#spn 14x19 meta

[soullessjack]

actually i think Jack’s whole psychotic meltdown after killing Mary makes a lot more sense when you remember that this was one of his worst fears:

i don’t have the exact scripts but suffice it to say, this is not the first time michael has insinuated that jack is his only equal/match/rival in terms of power, and it’s also not the first time he’s insinuated that jack would simply outgrow his sense of humanity and turn on everyone that he’s claimed as family; the fact that jack is even human to begin with is more or less a glitch in the system to all other angels. it’s “just a phase.”

and then on Jack’s response, all it says is that he doesn’t want to admit it could be possible. i feel like in most other scenarios like this, where the Hero has some connection to the Villain that’s used against them, the Hero usually just dispels the Villain’s claim of connection with some easy shit like “you’re wrong! i have confidence in myself to stay by my friend’s sides forever!” the villain is then defeated and the hero’s connection to them (and all that implies) is never brought up again. but here, with jack and michael, jack is clearly doubtful of his own humanity—I mean, he has been for a while, he’s just afraid to admit it to anyone because it holds too much risk of losing everyone he cares about.

jack has pretty much dedicated his life to proving that he isn’t evil, that he is trustworthy and safe and that he isn’t like Lucifer. however, while he and Mary are in apocalypse world you also get the sense that he now has to prove he isn’t like Michael—despite them being equals. but his dedication and determination are very much rooted in/responsive to fear, not just of losing everyone he loves, but for his True Nature to ultimately be evil and of his father.

so, of course killing his mother figure causes jack to spiral out of control and into psychosis, because he hardly understands what’s happened—he’s literally debating whether or not he intended to kill Mary while at Rowena’s flat—and he’s very jarringly faced with the potential reality that he had finally lost humanity and turned on everyone just as Michael had said.

and despite his literal subconscious telling jack that he’s as good as fucked, he can’t come back from this and he can’t call the Winchesters or the Bunker his home ever again, he obsessively tries to fix it and desperately denies that he could have actually wanted Mary dead or intentionally hurt her (remember he tells Rowena he just wanted her to “be quiet”) because how is he ever supposed to be seen as trustworthy again after possibly-deliberately hurting Mary (and later with Duma, the “nonbelievers”) when the entire reason he wasn’t trusted to begin with was the fact that everybody saw him as something dangerous/truly evil and merely choosing not to act on his true nature, and now if he can’t fix it, then he’s inevitably back in the pigeonhole of a dangerous monster, and Michael was right.

[adoptdontshoppets]

Why was dean so sad about his mom when she died?

I’m not a great expert on the later seasons, since they are not my favorite. I only rewatch a handful of later episodes, so I might not remember all the nuance.

That being said, my thought is that family has always been the most important thing to Dean. While at times he had his differences with her and she wasn’t around that much, he had forgiven her and loved having her back in his life in any capacity after having missed her for 33 years. And while it is unclear how much time has passed since the 14x13 Lebanon episode, they had just gone through the pain of losing their father again. So it may have hit him extra hard having both parents gone again, especially to have lost her for literally no reason...an “accident.”

Now as for me (even though you didn’t ask), I don’t miss her in the slightest because of how SPN wrote her character as one that can’t seem to be bothered to spend more than a few hours with them at a time. So in fact, my favorite Mary scene is when Dean kicks Mary out of the bunker in 12x14. That is one of the few moments I rewatch a lot.🤣

I just feel bad that the boys felt pain at her loss. They did give her a nice send off (even if the writers made another stupid decision to have a shapeshifter crash the memorial).

[tinkdw]

I see lots of posts saying Sam is just as complicit in the treatment of Jack as Dean but to me the feel is completely different.

Dean is vengeful first and foremost. It’s about what Jack did to mom. Secondly it’s about protecting others.

Sam is focused on the safety of others. Dean has to convince him to put Jack in the box. Sam I feel could definitely have been persuaded if he’d spoken to Cas to look for an alternative first.

There’s a reason we see Dean look completely unconflicted and with pure sad rage on his face all episode. He’s acting out of pain and vengeance. His is an emotional response.

Sam’s is the rational response. He is convinced by Dean but he is conflicted.

Why does he let himself be convinced? Look at this entire season.

He lost Dean to an Angelic force, now he lost mom to one.

He lost all his hunters, friends, a group of people to said Angelic force, now here’s another group lost.

Jack’s actions mirror Michael’s (though importantly they are not the same or with the same motivation they’ve similar enough) and this is what convinces him alongside the fear of losing Dean again if he argues I’m sure.

Sam and Dean did this together but the way they did it and their motivations are completely different.

Emotional v Rational. It’s like a caricature of 14 seasons of Sam and Dean.

