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[shallowseeker]

What is the most well-acted scene of SPN, in your opinion?

I think for a genre show, there are a lot of surprisingly hard-hitting moments. But today, I'm gonna say this:

CROWLEY: I'd like...to ask you a-a favor, Sam. Earlier, when you were confessing back there...what did you say? I only ask because, given my history...it raises the question... Where do I start...to even look for forgiveness? I mean...

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Discussion:

I think Mark's voice, and his whole everything in this scene was among the hardest-hitting of Supernatural. It was so incredibly well-done.

Crowley has been brutal this season. He killed Kevin's girlfriend and tortured Kevin, and yet here he is, asking for forgiveness in a Church, a symbol of penance and forgiveness. As he spirals down from the high of the "roofied disinhibition" of "being a demon," he starts to feel everything again, and he despairs.

It's a callback to the demon Father Thompson cured, the one who ate his own children. It's a callback to Sam's hopped-up stent on demon blood.

In SPN Prime, John thought he was doing the right thing by his neglect and absence and violence, to toughen up his children and prepare them to defend themselves in a world that wants to kill them. And in doing so, John let his family down, and he died before they could fix it. Sam grieving John is not just about grieving the man lost, it's about Sam grieving the loss of potential for healing and repair.

If John Winchester could have lived and reckoned with his crimes of absence and neglect and cruelty, could he have done the same? Asked for forgiveness? Sam will never know. Sam would've forgiven him. There's nothing he wants to put in front of his family either, when you get down to it.

And Sam feels this guilt in himself, too, in his powering up on demon blood in order to do the righteous thing and protect the world. (We'll see in season 15 that this power would've corrupted him, eventually killing those very things he longed to protect.)

Also, there's the guilt for what he perceives as his run to escapism purely for the sake of escaping, serving up an incomplete version of himself in order to fit into an idealized normal (Amelia is to Sam as Kate was to John Winchester, perhaps). In doing so, he let his family down when they needed him the most. (He abandoned Kevin, Dean, Cas because he couldn't face the pain of fighting alone, like how John had to fight alone, and like how Mary has to fight alone in the AU Earth-world. Having siblings is like having built-in allies, and because of that, Sam's never had to fight alone.)

Sam, too, will ask for forgiveness in this church, the symbol of forgiveness. Sam still has living family members to connect to and heal with, and in this scene at least, family is about forgiveness. Dean will be compared to Church by Jody, and it's linking this idea that there are things in your life you can rely on, no matter what. Church is supposed to be a "communal family of forgiveness, not judgment" after all. (Example: Jody turns to Church when she's alone.)

Siblings can be a built-in church in the same way that they are built-in comrades. But Sam was not there for his only kin, and he despairs over not being a reliable brother, lamenting that Dean has turned to his “new brothers” over him. Dean capitulates to Sam's mental state here in this scene, affirming his sense of worth and that he'll always be there no matter what. Critically, this is to preserve Sam's life, because Sam is not in his right mind; he's suicidal.

(Eventually, Crowley too will try to repair things with his son Gavin, and he'll also reckon with Rowena's abandonment.)

The nifty thing about this scene, I think, is that while the Church is the symbol of familial forgiveness and penance, the actual institution of Heaven is brutal and unforgiving and judging. Outside, the angels are falling. The idea of it is more powerful than the reality of it. Heaven would not let Cas do penance.

[shallowseeker]

It's a case that dead-ends at a magical door. But this Open Sesame can only be triggered by married men or women. Mary steps up to bat and reads the words, but the magic is finnicky. It only works for current marriages.

CAS: *stepping up*

OTHERS: cAs???!

CAS: "The definition of marriage is broad: political, conciliatory, locational, common law..."

(*in the background, Dean is lobster-red, thinking his inclusion of common law means them ofc*)

As the door slides open, Sam crows in victory, and they continue on.

SAM: "Hey so what opened the door? You got a wife we don't know about?"

CAS: "Yes. I suppose I owe a great deal to the djinn queen."

DEAN, face falling: wHaT?????

[shallowseeker]

I'm not ignoring my WIPs. they're ripening in my mental cellar

[shallowseeker]

I would encourage the actor men into talking about their characters as if they themselves were possessed vessels. "I don't know what happened during the episode, actually. <Character> asked permission to enter my body, and then I was whisked to a nice little beach off the Gulf coast. Occasionally, I came to, and it was like being strapped to a comet."

[shallowseeker]

Please. Kelly Kline was funny. A waitress asks Kelly when she's due and she:

KELLY (meaning this): I have no idea. WAITRESS (reacts, then): Well, take if from me. Before kids, your life is yours. Once they show up, life as you knew it is over. KELLY (uncomfortably): Yeah. Pretty sure that's the way this is gonna go.

