Molly Hooper

[Arcadia]

The way he closes the door just before John's nose in the next scene. I don't know why, but it makes me cringe more than anything I can think of right now.

 

Yeah, that hurt. Poor John. Sherlock was bit not good that day. Still think murdering CAM tops it all, though. :p

[Van Buren Supernova]

I have justification for that scene though, I think I'd do the same too.

But nah, don't sweat it.

[gerry]

Yes, he did. But he didn't call her a whore, or say she was "easy", or even say she was looking for sex.

I didn't say he said the flrst two. That phrase can be used for a range of severity. They are only two possibilities of uses of the phrase. I articulated why I used the phrase and in what context I meant it.

[Arcadia]

I have justification for that scene though, I think I'd do the same too.

But nah, don't sweat it.

Oh, I think I would too. My first instinct in a situation like that would be to be alone. But that doesn't excuse the behavior; it just explains it. And I'm willing to bet that John understood that; but that probably didn't make him feel any less shut out. But he accepts Sherlock the way he is anyway; that's what makes him a good friend, imo.

 

ETA ... oh, wait. You mean shooting CAM, not closing the door in Johns face, don't you? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I accept you anyway. :P

[Artemis]

I do wonder if there's anything Sherlock can do that would make people here not defend, mitigate or excuse his behavior.

An explanation is different from an excuse.

 

Edit: Looks like I said what was already said, lol.

[Van Buren Supernova]

Oh, I think I would too. My first instinct in a situation like that would be to be alone. But that doesn't excuse the behavior; it just explains it. And I'm willing to bet that John understood that; but that probably didn't make him feel any less shut out. But he accepts Sherlock the way he is anyway; that's what makes him a good friend, imo.

 

Not always though.

But nobody is flawless.

[Arcadia]

 

Yes, he did. But he didn't call her a whore, or say she was "easy", or even say she was looking for sex.

I didn't say he said the flrst two.

 

Your words:

 

He doesn't know how to deal with it but how he does is to talk to her like she's a whore?

 

... talking to her like she was dressed like a whore?

Hence my objection.

[Arcadia]

 

Oh, I think I would too. My first instinct in a situation like that would be to be alone. But that doesn't excuse the behavior; it just explains it. And I'm willing to bet that John understood that; but that probably didn't make him feel any less shut out. But he accepts Sherlock the way he is anyway; that's what makes him a good friend, imo.

Not always though.

But nobody is flawless.

 

I wonder if those two think they're even now. "I hurt you, you hurt me, it's all good now." I tend to think men think that way.

[Boton]

I also disagree with the assessment that Sherlock was talking to Molly as if she were a "whore."  Just because he commented on her appearance in an extremely negative, insulting, and hurtful way doesn't mean that he is equating her with a whore.  I'm not sure that the disapproval of sexual behavior inherent in the word "whore" when used as an insult is even within Sherlock's range of criticisms.  

 

But that doesn't mean the scene wasn't awful.  It absolutely was.  That was the point of it.  It was a rock-bottom moment of sorts for Sherlock, and it made a point that he could behave so badly that even *he* would recognize it at some point.  I don't approve of his behavior, but I approve of that behavior being shown on screen for narrative purposes.  I don't have to like a character the entire time he is on screen for me to generally find him a fascinating character overall.  Sherlock's flaws make him interesting, and this was a heck of a flaw.

 

Arcadia opined:

 

 

I wonder if those two think they're even now. "I hurt you, you hurt me, it's all good now." I tend to think men think that way. 

 

 

Yeah.  I love that about men.  It's just so clean and easy, without all the emotional stuff you have to go through with some women.  I think Janine is like that too, which is why I fell in love with her for Sherlock.   :D

[gerry]

 

I do wonder if there's anything Sherlock can do that would make people here not defend, mitigate or excuse his behavior.

An explanation is different from an excuse

I agree but if I say something like it wasnt so bad for reason x, y or z, am I simply explaining the behavior?