[restlesshush]

People talk about how refridging Mary to make Dean want to kill Jack in the soulless Jack arc was a really shitty thing to do, and it was, but the thing is I don’t think that’s even quite what happened, writing-decision-wise. Refridging Mary is not only not necessary for the soulless Jack arc to work, it also actively makes it less effective as a storyline, specifically in ways that seem to clash with what was otherwise being set up. Which makes it look like they didn’t kill her to serve their plot, given they actively made their story worse by writing her out.

(Edit: I’m not going to speculate as to what was going on with Sam Smith because I don’t know, but approx 1400 words under the cut about what I think was happening writing-wise)

Anyway so this is all based on an initial theory from @autisticandroids (who also asked me to write this post, hi!) that the way Mary’s death was handled makes it look like the sort of character death that happens because of an actor having to be written out, rather than one the writers really wanted to do otherwise. And once you’re primed to be thinking about this, 14x18 especially does really come off as the show scrambling to try and make her death hit, which is sort of the opposite of what fridgings are for – they’re normally thought of as being a low-effort way to pack an emotional punch. But because we’ve kind of barely seen her all season (she’s in less than a third of episodes), and because this is Mary so if we’re going to kill her again it has to hit, they feel compelled to spend time giving us a couple of slightly on the nose flashbacks to try and make sure we care. It’s the sort of work you’d normally do before you kill a character, rather than slightly messily afterwards to try and make their death look worthwhile, which is really how it comes off here.

And the thing is, it’s not just that it’s kind of messy – it doesn’t actually help facilitate the soulless Jack arc at all really, instead it actively distracts from it. Obviously this is true in terms of screen time, because we have to take time away from Jack stuff for the flashbacks and for Mary’s funeral, but also in terms of the story’s focus. The interesting thread here is “someone we care about is ~dangerous now, what might we have to do to stop them??”, which is pretty decently well-trodden ground for spn, which you could easily have done just based on the snake and burning Nick alive on their own. And then in theory, this would all be made extra tragic by the fact that it was Jack saving them from Michael that even put him in that position, but we barely lean into this because we’re so focussed on Sam and especially Dean’s reactions to Mary’s death. Like, that thread does even still gets pulled on a little bit! You have Dumah's “he lost his capacity for good through an act of goodness” – and that’s what’s actually compelling here. But it’s barely touched on really, because if you’re going to kill Mary, that’s what you have to focus on, or at least that’s what the show seems to be convinced of. Nick even explicitly says it in 14x18 – “Buddy, you killed Mary Winchester. You cannot come back from that.” So we get hung up on an accidental death that could easily have just happened while Jack had his soul, instead of the actual implications of Jack’s soullessness beyond that.

Everything with Mary’s death also obviously makes Dean come off less sympathetically (and not in an interesting way), if he’s motivated by revenge, rather than genuine concern about what Jack might do. In part because of the revenge motive, he seems to take a genuine vicious satisfaction in tricking Jack into the box, for example, whereas if it was more a tragic last resort for how to deal with this very difficult situation, it would make for a much more nuanced and interesting situation, that would hit much harder.

And this isn’t the only way in which the restructuring of the arc to accommodate Mary’s death has implications re Dean’s character. It does look like they were setting Jack up as a Dean parallel here, which obviously if he’s killed Mary, it’s hard for him to be in the same way anymore. There’s a really good post somewhere which I’m annoyed I can’t find about how good leaders don’t ask their subordinates to do things they wouldn’t do themselves, and how Dean would do insane things and so thinks it’s reasonable ask his subordinates to do them too. The post explicitly cites Jack in the Box and iirc also Moriah (edit: it was this post and it cites Jack in the Box and Unity) as examples of this, and while it’s a really interesting piece of character analysis, it’s kind of striking when trying to think about writing decisions that 1) this stuff would be strengthened if Jack was still in the category of people Dean could see himself in, which because he’s killed Mary, he can’t be and 2) by drawing the parallels it draws, it also points out that “oh hey! The writers have chosen to put Jack in situations that Dean has also notably been in! What does this tell us?”

Moriah is probably the less strong of the two examples re just the situation, but the thing is that in addition to Dean effectively asking Jack to be prepared to die for the good of the world like he has before, the obvious thematic use of a mechanic like the Equalizer is “by killing this person you are killing yourself not only literally but also figuratively”. Like, something something supernatural and wasted potential goes without saying, but they did presumably come up with that object for a reason, y’know? But then Mary’s death and the revenge motive means that Moriah doesn't come anywhere near to playing like Dean killing himself on two levels even though like… what is the point of that gun otherwise? It almost feels like a fossil from a different story. And then the situation re the Ma’lak box is very similar. @autisticandroids pointed out to me separately a while ago that Jack is becoming Dean in ouroboros – “I am a winchester + eating michael + being destined for the box” – and also that were it not for the vengeance motive things would very much more come across as “oh my god dean’s putting himself in the box”, which y'know would be both hard-hitting and also the sort of thing spn loves to do.

