Molly Hooper

[avoca]

Reason #5

 

 

for some reason it reminded me the lyrics of Michael bublè's song "everything": "You're the line in the sand when I go too far"..

 

I guess I'm just a bit tired of the idea that if a girl wants to be strong, she has to be violent. I have nothing against (TV!) violence (to a certain point, at least), but hitting, shooting or insulting people is not the same thing as being a strong person, and it's certainly not the same thing as being a feminist.

Now you're singing my tune!

 

I really didn't think of that scene as showing that Molly had become a stronger person. It was more that she was just so angered by and disappointed in Sherlock that she didn't think, she just reacted. Since that's the last "real life" interaction we saw her have with him, it will be interesting to see if it affects their future relationship.

 

i agree: she's the typical good, patient, shy person who never gets angry, but when does it's like a momentary explosion.. 

 

I don't really object to Molly slapping Sherlock on the grounds that it was a wrong thing to do. It wasn't, really. She had every right to be angry at him, and with Sherlock, it might be the only effective way to get her point across. Also, it's not like he couldn't have defended himself...

 

What bothers me a little is that it's rather out of character. I can easily imagine Molly fantasizing about slapping Sherlock's face, but actually doing it? Also, I get the impression that the scene was written that way to change Molly's "image" as a doormat, and here we get to my general complaint about what television and film think makes a strong woman. All too often, female characters are defined as empowered because they have learned to behave like men, basically. Be loud, pick up a gun (or a sword, in fantasy), kick some ass and voilà - you're a really great example to girls all over the world and a shining beacon for feminism.

 

as I said above, I don't think it's not in character and I didn't interpret it as an effort to make of molly something she's not, an "amazon".

 

I do think though, just cause it's an isolated burst of emotions, repressed for too long, it doens't have to happen too often, or it'll get to be out of character. 

[sittything]

I wish we had Sherlock and Molly's backstory.... how they met (I'm assuming at Bart's), how long they've known each other.  

 

One thing I didn't catch until my 2nd rewatching of SiB is that when Molly arrives at John and Sherlock's flat for the holiday party, she mentions that Sherlock was complaining to her that John was going to his sister's for the holiday.  Clearly they know one another well enough to "chat" or for Sherlock to complain to her, even if Molly initiated the conversation.

[SherlockedCAMPer]

Sherlock's and Molly's relationship back story would be interesting.  Maybe Moftiss will shed a brief light on it (nothing drawn out, but a simple short scene with 1 "Oh, that's why" dealing with 1 aspect of their relationship).

[sittything]

I was thinking, what if the slap isn't that out of character for Molly?   I think most of us, at least through series 1 and 2, saw Molly as mousy and a doormat, but how much of that is her character having changed over the series vs what we've been privy to affecting our view of her?   She was a lot less in the show ipre-Reichenbach.

 

This isn't an argument for or against one way or the other, more me just trying to sort it out in my head by putting it down:

 

• All we really get out of ASIP is Molly asking Sherlock to coffee, and taking her lipstick off b/c she thought he didn't like it
• Molly gets used by Sherlock (he flirts with her) to see a corpse
• Sherlock tells Molly that Jim from IT is gay, but Molly does get angry and says to Sherlock, "Why'd you have to spoil...? He's not."  So a bit of fight back there.
• SiB we have the ever famous "You always say such horrible things. Every time. Always. Always..."  and she doesn't hesitate to ask Mycroft "Who is she? How did Sherlock recognize her from... not her face?"  and Sherlock if the phone is his girlfriend's.

I think I want the backstory so badly because I don't always understand Molly in relation to Sherlock.  For all of her awkwardness, she's never really been afraid to tell him what she thinks.... from telling him he spoils things and always says such horrible things, to smacking him around and telling him off in HLV.

[Tunguska]

I'm not Molly's biggest fan. Too much nervous energy, I don't think we would be friends. Still, she is very sweet and I just want to hug her and tell her it's going to be okay sometimes. I wonder how much of her behaviour is influenced by her swooning over Sherlock. We glimpse some moments where she is strong and sure of herself and maybe that's slightly more true to her nature than blundering around Sherlock is. She certainly does not seem to be nervous with Tom.

[Tunguska]

Oh and I'd love some back story!

[T.o.b.y]

I'm not Molly's biggest fan. Too much nervous energy, I don't think we would be friends. Still, she is very sweet and I just want to hug her and tell her it's going to be okay sometimes. I wonder how much of her behaviour is influenced by her swooning over Sherlock. We glimpse some moments where she is strong and sure of herself and maybe that's slightly more true to her nature than blundering around Sherlock is. She certainly does not seem to be nervous with Tom.

