#drinks with wanek

[castiellesbian]

Supernatural fans are next level in terms of brain worms. Someone will be like "well we all know the show's production designer Jerry Wanek and how he named the Margiekugel beer that Sam and Dean drink after his mother and so you can see them drink this beer during family bonding scenes--" and everyone is nodding like "yes we are familiar with Wanek and his beer symbolism"

[neven-ebrez]

Wayward cocktails with Jerry Wanek in Hawaii

Okay!  So I was extremely lucky to get to sit down right beside production designer Jerry Wanek along with some other fans and talk to him for over an hour on Sunday night after Honolulu con wrapped.  I recorded a bit of the audio of the meeting for notes so here’s some highlights from our group chat.

Jerry has an office upstairs where the studios are.  There’s no doors.  There’s nine people in the art department including the art director, set designer, and the graphic director.  The whole process is extremely collaborative and the best idea usually wins!  I brought up the fact that there’s always discussions of intent when analyzing the show and how its very hard to pin down because there are so many hands in the cookie jar!  Jerry said a lot of it goes back to the boys, which provide the most focus in his opinion.  

Jerry says he reads lots of scripts every day, some of which have stupid ideas (”This is so stupid I want to cry” his words, lol).  He said after they get the first draft that they all submit their ideas, “What if we do this? What if we do that?”  Jerry works very close with every director.  He looks over the scripts and helps point out what is pretty much impossible (or otherwise VERY tough/expensive).  He says he has a script right now that is 14 pages long at NIGHT, OUTSIDE, and RAINING. (FYI: this is a production/cost/logistics/timing nightmare for those who don’t know this).  Jerry says they can’t even get this done on their 8 day schedule, that there’s simply not enough TIME.  He says he had to call up Andrew Dabb and be like, “Uh... Andrew... you’re gonna have to cut some of this!” 

Jerry spoke well of John Showalter and Phil Sgriccia, saying Phil’s history in editing helps him tremendously in directing (and I guess fixing problems like being given a script with 14 pages of night shoots, lol).  He spoke of how Phil cares about the show’s mythology and legacy compared to some writers who do things that change the mythology.  He said everyone was confused by Asmodeus in the fact that he could shapeshift.  He didn’t like the fact that all the other Princes of Hell didn’t have that ability but apparently Asmodeus did.  

I asked him if there’s ever been a set that he especially hated to tear down and he said “Yes and no.” He went on to talk about the lake house from 12x23 and 13x01.  He looked for 2 weeks for a house for that shoot.  He was out looking for a spot to shoot the angel blades from the AU and the guy that had that property mentioned another spit of land he had and then he and Jerry drove out there and then Jerry saw that it was perfect and so he immediately called up Bob and they decided to build the house as a complete set there instead of finding a house already built.  

I told him it was amazing that they could build these things all so fast.  He said that it’s taken a lot of years to acquire those skills.  He’s been in the film business for 40 years.  He spoke of the freedom he had on the Dark Angel set, that they told him “just take care of the sets” and that James Cameron and them had other things to worry about, so there was a lot of trust there.  He said that since then he’s only had to get “okay’d” on maybe half a dozen sets.  Basically, he has a lot of free reign on whether the location is a bunker, an abandoned warehouse, whatever.  He spoke fondly of the distillery set from 10x21 and said it had been written as an abandoned warehouse.  Coming up in 13x07 the script called for a concrete bunker in the desert, but Jerry designed a church instead.  I suggested that “concrete bunker” was just script shorthand for “let Jerry do what he wants” and he said, “pretty much” lol.  

@obsessionisaperfume then piped in about the wallpaper and how you could write a dissertation just on it.  I mentioned the Hansel and Gretel wallpaper and Jerry said that one came from France. Dori said her favorite was the Siren wallpaper.  I said my favorite was the red/green tartan codependency wallpaper because it was so striking.  (Here is where @nicky36 and @ibelieveinthelittletreetopper arrived).  Jerry said anytime Misha calls something a “masterpiece” is when he knows he hit a homerun. :’)  He said set reveals are somewhat like an art opening and he loves all the reactions they get.  He said that any time the reaction to a hotel set is low, that it’s “game on” and it’s time to raise the bar with the wild and wacky.  I asked him what his favorite themed motel was and then immediately told him my favorite, which was the “Too Tired” motel and that it was a motel dedicated to me.  He loved that one.  He said it was two tires in the “too” and that the location of that motel was in one of the biggest tire manufacturers in the country, so the whole thing was a pun with a double meaning!  

I thanked him for not giving into the motel 6 suggestion and he said he would have left the show, no doubt.  Jerry loves Americana and time period stuff, classic stuff like the 50s and 60s, Route 66.   I mentioned the Elysian Field motel from 5x19.  He said that that was when the Olympics was in Vancouver and that he told the writers “whatever you do, DO NOT write an episode that is motel heavy right now” because all the motels were booked up.  “So what do the writers do?” Jerry asked, “They, of course, made a whole episode in a motel.”  I said, “No one listens to you?” He laughed and said, “No, they don’t!”  He said that whole motel was built on a stage and that he was very pleased with it because of all the detail they could do.  He then went a little in depth into intention so I’m going to simply transcribe the next bit:

“You can get as wacky as you want, but, if you just put something wacky in, and it doesn’t have anything to do with the script, and it doesn’t have any support- You know, if I put a screen in, then there’s going to be another complementing element in there, in color, in texture, in glass, whatever that makes it seem integral, that when someone built that motel room, that they had a plan.  It wasn’t just like... ‘Oh I want a cool screen to shoot through, that’s not good enough!  Because it just sticks out, I mean, this guy who was watching the show, he was friend of mine, and he did a headboard and he was a young person so he put bubble wrap over it and twinkle light behind it and I'm going like... ‘Well, well it’s different. You know, but it looks- It looks-’ (me: laughing, “I appreciate your input”) ‘Yeah.  But it looks really stupid. It wasn’t on our show’.  Which.. he showed me a picture of his show.  And I went, ‘Oh yeah... Nice... nice... real nice.. yeah...’

Someone goes on to say that it infuriates them that someone would go on and say (about set design), “Oh, they just went and found whatever.”  I then said that I would fight somebody.  “You can hit them for me.” (cheers)  I said one of my favorite things was the sunshine rag rugs that cropped up when Cas was back and “home” and I told him I recalled a story on Tumblr a few seasons back where someone said their mother/grandmother was commissioned by him to hand make those.  I asked him if that was fake.  Jerry thought for a second and said, “No. I don’t think so.”  Jerry then switched topics to the beer on set.  We all knew the story behind “the mom beer” and we told him that’s what we all called it.  He said it’s based on a real beer in Wiscousin called Leinenkugel’s (I remember this but didn’t want to tell him in case others didn’t know).  Jerry’s Winnipeg graphic artist wrote the story on the back of the beer label.  

Someone mentioned the set design coffee table book and I told him I was upset that it existed and that I couldn’t buy it.  Someone mentioned the Impala they were restoring and that they wanted some beer bottle labels for it.  I asked the fan the name of their Impala (Angel) and said that I had one, too (Grace)!  Jerry was surprised to hear that two of us in our small group had bought the car.  He asked if I got mine from the guy in Kansas and I said that I got mine from a guy in Maryland. The other fan asked if it was possible for her to get some beer labels and Jerry said absolutely, that he’d be happy to do that. <3

Jess then said that she was glad to see he was doing well from his surgery from the last time she saw him at the Wayward Cocktails thing.  Everyone agreed and was grateful he is doing good!  He said he was out for 3 months (end of October, November and December).  And that he really got upset about some of the diners in his absence.  I said that we could tell he was gone right away.  He said that he almost got out of his hospital bed, threw things at the tv over some of it.  He said the guy that had took over in his absence was a really good friend of his, but that he couldn’t really replicate his style, nor did he include subtext from the script like he does.

Okay this is where my recorded audio ends so the rest is by my memory.

I asked Jerry about this piece of graffiti from my business Twitter earlier in the day.  I asked about whether it was intentional and that some of us saw it as a shout out to those that read into the graffiti and set design.  He said, “Everything is intentional.” :)  In regards to graffiti especially, they have to do all their own graffiti and that if graffiti exists in the shot that is NOT THEIRS, then they have to remove it, otherwise they could get sued by the artist.  Someone joked about how the front bunker location always gets graffiti’d IRL and how if they couldn’t clean it in time they could just write it into the script and have Dean complain that the door had been tagged.  They have several of their own graffiti artists that they use when they want graffiti.  Jerry praised the artist from 8x19.  I brought up warding and whether or not Jared or Jensen had messed up a set by accident and if they had ever had to repaint it and reset and he admitted, “Yes” with a chuckle.  He said that they try to do 95% of it so that the boys only had to spray like one line/curve so there is a low chance of them messing up.  I asked how challenging 4x01 was with the warding on the barnyard and he said it was quite a challenge!  He said he felt like he was seeing symbols in his sleep after that!  He was very pleased with the end result tho!

When he talked about the S12 finale lake house to another fan he said they tore it down after the finale and then had to build it again for the S13 premiere!  So that entire set was built twice!  

I asked about who made Billie’s new scythe and Jerry said I was forgetting the most important thing!  The library set!  He said originally the set was supposed to be a little country cottage with lots of books but that he was like, “Nah.” and did the polished minimalism set instead.  Everyone praised it and we all said we loved it very much and that we felt it had a similar style as Heaven so they coordinated in a way.  It’s been one of his favorites of the season so far.  He never answered the scythe question, lol.  He said that overall that he’s been loving the new season very much and that the whole thing has felt very fresh.  He brought up the new stunt coordinator and praised him.  He said that the old guy was good but he had some very dated (old school) ideas and that the new guy was a real breath of fresh air.  I told him that everyone could instantly tell that we had a new guy doing the fight scenes and that everyone was really impressed and that there was even a lot of symbolism in them.  

