#and of course the obvious parallel is dean is a hunter. hunters are outsiders

[angelsdean]

shifter dean's monologue abt being human but born different and hated until he learned to be someone else. all while being linked to dean's psyche always gets me 😭😭😭 and in an episode where dean is saying one thing (it's better to be alone, isolated, not have friends bc hunters don't get to have that) while deep down wanting the opposite ("you got to go to college, have friends. you don't think i had dreams of my own") and his true feelings are only revealed by the shifter therefore. this whole monologue, like the one he gave to sam about his own dreams, absolutely can (and should!) be read as reflective of dean's feelings too and it just makes me sooo !!!

[trophywifejimgordon]

so, i finished watching 15-season, 320-episode cw hit supernatural, which i thought was generally pretty alright. being of sound mind and body, of course, my immediate next step was to start the process over and go back and watch it all again. from the beginning.

all this to say, here’s a line from the pilot i thought was pretty neat. for context, dean says this after he gets caught up in hunting with sam Like Old Times, only for sam to remind him that their times aren’t old, and he’s got an interview for law school in like ten hours. dean’s heartbroken, but sam’s happiness comes first, he won’t push more than he’s already allowed himself to, etc.

for MORE context, the very first spn Monster Of The Week was constance welch: a “woman in white,” which, in this case, means she was half la llorona, half phantom hitchhiker. and all through the episode, she makes the same request:

sam himself, in fact, said dean’s quote above nearly verbatim to constance, before driving a car through the wall (s1 rights!)

so, yeah. it’s a theme.

naturally, since it’s being said to sam, the obvious parallel plays into monster sammy implications; this is strengthened somewhat by the fact that the ghost of constance is ultimately vanquished when sam realizes that she’s afraid to go home, that she’s scared to face her family... while sam has spent the last few years at stanford feeling just the same. however, as much as i LOVE to talk about monster sammy... i think, in this case (and at the risk of exposing my deangirlism as completely terminal), sam is only the red herring. the real monster is dean.

on the surface, dean is practically the inverse of constance welch. he’s behind the wheel; she’s a hitchhiker. he’s a hunter, she’s a special type of ghost. he’s trying desperately to keep his family close to him, she’s unable to face her own. BUT, look how the episode is framed. they’re both monsters. tragic monsters! they are both what life made them! it doesn’t revive constance’s victims, but we know that she only killed her children while suffering a lapse because of her cheating husband, joseph. it doesn’t take dean off the path that will see him killing literal hundreds and committing unspeakable acts against sam’s autonomy, but everything he is, is absolutely the product of being raised by john (and i feel like there’s something to be noted about the initials of Joseph Welch and John Winchester). and yet--it doesn’t change a thing. dean’s fear of being left alone in the face of the life they were raised into brings him to pull sam right back in, at the same time as constance’s new nature (the product of her actions at the very end of her life) makes sam a target. they both “violate” him. sam and constance are both running, true, and they both get sucked back toward the thing they fear, but what is for her an ending and a punishment and perhaps, on some level, a relief, holds for sam only a new beginning and a terrible continuation and abject horror of a trauma you cannot escape from. dean is lurking in the shadows. dean is the life of hunting sam wanted to leave behind. 

this is the pilot episode, and it says: here is supernatural’s thesis statement. because of a corrupting outside influence (joseph/john), the mother (constance/dean... although we don’t yet know, as of this episode, that dean was essentially forced to raise sam. shhh. it still holds up.) betrays her children (the kids constance killed/sam) and makes them what she is (a ghost/a hunter). after some time, wherein the mother inevitably devolves into a non-sentient killing machine, the children are finally able to regain control of their narrative and they take her down with themselves, as a punishment for the actions and the betrayal, but also in what could be forgiveness, and to set both mother and children free from the terrible stasis she put them in.

.

oh boy! i can’t wait to rewatch the other 319 episodes and see how the writers will incorporate this into their grand finale! 

[transsexualbloodlust]

Shrek and SPN an analysis

okay i said i would do a shrek and dean arch analysis and i’m here to deliver

before we ~get into it~ i’d like to say that this started out as being based on my head canon that dean likes the first shrek movie and the musical (secretly) but instead it just became it’s own analysis of the parallels, I will be doing a very short explanation of why i think that after this.

okay let’s do the obvious parts: the both have layers, and they r both bisexual and homophobic (i will not take criticism on this i’m right and u know it)

in regards to the layers:

In the shrek musical we get to see shrek’s childhood and back story. The basic summary is that on his 10th birthday his family abandons him and tells him he has to raise himself, that society will never accept him so he needs to “build a wall” (emotional) and find somewhere no one can get to him (emotional and literal). Shrek grows up knowing he is hated by society and although he doesn’t try to outright conform his choice of being the monster everyone wants him to be and living alone was conforming in itself, we learn later in the movie that shrek is lonely and wants friends but is afraid of vulnerability and how people view him. Now I’m sure we’ve all read a million and one essays on Dean’s personality but you’ll be reading one more. Dean also gets metaphorically thrown out, especially emotionally, by his father and is forced to fend for himself, except (and this is why shrek and dean’s personalities r so different) dean has sam and is forced to raise him. (dean is the woman coded version of this arch and shrek is the man coded version, once again i take no criticism). Dean is forced to live on the outskirts of society, constantly hopping schools, knowing about monsters and hunting, and he embraces that role as a form of protection for himself. This of course mixes with the way J*hn villanises dean to himself, he’s verbally abusive (and almost definitely physically) and holds dean to such a high standard he can never see himself as good enough. Not to mention how his bisexuality is likely seen as something disgusting. So in order to save himself he embraces that roll that his father has layed out for him, to the point where (like shrek and his roar) is very much a performance.

okay so how are the plots similar/something dean can relate to??

well dean and shrek both exist within the outskirts of society, never really wanting to enter and seemingly content with the performance they give. However (in very different ways) their ability to uphold the performance is tested and they embark and a journey to be able to go back to normal life. Shrek has to deal with the fairy tale creatures, and Dean has to save his father. (I genuinly think a lot of deans dependency on j*hn had to do with how much he based his identity on the man, and even though he does care about him and wanted to save him, his dependence on john and inability to recognize the abuse was a part of the performance he had to uphold). They then both get side characters , both Sam (no he’s not the main character stfu) and Cas for dean, and donkey for shrek. Who push them emotionally and force them to explore the possibility of life outside of that performance. They then both assume the roll of heros, something that their self image never truly allowed for. And when they get back to their old lives/rolls they realize it’s not something they truly want anymore, and that maybe it never was. Deans is much more subtle because he always feels the obligation to continue being a hunter wich is so heavily tied to the imagine J*hn projected on to him that he couldn’t move away as quickly as shrek did. But we start to see it in season 10. Then we ofc get to see the parallels between the love confessions. 😀😐

Okay so there’s the obvious “oh no they hate me what will i do” nature to both shrek/fiona and deancas but there’s literally so much more holy shit.

Cas/Fiona parallels:

The way Cas and Fiona r similar has a lot less to do with backstories and more to do with the essence of their arch’s, how they’re used, and how they’re coded. Cas and Fiona have Very different lives, however they where both agencies of the status quo. Fiona wants to be this maiden in her tower and be saved, and she actively reinforces that by following the ideas of a fairy tale even though she truly doesn’t understand the purpose of what she’s going through. Cas on the other hand is an actual soldier of god, he actively fights to uphold the bible and bring about heaven winning, he works to reinforce heavens power. However both he and fiona don’t fit the model of their stories perfectly and in doing so r rebelling against the story. Fiona is Quircky TM, and a whole ogre, she doesn’t fit into the basic model of her story and the fact that she’s different is what causes her to rebel against the story. Her very existence is what caused her to question the narrative. Cas’s very existence defies the narrative because he, unlike most angels, cares about humanity (dean, like humans but mainly dean). He is supposed to be an unfeeling soldier of the lord but instead he ends up being gay for a repressed kansas boy which throws a cog in the narrative he’s supposed to play out and causes him to question it. And on top of that their personality is what pushes their love interest to confront the parts of themselves they aren’t really willing to embarrass. Dean being bi and Shrek being an ogre. 

Okay so the actual confession parallels:

Obviously they are different, for one shrek is canon reciprocated in all countries (that i know of). But thematically?? what the characters r saying to eachother?? girl i’m loosing it.

Shrek is about accepting ones self as who u truly are and recognizing that that doesn’t need to be changed for u to be lovable. And Cas’ speech does exactly that, it tells dean that even though he views himself as a monster who’s driven by hate, even though he see’s him as his enemies do (think shrek seeing himself through the townsfolks eyes) he is actually driven by love and that he, without changing, is lovable in every sense of the word. More than that he’s lovable by what common society would consider to be the Ideal (angels being like 🤩 and princesses being 🤩). In this confession of love Dean/Shrek r moved to accept themselves as they are, Shrek in the moment and Dean later when he doesn’t kill chuck. And their loved one has their final closure to their story. Fiona is forced to accept herself as an ogre as well and Cas shows that he’s, like Dean, fundamentally driven by love even though he was told he shouldn’t be.

This is where we once again see the whole “dean and shrek have the same arch but dean’s is woman coded” thing which I will be getting into in a separate essay. But the basic idea is that Shrek comes to the realization partially on his own and gets final validation from Fiona where as Dean gets confessed to. 

Then after the initial confession both lovers are pulled apart, deancas have the empty, and shrek/fiona are briefly pulled apart by lord farquad. In both instances the characters are punished for the fact that they’re in love. HOWEVER shrek understands good story telling and has the lovers come back together.

And then ofc both Fiona and Cas get enveloped :D (Cas in goop and Fiona in light)

But this where we get into the exploring where Supernatural’s narrative SHOULD have gone, (as shown in shrek):

After the love confession we finally get to see Shrek realize that he isn’t the monster society painted him as and that that requires absolutely no change on shreks part, he’s accepted himself and realized that he can tear his walls down. Dean goes through the tearing down of walls much slower throughout the seasons, because Dean has the woman coded version of this narrative he already understands found family but he doesn’t understand that he is worthy of his family’s love in return. 

So in Shrek we see shrek live out his life with his found family, he’s had his arch he understands his worth and he realizes that he doesn’t want to be alone. Now as a finale denialist I will not be talking about what happens in the finale but we’ve all seen it and you know how supernatural doesn’t follow through.

This was so much fun i will be doing more later but I hope y’all enjoyed this <3

[beanie-beebo-writes]

Highway To Hell

Series Summary: An all-too-real nightmare and a missing brother sends Dean, Bobby, and Cas on a frantic search. All the while, what may be a bad dream leads to a probable jump-start to Dean's true worst nightmare, Sam jump-starting the end of the world. Set in season 4; consider this a parallel canonverse fic

Previous chapter, Masterlist

Chapter 5

The trio all holed up at a small local motel, despite Dean's arguments to keep driving around town. Bobby was running on close to nothing, and they needed to stay put to formulate. Driving around aimlessly would have wasted more money, money they needed to hold onto for the time being. The only reason Dean had complied, was because he knew he needed the older hunter by his side, fresh and sharp.

"Where the hell are we supposed to even look? I mean, I personally think that driving in the general direction that store owner pointed out for us would be at least a little more beneficial than sitting on our asses!" Dean ranted.

"For the last time Dean, he could have went off of any avenue or side street. And we wouldn't find him going in large donuts." Bobby grumbled from a bed, resting his eyes momentarily.

"You don't know that!" Dean said.

"We have a better chance thinking this through with a clear mind. And unless if you folk have any more leads, we stay put and work this out, the efficient way."

Dean groaned and fell into one of the uncomfortable motel room chairs. "He could basically be dead by now." He muttered.

"I doubt that," Bobby said, "I have faith in your brother. He always pulls through."

"I wouldn't be so sure.." Dean said as he thought back to his nightmare from the night before.

Not much later, Bobby sat up from the scratchy bed sheets and began to wrack his brain on Sam's possible whereabouts. Castiel on the other hand, had been searching through angel radio for any clues, since asking around was clearly out of the equation for him.

"Find out anything from your friends, Cas?" Bobby asked.

"No, they're in the same situation we are in." He replied.

"Figures; keep on listening in, just to be safe." Bobby said.

"Alright."

Bobby allowed his body to wake itself up before rolling out of bed and grabbing some freshly brewed coffee. He took a large gulp of it before setting his research up on the table across from Dean, who blankly stared at the fake wood.

Bobby sighed. "You know what we need more of? Intel."

Dean looked up with a static expression and deadpanned, "Thanks Captain Obvious. And where are we supposed to find that? If you didn't notice, we basically asked everyone in town."

"We could ask the prophet." Cas said after a few beats.

Both Dean and Bobby slowly turned to the angel, fully intrigued.

"And you didn't think to mention that before?" Bobby asked.

"Everyone just began talking about it on angel radio, it didn't previously come to mind." Cas explained.

The two hunters exchanged glances with one another and instantly picked up their belongings; Cas stood up sort of like a lost child. After a nod from Dean, he followed them into the nearly desolated parking lot, and hustled to the Impala's passenger side.

                                                   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~       

Dean was exhausted, but he was nowhere near surprised at the fact that he had not crashed. The answer was simple, he needed Sammy back. He knew his body would refuse to rest until he was certain that everything was okay. Well, at least their version of okay. Even if that meant having a brother with no limbs or a soul, it was worth it in the end. Would he try to fix Sam? Of course, but as long as Sam was conscious and breathing, he could manage the rest later. To try and distract his mind from the current situation (which was far from possible for Dean), he softly played some of his worn cassette tapes.

Compared to earlier, the air was noticeably lighter in the moving vehicle, at least Cas thought so. He may have been an angel, but he could at least figure that much.

"Aren't we going to at least give him a warning?" Cas asked, hoping the atmosphere would remain calm.

"Nah. I mean, we have less than an hour left of a drive, even less if I step on it, which I might. I figure we should come unannounced, so we don't attract any unwanted attention, you know?" Dean said.

"Yeah, you're right. Actually, there's something I wanted to tell you guys, before we headed in the house. We need to get there quickly but discreetly, because I know other angels might keep him on the radar as well. Maybe you could both pull over and I could teleport-?"

"Not going anywhere without my baby, sorry Cas. We'll be fine, don't worry." He said, not sure if the reassurance was for himself or the angel.

As promised, they all parked their cars on a curb around midnight. The neighborhood would have been dead silent, if it wouldn't have been for the chirping crickets keeping it alive. So for the sake of the neighborhood, they aimed to be as quiet as they could possibly be.

"So, we just gonna waltz in?" Bobby asked, getting out of his truck.

"No," Cas said, grabbing both of the hunters at once, "we make a forced entry."

They didn't even have a chance to protest as a small, somber hallway appeared right before their very eyes. Dean turned around briefly, standing face to face with the inside of Chuck's front door.

Almost inaudible deep breathing lead them to the living room, where Chuck lay passed out on the battered sofa; an almost empty bottle of scotch stood beside it. Dean silently chuckled to himself as he observed the man. If he hadn't known better, he could have mistaken him as a regular human being.

"It would be wise to leave now, Castiel." A deep voice muttered from the shadows.

"And why is that, brother? I don't fear you." Castiel said back.

"Well, you should." The voice replied.

A black male of similar height to Castiel stepped out into the small illuminated area of the room, standing firmer than the hunters had ever seen someone stand. Despite being basically the same height as their angel, he somehow peered down at him.

"And who are you?" Bobby asked.

"Raphael, prophet's personal guardian. Leave now, and maybe, just maybe, I'll spare you." The angel said.

"Yeah, uh, we'll pass. We're kind of on an important mission here." Dean said.

Raphael scoffed and began to raise his voice. "You'll pass? Who do you think you are, Dean Winchester?"

"Better than a dick, that's who." Dean said.

Suddenly, Chuck's screams pierced through the solid walls. Dean and Bobby quickly turned to the source of the noise, almost forgetting he was still there. The angels however, were unaffected by the prophet, still glaring at one another.

"What, are you doing in my house?!" He shouted.

"We-" Bobby gestured to Dean and Castiel. "-aren't here to hurt you. I can promise that." The older hunter said.

Raphael stepped forward intimidatingly. "Well, guess what? I don't care, because I order y-"

The angel suddenly dissipated into a bright light, which blinded the room for only a split second. After rubbing his eyes, Chuck turned on a lamp on the end table. The first thing he set his eyes on was Dean walking away from a bloody sigil on a wall, wrapping his arm in a makeshift tourniquet.

"What... did you just-?"

"We don't have a lot of time before he returns, so I suggest we make this quick." Cas says.

"Ookay.. Well, um, I'm guessing if it wasn't important, you wouldn't have walked straight into my house.. So, uh, what do you want?" Chuck asked anxiously.

"How far have you seen, so far?" Dean asked.

"What do you mean?" Chuck asked.

"The visions, Chuck, we need to know where Sam is." Cas said.

"Oh. Well, I can't recall everything at the moment, but I have seen everything up until now." Chuck said.

"Is he okay? Is he even…?" Dean asked

"Yeah! Yeah, uh, but you won't like the state he's in, I will say that."

"What?"

"Let's just say he isn't in the right frame of mind right now."

Dean sighed in relief.

"Any chance you know where the kid is, son?" Bobby asked.

Chuck closed his eyes and pondered deeply. "He was in some sort of abandoned warehouse, in Ilchester. You know, where you guys traced the omens to? If it helps any, I think it was off of a small dirt road."

"No other leads to what warehouse it was?" Bobby asked.

"No, sorry. It wasn't very big though, not like many of the other ones you've seen." Chuck said.

"You're a big help, thanks Chuck." Dean said as he hastily made his way outside.

[hippychick006]

14.15 - Peace of Mind

I thought I’d do one of these for the current season. 

Meh is the word that comes to mind for this episode.  Not great, not a stinker, just meh.  Would I recommend it as a watch?  Possibly as background while you are doing more important stuff like cleaning. 

If it hadn’t already been yet another episode separating Sam and Dean in an entire season where Sam and Dean have been separated (with only a few exceptions), it might have been okay.  I really don’t think I’m complaining needlessly.  To put it into perspective, the people that I’m watching for (that by their own admission, the show say that the audience is watching for) had a grand total of 108 seconds sharing the same scenes this entire episode.  108 seconds and 50 of those were shared with Castiel.  And I’m just trying to imagine any other show doing this.  Like Starsky ditching Hutch constantly and going on investigations with side characters like Huggy Bear (because Huggy Bear is no longer just an informant, he’s an investigator because he’s a “fan favourite” character and his fans constantly ask, Where’s Huggy Bear so they made him part of the team even though he doesn’t fit).  WTF even is this?

Moving on...  

The story is credited to Steve Yockey/Meghan Fitzmartin and the teleplay to Meghan Fitzmartin.  This is the one people were a little worried about, given Meghan appears to be an open Destiel shipper (which has no place in the writers room or for anyone working on the show - completely unprofessional for anyone working to do anything that might give rise to calls of bias).  From what I can gather, Destiel fans appear to love Steve as they think any gay/bi character he writes is a parallel for Destiel.  It isn’t and although Steve’s given us a mixed bag, he did give us the witch twins in Celebrating the life of Asa Fox and Twigs & Twine and Tasha Banes.   I love the witch twins, great new, interesting characters that we no longer see because the show is obsessed with old, tired, done to death characters that only a very small, very loud section of fandom harp on about).  Sighs tiredly and moves on.

Reading between the lines, I think there was a close eye kept on this one and I think it worked because I can’t for the life of me see anything at all that’s a nod to Destiel.  If anything, the Sastiel shippers got all the cookies and good for them.  Enjoy those cookies Sastielers!  I’ll be over here drinking the hellers’ bitter tears.