 

I think you're right about that last bit. You know, I'm not entirely sure Molly needs that hug. She doesn't seem like a particularly weak or insecure person in general and it seems to me that she has her life pretty well under control. It's just that she's got this big crush on Sherlock, and he's the kind of person to rattle you anyway.

 

"Quiet power" is how I would describe Molly. I bet she's often underestimated.

 

Hmmmm, backstory. Yes, I'd like a bit of that too. For example, I wonder whether they really met at Barts. It could have been earlier. I mean, why does she know he studied chemistry? Perhaps they were at university together and he got into the morgue in the first place because he already knew her? Not too well, of course - when we first see them together, they don't appear to be particularly close - but she might have admired him from afar for some time, and he would certainly not have failed to notice that and store it away under "useful information".

 

[Bendydoodle Cantaloupe]

I'm not Molly's biggest fan. Too much nervous energy, I don't think we would be friends. Still, she is very sweet and I just want to hug her and tell her it's going to be okay sometimes. I wonder how much of her behaviour is influenced by her swooning over Sherlock.

I wouldn't say Molly's particularly nervous. She's only nervous when she's around other people, Sherlock especially because she likes him a lot. I'm pretty sure you'd have to be really confident if you're gonna be -- as Sherlock puts it -- "slicing up cadavers".

 

We glimpse some moments where she is strong and sure of herself and maybe that's slightly more true to her nature than blundering around Sherlock is. She certainly does not seem to be nervous with Tom.

Perhaps she's not as nervous around Tom because she knows him better, even though she didn't know him as long. Sort of like how in ASiP (Is it ASiP? Not sure.) John thinks Lestrade knows Sherlock more, but in truth, John knows the most about Sherlock even though Lestrade's known him for five years.

 

Or maybe Molly's not nervous because Tom's more of a friend to her than a faraway crush. 13 hours and 30 minutes of this show and we still don't know much about Sherlock.

[Arcadia]

Speaking for myself ... ahem ... I'm plenty confident most of the time, especially when working. But put me alone in a quiet room with a man I find insanely attractive, and I turn into a blithering idiot. Especially if the guy makes it clear he has minus zero interest in me. Then I go home and try to figure out what's wrong with me. Yeah, Molly 'n' me would get along just fine.

[Bendydoodle Cantaloupe]

Really? I have a guy friend who I kinda  like a lot and we just tell each other and our other friends dumb jokes and pickup-lines.

[Arcadia]

Key words: "insanely attractive" ....

[sfmpco]

When I first saw S1, I must say that I didn't pay that much attention to Molly, which I'm sure was the intent.  Then we came to S2E1 and I didn't recognize her in the Christmas scene.  Really, I was like, "who is this character?" (okay, I can be really slow on comprehension! - had the same thing with Anderson in MHR - didn't recognize him).  I had to go back and rewatch S1 and then got my eureka moment.  Then I watched that Christmas scene over and over and over to try to figure out what I had been missing about their association/friendship/relationship.  Oh, so many things come up in that scene where you have to read between the lines of dialogue.  Oh yes.  But as I've said, I'm slow that way!  And also ASIB has always been one of my most difficult episodes to peel apart like an onion.  Of course, I think i have a handle on it now, but who knows?

 

By the time TRF came around, all of a sudden she was very upfront about how she knew he thought very little of her.  She KNEW from his behavior that despite how she felt, she didn't count in his world.  Except that she did count--and she was able to read him the way he read other people, and that unnerved him.  And when he needed her expertise to save his life, he allowed himself to be vulnerable with her and let his walls down because he trusted her and needed her to know that she did count.  He apologized in a way... and she's the only one who can get him to ever apologize for his behavior.  

 

It doesn't bother me in HLV that she slaps him.  For one thing, I think he was trying to pull off a fast one about the drugs, and she for one, wasn't going to tolerate it.  Also, he was high and she needed to get his attention, and pain sobered him a little.  That she felt she could physically go after him like that, however, also lets me know the deepness of their friendship.  I think if their friendship were more casual, she might have done something else.  But she could take him to task.  And I don't think it set feminism or relationships back at all.  It was just how she knew how to handle him.  Except this time she had to demand he apologize, and this time he was snarky about it.

 

Interesting to note the two missing bits of dialogue from THE SHERLOCK CHRONICLES that happened right before she slapped him but after her saying "Clean?"

 

----

She rounds on Sherlock.

 

MOLLY:  What do you want me to tell them?

 

He fixes her with a look.

 

SHERLOCK:  Whatever you feel you ought to tell them.