Tula (Jerry’s dog) came by a few times and everyone petted Tula.  Jerry said that Tula isn’t allowed on set very often because of regulations.  He also has to screen Tula three months early for travel to Hawaii because of the strict pet regulations here (Hawai’i doesn’t have rabies for example).  

I asked Jerry if he would be directing again anytime soon and he said probably not, due to something about crew being unable to direct because of some law or complaint or something.  Everyone was sad because 9x14 was one of our favorite episodes.  Jerry said that he still didn’t have *complete* freedom the way he wanted on that episode, that there were all these neat different shots he wanted to do but that he couldn’t for whatever reason.  I said I love the door/screen transition there and he said he wished he could do more stuff like that.  

We talked about Jensen directing and I asked him if Jensen asked for any advice and he said that Jensen didn’t, but that didn’t stop Jerry from talking to him and giving him some anyway!  He praised Jensen’s directing and said that it was good to switch between directors with different backgrounds (acting, editing, set design) and that they all would bring something unique to the directing chair. 

Jerry showed us the photos he later posted on Twitter from the church in the alternate world in 13x07.  He said the script just read “concrete bunker” and he was basically like “fuck that” and built the church with the iron maiden instead.  

I asked Jerry if things ever got left on set and ended up in the shot that weren’t strictly intended and he admitted that it didn’t happen often but it had happened before (the example I used was crew cell phones lying on the table).  It’s worth noting that Jerry admitted this with extreme reluctance lol.  

+EDIT+

Oh! Three more things I forgot to mention! 

Jerry spoke very well of Misha and how S4 changed everything for the show and how everyone became so excited to work on the show again!  The mythology of just demons had gotten really stale and to throw angels into the mix just really got everyone pumped.

Jerry said he loved Alaina Huffman as Abaddon.  We all agreed she was great.  Commenting on her exit, I said that we loved the foreshadowing of the martini shot that signaled her departure and how clever it was at least.

Jerry also spoke about the challenges of building train sets and how he was excited to be working on the “Stakes on a Train” episode but that it ultimately got scrapped because of the budget.  He said it was going to have a similar feel to 11x14 (which he LOVED), and he was sad it fell through and that he hoped they’d bring it back another season.

+      +

This is all I remember being discussed and at this point Jules asked everyone to switch it up so everyone would get the chance to talk to Jerry.  We all stood and hugged him goodbye and thanked him.  After this @thevioletcaptain and @deathbycoldopen took mine and @nicky36‘s spots beside Jerry so I’m going to open this write up up for them to include anything interesting they learned.  ^_^

[mittensmorgul]

The other day I was trying to explain something SPN to my terminally disinterested father (I think it was about El Sol), and he said derisively, in his usual manner: "Oh I'm sure there's tons of product placement in the show; anything to make money!" And I said, defensively, that SPN never uses real-life trademark brands, not for beer, motel and shop and cafe franchises, nor for search engines and websites, etc. But then: Cosmic Cowboy. So my question is: what other real world brands did they use and why?

Well, hello there! And yeah, SPN did their very best to avoid product placement at all. You have to really look hard to find real-world brands-- even things like snack cakes called “Bing Bongs” instead of “Ding Dongs” like we have in our world. But you’re right, they do have a very few real world products in the SPN Universe.

Cosmic Cowboy was from a bar that only existed in Dean’s imagination, and was a tribute to Jensen’s brewery. There were tons of Family Business Beer Company references in Rocky’s Bar in 14.10. There’s a good list of them here:

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/182537258925

It was just a nice shout out to Jensen, and not traditional product placement where they were making the big bucks.

There have been a few other personal shout outs via product placement, though. The 3 Sheeps beer sign that appeared beginning in s12, I think, is a real brewery in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. Jerry Wanek, the production designer who is responsible for all these sorts of things in the entire series, is from Wisconsin. There’s a LOT of personal shout outs from him to his home state in the show-- such as the “OPE_” sign (where the N in OPEN is dark) that gets used in occasional gas stations and convenience stores.

The dialogue has often referenced real-world alcohol brands, as well. Look at the pilot episode when Sam refers to John “working overtime on a Miller time shift,” or hanging out with “Jim, Jack, and Jose,” referring to Jim Beam, Jack Daniels, and Jose Cuervo. Yet we don’t ever really SEE those brands in regular circulation on screen.

The most interesting thing is the sheer number of fake alcohol brands they invented for the show. There’s a handy list of them here:

https://200dollargod.tumblr.com/post/55879856964/for-my-own-reference-more-beers-el-sol

I mean, if they didn’t want to use real beer and liquor brands, I could see making up a handful of fake brands just so they could cycle through a variety of different signs and not just have the same one in every bar in the country. But seriously, look at that list. There must be a hundred different fake brands on it. WHY go through the bother of creating that many labels, carton packaging, promotional posters and other advertising logos, as well as neon signs, bar signs, and the like for THAT MANY different beers unless there was a really good reason to do so.

I mean, this show didn’t have an unlimited budget, and yet they felt it was important enough to make neon signs for a ridiculous number of these fake brands. And with a menu as long as the one they created, that gives them a LOT of potential interesting symbolism to be used. When you don’t need to use every beer brand you have in every bar you come across, or always have them drinking the same brand in every episode, they can do things like they did with El Sol (signaling that all is not as it seems, or that there’s deception afoot), Schultz (Death and Debts), or any of the others.

Like, in the episode after Jack was conceived, long before he would actually be born, we see the first instance of a beer called “Fast Jack Ale,” in a neon sign hanging between Mary and Cas in a bar. So like... they use the beer brands and signs for a lot of silent storytelling, and it’s laughable to suggest otherwise.

But I think an interesting statement on the entire show’s mindset about product placement is the story about how Jerry Wanek fought from the pilot episode to use their old fashioned themed motels as a fixture on the show. And then went above and beyond designing each of those rooms with relevant themes to either the location of that week’s case, or somehow connecting through to the plot or characters, or situations they encountered during the episode. I have some of them catalogued here:

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-motels

and there are probably more in my jerry tag (sorry I’m so bad at tagging >.>).

At the time, TPTB were pushing for them to ink a deal with Motel 6, so that every week Sam and Dean would be stopping at the same brand motel. THAT would’ve been product placement. And it would’ve been BORING AF. Which is why Jerry pitched the Themed Motels idea, and NONE of them brought in a penny of Motel 6 money. Neither does the vast majority of supposed product placement on this show. Because you can’t make product placement money for products that don’t actually exist.

Which means the ONLY reason for any of these products exist at all is because they exist for the sole purpose of telling the story through the visual narrative.

Just tell your dad sorry, but some weird blue-haired lady on the internet who calls herself Mittens says he’s wrong :’D

[castielsdisciple]

13.08 Watch Notes

I have a whole bunch of work to do for finals this semester, so I held back on watching this episode first thing in the morning, and made myself do schoolwork—this is my reward!...Plus lunch. Let’s see how it goes. I’m hopeful, even after last week’s episode. I really love Glynn’s work. The way she writes the boys, but Dean especially, breaks my heart every time. :’( Here we go!

 THEN

We get the recap of Ketch’s line “Did it ever occur to you that I might be one of the good guys?” and then Dean’s line, “Not even once.” And considering recent events, we have to go with Dean. Right? Ketch is in cohoots with Moe, knows Moe is keeping Cas, and hell, probably had orchestrated Cas’s capture in some manner.

Ketch, I can’t wait to see you get shoot in the face. Again.

 Wow. Cambridge sure looks a lot like New York.

I’m no expert, but I think a museum would have a lot more security than just one door to secure all those artifacts. Why aren’t the cabinets locked? Why am I overthinking a framing device? Who knows!

Okay. So they’re running errands for Moe. So this guy definitely knows about Cas then, right?

Lol…the barber is called “Bangshop”. I love Jerry Wanek.

DAMN IT DEAN YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO EAT THE PIE. EATING THE PIE IS SEALING THE DEAL.

I love dorky Dean

Luther. Lucifer. Get it? GET IT? I get it. I got you, Meredith.

If Sam were a demon, he just would’ve totally walked himself into that devil’s trap without even realizing it.

Ah. Dean’s getting nostalgic. I never got into the energy drink thing. One too many horror stories of classmates getting sent to the ER and needing their stomachs pump…shit is like battery acid. Anyway, this lady is giving me major Charlie-vibes. Anyone else? It’s mostly the shoes.

I went to high school with a kid like the demon-guy. Dressed and talked just like him. Can’t wait for him to die. The demon—not my peer.

I’m noticing a pattern about people calling the brothers “stupid” or “smart.” Dean gets offended when Stunt Demon calls Sam stupid, but Sam doesn’t when Dean is called stupid. Hmm…..

The room is bobby-trapped! Dean, now is the time to break out all that Indiana Jones knowledge!

Bye Grab! You won’t be missed!

(Also, in Dean’s defense, he was totally right to be freaking out about the contraptions in the Dragon Mouth. For all he knew, his hand was about to get chopped off. I’d be freaking out too!)

Arsenic, holy water, holy oil. Only arsenic would hurt them, but even then, it takes a lot of arsenic to kill a full grown person.

Aw. Sammy has a crush on Catherine Zeta Jones.

