#this is the result of rewatching the shooting episode and reading some incredibly beautiful and painful poetry that inspired me

[lonelychicago]

because, evan— by pining idiot, eddie diaz.

[slothcritic]

Dragon Ball Z Abridged - Episode 9 Review

Consistently funny. The weak points do not drag this episode down.

The Set Up begins with a great cold open. Piccolo is drop-dead unconscious on the ground, Gohan is desperately trying to wake him up, and Krillin is anxiously awaiting for Goku to show up. After all, he’s their friend who would never let them down right? Meanwhile... Goku is busy eating at Jadoshin's palace. Even as a departure from the original series, I like the idea that the two of them made up and are friends now. Jadoshin, however, has to remind Goku about the Saiyans. Goku then runs out in a panic.

[Title Sequence]

Piccolo isn't getting up and Nappa needs a new toy. He chooses Gohan seemingly at random from the two remaining, and floors him in one kick.

"Wooo! Not me!"

When Krillin isn't being the resident Milhouse, he's the rimshot comedian. The joy doesn't last for much longer though, as Gohan stays down.

Nappa is about to tear Krillin a new one, when the bald monk suddenly screams out that it's his turn. And for some glorious reason, this actually works on Nappa. This is some straight up Looney Tunes, "Duck Season, Fire!" type tomfoolery.

Vegeta does not handle Nappa's stupidity very well, and in his anger does a fourth wall break where he references a timestamp in the video. This is kind of clever and a bit of a break from the other fourth wall jokes that they've done so far, but I feel like it could lose its charm if it's done more than once. As for the timestamp itself, which is at 9:18 in the video... we'll get to that later.

Krillin decides to use the Destructo-Kienzan, and Vegeta shouts a warning to Nappa that it's a trick.

"But Vegeta... tricks are for kids."

The tense background music just completely stops here, but you can still hear the vibrations of the kienzan in the background. Great sound design. The long pause afterwards is also well timed, and Vegeta takes up the "fuck it, you wanna die, then die." mentality with Nappa. This skit is succinct, well paced and well editied.

Nappa receives a deep cut to the face for his troubles, as it just nearly takes his head off. Nappa laments his modeling career, and the scene cuts to a photoshopped rendition of Nappa on Vogue magazine. The bald, beautiful Saiyan, and his 10 tips on being a better lover!

This might have been a joke before its time, or perhaps the intention was different while writing this in 2009, but Nappa shows us all what a "nice guy" he was trying to be during all of this, and now decides "okay, full ultra-violence it is!" and fades Krillin with a white sparkly angel dust attack. I'm sure it has an actual cool sounding name (Like "Galaxy Breaker" or something) but I'm going to keep calling it the white sparkly angel dust attack. The owned counter ticks up to 8 here, but it doesn't feel deserved.

Piccolo jumps up with an "I'm back" and shoots Nappa... in the back. He sees what you did there. Just as Piccolo and Nappa are about to throw down, Gohan appears out of nowhere and roundhouse kicks him through a boulder. More indication that Gohan has some incredible hidden power inside of him. This surprises Piccolo, and Gohan is initially apologetic, but Piccolo begs for him to stay angry before Nappa just as quickly hops back to his feet.

It turns out Gohan hit Nappa so hard that he turned Italian. Seems a little out of left field, but why not. The "I'm a firing my laser" reference is perhaps the most dated thing I've seen since Episode 1. Would this even count as a meme? Wasn't "Firin Mah Laser" something that came out before the word meme even became popular as a way of describing internet fads, jokes, templates and trends? Back when Demotivational Posters and I Can Haz Cheeseburger ruled the internet? Truthfully, I loved this joke when it came out, but now all it does is remind me of the proto-internet days. And part of me feels weird for being nostalgic about that, because I just know someone in their 30's is going to read this and roll their eyes saying "Oh God, I'm getting old", in much the same way I'll feel horrified when people start to become nostalgic for Fortnite in the next 10 or 20 years.

