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.”