And it’s also what they’ve been setting up! Like, you go from Dean having something dangerous inside him that means he might have to be locked up or killed, to Jack ending up in that position instead, specifically via him fixing Dean’s issue! It's even him specifically who directly argues for killing Dean to protect the world from Michael in 14x02! There’s a lot of groundwork there for them as parallels in s14 which Mary’s death undermines – the season is just structurally way tighter and more thematically resonant if you take it out. Getting rid of Mary’s death and the revenge motive for Dean (leaving a tension between concern about Jack vs concern about the world in its place) also meshes way better with the way they originally set up the stuff with Jack’s soul too, where it’s meant to be a sad thing for him, that he would no longer be himself etc. And like, that’s arguably partly because it’s Yockey handling it and he’s the only writer who cares about Jack, but it is still what was being set up. “Jack died –> the mechanism we used to bring him back allowed him to burn off his soul to be useful –> he’s dangerous as a result of this and oh god we have to do something about it” is way neater and more compelling as a trajectory if you don’t throw in “also he accidentally killed our mother and so Dean sort of wants him dead because of that too”. There’s a disconnect between the obvious route to take this story and then end result, and Mary’s death seems to be the thing lying behind it.

So yeah, Mary’s death was a bad writing decision not just because it’s not worth refridging her for the sake of the soulless Jack arc (which it definitely isn’t), but also specifically because it actively makes the soulless Jack arc worse. Obviously misogyny was frequently a driving force behind writing decisions on spn, but it doesn’t look like it was here in the way people seem to assume. It doesn’t look like they were killing a woman in order to serve our story – instead, the story has been actively derailed by them killing a woman. Which does really make it seem like that’s not why they wrote her out.

[musclesandhammering]

Jack: *accidentally hurts a few people because he literally does not have a soul, and then still feels bad about it to the point where he tries to bring Mary back and sits alone on a box in some random warehouse crying because his only friends will never trust him again*

Sam and Dean, without asking questions, immediately:

[deanwasalwaysbi]

Dean Morning the Loss of Jack as Family While Mourning Mary

Dean’s Out of His Mind in Jack in the Box Jensen’s acting in this episode is, as usual, everything. I will never forgive Buckleming for the second half of this episode. So we’re going to ignore it, just look at the first half and what is going through Dean’s f’ed up mind. 

Dean held it together in front of the hunters. Then he says he needs to get out of the bunker for a drink,  tells Sam he knows they need to talk about Jack, but not right now. Then he goes off alone - to sob.  We’ve seen Dean mourn before. It didn’t look like this. 

Here is the link to part two - specifically using color to look at Dean’s fear of loss in 14x18 being more profound as it related to Jack and Cas rather than Mary. 

Analysis of Dean’s grief in 14x19 in this post under the cut below

Dean’s changed since 13x01 - In both episodes he finds his privacy to grieve, but whereas before that grief was violent, now he’s less wrapped up in the toxicity he was taught and sobs. It’s a progression, but he still can’t be emotional in front of others, not yet. 

This time is different - Dean’s screwed up head:

Dean isn’t just mourning Mary. Dean is mourning Jack.  

His mom isn’t just dead, his son killed her.  Dean came around on Jack and raised him and believed he was good  ... and what if he was wrong.  What if it’s his fault that Mary died for trusting Jack.  

Grieving blaming Cas - Grieving being angry with Cas

Castiel kept information to himself, Cas might have caused Mary’s death.  but no, Dean didn’t care about the snake, not until it gave him someone to blame. He used to think things like Jack, things like Garth, things like him, couldn’t have domestic lives, used to think that Jack had to be hunted.  Dean learned to love Jack because of Castiel, because he was Castiel’s. Dean trusted Castiel into thinking he could even want this, into thinking they could have a family together in the first place. Now he feels like he has to reject Jack, that the old way was right. It’s like their family has been taken away from him  so he feels Cas betrayed him by inducing that trust.  Dean wanted a family and that family might have killed Mary, so maybe that’s his fault too.

Dean Said ‘Yes’ to Michael

Jack only lost his soul to defeat AU!Michael, which he wouldn't have had to do if Dean hadn't said Yes to him, so that's his fault too. So Mary's death is his fault.

Dean’s feelings are complicated and never fully fleshed out, but I think he is grieving How Mary died as much as the fact that she’s gone.  He is grieving the loss of the family that he had, family with Jack, with Castiel, ... with Mary and Sam.

[norahastuff]

I didn’t talk about this in my last post, but man Sam’s texts to Cas broke me. Presumably he knows something went down between Dean and Cas, he’s been there this whole time and seen how angry Dean has been with Cas, but he didn’t hear all the things Cas said to Dean before he left. He doesn’t know that Cas doesn’t feel like like belongs with them, that with Jack gone, he doesn’t feel like he has a place in their family.

