Rewatching Sherlolly: The Reichenbach Fall (part 1)

 (Sherlock meta by justanotherfangirls)

(Note: I split this into two parts because the whole Sherlolly in this episode just overwhelmed me. In a good way.)

This is the episode that changed everything for me. I was pretty much comfortable with Sherlock and Molly’s setup in the past five episodes. It’s cute, sweet, and Not Happening, and I was okay with that. Until they made Molly much, much more than a fangirl with a crush. Here we come full circle from episode one of season 2, when he had believed that caring is not an advantage, love is a dangerous disadvantage, and sentiment is a chemical defect found on the losing side. Molly became the key that made him realize just how wrong he is. She had saved him, not only from Moriarty’s intricate, diabolical plan, but perhaps more importantly, from himself. With the caring, sentiment, and love that he had loathed so much.

Let’s first take a look at the scene with Kitty Riley, which had some Molly references. Sherlock classifies his fans into two types: Catch me before I kill again, and Your bedroom’s just a taxi ride away. Molly had always been labeled as a representation of the fans, but Sherlock himself doesn’t see her as a fan at all, as we would later see.

Kitty tries to seduce him into agreeing to an interview, and Sherlock then decides to beat her at her own game. He becomes so mouthwateringly seductive and dangerously sexy, taunting her just to say at the end, to her face, that she is never getting an interview - or him. He is being deliberately cruel. He never does try that trick with Molly, their flirting was always so gentle and innocent. Never cruel or dangerous. We also see Sherlock judge Kitty as someone who tries hard to be noticed, keeping up appearances with the posh skirt and polished nails, and a hunger for something, attention or money or fame. He emphasized two traits he found her severely lacking: being smart and being trustworthy, with the latter stressed more. It could be coincidence, but it’s as if in his mind, he was comparing Kitty to Molly. Molly who is content to stay in the background while he focuses on his work, who dresses with cherry blouses and baggy pants, and who never, ever asks or demands for anything. Who is awfully smart he elicits her help in cases. Who he had always trusted. He even treats them opposite. It looked a lot like Molly was his gold standard and he may not even realize it. The complete opposite of what repels him. (And I don’t know about Sherlock, but don’t people usually compare the person coming on to them to that one person they set apart from the rest?)

The first actual scene with Molly was when she was on her way to a lunch date. She is apparently trying to move on from Sherlock, who never does notice her. Only Sherlock then barges in, Molly says she has a lunch date, and he says easily, cancel it, you’re having lunch with me. He even spins her around and it seems familiar he might have done it several times in the past. He had technically offered that she have a lunch date with him. He didn’t say us even if John was there. And remember, his idea of a date is two people who like each other would go out and have fun, by solving a case. And he brought crisps, he doesn’t eat, and he wouldn’t carry John’s food in his pocket. He had planned this. And he was oh so very sure, he knows that Molly would always choose him, would rather be with him even if she would just have crisps in the lab, than a real meal in a restaurant with anyone else. He knows what she was trying to do - get over him, and he consciously prevents it. He wouldn’t do that if he also intends for her to do so. He would have some other clever way to make or trick her into helping him.

Sherlock knows how Molly feels about him, and he doesn’t know what to do with it. He doesn’t outright reject her, in his words to save her time. He also seems to make her feel that he doesn’t notice her. I remember his line in THoB, when he said that he had always divorced himself from feelings, therefore acknowledging that he had them. I wonder if this would be one of the cases he does that, where he pretends there’s absolutely nothing between them, only for the truth to resurface at the mention of a lunch date.

Molly’s confused what? made Sherlock show more of his cards. One of her old boyfriends, he says with such spite. Interesting that he uses the plural form. Oh he is jealous. And he even knows that Jim wasn’t her boyfriend, they went out three times, and she ended it. She looks at John when she says that last bit. Because Sherlock knows all of that already. As I said before, he just maybe liked her to correct him and to say it all again. And then he becomes unbelievable. He actually blames Jim’s crimes on her dumping him, implying that the consulting criminal psychopath was too heartbroken that he decides to terrorize London. He never believed that, Molly would never believe that. But he uses this as reason for her to avoid all future attempts at a relationship, “for the sake of law and order”. Sherlock is nothing if not logical, and even with his insults, manipulation, and lies he always manages to make sense. Except here. He wanted her to avoid relationships - all of them. But he uses a silly argument for that. And the only logical reason for that is something he cannot say aloud. Of course, although she looks so very confused at his mixed signals, Molly could not say no. But it still makes me happy watching him try to win her.