“Sorry Charlie,” she says. Charlie parallel finished and done.

Damn it Dean stay to the right of the yellow line!

BTW—it’s only like half a second, but you can totally see the stunt driver for the red truck. Does Jensen do all the stunt driving himself? Gotta give him props. I know he’s been doing it forever, but I’d be really nervous driving like that in the Impala, even on a supervised set. It is a real 67 Impala, right? It’s worth a pretty penny.

Sam you’re just making that fire bigger.

So…does Alice have a copy of the spell? Or was all this really for naught?

I guess it wasn’t all for naught…they saved Alice, and I guess her soul too, right? Since Bart’s dead, there her deal can’t be collected. And Dean isn’t depressed anymore, and Sam even addressed it! So there’s that.

Glynn kept up with her great character writing. Definitely more enjoyable than last week’s episode; though I must admit I’m not much of a fan of the stand-alone episodes. Still great for what it was, though. Biggest complaint really is how they staggered the commercials. There wasn’t any for like the first ten or fifteen minutes, but then there was a bunch at the end, and it was just…commercial break, a one or two minute scene, and then another commercial. That got annoying. But that’s on production, not Glynn.

Final Score 7/10.

And now back to working on homework. Ugh….

[movietvtechgeeks]

Latest story from https://movietvtechgeeks.com/ouch-supernatural-gets-emotional-twigs-twine-tasha-barnes/

