Interesting discussion! I always thought this scene with Molly would be absurd taken at face value. But of course this goes for the whole of S4 - it’s only the magnitude of the absurdities that increases in TFP. And yes; this is indeed a game of mirrors, which I believe is confirmed by Gatiss’ rather telling comment. I definitely agree with @fluffbyday-smutbynight about ‘theatre of the absurd’ and Molly being a mirror for John, but if I could add another layer of possible interpretation to it (my own very speculative one :-) ), it would be this:
If we assume that S4 basically takes place in Sherlock’s mind palace where he keeps running scenarios, then I think this could also be seen as his private ‘purgatory’ where he’s confronted with his ‘demons’, his major problems that are haunting him constantly. And his brain tries to solve them by improvising scenes in his Mind Theatre and see how they play out, to get to conclusions. I think one big issue that bothers Sherlock is whether John loves him or not, but he dares not even imagine John confessing love directly to him, so he tries to figure out a way to trick him into it by testing different scenarios with ‘mirrors’ for John as actors.
In TLD Sherlock tries - and fails - by trickery to get a proper ‘confession’ out of another John mirror: Culverton Smith, who probably represents John’s ‘dark’ side. Smith seems to have a need for confessing, but only if he can erase it afterwards, hence the drug that makes people forget what they hear. (It’s a bit like John’s backpedalling at Angelo’s in ASiP, isn’t it? ;-) John questions Sherlock about his relationships and says ‘fine, we’re both unattached’, while also loudly declaring that ‘I’m not his date’ and denying that he wanted to ask Sherlock out). In TLD Sherlock tells Smith that “You talk to the dead. You make your confession to them.”, which would at least partly fit with John’s little speech at Sherlock’s supposed grave in TRF, that Sherlock overheard. But at the end of TLD, after almost killing Sherlock, Smith claims that he wasn’t actually confessing anything. Later Smith keeps confessing to the police, though, and “apparently he can’t stop confessing“. But Sherlock isn’t really witness to any specific confession, is he?
So now in TFP it’s time to test another scenario where Molly, who Sherlock knows has a crush on him, is the John mirror. He desperately tries to make Molly confess her love to him, but the big issue is that Molly refuses to do it unless Sherlock declares his feelings first. And this is the major obstacle for Sherlock, because it means he must stop trying to analyse John and instead focus on his own feelings. And he, Sherlock, must take the first step and ‘out’ himself as being in love, something that he has probably abhorred for most of his life. But he does it anyway for the sake of emergency, to avoid the John-mirror’s death - in other words to ’save John Watson’.
This is different from the scenario with the ’dark’ John mirror Culverton Smith, where Sherlock never admitted to anything about himself, except for his fear of ’dying’. If dying in Sherlock’s mind is a metaphor for falling in love, then the consequences of being ruled by Sentiment might be the great fear he experiences in TLD. But Sherlock ’knows’ that John will come and rescue him from this horror, because Smith (the dark John mirror) doesn’t actually confess to anything specific.
Molly, on the other hand, does confess eventually, but she forces Sherlock to take the first step. She throws Sherlock’s own method right back at him, as @the-gay-bbc-boys explains above. But when Sherlock finally gives up and does say ’I love you’, coercing these words out of Molly as well, he’s being told (by Eurus) that there was actually no emergency and that his confession only served to hurt Molly. Maybe because the circumstances of the confession made the John-mirror believe Sherlock didn’t mean it anyway? So not even this scenario could offer an acceptable solution to Sherlock. And this is why, I believe, Sherlock breaks down and furiously smashes the whole ’I love you’ box in frustration.
But what could Sherlock possibly learn from his mental exercise with these scenarios, other than what he already believed he knew; that love confessions are risky and potentially harmful? Well, maybe he could learn that in order to communicate properly with John, in order to really ’save’ him, Sherlock first needs to embrace his own emotional side and be honest about it. ’It’s not a game anymore’, as Molly informs him in TLD. He needs to embrace Eurus. Which he ultimately also does at the end of TFP. By hugging Eurus Sherlock manages to figure out how to rescue John from the deep well he’s trapped in.
Just my two cents on the ’I love you’ scene in TFP. :) But I’m not saying I think this is the end of the story; I rather believe it’s the preparation for the end of the story (which would be S5, whenever it comes). ;)
@sarahthecoat @raggedyblue @i-believe-n-sherlock-holmes @gosherlocked @ebaeschnbliah @sagestreet @lukessense
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