Cas thinks Dean blames him from Mary, he thinks he’s dead to him. Well we know there’s more going on with Dean, he lashes out when he’s hurt but to Cas in his already guilty and grieving state he internalises those comments. But you know who does know that Dean has this tendency to look for someone to blame and to cling to anger so he doesn’t spiral from grief and pain? Sam. After all when Charlie died, Dean told Sam he wished it was Sam’s body burning on the pyre instead. Did he mean it? Of course not. But the difference was that Sam didn’t doubt that Dean loves him. Sure he’s been insecure about letting him down, or what his role is Dean’s life - see his speech to Dean in the s8 finale - but the fact that Dean cares about him has never been in question.

Cas doesn’t know that. He hasn’t be told, he hasn’t been saved.

However among the bigger more explosive Dean and Cas drama that’s been going on, Sam has been there too. When Dean lashes out at Cas with the “you’re dead to me” statement, Sam tries to stop him, and he continues defending Cas throughout the episode:

Dean: Cas should have told us. As soon as he saw Jack go all Dahmer on his stupid freakin' snake, he should have told us

Sam: Dean, it wasn't just Cas. It wasn't. We knew Jack was dangerous. We always knew.

Dean: No, you didn't know, okay?

Sam: We didn't know. Exactly. We didn't know

What’s more he even acknowledges that Cas has been the one that’s been taking the responsibility for Jack’s care since he was struggling since Michael killed all the hunters

Throughout the first three episodes of season 15, we’ve seen the tension between Dean and Cas build until it finally reached a peak in 15x03. However there’s been no such tension between Sam and Cas. They’ve been fighting together, helping each other - Cas even tried to heal Sam after he saved him from Gacy’s ghost. They’ve been good and in sync. In fact I’m honestly trying to remember the last time there was any real conflict or complications between the two of them and am drawing a blank on anything post season 9. That was when they had that beautiful episode, 9x11, where they talk about how they understand each other. Cas tells Sam how much he means to him, they have some light hearted banter, genuine conversation and adorable hugs. Not to mention Cas delivering the most glorious line that sums up why they have the relationship that they do, pretty well:

I’m not going to go on about it anymore right now but for more thoughts about the difference between Sam and Cas and Dean and Cas’ relationship in s9 see this post comparing the parallels.

Sam and Cas are easier. They don’t have the same baggage as Dean and Cas, they just have understanding and support. That’s why Cas’ radio silence hurts. Sam wants to be there for him. He cares and Cas needs to see and feel that right now. It’s why I’m so excited about next weeks episode. They could both use a friend right now. 

Edit: sorry not next week, the week after.

[weird-dorky-little-d]

[drsilverfish]

“So, who’s ready to take on the Book of Samuel?” (14x19)

This is Pastor Ames, who was coming by Shelley’s prayer group “... to discuss the Book of Samuel”. The one whom Jack cursed with being devoured by worms.

Look at the little image of a shepherd and his flock in the background. Relevant to Jack’s role as the new God, “shepherding” his flock of new angels, but also to the Abraham and Isaac story being referenced next week by the title Moriah (14x20) and the idea of Jack as a sacrifice (scapegoat):

http://drsilverfish.tumblr.com/post/184068368304/the-scapegoat-speculative-musings-on-s14s-end

I just realised the significance of Pastor Ames words, “So, who’s ready to take on the Book of Samuel?” for the Destiel/ queer subtext of 14x19 Jack in the Box. 

This is, therefore, a companion piece to my earlier meta on that subtext:

http://drsilverfish.tumblr.com/post/184305778829/a-pillar-of-salt-in-14x19-jack-in-the-box

The Biblical Book of Samuel is famous for its depiction of the passionate friendship/ relationship between David (he of David and Goliath fame) and Jonathan:

“I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan: very pleasant hast thou been unto me: thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.” (Samuel 1:26 King James Bible).

“And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.” (Samuel 18:1 King James Bible) .

“And Jonathan caused David to swear again, because he loved him: for he loved him as he loved his own soul.” (Samuel 20:17 King James Bible). 

Jonathan and David’s relationship is very relevant to Dean and Castiel’s, as you can see, because it has been extensively debated by scholars and priests, with some interpreting it as a platonic, intense, homo-social friendship, and some interpreting it as both passionate and homo-erotic. 

Oscar Wilde cited Jonathan and David’s relationship at his 1895 trial, as an example of the “love that dare not speak its name” (arguing, counter-intuitively, but in his defence against charges of [then illegal] sodomy, for the “platonic friendship” interpretation):

“Such a great affection of an elder for a younger man as there was between David and Jonathan, such as Plato made the very basis of his philosophy, and such as you find in the sonnets of Michelangelo and Shakespeare."

Neil McKenna, The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde, London, 2004.

The reference to the Book of Samuel can thus (in an episode which continues Dean and Castiel’s lovers’ quarrel, begun in 14x18, over the fate of their adopted son) be understood as a knowing meta-narrative commentary on Supernatural by the text itself - an acknowledgement (itself in subtext) that Dean and Castiel’s relationship can be read as either a homo-social, comrades-in-arms style friendship, or as a homo-romatic/ homo-erotic attachment. 

