'Sherlock' Actress & Showrunner 'Disagree' on Molly's Response to Finale
"Sherlock" viewers were told the Season 4 finale would blow them away, but few expected the sparks still flying days later would be between the fandom and co-creator Steven Moffat. Whew! Molly Hooper actress Louise Brealey was dragged into the fray, fighting back Twitter trolls while admitting she didn't agree with Moffat's post-show comments either.
*Spoilers ahead from "The Final Problem."
In the Season 4 finale, "The Final Problem," Sherlock's sister Eurus pulled an emotional manipulation stunt, calling Molly Hooper and demanding that Sherlock get her to say the words "I love you" in a short amount of time or explosives would blow up Molly's house. A tearful and clearly broken Molly eventually said the words to Sherlock -- without knowing what was at stake, since that was one of Eurus's qualifications -- and then it turned out there were no explosives in Molly's home at all. That is where the finale left it, just including a brief shot of Molly at the end like everything was fine.
Fans did not like the blowing over of Molly's emotional manipulation. Moffat, who wrote the episode with co-showrunner Mark Gatiss, basically shrugged Molly off when Entertainment Weekly asked about her in a post-finale interview:
If there is something fans seem upset about with this episode it's that there's no resolving scene with Molly after that very effective devastating call to her while she's in the kitchen. Did you consider doing one? Is it fair to leave her that like that?
But that's not how we leave her. People need to learn to face their televisions, we see her later on–We see her skipping into the room but–
She gets over it! Surely at a certain point you have to figure out that after Sherlock escapes tells her, "I'm really sorry about that, it was a code, I thought your flat was about to blow up." And she says, "Oh well that's okay then, you bastard." And then they go back to normal, that's what people do. I can't see why you'd have to play that out. She forgives him, of course, and our newly grown-up Sherlock is more careful with her feelings in the future. In the end of that scene, she's a bit wounded by it all, but he's absolutely devastated. He smashes up the coffin, he's in pieces, he's more upset than she is, and that's a huge step in Sherlock's development. The question is: Did Sherlock survive that scene? She probably had a drink and went and shagged someone, I dunno. Molly was fine.
She just had a drink and shagged someone? It's really about Sherlock, who cares about Molly? Seriously?!
If you read the comments section of that interview, it's filled with frustrated fans, writing responses like "His answer to the Molly issue pisses me off. He doesn't get it" (upvoted 128 times) and "Totally agree. He completely brushed that aside and any fans' concerns about potential emotional fallout from that scene."
Fans made their thoughts known to Brealey (some were not very gentle about it), and she felt compelled to address talk on Twitter. After appearing to defend Molly's feelings with "Loving someone after years is not reductive, retrograde, antifeminist or weak," she tweeted these definitive thoughts:
FTR I disagree with Steven about the impact of the scene on Molly... & that's fine.
He's allowed to feel something.
So am I.
So are you.— Louise Brealey (@louisebrealey) January 17, 2017
So she disagreed with Moffat, but he is still one of the people who created Molly and he's a major reason why she's on the show, so it's not like she'd ever be disrespectful. But she clearly sounds as frustrated as fans, just maybe in a different way and not entirely with the same person.
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