I liked the opener, head go splody.  Though the guy that played the gas station clerk was a very questionable choice by casting.  If that had been his 1 minute, then fine, but no, we see him later in the episode and because of the known nepotism on the show, I’m automatically wondering if he’s child/brother/friend/third cousin twice removed of someone on the cast or crew because he is terrible (sorry kid, don’t listen to me, keep working at it, the only way is up).  

Oh great, yet another Cass/Jack conversation.  Cass is not the best at speaking to people as we’ll see later in the episode.  Screams into the void about the distinct lack of Sam and Jack this season.  I know we’re heading for something between them, but this is my problem (or one of many with Dabb).  I think he has the weird view that if he rations the good stuff, then it makes it all the better when we get it.  Not really, it just switches me off from watching the show. I want good every week, I don’t actually think that’s too much to expect from someone who is getting paid to entertain the audience and not bore them to death.  

Anyway, Jack thinks his snake is sad and Castiel suggests it might be missing his former owner.

Ah, now Dean and Cass talk – is there a checklist? If so, it’s missing “Sam and Dean” on it. Interestingly, as I’ve pointed out many times before, their conversations revolve around other people; usually Sam, but Rowena and Jack get included, because “family”  

Speaking of Sam, we switch to him and see he’s having flashbacks of the dead hunters, so he really isn’t doing good. Appears he’s trying to keep his mind off things by hunting constantly and has found another case.  He walks in on the awkward silence between Castiel and Dean (not awkward because he caught them awkward, just awkward because they’ve got nothing in common, other than talking about Sam and Jack and when that runs out it’s just... awkward).   Dean says he needs a break, but Sam’s leaving in ten.  End of.

Castiel: Maybe I should go with him and you can stay with Jack

Dean: Why?

Me: * Whispers * because Dabb hates us and he’s passive/aggressive about it.

Castiel: You were right… Jack is struggling, and I’ve tried…

Dean (interjecting): Why do you think he’ll talk to me

Castiel: Because he looks up to you (Dean rolls his eyes, so I don’t have to), and his soul, I mean… you’ve seen this before...

Me (interjecting again): You really think he’s the right person to handle someone soulless after he beat Sam beyond the point he was already unconscious. Seriously?  I’m with Dean on this one.

Dean: No, no, no, see I was not great with Sam.  You know when he was…

Thank you show for acknowledging this.  

Castiel: Jack’s soul isn’t completely gone.  At least I don’t think so, we just don’t know how much is left.

As I’ve already seen in other posts, my instant thought on this is “You can’t do the fist check?” I’m really tired of wondering what powers Castiel still has and what he doesn’t.  They seem to switch them on and off as needed.

Dean asks how he’s supposed to know.  Castiel says just talk to him, get him to open up.  

I completely understand why Castiel is not going to the obvious person for this – duh, Sam of course – because he feels Sam is overburdened as it is and going though his own issues, so this does actually make sense for me and I’m fine with people trying to keep him out of it while they try and deal with it (It will go wrong though).

Castiel is driving and I seriously have to question Sam’s driving ability at this stage since he’s either happy to be chaperoned around or they don’t trust him in the driver’s seat. Also, all the beautiful classic cars in the bunker and this is the clunker Castiel chooses to drive around in? Would some soap and wax go amiss?

We’re back with Griffin from earlier and least said about this scene the better. The guy is just terrible.  Sorry, but he is and unsurprisingly, only has 1 other credit as “Asian teenager” before getting this part.  

I love the drive through the town.  It’s obvious something is going on with all the clothes dating back to I’m guessing the 50’s.  Castiel: “It’s like we’re stepping into a Saturday evening post.”  Sam at least knows what this is, he’s just surprised that Castiel does.  I however have no clue, so had to google it and it’s a magazine that ran from 1897 to 1969. Here’s one of the covers:

Men doing menly things and women… I’m kind of not sure what she’s supposed to be doing.  I think looking clueless at the engine.  Anyway, Sam looks at Castiel who explains that he “looks at them sometimes after you fall asleep at night.”  Sastiel for the win on this one! Who isn’t picturing Castiel sitting up on the bed reading while Sam sleeps, hmmm? Because as we all know, Castiel has zero boundaries when it comes to personal space and Sam’s not likely to call him out on it, because he’s used to having his personal space invaded..   

I like that they are five minutes into the hunt and they already want to call Dean. They can’t though as no cell signal, so they are on their own.

We meet Justin Smith (the first).  I like him, he’s swell. But he’s yet another clue that all is not right here, not least because he doesn’t know what a cell phone is. My first suspect of being a witch is his stepford wife, so we’ll keep an eye on her.

We head to Harrington’s for a milkshake.  They’re looking around and the place is straight out the 50s, but I’ve been in diners that are set up like this, so it shouldn’t actually be that unusual.    What is unusual, is that Sam accepts a free milkshake from the waitress (Sunny) in a town that he’s investigating and that clearly is under the influence of something. Let’s put this down to Sam being tired (*whispers lazy plot driven writing).

Chip points them to the boarding house where splody head guy was staying.  I love the boarding house, but would have to change the outside colour. I also love that everyone knows who they are, and the owner of the guest house is no exception.  Small towns really are like this.

Back with Dean and Jack. Jack’s trying out different food with the snake.  Dean investigates a Chinese take-out container that he quickly discovers contains live mice and not take-out.  He suggests going out with Jack for a drive.  Jack is hopeful for a hunt, but Dean says more of a field trip. Jack’s okay with that, but first Dean wants bacon.  Of course he does.

At the boarding house, Sam and Cass are shown to splody head guy’s room. Sam asks for coffee, leaving Castiel free to search the room.  He finds some letters under the mattress and is reading them as Sam comes back.  And I know Jared has large hands (beautifully in proportion to the rest of him), but I think there is an element of also finding the tiniest teacups they can get a hold of. However, since this scene gives us another Sam drinks tea gif, I’m happy. Anyway, the letters are from Sunny and are explicit from the sound of them.  

Sam says great, they’ll look into it tomorrow.  He wants to stay at the boarding house because the landlady is making pot roast.  Oh oh.  Castiel for some reason lets this slide and leaves Sam overnight.

We’re now at my first suspects home with Justin Smith (the first).  He’s still talking about cell phones.  He’s started to remember who he is.  He runs out of the house and his head goes splody.  Poor guy.

I’m really not sure that Dean’s test for whether Jack has his soul is legit.  Choosing Angel food cake or Devil food cake.  Jack looks like he’s going to choose devil food cake which arouses Dean’s suspicions but at the last second, chooses angel food cake. Dean heaves a sigh of relief.  

It’s the following day and Castiel goes to check on Sam who isn’t there.  I like Mrs Dowling, the landlady who is cleaning and dancing. She tells him Sam was going for a walk and a milk shake.

Sam is not at the milk-shop place, but Sunny is there.  Castiel seems to be as pissed off as I am that Sam repeatedly gets referred to as “the tall one”.  Sunny tells him about Mr Smith dying so Castiel turns up to Mrs Smith’s house to investigate.  Yet another house I like. Where are all these beautiful houses in Vancouver?   Anyway, Mrs Smith doesn’t look all that upset that her husband has died.  Castiel says he’s looking for his “partner” and that he’s tall with “beautiful hair”. He could have added “drop dead gorgeous” but it’s better than just “tall” so I’ll let it slide.  Mrs Smith is clueless, and I have to question if she’s a robot at this point.

Castiel goes to sit in a chair and Mrs Smith screams.  I have the exact same reaction after I’ve cleaned everywhere, and someone comes in and starts dumping their stuff all over the place.   Castiel starts speaking about her dead husband but Mrs Smith laughs and asks if Castiel has already had a martini today.  We hear someone call “honey” and I don’t know why they tried to hide the person in this scene because Jared has a very distinctive voice so we know it’s him.

I love this next scene though.  We get “agent” from Castiel, but Sam responds that he is: “Justin… Justin Smith” then asks, “And you are?”

Castiel (winking): Your partner

Justin (still smiling): Partner?  Super, that’s swell, great…

Justin (the second), asks Castiel to stick around as they are “having pot roast”.  This seems to be a 50s staple.  Thank Chuck the 70s added prawn cocktail and blackforest gateaux.  I like to give Misha his due whenever possible and his confused face here is brilliant.  Mrs Smith is sent off to make a martini and Castiel tries to get to the bottom of things.  He’s still wondering if Sam is “under cover”.   But no, Sam really thinks he’s Justin Smith and married.  Mrs Smith comes back during this and says they are low on olives and asks “one or two”. Justin is a fussy one though and asks for “three” and adds that he’s “feeling adventurous.”  Mrs Smith does a perfect “rawrrr”, Justin  responds awkwardly “roarrrr”.  I just can’t with Jared in this scene.

I didn’t pick up on it, but with the three olives and “feeling adventurous”, added to Castiel’s wink and “partner” comment from earlier, other people are suggesting threesomes.  If that’s the case, Justin seems up for it.    

While Mrs Smith goes to get more olives (or slip into something more comfortable - who knows at this stage), Sam asks Castiel if he wants one (get your mind out the gutter, he meant martini).  Castiel tells him “Your name is Sam Winchester…” Justin: “So that’s a no no on the hootch?”  Castiel’s had enough and commands Sam to “snap the hell out of it.”

Justin: Sir, you watch your mouth, if we cannot remain civil, then you can skedaddle.

Castiel: Sam…

Justin: That’s not my name.  (He grabs Castiel to see him out). “Cindy, grab his hat.”

Castiel: I don’t wear a hat

Cindy: Honey, I don’t think he wore a hat

Justin: Fine.  

He shows Castiel the door. “Sir, using language like that; h e double hockey sticks (Sam shakes his head and waggles his finger).  You should have your mouth washed out with soap.

Castiel: Sam…

Justin: It’s Justin! (slams door closed).

Dean and Jack arrive at a house, Donatello comes running out.  He and Jack go inside to chat and Dean waits outside.  I think the next bit was supposed to be funny when Dean taps the car to check on the snake then slides along to get away from it.  It wasn’t funny.  And that isn’t on Jensen at all, he’s a really funny actor, it’s on the material.  Don’t force the comedy elements.  Yellow Fever was genius, this attempt is lame.  

Donatello and Jack talk about souls.  And in sharp contrast to Jared with the ridiculous tiny cup earlier, could they have found a bigger cup for Alex? Donatello tells Jack that not having a soul is a lack of pity, empathy, humanity. He asks what Jack feels.  Jack doesn’t know.  He doesn’t feel nothing, but he doesn’t feel the same either. He just doesn’t want Sam, Dean and Castiel to worry.  Donatello, “They’re your family.  Families worry.” (Family mention box ticked – phew, I really thought we were going to get through an entire episode without one).   Donatello tells him he always asks himself “What would Mr Rogers do?”  Jack asks who Mr Rogers is and Donatello answers, “The best man I know.”

Jack: Sam and Dean are the best men I know. (heh!)  Look, I know Castiel isn’t a man, just let me have my petty moment in peace!

Donatello suggests that Jack thinks of WWWD.  What would the Winchesters do.  But considering the Winchesters have continually sacrificed themselves for the other, I’m not so sure this is such sterling advice.

Jack returns to Dean and Dean asks Donatello if Jack is okay and does he have his soul.

Donatello: I suppose the first question we must ask ourselves is… what is a soul?

Dean (I am not in the mood for your shit): Donny...

Donny says to keep an eye on him but if he says he’s okay, he probably is.  He goes on to say that Jack is the most powerful being in the universe, who knows what goes on inside his head.  They both turn to the car and Jack gives a dorky wave.   Dean is not in the least reassured.

Back at Harrington’s milkshake place, Castiel has decided that Sunny is the witch.   He says to tell him the truth or he’ll rip it from her mind (keep an eye on these powers, I’m pretty sure they won’t work the next episode).

Turns out not to be Sunny, but the mayor, he has Justin (the second) with him and he doesn’t look amused, he’s at least a little mildly ticked off with Castiel.

We then get villain monologue – why do villains do this? – Just get on with it. Long story short, Chip can make people do whatever he wants.  Sunny runs out during this - I don’t blame her - and Chip runs after her, leaving Justin and a couple of other goons to deal with Castiel:

Castiel (to Sam): I won’t hurt you, Sam

Justin: Golly, I told you my name is Justin!

Justin is a terrible fighter, even someone as bad as Castiel normally is manages to put him on his back (Sastiel for the win).  Castiel’s actually doing well this fight, but Justin suddenly realises he’s got height and weight advantage and lunges at Castiel, taking him down.  He sees Castiel’s angel blade and pulls it from his sleeve – and if this was Dean and Castiel, the hellers would be going wild right about now, about Destiel being end game and true love (because nothing says true love like one partner trying to kill the other).  Anyway, for anyone interested in the whole top/bottom debate, Sam is on top, but he’s cowgirl in this scene so I’m calling this topping from the bottom.  Don’t @ me top!Sam people!

Moving on, Castiel does that thing where he talks, and he shouldn’t.  He says he knows what it’s like to fail as a leader.  That Sam needs to fight and not lose himself, because if he does, he fails them, all of those they lost, he fails Jack. He fails Dean.  Sam raises the blade and slams it down…

So, a couple of things on that.  The narrative once again saying Sam has “failed” in some way kind of completely sucks. Done with Sam being told things like that and everyone else getting told they did good (*coughs* letting Lucifer out of the cage the second time around *coughs*).  But I’m sure I’ll get hurt!Sam out of it and Dean seems to be the trigger word for Sam to snap out of things so toxic co-dependent bros for the win.

…Sadly the blade slams into the diner flooring and Castiel lives to hunt another day (tries to summon up a “yay” but fails miserably).    But Sam’s back to normal (yay!!!).  

They exit the diner to stop Chip, who TK’s Castiel through the air and tries to kill Sam.  Sunny’s had enough though and uses her own powers on Chip, trapping him inside his own mind.

Dean and Jack are back at the bunker.  Dean asks Jack if he had a good time, Jack: “It was… illuminating.”  

Before Dean can process that statement, Sam and Castiel are also back.   Dean not one to miss some good brotherly ribbing: “I heard you wore a cardigan.” Sam turns to Castiel.

Castiel: Yeah, I told him about the cardigan.

Jealous!Dean alert: And the wife. (Sam looks at Castiel again).  He said you were… really happy.

Castiel decides it’s time for him to exit stage left and goes to find Jack.

As usual with getting nothing out of the episode, the hellers are making a lot more out of the “off screen” conversation between the “hunter husbands” than merits.  Of course Castiel told Dean what happened, it’s more than his life’s worth not to if Dean found out Sam had been in danger and Castiel didn’t tell him.  The phone conversation would have went something like this.

Castiel: Now, don’t get angry, Dean.  First of all, the important thing is that Sam’s fine... now...

Dean: WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY BROTHER?!

Back in Jack’s room, he tries to do what Sam and Dean would do.  He thinks they would help the snake so uses his powers to Thanos the snake to the afterlife so it can be with it’s owner again in heaven.  Jack, I really don’t think the owner would have passed the abacus good/bad test so no idea where you actually sent that snake other than purgatory.  Camera pans out and Castiel is watching from the doorway.  Parenting advice from me Castiel: you need to trust your teenagers and give them space.  Constantly checking on Jack is just going to make him feel closed in.      

[shirtlesssammy]

13x20: Unfinished Business

Then:

Gabe knows Dean likes Dr. Sexy

Now:

In a darkened back alley, a man walks drunkenly away from a liquor store. A kazoo sounds in the distance. Ah, it seems that our favorite archangel’s horn is actually a kazoo. And the drunken man is actually Fenrir Odinsbane, one of the demi-gods that sold Gabriel to Asmodeus. Gabe confronts Fenrir.

Fisticufts ensue. Gabriel wins, but barely.

The Winchesters, meanwhile, are checking into a motel. Dean’s updating Cas on the phone about their plans. SOFT. They really got married and didn’t tell us. Dean is frustrated with their lack of finding Gabriel, but Rowena’s spell said he could be close. He wants to locate him, and get a move on finding their mom and Jack. These thoughts all manifest before he knew this motel room has magic fingers of course. (Love the call back to earlier seasons. Not only is Gabriel back, but the room has a gritty and dark feel that evokes early seasons as well.) Their work is reduced by 100% when Gabriel knocks on their door.

In the AU, Jack is proudly telling Mary about his growing abilities. Mary’s concerned about the logistics of maintaining the resistance. (Hoard toilet paper!) Fellow freedom fighter, Jacob, arrives and tells them that the angels are leaving.

Gabe, torso bleeding and powers low, inquires about his grace. The brothers inform him that it’s gone, so he’ll have to wait for his grace to recharge before he can heal himself.

Jack uses his powers to see Michael’s headquarters. It’s just as Jacob reported: Empty. Jack wants to go there.

Sam and Dean ask Gabriel for his help (again) but he’s not much of a joiner. Before he can ditch again, they get a visit from Fenrir’s brothers: Narfi and Sleipnir.

Fisticuffs ensue. Gabriel offs Narfi but Sleipnir escapes.

Once at Michael’s headquarters, the resistance finds a map --it’s clearly the North American continent, but it’s not the United States anymore. It’s creepy! I love it. It shows a concentration of army figures in what was once the southern United States. They also find Kevin Tran! He was left behind when the angels left town. (So this apocalypse has only been happening for eight years? Like, did it follow the same timeline as our universe?) He reveals that “there’s a place in the south where the walls between worlds are thin.” He plans on entering our world there.

Sam and Dean locks Gabriel up and force him to spill his story. Loki and Gabriel go way back --to the time when Gabriel saved Loki. Loki owed Gabe one so when Gabriel needed to hide from the world, Loki set him up in Monte Carlo with porn stars. This sequence is pure gold. I love it all.

Well, the fun and games had to end eventually, and Gabriel was kidnapped and sold to Asmodeus. Gabriel wants revenge, and because he’s low on grace, he’s doing it the old fashioned way --with wooden stakes. 

He even has one reserved for Loki himself.

In the AU, the group continues to strategize their plan for Michael.

And, yo, Dean is in a bad place, guys. He’s drinking from his flask. He also isn’t convinced Gabriel’s revenge is the best plan.

Dean pulls Sam into the hallway to have a “private” conversation (really close to an archangel so how private can it really be?). He's concerned that Gabriel's revenge plot is a waste of time...for them and for Gabriel as well. Revenge never did a damn thing for himself, for their dad… Dean calls Sam out on his own unspoken revenge fantasy of killing Lucifer. Still, Sam convinces Dean to give Gabriel’s plan a try and they get ready to head out. Gabriel knows where to go, too. Loki is holed up in the penthouse of the Ophidian hotel. (Ophidian means snake.) How...obvious of Loki.

Gabriel gleefully pulls out his cartoonish kill list. Dean is...less than impressed. “This is so stupid,” he mutters, which puts a nice lampshade on the more obvious Kill Bill parallels.

So the plan is that they'll kill Sleipnir, then Loki in the penthouse. “Easy peasy like a breezy,” Gabriel declares. GABE. Stop charming us!

In the AU Mary strongly urges Jack to calm the fuck down and take it slow. She compares him to herself as a hunter. “Running in blind into every fight? That's how you make mistakes.” She begs for Jack to reconsider his plan to go south and attack Michael right away. “I can't lose another boy,” she says. (This reminds us all that she thinks Cas is dead and we spend the next hour weeping.)

Kevin interrupts. He tells them that Michael set him one more task...and if he does it then he gets to go to Heaven to see his mother. Everyone’s instantly on their guard because Kevin looks...intense. Mary pushes one of the resistance leader’s guns down and tries to talk to Kevin. She tells him that Heaven is just memories and that nothing there is real. (I’m like...FINALLY this show is really addressing again what a fucked up situation Heaven actually is! Thank you Mary, for calling it like it fucking is.)