This is a lovely little Easter egg. However, it is also, perhaps more evidence that Supernatural intends to hold onto that ambiguity of interpretation til the end. 

It might also be fore-shadowing (yikes)  because (Biblical spoiler alert) Jonathan dies in the Book of Samuel and David laments him:

“How have the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle! Jonathan is slain on your high places. I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan; You have been very pleasant to me. Your love to me was more wonderful, than the love of women. How have the mighty fallen, And the weapons of war perished!” (Samuel 1:23)

Dammit Bucklemming! 

I swear, they have written another decent episode.

[junkcas]

something just hit me about cas' wording in absence: the difference between “family” and “a family.” he didn’t say, “we were family, and i didn’t wanna lose that.” he said, “we were a family.” as in, instead of just having a general familial connection, they were an actual family unit. the fact that cas wants to be part of the winchester family has always been obvious, but what he’s talking about here is almost frighteningly more domestic.

[postmodernmulticoloredcloak]

About Dean’s emotions in 14x19

Remember that Dean wanted to be a firefighter when he was a child.

He saw a fire killing his mother and felt like it was his responsibility to be able to prevent fires from hurting anyone else. He felt like it was his fault if his mom died because he wasn’t able to save her.

All that crap he dumped on me, about protecting Sam! That was his crap. He’s the one who couldn’t protect his family. He... He’s the one who let Mom die. Who wasn’t there for Sam. I always was! He wasn’t fair! I didn’t deserve what he put on me.

He carried the guilt for letting Mom die until he was too emotionally exhausted to keep that weight, together with all the other weights, on his shoulders, and acknowledged to his subconscious that it was John, the adult, that should have carried the responsibility for the family, not him. But he still carries those weights, because John is gone, dumping more weight on Dean’s shoulders. He just acknowledges that it wasn’t fair, but that can’t change that the trauma is still there.

Of course it was never Dean’s, or John’s, or Sam’s, fault that Mary died, but does our mind, do our emotions care about factual truth? Emotional truth is perfectly enough for trauma.

Dean’s emotional truth was guilt and the incommensurable weight of responsibility over his entire family.

And what is Dean’s emotional truth now? He blames himself for Mary’s death again. Because he didn’t see the signs, because he lowered his guard about Jack despite knowing how dangerous he could be. Because he grew attached to the kid and became unable to see his danger. Getting angry at Cas allows him to temporarily outsource that guilt a bit, but the truth is that Dean blames himself for things. It’s what he does. It’s actually a good thing that he can unload the guilt in the immediate aftermath of realizing something’s happened to Mary, because at least he gets a way to deal with his fear and guilt by directing it into anger for a bit.

But the thing with Dean’s character is that anger is never just anger, anger is fear and guilt.

He’s terrified of Jack now. He’s grieving Mary, he’s scared of Jack, and carrying the guilt for Mary’s death and Jack’s situation (remember that they are convinced that Jack’s problem is soullessness, despite that being only partly true: to the audience, it’s evident that Jack’s problem isn’t the same as when we’ve seen humans lose their soul, but in the circumstances Dean sees him, he appears like an unfeeling creature devoid of empathy. Dramatic irony...) because let’t not forget that Jack, as his de facto adopted child, has become his responsibility too, in addition to a person Dean genuinely cares about as his closest family.

When he faces Jack, he’s furious. Jack killed his mom. He’s been programmed since he was four to hate the thing that killed mom, but again, even without that, you know, fury against the person who just killed your mother so brutally there was nothing of her left afterwards... is a pretty normal human reaction.

But he’s also scared. He’s been scared of Jack ever since Jack started acting ‘off’. Why do you think Dean was so upset when Cas kept mentioning the snake? Because Dean projected his discomfort and worry and fear - that he was actually starting to feel towards Jack - onto the snake instead. He underestimated Donatello’s invite to caution. He just focused on the discomfort he felt towards the snake... sure, he felt uneasy around the snake, but what, deep down, he really felt uneasy around... was Jack.

Now the fury - the grief-induced fury, again, it’s a perfectly reasonable thing for him to feel - burns more brightly, but let’s not forget that both Dean and Sam are terrified of Jack there. They’re not simply nervous because their plan might get busted, they commented earlier that they needed to find Jack before Bobby and the other hunters because Jack could kill them all (Dean says it but Sam doesn’t contradict Dean). They’re genuinely scared Jack would kill them. Heck, they can’t be sure Jack wouldn’t kill them regardless of their trick - Mary was family to him, and look at what happened to her.