What business does she have being that funny in this situation?

12x13 Family Feud

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(Text Attributions// Supernatural scripts here via @spnscripthunt. Transcripts are located here via SPNWiki. Visit their Tumblr to donate.)

[shallowseeker]

It's a case that dead-ends at a magical door. But this Open Sesame can only be triggered by married men or women. Mary steps up to bat and reads the words, but the magic is finnicky. It only works for current marriages.

CAS: *stepping up*

OTHERS: cAs???!

CAS: "The definition of marriage is broad: political, conciliatory, locational, common law..."

(*in the background, Dean is lobster-red, thinking his inclusion of common law means them ofc*)

As the door slides open, Sam crows in victory, and they continue on.

SAM: "Hey so what opened the door? You got a wife we don't know about?"

CAS: "Yes. I suppose I owe a great deal to the djinn queen."

DEAN, face falling: wHaT?????

[shallowseeker]

“the fandom has decided - ” “everyone agrees that - ” “we all know that this is the only right way to - ”

[shallowseeker]

Gadreel being blamed for the fall of man because he didn’t notice the serpent sneaking into the garden to tempt Adam and Eve 🤝 Dean being blamed for Kevin’s death because he didn’t foresee Metatron arriving to tempt Ezekiel. Or Ezekiel actually being Gadreel. Or Gadreel being susceptible to said temptation because of thousands of years of torture he never even deserved.

[shallowseeker]

Cas's ability to know when Dean is struggling for actual reasons and when he's just over-thinking ❤️

[shallowseeker]

Sometimes I think about how the demon in The Rapture referred to Jimmy Novak as "picking up an empty vessel," and ough it hurts.

There's something about the language of conquest here, claiming land and space is empty to sidestep the messy business of the matter that someone already lives there. :(

[shallowseeker]

[shallowseeker]

Benjamin was driven to win the video game RAMPAGE (1986) daily. There's something to the battle-warrior class of angels being highly motivated to achieve perfectionistic hypercompetence in competitive activities like this.

I would imagine this extends to most areas of battle and strategy (competition, sports, video games).

Another interesting theme is the magnitude of the destruction. In RAMPAGE, the monsters must raze all buildings in a high-rise city to advance to the next level, eating people and destroying helicopters, tanks, taxis, police cars, boats, and trolleys along the way. Sounds a lot like Michael's AU Earth, really. Video games don't necessarily represent behavior, but I think in soldier-angels, it represents some kind of drive. Benjamin is playing Ralph the wolf.

Benjamin was a "gifted soldier" in Cas's estimation, but in terms of his personality, I don't get the impression he was "cool." He seemed like a whiny angel. Probably not what Ishim would call an "angel's angel," especially since he eventually grew to care for his human vessel.

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Anyway, I just find it interesting that Benjamin was so hyperfocused on this game. Make me think of Ishim's line: "Hero? Or spanner in the works (destroying things/making things go wrong)?" etc etc

Video games, sports, etc -- I just think that anything that requires mastery, rules of gameplay, learning "moves" and "plays" would be appealing!

Metatron didn't fit in, sure, but he very notably wasn't a soldier and consistently positions himself as the lovable nerd to Cas-and-the-jocks. Same goes for glasses-nerd-angel in season 11.

[shallowseeker]

something something in gimme shelter, they put a recorded voice in a teddy bear and call out to connor, potentially in the voice of his bf and then he gets strangled to death ToT

and then a few eps later, LUCIFER uses Cas's voice through a phone--

[shallowseeker]

re: cas sports

need to find my lily sunder - benjamin rampage video game thingy

something about the perfectionistic/hypercompetence drive of soldier/battle angels

[shallowseeker]

dean absolutely smashing up that car in frustration was fun but if sam got to get real angry and bitchy and key that shit out of spite just once it would've been hilarious

[shallowseeker]

yea yea fanon cas nature documentary enthusiast, yes cas intrigued by the universe he is so intrinsically a part of and had a hand in creating

but what about cas's canonical propensity for binge watching trashy television ??

more fics where cas's tv interests are just bonkers. dean makes cas watch his silly westerns ?? well cas makes dean watch reality tv.

dean continuously tries to lift cas's pop culture palate by introducing him to classics and "socially acceptable" television while cas brings dean's tv standards down to the gutters. they balance each other out.

also cas is absolutely watching dr. sexy with dean, no complaints, he is invested. the more outlandish the storylines and bad the acting the better! he encourages dean to stop seeing it as a "guilt pleasure" and just enjoy it for what it is, a cheesy soap opera that's incredible entertaining! not everything has to be caviar, sometimes it can just be a saltine cracker