Kevin doesn't care though. He's suffered. He's done terrible things. And now he wants it to end. Kevin tells Jack that Michael doesn't want to kill him. He wants to break him. Then Kevin presses his hand to a sigil carved into his chest and flaring blue light fills the room. Oh, Kevin. Getting the shaft in every universe. :(

Jack wraps his wings around Mary at the last minute.

Cut back to Gabe’s stylized revenge story. Our heroes stalk their way up through the dingy Ophidian hotel corridors. In the elevator Gabriel instructs the Winchesters that they can kill the guards but Sleipnir and Loki are his to kill.

The elevator opens upstairs to reveal Sleipnir and two guards in plain view. Both sides freeze for a moment, processing. And then...Gabriel douses the lights. Gunfire erupts and the fighting is illuminated in flashes of light as the Winchesters and Gabriel advance on their quarry.

When Gabe turns on the lights again he has Sleipnir on the floor beneath his blade...and Dean's disappeared with the suitcase full of the rest of the blades. Gabe kills Sleipnir and then he and Sam chase after Dean.

Dean stalks his way up to the penthouse, bearing Loki's wooden blade. He tips open the door and finds Loki at last. Loki sits calmly in his brightly lit penthouse suite sucking on a lollipop.

He places his sucker into his lollipop humidor - which is a delightful touch. I mean, I seriously want to send a card to whoever made it to thank them for being an awesome and creative human being. Loki reveals that he's out for his own revenge against Gabriel. Gabriel went against their original deal. He was supposed to lay low and stay out of his family's apocalyptic nonsense and in exchange, Loki would hide him. But when Gabriel drew all the gods to the Elysian Fields hotel back in season 5, he got Odin killed. For that, Loki wants his revenge.

Loki tells Dean that his father was terrible to him, but that he would do anything to avenge him – and wouldn't Dean agree with that? (Whoa, this episode is doing all kinds of digging up the past and I LOVE it.) Dean represses heavily, blows off his explanation, and tries to stab him, but it turns out that Loki is just a projected illusion. He's elsewhere in the hotel!

Cue Gabriel, tearing around a corner with Sleipnir's blade. He finds Loki hanging out downstairs…

Back in the penthouse, projection!Loki hits Dean and Dean realizes that Loki can hit him...but he can't make a dent in Loki. It's the “perks” of fighting a real trickster, apparently. Sam arrives, shoots, and fake Loki poofs out.

Meanwhile, (the probably real?) Loki taunts Gabriel about how he went to him for help during the apocalypse. Gabe can’t do anything on his own. I get the sense that if Loki had access to a pen and paper, he’d draw a sidewalk-artist caricature of Gabriel dressed in a dirty diaper. Dean and Sam show up and Dean slides Gabriel the Loki blade, but Loki continues to burn Gabriel. Gabriel lived for nothing. He'll die for nothing. Gabriel swallows down his despair, kills Loki, and then shares a nod with Sam. (This is where I see the seeds of Gabriel’s redemption sown. It’ll be interesting to see how this affects Sam’s journey.)

Back in the AU, light streams in through the crosses in the walls, illuminating ruined bodies. Jack's wings unfurl to reveal Mary unconscious in his embrace. He stares around the ruined church in despair. I stare around the ruined church in despair. Oh, Kevin.

Outside the hotel, Sam and Dean head to the Impala and stuff those cool wooden blades into Baby’s trunk. (I’m definitely NOT imagining Dean playing with them in his bathrobe in the bunker...when he’s mentally in a better place, anyway.) Gabriel thanks the Winchesters for their help and then asks how they all plan to kill Michael. He’s ready to help them. “No tricks?” Dean asks.

“Tricks are for kids,” Gabriel replies. Sam asks how Gabe is feeling after he had his revenge and he tells him that he feels, “Swell. I'm a whole new guy.” As Sam turns away, Gabriel’s smile fades....

In the AU, Jack tells Mary that Kevin’s attack was his fault. Mary consoles him. God, Mary is just the BEST. So strong and world weary.

Back in the bunker, Cas is reportedly helping Gabe get settled in while Dean healthily downs whiskey at the war room table. Sam asks Dean why he went after Loki without them. “This has become a whole thing with you lately,” Sam protests. He wants to know why Dean's treating him with kid gloves and keeping him out of fights.

“You remember what happened the last time we got front row tickets to the Lucifer/Michael show?” Dean asks. He tells Sam that he doesn’t care what happens to himself...but he cares about Sam. (I’ll take this moment to point out Dean’s flask drinking during the case earlier...and how Billie told him she’d see him soon. I’m pretty sure Dean’s staring down the barrels of impending death right now...and he thinks he deserves it.) Sam tells Dean that they'll save Jack and their mom together – or they'll die together. Dean loves this plan.

Dudes.

These Quotes are on my Kill List:

No gimmicks. No tricks. Just mano a mano.

He died as he lived. Side by side with the bottle.

Raspberries.

Don't let anybody ever tell you you're just a pretty face.

If I can't keep them safe then what's the point?

The hell are you guys? The hell are these guys?

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[nerdylittleshit]

Thoughts about Spn 13x06

SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILERS!

Yee-haw! So, did we get the promised Brokebacknatural? Cowboys? Check. Super gay? Double check.

Once again we got an episode, and I know I keep repeating myself here, that left no room for subtext. Everything was spelled out in neon letters. Which is weird, from a meta perspective. We are so used to look out for the subtext, and codes and hidden messages, and again it feels like the subtext just became plain text. And again, I don’t feel like this makes the episode better or worse, just different, and of course it leads to the overall question: WHY? And to me it feels like, or at least makes sense, like we are heading to the finish line here. I’m not saying the current season is the last, but maybe the next one. From a writer’s point it would make sense then to address themes that have been part of the subtext for a long time, and the only way to resolve them is to put them in the actual text of the show. (And yes, before you ask: Destiel. All the Destiel.)

Overall I liked the episode a lot. The actual case was kinda… there, they could have made more with it, I dunno. But I loved the Western theme and of course it was a big character episode. I think this week the focus was on Jack, and his relationship with Cas. We had a lot of great Dean moments as well, which brought the episode a light and fun atmosphere, and worked especially in contrast to last weeks episode, to make a big statement what or rather who made Dean so happy. The characters and their relationships were the selling point of the episode.

Let’s have a closer look.

Jack vs Evil Dead

There was a lot of Jack in the episode, and in the beginning he seemed to be in a relative happy place. He is obviously still trying to find out who he is, but it seems like hunting gave him some purpose, at least for a moment. We learned in 13x04 that he still thinks in terms of “good” and “bad” and that, through the influence of Sam and Dean, hunters are to him the good guys. They kill monsters and help the innocent.

Jack trying to be a hunter was of course meant to remind us of all the times Cas tried to act like a hunter. They both even use the same approach by watching what Sam and Dean do and try to copy it. Though I have to admit, with all my love for Cas, I think Jack has got the hang of it a bit faster. He found them a case, he found footage of zombie!Dave and identified him as Athena’s boyfriend. Top of his class, indeed.

I loved the relationship/interactions between Cas and Jack. I always like it when they add new characters to the team, to see new dynamics, not just Cas and Jack, but of course also the birth of team free will 2.0. Cas and Jack do balance out Sam and Dean in a way; they are both not human and outsiders of their own. And similar to last season where Cas could teach Mary about her sons now we have him teaching Jack how to handle a Winchester properly.

I’m not sure the show is ever going to address the “Did Jack brainwash Kelly and Cas?”-issue more than they did now. Jack confirms that he trusted Cas because his mother trusted him, that Cas made him feel safe and the fact that Cas is surprised Jack remembered that implies they talked about the events in 12x19. I have a feeling Dean won’t bring up the issue again – whatever Jack did with bringing back Cas he is forgiven. I’m not sure of either Cas or Jack were aware of the brainwashing. Every episode so far has shown us that until lately Jack had no control over his powers. Choosing Cas as his protector probably did happen unconscious, based on the feelings of his mother, who had become one with him at some point (probably when he resurrected her).

Cas supports Jack and believes in him, and I think he fulfils a role here neither Sam and Dean could. He is the one Jack chose as his father, as his mentor, he is the one who was supposed to be there for him. I don’t believe Jack still controls Cas in some ways, but rather that the affection is genuine. Cas repeats what Kelly told her son – that he is meant to do great things and that he has the power to make the world a better place. This very thing though puts a lot of responsibility on Jack. It is clear that he wants to do good, that he wants to prove to others and himself that he is not a monster, but it backfires horrible. It is clear that killing the security guard was a horrible accident, and Cas, Sam and Dean reassure him that in their line of work things like that keep on happening, but that it doesn’t mean he is bad, or that he should stop trying to do better. Each of them has done horrible things in the past, because the world is more complex than “good” and “bad”. It is part of being human, and we talk so much about Jack’s powers that we forget at times that he is half human too.

Especially in that aspect I think Jack mirrors Dean a lot. There is an early parallel when Jack tells Cas how much he missed him, how he begged for his return, or basically when he tells Cas everything Dean couldn’t. The Jack we see at the end of the episode, the one who decides to leave because he is afraid he is going to hurt his found family, is the one who reminded a lot of Dean in 9x10, who decided to leave because he thought of himself as “poison”. Dean is still the one who is the most honest with Jack – when he asks if the security guard had a family only Dean gives him a direct answer. Dean is the one who never tried to sugarcoat what he thought of Jack, but he is also the one who admits here that he was wrong about Jack. We saw a first small step in that direction at the end of 13x04, after Jack saved Sam, but it is clear that the turning point is Jack bringing Cas back.

Also, Jack refers to Cas, Sam and Dean as “all he has”. This and that he asked about the family of the man he killed shows how important family and family ties are to him, and that he thinks in categories of family the way we know Dean does as well. It wouldn’t surprise me if we end the season with Jack addressing the Winchesters (including Cas of course) as his family.

Something else I found interesting are Jack’s powers. By now he can control them in some ways. It is clear it is a learning process. What I am curious about though is what specifically are Jack’s powers. We know that one day he will be more powerful than his father. We know he has some angelic powers – he can teleport, bullets and knifes don’t hurt him etc. Unlike angels though you can’t banish him. He sleeps, even if he doesn’t sleep as much as humans. He eats and he seems to enjoy food. It is a mix between angelic powers and human needs. Then again he asked Cas to heal the security guard, even though we know that Jack can technically heal people, after all he saved his mother in 12x19, so we might see him exploring more powers in the future.

The most interesting part though is his power to open portals to other worlds, and the fact that he had the power to reach Cas in the Empty, a place where even God had no power. This made me wonder if the Empty perhaps exists outside of reality? And God’s powers only have access in places in our reality – earth, heaven, hell, purgatory, the veil. Could it be that every universe/reality has their own God? If there are different versions of the archangels, why not God? We know that Lucifer from our universe still has his powers in the AU world. But what if there is only one Empty, existing outside of all those realities? And only Jack, Death and the reapers have access to it? Does that make Jack more powerful than God?

Cowboys Are Frequently, Secretly Fond of Each Other

(What did you think all them saddles and boots was about?)

So, after Dean said “I do” under a giant neon cross, I think it is fair to say that travelling to Doge City and dressing up as cowboys was Dean and Cas’s honeymoon?

I’m still in awe and wonder how obvious all the Destiel stuff was. Not just in this episode, during the whole season so far. It is the main topic with all my meta peeps here, because we still can’t believe that after years of digging deep through the subtext the show is now so blatant about Destiel. After 13x05 everyone and their mother said that Cas was presented as the win Dean so desperately needed, and now he textually confirms it, calling Cas even a “pretty big win”. Dean’s whole attitude and behaviour has changed, in the way that 13x05 and 13x06 almost work as a pair to show is exactly what the main difference is between the two episodes and Dean’s emotional state. I mean their mom is still trapped and Jack is still a potential danger, and this episode marks the first time he killed someone, even if it was only an accident. We expected to hear the “I told you”-speech from Dean, instead he is reaching out to Jack and takes care of his mess. Why? Because of Cas. Because Jack brought back Cas, and for the first time Dean can acknowledge the effort Jack applied.

It was in character that we didn’t get a great speech of Dean talking about his feelings (like I said, Jack already expressed what Dean felt). We are not at the point of the story yet where Dean is ready to use his words, though sooner or later he has to. Instead we got the car scene and the usual bickering between Cas and Dean, and it is only then that Dean admits how happy he is that Cas is back. It was very lighthearted and sweet and it again confirmed that Dean and Cas have a relationship off-screen (the movie Dean made Cas watch, the fact that Cas knows that Dean is an angry sleeper etc). Also, my new headcanon is that Metatron didn’t like Western movies, so they weren’t part of all the popculture knowledge he gave Cas. Dean might missed his chance to introduce Cas to Star Wars, but he will do his best to show Cas his favourite Western movies. All of them.

Wild Wild Dead

The case of the week was rather simple. There was a recurring theme of “things that look like other things”. In 13x02 we had with Asmodeus a shapeshifting demon, in 13x03 we had a wraith who looks human and 13x04 featured two actual shapeshifters and an ancient cosmic entity that took the form of our favourite angel. And we started this episode with Dean asking Cas if it is really him. It doesn’t take a big step to figure out that identity will be a big theme this season. Jack of course still struggles with his own, trying to find out who he is. And then of course we have the AU world or maybe even worlds, with a potential infinite amount of doppelgängers of characters we know.

We also have two characters coming back from the dead – Cas literary, and the ghoul who impersonates someone who died a long time ago. Both lose the one they wanted to protect – Cas loses Jack, Dave loses Athena. I’m not sure if this parallel was on purpose because Dave and Athena’s relationship wasn’t anything like the one between Jack and Cas. The first one was romantic and quite unhealthy, the second a parent-child-relationship, based on support. I also wonder if Athena was aware that her boyfriend was a ghoul? She seemed to know about the grave robberies and I thought for a moment she provided him with food, but she was surprised to find out he wasn’t exactly human, so.

Another character that was somehow paralleled/ associated with Dean was the Sergeant. The officer who was killed was his nephew; not his actual so, but still someone very close to him. Getting revenge for him was family business, to make it even more obvious. And he stated twice that he would kill the one responsible for his nephew’s death. And that is somehow problematic. I think it was perhaps part of the Western theme to show people who take the law in their own hands, with blazing guns and only one of them surviving. Still he was an officer of the law, and unlike Dean and the others he didn’t know at first that a monster was responsible for his nephew’s death. The show morally justified that hunters can kill monsters, if they have killed, because there is no monster prison. But there is no justification for humans to kill other humans, especially not officers of the law who should know better. The first monstrous humans though on the show have all been killed by officers of the law though (Pa Bender by Deputy Kathleen Hudak in 1x15 and Pete Sheridan by Detective Diana Ballard in 2x07). Sergeant Phillips is portrayed as a hero by the narrative, that he kills the monster in the end feels justified, but it shouldn’t.

Dean seemed also very calm when the ghoul aimed his gun at his head. Perhaps because he knew that Billie would bring him back, because he is important? Interesting though “stabbed by a ghoul in a graveyard” was one of Dean’s potential deaths (I wonder if we will also get to see almost burned by a red haired witch and almost died by a heart-attack). After the ghoul is dead Dean takes care of Jack’s mess and is back to his usual “we were never here and we lie about what we do”-attitude. In contrast to 13x01 where he openly told the Sheriff that he is a hunter, because he no longer cared about anything. Now that Cas is back he does.

Some other things:

- Did nobody in town recognize Dave Mather? Did they all think it was just a great coincidence the undertaker’s new boyfriend looked exactly like the old west dude?

- Speaking of, why is nobody ever suspicious about their aliases? Texas ranger Val Kilmer? Seriously?

- Nina Lopez-Corrado, the director of the episode, smuggled herself in the episode twice: with Athena’s last name (Lopez) and again with the giant “Lopez” on top of the mausoleum in the graveyard.

- Does Sam like Amanda Palmer? He seemed interested. Adding this to my (very short) list of music Sam likes.

- The episode had great soundtrack choices.

- I’m still worried about Jack though. I hope he packed some lunch.

Until next week <3

[postmodernmulticoloredcloak]

okay, so i should probably start this off by saying i spent the better part of s12 in a clinic and missed a lot of meta, so idk if maybe this has all been talked about already. basically, every time i rewatch 12x10, Lily Sunder's line about how she will never be powerless again/isn't powerless anymore feels so important to me but for a while i couldn't put my finger on quite why. then i remembered a post i read the gist of which was basically how being powerless is a male fear vs the female fear

of being silenced/not being listened to. Maybe i'm super wrong about this, but I thought they did a really nice subversion of this with mary and dean in s12? like, mary being scared that if she didn't “power up” with the help of the bmol, she would never be able to keep her sons save from the supernatural (like the night she died), vs dean being scared that if he voices what he really feels, people won't listen (and, even worse, leave him). I mean that last one is a general fear of dean's imo(amplified by people getting angry with him for how he's feeling), but I felt it was really pronounced in s12 when he went along with a lot of things that were hurting him (mary needing space, sam wanting to work with the bmol). But idk, maybe i'm totally off the mark or this is just really obvious and was already talked about. I mean, the not powerless thing could also simply be about agency, since mary is now alive (which makes it all the more cruel when the bmol try and take her agency away).

I’m sorry you had to go through health trouble, I hope things are better now

That line from 12x10 is very interesting and I wrote a little post about it to parallel Lily to Rowena, who says a similar line about her refusal to be “weak” after what happened with Crowley’s father; also I compared them to Cas, who instead chooses “powerlessness” in the sense that he’s repeatedly given up angelic power for humanity/Humanity. In the post I wondered whether Cas, unlike Lily and Rowena who lost children, will acquire a child in Jack, and, well, 13x01 seems to suggest that...

Yes, being powerless is a “male” fear but in the sense that being powerless is the “normal female state”, so to speak - powerlessness is a threat to manhood because it means being more “woman-like” (and effeminacy is the worst thing for a man, according to the system). A woman who doesn’t want to succumb to the system will fight to acquire power - after all, if you’re powerless you’ll be always silenced, power means that your voice will be listened to...

About Dean, yes, Dean is generally framed as “feminine” in the narrative. Ever since the beginning of season 1, the primary trait of his characterization is fear, while Sam’s primary trait (clearly evident throughout the Kripke era and its subversion in the Gamble era) is anger. Fear is a typically “feminine” emotion while anger is a typically “masculine” emotion (fear is expected in women and shunned in men, anger is expected in men and shunned in women). Of course I’m not saying Dean has 1 emotion and Sam has 1 emotion, it’s a matter of characterization traits that inform the narrative structure of the emotional arcs.

Dean’s fears, even more specifically, are typically “feminine”: immediately in season 1, his major fear is his inability to hold his family together because the “men of the family” allowed their anger at each other to create a rift between them, one of them abandoned the family, and then the other also disappeared (basically framing Dean as an abandoned wife: he’s the actual original “woman in white” of the Winchester family, despite appearances...). The fear of being unable to keep his family together (in all the senses that that acquires through the story), the fear of being abandoned by the male (or male-framed narratively, see Mary) members of his family, is a recurring trait for Dean.

And yes - while Dean subverts expectations for a male character, Mary subverts expectations for a female character. The entire characterization of Mary is about subversion of expectations: in season 4, Dean learns that the sweet innocent civilian housewife was actually a hunter that made a demon deal that started all the troubles of the family. Season 12 adds more fuel to that - she basically wasn’t even a good housewife after when acting as one!

Mary couldn’t keep her family together, Mary couldn’t cook... unlike Dean who was basically the “woman” of the family all along, acting as emotional support for John and as caregiver to Sam. Dean is a caretaker, Mary isn’t - both subversion of the gender roles associated to their genders and of the “first impression” associated to their characters when they were introduced.