Back to the episode, Piccolo's sacrifice happens right about here, and the scene does a good job of pointing out a plot contrivance in the source material. Piccolo could have just grabbed Gohan and moved out of the way. Though the scene plays up the amount of time Piccolo had to work with, there was still nothing stopping him from just grabbing him and chucking him like a bag of potatoes out of the way, even in the original. However, if Piccolo doesn't die, there's no real reason to go to Namek. What I think might be a more practical reason is that, this is a turning point for Piccolo as a character where he starts thinking emotionally. It's no real secret across both the canon and the abridged material that Piccolo is actually a pretty decent parent. So this right here is the idea of Piccolo more or less abandoning rational thought and considered only protecting Gohan. That contrasts a little with the ruthless, methodical, cunning, intelligent character he's been shown to be, just to throw that all away to save him, but the contrivance definitely becomes less egregious when you consider these factors.

However you want to address it, then end result is that Piccolo sacrifices himself to protect Gohan. In the original this is capped off with Piccolo comparing Gohan to his son, which is what Gohan begins to explain before Piccolo calls him a nerd. In this series however, Piccolo laments one final time:

"Why... didn't you... DODGE!!!"

Bleh. And with Piccolo's death, Kami is soon to follow. He explains the Namekian Dragon Balls to Mr Popo, and the long (very long) journey that must be undertook in order to revive everyone, but Mr Popo outright refuses and simply reminds Kami of the pecking order. Kami dies, and thus the Dragon Balls become inert.

Back at the battlefield, Vegeta was busy reading an issue of that very same Vogue magazine with Nappa on the cover and thus didn't see him kill Piccolo, like a mother three sangria's deep at her kid's soccer practice.

I've never much cared for Gohan's exasperated expletives in this or any scene in DBZA. This one in particular doesn't sit well with me simply because they went to the effort of being purposefully verbose but then still chose to use the word "condom" over "contraceptive" - A condom is made of latex, whereas a contraceptive is any kind of device at all that prevents pregnancy. As an example, some of the first contraceptives in history were made from linen and animal intestines, while the condom itself wasn't invented until 1855. Gohan specifically saying he's going to use Nappa's intestines as a condom serves the same purpose either way, but “contraceptive” would’ve been more technically accurate, in a bit of dialogue that is purposefully trying to be technically accurate. I wouldn't be picking on the semantics so much if that weren't the express purpose of this entire scene. Also it has more syllables and therefore sounds more smarterer.

Nappa gives this scene the backhand and the "bitch please" it deserves and we're done with that.

"Everyone important to you is dead." "Hey I'm still alive--" "EVERYONE important." "...Damn it."

See, this is where the Krillin Owned count should have gone up.

After Nappa doesn't smash, Goku appears on the battlefield. His reaction to showing up too late and everyone being dead is uncharacteristically deadpan, and it's hilarious. He asks where Chiaotzu is, and Krillin gives him the Achmed the Dead Terrorist explanation. Over there, over there, and up there. I'm not actually sure if this episode predates Jeff Dunham or not, but I enjoy both, both used the same joke at least once, and both make me laugh so I'm drawing the comparison anyways.

Goku asks why everyone is dead and Nappa immediately and without hesitation calls dibs. This leads into one of most famous and iconic scenes, if only for meme reasons, in all of DBZ.

"Vegeta, what does the scouter say about his power level?" "It's... 1006." "Wha-- Really?" "Yeah. Kick his ass, Nappa!"

Not gonna lie, this genuinely made me burst into laughter the first time I saw it. I don't know if it was just shock value or what, but it doesn't have the same effect now that I know it's coming every time I rewatch this episode. I just love the idea of the scouter being upside-down and Vegeta not questioning it. An even better headcanon is that the scouter was never upside-down, Vegeta was just getting tired of Nappa's bullshit and just decided to send him into an ass-kicking anyways.

We're treated to a solid 15 seconds of Nappa getting completely curbstomped while the various characters look on in shock and awe, until Nappa gets dumped at Vegeta's feet.

It's also here that Vegeta finally learns that Piccolo's life is directly intertwined with the Dragon Balls. I believe this was already established in the original series, but no such conversation ever occurred here. Vegeta has quite simply lost his chance at immortality and it’s all because of Nappa.