 

MOLLY:  Oh I see!  You give me the big dark eyes, and the deep, deep voice, and I'm supposed to lie for you.

-----

 

The she slaps him and gives the rest of her speech which actually went on camera.  They probably filmed those lines but cut them to trim any "fat" from the episode and keep it just under 90 minutes.

 

Going back to TRF, I've read a lot of fan fiction where after he says the "You." line in response to her "what do you need?" and a lot of the fics have them getting intimate.  But I disagree because I don't think she'd take advantage of that moment, nor do I think his head was anywhere near those actions.  He was in survival mode. 

 

I do think her saying in TSOT that she and Tom were "having quite a lot of sex" was meant to be an "in your face" remark, which he found to be TMI and quite awkward, but whether or not it was entirely true is up for interpretation.  Or was she saying it like "It could have been you, Sherlock, but you missed your chance."  Clearly she was molding Tom into a Sherlock, at least in his clothing, but clearly also she had not gotten on with her life entirely, and within a month after John and Mary's wedding had broken off her engagement with Tom.  Quite frankly, I don't think her engagement went beyond 48 hrs of that wedding, because she clearly only had eyes for SH the whole wedding and was completely smitten anew for him.  

 

We don't see so much of her in HLV except the slapping scene and then the mind palace.  As Baker Street Babes so eloquently described her a few months back, she represents all medical knowledge to him in his mind palace - that's how much he trusts her.

 

Where they will go in S4 with that relationship is unknown, but to free her up from her engagement just leads me to believe there is something more that will happen between her and SH in S4.  

 

Remember that all versions of movies/TV/books are considered canon and can be drawn from by Moffat and Gatiss.  Plus their show is its own canon.  Molly has become canon forever.  She is new canon.

 

Well, that was long-winded.  Sorry.

[Carol the Dabbler]

When I first saw S1, I must say that I didn't pay that much attention to Molly, which I'm sure was the intent.  Then we came to S2E1 and I didn't recognize her in the Christmas scene.  Really, I was like, "who is this character?" (okay, I can be really slow on comprehension! - had the same thing with Anderson in MHR - didn't recognize him).  I had to go back and rewatch S1 and then got my eureka moment.

Well, to be fair to yourself, Molly was all decked out in the Christmas scene, quite a contrast from her usual strictly-utilitarian nerd uniform. And of course Anderson looked and acted quite a lot different in MHR -- I'm certainly not surprised that some people didn't recognize him.  Or her.

 

Interesting to note the two missing bits of dialogue from THE SHERLOCK CHRONICLES that happened right before she slapped him but after her saying "Clean?"

 

----

She rounds on Sherlock.

 

MOLLY:  What do you want me to tell them?

 

He fixes her with a look.

 

SHERLOCK:  Whatever you feel you ought to tell them.

 

MOLLY:  Oh I see!  You give me the big dark eyes, and the deep, deep voice, and I'm supposed to lie for you.

-----

 

The she slaps him and gives the rest of her speech which actually went on camera.  They probably filmed those lines but cut them to trim any "fat" from the episode and keep it just under 90 minutes.

I know that some people think when she said "clean" she was effectively answering "Yes" to John's question -- those lines would have clarified the scene very nicely. And I like the "dark eyes and deep voice" bit -- she really had him pegged!

 

I really, really hope they eventually make the shooting scripts available for purchase.

 

Clearly she was molding Tom into a Sherlock, at least in his clothing....

I've been assuming that he already dressed like that, which is one thing that attracted her to him (subconsciously, it would appear). But you're right, she could have been unwittingly encouraging him to be more and more like Sherlock. It'd be interesting to see their first meeting.

 

Oddly enough, though, when Tom tried his hand at deduction, she wasn't the least bit pleased. (And I still say that if Sherlock had come up with the "meat dagger" theory himself, he'd have seen nothing whatsoever wrong with it. I've seen that sort of idea used very effectively in mystery shows.)

 

Well, that was long-winded.  Sorry.

Hey, that's what forums are for!  You're not "long-winded" if what you say is interesting. 

 

[Boton]

 

I really, really hope they eventually make the shooting scripts available for purchase.

 

 

 

 

Your lips to Moftiss' ears!

[Schlauer Fuchs]

I always wanted to discuss, or at least share my thoughts about one scene which occupies my mind whenever I watch it. It's the scene in Shilcott's house when Molly tells Sherlock about Tom and Sherlock gives her this ever so gentle kiss. I could always slap him for that kiss, because in my opinion this is really the moment in which Molly's engagement with Tom is doomed. This one kiss rekindles all her hopes and emotions concerning Sherlock and makes her realise that "maybe it's just my kind." In my opinion, what happened at the wedding was only the final straw after this moment of realisation that it's really Sherlock she loves.

