Molly Hooper and Continuity vs Development 

 (Sherlock meta by mild-lunacy)

It’s not really a point of emotional investment to me, but it struck me that for all the fan criticism about Molly’s apparent lack of resolution in TFP, the fact is that the show never really showed her moving on. Note, I’m only interested in this from the perspective of characterization continuity; I have no personal interests at play with Molly or her infatuation. If pressed, I’d say I relate to the pining but don’t actually feel that she’s had enough character development for me to be invested. As Ivy wrote recently, there’s only so much you can expect from minor characters in a show focused on the main protagonist and his… significant other, and Molly’s definitely a minor character who did not have an arc. Then again, even John didn’t have an arc, as I’ve said. However, regardless of your *opinion* of Molly still not being over Sherlock, there was actually little enough reason to think she was. That is an example of reading into things and ‘confirmation bias’, much like the divergent interpretations of Mary after HLV, like I referred to earlier.

Basically, I think there’s a fundamental difference between character *continuity* and character *development*. Molly (and every other minor character) has had continuity without development, except (arguably) for Mary, who seems to have some development in TST without the benefit of retaining full character continuity. John and Sherlock are the only two characters on the show who *definitely* show both continuity and development. A lot of people mistake one for the other or assume they always go together. They do not. In fact, there’s also a third level of growth and that’s a development *arc*, which only Sherlock himself has had on the show.

To sum up, we had this set of ‘new and different’ responses from Molly in Series 3:

• Molly was quite willing to be Sherlock’s 'John substitute’ in TEH, and even dressed and tried to take notes like him for Sherlock, but it didn’t really work out. When she realized it wasn’t working and Sherlock kept calling her John, she begged off from dinner and mentioned having a fiance. 
• She’s still willing to help Sherlock no matter what, even when it comes to weirder and/or less romantic things than helping on cases, like helping with Sherlock’s Stag Night preparations for his best friend. This is a bit of a subjective thing, 'cause I suppose helping Sherlock with John could be used as proof of a lack of jealousy. She made a face when she saw the Vitruvian Man page of Sherlock’s little John binder, so maybe she also realized he’s gay (but this doesn’t mean she’d now have to get over him, 'cause that’s just a different reason for him to be unavailable as always). Still, Molly had never previously implied Sherlock was gay or into John romantically. Sure, she said he looks 'sad’ when John can’t see him, but that’s not necessarily romantic. Anyway, no reason to think she helped Sherlock with any small task for any different reasons than the ones established in ASiP, when she got him coffee. 
• Then we meet her fiance in TSoT, and he’s a Sherlock clone to the point of copying his coat and scarf. Still, he showed himself to be a bit of an idiot, and Molly stabbed him with a fork when he embarrassed her. In other words, she was apparently looking for a smart bloke who looked and dressed like Sherlock. 
• When we see Molly in HLV, she’s acting tough on Sherlock’s drug relapse and seems angry and disappointed enough to slap him. She definitely feels close to him in a way that’s not shown to be going both ways (that is, Sherlock cares but doesn’t interfere or offer opinions on her life). Molly’s shown taking Sherlock’s behavior personally and including herself and John as the 'people who care about you’, though this approach clearly doesn’t work on Sherlock, who makes a sarcastic remark. Anyway, she’s certainly more feisty, but not thinking rationally about Sherlock or able to see him as he is, unlike the flash of insight she showed in TRF. If anything, you could say she’s as attached as ever but a bit more bitter or conflicted about it and/or about Sherlock in general, whom she’d clearly idealized. The implication is that she’s angry he’s not living up to her ideals. 
• Finally, we see Molly in TST, and she’s taking care of Rosie and clearly feeling awkward about delivering such bad news about John, and feeling sorry for Sherlock. She’s not really acting like a close friend, in the sense of trying to *help* Sherlock with his grief and pain somehow, but she’s clearly still emotionally invested and as awkward about it as ever. Then of course we have proof she’s not over her infatuation in TFP. 