 

This actually reminds me of a L&O rerun I saw the other day. In it a white guy murdered his sister's black boyfriend because of his race nine years before. Not long after the murder the brother took it as a sign from god that the police didn't arrest him. In the nine years, he became a born again Christian, quit his lucrative job to work for a charity for peanuts and basically changed his entire life because he was remorseful for his crime. The premise of the court case was his lawyer trying to dismiss the murder charge on the basis of inhumanity since he was not the same man now than he was then and it wouldn't be in the interest of justice to put him in jail. The prosecutor put the sister on the stand. He asked her what her brother said about her boyfriend nine years ago (basically not good enough for her for derogatory race reasons) and if she believed her brother truly is remorseful. She said she wanted to believe he was but how can you truly know what's in another man's heart? The prosecutor's point was should you be able to get away with murder if you're sincerely really sorry after the fact or should you first take responsibility under man's law and then atone with your maker someday? The brother ended up pleading guilty because the murder charge was not dismissed and he took it as a sign that god wanted him to go to jail to atone for his crime. What I loved about the episode was the idea of personal responsibility not being negated by saying I'm sorry no matter how sincere it is. That ultimately you are still responsible for your actions because you can't really know what's in another man's heart.

 

That's why in the xmas scene I don't care if Sherlock says he's sorry. He's still responsible for what he said. Besides how sorry could he be if he keeps repeating the same behavior over and over again in future episodes (deducing people with no regard for the other person)? He was still doing the same in as late as the Norbury scene in season 4. He didn't really learn much of anything from the xmas scene in my opinion.

[gerry]

I'm not sure that the disapproval of sexual behavior inherent in the word "whore" when used as an insult is even within Sherlock's range of criticisms.

then where did you think his attitude came from during the entire diatribe if not for disapproval of sexual behavior? Why mention what she's encouraging by making her breasts and mouth look bigger if not for the sexual inference?

[Artemis]

I agree but if I say something like it wasnt so bad for reason x, y or z, am I simply explaining the behavior?

I guess I don't understand what you're applying that logic to. Who's saying that what Sherlock did to Molly in the Christmas scene wasn't so bad?

[Boton]

 

I'm not sure that the disapproval of sexual behavior inherent in the word "whore" when used as an insult is even within Sherlock's range of criticisms.

then where did you think his attitude came from during the entire diatribe if not for disapproval of sexual behavior? Why mention what she's encouraging by making her breasts and mouth look bigger if not for the sexual inference?

 

 

I don't think those insults had anything whatsoever to do with sex or disapproval of it.  I think that's Sherlock pointing out every single clue that he has about Molly's behavior and doing it out loud and in front of everyone, but I don't think he has an opinion one way or the other about her sexual behavior.  Certainly not enough to disapprove.

 

I think Sherlock was angry, frustrated, worried, and stressed over the Irene situation, and his form of self-soothing is analyzing things.  Molly was one giant analysis target - her behavior was different than it usually is in the morgue, and he was distracting himself with a rapid fire series of observations and statements about their implications.  He was going back to his absolute comfort zone, which is understanding someone's behavior by looking at clues, and he didn't think for a minute that Molly would consider this insulting or that every single person in the room had picked up on enough social context to be profoundly embarrassed for Molly, for Sherlock, and for themselves for being trapped in that room while this went on.

 

I think you actually have to have opinions about sexual morality in order to use them as an insult, and, at this point in Sherlock's evolution, I think his entire opinion on sexual morality is "isn't it silly for people to allow sex to cloud their judgement."  

[Artemis]

I don't think those insults had anything whatsoever to do with sex or disapproval of it. I think that's Sherlock pointing out every single clue that he has about Molly's behavior and doing it out loud and in front of everyone, but I don't think he has an opinion one way or the other about her sexual behavior. Certainly not enough to disapprove.

 

I think Sherlock was angry, frustrated, worried, and stressed over the Irene situation, and his form of self-soothing is analyzing things. Molly was one giant analysis target - her behavior was different than it usually is in the morgue, and he was distracting himself with a rapid fire series of observations and statements about their implications. He was going back to his absolute comfort zone, which is understanding someone's behavior by looking at clues, and he didn't think for a minute that Molly would consider this insulting or that every single person in the room had picked up on enough social context to be profoundly embarrassed for Molly, for Sherlock, and for themselves for being trapped in that room while this went on.

 

I think you actually have to have opinions about sexual morality in order to use them as an insult, and, at this point in Sherlock's evolution, I think his entire opinion on sexual morality is "isn't it silly for people to allow sex to cloud their judgement."

^ I was just writing a post about this, but Boton said it much better.