 

I always ponder the question if Molly would have stayed with Tom if Sherlock hadn't kissed her? And if they could have been happy? She seemed honestly happy with their relationship when she told Sherlock about how they went to the pub, had a dog etc. Could Molly and Tom have stayed a happy couple if a) Sherlock hadn't returned to London or hadn't kissed her?

[Arcadia]

Hmm. I think Tom was doomed to be dumped the moment Sherlock showed up in Molly's mirror.

[sittything]

Hmmm... I would like to think that Tom was always doomed, and even if Sherlock had never returned she would have eventually kicked him to the curb, but I dunno.

 

I don't think the kiss itself particularly killed her and Tom.  I do think it maybe accelerated her realizing she's not over Sherlock (although she should have figured that out the moment she walked in his flat and said "dinner?").  But I do want to smack him a bit for kissing her.  If he truly understands and grasps how she feels about him and realizes that she's not over him, that was sort of a crap move on his part. I know he has kissed Mary and Mrs. Hudson, but they're also not fawning over him.

[Arcadia]

Well, I can forgive Sherlock, because Molly had just finished breathlessly telling him she'd moved on with another man ... and I took the kiss as a sort of "fare thee well, then, I won't bother you anymore, I'm happy you're happy." Because he's astute, but perhaps not astute enough to realize what even Molly didn't realize at that point ... she wasn't over him yet.

 

I think she wanted to be over him because she knows down deep he's unattainable, but ... the heart wants what the heart wants. Sherlock's such a naif at emotions, though, I'm not surprised he didn't pick up on it.

[sittything]

I guess I didn't find her telling him all about Tom as compelling evidence of her having moved on.  It seemed awkward and forced to me, not genuine and happy at all.  But maybe Sherlock wouldn't pick up on that?

[Arcadia]

That's what I meant, yeah. Molly's trying to convince herself by telling him all that, but Sherlock's the one she fools.

 

Plus I'll bet he felt all gentlemanly at the time, too, nobly giving up all claim to her! The daft twit.

[Bendydoodle Cantaloupe]

...only to find that he does need her, if only to serve as a potentially-fatal-wound response mechanism in his mind palace.

 

[Boton]

I always wanted to discuss, or at least share my thoughts about one scene which occupies my mind whenever I watch it. It's the scene in Shilcott's house when Molly tells Sherlock about Tom and Sherlock gives her this ever so gentle kiss. I could always slap him for that kiss, because in my opinion this is really the moment in which Molly's engagement with Tom is doomed. This one kiss rekindles all her hopes and emotions concerning Sherlock and makes her realise that "maybe it's just my kind." In my opinion, what happened at the wedding was only the final straw after this moment of realisation that it's really Sherlock she loves.

 

I always ponder the question if Molly would have stayed with Tom if Sherlock hadn't kissed her? And if they could have been happy? She seemed honestly happy with their relationship when she told Sherlock about how they went to the pub, had a dog etc. Could Molly and Tom have stayed a happy couple if a) Sherlock hadn't returned to London or hadn't kissed her?

 

In my opinion only, if a relationship can be destabilized by a peck on the cheek from your crush, it was doomed from the start.  

 

I think Molly named all those things about Tom because they are the markers that should indicate a happy relationship -- the dog, meeting the family, going to the pub.  But she doesn't just want those things, she wants them with Sherlock.  And the tragedy (if there is one) is that Sherlock is never going to provide those things to anyone.

 

I see that kiss as his attempt to communicate in a language Molly understands, much as he did when he apologized at the Christmas party.  The entire day had thus far been about Sherlock offering his best to Molly -- I'm going to let you into my world and let you be part of The Work.  But ultimately, that's not what Molly wants.  They both realized it a bit with that kiss.  

[Bendydoodle Cantaloupe]

On a (thread-hijacking) side note: Did you know that people have high shock resistance and the ability to recover from injuries insanely fast? Whereas most other species would go into shock (and thus die) after breaking a leg or being shot, a human can still move and can actually patch themselves up if materials are available.

[Carol the Dabbler]

So you're saying that it wasn't all that unrealistic for Sherlock to a] give himself the best chance to survive being shot (by imagining what Molly might recommend -- see, we're still on topic), and b] fight his way back through sheer determination?

 

[sittything]

The only thing I've never understood about Molly in the mind palace, is why not John?  He's a doctor.  He was even a military doctor, so surely he's soon gunshot wounds before.