Dean feels responsible for stopping the thing that has killed his mom (and is killing more innocent people, and, oh, apparently making angels, talk about alarm bells ringing...). He is in pain, he feels guilty, and he’s scared. He’s reliving his childhood trauma again. He allows himself a bit of time to cry in private, but there’s this new emergency to deal with. And he needs to deal with it, because that’s on him.

[soullessjack]

Also just since my one jack-psychosis post made its rounds i’d love to add on these things for extra salt in the wound:

-> “jack smiles, so happy to be so needed, so loved.”

-> “they’ll never want to be friends again.” [“and that’s important to you?”] “they raised me. taught me to be who i am.”

[naruhearts]

Quick Post-14x19 Thoughts

(I’m busy packing for my trip to Seattle during Easter Weekend and can’t really review 14x19 yet, but—)

I’m so emotionally exhausted in good ways from the Emotion-centric Plot A this season!!! THE NARRATIVE IS CHARACTER-DRIVEN!!

Plot B is literally linked to character-driven Plot A by interpersonal relationships. Case in point: Plot A as TFW/Destiel splitting apart at the seams over Jack their mirror which dictates the emotional decisions made in 14x20 (i.e. Dean wanting to kill Jack) and subsequently manifests to the external world as Plot B — Chuck returning re: Jack’s finale fate.

Biggest example: Plot A Cas directly influencing Plot B the Empty, who will take him depending on his emotions (happiness) re: his family (and Dean).

The characters and their relationships have always carried the weight of Supernatural’s run, especially in recent Family/Love and..Love-themed years (since S12). It’s about the journey, not the destination.

And I do hope and predict that S15’s Big Bad won’t be solely Eldritch. It’ll be a Character Journey Big Bad: mending relationships and tying up loose threads (after they are destroyed/broken in 14x20, with obvious Big Bad Jack representing EMOTIONS and internal conflict ever since he was conceived; in other words, he’s been the unifying TFW mirror with an emotional character-driven narrative since S13).

What is the long-running familial loose thread, here?

Cas fully accepting (for himself) that he is part of the Winchester family and freely choosing Humanity; Dean and Sam telling/showing him that he’s family as well as being transparent with Cas and one another to further stabilize and nurture TFW into the best versions of themselves that they were always meant to be (and oh my gosh, Dean crying and releasing his pent-up emotions in the rain, not in a bar with some drunk-stupor distraction, over Mary’s death - in the most grief-cathartic way tonight *HUGE KUDOS to Jensen*? That’s blatant growth. It’s heartbreakingly beautiful).

What is the long-running romantic loose thread, here?

Dean and Cas reconciling (aka ending their spousal-coded domestic dispute), getting their shit together, and entering into a canon textual mutually interdependent (HONEST) relationship (recall that, again, Dean still doesn’t know about Cas’ deal with the Empty).

(Intriguingly, 14x20’s titled Moriah, the mountain on which Abraham sacrificed Isaac *points at all the pre-existing meta about this*, and my Catholic-raised brain is spinning here, because Abraham was interrupted by an angel, who coaxed him to change his mind. In terms of what the finale promo already showed us...one obvious possible subtext-text interpretation here is Dean = Abraham or Cas = Abraham, Isaac = Jack, Cas = the angel, Chuck as God himself intervening. Multifaceted Subtext where Everything Means Something.)

And Chuck, the ultimate deadbeat Father/parental abseenteism figure, will return.

I’m scared and excited, friends!! Season Who Am I 14 ending on a character-driven last cliffhanger that acts as the narrative segue to break the Ouroboros spiral of Self-toxicity/Parental Toxicity and recapitulate the great Nature vs Nurture debate.

USE YOUR WORDS.

[nerdylittleshit]

Thoughts about Spn 14x19

SPOILERS AHEAD!

Sooo. A bit later than usual, but I’ve been busy these past days and I’m not that excited about the current direction Supernatural is heading at, so watching the new episode was not on top of my do to list. Overall I liked the episode and it reminded me a lot of the Godstiel-arc. Jack continues to be an interesting antagonist and I’m curious to see what the show will do with him in next week’s season finale, though I try to keep my expectations low (yes, Mary’s death still leaves a very bitter taste in my mouth).

Without further ado let’s take a closer look.

When is a monster not a monster? Oh, when you love it.

In a show that is all about saving people and hunting things the big question is: is Jack people or things? Can he still be saved or is Bobby right when he says Jack is a monster who no longer knows right from wrong.

We start the episode with Mary’s memorial ceremony, which for one thing shows us that there are a couple of AU hunters left, but also the legacy Mary left behind. That she was family not just to her sons but to all those people. And as Dean reminds us, that Mary was more than just a mother, that in the time they had together her sons had the chance to get to know her as a person. And looking back the past seasons and the way Mary was portrayed this is what the show did as well: making her more than just a mother. Instead she became a wonderfully complex layered female character, that not everyone could always agree on, ironically because they allowed her to become more than just a mom and to make mistakes as well. I’m still angry about the decision to kill her off, especially as it seems they only did it to develop the current plot into a certain direction and they no longer had any idea what to do with her character, after her arc with Bobby was completely dropped and instead we were told that being reunited with John is what makes her complete. Somehow I don’t see her returning and if so it would feel cheap and it still pains me that we are going to end this show the way it started: with a dead mother.