Ouch! Supernatural Gets Emotional with Twigs & Twine & Tasha Barnes

Sometimes it’s downright painful being a Supernatural fan! But I don’t mean that as a complaint—this is part of what the Show has always been. Two weeks in a row that were painful is tough to take, there’s no doubt about that, but there was a lot to appreciate in this week’s episode. Even the painful was just done so well! Grudging admiration, Steve Yockey, for the writing, Richard Speight Jr., for the directing, and all the actors for conveying the pain so brilliantly. Before I do an actual recap, here are some of the reasons for my grudging admiration. First, I love when an episode is a mirror for the Winchesters. This is a tradition going back all the way to the beginning, something Kripke liked to do and made work extremely well. Sometimes the mirror is a little too large and obvious, but in this case, I didn’t think we were too pounded over the head with it – or maybe I just enjoyed the pounding. Which sounds really wrong. Max and Alicia, the witch twins, were immediately seen by fans as a mirror of Sam and Dean in their first episode. Their closeness, the way they talked at the same time and finished each other’s sentences, the way they squabbled but clearly always had each other’s backs – all of that reminded us of the Winchester brothers. Sibling pairs often are used in the show as a mirror for the brothers, so that wasn’t a surprise. It was a surprise to see them back in another episode! A very pleasant one. Even in the limited time they had onscreen in their first appearance, they made a big (and positive) impression on fans. So yay for Show listening! There were several scenes where the parallels were made explicit, including Sam quoting Dean as he tries to convince his brother to come to the aid of Max and Alicia. The call back to the pilot made me smile, and had the intended effect on Dean too. Sam: Their mom’s on a hunting trip and hasn’t been home in a week… Dean: (in the pilot): Dad’s on a hunting trip and he hasn’t been home in a few days… I know not everyone enjoys the call backs, but I really do. I do a lot of research on fandom and the psychological impact of being a fan, and one of the things that makes us feel good is the familiarity of our favorite shows. We respond emotionally to our favorite television shows differently than we respond to any old show – they have more impact, actually creating some of the same physiological  and psychological reactions that we have when we sit down with an old friend to chat over a cup of coffee or a glass of wine. So all the small nods that reinforce our familiarity with a show increase that emotional impact. The phone call that Dean makes to his mother is also a call back, to the early episode aptly titled “Home”. In that episode, one of the first times I noticed how unique this show is and how unafraid the actors were to really “go there”, Dean calls his Dad and pleads for a call back, his eyes watering and his lip wobbling as he admits he doesn’t know what to do. I can’t watch it without my eyes watering too. In this episode, Dean doesn’t get as overtly emotional—his relationship with Mary isn’t as long standing and intense as his bond with John was—but he once again pleads for her to call him back and admits that he feels “spun out” and over his head.  I’ve had many conversations with Jensen about how the emotion in those scenes is not something he has to create, it’s something that happens organically. That’s clear by the small, unconscious tells – like a hint of Ackles’ Texas twang coming out as he tries to hold back the emotion from his voice. Those little things, and the way these actors are fearless in letting their emotionality come through, are what make this show so special and so impactful. Second and relatedly; the acting. Ackles and Padalecki knocked it out of the park with their empathy for Max and his repeated, brutal losses of his family—something the Winchesters can relate to with every ounce of their being. All three of the Banes family members were also incredible--Alvina August as Tasha, Kara Royster as Alicia, and Kendrick Sampson as Max. Alvina made us love her even in a short amount of time, which meant her children’s anguish over her death was incredibly painful. Kara showed us once again Alicia’s badass bravery but also her great love for her mother and her brother. And Kendrick Sampson nearly killed me by portraying Max’s devastation so powerfully that I could feel it in my gut. And it hurt! Sometimes I love this show so damn much even as I’m sobbing on the floor scrambling for more tissues. Not sure what that says about me. The BMoL story line ran parallel to Sam and Dean’s throughout the episode, which can sometimes give me whiplash from going back and forth. In this case, director Richard Speight Jr. and writer Steve Yockey made it seamless, and actors Samantha Smith and David Haydn-Jones made it snap with tension and intrigue. There was never a second of this episode where I felt like I had a chance to catch my breath, let alone think about making a sandwich! Smith’s slowly dawning realization of the colossal mistakes she’s made, and Jones’ portrayal of Ketch’s complicated feelings for Mary losing out to his indoctrination and psychopathology were fascinating to watch. And yes, also painful! And third, some big kudos to Richard Speight for the brilliant directing and gorgeously shot scenes, Serge Ladouceur and his team for the beautiful lighting throughout, Jerry Wanek and his team for infusing the twigs and twine theme throughout the episode (even in the wallpaper!) just so we could be even more creeped out than we already were, and the special effects wizards for making those violet eyes and all the other effects look anything but cheesy. And to Lou Bollo and his team for pulling off another epic fight scene worthy of the epic fight scenes in this show that have come before. [caption id="attachment_45848" align="aligncenter" width="600"] Photo: @sleepypanda[/caption] So yeah, I really liked this episode even if “enjoyed” wouldn’t be quite the right word. Let me walk through what happened, so I can point out more of what worked and possibly a few minor quibbles (because when does a review not have quibbles??) Unless it’s a Robbie Thompson episode. Then I plead for your indulgence. The episode begins right where we left off last episode, with the boys waking up the next day and trying to figure out what the hell happened with Cas (pretty much the way I felt after the last episode too). Dean draws a line between Castiel’s profession of faith in Lucifer’s child (and presumably his decision to knock Sam and Dean out and leave them in a playground) and the things Cas has done before with good intentions—for the right reasons, as he says. If you read my last week’s review, Dean and I were clearly on the same page. Dean: Last night, I didn’t recognize him. The boys are clearly worried about Cas. Meanwhile, Sam unwraps the broken Colt – and I actually leapt up to my feet and screamed! I was so devastated by its seeming loss last week, and so ecstatic to see that the boys haven’t given up hope on her yet. Dean: Can you fix it? Sam: I hope so. Me: PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEASE!!!!! At first I was surprised that it wasn’t Dean trying to do the fixing, since he’s the mechanical wizard who’s always taking apart the guns and putting them back together. But I assume this isn’t exactly a mechanical problem. Go, Sammy!! We’re re-introduced to Max and Alicia, and immediately the parallel is set up with Sam and Dean. They’re bickering, lovingly, as siblings do. Max: You’re being dramatic. Hah! I just talked about that same accusation being thrown at Dean by his sibling in last week’s review. Maybe it really is a sibling thing. (Actually that accusation might have been thrown at me by my brother a time or two, come to think of it…) Sam convinces Dean to help them by quoting Dean’s way of convincing Sam in the pilot, and off they go. Before he leaves, Dean makes that poignant phone call to Mary, leaving a voice mail just as Dean did for his dad in ‘Home’. The next scene of all four siblings together is awesome. Max is already one of my favorite characters, in part because Sampson pulls off both being a powerful witch and being a charismatic person. Max is also another queer character for the show, happily announcing that he got the hot bartender’s phone number. Remember the early seasons when Dean might have been uncomfortable (and we were uncomfortable with Dean’s discomfort)? Dean and Sam join Alicia in their affectionate ribbing, and then Dean wants to do some male bonding with Max over the grenade launcher. Seems like such a small thing, but I don’t think it is. I loved that scene so much, and love Sampson’s portrayal of Max. Alicia and Sam have their own bonding moments, which I got distracted by for a few moments by Jared’s glorious hair tossed by the wind. Anyway, we find out that the twins are hunting a borrower witch, which yay for Yockey keeping canon! Alicia and Sam connect over feeling like their siblings shared a special bond with their single parent. Alicia: Magic, it’s their thing. Sam: Dean and my dad had that bond with hunting. It was also interesting to have an outsider pov on Mary from Alicia, who wryly notes that Mary “doesn’t seem like much of a hugger.” I’ll say. The foursome arrive at the place they track Tasha to, which is a beautiful Vancouver house or something standing in for a bed and breakfast. This show has ruined me for idyllic bed and breakfasts in the countryside – I’d just be waiting for someone to kill me! I need to give Yockey and Speight some love for the wine scene too. And probably Ackles, for holding his wine glass in his fist so awkwardly, making it crystal clear that Dean isn’t used to drinking wine without ever saying a word. And Sam giving his brother his own glass of wine when he goes out to grab the food from the vegan restaurant. Sam: Dean, drink. (pats his brother on the knee affectionately—again one of those small nonverbal moments that say so much, and that every single person in the fandom picks up on. And appreciates) Dean: Yes. (pours Sam’s wine into his own glass happily) That was just such a Sam ‘n Dean scene—the kind I’ve been missing so badly all season. Thank you Steve Yockey! We already know at this point that Tasha isn’t really Tasha, but I have to say, that twig doll was pretty damn real! She had all of Tasha’s memories, and she certainly seemed warm and loving and wise. I liked watching her and Dean observing Max and Alicia squabbling, both of them with such fond looks on their faces. Dean is so wistful, it hurts my heart. He loves knowing that Max and Alicia had what he and Sam never did—a loving mother with them to raise them. And you just KNOW that he’s wishing that for Sam, most of all. Oh, Dean. Where are my tissues? Tasha and Dean talk about mothers too—a theme of Season 12. Tasha on moms: You think they’re perfect, then you grow up and realize they’re just people. This was one of the few times in this episode that I scratched my head. Show is really wanting us to go down that road, I guess—of saying that Mary is imperfect because of course all of us, moms or not, are imperfect. I’ve been worried about this all season, that they took us so far in the opposite direction that it’s going to be very difficult to spin us around and make us say oh well, Mary was pretty awful to her boys but hey, no one’s perfect. Why did you make it so difficult, if that’s where you wanted us to end up, Show?? I honestly don’t know if I can go where you want me to. And it’s not because I think moms have to be perfect—god knows, I’m not, just ask my kids. But this went so far away from perfect! Moms don’t have to be perfect, but they don’t have to be callous and hurtful either. We get another nice little slice of “yes these are the Winchester brothers I know and love” when Sam returns with the takeout and motions Dean to come with him. Dean: I know that look. What’s up? Nothing more Winchester than nonverbal conversation and reminding us that’s how well they know each other. Sam and Dean check out the basement where that creepy guy emerged from as they arrived (and I forgot to say how much I adored Jared’s awkward little wave—he has so much talent for doing comedy that doesn’t get used very often! I laughed out loud and had to replay that moment a few times). Nothing funny about this scene though—they find Tasha’s dead body. That’s horrible enough, but what happens next absolutely broke me. Max sees the light on and comes down the stairs. Sam and Dean (breaking my heart in pieces) try to shield Max from seeing his mother, instinctively wanting to keep him from that unbearable pain even though of course he’ll have to know. And oh my god, Max’s face when he does see her. Kendrick Sampson acted the HELL out of that scene! Max (brokenly): I… I just… He breaks down in sobs, and so do I. Sam and Dean, watching, are clearly devastated too, remembering their own traumatic losses, including their dad. Jared and Jensen were amazing in this scene too, again with all those little seemingly inconsequential nonverbal reactions that are anything but. At separate times, each of them scrubs a hand over their face, like they can’t quite decide how much emotion to let show there. Again and again, they look at Max and then turn away, like it’s physically too painful for them to watch his pain and empathize with it so thoroughly. God, that was a hard scene to watch. And absolutely masterful –from all involved. Dean and Max confront the witch, while Alicia tries to help her “mother” and Sam gets beat up by the twig doll hotel guy. The witch needs time to do some serious exposition, so she puts Dean and Max under a spell that freezes them. Dean looks distractingly pretty during this time, so I don’t mind so much that there’s a lot of exposition going on. Max, on the other hand, looks devastated—he’s forced to actually see his mother murdered. That trauma contributes, I think, to him considering taking the witch’s deal, but Dean tries to talk him out of it. Dean: No, your mom is gone. It’s awful and it sucks but… The witch silences him, though Max does hesitate. Meanwhile, for some unknown reason nobody has told Alicia that the twig doll is not actually her mother, so she’s not much help to Sam as he gets tossed around like a ragdoll and then strangled (shades of early SPN!)  She finally comes to his aid, only to be stabbed to death by the twig doll that’s not really her mother. How heartbreaking was it that when she saw her “mom” stand up, Alicia happily said “Mom!” right before she killed her. I gasped out loud when Alicia went down, truly horrified. Dean managed to break the witch’s spell long enough to shoot her with witch killing bullets, and when she dies, the other twig dolls disintegrate. Too late to save Alicia though. Sam yells for his brother, his anguished “DEAN!” ringing down the hall. And then Kendrick Sampson destroys me all over again, as Max sees that his beloved sister is dead. It was such a call back to All Hell Breaks Loose Part 2, the scene that kept me crying for literally an entire week when Sam dies in Dean’s arms. Max has such a similar reaction, rushing to his sister’s side and leaning over her sobbing. Max: Please, no, hey hey, no no no… It’s what the Winchesters say when one of them dies too –they always say “hey, hey” when trying to talk the other one out of leaving them, so when Max said the same I totally lost it. Nobody told me I’d need THAT many tissues! Sam and Dean are thinking the same thing; they look at each other pointedly as Max cries. He sends them away, and they respect his wishes and go. In the car, Sam tries to reassure his brother that he did the right thing, that he saved Max (his soul anyway). Dean: Yeah, he seemed super saved. Dean is so sad about how things went down, saying that they had a loving family, “the kind we should have had.” Dean: Sam, we do terrible things all the time to save each other, that’s what you do for family. Who am I to stop him? That’s pretty much Supernatural in a nut shell, and it’s why I love this Show. Hearing Dean say that just made me even MORE emotional. There’s a great music cue as Max does the same, putting his sister’s heart in the twig doll and bringing it to life. Alicia’s body burns as the twins leave, twig doll Alicia as mystified about what’s happened as Sam was when Dean sold his soul to bring his brother back to life at the end of Season 2. Oh, the call backs, my heart can’t take much more of this! Meanwhile, in the second story line, Ketch is torturing what at first looks like Mary but is in fact a shape shifter. Mary is watching, and her phone rings. Mary: It’s Dean. Ketch: And?? That sets up the beginning of the end for Mary and Mr. Ketch’s unlikely romance, if you can call it that. He takes every bit as much pleasure in torture as we would have expected him to, and Mary sees that side of him for the first time-the brutal side that his charming exterior has covered up. It’s telling that Mary refers to the shifter as “he” and Ketch corrects her to “it.” That’s what the BMoL – and every torturing regime ever—does in order to be as brutal as they are. They dehumanize, see anything other as “it” so they can torture with impunity and without regret. Mary is as put off by seeing this as Dean was when he was hunting vampires with Ketch. The Winchesters can be ruthless, but most of the time (if they’re not demons at the time or whatever) they don’t take pleasure in it. Afterwards, Mary is angry. Ketch, on the other hand, wants to jump into bed and work off all that adrenaline. (Ewww). Mary shuts that down pretty quickly, and Jones does a good job showing us, again with those subtle nonverbals that all these actors excel at, that Ketch is hurt by the rejection. And for someone as ruthless as him? That is not going to be a good thing. He taunts Mary that she’d better call Dean, or “he’ll think Mommy doesn’t love him”. Ouch. On the nose there. Mary finally gets Dean’s message, and leaves Dean the voicemail she should have left him way back in Episode 2 or 3, telling him that she’s sorry she hasn’t been there for him and Sam. Mary: But I want to be. I will be. I miss you boys. I love you. Me and everyone else watching: uh oh, that sounds like the sort of voicemail people leave when the show is about to kill them off. Ketch has been careful, even sending emails as though they were from Mick so Mary won’t get suspicious. But Mary is a hunter, and she’s smart, and soon enough she finds Mick’s body in a storage container and a room full of hunters’ photos and stats that make them look like the next intended targets. Ketch tries one last lie about Mick. Ketch: An accident, with a werewolf. Mary: (incredulous) A werewolf shot him in the head? Ketch: It’s not impossible… Me: actually laughing out loud. Nice dialogue, Steve Yockey! We then get one of those epic fight scenes that Supernatural is known for, thanks to Lou Bollo’s amazing stunt choreography and the willingness of the actors to always give it their all. They throw each across the room, get in punches and kicks. Ketch is still not entirely ready to give up on her, which really says something about the effect she had on him. He says he can keep her safe, if only she plays nice. Mary: I don’t play nice. I’ll say. Mary breaks his arm and brass knuckles him in the nuts, leaving him on the floor as she walks out. Nope, not that easy! Ketch tasers her and she falls flat to the floor. Meanwhile, Dean and Sam are driving away. Sam falls asleep, leaning against the window in the passenger side while Dean drives and keeps an eye on his brother, just like in all the best fanfic. Then Dean checks his voicemails. He gets to hear the one from Mary, which I’m glad about; so often in this show, the most important voicemails never get heard. Then he hears the one that tells him to call her, that they’ve got a problem. Dean to sleeping Sam: Sam, wake up, it’s mom, something’s wrong. SAM! Me: Why is Sam not waking up??? Is something wrong with Sam? (Probably not, this was just a fitting transition to the next scene, but it worried me) We end with a splash of water on a bound Mary’s face as she comes to. Ketch: (ominously) Remember Mary, I gave you a chance. And then we see the person NONE of us ever wanted to see again (but expected nevertheless). Lady Toni (with her goddamned notebook again): Now Mary, let’s begin. [caption id="attachment_45875" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Caps by @kayb625[/caption] Talk about callbacks! This episode may not have been enjoyable—in fact it was downright painful to watch at times—but it was incredibly well done. Kudos to all—writer, director, cast, crew. I’m full of trepidation as we start careening toward the finale, but that’s just Supernatural, isn’t it? For more Supernatural, check out our new book, Family Don’t End With Blood: Cast and Fans on How Supernatural Has Changed Lives, available now here! Check out next week's Supernatural 1221 There's Something About Mary.