I actually wonder how an immortal Saiyan would work. They receive a Zenkai boost, which makes them stronger when they almost die, but if you can't ever die, you can't ever “almost” die either, so you wouldn't get the Zenkai boost and your power wouldn't increase that way. Then again, most expectations of logic or consistency within Dragon Ball are pretty much always doomed.

Speaking of doomed, remember that timestamp at 9:18 that Vegeta referenced earlier? Because Vegeta certainly does, and with both the camel’s and Nappa's back having officially been broken, Nappa is sent to the shadow realm in a blinding flash of light and a massive explosion.

Vegeta's smirk is all we needed to close out this episode. There is no stinger.

Conclusion

Really good episode, actually. I wouldn't consider it as strong as Episode 7, but it definitely holds the same energy throughout. There are more high quality comedic moments in this episode than I could count on both hands. At worst some of the dialogue was uninteresting, pointless or overproduced, but the average pace of this episode rests rather highly compared to its valleys.

Microphone quality and sound mixing on some pieces of dialogue is still meh. Krillin's first line in this episode peaks the audio or something similar, because it takes me out for a hot second just because it's so sudden and emphatic.

We also see a slight evolution in the dynamic between Vegeta and Nappa which keeps things fresh. This is becoming less of a deadpan snarker and over the top clown, treads more into the ticking time bomb territory which is great for slowly building tension, and not unjustly as it has a satisfying payoff.

Plot holes in the original are addressed and lampooned here, creative jokes such as the Vogue Nappa and “1006″ are present and accounted for, and on the whole there's a lot of very on the mark humor, and only some of it is overdone. The story for this episode also holds significant weight and momentum, and it all blends together quite well with an above-average script and some great visual and audio edits.

Score: 77

Passing Thoughts

"Riiiiiicola!" - Oh hey, it's this again.

"Oh and I totally killed that guy. Oh well, at least we still had fun getting here, right Vegeta? Vegeta? Remember the bug planet? Vegeta? Vegeta? Vegeta? Vegeta? Vegeta? Vegeta? Vege-- AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!"

[logh-icebergs]

Episode 30: Lost Things

March 18, 798/489. In the Empire, Reinhard’s fleet prepares to warp Geiersburg Fortress into the Iserlohn Corridor. On Iserlohn, Yang prepares to submit to a dubiously lawful inquiry by the hostile—but democratically elected!—Alliance government. Hilda convinces Mecklinger to pay a visit to her sick cousin, who teaches us all about the importance of having hobbies. And Geiersburg’s test warp, thanks to Kempf and Mueller’s adept leadership, goes off without a hitch. Meanwhile, Reinhard sinks deeper into depression, Julian blows off steam at the shooting range, and Reuental and Mittermeyer (you guessed it!) go on a date.

Reinhard Alone

Reinhard may be dead inside, but he still looks amazing. Episode 30, in particular, has some of my favorite animation in the series, so please enjoy all the ridiculously beautiful heartbreak as much as you possibly can through your tears.

We haven’t spent much time with Reinhard since the traumatic season 1 finale, so we’re long overdue for a check in with our fast-rising Empire-side hero. How’s he been doing?

Not great! (From episode 28.)

Once you're immersed in how LoGH tells stories, it’s tempting to say that Reinhard’s newly sour affect “should come as no surprise,” given what he’s been through. And though that is true on an in-universe level—nobody who suffered the tragic loss of a long-time romantic partner only months ago should be expected to have recovered already—it would be disingenuous of me to suggest that surprise at the way LoGH treats Reinhard’s grief is unwarranted.

In my episode 26 post, I talked about how my past experiences as a queer consumer of media had primed me for LoGH to handle Kircheis’s death poorly, and what a surprise it was when my expectations were subverted. In that light, Reinhard’s grief—the way it changes him, the way it has a tangible presence, the way other characters tiptoe around and discuss it—is a surprise. It’s a constant reminder not just of how important Kircheis was (and still is) to Reinhard, but also of how committed LoGH is to treating its queer characters and their relationships with respect.