We see everyone affected by Mary’s death grief in a different way: Bobby wants to kill the one responsible for her death, Sam wants to talk about her, whereas Dean pretends to be ok, until he is on his own and breaks down crying (I’m Dean). And then we have Jack who sees Mary’s death as something abstract. Of course by the time he returns to Sam and Dean Dumah has already manipulated him, so him referring to Mary’s death as an accident is just repeating what Dumah said. Dumah gives him the redemption he so desperately needs by telling him he can still be good, he can still make it up to Sam and Dean. She saw the immense power Jack has and that he no longer has a human moral code to guide him, so she used him for her own purposes. But the question remains if Jack honestly regrets Mary’s death or if he is just fearful of how his family will react to him now.

In his desperation Jack reaches out to his mother, symbolically his human side, but the only answer he gets is hallucinating Lucifer, presenting his dark side. Lucifer voices out every dark thought Jack has ever had. I don’t think Jack is evil, but he is not good either. He is an empty vessel, looking for guidance, with way too much power at his hands.

A lot of Jack’s story reminded me of the Godstiel-arc. Both start to punish people who are in their eyes non-believers. Both think that what they do is right and just. The difference is that Cas acted on his own, whereas Jack was manipulated by Dumah to do those things. Cas was filled with souls, whereas Jack is missing his soul. Both times it is Sam who reaches out to them, who believes that perhaps they can be saved. Both times it is Dean who is the hardliner, but who is also unable to kill the family that hurt him. In both cases, Godstiel and now Jack, the opponent was too powerfull to be killed, but I think symbolically it also means Dean can’t do it. Despite everything Dean loved Cas, he now loves Jack, so he locks them up, the way he could never kill Sam. Cas and Sam both believe in Jack, that he can be saved, because they became monsters as well. They did horrible things (and even Jack knows that they made mistakes) but they always believed that they could redeem themselves, so now they put the same trust in Jack.

I don’t think that Dean’s decision was unreasonable. Jack is incredible powerful and has no longer a moral code to guide him. The reason Dean started to trust Jack was because he saw something good in him. But the entire conversation Jack had with Sam and Dean proves what Dean fears the most: that Jack can no longer tell right from wrong. A huge kudos to Jared, Jensen and Alex for acting this scene so brilliant. The way Dean had to restrain himself, how heartbroken Sam was knowing he had to lie to Jack, and Jack, oblivious to all of that, because he can no longer tell if someone lies to him, if someone tries to manipulate him. He still wants to do good, but the question is if he wants to do good because it is the right thing or because he wants to go back to the way things were, where his family still loved and trusted him?

In the end Jack is a monster that has been made. As Dumah reminded Cas Jack gave his soul in an act of goodness. If he now turns against Sam, Dean and Cas, if he becomes the monster they initially feared he could be, it is because they treated him like a monster, like a thing that has to be locked away instead of someone worth saving.

Some other things:

The way I remember angel lore human can’t simply become angels. We know human souls can be twisted to become demons, but here they are seemingly upgraded. I wonder if we will see those human-angels again and what effect it will have on them and the consequences of it.

Dumah treated Mary and John, therefore Cas’s family, and got killed. Big mistake.

Deans says that the stuff Ketch left behind is not too bad, talking about the alcohol, but I thought there was some deeper meaning as well. Ketch was a Men of Letter and he would have handled the situation with Jack the way Dean did. He left behind his own imprint on Dean.

[kylermalloy]

Darth Jack and the predictions of doom

Disclaimer: The following is nothing more than my speculation/optimistic hope/projection-of-what-I-want for the rest of the season.

So with the combination of the trailer for 14x14 and the release of new episode titles, there’s been a lot of fear that Jack will go darkside. I’ve seen lots of posts freaking out about it. I’m freaking out too. This is something I DO. NOT. WANT.

But honestly? I think he will.

Just...not how we think.

Let’s examine evidence:

Even before the season started, I thought they would be killing Jack. At first I figured he would be a victim of Michael’s brutality, but then his magical consumption kicked in and I and everyone realized he would die of that.

Sure enough, midseason we got a cliffhanger episode of Jack collapsing, and the following trailer showed him going on a bucket-list trip. The next episode just cemented that he was a goner.

BUT...he came back! This is IMPORTANT! Trailers never give us the full story.

The trailer for the episode where Jack actually died didn’t show Jack at all. The trailer for the 300th gave no mention of John whatsoever.

For this trailer for the next ep, Ouruboros, they’re showing us things that will keep us worried. The way everyone spent weeks worrying about Jack after he coughed blood. The way they ended 14x06 with Jack unconscious and bloody. This time we see Jack exclaiming “I’m the son of Lucifer!” and doing something nefarious to Rowena.

