#15x04: atomic monsters

[winchestress]

I'll repeat myself. Is self-awareness any good when you do it anyway?

[deancrowleycas]

babygirl...

[wraithlafitte]

in the final stretch of spn! just finished 15.04 and oh my goddd dude. showing sam’s struggle with depression, him saying “sometimes it feels like i can’t breathe”, AND HIM SAYING “maybe i’ll feel better in the morning” ???????? it’s just so real. you can say what you will about s15 but sam’s mental health struggle was portrayed really well

[shallowseeker]

Becky Rosen-Baron, MIA.

Becky's "death" + Dean's side of the fireplace mantel

Becky loses her husband, then her "junior" and daughter...and then she herself dies. Just like Dean.

///

The two sides of the mantel:

Ahh, the mantel, nestled as the hearth of home. Hearths are associated with home and family because the hearth was historically the main source of heat in the home, as well as where the cooking was done.

The left side is Chuck's side, black chess pieces. Sam is driving the car with TFW safely confined to the roadhouse at the end. The monster hand is pointed away from Sam.

The right is Becky's side: white pieces, glass half-fall.

It's also Dean's side, with Dean driving the car and heading towards Cas and "mini Cas," plus a family portrait showing what Cas and "mini Cas" are to Dean. The monster's hand is reaching for Dean's side, as Dean-action-hero figure frantically fights against it.

Awww. the cute little family picture with Rod Baron, Rod Jr, their daughter, and Becky Rosen, which also foreshadows the order of the losses (hub dies first in the form of Cas and finale-dad).

This is right next to...Dean in a car, Cas, and a "mini Cas." (Becky doesn't know about Jack.)

///

Other suspicious details: Dean prime is in the car driving towards Cas in front of a reddish Hellscape.

Alternatively, the photo behind Cas bears some resemblance to a blossom, like the Leviathan blossom he was searching for, crazed, as he rushed through the lands of Purgatory on the verge of losing Cas. They even look like they could be two blossoms straining towards one another. Who knows? It could be a famous fanart I'm just not familiar with.

Anyhoo, both Cas and "junior/little" Cas are turned away from Dean.

This is a nod to Dean...without? Bereft. A la The Winchesters companion series. Here's Dean's ending. Limbo. Wandering. Searching for a happy family he doesn't have.

///

If the more-discussed left side was Sam's ending, then the less-discussed right side is Dean in The Winchesters. It's the head side versus the heart side.

And the heart ending, which we sort of get from The Winchesters is a wandering, driving Dean, looking for this nebulous happiness he can't seem to find without Cas and..."mini Cas/Cas junior" Jack.

///

Becky was "doing great"

But Becky's life is so cute, y'all. That hub is adorbs.

ROD: "We'll be fine, babe...it's just Lake Michigan. Hardly any chop!"

Famous last words, Rod. You don't know that it's you who is going to mishandle that "Michigan chop."

Becky/Rod - But OMG can we just take a minute? They LIKE each other. They tease each other. They know the motion sickness comes from him, probably. And he knows she's gonna be nerding out during her relaxing weekend (that's part of the point of getting away--to let her have that time).

AAaaaaaahhhhhHHHHhhhhh.

Rod knows about Becky's writing and her superfan status (hard to miss in her office hehe) and loves her for it. And it's just so damn cute.

BECKY: Four hours in a boat? Rod, Junior gets seasick in the tub. ROD: Where would I be without you? BECKY: Covered in puke. [BECKY taps on the window.] Have fun, sweeties! JUNIOR: Thanks, Mom, we will. [ROD and BECKY kiss.] ROD: (fondly)Wow. Felt that. You can’t wait to have the house to yourself. BECKY: (flirtatiously) Oh, you have no idea.

///

Along comes Chuck, the metaphorical stop sign to Becky's life; her "off-screen murderer"

Chuck sees her big house and her van and her fam and notes sees that she's doing "great" for herself. She doesn't know it yet but he is the end of her life--he even appears in front of a stop sign!

BONUS: Becky's wearing the gray duster/caretaker warrior/hearth of house/"dead guy robe!"