LoGH can be a difficult show to watch. Not only does it have over a hundred incredibly dense episodes to get through—some of which are basically impossible to parse unless you watch them more than once—but it’s also deeply, sometimes overwhelmingly sad. Depending on the context, though, that can be good, or at least validating. And Reinhard’s grief, upsetting though it may be, is fundamentally important to a queer reading of LoGH.

Like I said during episode 26, Kircheis’s death is a turning point for the slow dissolution of LoGH’s heteronormative surface reading. And the unflinching portrayal of Reinhard’s grief from here on out is evidence of an ongoing decision on the part of LoGH’s creative team to allow what was formerly confined to subtext to remain above the surface.

The Locket

The way Reinhard’s voice softens when he talks to “Kircheis” via his locket is dramatic and says a lot more on its own than is possible to express in a mere text caption. If you missed it the first time, definitely go rewatch this scene in episode 28 (the timestamp is 3:45) to get the full effect.

The most obvious manifestation of Reinhard’s grief is, of course, his locket, in which he keeps a family photo and a lock of Kircheis’s hair. Some of Reinhard’s colleagues, as I’ll get to in a minute, worry about him because of how much he’s changed since Kircheis’s death. But I would argue that a lot of what’s so disturbing about Reinhard’s transition into Life Without Kircheis is the lack of change, at least in one respect: He still relies on Kircheis for emotional support, as is evident in the gifs above, and for strategic advice, which we see a bit of in episode 30 (below), and will see more of in the future.

Hilda is particularly attuned to Reinhard’s new habit of playing with his locket whenever—were Kircheis still alive—he might have looked to him for input, approval, pushback, or whatever.

There’s nothing inherently unusual about accessing one’s memories of a departed loved one for guidance, but Kircheis was Reinhard’s only intimate relationship before he died, and now that he’s gone, Reinhard still shows no interest whatsoever in diversifying his support network. As a result, his only intimate relationship is now with an inanimate object—or, to put it another way, he has nobody.

Of course, Reinhard’s isolation isn’t entirely self-imposed. Annerose was also a source of strength and comfort before she voluntarily withdrew from his life. If things had gone differently and Annerose had stayed, Reinhard might not feel so lonely—but would that have been healthier, for either of them? I’m not sure. My guess is: not significantly.

Other People

I’m not sure Reinhard realizes how obvious it is to everyone around him the extent to which he’s been utterly destroyed by Kircheis’s death. The fact that he wouldn’t care even if he did realize is, well, not unrelated.

From the relatively trivial to the life-altering, rumors and hearsay play a substantial role in our understanding of LoGH’s world and characters. Reuental and Mittermeyer, who have already spent a good deal of time gossiping about Reinhard and will continue to do so far into the future, are responsible for a good portion of the Empire-side gossip that we see—probably as a factor of their daily standing date. In episode 30, Reinhard’s two highest ranking admirals discuss the depths of his grief in vague terms:

It’s worth mentioning (as always) that Reuental and Mittermeyer’s bodies during this scene are beautifully aligned, without being symmetrical. The line of Mittermeyer’s torso is precisely parallel with Reuental’s left arm! Look at it! In case you hadn’t noticed, I am in awe of the animation team’s treatment of these two.

Reuental and Mittermeyer’s discussion of Reinhard and Kircheis is, of course, about more than just Reinhard and Kircheis—this is Reuental we’re talking about, after all, and he is pathologically incapable of saying one thing without also meaning at least five other things. For the time being, though, this scene mainly adds another, third-person dimension to Reinhard’s grief: We already know how it is affecting him personally; now we also know that it is affecting the people around him, that they’re aware of it, and that these are important enough facts to merit scenes of this length devoted to conveying them.

Hilda, on the other hand, is a lot less prone to gossip than Reuental and Mittermeyer—or maybe she just hasn’t found the right gossip partner?—so her feelings about Reinhard’s situation are communicated to us differently, mainly via looks (above) and internal monologue:

Worry not, dear reader: I’ll be spending tons more time on Hilda and her well-articulated emotional intelligence in the very near future. For now, feel free to repeat “Hilda knows everything” to yourself whenever you see her on your screen, because that basically sums it up.

