u/crazywisewitch

Disclaimer : My previous post was deleted, probably because the moderators thought it was written by AI. Actually, it wasn’t really written by AI, the thoughts were fully my own, but I did use AI to improve the style of my writing, as English is not my mother tongue. This is why it looked like this. Some of you noticed it. I realized now it was probably a mistake. So, you will now find here the original post written in my own words.

Message to the moderators: if it wasn’t because of AI usage, could you please tell me why my previous post was deleted? Thanks a lot in advance. I’d appreciate knowing why so I can follow the rules.

Now back to the topic of this post.

---

Many people interpret the lab scene (when Molly says “I was wondering if you’d like to have coffee” and Sherlock replies “Black, two sugars”) as a demonstration that Sherlock is clueless about Molly’s feelings.

But I don’t think he really didn’t understand. I think it is more subtle.

This wouldn’t be consistent with his character, because he is usually extremely good at reading people.

My own interpretation is this one: he understands Molly is asking him out, but he either represses his understanding or, at least, behaves in a way that allows him to address this issue.

In the beginning of the series, Sherlock rejects the idea of being in a relationship. He even says so to Watson. But what’s important is why he is able to be direct to Watson, and not to Molly.

In my opinion, it is because, with Watson, there is not an emotional risk involved, whereas this is not the case with Molly. At this point, they have probably been working together for some time, they probably enjoy working with one another, a feeling of complicity may already be present between them.

And this is why he cannot be as honest as with Watson regarding the possibility of a relationship between them. It’s not that he already has feelings for her, it is that, somewhere in his unconscious, there is a possibility that this may happen somewhere in the future. He is in this early phase, before consciously falling in love, where something not fully formed can be activated in some circumstances and be made conscious. He somehow feels it and it makes him anxious.

This is this the kind of situation where you’re not attracted to the other person yet, but there is something that creates tension and that can be turned into attraction if you let it. And, for someone like Sherlock, who closed himself from feelings, this is very dangerous.

So instead of really answering Molly’s question, he pretends not to understand her intent and to take it literally. He stays in his “highly functional sociopath” persona, the one he’s comfortable with.

He’s avoiding the emergence of feelings by refusing to talk about this kind of topic with Molly, because sometimes it is when you put something into words that it becomes real. Sometimes, when you ask yourself “Do I feel something?” you start to consciously feel it. And Sherlock makes sure that the door of his heart is firmly locked.

But very shortly after this scene, when he meets Moriarty as Molly’s boyfriend, we can see that he is ambivalent. He does not want to envision a romantic relationship with Molly, but he doesn’t want her to be with another man either. This is why he is criticizing all of her partners. It is his unconscious speaking and he is motivated by the fear of losing what they-already have together and by the realization that she does not belong to him. Also seeing her in a romantic relationship with someone kind of forces him to think about her that way, as someone who can be in romantic relationships… even with him.

This suggests that even if he’s avoiding the question of the possibility of a relationship with her, he cannot make it disappear, it is still working underneath and controlling his actions.

This makes me think that the “Black, two sugars” scene is not really a rejection of Molly. It is rather an instinctive shutdown response to anxiety, the way our brain protects us from overwhelming feelings. But Molly does feel rejected and this makes the scene painful to watch.

Interestingly, I think the series comes back to this issue and actually gives an answer to it in the “I love you”/“coffin” scene of the finale episode. We can even say that the two scenes mirror one another.

This is exactly the opposite situation: Sherlock is forced to “say the words” and, as a consequence, ask himself the question he’s been avoiding since the beginning. In the lab scene, he could prevent this process of “making the unconscious conscious” from happening. Now he doesn’t have any choice.

Saying “I love you” is like an incantation. Sometimes words are not only descriptive, they create reality. And regarding feelings, they can unlock them.

In the lab scene, Sherlock could avoid formulating the question, and as a consequence prevent a chain of events from starting. Here, he is forced to do the opposite: say the words he didn’t want to say and make them real.

The moment where he destroys the coffins echoes the scene where he beats the corpse in the first episode, the one where Molly is watching and saying “Bad day, isn’t it?” (which is also funny because she also says “I’m having a bad day” in this last scene between them). And this moment is the result of the incantation, of “saying the words”: what has been kept imprisoned is released.

What Sherlock avoided in the first scene had been made inevitable.