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hellerfanboy91 · 2 days ago

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Supernatural Revisited 5x17 99 Problems

This is a generally good episode with a good twist at the end. It also does a lot to make the apocalypse feel real and to show the effects it could have on society, though on a small scale due to the show's low budget. People do have a tendency to get fanatical and religious in difficult times, and group hysteria should not be underestimated, see above RE Salem witch trials. The episode does a good job at showing how people's fears and convictions can be exploited in order to control them. However, the story is episodic which is mildly frustrating this late in what was supposed to be the end of the whole show. That and some aspects of the episode bring some of the shortcomings of the show into focus.

Perhaps the aspect most relevant to the überplot is the rapid deterioration of Dean's mental well-being. Up until now, I generally think this plot is generally alright, but could be much better. It is of course a show made for the CW so its depictions of mental illness are not going to be all that spectacular, but for the last few episodes the writers have been making it clear something is very wrong with Dean. 5x16 Dark Side of the Moon showed Dean essentially realise the people important to him do not value him, and that God is not coming to save them. This, as well as everything in the last year of the show, is a good foundation. It makes sense that Dean has given up and become fatalistic about the end of the world.

However, the transition from this episode to what comes in the next episode is very abrupt. I am aware that stuff happens off camera, but more of Dean's psychache should have been shown explicitly. Had that been the case, his not-so-metaphorical suicidal tendencies in 5x18 would not have felt so sudden. It gives the impression that an episode or two was missing in between 5x17 and 5x18.

In this episode, Dean and Sam end up in a small town in Minnesota that is preparing for the impending apocalypse. They end up there after a group of church-going townspeople save them from demons using an Enochian exorcism spell. The priest's daughter is apparently in touch with angels who give her visions of demon attacks and send her instructions on how to get to Heaven. The town is following her orders, fighting demons, giving up vice and sin, and over the course of the episode they start killing non-believers and executing sinners. It turns out the daughter is actually the Whore of Babylon intent on sending as many people to Hell as possible. Eventually, Dean kills her, proving he is a 'true' servant of Heaven, and saves the town by doing so. Sort of; their souls might already be damned because of their actions. Over the course of the episode, Dean has been losing hope (though quite why events in the town caused this change is never explained) and after everybody has been saved he drives off in the car without Sam to find Lisa. He essentially tells her he loves her and then says goodbye.

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Given I know what happens in the next episode, Dean's actions in this episode can easily be seen as the onset of suicidal behaviour. But one of the main reasons I said this arc is 'alright' rather than 'great' is that most of what Dean says and does in this episode is pretty much the same stuff he has been saying and doing for over a year. he is just saying and doing it more frequently. As a result, there is no clear indication he is doing worse than usual. The episode would have benefited from a scene or two with Dean alone somewhere, perhaps having a panic attack or actually drinking himself into oblivion. One could argue that his suicidal break in the next episode came on suddenly, which of course they definitely can do, but the fact he begins the following episode after doing death-cleaning and preparations for his own death suggest it was not a sudden thing. He did, after all, make preparations rather than (metaphorically) reaching for the nearest gun.

The preparations included paying Lisa a visit. How he managed to find her when she had apparently moved house is unknown, as is why she was so unsurprised to find Dean on her doorstep. Whatever the case, he does a bad job of expressing himself to her (understandable given his mental state) and tells her that when he imagines himself happy, he imagines himself with her.

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This does not sound like a genuine declaration of love. Dean barely knows Lisa, has only seen her once in the last decade, and gives no indication that he thinks of her more than once a year. Rather it sounds like projection and sublimation, which I wrote about in my analysis of 3x10 Dream a Little Dream of Me almost two years ago. I still see that as a likely explanation for Dean's fantasies of Lisa, at least in part. But in spite of his claims to the contrary, he believes 'happiness' is indeed a family in a house in the suburbs. Whether this is what he truly wants or just what he believes he should want is up for debate, but sixteen years after I first met Lisa I remain unconvinced that there is real romantic attraction between them. They care about each other and have a child together, but they were never meant to grow old together.