Instinctively, she runs. See, even with their baggage, Becky's already got a bad feeling, "Well I don't need or want to see you."

So naturally, he worms his way in.

CHUCK: I’m sorry, I… I know we’re not together anymore, and it seems like you’re doing great. I just – I… I wanted to talk. Catch up. It’s been a rough couple of weeks. BECKY: That’s not my problem. [She turns to walk into the house.] CHUCK: Wait, Becky, please. I don’t have anywhere else to go.

So then, after denigrating her POV:

BECKY: I’m a writer, too, Chuck. CHUCK: Oh. I mean, fanfic… it’s not really the same thing… BECKY: Writing’s writing. The self-sabotage, the doubts, the struggle against time. So, whenever I have a spare minute, I write.

He steals.

///

He will wind up taking everything

First, he steals her rosy little laptop with her cute little rose decal-skin and the rose keyboard cover and he even puts on HER GLASSES:

///

Then, clever girl that she is, she fakes liking it to try to get him to leave! The LYING motif. "It's so good! I loved it....it's so good I'd love to get back to my own work."

CHUCK: "No...no no. You're shining me on. ...Come on, one note."

Then Becky makes her fatal misstep

She gives concrit, which is what Chuck said he wanted but not what he actually wanted. Just look at this face. Becky's starting to feel that...wrongness.

Something's off.

It's the same subtle change--that same whiplash we saw when he cruelly turned on Metatron in the diner.

After he writes his hopeless ending on her computer, and she lets her criticism rip. He sadistically enjoys her discomfort. He's sticking it to her, with her love of laundry and conversations and banter, which will appear in the terrible finale. Then, he says this:

[BECKY walks but turns to CHUCK.] BECKY: You have to leave. CHUCK: Nah, I kinda like it here.

He took a crap on her computer, wore her glasses, sat in her seat...now he's taking her office. Her house.

///

Chuck takes all

[ROD enters the living room.] ROD: Babe, you wouldn’t believe what happened.

JJLKgj! Aw, Rod. He cannot wait to tell her that he's the one that wound up puking. KJALGJAGH get you a man like that!

Then he kills Rod right in front of her.

[BECKY looks at CHUCK.] BECKY: Please. ROD: Junior was fine, but I puked everywhere. [ROD walks in and sees CHUCK. He looks at BECKY, confused.] ROD: Babe? CHUCK: Hey. [CHUCK snaps his fingers. ROD disappears in a puff of dust.] BECKY: (screams) Rod?! What happened? Where is he? CHUCK: He’s gone. BECKY: What?!

Her children enter next; we can only hear them off-screen. Rod Jr. can't wait to tell her about the puke incident either. They just know she'll love it.

Chuck will take Rod right in front of Becky's eyes, but her children will die off-screen. "Away."

[ROD JR. enters.] ROD JR.: Hey, mom! We’re back! Dad got sick! He threw up all over the side – [CHUCK snaps his fingers again. The kids disappear.] BECKY: (gasping for air, on a whisper) No! (shudders) The kids. CHUCK: Oh, don’t worry. They’re not dead. They’re just away. [BECKY turns back to CHUCK.] CHUCK: Oh, yeah. I’m God. [BECKY looks horrified.] BECKY: What are you… No. You bring them back. You bring them back! [CHUCK smiles.] BECKY: Please…you can’t do this.

It echoes both Dean pleading with God in 13x01, "Now, you're gonna bring them back," and his 15x18 "Don't do this, Cas." Yeup. Becky is now bereft. Without. Rod's gone, like Cas will soon be gone.

CHUCK: Oh, Becky. I can do anything. [CHUCK steps closer to BECKY. He snaps his fingers. She disappears in a puff of dust.]

Becky faces him defiantly but quickly unravels into grief. "You bring them back...please."

And then he kills Becky.

And here we have these "withouts" culminating. The fun motifs about having the house to yourself end with a cheeky disappearance of the things Becky loves the most. It's cruel. She'd been trying to help Chuck, and he did not show the slightest glimmer of gratitude once her "fluffing" ceased.

And then she herself is gone.

///

It makes you think of this too from 15x18:

DEAN: "She's gonna kill you. And then she's gonna kill me."

