under mutual attraction: Sex. They’ll sleep with one another. “I don’t care who’s sleeping with who.” (uh, yeah, you do, Sherlock.) Sex and love keep throwing themselves in his face.

Sherlock’s behavior is slightly emotional and irrational. Okay, he’s very emotional and irrational – which is saying something for a guy who pretty much lives his life from cold, hard logic and reason. It’s what Steven Moffat said:

“Sherlock Holmes is getting emotional again and you’re always in trouble when Sherlock Holmes gets emotional. He likes to pretend he never does, but the truth is Sherlock Holmes gets emotional all the time. And that’s always bad news for him, or somebody else.”  

“The interesting thing about Sherlock Holmes is he’s entirely human. He’s not a little bit human, he’s completely human. But, he’s taken a decision, which is a frightening one, to suppress his humanity to be a better detective. And that’s what he says in the stories. He doesn’t say he doesn’t have emotions…he says they get in the way.” Empire Magazine Podcast 01.14.2014 

Sherlock Holmes’s emotions are getting in the way. He’s beginning to understand that he has strong feelings for Molly and that this thing called attraction isn’t one-sided. It took another man showing interest in Molly for him to see this – and he doesn’t like it. He might not even want it. But, it’s eating away at him nevertheless. He really, really needs a case to take his mind off of Molly and what she’s doing privately.

March 29th: The Great Game officially begins with an explosion on Baker St.

March 30th: - Sherlock is summoned by Lestrade, where the pink phone comes into play. Sherlock, John and Lestrade are led to the basement apartment at Baker St where they discover Carl Powers’ trainers.

March 30th: Sherlock and John go to St. Bart’s where they take Carl Powers’ trainers for a look-see under the handy mass spectrometer. We can see he’s feeling better and even more pleasant with Molly as she enters the lab. That is until a few seconds later when Jim from I.T enters the lab. Molly’s romance is thrown back in his face again.

Sherlock seeing Jim for the first time and then looking at Molly:

Sherlock looking directly at Molly. Not very happy, is he?:

Jim walking into the lab. Sherlock is listening very carefully:

Molly introducing Jim. Says it’s an “office romance” - Sherlock’s response:

He discovers Jim’s gay and is now feeling pretty smug and back in form. But, he’s still annoyed with Molly, so he doesn’t spare her feelings when he exposes Jim.

Sherlock’s deduction of Jim, and even Molly, was similar to that of Mrs. Hudson at the beginning of The Hound of Baskerville. Only he was honestly bored then. He didn’t have a case and once he decided to take on Henry Knight as a client, he became immediately calm. Even happy. He no longer wanted cigarettes, and he didn’t feel the need to tell Mrs. Hudson about Mr. Chadderday’s bigamy. The Game is On.

Similar elements exist here, so he should be feeling pretty good with himself. Right? The Game is On, again, and he finally has the distraction he’s wanted and it’s a doozy. So, why bother deducing, humiliating and insulting Molly if he doesn’t care? Btw, he did insult her by mentioning she gained three pounds – which is clearly stupid of him. Yes, stupid. Molly’s a woman and women know it’s very easy to put on three pounds or more of water weight at certain cycles of the month. Sherlock knows that too. As the guys clearly pointed out to me last week – mentioning a girl’s weight is a huge rule breaker, unless you’re angry and being a douche. Sherlock could have easily blown Molly off and diverted his gay comment into something less stingy, “I think your guy dresses gay, but whatever.” He didn’t do that, tho. He wanted to pull a punch, put an end to the charade immediately and spared no feelings in the process. He actually thought he was being helpful and kind.

March 30th: That evening, Molly has a date with Jim at The Fox. Jim tells us this before leaving the lab. But, Molly, with the information Sherlock has given her, and in spite of her anger with him, decides to confront Jim about being gay.

April 1st: Molly broke off her budding relationship with Jim on their March 30th date. They argued. Gotta give Molly credit for arguing with Jim Moriarty, right? I mean, that girl has some serious talent. But, now she’s feeling bad and would like to still be his friend – it doesn’t matter to her that he’s gay. Jim’s missing. She’s been trying to get in touch with him, she’s worried, he hasn’t shown up for work and she’s desperate for him to get in touch with her. Uh, Molly, you might want to be careful what you wish for.

April 2nd: Molly discovered the truth about Jim Moriarty. It was all lies. She won’t be keeping her blog anymore.

The Great Game, it would appear, took place over a five day period, culminating with a showdown with Jim Moriarty at the pool house. Moriarty tells Sherlock if he doesn’t stop his interference, he’ll burn the heart out of him. Sherlock states he’s been reliably informed he doesn’t have a heart. Although Moriarty tells him they both know that’s not true.

I’m just putting this out there to think about – but it’s clear what Moriarty meant by “burning the heart” out of Sherlock. He’ll take away those people Sherlock loves the most. Moriarty demonstrated this by strapping John’s chest full of C-4 explosives. But, at this point, I believe Moriarty continues to believe Molly is meaningful to Sherlock – more than what meets the eye. And, the truth is, Molly is meaningful to Sherlock. It scared him. Now, a bigger picture has been revealed to Sherlock and it becomes very important to really suppress any feelings he has toward Molly. (While I cringe at Sherlock’s treatment of Molly during the Christmas scene during A Scandal n Belgravia, it does put a few things into perspective - if he’s trying to control his attraction toward her.)

In the end, and unknowingly, Irene Adler saved the day for John and Sherlock at the pool house – a favor which Sherlock returned for Irene at the end of A Scandal in Belgravia. But, there’s a few more elements to look at.

According to Steven Moffat, A Scandal in Belgravia was about Sherlock and Love. Not Sherlock in Love. (Thank you to Cumberbabeusa for this reminder.)

The Great Game, in part, could be about Sherlock and Sex, or Attraction…which was the perfect set-up for the A Scandal in Belgravia.

Btw, the weapon used in A Scandal in Belgravia was the Heart, as well as sexual manipulation. Feminine wiles.

The weapons used in The Great Game was: knife, gun, explosives. These are all phallic and ejaculatory symbols, representing the male sex drive, and an over-abundance of testosterone. Masculine, territorial energy.

Here’s what Sigmund Freud has to say about it:

“The male organ, has symbolical substitute in objects of like form, those which are long and upright, such as sticks, umbrellas, poles, trees, etc. It is also symbolized by objects that have the characteristic, in common with it, of penetration into the body and consequent injury, hence pointed weapons of every type, knives, daggers, lances, swords, and in the same manner firearms, guns, pistols and the revolver, which is so suitable because of its shape.” 

This makes sense. There was a great game taking place on the surface of this episode, but there was also a more primal, territorial one taking place below the surface and Molly was the pawn.

Even the severed head is symbolic of Sherlock’s separation from his mind – loss of reasoning and logic.

It’s my belief that this episode, more than any other (up to this point), showed Sherlock is not only not a virgin (not that this is necessarily important), but it demonstrates he’s very much aware of his sexual desires, and the internal dissonance it’s caused. He doesn’t have the control he previously thought.

In my opinion, The Great Game set the stage regarding Sherlock’s emerging feelings toward Molly. It clearly demonstrates his attraction. It’s not the primary function of the show, however, it is a powerful undercurrent as it exposes Sherlock’s deeper, emotive nature and can potentially awaken him to greater self-awareness and maturity in areas he’s shut down.

Whether or not this is what the writer’s intended, it is what’s happening. Louise Brealey addressed this with her recent quote, which I’m paraphrasing: “No one initially thought Molly and Sherlock was possible. It was kind of a joke. But, after season 3 and looking back, no one’s laughing anymore. It’s very possible.”