The episode depicts a town caught in the throes of religious fanaticism as the townsfolk grab something they believe will save them. They have also taken up hunting demons. Dean and Sam join them on a hunt and together the 6 or 7 hunters wipe out a nest of demons. This is where one of the show's weaknesses comes into focus. A good half of the writers and a large portion of the fan-base have always insisted on keeping the narrative tightly focussed on Dean and Sam, and many resent even Cas being included as a third main character. Part of this is that the show was originally envisioned as being about two brothers, but appeasing the Brothers Only crowd was a major factor. Even in 2025 there are those who insist Dean and Sam (mostly Sam) are the only characters who matter. Some (mainly rabid Sam/Jared fans) go as far as to launch hate campaigns against Misha in particular and to try to get him fired from jobs because they loathe Cas and Misha. How do these people have the time?

Anyway, the result of this is that the brothers have next to no support network and no usually no backup in fights. Moreover, the hunters at large are highly disparate and completely lacking in coördination. The Show almost began to address this issue with Bobby, Ellen, Jo, and Ash in series two, but scrapped three of those quickly. It will not begin to near anything like that level of teamwork for many years. At the beginning, this was understandable (though they had spent their whole lives in the hunting business, so should have had some contacts). But by this point in the show, they have met many people in their business yet work with none of them save Bobby.

Compare this to Buffy where the original four of Buffy, Xander, Giles, and Willow gets expanded to include Angel, Cordelia, and Jenny in series one, then continues adding and subtracting characters as the story demanded. Not including the potential slayers in series seven, there are around fifteen main and supporting characters in Buffy. Angel had about twelve.

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The scene near the start of the episode with the hunters wiping out the demons' nest shows how different things could have been with an extra few characters. It also hints at what the viewers have been robbed of in what was supposed to be the final year fo the show. Imagine if Ash with his laptop had played a larger role in series two and had become Bobby's colleague and counterpart. He and Ellen could have organised and dispatched groups of hunters to areas showing signs of demonic activity. Dean and Sam could have built a team of men and women who aided them in their hunt for Azazel, after which they could have fought to help prevent the Seals breaking. Then in the 'last' series they could have started getting killed off in battle after battle against overwhelming odds as Lucifer gained strength and influence. This would have shown the viewers Lucifer's power and made the danger he posed real by taking away recurring and main characters the viewers had grown to care for. The group could even have been whittled down to just Dean, Cas, and Sam.

The Whore of Babylon is the villain of this episode, and this episode takes her more literally than the Biblical Whore was intended. It is hardly news to people with a little knowledge of Christianity that the Whore of Babylon was not actually a Mesopotamian scarlet woman, but rather a metaphor for the Roman Empire, or the city of Rome in particular. Supernatural draws upon the Book of Revelations for its apocalypse storyline, but Revelations was about the coming collapse of the Rome in the 5th century.

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At the time it was written, Christianity was a persecuted minority religion in the Roman Empire. The writer of Revelations foresaw and probably even hoped for the downfall of Rome and the release of its Christians from persecution. The Babylonians destroyed the Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem in the 587 BC, and Emperor Titus destroyed the second temple in 70 AD. As such, Rome was metaphorically called 'Babylon' in Revelations. The passages about the whore can be understood as describing the decadent pagan empire in service to those who would destroy God's people. In the end, the Whore would be killed by the beast she rode on, essentially being destroyed by her own corrupt nature. People more versed in the precise nature of the downfall of Rome could tell you more, but among the main causes of the end of the western Roman Empire was its over-reliance on slave labour as well as the barbarians inside and outside the gate.

Perhaps ironic, however, is the fact that the Roman Empire was officially and predominantly Christian when it fell. In 313 AD, the persecution of Christians ended when the religion was legalised. In 350 AD, it became the official religion of Rome. In 383 AD, it was the only recognised religion in the empire. And at the time the Goths, Vandals, and Langobards crippled Rome and sacked the city on seven hills, the boot was well and truly on the Christians' foot.