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[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

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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

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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)

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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.

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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.

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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

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

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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?

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KUMA

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

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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.

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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

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Ah jeeze I really want waffles.

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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.

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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...

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

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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.)

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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.

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

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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.

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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 >.>

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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

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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.

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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

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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.

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I wish we saw that

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Dean and his "ICE BUCKET" what a tragedy

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

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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...

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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

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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.

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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.

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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

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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

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"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)

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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...

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(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)

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"It's like watching myself on netflix" Aw

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

:D Oh sweetie

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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.

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

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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.

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Aw Sam calls it "the Talk"

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"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.

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

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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.

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But yeah something horrid might happen to Cas briefly.

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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

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"Is that a dead guy?"

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

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Witches! These guys seem like fun people.

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

Oh dear.

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"Is that a dead guy?"

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

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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)

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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...

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

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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.

[frozen-delight]

SPN Cinematography: Dean + Cross Symbols

Very, very late contribution for @celebratingdean’s divinty theme.

[shirtlesssammy]

7x22: There Will Be Blood

Then:

Team Free Will is back together and ready to battle some Leviathan!

Now:

Dick Roman, large and in charge, is now taking over SucroCorp, a leading manufacturer in high fructose corn syrup. He’s being interviewed on the news.

It’s here that he tells the world about how they’re going to remove additives and make a pure product for people to consume. Cut to several shots of slow, lazy Americans shoving sweetened foods in their mouths while watching the news story. (And I spy a wild Andrew Dabb in the background of one shot!) He ends the interview with “We are diving whole hog into what keeps Americans living longer... and tasting better.”

After the interview, Dick is handed a suitcase with the leviathan tablet in it. He tells his secretary to replace the journalist he just talked to with a leviathan. He then heads to the meeting room where they’re holding a trussed up Kevin Tran. He hands Kevin the tablet and asks him to read it. Kevin says he can’t. 

Dick sees they’ve entered hardball negotiations. He knows how clever Kevin is so he hands him a letter of recommendation to Harvard (couldn’t he have just paid them off to get him in?) Kevin declines. They next show Kevin that they’ve kidnapped his mom. 

At their hideout in the woods, Dean and Sam are getting nowhere on how to handle Dick Roman. Dean suggests making a weapon and taking him out. Sam wonders what will happen to the rest of the leviathan? Will they all just drop dead? Maybe.

OMG. They’re reading the word of God. Dean ponders if God is telling them everything (Just enough to make you squirm like a worm on a hook, Dean.) Ghost Bobby watches the brothers struggle with their task. 

Later, Dean’s brushing his teeth when the air turns cold. He turns to find Bobby. Bobby’s worked out what they can do to get their ingredients. They already have Cas’s blood. They need Crowley’s and an Alpha’s blood as well. Dean counters that all the alphas are dead. Cas killed them all. Bobby suggests getting Cas involved but Dean tells him that “Cas isn’t exactly in the problem solving mode.” Bobby gets mad enough to crack a mirror when Dean is a little slow to jump on his plan. Bobby! 

Sam shows Dean that Dick Roman acquired SucroCorp and now Dean’s precious pie is in danger. “Bastards.” The computer slams shut and their conversation ends. Time to listen to Bobby’s ideas. 

They start the ritual to call Crowley (seriously, what an elaborate process before Dean and Crowley’s summer of love). 

At Dick Roman headquarters, Kevin finishes translating the tablet. They release Linda Tran for his good deeds. 

Crowley says he’ll give them his blood after they’ve acquired the rest of the ingredients. He then goads them a little by saying that the angel blood will be the hardest, considering how much heaven hates them. Sam and Dean trade soulful looks. Crowley wonders if they have an angel up their sleeve, but Dean denies it. Crowley then tells them that there’s one Alpha that escaped back in the day. He’s in Hoople, North Dakota. 

At the Gas ‘n Sip in Hoople, the boys discuss Bobby’s outbursts. Sam wants a plan for what they’re going to do with him. As he grows stronger, he grows closer to becoming a vengeful spirit. Dean then notices the other customers in the convenience store. They’re all really out of it. (Tag yourself: I’m the slushy guy in the corner.) Sam connects their actions to the Turducken sandwiches and realizes that anything with corn syrup is a problem. “Then what the hell are we supposed to eat?” Dean demands. Sam holds up a basket of bananas and water. 

That night, they’re staking out the house of the alpha, but haven’t seen a thing. Bobby pops up and agrees to scout it out. He gives them the all clear and they head in to find dead vampires --only their heads aren’t missing; it looks like they swallowed something that did them in instead. 

They also find a secret room with a girl inside (oh, wait, she’s not a girl. She’s supposed to be 20. She’s been a captive for 12 years. Yikes.) She’s one of the Alpha’s “special girls” but not anymore. Sam promises to get her back to her mother. They ask about the dead vamps. She tells them that humans willingly came to them about a week ago. When they started feeding, they all died. Sam guesses it’s the corn syrup. They then ask where the Alpha is now. She doesn’t know but she’ll try and help. 

Later, the lone vamp that did not feed on a human comes back to an empty house-- well empty except for Edgar. He quickly takes the form of the vamp and kills him. 

Meanwhile, Dean is STILL going through corn syrup withdrawal. “I can't live on rabbit food. I'm – I'm a warrior.” He’s in bad shape, guys. Sam asks what their next step is. They need to confront the Alpha, so they’re going to need dead man’s blood. To the morgue! Only Dean has a better idea. They see a sloth man drinking his Slushy Mushy on a bench and realize there is vamp poison everywhere. They ask for his blood and he wordlessly complies.

They proceed to talk about Bobby-the-ghost right over the dude’s head, while he stares at them and drinks his slushy. (God, I really want a slushee right now.) A cop drives by with his siren blaring, but as the car draws closer we hear War’s “Why can’t we be friends” and the cop boops the siren along with the music. I...just...WOW. 

Dean and Sam drive out with the alpha’s “virgin” Emily to try and find his hideout. She gives them whatever details she remembers and they make their way to a creepy mansion. “This is where he took me,” she says. “Are you sure?” Uh. YEAH. It’s crawling with vamps.

They leave Emily in their bison-themed motel room (all hail Wanek) where she watches TV and learns about the wild Kardashian. 

Ghost Bobby throws a mini tantrum at getting left behind (Dean locks his flask in the safe before they leave). But as Bobby watches, Emily jumps up, pulls out the cell phone, and says hi to someone named “Daddy.” She’s sending him a present! Never trust...a virgin?

Sam and Dean stalk the mansion, working on a plan of attack. Sam proposes a radical new tactic..going in through the front door.

The door’s ajar so Sam creeps inside and...gets SNATCHED immediately. Dean pursues and gets tackled for his trouble. 

Bobby throws a tantrum in the hotel room. The cleaning woman heads in to check on the ruckus when Bobby goes full manifestation on her, then tackles her and possesses her. DAMN IT, BOBBY. Why’d you have to go darkside?

Wearing the cleaning woman, Bobby removes his flask from the safe and heads towards Sucrocorp. 

At alpha vamp headquarters, Emily greets Daddy Vamp gleefully. Dean tells them that they’re just there to talk, but not before giving Emily some serious sarcasm for tricking them.

Sure, they were carrying machetes and infected blood but that’s water under the bridge, okay? Dean’s flippant bravado isn’t impressing the vamps; he gets bashed into the table for his trouble. The alpha starts ramping up to eat himself a Winchester (with a Winchester chaser) when Sam tells him that they know about the vampire plague that killed Emily’s little nest. 

The alpha at first denies that the leviathans could have anything to do with it. He’d shared a lovely meal with Dick Roman, after all. Sam insists that they’re telling the truth and tells him that they need his blood for the weapon that can defeat Roman. 

The Winchesters are shown to the study (maybe they have cookies and juice, like a blood drive) while Edgar meets with the alpha. They try to escape, but they’re locked up tight in there. Dean grabs a needle from one of the bloodied IV bags and a concealed stoned-man’s-blood syringe from his boot. (ALWAYS check the boots, bad guys!) It’s time to lockpick and stick. 

The alpha promises to deliver Sam and Dean to the leviathans. Edgar, in turn, promises that he’s definitely totally NOT exterminating all the vampires. 

Meanwhile, it’s vamptonite to the rescue as Dean and Sam get the drop on a vamp and watch him half disintegrate in front of their eyes!

The alpha expresses frustration with the terrible customer service of Leviathan Corp. and Edgar grins. Yeah, he admits, the leviathans totally want the vamps dead. The additive will kill any monster that eats humans. Now that the lines are drawn, it’s showdown time. Edgar insults Eve and the alpha attacks (NOBODY insults his mom!), but he isn’t strong enough. Luckily Dean and Sam take this moment to show up, slicing off Edgar’s head. 

The Winchesters try to go after the alpha, but he tosses Dean across the room and offers an alternative idea. 

He’ll give them his blood and they can take down the leviathans. I guess...that works pretty well. The alpha pours his blood into a wine glass, hands it over, and snarls a farewell. The Winchesters aren’t done yet, though. Emily may be a lost cause, but there’s still a young boy held prisoner. They bargain for his freedom.