In season 12 Dean acts in a “feminine” way while Mary acts in a “masculine” way: Dean does the emotional labor even if it hurts him, follows Mary’s and Sam’s decisions even if he doesn’t like them (accepting your husband’s choices even if they hurt you emotionally or disagree with them is stereotypically expected from wives, sadly), Mary literally goes to work outside of the home to provide for the family - the stereotypical male gender role. While Dean is the queen of the hearth, Mary hunts outside to keep her family safe...

Mary seeks a “male” power fantasy - destruction of the threat - while Dean seeks a “female” emotional fantasy - his family happy together (You know, it wasn’t long ago, I thought we had it made. We saved the world. We got Cas back. We had Mom back. I mean, it wasn’t perfect, but still, we had ‘em - see also narrative parallels like Jody talking about seeking emotional fulfillment in a relationship with a man in 12x06).

Of course Mary’s power fantasy can’t work. She ends up losing everything, including her sense of self - the BMoL basically forcibly put her back in a female role, i.e. a lack of agency and personhood. In her mind, not coincidentally, she “retreats” in that stereotypically feminine role she picked for herself (although it was just an illusion) when she married John and had her children: that’s where Dean finally meets her. They finally connect once they are on the same terrain, a feminine terrain, if it makes sense. It’s when they’re both in the hearth, in the home, and can finally connect emotionally. (Eventually, Mary finds a “balanced” role - she saves her sons by punching the threat outside of the house, acts both as loving mom and “man of the family”).

I hope I was able to put some cards on the table that can be of interest to you! Let me know what you think ^-^

[elizabethrobertajones]

Argh, the thing on my mind after watching 11x19 is that it and 11x11 each have such specific relevance to one particular Winchester per episode when it comes to the little mini arc set up in 11x04 where Sam asks Dean about something with someone in the life.

11x11 and Eileen seem specifically about Sam, romantically, and Dean is even paired off quite blatantly with Mildred, the most excellent "romantic false lead" ever to show us the two of them being paired off and Mildred even intervening to let them have alone time after vicariously shipping them together herself as a way of ascertaining Eileen's interest in Sam (I mean... I assume so, if you guess she's super canny and kindly about being very manipulative, and she literally drags Dean away from Sam and Eileen at one point :P). Eileen is also very compatible thematically to Sam as someone he can reflect on as well as attach to... She has similar mental landscape to Sam, with the cold open showing something happening to her while she was in her crib, a life-long thing to hunt, getting revenge but not going to a law career, etc.

She was very clearly someone fitting the description of what Sam had been wondering about in 11x04. She's very clearly a mirror and parallel to him, as well as someone who represents what he actively wants, because I really don't think you can pair the 11x04 conversation and Sam stashing a retirement home leaflet as being JUST Sam planning for his future. That's a ridiculous romantic keepsake that reminds him of that excellent day, because Eileen did not have the presence of mind to give him a freakin' lock of her hair or something more appropriate than stealing a pamphlet on the way out the door of the retirement home...

In 11x19 Jesse and Cesar are a bit more of an abstract example for Dean, but show him basically what he could take away from all this - he dismisses Sam in 11x04 asking him about it all, but in 11x19 he's so surprised he derails their discussion of the monster to croak out his question about what's it like settling down with a hunter, as if seeing for the first time. (I mean, seriously, I haven't re-watched in ages, I'm amazed at how creaky and off-guard he sounds as he asks after seeing it in gifsets mostly since then...) Then someone else has to interrupt back onto the monster exposition dump they'd been in the middle of until Dean (of course) managed to blurt out enough words to make Cesar be like, come on babe, this is going to be so awkward, I'm just going to tell him, and Jesse scowled like, fine but don't blame me if they hate us, and Cesar was like, nah this guy is cool, just... going to randomly reveal we're married to him like, I toootally don't feel a comfortable level of kinship with this dude or something hahaha that would be ridiculous (sorry, that pretend inner monologue turned into me being snarky >.> There's no characterisation consistency in my rambling :D)

So Dean and Sam are split up again and Jesse represents some pretty different emotional stuff to Sam, dealing with the brother stuff and all that (just like Mildred dealt more with the retirement and old age theme to Dean of making him long for a sunset without necessarily bringing in romantic connections unless you're me and have the Gas n Sip logo tattooed on your eyelids), while Cesar and Dean mostly just hunt and bond a bit. They very specifically have a conversation about revenge on the drive to it, which reflects Eileen's parting comments about the hunt feeling no different despite it being her revenge resolution hunt (meaning she continues hunting, as Sam does, though with a tease that they could come together and bear the life together... I'm just... not thinking outside of season 11 right now okay). Both Jesse and Eileen get on-screen origin stories and their revenge on the monster that caused them, but Jesse and Cesar get to have a happy ending and drive off into the sunset because they have each other and a firm understanding of when they can stop hunting and knowing when it's all over. Sam stashed the leaflet about the retirement home in his box of special things, but as 11x19 ends as well with them still having looming work to do, they just can't think about packing it in quite yet, though the point is made in both, that this is the discussion on the table - hunter endgames.

Dean's understanding of Cesar's relationship with Jesse and the understandings they have and Cesar's read of it founded ON the revenge thing and "peace when you are done", to borrow from the road so far song, is what informs his decision not to ask them to help with fighting Amara at the end. His interpersonal arc with Cesar was much more openly muted than Sam and Jesse having the emotional encounter with the old sheriff and the very obvious links with Jesse yelling about his brother, which makes parallels that on this show can always be read from space when someone says "brother". It leads Dean to the important decision of understanding what to do about letting them go raise their horses in peace. Dean is personally connected to the side of the story about their marriage, and split off with Cesar who is just married into the revenge mission whose only connection to care about it is because of what it's doing to his husband, and not for his own sake.

Essentially, the fact they were married hunters is presented to surprise Dean (and he's seen married, heterosexual, hunters before so that question may have been answered honestly by Cesar just to the pressures of marriage in a dangerous crappy job, but seems to mean with Dean asking, wait, you can MARRY another MALE hunter what the heck i never even - ) and he's the one who asks (and since Jesse is surly and untrusting as a result of the discrimination of this town (and in both episodes understanding is presented as belief in monsters - Mildred is good because she already saw a ghost and is willing to believe... Jesse is living a metaphor where the town's intolerance is both of him being gay AND the fact he kept saying he saw a monster - the intolerance metaphor is soubled down on by the sheriff and his reaction to discovering his daughter was taken, and I hope the point of the metaphor was that the chitter monsters were how intolerant people SAW gay people *from their perspective* of it being so bad you'd disown and never talk of it etc). Cesar, the one linked to Dean more - I mean he even saved him for starters and it was Dean sent off into the woods to make first contact with him by a fortuitous phonecall, though if there was nothing going on on a higher narrative level Sam could have just have easily done that). Dean's the one split off on the side of the story about their marriage with Cesar again, and he's the one who makes the judgement call about them being allowed to go settle down and have some peace and safety together.

Cesar in basically every way does as a side-character function for Dean what Eileen does for Sam. Except the obvious second level remove here with him already being married, and the fact that Dean is also un-pairable in 11x11, hence Mildred, who by being romantically interesting to Dean (look, they watch a sunset together, you don't have to ship them or think they actually would ever - but that's a romantically coded moment and he has a big heart so it's still a Thing even if it's a go-nowhere thing. It's a thing Sam could later tease him about and Dean would blush and smile fondly about Mildred's attention even if he had no intention of hooking up with her...) kinda has the opposite but identical effect of a sexy hookup where there's no romance, just a fling. Mildred was absolutely Dean's meaningless girl of the week if you wanna be technical about her role there :P Anyway in both cases Dean just sees and experiences, and in his specifically tailored episode on this theme, he only sees an example of what he could have, not as Sam sees, someone who could very easily be that exact endgame.

Because, as Mildred says, Dean was very obviously pining for someone else.

And Dean's personal relationship and retirement introspection episode comes wedged in after 11x18, where he's just lost Cas to Amara in a sort of ridiculously painful doubling down on how *much* he's lost Cas, even in spite of Amara's presence... And soon we will get the direct testing of these rival bonds... But that's a whole other web of meta on the main arc relationship parallels which I spent all of season 11 and most of the hiatus after mired in, so I think we're good here :P

[mittensmorgul]

A very random question but in your opinion, what's the difference between plot-drive and character-driven stories?

I’ve been staring at this message in my inbox for days now, and on top of being a long-debated question regarding writing in general, I think it’s also incredibly relevant to the structure of Supernatural specifically. And because of that I’ve been half excited about and yet half dreading trying to answer this.

Not dreading in a bad way, but dreading because I know this is gonna turn into some kind of patented Mittens Uses Too Many Words To Say The Thing sort of post. Because I have FEELINGS about this. :P

Let’s start with the basics, and I’ll explain why this is a much debated thing. Seriously, just google “plot vs character driven writing” and each link you click will offer a different assessment of what this means. I mean, just speaking about Romance novels as a specific, some people would characterize them as “plot driven” and others as “character driven,” depending on your understanding of what is meant by those terms. It’s… confusing.

Because a character driven story is one which obviously HAS a plot which advances throughout the story, but it’s the character’s emotions and choices and personal growth that DRIVE the plot forward.

A plot driven story is one in which the character may also experience emotional growth and make choices and everything, but in reaction to an external plot that draws the character along in its wake.

All stories incorporate both character and plot development (hopefully! or otherwise why would we bother reading them. This reminds me of my favorite English teacher who taught a class called Literature of Changing Times. I think I’ve mentioned her before *waves hi at Mrs. Proenza if you’re out there reading this. You are awesome, btw*. First day of class when we were going over the reading list, she said, “Ha! Jokes on the admins for approving this class, because ALL literature is about changing times, and this just gives me an excuse to teach y’all my favorite books!”

That was an awesome class, because it was obvious how much she loved every book we studied, and it definitely carried through in OUR enthusiasm for the subject. She basically was the one who taught me how to be passionate about stories.)

So yes, all writing will have elements of a plot moving forward, and characters who are hopefully relatable and whose motivations we understand and/or sympathize with, and sometimes it’s hard to tell if a story is more driven by the external plot or the internal character motivations because both seem important.

Now, specifically relating to Supernatural. Taken as a whole, the series has used both character driven AND plot driven stories, sometimes simultaneously. I’ve heard one description in an old meta ages and ages ago that SPN was actually telling us two different stories based on whether you were looking at it through Sam’s perspective or Dean’s.

Short tangent to explain: Sam’s story has largely been plot driven, and that meta I mentioned above compared it to the traditional story structure of the Horror genre. An external force acts on a character, the character is forced to react, make choices based on those outside influences, and thus growth and change happens for the character. Dean’s story (aside from during the MoC arc, when Dean was literally acted on by an outside force) has largely been character driven, similar to a character in a traditional Fantasy genre story where the character is the one who goes chasing after the plot, and his emotions and choices drive that plot forward.

But it’s more complicated than that, because of course it is. :P

Obviously that’s reducing things to their absolute simplest form, but Sam’s narrative began when an outside force literally acted on him, with Azazel dripping demon blood in his mouth. That obviously drove the plot forward, setting up everything that’s happened in the entire series in the opening scenes of the pilot episode.

But Dean’s story really begins (again, in the pilot episode) because he has an emotional need for Sam to help him find their father. That ALSO drives the action of the story forward, because without Dean’s internal motivation, the rest of the plot wouldn’t have happened, either.

Using the Carver Era (s8-11), you can really see the difference between a character driven narrative and a plot driven one. See by my personal bias in the following description if you can tell which style of storytelling I personally prefer:

Early s8 began with a HUGE dose of character driven plots. Dean comes back from Purgatory without Cas and is basically pining or in mourning. Sam’s been on an extended vacation playing house with Amelia. Dean’s internal drive to “fix the plot,” i.e. find and save Kevin, drives the early part of the season while Sam feels a little resentful of being dragged away from his “normal” life.

Then Cas miraculously turns up, they find Kevin, and suddenly they’re learning about other tablets that exist in the world. In a plot-driven world, they would’ve sought out the tablets and probably destroyed them. They wouldn’t start making these huge universe-altering decisions based on the information they learn from Kevin Tran, Prophet of Chuck.

The whole Trials storyline begins as a character-driven story. It’s their united motivations (Sam and Dean), their internal desire to accomplish this thing, that gets the ball rolling. And Dean intends to be the one to carry this burden of the trials, until fate hands that burden to Sam. Once again, outside forces have turned the course of the story. So Sam is the one who again must react TO the plot. Dean spends most of the rest of s8 reacting to Sam’s reactions, supporting him through the trials, but also emotionally attaching himself to Castiel’s story.

Cas spent most of s8 in a similar narrative position to Sam, except he didn’t even realize it. He believed he was acting on his own emotional choices much of the time (turning off Angel Radio, deciding to be a hunter, and then deciding to reconnect in order to answer prayers– we see him healing a baby and generally trying to do good in the world). Yet all along, he’s being acted on by outside forces and is literally being mind-controlled. So he believed he was driving his own plot, when behind the scenes his plot was being driven for him.

At the beginning of s9, Sam is again put into a situation much like Cas’s during s8 where he BELIEVES he’s in charge of his story, while unbeknownst to him he’s actually got an angel in the driver’s seat. Sam’s being dragged along by that plot again. But it was Dean’s internal motivation that directly put him in that situation.

Finally it’s Dean’s turn to make a choice that leads to a self-sacrifice he believes is the only way to regain control of the plot (Abaddon! Must! Die!), and takes on the Mark of Cain without reading the fine print. Thus begins what we BELIEVE is an internally motivated story for Dean, because for A FREAKING YEAR the show was telling us through parallels and the narrative itself that the Mark was a curse and what we were seeing was a change INTERNAL TO DEAN. Heck, it literally turned him into a demon. He wasn’t POSSESSED by the demon, it wasn’t an outside force acting on him, it was his very own most internal soul that had been transformed.

And then round about 10.15 the narrative pulled a 180, yanked the rug out from under a year’s worth of narrative buildup of an intensely INTERNALIZED (i.e. CHARACTER DRIVEN) story for Dean and said WHOOPSIE NOPE IT’S ACTUALLY AN OUTSIDE FORCE CONTROLLING DEAN! You thought he was actually growing as a character but nope we’re taking this one step below Fuckhands McMike territory and blaming EVERYTHING that’s happened on this big scary Dark external force! The plot basically pantsed us all.

Suddenly, after two and a half years of mostly character-driven storytelling, everything shifts and everyone’s chasing after the plot again. Dean loses ALL control over the thing inside him as he’s hopelessly dragged off by the Darkness.

And then in 10.23, Dean wrests control back over his own story by literally killing Death, while Sam and Cas have set events in motion that free Dean from the Mark of Cain and release it into the world at large instead.

Now obviously a huge portion of s11 is plot driven– their reactions to having released the Darkness and their scramble to fix what they broke as it spreads across the land. But even from the start of the season, the narrative gradually shifts into a nice balance between plot and character driven stories, where the two really begin to merge together (even on a subtextual meta level).

Another interesting aspect of Supernatural is the two types of episodes– the Mytharc (which are largely plot-driven) and the MotW (which are usually one-off monster hunts with an internal plot driven structure– MUST SOLVE THE CASE AND SAVE THE PEOPLE AND KILL THE THING!– but are generally propelled by a spurt of introspection and character growth. These are the episodes where they aren’t just acting and reacting to the Big Plot Things, but actually experience growth and change themselves).

And this is why I LOVE s12. It’s almost entirely character driven, even with the overarching plots. The main focus isn’t so much the motives of the Bad Guys and our Intrepid Heroes trying to save the world from them. It’s about the characters own personal emotional growth, how their choices affect the narrative (and yes, even Sam’s choice to work with the MoL is really a CHOICE and not something he was compelled by the plot to choose. His personal internal desires led him to that choice, and are now leading him AWAY from that choice, but it’s still been a real choice for him. Same with Cas and the choices he’s been making, and even CROWLEY, in choosing not to lock up Lucifer properly (or just kill him already ffs).

Dean is at the center of all of this, acting as that strange force of balance he’d achieved in 11.23. He’s not so much driving the story with his emotional choices, but sitting at a weird central axis while the story takes place all around him. He’s pulling a string here and there and waiting to see what budges.

I LOVE THIS. It’s glorious chaos, and I feel like Dean, sitting all zen-like in the middle of a huge unraveling sweater.

Okay, I confess. I don’t necessarily prefer one style of storytelling over the other (though I am a Dean girl, so I guess I probably do prefer a character driven story… and even Cas’s story has long been about his acquisition and proper application of Free Will, learning about humanity and making choices for himself, so while he’s experienced huge swaths of character development and growth it’s not entirely been character driven growth…). And I adore Supernatural’s complicated blend of the two.

I just really hated the bait and switch of late s10. You know that gif of Bart Simpson where he’s playing the video frame by frame and says something like, “you can pinpoint the exact second his heart rips in half?” Yeah. it’s like in 10.15 there’s a record scratch and suddenly we’re watching the freaking Stynes grab the plot by the short and curlies and yanking it in an entirely unforeseen direction. Like, out of left field. Like they picked up Baby off a coastal highway and plonked her down in a muddy field to spin her wheels, jarring. That’s what they did with the narrative.

After 10.23, once the plot had been suitably yanked around where they wanted it, the narrative structure AND the plot itself became about finding another way, a better way, a balanced and unified way. And since then it’s largely stayed on track.