I also love this little exchange, after Reinhard shuts himself away (again) in the room on Geiersburg where Kircheis died:

Kempf and Mueller’s quick look of mutual understanding here is so simple, but goes a long way towards expressing that the topic of Reinhard’s grief is never far from anyone’s lips among the admiralty.

These are all—even the lengthy conversation between Reuental and Mittermeyer—comparatively small moments in the overall landscape of LoGH. But taken together, they convey that Reinhard’s grief is not small; not for him, not for the people around him, and not for the galaxy.

Reinhard’s Oberstein Eyes

On a subtler character note, remember a few episodes back when Rebecca likened Reinhard’s eyes to Oberstein’s? Well, you may have thought she was being facetious, but she extremely was not. Allow me to demonstrate:

Here are Oberstein’s eyes as they appeared in episode 4. Their most noticeable trait is, obviously, the fact that they’re flashing red. But another distinctive characteristic of Oberstein’s eyes is that they don’t have any highlights or other details beyond the pupil and flat, uniformly blue iris.

In contrast, this eye-heavy moment from episode 28 is a good example of how eyes are typically animated throughout LoGH—with the remarkably consistent exception of Oberstein’s which are, of course, artificial. Mittermeyer and Reuental’s eyes here both have distinct highlights, and seem to move naturally.

Here’s an example, from episode 9, of how Reinhard’s eyes in particular have been depicted before now: Note the visible highlights that change and move with his expression. Reinhard’s eyes do a lot of characterization work for him, and obviously got a corresponding amount of attention from the animation team.

Compare that to Reinhard’s eyes here, in this moment from episode 27. Like Oberstein’s eyes, Reinhard’s irises are now flat and lifeless. They don’t move with the rest of his face and have none of the energy we’re used to seeing from him.

But unlike Oberstein’s, Reinhard’s eyes aren’t synthetic. So when he lets his guard down—which he can only do when he’s alone with his memories of Kircheis—we see unbridled pain and anguish flood back into them. Poor Reinhard.

Stray Tidbits

Can someone please explain to me exactly what is going on here? Why does Yang’s desk only go up to Schenkopp and Cazellnu’s knees? Why is Yang proportional to his weirdly tiny desk? Why is his entire head smaller than Schenkopp’s crotch? This single screenshot keeps me up at night with questions.

Maybe the furniture store that sold either Mittermeyer a tiny chair or Reuental a huge chair also has a location in the Alliance.

Try to imagine something more suspicious than not having a pet. How about liking books more than pets? Yeah, that’s what I thought.

Time for some fun facts: Other than Da Vinci, the three historical figures that Hilda’s cousin mentions are Cao Cao, Lazare Carnot, and Tughril Beg. Biographical info on Cao Cao and Lazare Carnot makes it pretty clear they were both, like Mecklinger, Renaissance men who had a wide variety of cultural accomplishments in addition to their political/military careers; it’s harder to find information on Tughril Beg but my guess is that he falls into the same category.

[mittensmorgul]

1.10 and 1.11 vs s12

I’m not even going to bother pointing out all the internal parallels to s1 (pretty much the only thing in my tag for this episode is the rewatch notes from 2015... which is a shame because there’s a lot of interesting family dynamics stuff in this episode. I’ll just quote the two relevant passages from my notes here to spare you having to read them, unless you want to see the gif of Dean jumping the fence, which is worth seeing on its own, and it’s already in that post :P)

Strange how the ghost singles out SAM for his “treatment,” considering we later find out it had to do with anger, and triggering even more intense anger. It’s leading us to the assumption that for all of Dean’s bluster, and Sam’s apparent happy puppy face he shows the world, it was SAM who the doc chose for his “extreme rage therapy.” Dean might come across as the cranky bastard, but Sam’s the one with the real well of hidden rage. Interesting.

And he finds Dr. CreepyMummy in the cupboard. But the rage therapy doesn’t work on Dean, because he’s still able to fight through it and burn the corpse.

And that’s what’s worth mentioning from that ancient rewatch review. :P

On to the s12 relevant stuff, other than seeing Sam’s version of rage. It’s calm, calculating, and collected. He’s not off the rails monstrous. He’s quiet, and that’s far more terrifying. 