///

Girls named Becky take things and break things?

In 13x01, the angel Miram ranted and raved about the specter-like example of a "super bitch named Becky."

This Becky would "take things and break things."

But the funny thing is...here? As Chuck settles into her office and takes her house…

He's the one taking and breaking. He stole everything from her the same way he tried to wrap himself up in Dean's gray MoL robe.

Just 'cause he can.

[samsrowena]

i know we talk about this episode all the time because it really does foreshadow the end in a horrifying way but i am just feeling so sick about the fact that we see this before chuck writes his first ending:

and then we see this after he rewrites it to be even worse:

like how is this not just a blatant call to attention of network meddling

[samepisodebracket]

Round 1; Group 8

[ihavepointysticks]

I’ve seen the posts about your birthday episode of supernatural going around again.

If I go by month/day = season/episode I get 11x07, Plush.

If I go by day/month I get 7x11, Adventures in Babysitting.

If I go by November 7 is the 311th day of the year (using a non leap year) I get 15x04, Atomic Monsters. Which coincidentally aired on November 7, 2019.

The only other episode that aired on my birthday was 8x06, Southern Comfort.

[cam-ulu29]

If you think Chuck lost I don’t even know what to say to you you just need to go watch Atomic Monsters again and hear Becky’s description of the ending now that you know what happened.

[iheardyourscreams]

atomic monsters au dean hallway fight scene my beloved

[seasononesam]

Stackednatural- 88/327

Atomic Monsters (15x04) November 7th, 2019

[justjensenanddean]

Jensen Ackles Solo Panel | JIBCon 2023 (February 25, 2023)

(loriladeakali)

‘Yes I do make my kids listen to radio company… they haven’t called CPS on me yet!’ (x)

Jensen: “I do force my children to listen to my music” They really like Cannonball. They haven’t heard all the new album yet - which just dropped & is doing really well! Steve keeps texting him w updates about it being like #3 on the country charts (!) (x)

Ok. JJ has her own playlist that she makes Jensen play on the way to school. It has Taylor Swift, Harry Styles (which led to some woooooooo and a Calm Down!! From Jensen) and some song about a sunroof. (x)

Jensen: arrow can hear a song and then play it on the piano. #jib11  (x)

Jensen: his 6yo daughter Arrow has taken to the piano. She hears a song & goes & picks it out by ear! For now they’re just letting her have fun with it. Thought about having her take lessons but they don’t want it to become un-fun for her when she’s just 6 (x)

Jensen talking about his daughter JJ: she’ll grab his phone & have it for “seconds - seconds!! And everything’s changed! I don’t know how to get it back! & I ask her to change it back & she’s like, No.”  She’s been making her own playlists on spotify & apple music on his phone (x)

Jensen never thought he would get to do music, so he is very grateful to all of us for the support shown to Radio Company (x)

Jensen: they're hoping to see where the Radio Company shows are going but they "don't know yet. We'll see" (x)

Q about JA now seeing more of the production process. JA: turns out getting a show on the air is a monumental feat. So many pitches, the odds are so stacked against it. Safest thing a studio exec can say is no.  (x)  JA: “It is a hard business to be in. It is a business of rejection.” Been in the development process now for half a dozen different shows, & Winchesters is the only one that launched. (cryptic description of one other that had “big players”, but “timing wasn’t right”) (x)  (very thoughtful response on this whole issue btw - I failed to capture it all - clearly he’s been thinking about it a lot, about how to launch new shows) (x)

JA can’t find his phone  He wants to look something up to answer a fan q  (x)

Q about fight scenes: did you have any experience w fighting technique? JA: No, never trained in any of the fighting disciplines. But has done a lot of sports, thinks of himself as “fairly athletic”, so what he does is ask an expert what they’d do, then try to mimic them  (x)

opening fighting scene in Atomic Monsters ep (15x04) is favorite fighting scene of Jensen, and it wasn't even scripted! He just wanted to do something fun, so they added it into the ep  (x)

Jensen's stunt double, who he worked with since Dark Angel, went on to become Jason Momoa's stunt double when he [the stunt double] "got too famous"  (x)