How did I turn a simple question into this? It’s who I am as a person. I hope that’s okay. :P

[movietvtechgeeks]

Latest story from https://movietvtechgeeks.com/supernatural-winchester-brothers-somewhere-heaven-hell/

'Supernatural' Winchester brothers somewhere between heaven and hell

Last week’s episode of Supernatural had something that never fails to make me a very happy fan indeed:  The Winchesters listening to each other and trusting each other and telling each other the truth. THANK YOU, SHOW! (And writer Davy Perez). That alone is enough to make a good episode imho. But actually, there was one more thing that will always make me happy – Winchesters in glasses. Is it hot in here? So let’s talk about what I liked first, and then I’ll get to the things that didn’t quite work for me. I really really loved that last conversation between Sam and Dean, where Sam comes clean about working with the BMoL and Dean, instead of flying off the handle and feeling threatened and betrayed and thus shutting down, instead hears Sam out and they come to an agreement. Dean isn’t anywhere near trusting them – and I don’t think Sam is either – but the brothers are on the same page about cautiously taking what they can from the BMoL while still retaining their independence as hunters. How easy that will be I’m not at all sure, but the important thing is that the brothers are together in the decision. I don’t know if I’ve ever loved Sam more than when he steeled himself and told his brother the truth. Sam: Either way, I shouldn’t have lied to you, and I’m sorry, man. Dean: (not walking away or even looking away) Well, okay. What do you want me to say? Do I like it? No. Do I trust them? Hell no. But you’re right. And Sam, in return, waits to pick up the next call from the BMoL until Dean gives him the go ahead. That conversation, and its upshot, are emblematic of where the brothers are this season. It’s because Dean feels some sense of security in his relationship with his brother that he’s able to not run away or panic, as he would have in other seasons. He knows Sam isn’t going anywhere; as much as he told Sam to pick a side, I think he knows that Sam will always choose Dean. In fact, Dean’s comfort with telling Sam to pick a side in the first place is indicative of that sense of security. And I LOVE that. With all they’ve been through, I hope they know what we as viewers know – they will always pick each other. [caption id="attachment_43830" align="aligncenter" width="600"] Caps by @S_Verasini[/caption] I loved their brotherly banter throughout the episode too, from Sam’s disgust over Dean’s post-hunt skeeviness to knowing how many boxers Dean brought and just how dirty they are, inside out or not, to their playful jostling over whether to tell Gwen the truth about what happened. Dean: Trying to make you feel better. It was his idea. Sam: eye roll I will never not love a glimpse of domestic Winchesters, so Dean threatening to use the fancy shampoo that Sam (tries to) keep hidden from him was much appreciated. And Dean not wanting to let Sam drive, that was a nice piece of continuity, hearkening back over all twelve seasons. I also loved Crowley’s arc in this episode. I may have leaped up off my sofa when he ended up outsmarting Lucifer after all – in part because go Crowley and in part because I love love love when Show can still surprise me! Mark Pellegrino and Mark Sheppard remain absolutely delicious together, every scene crackling. Including Lucifer in a bridle, which necessitated his comment of ‘kinky.’ I mean, what else could he say? I also love that Crowley’s relationship with the Winchesters and Castiel continues to evolve. Dean and Crowley teaming up again (shades of their epic bromance a few seasons back!) was wonderful – pretty sure Crowley thought Dean looked as hot in those hellhound glasses as the rest of us did. Their conversation was just the right amount of snark and ribbing. Dean: Maybe I’ve rubbed off on you. Crowley: Maybe I’ve rubbed off all over you. Not entirely the same thing, Crowley. I may have laughed out loud. But there’s also truth underneath – and Dean’s thank you for saving Cas was clearly heartfelt, even if Dean himself is still too smart to entirely trust the King of Hell. And then we get Sam’s thank you to Crowley too, with the brothers once again on the same page. This was a big move forward in Crowley’s story – but of course, Sam and Dean don’t know that Crowley isn’t telling them that Lucifer isn’t actually in the cage.  Or that he has ‘big plans’ for the imprisoned-in-his-lovely-Mark-Pellegrino-vessel Lucifer. What are you up to, Crowley? I can’t wait to find out! I also liked the guest stars, including Kelvin the angel (Nathan Mitchell) teaming up with Cas (though he needs some coaching on how to pronounce Castiel). Castiel’s  story arc also took a surprising turn in this episode, as Kelvin urges him to come back ‘home.' To Heaven. He makes a compelling case, and Cas makes the surprising decision to go hear Joshua out – without telling the Winchesters. I feel for Cas, never truly at home, always feeling like an outsider no matter how often the Winchesters assure him that he’s family. I don’t blame him for wanting to hear Heaven out, but I also don’t trust the angels, not even one who seems nice enough like Kelvin. I loved the character of Gwen (Angelique Rivera, who did a great job), an obvious parallel for Sam – smart, courageous, determined – so that when she talked about lying to the person she’s closest to, both Sam and the viewers knew that this was a parallel for Sam and Dean. Gwen: Why couldn’t I just tell him the truth? But I didn’t. I lied to make things easier. We find out in the last scene that Sam heard her – and stopped lying to his brother. I particularly loved that she kicked the Winchesters out of her house when they insulted her intelligence by trying to tell her that Marcus was killed by a bear. Their “you’ve been through a lot, sometimes the mind plays tricks on you…’ sounded way too much like ‘stop being a hysterical female,' and I loved that she wasn’t having it. Kudos, Davy! Other things I liked?  Dean’s small soft smile when koalas are mentioned. I’m guessing that was Jensen, and I loved it. Gifs please, fandom! The final showdown with the renegade hellhound was beautifully filmed by Serge Ladouceur and directed by Nina Lopez-Corrado, who did the hellhounds justice throughout the episode. They could so easily be cheesy, but Nina never lets that happen. She did a fabulous job of amping up the suspense every time we saw things through ‘hellhound vision’, especially as Sam and Dean meet with Gwen and Ramsey is watching the whole thing. I had goosebumps! Seeing the hellhound through the lens of Sam’s glasses on the ground was brilliant! And I love that Gwen saved Sam using the iconic green cooler and that Sam ended up killing the hellhound blind. We’re getting a lot of Sam F—king Winchester this season! I didn’t love everything about the episode, though the quibbles are pretty minor. As much as I enjoyed Sam ribbing Dean about needing a shower, Dean is usually more of a neat freak, and he hates having ‘fluids’ all over him. I’m not sure he would have been so blasé about being covered in monster guts, or so gleeful about it, let alone flicking it all over the room. I guess maybe he just wanted to gross Sam out, but it didn’t seem entirely Dean. And while I usually love love love the meta episodes, I think I love them more when they’re just that – episodes. This episode infused some in-jokes and meta comments throughout, which sometimes jarred me. Give me an entire meta episode ala Robbie Thompson, and I’ll eat it up with a spoon, Show! I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love The Walking Dead crossover as Dean comes in swinging Lucille – and commenting that his dad loved it -  perfect shout out to Jeffrey Dean Morgan. But it did throw me out of the story for a minute. And were the Queen of England references a GISHWHES shout out to Misha?? Also, I don’t understand why Sam keeps giving the BMoL so much credit. THEY killed the Alpha Vamp? Umm Sam, pretty sure that was YOU!  Unless he just wanted to convince Dean to work with them, but I’d really like to see someone give Sam the credit he deserves for saving the day like that. Including Sam himself! So where is the Colt now? Does Dean know it’s back in play? What will Cas decide about Heaven, and what does it want with him? What are Crowley’s big plans for Lucifer, and how will they affect the rest of the world? And who are the ‘old men’ pulling the BMoL’s strings?? So many questions going forward, but with Supernatural, that’s usually a good thing. The episode was aptly titled, and I think implies more than we know right now – where is Heaven in this big board game? And where is hell, with Crowley once again truly in power and able to make changes. Are the BMoL aligned with either, or a separate force to be reckoned with? That leaves the Winchesters perhaps truly between Heaven and Hell. And, if Supernatural plays out as it always has, the only ones who can save the poor humans caught in the crossfire. Check out next week's Supernatural Ladies Drink Free above.

Movie TV Tech Geeks News

[shirtlesssammy]

You are who you choose to be

Kelly Kline was truly the best of us. At the beginning of the third episode, “Patience,” she talks to Jack via her thumb drive video. She tells him something that will be instrumental to Jack as well as to all our players throughout the season. “Jack,” she says. “Don't let anyone tell you who you're supposed to be. Because who you're supposed to be isn't fate. It isn't me. It isn't your father. You are who you choose to be.” This simple line erects a framework for the season and echoes right back to the fundamental theme of the show: free will. This is the perfect line to open up an episode about psychics and visions of the future (and what happens when you try to direct your own fate).

But Kelly's line isn't a mere rewording of our favorite mantra because it's not just talking about events and consequences. She's talking about the fundamental core of the self – about who he is, who he will become.

Who we are, who we will become... These are themes for season 13.

Jack

Jack's journey right now seems obvious. He's going to be exploring who is he, whether he's evil or good. The main problem that he might struggle with, in fact, is that he will try to do something very GOOD to prove his goodness. But – as happens often on this show (and often with Cas) – it will backfire. I feel like this storyline, as the main storyline driving the season right now, will be fairly straightforward.

Jack heard Sam say that he hopes for peace and surcease from suffering in front of the pyre burning his mother and his adopted father. I think Jack will try to follow Castiel – as he sees Castiel’s journey from the outside – and try to force good upon the world. That's how he'll go darkside – and this fundamental question (WHO DO YOU CHOOSE TO BE) will bring him back to us.

Sam

Sam just stepped into his leadership role at the end of the last season. He led hunters, he coordinated a battle. Sam is just beginning to explore this part of himself and his first challenge is...Jack. At first Sam tries to coldly direct Jack – like they’re at some super non-fun Hogwarts. When he pulls back and sees Jack at last as a frightened boy instead of some kind of mystical soldier he begins to surmount his first challenge.

That doesn't mean he won't struggle with the other challenge in his life: Dean. Dean's a tornado of anger right now and Sam's attempts to direct him or tell him to follow his plan for Jack all fail.

Dean

Dean is a solid bonfire of rage behind a wall of emotionless shock. He's looking at his life and perhaps for the first time he's not seeing a way out. He's not seeing the good in what they do, the heroism, the romance. He just sees people dying and this time there’s no joy he can muster to build his mask.

He's filled with regret. There's a moment in the episode where we learn that James Turner cut off Missouri. “So you cut your mother out of your life?” Dean asks, upset. Jody lays a comforting hand on Dean's arm. She’s been watching him so very carefully this entire episode. She knows what he’s going through. Oh, she knows. 

Dean's upset at James because he has his own deep regrets about doing the same with his mother. And now it's too late. Regret swamps him, buries him deep in the ground.

Dean’s hit his own rock bottom and he’ll have a hard path to climb to find the sun again.

Castiel

And, of course, there's poor dead Castiel.

In the Empty

The riding theory of Castiel in the empty is that he's going to confront himself. Misha Collins, bless his adorable heart, said this summer at San Diego Comic Con that he would have one other companion – another powerful being played by a great actor. Fandom has generally taken this as wink wink HE will be playing the other powerful being.

And then we get this promo with a figure rising from the primordial ooze of the empty.

Faaaascinating.

Castiel has struggled with who he is for a long time now. Who is he – angel or human? Pick a side. This question, incidentally, was brought up in Robert Berens' first episode (picture our minds exploding right now).

These are recurring themes for Castiel. Yet Castiel must struggle with far more than picking a side. He must also reconcile with his past self – or selves. Who IS HE? That’s a much more complex question than “angel or human?”

Last season he was so driven by regret for his past failings that he was willing to do anything – sacrifice anything – to make it right. We think this ooze we saw in the promo will have shapeshifter qualities. Castiel will rise up and speak to himself.

As original wide-eyed Cas

As God Cas

As Leviathan Cas

As Emmanuel

As Crazy Cas

As Purgatory Cas

As Human Cas

As Casifer

As the lonely Castiel out on the highways...

All these version of Castiel haunt him, taunting him, asking him WHO ARE YOU? Castiel is going to speak with them – with himself – and begin to find some peace and some answers. The building blocks that are created by him confronting his past will help him on his own personal journey through the season. Like Jack, he will also be wandering through the maze of his life and ultimately choosing who he wants to be.

Patience

And so we circle back around to Patience. The psychic who may be - as her grandmother was - trapped in the future she sees in her visions. And yet during that critical fight scene she intercedes and directs the fighters around her to avoid what seemed like fate. She chooses to direct her own fate and because others listen she can direct their immediate futures as well. “You are who you choose to be” works so well as a character exploration directive as well as a continued exploration of free will. We all assume that the visions of the future fetus!Jack showed his mother and Castiel will come to pass. Will Jack learn to change the future from Patience or will he simply parallel her journey? 

Thoughts, @tinkdw, @mittensmorgul, @elizabethrobertajones, @postmodernmulticoloredcloak?

[elizabethrobertajones]

4x03

Too tired to gif anything lengthy (or work out how to do these ones nicely and in 1 part) but when Mary and Samuel go to the farm to investigate, they have this little exchange:

MARY And I'm here because?

SAMUEL Family business, Mary... family.

SAMUEL What? You'd rather be waving pom-poms at a bunch of dumb jocks?

(The giffed smile is after he says that last line)

Anyway it just makes me really sad that this is the offered glimpse of Mary's life specifically between her and Samuel and what we have to go off on how this works between the two of them aside from him laughing at John and calling him naive etc. This has John parenting Dean all over it, with the family business line as always harking back to the line indelibly connected to Dean's speech in 1x02 because of how many episode openings it was pasted over, and I feel like it's Dean especially, rather than Sam who DID openly want to rebel and live a normal life (and would relate a lot to this as well, of course) because it feels more like pre-knowing them stuff, the kind of thing that John telling Dean to take care of the car or he wouldn't have given it to him in 1x20 for example feels like. The snide comments that police how they should feel about it and how Mary responds by snarking at him about going to do the job and putting on a smile and going to flirt information out of a boy at the farm. We don't see comments like this really between John and Dean aside from the car one because in every respect in season 1 John has bought Dean's loyalty fully already and since the very start that has been obvious - if little tells in 1x01 didn't give it away, Dean's behaviour in 1x02 standing up for the family business to Sam did.

I also have spent some time somewhere or other paralleling Mary & John to Dean & Lisa (I think the first post in this post-season 12 watch actually, where I wrote like 100 miles about Mary...) in the sense that she clawed her way to suburbia and went into a sort of denial - visually represented in 12x22 if you want to imagine she was doing the same thing the entire time she was playing housewife for real (and because she never learned to cook I find it particularly telling and distressing that it reads to me like she was in denial/depression about it rather than throwing herself wholeheartedly into learning an entire new life and genuinely trying to fit in with housewife culture of doing all the cooking etc... She still sneaked out to hunt and I still kinda feel like that was lashing out or rebellion against her own life, dissatisfaction being caught between two worlds, even self-sabotage to make John wonder if she was cheating, or just to indulge her secret other life or... you know, SOMETHING reckless and stupid when she had a baby at home to care for... Mary is NOT a stable person and I love her because she's a hot mess :P). (The Dean & Lisa vs Mary & John parallel isn't perfect but I'm talking specifically about mindsets and the djinn dream comparison Dean had to being with Lisa, and the deep deep place Mary went to in her head that reeks to me of similar minds.)

To me overall the Dean and Mary comparison is much stronger to me so though this makes a lot of sense as a Sam parallel (or, well, when it's parents etc we just talk about inherited traits with a semi-mystical power to channel personality directly to us whether we knew our ancestors personally or not...) I do read this exact more strongly as the sort of control John exerted over Dean potentially, which SUCCESSFULLY worked to make him grow to adulthood disdaining normal life and feeling like they didn't fit in and were outsiders and freaks who were not a part of regular life. I think Mary is young and headstrong and still in that stage where like Sam she can rebel and choose another life but in this specific moment we're having demonstrated the hunting life vs normal life that in season 1 we saw better explained by Dean calling himself a freak (or in season 2 Jo calling herself a freak with a knife collection when she tried to go to college, while Sam had the knife collection but was HAPPILY fitting in and in denial, we know Mary DIDN'T fit in and DID sneak off to go hunting, like Jo did). Samuel emphasises the exact annoying Strong Female Character trait of "i'm not like the other girls" but he's forcing it on Mary, which makes her want to BE like the other girls, even if like Jo or Dean she would struggle to fit in and keep it far more than Sam did with Jess or Amelia, where he could cut it off completely. Mary KNOWS she isn't "like the other girls" because Samuel made her that way, and so she goes to do the job with a forced smile on her face and to spite Samuel.

I wonder how things would have gone with her and John if Dean had never shown up and Azazel had never caught wind of her, and she had been able to carve her own path with nothing more than Samuel's influence on her life. How much was she screwed up by being raised a hunter to make her act as she did and how much was the deal a part of it? Azazel promised her suburbia and peace, the same terms of what Dean got with Lisa, and he managed to stick to it until other things intervened, although as 12x10 suggests and like Dean investigating the possible hunt, immediately after being poisoned, in the abandoned hotel, neither of them would ignore when their help was needed even if they were supposedly civilian now. Sam manages to cut himself off completely and in 8x01 he says he looked in the newspapers and saw potential cases and knew it wasn't his problem because he wasn't capable of hunting right then/wanted and had honestly more than earned his peace (given the circumstances of Dean and Cas's disappearance, and, as Sam was doing, ignoring the issue of Kevin).

I'm not saying Sam is less heroic but I think this specific sort of "You can never be like everyone else so do the job" brainwashing from Samuel and presumably John given what we know of how he raised them (Sam himself complains about that a lot in 1x01 but from the safe place of having rejected it at that specific point, again, having completely cut himself off and thinking he'd made a choice for his entire adult life), creates the complex where they HAVE to save people, and Sam got himself out before it got all the way into him; I think Mary is shown here at the crux of it and ironically maybe if she hadn't made the deal, she would have got out but having MADE the deal even with Azazel's promise of her suburbia paradise and nothing Supernatural ever bothering her again (as long as she didn't bother him in the nursery >.>) had a tie to keep her in the life, even as an unresolved *itch* of having that hanging over WHY she got such a peace that never let her truly settle or cut herself off in the way Sam could.

... Also it's making me think of Dean in the high school episode coming up later in the season, deliberately acting out and self-sabotaging his own life there right when he seemed to be getting popular or cool, or getting anything NICE out of the experience, and the contrast they made with Sonny's where away from John's influence he was allowed to flourish and do things like join the wrestling team. (Sam played football and did extra curricular stuff like theatre, or, you know, his homework, and John and Dean both also complicate it by having varying reasons for trying to preserve some normality for Sam on top of being raised as a hunter - John because who knows what he learned about Sam early on in his investigation and Dean just because he wanted to protect Sam wholeheartedly.) If Samuel was poisoning Mary all this time to hate the idea of being a cheerleader, it sounds a lot to me like, since they have this apparently more stable life she probably went to one school all her life, and could have been offered cheerleader but she's been encouraged to keep away from socialising and doing fun things and Samuel doesn't support her doing anything that cuts into her hunting time and emotional investment. If she likes cheerleading she might start craving a normal life, you know? At least in this respect John always being on the road got to yank Sam and Dean away from ever starting to feel too normal and comfortable anywhere until it WAS their normal, while Mary probably took a LOT of emotional punishment for being the weird kid at school who'd probably break someone's nose for teasing her about it but through all the things her father stopped her from doing, presumably had few friends and never got to do anything fun so was always feeling excluded. It's possible she was even homeschooled/had left school early and so that hypothetical from Samuel is about a life she's left entirely behind.

Anyway seeing the pain in her plastering on this smile to her father after a comment like this... it's the most Dean she looks the whole flashbacks we see Amy portraying her and she looks a LOT like Dean in a LOT of scenes because wtf this show's casting :P

[elizabethrobertajones]

What do you think about 12x18 and parallels between Jarrod Hayes and Dean (being abused by fathers and still having to take care of/help them), and the relationship between Sheriff and Peter Garfinkle and the relationship between Dean&Sam and Adam (same father, different mothers - they grew up apart and Peter Garfinkle feels wronged by/inferior to the Sheriff in the same way that Adam was jealous of Dean&Sam)?

I guess in a way those parallels speak for themselves >.> 

Those are both things that have been all over the subtext this season and I think 12x18 is the customary last MotW before the final run of episodes that has to tell us all the final thematic things (which is why I think it’s going to be a much more meaningful rewatch after the fact, although sometimes using that MotW as a free space before the end happens (like 10x20) I think the Colt stuff already paid off and wrapped up, so I think it’s safe to say the episode has a lot of thematic stuff in there waiting to be explored or revealed)

I’m trying very hard not to think about Michael foreshadowing because I don’t really trust it would actually happen but I seem to have a reason to mention it every episode since 12x12 and his spear (and that was not the first time we mentioned him this year either)… Reminding us of Adam’s part in the family in this parallel is a really weird thing to do, but being the “illegitimate half-brother” of the characters we actually care about (ew I hate using Zach’s words :P) is something that really only applies to him when it comes to family dynamics on the show where it’s actually important. And if you think of Destiny and the Apocalypse as the family curse/fortune Moloch brought then Adam did end up wanting in on that through misguided ideas of it bringing him some glory, where he really only got himself hurt and helped escalate the Apocalypse. 

But yeah I am resisting that Michael will have a part to play because I’m feeling grumpy about this for no reason other than I can’t tell if it’s too obvious or a fake out or just teasing so I’m not giving them the satisfaction of getting excited or whatever and playing into all the comments :P 

But this and Jarrod and his father are both things in the Winchester family history that are pretty dark and tied to John’s reaction to Mary’s death, and really to Dean has dealt with it all - he took the existence of Adam far worse than Sam, and resented him all through 4x19 for having had the normal life, and John taking him to baseball games on his birthday (which calls back to 2x20 and the baseball playing John who would have at least tried this much for his boys). He was jealous of Adam while 12x18 plays it the other way round with the Adam parallel being the jealous one left out of the family dynamic. 

And of course though John’s treatment of his sons and especially Dean was never depicted as outright knocking them around all the time physical abuse, it WAS abusive through neglect, and implied physical punishment in the subtext that there may have been physical abuse, as well as the burdens of responsibility, unsettled life, and expectations etc that play a huge role in shaping their upbringing. It’s enough that suggesting an abusive father makes it a parallel to John, even if the abusive fathers we get as mirrors are a whole lot worse than John, this is the dynamic they want to explore.