So is he going to go evil? Yeah, probably.

But is that the extent of the story? No.

I was expecting this last year—for Jack to go off the rails, to become too drunk with his power, to become unreasonable. To an extent, we got that with him in the apocalypse world planning to kill Michael. This year, we have the added bonus of Jack’s power coming at the cost of his soul.

I...kind of like it. It’s a meaty setup. There’s potential for some good storytelling here, if it’s played right. I don’t mind Jack going down a dark path. As long as he doesn’t stay there.

And I don’t think he will.

Why not? A few reasons.

First of all, Cas’s deal with the Empty. He promised to go along with the Empty whenever he was happy. Since Supernatural is incapable of keeping a plotline dormant and waiting for more than a season, that’s likely coming to bite him sooner than later. Even if they defeat Michael (which I’m assuming will be what kicks off his deal) Cas wouldn’t be truly happy if his surrogate son is either evil, dead, or rotting in a box.

Which brings me to my next big point: the ep titles. IMDb has released several new ep titles, and at least one is cause for concern. Pay attention to ep 307, which is the penultimate episode of the season. (14x19)

Jack in the Box.

We’ve established Chekhov’s Box with Dean building it for himself. Even if he’s decided not to use it, that huge plot point which took up two whole episodes, is not going to disappear. It’s likely someone will end up in it. I’m rooting for Nick, but that title is teasing someone else.

Do I think Jack is going in the Ma’lak Box? Not permanently. Something that big wouldn’t be spoiled in an episode title. (Of course, the title could also be referring to the scary toy that pops up out of nowhere, terrifying children and adults alike. An evil Jack could easily fit this description.)

Now, I wouldn’t put it past the writers to play with timelines, but I wanna point out that Lily Sunder lived for a century doing soul magic, and a tiny sliver of her soul still remained when she died. (Her personality, despite a diminished soul, was arguably unaffected.) Unless Jack is doing heavyweight crap like pulling his father back from nothingness every week, he shouldn’t be losing his soul yet. Also, becoming soulless would put a full stop to his abilities, so...

So am I worried? Of course. I like Jack as the pure good bean who looks up to Sam and loves his little found family. It would be a depressing slap in the face to see all of that thrown away.

But I’m not freaking out completely. Don’t trust the trailers; they’re lying liars who lie. Even if Jack does go down a dark path, there is no reason for him to stay there.

[biceratops7]

Why I’m disappointed in spn rn

If you’re looking for positivity, you might not want to read this, but if you’re looking to vent about supernatural, ooooh boy, this is the post for you.

I think I finally pin pointed why the jack plot line is making me so upset: it feels lazy. Don’t got me wrong, I love angst. I loved season 10 because it was so dark! But there’s a difference between angst that makes sense and furthers the story in a new and interesting way, and characters acting depressingly cruel just for the sake of easy high stakes. The way Dean is acting leaves me empty and not in the good way. The way he smiles a little when jack is in the box made me a little sick to my stomach, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I feel like Dean’s definite desire to kill jack cheapens what could’ve been one the most emotional and thought provoking plot lines of the entire show. And I get that he killed their mom and family is everything, but guys, 👏Dean can love more than one person. 👏Wouldn’t it be so much more interesting if they had to grapple with the fact this person killed their mom but is still the boy they loved as a son for two years? Wouldn’t the sucker punch to the heart of putting jack in the box make so much more sense? What makes this so frustrating is that it completely looked like that’s the direction they were going!

They didn’t even bring any weapons. The way Sam calls jacks name is tentative. Neither of them look like they have any intention of harming Jack despite the power he’s holding right now. It’s a moment when the remnants of a broken family comes face to face and for a second. It’s beautiful, and conflicting. But they throw that all away by deciding they’re just gonna have Sam and Dean treat jack like some monster who killed Mary and nothing else. Assuming we’re all right and Chuck will come back to help fix jack’s soul, what the hell is the after math of that gonna look like? Is Dean just gonna be like “oh, your soul’s back, guess I can just let go of hating you buddy :)”? literally how bad would that writing look coming from any other show? Here’s an idea that (in my opinion) would make this plot line a million times better: Sam and Dean don’t want to kill jack, they feel like they have to. Think of how that would give Sam his first real plot line since season 8 being the first present father figure in jack’s (not in the womb) life. Think of how much Dean’s character would be furthered and complicated by this new development of something (a loved one killing a loved one) he never wanted to anticipate. It would show once and for all that team free will is a family shaken and clinging to each other in the midst of tragedy because they’re all they have left. Wouldn’t the literal deus ex machine of Chuck restoring Jack’s soul be so, so much more earned? The most joyous of endings after the darkest of nights? This was a frustratingly missed opportunity that inverts the growth of all major main characters.