Sam takes the blood and they head out (presumably to rescue the little kid). The alpha taunts them. “Your flesh is crawling. All you really want to do is kill me now. You hate having to wait and come back and try again.” It’s an accurate summary...they promise to finish up their storyline at a later date. (Boris: Sam Fucking Winchester, season 12 ftw)

Back at the hotel, they recap how dropping off the kid went (horribly, they were accused of kidnapping him and had to jump out a window). Once in the motel room, they find the place is a wreck, with cracked mirrors and an empty safe. Bobby’s in the wind…

Well, at least they’ve got two out of three kinds of blood, right? “It's a good thing we got Crowley in our corner. Right?” Dean surmises sarcastically, “Seeing as how it all comes down to him. What could possibly go wrong?”

What could go wrong, indeed? Crowley gets summoned by Dick Roman himself. It’s time to make a deal.

______________________________

We Know Dick about Quotes:

We are diving whole hog into what keeps Americans living longer... and tasting better.

I can't do this, man. I can't live on rabbit food. I'm a warrior!

Keep your friends close, your enemies, blah blah.

You sure you want to head in there, machetes blazing?

You get a trophy in Stockholm Syndrome.

_______________________________

Want to read more? Check out our Recap Archive! 

[shirtlesssammy]

4x19: Jump the Shark

Then:

John Winchester, amirite? (But seriously, that intro! Call backs to John’s parenting, hunting, Sam going darkside, Dean’s “If I didn’t know you, I would want to hunt you.”)

Now:

We open with a woman being chased through the halls of her house. She barricades herself in her bedroom with her armoire. Whatever evil is outside her room, it can’t get her now and she sits down on her bed. YOINK! Something drags her under! As she tries to scramble away, she knocks over her bedside table, and a picture of John Winchester.

Sam and Dean are in the middle of nowhere.

Sam is busy with personal care, using his little purple toothbrush. Dean wakes hungry, but only finds one very spoiled tuna sandwich. (Dean looks so little in the leather jacket here! And he’s an adorable bean, too!) One of John’s phone rings. The person, Adam Milligan, is looking for John, and Dean informs him that John’s been dead for over two years. It’s then that Adam reveals that he’s John’s son. Cue super zoom on Dean!

The brothers head to Windom, Minnesota to meet their so-called brother, specifically at Cousin Oliver’s Diner (Oh, Jerry Wanek, never change!) As Sam listed every real thing about Adam Milligan, Dean is stocking up on every kind of monster hunting weapon they have. Something tells me Dean’s not buying it. In fact, he thinks Adam is possessed by a demon or is a shapeshifter.

Once inside, Dean swaps regular water for holy water and the silverware with silverware. Sam shows Dean an entry in John’s journal that placed him in Minnesota about 9 months before Adam was born.

Adam walks in and joins the brothers. He inquires into how they knew John. Awkward. He asks how John died. “On the job.” “He was a mechanic, right?” And Dean, always the helpful older brothers adds, “A car fell on him.” Hostile Dean is a fun Dean.

Adam drinks the holy water and doesn’t react. So, not a demon. Sam asks why he was trying to contact John, and while Dean pulls his gun under the table (lol, boy), Adam tells them that his mom is missing. Dean wants to know more about how well Adam knew John. Not that well, actually. He met him when he was 12 and didn’t know much more than his name. But “when John heard he had a son, he raced to town. He dropped everything. He drove all night.” Oof, please stop talking, Adam. But. He continues to tell Sam and Dean about John visiting him and teaching him poker and pool and buying him his first beer and teaching him how to drive on his ‘67 Impala. I can’t tell if Dean is more offended by these stories or the fact that all his monster detecting traps aren’t working. Dean calls him a liar, but Adam can prove it all.

Cut to Adam’s house, and Dean holding a picture of John and Adam at a baseball game. I MEAN JOHN WINCHESTER, great non-parenting of Adam and all, BUT YOU’RE THE ACTUAL WORST. While Dean reconciles with the existential crisis of having the worst parent ever, Sam cuts to the heart of the matter and finds out more about Adam’s missing mom.

Dean takes a half look around the house and Sam contacts the police and does a little research. In 1990, there were 17 graves robbed. These sweet summer boys don’t know what John was hunting though. A month ago, the corpse-snatching started up again.

Dean then notices scratch marks coming from under the bed. They move it to reveal a vent. They rock-paper-scissors to see who’ll go down it. OH DEAN.

He heads into the vent where he finds blood, and a whole lot more blood and the remains of human remains.

Later at the motel, Adam bursts in wanting to know who Sam and Dean are. They apparently told him to call the cops but they’re skipping town. Adam, proving to be as smart as his two brothers (but maybe not as quick), says, “You’re not mechanics.” Sam breaks first and tells Adam that they’re hunters. Sam proceeds to fill his younger brother in on the family business. Adam accepts it and wants to know how to help. Dean is livid about the whole situation.

He wants Adam left out of the hunt. He then storms out after telling Sam to babysit the kid. SO much to unpack here.

Sam gets to play big brother for once and starts to show Adam about proper gun handling and maintenance.

Dean checks out the desecrated tombs. And then he heads to a local bar.

For Local Bar Science:

The bartender pegs him as a Fed right away. He asks about one of the missing people. It turns out he was her husband. She tells Dean that her husband was a deputy for a while, and even worked the grave robbing case back in 1990. He worked the case with a little help from a “specialist” and that “they took care of what done it.”

Back at the motel Sam shows Adam the basics of gun care (brotherly bonding….aw?) when suddenly the lights go out. There are strange noises in the vents of the room, so Sam and Adam race outside for Adam’s truck. At the edge of the truck, something grabs Sam’s ankle and hauls him to the ground. Sam’s about to get sucked down beneath the car when Dean arrives and scares off whatever was trying to take Sam. When they move Adam’s truck, an open sewer grate is revealed.

Dean and Sam piece together the basic case details: whatever’s attacking people is targeting individuals connected with the old case from the ‘90’s. “He wants revenge,” Adam notes.

Back at Adam’s house, it’s domestic protection time! They tell Adam to pack a bag so they can drop him off at Bobby’s house. Sam’s not so sure that’s the best tactic. They’ve got Adam - what the creature wants. “We could train him,” Sam says. “Get him ready.” Dean’s moderately horrified at this plan but Adam, lurking at the edge of the kitchen, agrees right away.

It’s training montage time! In a quiet wooded area, Sam teaches Adam how to shoot a gun while Dean looks on disapprovingly. In Adam’s kitchen, Sam teaches him how to untangle monster lore. “Being a hunter isn’t a job, Adam,” Sam imparts gravely. “It’s life.” Sam is...clearly so into his teacher / big brother role. (Cries about future plotlines.) Sam tells Adam that personal connections are weaknesses in the hunting life. Dean looks on with even more disapproval until he finally breaks and hauls Sam aside. The speech Sam was giving Adam is the same one that John gave Sam right before he left for Stanford. Oh MAN.  

Sam defends his John-script snatching, because now he knows the truth about the hunting life. Sam believes that the fact that they never had a picket-fence-childhood shaped them into who they are today: strong hunters. I mean, that’s TECHNICALLY accurate. Dean only agrees with the superficial details of that, though. It’s too late for them, Dean contends, but Adam still has a chance at a normal life. What a depressingly fatalistic way of expressing that, Dean Bean.

This cuts to the heart of the episode:

Sam: What makes Adam so special?

Dean: What, are you jealous of the kid?

Sam: Are YOU?

Oh, knife to the heart, Sam! Sam continues to insist that Adam’s apple pie life with dad was an illusion. The reality of the world is cold, dark, and full of monsters that want to destroy them. “Dad didn’t have a choice with us,” Dean argues - ever the John apologist, but Adam has a chance at a BETTER life. Stay tuned for my 8,000 word essay on John’s parenting choices. This episode makes me so sad for just...everyone involved.

As a result of this conversation, Dean makes it his personal mission to destroy the thing that’s coming after Adam so he can have that good life again.

Dean heads to the cemetery alone, finding broken crypts and cracked stones. In the gloom, he locates a loose stone which leads to a tunnel into the ground. Ugh, Dean, don’t go in there! Noooo!

Dean hauls himself through and into an old, ornate crypt scattered with bones. (Side note: what is UP with this fancy cemetery?) He finds a bloodied limb and a pair of glasses from the missing bartender. A noise crackles through the narrow tunnel and Dean shoots blindly into it, collapsing the tunnel. Ooops! He checks his phone. No signal. We are blessed with not one, but TWO “Son of a bitch!” outbursts.

At Adam’s house, Sam lays down salt lines and seals up the ventilation shafts - all except the one that was under his mom’s bed. Now there’s only one way into the house - through the creepy tunnel!

They hear a noise elsewhere in the dark house. “Mom!” Adam shouts, then breaks out running through the house. His mom stands in the kitchen. She just got away! She’s alive! Hooray?

Not hooray, Sam tells Adam. The woman standing there isn’t his mother. Sam levels a shotgun at her.

In the crypt, Dean’s still trapped. He starts looking through the crypt again, opening a recently disturbed coffin. Inside he finds the body of Adam’s mom, torn apart and stowed neatly out of sight.

Back at the house, Adam insists that his mom is really alive. Oh dear. Adam grabs the shotgun and Sam urges him to shoot her, shoot her she’s not human!

Adam suddenly smirks. “I know,” he says just before he knocks Sam out with the butt of the rifle. OH DEAR.

Cut back to Dean who opens another coffin and discovers Adam’s torn body. Dean puts two and two together, and starts to throw everything he has into breaking out of the crypt. He spots a stained glass window at the top of the room. An escape hatch!