I would have to guess this is for Mary; Dean is going to apparently talk with her by proof of the leaked script (though I would absolutely have been standing my ground the show had it coming at the end of the season regardless because I have not lost faith in how they’re handling it, despite it being dragged out, that there WILL be a reckoning and a point to it all by the end). He will hopefully finally give her the real family history, the real genuine pain of what her deal caused, and hopefully tell her the truth of how John was changed - not just how it affected him, but how it affected Sam and Dean as well. And Dean as the emotional heart of the family and the one implied to take the abuse the worst (especially as 5x16′s implication of being punished is that he let Sam run away - not that Sam is punished FOR running away) means he’s the one with the burden to tell Mary about it, as he knows the worst side of everything. Including being the one who saw Mary’s deal because he was there for 5x03′s timetravel and Sam wasn’t.

Anyway these mirrors give us a reminder of how their family was/is, and especially the John stuff that’s come up through the show and the approach they have now to it (that he did harm them, that they were raised in an abusive way even if it was more psychologically damaging than not - a thread that’s been explored but not resolved since Carver era really). Mary is not just a symbolic part of that or an element of their history like a factor in a textbook, but now a living thinking, emotional person who’s connection to it all is right at the heart, even deeper than where it starts with John, because 5x03 shows her connection to the supernatural, making deals, etc starts it all off. And she has something to answer for that’s had her disconnected from the family since the first episode, where she worries and doubts about how her sons became hunters, and in 12x02 where she voices her first concern about what happened to Sam as a result of her deal - everything after that is her reacting and running away and not coping with it.

But this season is showing you really have to talk about things to resolve stuff, and you can’t run away and do something that’s a bad half-measure to resolving it. Eradicating all the monsters isn’t going to work and it’s not going to buy back the childhoods for Sam and Dean that they lost. Even reading John’s journal over and over, she’s got their history in his words and not theirs, and HE is the dead, long gone, factor in a history book part of their lives that shaped them, and she needs to hear from THEM how they are and what happened etc.

So character mirrors exploring John’s post-Mary treatment of family, at least through the emotional filter of how Dean has felt all these things, rather than what might be the more reasonable arguments about how them being raised as warriors was necessary to stop the apocalypse and their trauma saved the world blah blah John apologism, or the actually more reasonable argument Sam had that John was perfectly entitled to sleep around after Mary’s death and father a son with another woman, and there wasn’t anything wrong about Adam, Dean just felt betrayed on a personal level by his existence, especially with the jealousy of how John had treated him in comparison to Dean. 

Using John and Adam mirrors as the worst people in an episode which again at least in part used human-as-the-monster is a warped perspective, but it’s Dean’s perspective, and he’s the one who it seems will talk to Mary, and rather than objective justifications, this is a case where he really needs to let her know how much it hurt and how bad it was for them (even if some of these complaints might seem unreasonable from the outside, which I think is what the Adam example shows even if he wouldn’t be top of the list to complain to Mary about how they were raised, just was a great example to contrast a normal life to theirs)… 

I think only after Mary knows this could the family even hope to begin to heal. There’s something deeply, deeply unsatisfying about 8x12:

HENRY You’re also Winchesters. As long as we’re alive, there’s always hope. [DEAN and SAM look at each other.] I didn’t know my son as a man, but having met you two… [HENRY takes DEAN’s hand with his right hand and holds out his left hand to SAM] …I know I would have been proud of him.

But that was just the beginning of all this. Sam and Dean can’t get catharsis or a better feeling about John from this, because Henry dies oblivious and in a place where they have to let him go easy, that it was all good and no bad. It forces them into this place where John is a hero and uncomplicated as someone who suffered nobly and shaped Sam and Dean into heroes as well. Mary’s been getting some of the same special treatment that her sons aren’t bringing their trauma to her, and it’s keeping her at that same arms length as Henry because the thorny issue that from the get go John’s parenting was never as simple as this and Sam and Dean were hurt and traumatised by it as much as Mary’s death… Yeah. 

So I hope the dark Winchester family mirrors are a good sign that they’re actually going to dare discuss this, or Mary can come to understand better how John changed and what Sam and Dean went through as a result…

[elizabethrobertajones]

12x15 watching notes

I actually finished watching the episode hours ago but right after I went and literally watched a big chunk of season 8 instead of this episode which is metaphorically a big chunk of season 8 >.>

this "expectations" thing is turning into a bit of a joke because I never know what to expect any more. This was much easier in Carver era :P From the previews it looks like a bit of a "monster of the week" with a hellhound and I sort of feel things are about to go up shit creek for Crowley and he's distracted with the Winchesters which is his life story, but MAY let them find out finally. Gonna make Mary working with the BMoL look like a good decision.

Also may be a way to un-Buckleming Crowley's choice with some better characterisation...

[rare edit to yell at past me oh my god. Also at Davy OH my GOD - note to self stop being so cynical about literally anyone but those guys writing :P]

As far as I can tell from the outside looking in, though Dabb's been working through a really serious important list of loose ends, this is from the odd pile of things that end up on his desk complaining about one of his episodes which is "we need more Winchesters in glasses!!!!" after he gave us a few minutes of it in 8x14, and he shrugged and went, okay, someone find a reason to put them in the glasses again. Why not.

-

Oh yeah we're on the monsters' side. Starting again with the cute vampire girl from last episode saying "they're dead. they're all dead" and Mary shown killing a vampire. Before any title cards. Mary's POV is on the other side of it. Telling us the world is changing and then Sam squinting suspiciously at Mick's briefing about exterminating all the vampires. And the "pick a side" thing for Sam - monsters on one side, mom on the other.

-

Awwwwww 5x20 Crowley and his hellhound. A simpler time. When they were trying to cram Lucifer back in the cage. Funny reminder now to have moments before Lucifer bound in Crowley's spare room.

-

Oooh right there's Kelly and Dagon stuff in this episode. I think Cas too? You know I completely forgot because the previews were avoiding them but I'm pretty sure one of the episode descriptions actually mentioned them... Whoops. I guess this episode is going to be split between all that. At this point I don't really trust the writing not to be ridiculously more complex and layered than I can guess from right here, so I'll just enjoy these cold open people camping and laugh that I wrote a Winchester family camping trip as the code to 12x14

-

I can't believe this guy is looking up bear attacks in the woods while they're camping. And she's a vet. Pfft :P How does he even have signal though.

Awww no they're going their separate ways. She seems unconvinced that it's going to work out anyway :<

He needs to stop asking trees to marry him.

Oh no now I'm invested in these people. They do not deserve to be eaten by hellhounds.

-

Nooooo

-

Oh no that was unintentionally hilarious with the puffy jacket throwing fluff everywhere.

-

Pfft some extras from the Walking Dead wander into the Bunker making obvious pop culture references. Do we even analyse that mention of Dad or do we just laugh hysterically and move on?

-

Wait so that time when they seemed to have it on set they weren't just fucking around with the baseball bat because they felt like making one but it was actually going to be in an episode oh my god

-

I wonder if Mary has been watching The Walking Dead or if she hasn't had time.

-

Being distracted by Mittens:

Wait - Sam is clean... is this meta or are we still in the pop culture reference?

mittensmorgul The things on Dean, "ghoul, wraith, siren."

elizabethrobertajones yeah They fought a SIREN WHAT HAPPEN I want to know everything

mittensmorgul I DON'T KNOW?!

elizabethrobertajones I bet if it was "back to back to back" they didn't have time for it to be complicated

mittensmorgul I mean, DEAN fought the siren, Sam is completely clean

elizabethrobertajones WHY IS SAM CLEAN

mittensmorgul And Dean's been wearing his underpants for four days People are screaming OOC

elizabethrobertajones oh god

mittensmorgul I have no idea

elizabethrobertajones Ahahahahah  "Frodo"

mittensmorgul Sort of reminded me of how he looked after he killed the stynes

elizabethrobertajones Is that a thing

mittensmorgul :D

elizabethrobertajones maybe they intentionally USE those code names maybe Mary talked to Sam wait if Mick is telling Sam where to go has he given them "back to back to back"

mittensmorgul yes...

elizabethrobertajones and Dean did all the killing and Sam was clean Okay THERE'S the symbolism I was looking for :P

mittensmorgul do go on... :D

elizabethrobertajones I am literally paused just at "Frodo" and his missing campers message so idk what happens next but yeah :P Dean's being used as the weapon here and Sam's coordinating Aka trying to turn him into Ketch or Mark!Dean Sam doesn't have any blood on his hands for these hunts and they're coming too fast for Dean to process them and work out shades of grey ....

mittensmorgul Yep

elizabethrobertajones which means the Negan thing is probably a reference to how bloody it has all been and not just a joke >.>

mittensmorgul nope

elizabethrobertajones they're trying to turn him back into a bloody single minded hunter like John this is awful I LAUGHED now I feel horrible about it all :P

elizabethrobertajones Also Dean not being a germ freak about it all is probably a bad sign >.>

-

elizabethrobertajones Oh no Sam lying epically

mittensmorgul yep

elizabethrobertajones reminds me of 8x01 when he tells Dean how he found Kevin but he actually did that Dean like Purgatory Dean Wait fuck that baseball bat is his purgatory weapon *slides under the table* Go away Negan This is worse than the Eliot Ness thing

-

this show is getting too meta for its own good... Is this what happens after 12 years?

-

Anyway Sam comes up with something to baffle Dean with his technology know-how implying Dean is too dumb to follow - Sam rattling off computery sounding things and Dean sitting there bloody and unwashed and the John-Negan baseball bat in front of him and Sam like "the computer told me" and Dean being like "lol computers are good at monsters and porn" - he really is in a bad way :< I think one of those things where they balance Sam and Dean out. But Sam is WORKING on Dean as he said he would last episode - he's intentionally wearing him out, letting him channel that need to kill things in a way Ketch couldn't get Dean to indulge in because Sam knows Dean better and where his lines are. Taking him back to back to back to back on hunts stops Dean from having down time and appreciating the finer things in life, so he gets less and less nuanced as Sam works him down >.> Because as last episode showed, Sam aligns with Mick, Dean with Ketch but, like, obviously NOT because they're both competent and kind and multifaceted. But Ketch is the Mark!Dean parallel, and wearing Dean down like this... yeah.

-

Honestly though baby wipes are so good they probably COULD get all that gunk off in an emergency

elizabethrobertajones Wait Dean is rejecting the Bunker's shower after flicking siren bits everywhere and being gross this is actually 8x14 inverted

mittensmorgul RIGHT?!

elizabethrobertajones we start with him loving the Bunker and bitching about Sam messing it up and in 8x13 he goes on about the water pressure and now he'd just be happy with baby wipes

mittensmorgul D:

elizabethrobertajones .... and in 8x14 he puts that pic of Mary down and it feels like home :<

mittensmorgul I think they really are doing their best to invert 8.14

elizabethrobertajones 10x22 also used that pic of Mary I hope it's inverted in other ways

mittensmorgul but...

elizabethrobertajones like signing up for crazy ventures to get rid of all demons/monsters

-

"You smell like roadkill" ominous.

"I'm using that fancy shampoo you keep hidden" I love that they read a bunch of fan fic before they joined the show

-

Okay so Mittens informed me there's mass hysteria about the next moment because of audio nonsense, which means I swapped from fuzzy bad sound to full crystal clear noise cancelling headphones with all the sound settings done properly, and caught Sam saying "love you too" to Mary and Dean like "catch ya later" to Cas. 

[side note: had no idea what she meant because I hadn’t heard a word of it before she told me there was hysteria] 

I'd already squeed just to see them pull up having these conversations because the set up is beautiful: Sam has picked a side and Sam and Dean are now at odds, and THESE are their sides. After last episode we could only hope/guess that it was logical that Dean n Cas might be a bit of a team in opposition to Sam, Mary and the BMoL but obviously that was just guesswork. Knowing Sam already IS a faction with Mary and Dean doesn't know it, Sam starting this with a mention of "mom" as they get out the car and this little, uh... symbolic diorama? unfolds shows very clearly he's communicating with his faction; Dean also on the phone shows that they have a split, that he's in contact with someone who could be HIS faction and even before he said Cas I kinda knew because see above, guessing, and also the fact that he IS in contact with Cas more. So yeah, lines drawn between them. Something about them getting out the car together but not looking at each other, talking to their respective sides is just... really really well done. Also the way they're talking over each other? They're distracted with their own things, and not communicating, not listening in on what the other's up to.

-

Of course then they summarise to each other - DOUCHEBUSTERS.

I am offended

-

Mostly because it's like "lol Brits"

I feel bad there are hunters they hate more than the Ghostfacers, honestly.

Dean has better news - something's killing angels in IDAHO. Specifically, the town that 7x15 took place in. So that's 9x06 and 7x15 all at once. Wheee.

-

"Diner waitress Sara Deshenski has met an untimely and violent demise at the hands of an irate alien, so says her diner manager, Herb Nelson"

Bloody hell another dollar in the space jar

they really are going for it this season

they're finally sending Dean to space :')

-

The picture of burned angel wings in a trashy newspaper is so sad though... Look at Cas being sad.

Look at him still not knowing how to do the badge thing. I cry. My heart is overflowing with love for Cas. He needs Dean beside him to turn his badge around and laugh gently at his mistakes.

It does suggest he's kind of stagnated as a hunter, because he hasn't managed to figure this out yet >.>

-

He's trying though - he's Solange now! He knows you rotate out the identity from time to time.

-

Oh dear, Cas dealing with a real conspiracy nut. In 6x21 we were ROBBED of Cas's side of the investigation into HP Lovecraft, probably because lovable comic beats were not how to make us think Cas was the bad guy but they’d be nothing else but, because that’s who Cas is, ALWAYS. Now, though, he's got to do all the social stuff on someone who's basically Ronald Resnik'ing this. I hope he has better luck not dying >.>

He has a pic of the Queen's head taped to an alien which just makes me wonder if this is a thing to do with the BMoL and their terrible terrible bad wrong intel... Sometimes they know a thing, mostly they don't... But they managed to scrape up a few grains of truth here and there. Obviously she's not an alien or lizard person but who knows what else she might be >.> I like the whole Torchwood thing where the Queen was a werewolf and that was a royal family thing :P

-

Cas hanging his head in despair that he's actually considering waiting to see what this guy's evidence is.

Poor Cas

-

*Cas attempts to smile*

-

this description of the alley fight is hilarious

Kelly as the brood queen - remember the season 10-11 hiatus stuff about Bugs as the mytharc after we spotted the little VFX insect escaping Amara's cloud?

-

Aw no the way he describes angel blades as "star metal" it feels weirdly poignant... Angels are cosmic - who knows what those blades are made of

(Zerbe knows, but aside from Zerbe)

-

"man in black - well, beige!" if this isn't foreshadowing Cas getting a better coat.

I love how yellow eyes is still like, actually really deep and weighty and dramatic and scary still. Most things on this show have been completely run down INCLUDING Lucifer into being over-done. Such a good pick for this season.

-

Obligatory bear or cougar reference. I know it's not hellhounds but 8x16 has Prometheus actually killed by a bear off screen and I find that hilarious and I'm thinking mid season 8 now. I think it was also initially reported in one of the cracky publications like the one Cas got ahold of (knowing he has to read that sort of nonsense to get a lead also is a sign of him developing as a hunter).

-

Oh gosh the perfect blurring of Baby's engine over hellhound growling. Listen to her, she's such a sexy beast :D

[edit at past!me: Okay I’m useless at predicting stuff but I wasn’t to know Dean x Baby would be a thing this episode so I’m proud of this at least... can you even objectify a car? She’s already an object]

-

Now we know that Gwen knows for sure about big invisible wolves coming after her, the promo scene where Dean jokes about what truth they could tell her and Sam describes how they lie (a lot) to her is even worse, because of course Sam and lying is clearly a huge thing this episode and he describes how the lie will "give her peace" and help her sleep at night. Dean's being manipulated by Sam (PS I did not sign up for this) is probably very similar - Sam thinks Dean will sleep better at night if he doesn't understand all the details of these jobs they're doing and he's keeping Dean in happy dumbed down hunter mode.

Playing INTO the top layer of Performing Dean, really.

-

Dean's only joking about the ridiculous truth because he doesn't know how important it is to HAVE the truth yet, and he's empathising with Gwen's position of being told the truth and finding it completely unbelievable because he's also at the point where he can't concieve of the truth.

-

Guys there is a hellhound sniffing your BUTTS

-

Sam n Dean are wearing black coats and hold their badges the right way up

-

Omg it followed them in.

AAAAH that's intense okay that's good writing. Thanks Perez. You are so good at tension. They all sit down and chill.

-

this completely changes "elephant in the room" to "hellhound in the room"

-

Anyway Sam does the Ronald Resnik thing with Gwen telling her with authority as the FBI that there was nothing supernatural about it

"You're no longer in any kind of danger okay?"

-

Also they really don't have the right approach because telling her there's no danger??? WRONG. They need to at LEAST follow the lead on her BF's deal to tidy up loose ends, such as the fact that demons often catch a dozen people at a time when they're doing the crossroads thing... They'd need to AT LEAST go back to where the deal was made and check nothing else happened?? Where is your instinct???????

Too busy lying to her

-

It's so horrible that their visit allowed the thing in and now it's in there with her

I AM SO WORRIED ABOUT GWEN HOLY CRAP

-

"Oh yeah she's gonna sleep like a baby" *cut to Gwen being stalked*

-

Oh no now she heard it

GWEN

-

Omg she's okay

-

*heart slows down*

-

Some nice relaxing Crowley and Lucifer nonsense to chill with

-

Crowley is really enjoying having a proper nemesis since the Winchesters are more like friends now so it's not as fun to catch them and chain them up and taunt them.

Crowley says he's ten steps ahead of whatever Lucifer thinks he's doing. HM. Well he sure wasn't LAST episode.

-

Well he's behind on his paperwork anyway. The ridiculous windows also suggest peeking in on it - the sense the secret will come out.

This is such a great writing/directing combo

-

Cut to Sam and Dean actually telling the truth

-

Sam leaves out the detail about Dean being the cuter brother

-

Pfft

-

Okay I nearly spat tea at Dean being like "make you feel better. It was his idea"

This whole lying thing really isn't working out for Sam. And Dean's reaction to it is killing me.

-

"Did you really want something like, a hello kitty backpack. or the death of an enemy"

-

Dean and kids... he gets them

- mittensmorgul tort reform

elizabethrobertajones what like the cake

mittensmorgul basically to eliminate the sort of "law suits" like that ridiculous baby nonsense torts are civil legal cases

elizabethrobertajones Aah so if he'd actually listened he could have got rid of all the silly petitions :P

mittensmorgul like suing people over EVERYTHING. Usually considered frivilous, petty, or vindictive nonsense yeah :P and it was item #42 on his list (which also made me think of Door #42 in Heaven, aka the "escape hatch"

elizabethrobertajones that seems like a fairly apt summary of the problems :P if they just listened and paid attention they would eliminate so many stupid problems by actually dealing with things like the bigger picture things like reforming the way things work

[here follows about 10 minutes of sending pictures of cake back and forth while we debate what a torte is in our respective countries]

-

Why is Crowley still clutching the key for Lucifer's Facilities room?

-

NOT MOOSE

PEACHES

-

God dammit has Berens been chatting to Perez about Drowley

-

GWEN. She's like the ultimate outside eyes on their life, suddenly getting the whole truth when Crowley bitches them out for the Gavin thing on speaker phone

It's brilliant

how has this NEVER happened before

12 seasons and there's still new nonsense to explore

-

"have the kennel guards killed" YoU'RE STILL ON SPEAKER PHONE GWEN CAN HEAR THIS

Dean doing the "blah blah" gesture while they're all listening in on this NONSENSE like it's no big deal, overhearing a meeting between the King of Hell and his advisers

(Also this is a great way to tie the seemingly unconnected minions to the main story aside from having them deliver news since they didn't come specifically to tell Crowley about what's up with the MotW it's all completely incidental and if Sam and Dean hadn't already been on the case, well...)