Not known for its subtlety, Supernatural took a more literal approach to the Whore and made her an actual person. Surprisingly nothing about her said 'Whore', but the fact she corrupted an entire town in the same way Rome had become corrupted suggests she was not just a name drop. She was interesting enough and did not stick around long enough to overstay her welcome.

Only a true servant of Heaven could kill her, for which reason Dean, Sam, and Cas ruled themselves out. Dean did not believe he was worthy, 'Sam of course is an abomination', and Cas had been cut off from Heaven. They turned to the priest to kill the Whore, only for him to fail and for Dean to be the one to kill the whore. The relevance of this is that it implies Dean is 'a servant of Heaven' and is beginning to surrender to the angels' will. This is where the episode wanted to drive home that point.

Sam was mostly tolerable. Here and there he was a bit stupid, but his stupid lines mostly felt like lines of dialogue that had to be there to point things out to the audience rather than things Sam would actually say. His incredulity that Dean would support the townsfolk arming themselves, for instance, felt unnatural. Why would they not fight? His suggestion that they 'call the national guard' was idiotic. Stuff that felt like genuine Sam was trying to make Dean's fatalism All About Sam with lines such as 'you can't do this [give up hope] to me' or 'what happened to us saving them?' Sam's a grown up and needs to shoulder his own burden. he as good as said 'man up so I don't have to'. Exhausting. And why does Sam still only show affection for Dean when he is scared of losing him?

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During a recent rewatch of the extended edition of The Lord of the Rings, it struck me that Frodo is Sam and Sam (Gamgee) is Dean (which would make Gollum Ruby and Rosie Cotton Cas). The difference is that both Frodo and Sam act like mature adults, neither of whom asks the other to bear more than he is capable of unless the other genuinely is unable to do so. Frodo undeniably needs and relies on Sam, but never asks Sam to stuff his own issues down for his own benefit. In comparison, Sam comes across as childish and selfish, and the less said about his reaction to Dean 'possible doing something stupid', the better. So of course I will be saying a LOT about that in 5x18 Point of No Return.

Gratifying, therefore, was Cas dragging Sam. Cas finds the sound of Sam's voice grating, gets annoyed at Sam's stupid questions, and calls him an abomination. I like this spicy Cas, can we have more of him please?

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One last important point of discussion is the idea that the townsfolk are going to Hell because of what the Whore made them do. This seems unjust to me: somebody took advantage of their fear and manipulated them using God's very own scripture. yes, it was bad, but I am reminded of God telling Abraham to sacrifice his son to prove his belief in God. Abraham almost did, only for God to stop him at the last moment, as if Abraham's son were not already traumatised and Abraham had not already damned his own soul by being willing to kill his own son. God of course showered Abraham with love (after telling him to circumcise himself and his son, which of course caused no further damage to his son) and granted him innumerable descendants. And a whole branch of religions who all hate each other and want each other wiped off the face of the Earth. I struggle to see the difference between this and what the townsfolk did, except for in the case of Abraham it was God manipulating somebody into committing murder and filicide in one go. Is Abraham down there in Hell now? If not, that sets a precedent which should be followed.

However, thinking it is 'unjust' brings a Terry Pratchett quote to mind, one to the effect of 'well, go and tell the universe it's unfair.' Dean is deep in despair and struggling with his own powerlessness in the face of much greater powers. Somebody who is religiously inclined may well interpret this slightly differently than I, but the show is hinting at cosmic horror. Cosmic horror is the fear and hopelessness that comes when one realises the universe does not care about us at all, and that we are nothing. Our lives hold no importance, and it makes no difference one way or the other if we live or die, or how we live and die. Even the universe itself is meaningless, and is slowly dying.

Before finishing the analysis for this time, one last thing: there is no way all the people locked in the room at the end of the episode were actually trapped. All of those people kicking the door of throwing themselves against it would have smashed it in seconds.