Sam wakes up tied and taped to the dinner table. “You’re ghouls,” he realizes. The fresh kills aren’t the usual ghoul MO, so they didn’t think of them as suspects. Ghouls, as it turns out, take the form of their last meal and absorb their thoughts and memories as well. (Honestly, ghoul physiology is just fascinating. Please look forward to my white paper on the subject.)

The two ghouls tell Sam that the ghoul John Winchester had killed in the 90’s wasn’t a monster - he had never killed anyone. He only ate dead bodies. I mean...I know I have differing views of human remains than other people, but I really feel for that dead ghoul - killed for eating buried remains. The hunter that killed him was definitely a monster, in the two ghouls’ eyes.

Dean ingeniously finds his way out of the crypt by breaking an ornate stained glass skylight and then uses a bar pried from a coffin as a pull-up bar to haul himself out. Daaaaaamn that’s some fine body-weight lifting, mmmkay?

Back at the Milligan house, the two ghouls slowly slurp Sam’s blood and reminisce about their fatherless childhoods. The two ghouls are siblings and grew up alone thanks to John Winchester. They grew tired of feeding off of random graveyard takings and started up their revenge banquet. They take pleasure in telling Sam about Adam’s tortured death just before slicing open Sam’s veins.

Dean arrives just in time. A shotgun blast takes out one sibling and then it’s just fake-Adam against Dean. Sam’s blood drains quickly while Dean fights him one on one. He bashes fake-Adam’s head in and then frees Sam, wrapping cloth around the deep cuts. “That’s what family’s for,” Dean says in response to Sam’s muttered “thank you.”

Dean and Sam give Adam a hunter’s funeral. He was their brother, Dean reasons, even if he never knew about them. Sam suggests calling Cas and asking for him to resurrect Adam. (Which is a WHOLE BIG concept to unpack.) Dean turns that down, though. Adam’s in a better place now. (Which is pretty sensible, if you consider the looming apocalypse.)

As Adam’s body burns, Dean says, “You know, I finally get why you and Dad butted heads so much. You two were practically the same person. I mean, I worshipped the guy, you know? I dressed like him, I acted like him, I listen to the same music. But you were more like him than I will ever be. And I see that now.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Sam says.

“You take it any way you want,” Dean says, over a metric ton of buried trauma.

Natasha: Watching this through season 14 eyes, it feels SO cathartic to claim Dean as “Mary’s son.”

John Winchester’s Secret Family of Quotes:

One sip of Jesus juice, this evil bitch is gonna be in a world of hurt.

This is a trap.

Now I’m thinking about Dad-sex. Stop talking.

What'd Dad do with you on your birthday?

Why didn’t I throw paper?

Godzilla's just a movie.

He’s a Winchester. He’s already cursed.

The only thing you can count on is family.

We are what we eat.

Want to read more? Check out our Recap Archive! 

[mittensmorgul]

I think the 1st shot of an El Sol sign I noticed in the bar was after Dean said something abt Cosmic Cowboy. after 25:45 for me.

is the El Sol sign sort of a warning? sorry, idk what it’s supposed to symbolize in the show’s shorthand. but the sign showing up when sam and cas are in the mind bar kinda still fits with your interpretation? if im understanding u correctly, that is. /same 25:45anon

Hi there… and yeah, I missed it on first watch and have since reblogged a post with a screencap of it, but yes… every time the El Sol sign appears, it’s become a literal neon sign pointing out falsehoods.

Here’s the masterpost of every episode it’s appeared it so far (aside from 14.10, because Mel hasn’t updated it yet…):

http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/179004741085/justanotheridijiton-2x20-3x03-4x22-5x12

But the FIRST episode it appeared in, in fact Dean’s entire “wish ‘verse” in that episode was influenced by it, was 2.20. His girlfriend in that djinn dream reality, Carmen, was literally the girl from the El Sol ad, and he drank El Sol beer the whole time he was there. Ever since, it’s been either a warning to the audience that what we’re seeing is a false reality, or there’s some sort of active deception going on.

I mean, just look at every scene it’s appeared in, and it becomes obvious.

It was the beer Zachariah served Dean in Heaven’s Green Room, because he was being kept there on false pretenses at first. Dean refused to drink it (smart!) and instead fought back until he learned the truth about the apocalypse.

It was the sign hovering behind Dean and “””Sam””” in 5.12 (that time Sam was actually Gary…) (along with the Schultz sign hanging over Dean, because that’s the death beer sign)

in 5.19 it features pretty prominently in the bar in Blue Earth, the town convinced they were doing the will of God as directed by a prophet, when they’d been guaranteeing their direct tickets to Hell because their “prophet” was actually the Whore of Babylon… 

and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Every time it has appeared, there’s been some sort of flim-flam, false reality, deception, or flat-out lie attached to it. I used to append my tag for El Sol with this: for those not fluent in wanekese, el sol is the beer of illusions and deception. it is a warning sign. But now I just let the sign speak for itself. :P

And honestly I’m glad someone found the one hiding in Rocky’s Bar, because it had been BUGGING me that I couldn’t find it there… this is how well Jerry Wanek has us trained with his visual playbook.

[mittensmorgul]

More sheep and goats

I’ve been threatening to write long meta on 13.02, but there’s so much visual symbolism to parse out and it is so early in the season, so while there’s a barrage of imagery to sift through, it’s still a bit early to know what sort of weight to attribute to them, but a few of these things are also carryovers from s12. As such, Instead of writing that long meta, I’m gonna use this post as a pinboard of sorts and make some notes for future consideration.

(all screencaps from HotN)

We’ve already seen some hints (from bts and promo photos) that there’s a sort of cowboy/wild west theme running through at least a few of early season episodes, and that’s already become apparent between Dean’s Chuck Wagon Donuts and coffee, and the sign for the hotel:

Black Hat, with a side of glowing spur (which also resembles all the starburst lights Jerry Wanek is so enamored with). Even without knowing there’s an attached bar called the Black Spur yet, we’re already being subtly reminded of 10.01 and Dean’s “howling at the moon” with Crowley at another bar/motel called the Black Spur here. From 10.01, Black Spur and attendant blonde waitress/bartender that Dean had a relationship with (in a room with ugly yellow diamond-patterned lights in our prison imagery recap, while spending most of his time getting blazingly drunk and singing terrible karaoke and avoiding any sort of responsibility at all, since he was a demon and all that... but point being that Dean was with Anne Marie because she was there, and the alcohol was there, so he slept with her and drank and did whatever he wanted because he could):

And then the current Black Spur Bar, with attendant blonde waitress/bartender (who unbeknownst to Dean had been murdered and replaced by a yellow-eyed demon, but who Dean was as honest as he could be with, because he didn’t have any reason to lie. He also turned down her offer for another drink. Just because the alcohol was there and the waitress was there, didn’t mean he would just take them like he had in the past... a lot of this scene was a complete subversion of his Summer of Love...)

We even have a similar shot of her in profile as they have similar conversations from opposite ends of the line... One about abusive relationships, and the other about failing to live up to the expectations of an absent/abusive father.

Which brings me to the sign behind waitress!Asmodeus here:

While Dean had come to the bar to get a little reprieve from the horror of the last three days, he had ONE (1) drink, and not diving head first into a bottle, while looking through something on his phone in a rather contemplative and quiet fashion. It made me wonder if the place had reminded him of Crowley (and possibly their flickr albums), but also of Cas (who he’s been shown repeatedly to be in hardcore grieving mode over, and maybe scrolling through all the texting and emoticons Cas exchanged with him over the last few years). Whatever he’d been doing, it was clear he was looking for a little quiet space to collect his thoughts.

He’s interrupted by Asmodeus, who was fishing for information by doing what any bartender in an otherwise empty bar would do-- strike up a conversation with the only patron in the bar. I��ve read some pretty far-fetched theories that Dean should’ve been on his guard and suspicious of the woman, and that he was dumb for being so open and honest with her, and that it’s a definite sign that Dean is In A Bad Place™ and dangerously off the rails... and no? Just because he had a “bad feeling” about stopping at the motel/bar to begin with? (which they only apparently did because, as Sam said, Dean had been hallucinating sheep on the road... which actually reminded me of Cas’s dilemma over falling asleep in 9.03 when it was suggested that he count sheep, resulting in his perplexed wondering about what sheep...)

I’ve seen it suggested that the fact he didn’t immediately notice the waitress was actually Asmodeus was a sign that his “spidey senses” had failed, as a direct result of his current nihilistic mood. Even though it isn’t even until the following morning that they have any reason to suspect demonic involvement at all. They’d warded their rooms against angels, so Dean didn’t fear angels would be able to get to them for the time being. As far as Dean knows, he’s covered his bases.

Proof that his spidey senses (and self-preservation instinct) are still in full effect is his fight with the demon in his room the next morning. Even with his back turned, he knows there’s something behind him and he reacts appropriately. While talking with what he had no reason to believe was anything other than a human woman just trying to make polite conversation, he simply tried to do the same in return.

