âI Love Youâ: a manâs perspective
I havenât made the rounds yet this morning, but already last night Iâve seen multiple posts that seem to want to either downgrade or erase the meaning behind Sherlockâs words to Molly Hooper. I find it insanely amusing, because had those words been to John Watson, people would be wetting themselves, but because it was for Molly, people are climbing all over themselves to again deny this character her actual fair due.
My husband, who watches Sherlock with me, had some very interesting perspectives on The Final Problem. He tends to read the show textually, without shipping or all the other nonsense we as fandom people get into. Â I tend to trust what he says only because he has no ulterior motives, like zero. Even my own ship doesnât really mean a damn thing to him. He knows I love it, but heâs not swayed by my reading or my desires at all. Â
His reading of The Final Problem was that this was Eurus effectively unlocking the original Sherlock Holmes. Â This was Sherlockâs sister, bringing him home, just as he was bringing her home. Â To do that, she had to undo what she did when she took Victor Trevor away from him at that young age. Â She took a little boy who was filled with bright, wonderful, hot emotion, and she made him lock that away. Â She made him like her, and to my husband, it seemed like that was never what Eurus wanted. Â
The scenes inside Sherrinford were about systematically making Sherlock face each single, major emotion that heâs refused to feel all these years: anger, fear, sadness, and above allâŠlove.  And no, I donât mean love for your best friend, thatâs already been addressed, and that was already the easiest thing for Sherlock to unlock in himself. He basically did that in S1.  Sherlock loves John, his best friend, just like he loved Victor.  The parallels are spelled out for you in the clearest of ways. Â
Sherlockâs locking away of his âsexualityâ was already broken open in S2 with Belgravia.  Irene Adler represented a part of Sherlock that really, really wanted out.  It was confusing as hell for him, as we saw, but he still managed to deal with it.  Sex is sex is sex.  Itâs meaningful, and at the same time, can also be meaningless.  I personally never saw Irene as meaningless, far from it.  But I do think her special place in Sherlockâs âunlockingâ was more physical than emotional.  Hence, we were reminded of this by the moan of her text tone. I personally think Sherlockâs sexuality is firmly unlocked at this point, no need to revisit it again and again.  Something that remained hidden though, very deep down, was Sherlockâs ability, willingness and understanding of a deeper love, and what that means.  This is where Eurus comes in.
The scene with the coffin was very carefully done, both by the writers and on the part of Eurusâ planning. Â In fact, if you listen carefully to Eurusâ words, she states exactly why she did it: you lost, look what you did to her, look what you did to yourself, all those complicated, complex emotions, emotional context. Â All of those things are things people feel when they love someone (romantic love, since Iâm sure I need to spell it out for some viewers). Â You feel elated, but you also feel scared. Â You may also hate yourself because you probably feel the person you love deserves BETTER than you. Â Should you act on it or let them go find someone better. Â Do you have the strength to give up parts of yourself for them? Â Do they have the strength to give up parts of themselves for you? Â Itâs scary as hell, yâall!!
 My hub says, to him, the first time Sherlock says âI love youâ to Molly Hooper, he didnât mean itâŠor at least Sherlock thinks he didnât mean it. Then, the second time, he did mean it, and he knows it.  That is why he smashed the coffinâŠthat was perhaps the biggest emotion heâd locked away, and he was consumed and confused by it.  For a man who has spent decades pushing love away, it came roaring in within 3 minutes, and he couldnât push it away. Eurus wouldnât let him push it away, and more importantly, Molly Hooper wouldnât let him push it away. Thatâs why she turned the tables on him and made him say it first.  She inadvertently helped Eurus, which Iâm sure was her plan all along (if you believe sheâs as much of a supernatural badass as sheâs shown to be).
My husbandâs purely textual reading of Sherlockâs smashing the coffin with âI love youâ on it is that he DID mean it, but he wasnât sure what that meant to him, and it scares him, greatly.  He said that looked like a man who was pissed that he LOVES.  He spent his entire life working at not loving, and here he is, loving this woman, but now he isnât sure what to do about it, because heâs not even sure what that really means.  He doesnât understand itâŠyet.  Love like that is incredibly strong, true love I mean, not âHey letâs boneâ love.  He said that wasnât the actions of a man who doesnât really care.  He said, as a man, if I had to get a woman to say that and I didnât really love her, I wouldnât care as much.  I surely wouldnât care enough to smash an entire coffin to bits with my bear hands.
Lastly, my husband said something I thought was incredibly interesting about how he reads Sherlock. Â He said he thinks the reason Sherlock hasnât really pursued any other relationships with women, not seriously that is, is that on some level he really knew he loved Molly, but that he felt HE wasnât good enough for HER. Â He thinks Sherlock, for all of his arrogance, actually doesnât think heâs a good man. Â He knows Molly Hooper deserves a good man, someone to love her exactly how he thinks she should be loved, and heâs terrified he ISNT that man, or he CANT be that man. Â His rage at smashing that coffin was basically anger at himself, anger at himself for loving this woman who really deserves more.
So, from a man who views this show with as much pure text as possible, he thinks that âI Love Youâ was real, but he thinks Sherlock simply doesnât know what to do with it, doesnât know what it means.  He said love is the scariest thing, especially to someone whoâs lived closed off.  Heâs had an upbringing that, without going into details, was a bit devoid of emotional support from people he needed it from. That means that learning how to show love was incredibly, incredibly difficult for him.  Trust me, Iâve been here for the entire thing.  It took years for him to learn how to show it.  It took me years tooâŠin fact I still have massive trouble with it. People whoâve lived not understanding how to love since young childhoodâŠit takes us a very long time to learn how to do it. Â
My husband and I are not the kind of people who go on romantic ballroom dancing dates and snuggle on the Tunnel of Love ride.  Weâre just not those kind of peopleâŠbut we do love each other very much.  We have our way of showing it that works for us. Thereâs no one else Iâd rather trust my mind, body and soul to.  That was first built on friendship, then trust, then love.  For us, I think thatâs kind of where Sherlock is starting to head.  We may not ever see that adventure, as thatâs not what Sherlockâs story was about.  But, finding how to love, that was his story, and Molly Hooper is an irreplaceable part of that.  No one can deny that, not ever.
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