(ALSO I love how in one episode the whole dynamic of Crowley and Hell somehow feels so much more like a proper court? And he's got proper assets and people and... I don't know, I love this depiction of his life)

-

Crowley dropping in on the random MotW conversation

Aaah it's all shaken up

-

eeep clear shot of the moose skull in Cas's truck. DO NOT WANT

-

Aw Cas has a friend. Kelvin! Do things EVER go well when he and random angels work together? NO. But I like Kelvin because he seems to like Cas for now, and they're working on the same thing... HOW CAN THIS GO WRONG?

Aside from the fact he mostly appears to be here to be a redshirt for Cas unless he has Vital Info or something because Heaven has much better resources to track her than Cas who is doing it the hunter way.

-

Mom Hellhound... What a shocking twist :P I mean, I wasn't expecting this backstory because I didn't think there'd be one, but the fact this is the Mother of All Hellhounds and she was preggers when she escaped and Lucifer took her in like... wooow.

-

*snorts at how cool Gwen is at Lucifer being locked up* Like, cool, well, at least he's not our problem. I mean I have the king of hell in my living room but he seems reasonable, and they're all reassuring me that Lucifer is safely locked up so I'll just... Yeah. Good.

Also Dean again repeating the lie that's been told to him and backing up the story etc, happily going along with the truth as he knows it while we - and someone in the room - knows it's a lie

-

God really sucks at making things though. Like, he put so much violence into the world? Eve and Leviathans were his creations too and they were... not exactly perfect. Pfft.

-

Crowley is excited to work the case... Oh dear, now he's learning to be a hunter

-

"Just when I thought this gig couldn't get any weirder" "Oh it can always get weirder"

Thanks Dabb

-

Aww the demon minions are so competent at being sneaky good for them. I have no idea who I root for here. I don't LIKE Lucier or want him free, but Crowley's minions being hilarious is like... my favourite thing. Whatever they're doing. I just love it. So... little bit conflicted about what I want here

-

Although making demands of Lucifer is a bad idea.

-

When Dean says sticking with Sam to keep her safe, he MEANS it I mean Sam once fucking GUTTED a hellhound SINGLE HANDED like dang he's the best bodyguard you could ask for right now

"Take care of her" "of course" or does he trust-

wait

no he's just being precious about the car. A beautiful, beautiful woman.

I guess we know why Sam doesn't get to drive so often; Dean just is THAT precious about her

-

Sam is not here for Dean fantasising about the car

-

Crowley like "you."

"... why of everyone ever did I have to fall in love with YOU" probably

-

Uhoh Cas and an El Sol sign... He and Kelvin seem to be drinking water. The director appears to be like "how many angles of Misha's face are necessary? Better try one more just in case" *rotates camera to bask in him some more*

Heaven is stable in a way where there's nothing drastic to report. All the huge dramas since it was last a big plot thing itself have meant the angels have been trying to deal with everything and so busy headless chickening about all that they haven't really been in-fighting. The death of all the alpha personalities helps too I guess.

-

"This is an all hands on deck situation Castiel. Including yours" "Okay so you're here for my hands" Yeah that was snark. A grade snark. In a Cas way.

"you got more field experience than the next thousand angels combined" I don't know if I should be more sad for Cas or Heaven

-

El Sol over Cas as Kelvin asks him if he would go back to Heaven - all his sins wiped clean... And challenging him over what he feels is home. Earth is quirky and smells like hay (pfft Cas's truck) but does it FEEL like home to Cas? he already FINALLY feels welcome in his family with the Winchesters and has expressed openly that he loves them and they proved that he was family to them, so emotionally he's really tied down already. But what feels like HOME to Cas?

-

And yeah this is happening in Idaho. 9x06. The FIRST time Cas gets asks what he is, what he wants to be... Oh gosh. Finally. FINALLY. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH

-

*quietly takes off my Dean!girl hat and puts on the Cas!girl one*

-

Now this mission has a different hook for him. The angels know he's already working it but Kelvin offers him a different sales pitch because they know that Dagon is going around killing angels just as Cas does, or at least SOMETHING massively more powerful than the average angel is - his help is suddenly very necessary because they are SCARED and Cas is COMPETENT. So they can give him the resources he needs - much like the BMoL are offering to Sam and Dean. Do the dirty work for them and be rewarded with a platinum membership card

-

Holy fuck Joshua

-

Dabb...

...

...

I don't have the brainpower to hold together the threads of the show directly connected to Dabb

-

elizabethrobertajones "The Gardener's got a plan" this does make me think of Metatron though I like Joshua but... it's sort of ominous these small time angels with a big time connection to God and God is not so great himself

mittensmorgul yep

elizabethrobertajones in the 9x23 thing [rewatch; not currently posted because this is literally how far I am] I got distracted writing about Metatron answering to "God" because he's modelling himself AFTER god and later talks about how God was not such a great Creator and how Metatron saw behind the curtains like.. Metatron's plan is sneaky and awful and cruel but he was behaving like God??

mittensmorgul yeah, but Joshua was the gardner God talked to. Joshua just listened, and tended the garden Chuck thinks of as his "greatest creation

elizabethrobertajones who has some sort of cruelty in his own creation making hellhounds and leviathan

mittensmorgul yep

elizabethrobertajones Joshua seems nice and all but God related to him as a gardener just as he related to Metatron as a writer

mittensmorgul after he locked up the darkness, he was trying to create that balance on his own, but he really lacked the finesse to do it properly

elizabethrobertajones which is ominous :P

mittensmorgul yeah

elizabethrobertajones Hm and the writing is controlling the narrative on a BIG scale

mittensmorgul yep

elizabethrobertajones gardening, if you were controlling the world, would be clipping it into shape like just tidying it up taking out some weeds like say eliminating all monsters

mittensmorgul but if we're about balance and finding better ways, and Chuck's still talking to Joshua... now that he's reunited with Amara maybe things CAN be better now?

elizabethrobertajones maybe?

mittensmorgul hopefully?

elizabethrobertajones I haven't watched to the end of this scene don't know if Joshua is still talking to God :P

mittensmorgul BUT CHUCK SAID THAT DEAN WAS THE ONE CARRYING THE STORY NOW

elizabethrobertajones yeah

mittensmorgul he put the earth in DEAN'S hands

elizabethrobertajones Dean gets to decide what happens and he doesn't approve >.>

mittensmorgul Dean's the gardener now

elizabethrobertajones :D And he tends to the garden in the traditional ways which WORK and keep a good sort of peace

mittensmorgul I think he likes the weeds

elizabethrobertajones eyah he relates to the weeds knows some dandelions can be pretty

mittensmorgul he thinks he's one of the weeds

elizabethrobertajones no need to rip them ALL up yeah >.> poor Dean

mittensmorgul heck, most of the "weeds" are food for the bees balance

elizabethrobertajones CAS SAW IT ALL back in 7x21 the whole plan it was perfect

-

Anyway Cas has some shit to think about while Dean gets his act together to just ask him to marry him and put an end to all this uncertainty

-

Awww this guy wants to be the king of the crossroads I'm rooting for him

-

ew the other demon wants to make hell great again. Kill the white guy. Leave the new king of the crossroads alive

-

Nooooo

-

I am disappointed.

-

Also annoyed Lucifer is free again

-

But blah I liked that guy :< This show sucks. Stop killing the great one off PoC

-

Thinking of which, I hope Gwen survives because she's brilliant and also incidentally hispanic which shouldn't be a thing at all except now I'm terrified she's going to be added to the show's stats because I just don't TRUST them

-

Dean in glasses! Crowley flirting with him... Dean being flattered (smiling to himself ew) but telling Crowley to shut up for appearances sake

-

Crowley saving Cas being the thing that finally makes Dean say thank you and feel like Crowley has gone a bit soft. (Also stop being genre savvy about saving the girl of the week, Dean :P)

-

Glasses give him +5 nerd points

-

"Maybe I've rubbed off all over you" *Dean comically shudders*

They're getting along. It's horrifying.

Berens definitely pulled Perez aside and gave him a talking to with diagrams and flowcharts about how this all happened

-

This is such a good scene I watched it like 3 times but the third time I went back too far and saw Lucifer kill the poor demon guy I liked again so my mood is yo-yoing around

-

I seriously appreciate the subtext for the whole bi!Dean project and the fact that they're exes who've now moved to this weird comfortable happy place where this all happens? The way Dean reacts? God, why did it have to be Crowley but now we're here, I am so appreciative for the sake of the bizarre way this show is running on and on and on past several points it could have ended and made Drowley less of a strange point of CONSISTENT data. But here we are. Dean is cheerfully wandering around with Crowley, deflecting flirting, smiling to himself, being nice about the whole saving Cas thing because of course this is a bizarre point in the love triangle too - I mean... So weird. God, this never should have got this far. So Crowley can make a joke about rubbing off all over Dean, and Dean just playfully shudders about it, and and... what the heck is this even any more? The show has been playing along with it for so long... I don't even know if they're DOING anything with it, except for their vague horror that they have to preserve this dynamic and are being faithful to the characters to move them through all this as realistically as they can.

-

Anyway in more current developments thoughts, Dean again being honest and emotionally genuine and friendly. Crowley might be lying about Lucifer but Dean, who is caught in the middle of everything but in a really good place of his own, responds really well to everything. Him being happy and sweet and OPEN is all the more crushing because you know terrible stuff may be about to happen with reveals of more deceit or manipulation, but Dean's being put in this "can do no wrong" place while he's unaware of everything, so reaching back out to Mary, not falling for Ketch's shit last week, thanking Crowley this week... Always being caught in the place of dramatic irony with lies Crowley and Sam are telling... yeah.

-

Sam in glaaaasses

can he even legally drive with the distortion of wearing glasses that aren't his prescription?

-

Gwen, don't puke in the car

-

Dean is so distractingly attractive

-

yeah that's it that's the entire scene

-

Gwen manages not to puke in the car, because Sam pulled over in time. I SWEAR it is the same place Dean pulled over to puke in in 11x10

-

She takes on all the guilt and responsibility for her boyfriend's death just for having invited him out to the woods, as their goodbye thing, when she never loved him as much as he loved her; she was going through the motions before breaking up with him and moving away.

"Why couldn't I just tell him the truth"

Liiiies

"I lied to make things easier!"

-

Ooh Mittens pointed out Gwen is a vet too - Sam and vets is a thing because AMELIA. (And a dog just hit them lol)

-

Poor Baby. And Dean was just worried Sam would fuck up her brakes! Dean's concerns again being based on small scale what he knows and not the big horrible truth, which is that Ramsey is gonna jump all over his car

Although not strictly Sam’s fault here

-

The car is almost sort of Hellhound proof? She's not breaking through the windows?

-

"We should leave!"

Can you drive faster than a hellhound? I'd LOVE to watch Sam try. But he decides to fight instead of driving off to try and prioritise getting Gwen away from danger

-

I love that the view through Sam's glasses showing us Ramsey is all fucked up and distorted because they're the wrong prescription glasses... BUT it gives us a similar "eye" back to her like the distorted view when the camera pretends to be her.... She and Sam staring each other down :D

-

Oh fuck if Sam kills her could he start doing the trials again? Like, working with the BMoL, casually bring it up at staff meeting and suggest that he's ready to go for round two?

-

Bad idea Sammy

-

COOLER TO THE HEAD. ILY GWEN 

Yeah I was getting Baby (the episode) vibes from Dean's love of the car and the fact that was the last time she got smashed up but now the green cooler is back in play I'm yelling :P She protects her boys and everyone who rides in her.

-

I LOVE THIS SO MUCH LOOK AT THIS *gestures the entire scene wildly*

-

Aw crap no the blood splattered Sammy in the right place and everything

Sam no

Don't even THINK about it

-

*Sam huffs his shoulders*

He did also get the blood all over him unlike how Dean was the one splattered at the beginning of the episode, so I guess all that stuff that wigged me out has a flipside - that Sam still is a great hunter who will get his hands dirty and take the burden onto himself. It was unsettling, yeah, but Sam's still Sam? Maybe? I'm not sure what this is saying tbh because it was SO clear in the opening but I don't know enough has changed right now, and ALSO in the next scene Sam is clean again like he washed off and changed before he even reconnected with Dean which just makes me think he felt guilty standing around splattered in hellhound blood because they remember what THAT led to last time... Sparing Dean's feelings or hiding what he's up to?

-

"And this is why you don't drive!"

-

AHAAHAHAHHA someone hugged Crowley

-

Best moment.

-

He's been thanked by everyone now, and got to see the gratitude of the random girl of the week... If Lucifer weren't waiting for him back home he'd almost have had a good day, if he could nurture something like that in his twisted black heart :P

-

"He seems nice"

"Yeah" *Sam and Dean pull faces*

-

Crowley like "welp that happened" when he walks in to see Lucifer gone

-

Lucifer wings!

-

Oh :P Crowley's got him on a leash or something. Nice. Lucifer underestimates how many steps ahead Crowley is even after he TOLD him it was 10, he remembered 2...

-

Wow he's powerful over Lucifer

-

Now the part where Lucifer doesn't have any chains but he's still trapped

Hah okay that was masterful

-

Perez owns Buckleming. He's 10 steps ahead when they think they're 2 :'D

How do you EXPLOIT their bad writing like that for your own diabolical ends? That's just

wow

that exposition and set up for Lucifer and Crowley in 12x13 was some of the shittiest writing the show has ever produced about a major plot event and that's saying something. I felt my soul leave my body. And I was so upset Perez had that big spooky reveal at the end of 12x12 and Buckleming got handed the "here's how to explain it" brief and I don't care if they knew what was coming later, they wrote 12x13 as the shittiest episode ever, with no effort on their part. I was like, wow, this is stupid, and it FIT their style. It was part of their THING to make Crowley look like an idiot and make us question wtf he was doing and they presented it all so terribly, so boringly, so... unimaginatively...

we actually bought that was what had happened

so the actual reveal that Crowley is 100% in charge and always has been

actually

came

as

a

fucking

plot twist

-

I'm sending Davy a fruit basket

-

Yay Dean talking to Cas on speakerphone

Oh no is Cas at the playground?

-

Oh dear, he's actually going back to Heaven... That can't end well

-

Dean: "Does he sound weird to you" YEAH OKAY it definitely IS dodgy. We listen when Dean doesn't think Cas sounds all right, because DEAN KNOWS. HE ALWAYS KNOWS. DEAN IS THE MOST ACCURATE COMPASS FOR TELLING HOW CAS IS AND HE ALWAYS KNOWWWS

How can Davy ruin me with Destiel in an episode where they talk twice briefly on the phone and there is barely anything about them in the structure?

Pfft

Dean also has a better instinct for Cas working with Heaven the BMoL parallel/they a parallel for Heaven, than he does for Sam doing it apparently.

ANYWAY ET GOES HOME. We powered through season 8 just there I guess :P But it's not the end of season drama it's happening in episode 15.

The whole thing that this is the Question for Cas. The BIG question. The ENDGAME question... Of course we have to make him jump through a ton of loops and explore what he really wants, but if this is powering him towards an actual DECISION?

-

But he was doing well as hunter!Cas without their resources and he loves his human family and they love him, and unlike 8x23, since everything is being inverted, he is more emotionally aware now not to run off and leave in the same way he was planning to in 8x23

-

Anyway this did not go how I was expecting! I was expecting Sam to not tell Dean right away but instead we end another episode with Dean getting the SAME news in the same spot (hi table) and... taking it in about the same way over 1 conversation he did in 2 episodes. He already had to deal with Mary, and at this point it just seems like his family are going after the BMoL like lemmings.

Boy is he betrayed though.

Sam's compartmentalising things again. Because of HIM the alpha is dead. They were as helpless as the "girl of the week" if Sam hadn't been there. Sam saved all their butts from the alpha vamp while making it sound like THEY did it.

-

I suppose Mick made him the bullet

to his recipe

that he then magnificently got from Mick

and you know

actually shot the alpha vamp with

-

Also ARGH "How much you hate them" "No, WE hate them, us, together" - just, Sam. Sweetie. They tortured you. Even YOU felt upset to hear Mary was working with them and needed 3 days to box it all up enough to talk to her. 

Sam seems to be acting like Dean's just being over-protective now to hate them irrationally because they hurt Sam, while Dean can't even believe he has to make this into an issue which should be one of those unbreakable brother things they they do as a team. He's not even the literally injured party here, not in the same way.

-

Dean looks gorgeous while he's thinking it over. Flippin' heck. Stop.

-

Anyway he gives Sam the same basic talk he gave Mary, essentially, about not liking it. Admits Sam is right about working with people they don't like, and that clearly he's wrong. He TRUSTS Sam and wants to trust Mary. And she has given Ketch the burn it all down speech, where Dean now says they get out as soon as it stinks.

-

I don't like that Dean thinks working with Crowley is comparable. Crowley is someone Dean has learned to trust in his own very specific way after being burned MANY times by him but also having a sort of attachment they've grown through all the years of being nemeses. They're used to each other and can generally rely on each other for exactly the things they rely on. Saying, well we just worked with Crowley, let's give these guys a shot because we don't like either of them, does not BEGIN to cover the range of issues with the BMoL... Even the ones they KNOW about

-

"The second something seems off, we bail" Okay I haven't seen a promo for 12x16 but I know the synopsis so I don't think it'll last long :P

-

Dean's FACE in that last moment though

Ow.

[elizabethrobertajones]

12x11 watching notes

For once I think it's kind of obvious what my expectations are if you've been reading my blog... I also was spoiled last night after it aired that my favourite reoccurring guest star is in it, but on the other hand there's a ton of second hand embarrassment... I've just got back from yoga so let's try and be zen and enjoy it :P

-

Also it's not a plot episode so I can be a bit more chill and enjoy the MotW nonsense without writing 100 miles of meta. I hope

-

Witches! (we already knew that, I'm just putting another note into "the only actual monster we've seen so far has been the one werewolf and one vampire Mary killed and everyone else has been a human, angel or demon this season" jar

I need a better label for that jar

Anyway from the looks of things this episode is all about a very human fear that just happens to be tripped by witchcraft and it would be a fucking waste not to milk it for 99% of the episode)

-

Holy shit they used the "poor little guy" from 3x09 that always breaks my heart. Are they really churning up old Edlund stuff so much that the recap was 90% 3x09 and they decided to give Dean a bunny BECAUSE of his broken heart at the sight of the dead bunny in 3x09?

I really hope Edlund is watching this season and laughing like crazy

Anyway before the promo is even over, we have an interesting point of thought for the episode, and a comparison back to Dean revealing a weird vulnerability for no reason in the middle of a case. And more Edlund parallels than you can shake a stick at.

-

Oh good the cold open is the witch who curses Dean... Definitely going to milk this for all it's worth. This is like fan fics where the first like 3 paragraphs are "and then they met a witch and it cursed them and then ran off or got killed" and all the rest is just whatever they actually wanted to write.

More Dean running around in woods (Purgatory callbacks), and mirroring a few episodes which started with the traditional cold open victim actually being the monster pursued by hunters.

-

Dean waking up lying in the forest on the ground... He's done that a few times, in more dire circumstances I've seen paralleled together - 11x01 and 5x04. Interestingly I guess knocked out both times by a dark mirror to himself but who would never actually harm him. There's something peaceful about the way he has the bunny hanging out with him.

It makes him seem harmless too.

...

You know I could stop watching this show right here... I've seen 12x10 and now I've seen Dean Winchester calmly pick up a rabbit and call it "buddy" I mean... is there even anywhere to go from here?