Asmodeus (walking around collecting empty beer bottles): Get you another? Dean (sitting at the bar with an undrunk shot of whiskey at his elbow, focused on his phone): Yeah, sure. Asmodeus: What the hell, you’re not driving, right? J.. I seen ya at the hotel. Passing through with, what? Your buddies? Dean (from a different angle, where the yellow and blue glowing Kingdom beer sign is now literally perched on his shoulder): Ah, that’s my brother, and... some messed up kid. Asmodeus: Aw, kid’s messed up? Dean: Yeah, issues with his dad. Asmodeus: The older fella? Dean: No, that’s uh, Donatello... uh, he’s a... guy we work with. Asmodeus: I hated my old man. I ran away myself. See, my mom would never stick up for me, but... (sighs) you know kids. No matter what, they still want the old man’s approval. Well, that’s how it was for me...  Dean: Yeah, That’s... that’s how it was with me, too. Asmodeus: I’m talking your ear off. I’ll-- I’ll grab you that drink. Dean: You know what? I’m good. Uh, I’m gonna take a walk. (he finally drinks his original drink and leaves)

NOTHING HE SAID IN THIS CONVERSATION WAS DANGEROUS OR LED TO ASMODEUS TAKING JACK. Nothing he said here was particularly secret info, and he obscured the actual truth of who the people he was with really were. He didn’t go announcing the kid’s father was Lucifer or that Donatello was a soulless former prophet of Chuck... I mean, this woman was trying to be nice to Dean, he was just trying to be left alone for a few minutes and still engaged in polite conversation that she essentially pushed on him, and excused himself after a reasonably polite amount of time. Notice through the entire conversation he continues looking down at his phone, signalling that he’s not really interested in conversation, yet the woman persists. If she’s noticing things happening at the motel enough to have noticed Dean’s associates, then he literally does need to give her some sort of reasonable story lest she get suspicious of him... That’s literally part of how Sam and Dean have always tried to blend into the background and not get noticed.

He was actually laying down what seemed like a reasonable cover story along the lines of reasonable cover stories they’ve always used in the past when locals got a bit overly-friendly or nosy about their business.

I did, however, find it interesting that after the establishing shot of the bar, the next shot we get is a wide shot in which the Fast Jack Ale sign is visible again, but is almost immediately obscured by this post beside Dean:

It’s on screen so quickly that there isn’t even a cap of it on HotN., but you can see it glowing a little bit from behind that post... I find it an interesting justaposition for an earlier shot, where Dean, Sam, and Jack first enter the hotel room. I’ve also seen a gif of this going around saying that Jack was the only one “in the light” in this shot:

Which is true in one sense, because you can barely see Sam in the shadows at the right, while Dean’s lit with red prison bar imagery... but at least he’s standing NEXT to a lamp. The source of light making Jack so bright isn’t visible to us, but the brightest light source in the room (that we can see, illuminating the bright blue wall over Jack’s shoulder in that first cap), Jack walks right to the center of the room and physically blots that light out with his body.

Considering the Fast Jack Ale light gets the same treatment by a big wooden post Dean’s leaning against in the bar scene, I find it interesting enough to point out here.

Okay, back to the shot of Dean in the bar, huddled around his phone... while the Fast Jack sign’s obscured behind him and all we see is the purple-to-pink glow above him (hello bi flag lighting). Thing is, as soon as Dean’s attention is drawn away from his phone, he’s reframed not against the bisexual colors, but with something protective hovering above his shoulder-- the Kingdom Beer sign most commonly associated with Cas.

Who said Cas wasn’t there to be the angel on Dean’s shoulder? Because that’s exactly what this shot’s implying throughout his entire conversation with Waitressmodeus. Short aside here to reiterate the comment I made last week about Jack walking around in the altogether looking for his “Father.” People thought I was joking when I suggested he hadn’t been talking to the pirate, but to the parrot on the pirate’s shoulder. I really wasn’t joking. For now, I’m taking this shot ^^ as proof that Jack was talking to the parrot.

It’s just like the shorts thing... Just because Cas said once, years ago, that he’s not there to perch on anyone’s shoulder... it’s kinda been his whole shtick for the last 10 years so...

Back to the point of this post... (sorry, as per usual, there will probably be more tangents I’ll run down... it’s because I have no other choice...)

Aside from the Kingdom, the obscured Fast Jack, and the 3 Sheeps, the only other glowing signs in this place are these:

The red and yellow Tom’s Tequila sign featured prominently in 11.21 (with very long meta attached here and here and here), but again it’s the red and yellow warning colors in this shot to counteract the blue and yellow heaven-coded Schultz sign (i.e. DEAAAAATH by duty). Note there’s no El Sol going on here, because Dean has no idea that the waitress isn’t anyone other than she appears to be. But the Tequila sign is sort of pointing to a bait-and-switch...

There’s also one of those infamous “caged halo” lights we so often associate with Cas on the ceiling behind Dean in this shot, but notice it’s switched off right now...

Also in the very near foreground of this shot, it’s hard to make out but it looks like two glowing beer taps, the handles of which are pink and blue. Just saying...

And again detouring back around to the original reason I starting putting all these images together... 

The 3 Sheeps meta from 12.16 and 12.18. 

We wrote a lot about different bible verses having to do with sheep and goats, including the passages from Luke where Jesus tells the parable of the prodigal son, which is the third version of the sheep/goats parable that he relates.

Sheep are mentioned several times in the Song of Solomon, as well. Throughout the bible people have been compared to sheep, flocks, etc. with the Lord as our shepherd. There’s no shortage of possible metaphorical comparisons to sheep imagery in the bible. But since we were specifically shown the Song of Solomon in this episode, I think that’s likely the source of comparison relevant to this particular episode.

But we also know that Jack himself is serving as a mirror for all three members of TFW. The Rule Of Three is applying in all sorts of different contexts through this one sign. :)

So there you go. I probably should’ve titled this Mittens Rambles On Pointlessly While Gesturing Wildly At Seemingly Random Stuff But I Swear All Of It ///Means Something///. None of this currently Means Anything yet, though. I’m just beginning to pin random stuff to my cork board. I haven’t even got out the red twine yet. I just wanted all of this potentially future relevant stuff in one place for ease of future pointing and screaming and red twine connect-the-dots. :P

[mittensmorgul]

I have a peculiar question concerning the recent photos of Dean grieving with head phones and drinking beer. Cause, from what I've understood American beer is basically piss water that doesn't taste good but also is not good for the purpose of getting drunk, especially for a seasoned alcoholic like Dean (I just made myself sad). So why is he drinking beer? Also, in Spn it's more of social/food drink anyway, so why not go for the hard liquor if its for "self-medication against heart ache" thing?

Hi there! I can’t believe you’re forcing me to defend American beer! But I’m up for the challenge. I guess we should lead in with a joke.

Why is American beer like screwing in a canoe? Because it’s fucking close to water.

*audience laughter*

I know that joke. And I have to say the bit about the flavor is true for SOME American beer. All the “lite” beer that really has very little in the way of flavor is hardly worth drinking if you actually LIKE beer. But a lot of folks drink it specifically TO get drunk, because it IS like drinking water, you know?

Sure, some brands have low alcohol content, but most fall into a range comparable to most European beers. I googled it and found this handy website:

http://getdrunknotfat.com/alcohol-content-of-beer/

Regular old Budweiser is 5% alcohol. We drink it because it’s not terrible, and it’s cheap (especially if we used to drink Yuengling until we learned that they supported Drumpf and reassessed our life choices...).

Brief aside to defend a lot of newer American beers that are definitely NOT pisswater in a can. We do know how to make decent beer, and there’s not just one kind of American beer. Especially in the last 20 years or so when craft breweries seem to be popping up everywhere. Yeah, those tend to be more expensive, but a lot of them have higher alcohol content too. We aren’t just a nation of pale lagers anymore. :P

So the real beer that Margiekugel is modeled after is Leinenkugel, which is 4.7% alcohol. It’s one of their standard go-to, we-just-keep-it-on-hand beers on the show. It’s also the “Mom Beer” by virtue of the fact it’s named after Jerry Wanek’s mother. :P

But the way Dean’s alcohol dependence has been shown over the years fluctuates wildly. In s7 during some of his lowest moments it became a plot point (can you even get drunk anymore? It’s like drinking a vitamin...), and he once said in 5.11 he told his hallucination of the psychiatrist that he had somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 drinks A WEEK just to get to sleep. (I JUST watched that episode)

But he’s never shown going into withdrawal, never shown really suffering the effects of alcoholism. He doesn’t suffer the DT’s in Purgatory, you know? And his alcohol use seems to be used more as a plot device to show his emotional state rather than an addiction. So looking at his drinking that way rather than in a “real world” way, we haven’t really seen him quite that bad off in a while, with at least eight empty beers all on his own.

Even for a dude Dean’s size, eight beers are gonna make a significant dent in your sobriety. He hasn’t been shown drinking an awful lot since... I’m thinking the last time we saw him drinking ANYTHING was the wine in 12.20? He had a couple of glasses and was looking chill but not drunk by any means. Before that we had Dean getting absolutely drunk under the table by Mick in 12.17. So we know from that his alcohol tolerance has slipped from his old s7 days of “alcohol is a vitamin.”

But drinking wine vs drinking beer vs drinking hard liquor are sort of coded differently socially. Wine was used as the “family dinner” drink with the Banes family. It was more of something pleasurable to drink and feel a little chill with. Hard liquor (especially drunk as shots or even straight from the bottle as we’ve seen do in the past) is essentially a vehicle from going from stand-up sober to passed-out drunk in the quickest time possible. Beer is somewhere in between, and Dean keeping a steady progression through beer after beer is the sort of drunkenness where you can remain upright but sort of sustain this state of almost on the verge of passing out indefinitely. Basically he was moody-broody, and that much beer is just a visual aid. :P

I think the whole point of that scene (without any other context to understand it yet) is that Dean doesn’t want to pass out and forget. If he’s listening to music, he’s basically flogging himself with feelings. He doesn’t want to forget, he’s just extremely pointedly focused on remembering. And being all emo about it.