This was the part of s1 that really began delving into Sam and Dean’s relationship with their father.

SAM: It doesn't matter what he wants. DEAN: See. That attitude? Right there? That is why I always get the extra cookie. SAM: Dad could be in trouble, we should be looking for him. We deserve some answers, Dean. I mean, this is our family we're talking about. DEAN: I understand that, Sam, but he's given us an order. SAM: So what, we gotta always follow Dad's orders? DEAN: Of course we do.

There’s the fact that Dean had always followed John’s orders, since he was 4 years old. He trusted John, and the few times he didn’t follow John’s orders (see 1.18 for a prime example), it nearly had disastrous consequences. To 9-year-old Dean, nearly costing Sam his life would be enough of an object lesson about the importance of following those orders. Sam, by contrast, was spared from that sort of experience, from the consequences of his rebellions, because again, Dean absorbed them by putting himself between Sam and John.

Sam trades information with the descendant of Dr. Ellicott for “honest” information about himself (which he don’t get to see him say, but we get a pretty good idea of what he told the psychiatrist from the sorts of things he yells at Dean once he’s been en-rage-ified by the ghost of Dr. Ellicott...

DEAN: We gotta burn Ellicott's bones and all this will be over, and you'll be back to normal. SAM: I am normal. I'm just telling the truth for the first time. I mean, why are we even here? ’Cause you're following Dad's orders like a good little solider? Because you always do what he says without question? Are you that desperate for his approval? DEAN: This isn't you talking, Sam. SAM: That's the difference between you and me. I have a mind of my own. I'm not pathetic, like you. DEAN: So what are you gunna do, huh? Are you gunna kill me? SAM: You know what, I am sick of doing what you tell me to do. We're no closer to finding Dad today than we were six months ago. DEAN: Well, then here. Let me make it easier for you. (He holds his Smith & Wesson toward SAM.) Come on. Take it. Real bullets are gonna work a hell of a lot better than rock salt. (SAM hesitates) Take it!! 

Sam saw Dean as weak and pathetic because he refused to question John’s orders. Sam’s only goal, even six months after Jess’s death, was revenge. His goal was to get that revenge and the get out, go back to his “normal life.” He saw all the other hunts they went on as a sort of weird busy work to keep them distracted from what he saw as their real mission. To Dean, these cases are important, not busy work. People would’ve DIED if they just walked away and ran off willy-nilly to chase after John.

I also love this run of episodes because it shows us SO MANY INSTANCES of just how brilliant Dean is. You want Smart Dean, here you go:

John texted him coordinates for Rockford, Illinois, and just from that Dean figured out exactly why John wanted him to investigate there.

Dean goes to room 137 and finds a hidden panel concealing Dr. Ellicott’s notes and journal, that apparently NOBODY had ever found in the more than 30 years since the original incident at the asylum

He uses the info there to figure out how the ghost was affecting its victims

When he finds out that Sam went off to the basement alone, he suspects that Sam had been lured down there by the ghost (because HE didn’t call Sam) and that Sam had been affected 

He doesn’t let on to SAM that he suspects Sam has been en-rage-ified, he just plays along until he can get the upper hand and knock Sam out

he does this by letting Sam shoot him with rock salt (won’t kill him, but hurts like a bitch)

AND THEN he hands Sam his gun-- but it’s EMPTY, so Sam is unable to kill him, but it gets him close enough to overpower Sam

He then finds Dr. Ellicott’s corpse and is able to burn it while being attacked by the ghost

And doesn’t that sound like SUCH a Dean ploy... he knows so much more about what’s going on than anyone else, but he plays along until he spots his advantage and then makes his move. We’ve seen him do this over and over again in s12, and it’s been incredibly obvious in 12.14 with Ketch and in 12.15 with Sam.

Okay. On to Scarecrow, which I watched while typing this up, but also contains a lot of the same themes (Sam vs Dean vs John, Dean being brilliant, lies and hidden family secrets), so I’m just sticking it on here.

It seems by the end of 1.11 that Sam has accepted that FAMILY is important enough to him to deal with all the crap that comes along with it (sound familiar? 12.11 anyone?). And to Sam, that “crap” is the hunting.