[SanaB]

I still can't see why Sherlock should be especially mean to Molly. He behaves like that torwarts everyone.

I saw the scene with John yesterday again in which Sherlock came back after his fake death. John was ready to propose, he was griefing for two years and Sherlock appeared with this really awful timing just saying "alive" and "really...the beard?!". This scene was so cruel (well also funny ;) ) and I felt so much pitty for John. Sherlock tries, I really think he does but sometimes he fails... and then extremly.

[bedelia1984]

 

I think the best part of this scene is how humbling it is for Sherlock- he realises how poor his behaviour is, but he also realises how much he doesn't know about the people around him, especially women.

What do you think he learned about not knowing women from that scene and how did you perceive it? Just from saying forgive me?

 

 

I think he learned that he wasn't able to read women as well as he thought, for starters- he missed the most important thing, which was that he was the one Molly was trying to impress. There are so many reasons that it should have been obvious- for starters the fact that he'd been flirting with her at the lab to get what he wanted in episodes like The Blind Banker, how could he not have foreseen that if he encouraged her to like him she might actually like him? How could he miss such an obvious clue as her turning up at his place dressed to the nines?

 

And then as well, I think that moment when he realised that it was all for him, wasn't entirely horrific for him either- on some level it was nice. So, he went into his rant about how women are painting themselves up trying to ensnare poor helpless men into their webs of deceit and ended by realising that there is something at the very least touching, and possibly even nice about a woman making an effort to impress you- even if you don't deserve it it any way.

 

It's the difference between theory and practice, when it comes to his interactions with Molly, but also with women in general, for me, which is why I think the scene is so important to his character.

 

I think where your suggestion that he is belittling her for her sexuality falls down is that his reaction is so different when he thinks she's trying to entrap a stranger, than when he thinks she's trying to seduce him- once the 'abstract' element is removed, on a human level, he connects with what Molly is really doing and feeling, and there isn't any contempt at all left by the end of the scene, not in my interpretation anyway.

 

It's important to view this in the context of the whole episode too- Sherlock has been caught off guard by Irene not long ago, there's some bitterness there too, and Molly is in the wrong place at the wrong time when he's probably been ruminating on the wicked ways of women.

[gerry]

I think Sherlock was angry, frustrated, worried, and stressed over the Irene situation, and his form of self-soothing is analyzing things.

 

If he was so angry, frustrated, worried and stressed about Irene why was there no sign of it after his violin solo when he bowed and seemed fine? He even seemed to enjoy trying to guess Jeanette's name. There was also normal banter with John about the website. If there's a bad mood/that much of a preoccupation, it's awfully inconsistently applied.

[gerry]

I think where your suggestion that he is belittling her for her sexuality falls down is that his reaction is so different when he thinks she's trying to entrap a stranger, than when he thinks she's trying to seduce him- once the 'abstract' element is removed, on a human level, he connects with what Molly is really doing and feeling, and there isn't any contempt at all left by the end of the scene, not in my interpretation anyway.

 

Doesn't the fact that he was different after seeing the present prove that he was in fact belittling her during the personal attack? The entire deduction was full of contempt.

[Boton]

 

I think Sherlock was angry, frustrated, worried, and stressed over the Irene situation, and his form of self-soothing is analyzing things.

 

If he was so angry, frustrated, worried and stressed about Irene why was there no sign of it after his violin solo when he bowed and seemed fine? He even seemed to enjoy trying to guess Jeanette's name. There was also normal banter with John about the website. If there's a bad mood/that much of a preoccupation, it's awfully inconsistently applied.

You know what? I've completely gotten lost in this discussion about what exactly it was I was trying to prove or argue for! :-)

 

All I know is that the scene reads fine to me. Sherlock was behaving horribly toward Molly. I think I understand some of his motivation for doing so, but that doesn't excuse it. I think he abused Molly in a larger sense because the story needed him to do so to begin a very slow grappling with his own emotions that would continue until TFP. And I cringed through the whole thing, felt sorry for literally everyone in the room, but found the scene well written.

 

Beyond that, I fear I've completely lost the plot of my own argument. :-)

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[gerry]

Fine with me Boton!

[SanaB]

IMO this thread should be an exchange. We all have different opinions and much more important: different exspectations. It's impossible for the makers to fullfill all of them.

We are supposed to have fun here.