The stunt coordinator on #TheBoys was so impressed by Jensen's great input that he started calling him "fight coordinator"  (x)

JA on stunts/fights: On The Boys, there are way bigger fights than SPN. On the Boys he rehearsed 2 wks for 1 fight scene (on SPN set it was like 20 min). Got to come up w different moves, even had some creative input. Stunt guy used so many of JA’s (x)  suggestions that he started calling JA the “fight coordinator!” Then when he landed the Big Sky role, The Boys’ stunt coordinator guy called up Big Sky’s and said “you’re getting one of my best fight coordinators”. & Big Sky then made him a hat that says “Fight Coordinator” (x)

Jensen about thinking his son threw up in his mouth: just swallow it, swallow it and you can have some water (x)

( Sue_Bcn )

[hettolandija]

2019 July 23 (Tuesday) - Misha posted this with caption "This guy is always partially-obstructing my view of sunsets." I asked myself - can I locate the exact spot where the plane was? It turn's out that I can - they were about to land in Vancouver:

He published this sunset photo in the morning, so I'm assuming that it was taken the day before (on Monday). From where they were returning to Vancouver? Looking at the previous post at Misha's social media tells me that they were in San Diego at Comic Con (which ended on Sunday).

And there is the fun part: did they had to fly together to Vancouver because season 15 of SPN was starting filming on that week? No. Filming SPN would start the next week, on July 30 and Misha would start posting from set immediately.

So it would made more sense for Misha to fly from San Diego to his home in Bellingham. Instead he opted to fly with Jensen and then do over an hour of driving from Vancouver to Bellingham. But did he even drove to Bellingham on the next day or he stayed in Vancouver (enjoying his pink blanky at Jensen spare bedroom) to Friday? We don't know for sure, but the only other photos, that Misha published between the sunset one and these from SPN set, are from Saturday & Sunday, which he was spending with his kids in Bellingham.

EDIT: Small correction, because I forgot to check some things: 15x01 started filming on July 30, but it wasn't the first episode that was filmed in that season. 15x04 Atomic Monsters (dir. Jensen Ackles) was shoot first (because of Jensen's beard) - between July 22 and July 29. Jared even posted one photo on set from July 22 (monday), so the sunset photo from a plane could have been from sunday evening. Castiel, however, does not appear in that episode.

[shallowseeker]

The radical notion of self-acceptance. It's so difficult to hang onto!

14x13 / 15x04

JOHN: I guess that I had hoped, eventually, you would… get yourself a normal life, a peaceful life, a family. [DEAN nods. He smiles.] DEAN: I have a family. ... DEAN: And for the longest time, I blamed Dad...But I gotta be honest – I don’t know who that Dean Winchester is. And I’m good with who I am.

///

BECKY: Well, sorry, that’s not me anymore, Chuck. I am married to an amazing man, I have two great kids, and I like myself, Chuck. For the first time in a long time, I like myself. So, I don’t need you.

///

[missjackil]

Supernatural Battle of the Episodes!

The battle was touch and go for a bit, but Prophet & Loss pulled ahead and took home tje victory! Let's see how the next battle goes!

Hey Chuck! Who's nex!?

Chuck: In the next round we have Atomic Monsters - Sam and Dean invested the mysterious murder of a high school girl. They suspect this one dude but then figure out it was his vampire son who willingly gives himself over to a Winchester beheading. Queue Sounds of Someday by Jensen Ackles!

[dailyspnpolls]

The Meat Man

In the beginning of 15x04 Atomic Monsters, Sam wakes after a bad Chuck-future nightmare, and finds Dean in the bunker kitchen eating bacon.

DEAN: It’s veggie bacon. SAM: What? DEAN: You’ve been asking for it. SAM: Yeah. But every time I ask for it, you say, and I’m quoting, “I don’t want any of that hippie, Sarah McLaughlin grass-eater crap in the Meat Man’s kitchen”. Which, by the way, for what it’s worth, you got to stop calling yourself “The Meat Man”. It… it doesn’t mean what you think it means. DEAN [scoffs]: Yeah, it does. Anyway, it’s not that bad. Give it a shot.

Tell us all more about your thoughts on this scene in the tags and replies!