This was the first time Sam decided to run away from Dean since the pilot (when he got dragged back into hunting). John finally gave them a call, and gave them A TINY BIT OF INFO on the thing that killed Mary and Jess. It’s a demon. Rather than placating Sam, this info makes him want to drop everything and run out to help kill it (or banish it or deal with it... he has no idea what he’s gonna do with it, he just sees it as a potential lead on his revenge quest).

I find this SO FREAKING IRONIC, because this is the same play that Sam uses on people, just with the twist that John’s not trying to conceal the existence of the supernatural, just the identity of the specific thing he’s investigating. We always said that Sam was more like John and that’s why they clashed so strongly, and that Dean was more like Mary... but now that Mary is back, it seems she’s taken on this similar role to John in how she’s been relating to Sam and Dean.

And how did Sam react to John’s orders and that tiny scrap of information? Complete defiance. Just like the way Ronald Resnick reacted to Sam, just like the way Gwen in 12.15 reacted.

The case John sent them on in Indiana was also time-sensitive. One couple disappears every year during the same week. Yet Sam was arguing with Dean that they should take a week to just drive out to California because his revenge was more important to him than saving the lives of two people he’d never met before. That’s literally what the case came down to. Putting off that hunt to drive cross country in the hopes of finding John several days later... was worth the cost of two human lives to Sam. I mean, he may not have calculated that out in his own mind because he’s already redirected from everything else and focused entirely on his revenge mission, but when you step back and do the math... yeah. Two people he’d never met would 100% guaranteed DIE if he walked away from that hunt, on the off chance that tracking John would even get him any sort of result at all...

Cold, Sammy.

This also marks the first time we know of where Sam was tempted by a demon. Meg spends most of the episode whispering encouragement to Sam and bonding with him over the promise of freedom and living your own life on your own terms and abandoning your family. In the end, it’s worry for Dean’s safety that brings Sam running away from Meg, and running back to Dean. So maybe he’s not quite so cold as he’d made himself out to be. He just needed a shaking up to work past that drive for revenge and put things back in perspective.

Again, this episode is FILLED with Dean being a genius. We see his emotional intelligence, how well he reads people and earns their trust. Not to mention how he puts all the signs together, figures out it’s a god haunting the orchard, that it’s the fugly scarecrow taking people out. We also get this conversation:

DEAN: I’m not hinting anything. Actually, uh—I want you to know….I mean, don’t think…. SAM: Yeah. I’m sorry, too. DEAN: Sam. You were right. You gotta do your own thing. You gotta live your own life. SAM: Are you serious? DEAN: You’ve always known what you want. And you go after it. You stand up to Dad. And you always have. Hell, I wish I—anyway….I admire that about you. I’m proud of you, Sammy. SAM: I don’t even know what to say. DEAN: Say you’ll take care of yourself. SAM: I will. DEAN: Call me when you find Dad.

He was willing to let Sam go, and it was that acceptance that was the beginning of the train of logic that led Sam to come rushing back in time to save him.

DEAN: What made you change your mind? SAM: I didn’t. I still wanna find Dad. And you’re still a pain in the ass. (DEAN nods.) But, Jess and Mom—they’re both gone. Dad is God knows where. You and me. We’re all that’s left. So, if we’re gonna see this through, we’re gonna do it together. (DEAN pauses.) DEAN: Hold me, Sam. That was beautiful. (He puts his hand on SAM’s shoulder, who hits it away. They laugh.)

Now I’m waiting for Sam to “change his mind” about working with the MoL. What’s gonna make him change his mind this time? 

ETA: Whoopsie I forgot two of the HUGE themes at work here that relate to s12: DOING HORRIBLE HORRIBLE THINGS IN THE NAME OF “THE GREATER GOOD.” I mean, sacrificing innocent people to their orchard god for the good of the town, and the horrible things it drove this entire town worth of people to do-- even offering their own niece up as a sacrifice to save themselves. THEY WERE DOING WHAT THEY HAD TO, in their minds. So there you go. The two most horrifying things anyone can say on Supernatural, and they got them both covered.