But I've heard Kuma is in the episode so I shall press on

-

Like, emotionally though, I think the show might be over for me :P

-

The town is called "Eureka Springs" which is kind of funny, because of the double water association and of course the association to revelation and learning. We gonna get a  big scientific discovery about Dean outside of the now doubly confirmed fact that rabbits are his favourite animal?

-

KUMA

Oh dang he's got a big part here... Do I gif all of it?

-

I should probably backtrack because I was just reading myself writing about 2x20 for some reason this morning (I think I was looking for something else completely unrelated) and I stumbled on a little discussion about subverting it or, well, its obvious relevance now Mary is around. The woman with the stroller assumes Dean is homeless and tells him not to buy a drink when she gives him some cash, which I guess was a thing in that episode that everyone assumed Dean was a drunk. It's a tiny detail (I mean, he IS an alcoholic, although functioning better than usual and his drinking has got a lot better since he lost the Mark) but if we're peeling back Dean, I think an interesting little one to start with.

I mean, we've started with Purgatory!Dean, and Actual Fluffy Bunny Lover Dean, so... it's a bit wild.

-

Dean remembers Sam's number.

Not where he is though.

Waffles! I'm with Dean here.

I too drop everything in a crisis when waffles are an option and someone's just paid me to leave them alone.

(Okay that's never happened - I'm delightful)

"What psycho doesn't love waffles" I mean come on even METATRON loved waffles, although they did not love him. Which is perhaps a more important sign of how dreadful he was :P

-

Ah jeeze I really want waffles.

-

Promo scene!

We have NO idea what Dean did the night before, so the thing with the girl is even more out of context... I wonder what it will end up being about? He looked like he was pretty busy hunting that witch last night. Events do not add up.

-

Sam has been convinced by Dean asking for painkillers that it's a hangover, and I think *Dean*, knowing himself, might think he just got blackout drunk somehow. The woman telling him not to buy a drink remains vaguely important, thematically...

-

Sam also is getting concerned, and makes a general life advice warning to Dean to stop drinking so much.

-

Okay the girl who slapped Dean comes in, looks at him and goes "oh my god" and is ushered away by her friend - did THAT happen in the promo?

No, no it did not. Her response is given way more attention here - that was definitely edited out for the promo. Crafting the scene to look like something different. Huh. (I mean I know they've used different takes in promos, like in 10x01 using one which completely changed how much of a jerk Demon!Dean looked from the finished product... They do really manipulate these things.)

-

I really like how we're dumped on this case like Dean is - we only have one advantage, that we're already aware he's cursed while he isn't. Aside from that, we seem to be discovering it like Dean is, like how Sam springs the idea we're going to the morgue next on us.

-

Also did Dean lick his knife more intently in the promo asking for a friend

-

Huh I don't think her interaction with him has changed very much - I'm pretty sure she did just say hi then slap him in the promo too. The way she stopped when she saw him though is very suspicious because she sounded so horrified to see him.

-

Oh no Sam and Dean are wearing nice coats with their suits. I guess there's gonna be a lot of gifs :P

-

Really pretty morgue technician with no lines. Honestly if she doesn't get killed off that will mean finally after a lousy streak, we make it through an episode without a black woman being killed.

-

Well the first thing to go is Dean's ability not to be squeamish and weird. There's definitely a text post out there making fun of Dean for spending a year in Purgatory covered in guts, but getting weird about using a public telephone. Well, whatever barrier Dean has up about guts is aaall gone.

Please don't puke, we've made it over a season without you puking on screen and we're doing so well.

-

Oh no is this where Dean crashes the car. He's disappearing fast :< I thought that might be later in the episode.

I suppose Sam has to realise eventually that something is wrong with Dean.

I can't believe Sam lets Dean drive when he's "plastered"... I mean he must drive over the legal limit basically all the time and Sam's used to it, but can we just... make this a "wear seatbelts" road safety episode? Please take that car away from him, Sam.

-

OH NO Sam takes this moment for honesty hour - "Makes me want to crawl into a bottle too" - when Sam is drinking we KNOW it because he so rarely does it as a coping mechanism. I am indescribably sad about him saying that he feels this way :(

I mean I just take it for granted that Dean feels like shit so it's easier to deal with that :P I've been worried about Sam all season and he gives so few clues it's basically a pictures on a board linked with red string scenario to deduce if he's happy or not >.>

-

FINDING DORY REFERENCE

"Not going to apologise for loving that fish. Not to you, not to anyone." Dean has his barriers down and he does not care who knows he likes watching Disney movies. And the fact that it's probably Sam he's most prickly around when it comes to protecting that facade... Sam is, well, gonna learn a lot about Dean he feels like he probably didn't want to know :P

-

Honestly, Dean is me trying to remember the names of common household appliances.

There's something really bitchy about the way Sam labels the light stick and then covers the rest of the room in post it notes, even though Dean hasn't forgotten what they all are yet.

-

Rowena! :D Mostly because Dean doesn't want to bother Mom or Cas... I notice something there - Cas is someone who a few years ago they'd have absolutely bothered for some weird magical problem. Now Dean wants to keep EMOTIONALLY distant from them because they're his family and he doesn't want to worry them/them to see him like this/him to blurt anything he doesn't remember he isn't supposed to say... In this case the fact that Dean DOESN'T want to call Cas for help sure says a lot more about how much he likes him.

Anyway Rowena is a badass and I love how she gets into these weird scenarios. This one is much better than all the finding a rich husband and killing him malarky - fleecing rich dudes over rigged poker games is definitely more empowering :P

-

Okay yeah one of those post it notes says "Wall" - there is definitely a montage we missed of Sam being a hilarious bitch about it to Dean, and they're only phoning for help once it got kind of really not funny any more.

-

I wish we saw that

-

Dean and his "ICE BUCKET" what a tragedy

-

"All these dumps look the same" Dude, don't be rude to Wanek. I'll assume this is because you can't REMEMBER them.

-

Also the whole, living in a billion motels and until recently never having a place to call home thing - I was joking ages ago about Dean keeping a scrapbook about all the weird motels they went to or stealing mementos from them to remember the truly tacky ones... But the idea that almost all of them completely blur in his mind and he just doesn't notice or appreciate the differences...

-

I love using Dean's "the last thing I kinda sorta remember" to take us to the office. They mentioned Memento but honestly I'm still thinking "Dude where's my car" although I know Dabb hasn't watched that because he's deathly afraid of Emus, so it's possible Glynn had to sell the Memento angle despite having other things in mind.

Like Finding Dory

-

Dean steals a cigar (or two) - more implications that he smokes. I suppose when an angel heals you regularly or you were immortal for like a year and a half you kind of don't think of the consequences. I know some people don't really *smoke* smoke, but would have a good cigar if it came their way like this... I think Dean kind of has smoked in phases through the show, especially when he was younger, never mind all the implications he smokes weed, so... him stealing a few cigars is just more sneaky referencing this.

-

To the bar! Hey, waitress Dean got slapped by!

We have more stuff with the names and badges - Dean messing up getting his badge out in time because he forgets to do it, forgetting what their cover is... Basically, a little demonstration that he's forgetting their covers in general - HIS covers in general. The FBI identity is something I've written reams on so I won't go into it but yeah it's his Performing!Dean next layer up, and what he does with it can often tell us stuff about how he's acting with his more sturdy and thorough Performing!Dean layer underneath, before we get to fluffy bunny lover Dean who watches Finding Dory.

Anyway she calls him out for using ANOTHER name the night before, and he's like "sometimes we have to lie to protect our cover" which is the most Dean saying ever.

-

Oh hey and then as usual with the badge thing, a moment later we're slammed with something RIDICULOUS like, for example:

"And then you hit the bull." "What??" < both Winchesters "Oh yeah, you had the hots for Larry as soon as you walked in." "He - you... rode Larry?" *Dean shrugs like whatever* "Was I good?"

yeah so that's not a coded conversation that sounds SUPER FUCKING GAY out of context and considering the "hots for Larry" comment, doesn't do so badly IN context, especially as it's such a, uh, suggestive thing :P There's a girl riding it in the background and yeah, the whole movement to keep on the bull? I know it seems like a manly sport, but it involves a lot of writhing and pelvic movement and that bull is like as masculine an icon as you can get.

And Dean had the hots for it

oh god :P

-

Worked to win the waitress over anyway :P

And she apologises for taking advantage of him. Wow. I don't think Sam and Dean even know what all those words mean put together in that order. :P

-

"First action in I don't know how long, and it's like it never even happened. Figures." "See now that's comedy"

When WAS the last time Dean hooked up? Back in season 11 some time... 11x13 it was suggested. (I have a lot of Snymelo vibes from this episode)

-

Honestly Cas is living right at the Bunker just man up and go talk to him and I guarantee that I could get you some action in about 2 lines of dialogue if you let me...

-

(Sadly last episode actually convinced me that there's really good reasons Cas hasn't made a move and Dean is pining unsuccessfully after him so I can't even be mad :P)

-

"It's like watching myself on netflix" Aw

-

"I know how to shoot a gun!??"

:D Oh sweetie

-

Sam giving Dean the Talk.

No that sort of talk. the "monsters are real" talk.

You know who does that? CRAZY PEOPLE.

Nope, "Awesome. That's awesome."

He's feeling a bit better about the job I guess than back in Yellow Fever where he had the equivalent moment.

-

Aw he found a torch! He's so happy! "I'll man the flashlight" Yeah this is Yellow Fever again :P

-

Oh god we're only 18 minutes what can possibly-

Jesus Christ Siren Episode reference You've not talked about that for EIGHT YEARS.

See, last night I compared these 2 episodes before this one ever aired with the assumption that the Yellow Fever parallels might be obvious but the Siren Episode would only be a sort of leech onto that because of its own parallels to Yellow Fever so we would have to walk through YF as an intro to the Siren Episode and how it could be applied to this one

(Sue me I was already planning the meta and this episode is following the exact same pattern as Yellow Fever and the Siren Episode so I'm feeling really vindicated, right about now :P)

The point I made LAST night was that Sam had been reading Dean wrong all this time and messing up his chance to understand him in the previous episodes. This time, Sam doesn't really have any reason why he'd get Dean wrong? The enemy of the season is miscommunication and not understanding Dean is Sam's biggest miscommunication.

Whether he's taking advantage of Dean's cheerful no-memory state, and the suspicion Dean won't remember him bringing it up again or what, Sam feels secure telling Dean about the Siren, at least I assume not telling Dean HE was attracted to it, but that this is a thing that happens. Dean can't lash out, Dean doesn't feel defensive... He just takes this information as Sam tells it to him without being weird about it.

The fact Sam remembered and wanted to tell Dean though... Well, like I said, Yellow Fever and the Siren Episode are basically the same thing ESPECIALLY from Sam's perspective. Here he is for the 3rd time and Dean's all fucked up again, and no wonder Sam remembers.

He also mentioned Djinn "not granting wishes" which means my reference to 2x20 earlier was super legit. *more smugness*

(sorry :P This episode is fun. I like that the new writers have watched the show)

Anyway, I'll be thriving off that reminder for a while :D Better carry on watching before I get sucked into a vortex of comparing episodes before I even know how this one goes.

-

Aw Sam calls it "the Talk"

-

"Best job ever!"

Dean thinks they sound like heroes, Sam, who has the lived experience, voices some actual goddamn complaints about the job. GO SAM. I guess he's thinking Dean won't remember this conversation and so he can voice some things.

So HE does the "you know who does that? CRAZY PEOPLE" speech that Dean didn't make.

-

AAAAAAAAAAAAH Bloody handprint. "Our best friend's an angel! WHaaaaaat!!!" I worry :P

-

Cas will be fine, I don't think Jared's even had his 3rd kid yet. Misha needs to give them all paternity leave by having more Cas-centric episodes.

What a beautiful set up. Smol babies and more Cas.

-

But yeah something horrid might happen to Cas briefly.

-

Also Sam told Dean that he was "our best friend" and so Dean is totally failing to grasp exactly what Cas means to him.

He probably only remembers Sam as well as he does because he's right in front of him - if Dean had been with Mary or Cas he'd have forgotten the other 2

-

"Is that a dead guy?"

Dean looks grossed out but also "Cool!" because dead monster.

-

Witches! These guys seem like fun people.

-

"I want my family back" she says while having Mary's hair and looking at the dead guy.

Oh dear.

-

"Is that a dead guy?"

Sam needs to get a post it note for the dead guy.

-

ROWENA

"your hair is so bouncy" I think Dean is full of cute observations like this he's just never allowed to say and I think that's so sweet I might barf.

(You should hear how he talks about Cas ANYWAY)

-

Dean remembers porn but not quality TV oh dear >.> Sam puts Scooby Doo on for him, which I guess is sort of Dean's role in this episode :P More dogs on TV - reminder of the second "dog that thinks it's people" line with the person who said it the first time in the room...

-

"Dean Winchester is going to die." "Sucks for that guy!" Well at least he's happy :P

-

Sam drags him away for a toilet conversation

-

Dean briefly regains a sense of self and is miserable

Sam why did you do that

-

"You know, I've seen my brother die, but watching him become... not him. This might actually be worse" Please, you watched him descend into the Mark of Cain and then babysat demon!Dean for an episode, this isn't new :P

-

OH SHIT here's the "my name is Dean Winchester" speech and it's delivered directly into a mirror I am not going to make it

-

That was terrible also can I have a new heart something happened to this one *shows a box of shards to the cashier*

-

Sam don't be bitchy to Rowena when she's the only one who can help.

-

And Dean is struggling to remember anything

-

Oh nooooo

-

Poor Dean :( :( :(

-

or whoever he is

-

Sam is putting Dean's life on the line to be weird about Rowena helping them.

-

OH NO Dean's still struggling with it

"I don't know"

*wails*

-

"Stop touching everything!"

I kind of love poor Dean when he's like this :( He's so sweet and... I don't know. Living in the moment because that's all he's got.

-

Also who is that voodoo doll of because they're having a terrible day too.

-

Aww Rowena already hates the British Men of Letters, so I guess she'll be helping later.

-

"These witches sound like dicks. I think you have plenty of snuff."

Dean interpreted that she was talking about herself despite not knowing anything. Dean is good at subtext.

Also that has real echoes of "Doug's a dick, you deserve better" which made me squeee over Dean x Donna although obviously as the waitress said, it would be completely taking advantage of Dean so Rowena better not butter him up too much while his barriers are down. Especially as Dean has a "ugh witches!" gag reflex while himself.

It's also interesting that this is a barriers down thing for him to say. He was still getting over ACTUALLY being roofied when they talked to Donna that time, and I didn't think Dean was totally out of it there because he was engaged quite well in the conversation, but heh, it's an interesting comparison.

-

"What a gift not to remember the things you've done!"

Oh no don't TELL him, Rowena.

"You're a killer" "scores of people" *gagging* "the greater good" (hey we had a "the greater good" earlier this season, right? I was laughing about the parallels to Hot Fuzz... Was it something the BMoL said? I see to recall paralleling their control of England to the baddies' control of the village)

I like that Dean and Rowena both have a gag reflex about each other's professions. But really loving this dynamic.

-

He might forget in a minute that Rowena told him he was a killer, at least.

-

Rowena having honesty hour because like Sam she's assuming Dean won't remember this (as you might have guessed I am fascinated about what Dean DOES remember about this)

-

"Power's what matters" Oh my god she's had actual character growth about this because of having to watch God and Amara suck at being the most powerful beings in the universe. Haaa.

-

Rowena does love nose-booping Dean

-

Sam is being pretty dangerous and scary in that way he gets when Dean is dying. Why do I get the feeling he's about to get a lesson in  being reckless.

-

I wonder what the butterflies symbolise. We've seen them on the show before, but in very different contexts. Hope someone else is on that because I have no immediate ideas. Like that they re-animate to cause harm. Not sure how much symbolism here for what though :P

-

Aw Rowena does care :D in her own way. No respect for the car. Pfft.

(I feel like someone's gonna be all "Dean remembered Sam when he was in danger!"  but the phone is right there with his name on so I'm not sure)

-

Having Gideon laid out like that is pretty ominous...

"We can bring him back!"

Yeah, okay, that was fairly obvious since he was still in the room the whole time :P

-

Wow guess they're swapping Sam for him or something.

- Aw Rowena wearing a long black coat and being badass.

-

Eeeeee more Rowena backstory.

I love her so much.

I mean everything we learn about her is so sad but it makes her motivations to be badass and not take any shit and obtain wealth and have nice hair really sympathetic :P

-

I am really loving how they're making Rowena more sympathetic.

-

Grenade launcher: DENIED

-

I swear to god this had better be building to Dean shooting it in 12x23 as the crowning moment of awesome for the season or what is even the point

-

Are these all Rowena's notes or did Sam leave the ones in the trunk

-

Whoever did it (I shall have to look at your handwriting again) you did good.

BUT

It was using Dean as a weapon. He had no idea who he was, no purpose, just these orders/suggestions and he went on instinct, couldn't even talk, COULD fire a gun, and had enough instinct to load the gun, walk into the house, and fight the witches.

I'm reminded of 9x21 (which I will be watching up next! Aaaah the dang rewatch! And GAVIN coming back...... Although maybe the new and improved Rowena might make that more interesting)... Whoops I... forgot... What I was saying. Uh. 9x21. Dean in the middle of the dark decent. Goes to kill Abaddon (mirrored in the fight with Lily and Ishim last episode), and for the entire scene from the moment he comes in the door, I think until they leave the building, Dean does not speak a word. He just goes in there on instinct, charges Abaddon, and pushes through he wall-shoving to get her, all on this brutal killer instinct that Rowena has reminded Dean he had.

Dean with no sense of self was very cute and goofy, but he retained his moral code (killing monsters bad, person who kills monsters hero) and he retained his killer instinct, so stripping him right down like that, I think this was the message of what has been programmed deepest into Dean, the things that would go last when everything else about him was disappearing. And considering I've been working through the last few episodes of season 9 lately, I'm chilled. :S Especially that the back up plan was to throw Dean at them as a weapon (I wonder if Rowena did it then, because Sam didn't have the thought Dean would do it, unless he labelled it all when they knew it was witches, but earlier in the episode when he was going on  his labelling spree)

-

Dean takes Sam on total trust as well about who is the witch and who is his brother. We don't know if that was his instinct or being obedient to what he was told... I'm guessing this is going to be something with 2 readings.

I'm assuming the cheap answer is the love of his brother runs that deep and instinctively he would know.

-

Why was Sam NOT at the restoration... Aside from for setting up "who's this hippy"

I mean they even used the sad family music! What jerks :P

-

Probably best to piss Sam off immediately so to avoid soppy hugs.

-

"Can't believe you called Rowena" "Can't believe you rode Larry" "Hey, I was awesome on that bull."

THAT'S your take away from this, Sam? I mean I'm thrilled but that's just... hilarious.

Especially as they don't mention the waitress again so the reminder is all about Larry and not about Dean's other conquest of the night :P I’m laughing.

-

Does this episode end with Sam leaving the super powerful book of spells on top of the impala and Dean drives off and it falls in the street

-

I say this because I'm feeling emotional about Rowena implying Dean should talk to her if he remembers their conversation, and Sam is now talking about how he's jealous of Dean's no-memories buzz

Dean is like “our life sucks but if I was happy I wouldn’t have a shot at hooking up with an angel”

-

Okay no Sam took the book of witchcraft.

That doesn't bode well at all.

*she says vibrating with pent up frustration about how witch!Sam is being teased roughly twice a week with no pay off since like... ever*

-

Yay I knew we'd get to see Dean riding Larry at the end.

because this is Yellow Fever.

-

I like Yellow Fever.

-

This is sort of embarassing having all of the other Dean stuff in there... You should have just stuck with him and Larry

Let them have a moment.

This is their song.