I realize there a lot of opinions and responses that people have to this, whether it’s happiness or disappointment, but my point is that the one thing it’s *not* is surprising. I also realize that people *were* surprised, but this is mostly due to projection or 'real life behavior’ assumptions, which rarely apply (particularly on BBC Sherlock, which typically picks the more dramatic over the more realistic response). You may or may not think Molly 'should have’ been over it by now, or maybe you think it’s great that she isn’t. Either way, I mostly don’t have an issue, although I probably disagree regardless. Essentially, there’s really no reason for characters to do the 'healthy thing’ when people so often don’t, but on the other hand, there’s nothing cool or special or even romantic to me about endless pining for a person you’re idealizing and can never have *or* grow much closer to unless you stop pining. Regardless, it is what it is, and furthermore it is what it’s been since we were introduced to these characters, more or less.

OK, so that was my understanding of the text as it stands, but I just wanted to add that I understand @jedilock’s critique and comparison to Doctor Who (at least in broad strokes, 'cause I don’t watch Doctor Who). The feel-good ideal is certainly 'very affirming’, as Sherlock would say. The woman who’d been pining– for the sake of that woman– should grow as a person and realize her own worth, and (essentially) move on with her life. That would be best. Fixating on someone who cannot give you what you want isn’t romantic, admirable or satisfying to watch (except for either people who project onto the character and insert their own happy ending, or people who just… like angst). However, I can excuse and/or dismiss the argument if it’s made on those grounds *alone*. I’m not particularly interested in fiction portraying the healthy and/or best case scenario, nor do I have a problem with all minor characters being fodder for Sherlock’s growth, as Ivy described. Except those aren’t the only grounds for critique by far.

One, there’s the issue that while it’s fine that Molly’s not really that important to the narrative and doesn’t need an arc, her continued fixation is simply… hard for many viewers to swallow because it doesn’t ring true. Even if a character doesn’t get an arc, their responses *do* have to change and develop with time to some degree, and we *have* seen some movement in Series 3 (even if my original post clearly shows that it’s easy to overstate the nature and the degree of Molly’s development). As I said, her motivations didn’t *change* in any fundamental way. However, she was not completely divorced from the effects of time, either. So it’s easy to feel that a real person (who is not a minor character created for a certain purpose) would not feel as Molly feels, not to the degree and *intensity* we see in TFP, most of which was there purely for the drama. That sort of forced drama is definitely a concern in terms of writing.

Two, there’s the use of a woman to further a man’s emotional growth and give him cathartic suffering, to the detriment of that female herself, which is definitely problematic. This has been a theme with Molly, Irene and even Mary in BBC Sherlock, as @delurkingdetective has discussed. That is probably excusable with Molly or even the category of 'minor characters’ in general, but definitely worth critiquing when it’s actually an example of a trend with the treatment of women specifically in Moffat’s writing.

The larger issue is primarily a certain laziness, a reliance on tropes and reusing old, comfortable characterizations. This isn’t to say that tropes are *bad*, really… but used carelessly, they may confuse the audience and mess up the characterization of the protagonist (which is presumably not what anyone wants). One example is obviously all the extensive usage of romantic tropes in Sherlock, which certainly helped give some of us the impression the show’s structure meant to follow through on those signals. Perhaps even *more* problematically, the writing reuses some of Sherlock’s *own* mistakes and blind spots for plot convenience in ways that don’t entirely make sense in context. It’s not just *Molly* who keeps making her old mistake, over and over again, in ways that aren’t fully believable. The bigger issue is something like Sherlock’s behavior with Norbury in TST, as @delurkingdetective described. To have Sherlock trust that Norbury won’t or couldn’t kill him after being in a similar situation with Mary, *and* going on to be super-predictive detective again in TLD might explain why *John* lost faith in him, but it could easily justify the *viewer* losing faith in the show, as well. He wasn’t emotionally compromised with Norbury the way he was with Mary, so there’s no real excuse for his arrogance overriding his ability to predict and understand murder and murderers except pure plot necessity.

In essence: Mary had to die. Molly had to be in love. Sherlock had to suffer. And that is simply not good enough writing.