[Artemis]

If he was so angry, frustrated, worried and stressed about Irene why was there no sign of it after his violin solo when he bowed and seemed fine? He even seemed to enjoy trying to guess Jeanette's name. There was also normal banter with John about the website. If there's a bad mood/that much of a preoccupation, it's awfully inconsistently applied.

 

What signaled to me that he was in an ill humor was when Molly was coming into the flat, and he said sarcastically, "Oh, everybody saying hello to each other, how wonderful!"  I was a bit taken aback by it myself because I hadn't gotten any hint of it until then, but it seemed pretty evident in that moment.  I thought maybe it was just a one-off, but after that I could see it building because he started picking apart what everyone said.

 

Edit: I just watched this scene again, and noticed that when Sherlock picked up Irene's red present from the mantelpiece, they flashed to a pair of lips (presumably Irene's) being painted with red lipstick.  Sherlock had said that the shade of Molly's present was echoed in her lipstick, so I think this could be an indication that he was preoccupied with Irene (and perhaps women in general) and taking out his frustrations on Molly.

 

 

Am I the only one who cringed almost as much when he announced that Lestrade's wife was sleeping with the P.E. teacher?  I felt really bad for Lestrade because he either didn't know, or was trying to save face when he told everyone they had it sorted, and Sherlock humiliated him.  And then when he corrected John when he said his sister was off the booze, I wanted to kick Sherlock under the table and tell him to stop ruining everyone's Christmas.

 

 

[SanaB]

No I was shocked about Lestrade too. Mentioned it somewhere above. This wasn't less cruel than the things Sherlock said to Molly.

[gerry]

What signaled to me that he was in an ill humor was when Molly was coming into the flat, and he said sarcastically, "Oh, everybody saying hello to each other, how wonderful!" I was a bit taken aback by it myself because I hadn't gotten any hint of it until then, but it seemed pretty evident in that moment.

For me it was the eye roll/"Oh dear lord" when he saw Molly coming up the stairs but I just thought that was a set up of the later deduction not indicative of a general bad Irene preoccupied mood.

 

Am I the only one who cringed almost as much when he announced that Lestrade's wife was sleeping with the P.E. teacher? I felt really bad for Lestrade because he either didn't know, or was trying to save face when he told everyone they had it sorted, and Sherlock humiliated him. And then when he corrected John when he said his sister was off the booze, I wanted to kick Sherlock under the table and tell him to stop ruining everyone's Christmas.

I dislike much of Sherlock's insensitivity. I found the Lestrade and John revelations very insenstive which are consistent with that HOB Mrs. H Mr Chatterjee scene you mentioned. Also the Jim from IT being gay for Molly in TGG. In all circumstances he's revealing something about people close to his friends in a rather matter of fact way. Didn't like any of them but I also took it as Sherlock being Sherlock so they don't register with me as much. I mean is he supposed to be preoccupied with Irene in HOB too when he did the same thing? He does it often. THe John portion is actually pretty close to the ASIP scene about his sister.

 

I saw the Molly portion of the Xmas scene differently, as a personal attack. With a disrespectful mocking (not matter of fact) attitude, he assessed her intentions and how big her breasts and mouth looked. He was insulting her personally, specifically, which is why it goes from mere insensitivity to being cruel. Because Molly is so sweet and mild mannered it makes it that much worse. Boton is probably correct in that she's defenseless. As such I'm more viscerally affected.

 

The other scene that is closer to the Molly scene to me was the TRF house mistress scene because he was verbally attacking that older woman too, though in not as personal way. I cringe at that one too but yet some find it funny so clearly everyone has their own personal line when Sherlock's insensitivity is fun and entertaining versus cringe worthy. It must be all based on the circumstances of the scene and which characters are affected. I definitely don't think his insensitivity is equally applied. there are some moments worse than others.

[Artemis]

I mean is he supposed to be preoccupied with Irene in HOB too when he did the same thing?

Well in THoB it came from his extreme frustration with being bored. Another bad mood, different reasons, lol.

 

As to how much anything has to do with Irene, I really can't speak to that. I surmised that he was possibly somewhat preoccupied with her in the Christmas scene. To what extent and how much it influenced his behavior, I don't know. Could be a lot, could be a little, could be none at all. I could speculate, but I'm not interested enough, lol.