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gryfndor_godessI loved this episode.
I don't think I've felt this enthusiastic about the season arc since "Trial and Error" AKA the Dallas-themed episode, AKA the episode that demands crossover fic with Wildfire and Kris Furillo. And by that I mean, I still think closing Hell is going to backfire drastically and I'm sick of Crowley and there's so much I wish this season had done differently, but I'm excited for the last two episodes (and also despairing because how can a finale entitled "Sacrifice," end without devastating heartbreak, I really hope it's ironic).
Good things:
+ SAMMY SAMMY SAMMY I LOVE YOU. I cannot get over how resilient he is. I just want to hug him and feed him comfort food and wrap him in blankets and tell him it's going to be okay, and yet apparently he doesn't need it. And how he thinks these trials are purifying him and how he just lost it and yelled at Metatron, ugh my heart.
+ Any mention of kid!Dean taking care of kid!Sam. So Sam remembering Dean reading to him? MY HEART. And then, of course, I was all MY HEART in an entirely different way because him thinking as far back as childhood that he was unclean. *sobs* SAMMY.
+ Dean'n'Sam. Dean was a complete blockhead about Sam's condition and what could fix it, but I appreciate it all the same because it's (a) an in-character reaction and (b) a not-at-all unrealistic reaction for an older sibling to have. He can't see the forest for the trees here; he sees his little brother dying and so he digs his heels in, hoping that inertia will solve the problem. It won't, but it's a very human reaction for him to have and a very sympathetic one, even though it's also, yanno, block-headed.
I loved him making soup for Sam and his deadpan remark about airplane noises and the fact that he bought a freaking thermometer. It's misguided, but his intentions were good, and I am always up for the brothers taking care of each other so cue, MY HEART. Also, just picturing Dean desperately trying to drag Sam to the bathtub full of ice while no doubt panicking is giving me ~feels.
One thing that disappointed me about Dean was how when Sam said he felt unclean, Dean said "it's not your fault" as opposed to "that's not true." It's completely in-character for Dean to say that, and I guess by the mythology's standards, Sam is "unclean," but it's just sad and so not the correct words of comfort. It also makes me wonder how Dean thinks of himself because I'm guessing he probably wouldn't think of himself as clean, either, and if he stressed that it wasn't Sam's fault, does he think is own "impurity" is his fault? Sam's "impurity" was forced on him by Azazel, but Dean had the ~choice and ~broke in Hell.
+ I love Naomi. I am totes fine with the boys killing her because she is a villain (the waitress in the diner, oh god), but I am going to enjoy her while she's around because Amanda Tapping is awesome.
Why did she keep referring to angels in the third person as though she weren't one, WHAT ARE NAOMI AND CROWLEY.
+ Cas. Depending on where they go with this world-building, I reserve the right to do a 180 and say I hate the reveal about his characterization, but for the moment, I'm so on-board with the fact that apparently he's been rebelling throughout history. Part of the reason I didn't particularly care about Cas's S4 arc when I watching it was because while I could appreciate the idea of someone defying their nature (I mean, hello, who are my favorites, of course I appreciate that), I didn't understand how after millennia of existence, knowing Dean freaking Winchester for less than a year was enough to make Cas turn his back on his family/culture/beliefs. So I quite appreciate the idea that Cas's rebellion wasn't a crazy random happenstance but was indeed something he was prone to- with presumably, the right trigger, like Dean. Maybe his arc would make more sense to me on a rewatch (because I was definitely also annoyed that Misha got to stick around and become Important when all the ladies were killed, so I was not exactly Cas-friendly to begin with), but as of now, 8x21 makes me happier about his characterization than I otherwise was.
This reveal about the extent of Intelligence's power also makes me feel slightly better about Anna's characterization in "The Song Remains The Same." I'd like to imagine that Naomi or someone else in Intelligence was really controlling her or that like Cas in the beginning of S4 (I guess), she had been completely reset.
So basically, I am prepared to love this mythology hardcore. Depending on what they use it for, I am also prepared to hate it.
Re: Cas's characterization in this particular episode, I also really appreciated how brutally and efficiently he killed Ion when he got the chance. The ruthless execution of his "brother" was fascinating juxtaposed with Cas lamenting how cruelly angels treated humans. Cas cares and feels and loves but holy hell, he's also scary. I appreciated what Ion represented, too, that there are angels who aren't evil for evil's sake but because they've seen the inside of the machine and despair of any hope for better options.
+ What Metatron told us about the archangels really interested me. I have a hard time keeping track of all the he-said-she-said we got from the archangels in S4/S5, and so I don't remember if we already knew that God was gone way before Michael trapped Lucifer in the Cage. I really like the fact that he was gone, though, because it makes all the in-fighting make a lot more sense to me. The archangels decided to rule the universe and had different ideas of how to do it; Lucifer wanted to kill humanity, and Michael wanted to stick with dear old dad's plan and let them live. Rafael sided with Michael. Gabriel said to hell with you all and went to play on Earth. Or something like that. I just really liked how the sibling dynamics Metatron referenced so easily made sense. SIBLING DYNAMICS FTW. I have not mentioned yet, but my new archangel song is Taylor Swift's "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together."
We are never, ever, ever getting back together [Lucifer]. You go talk to Rafael talk to Gabriel talk to me. But we are never, ever, ever getting back together. Lolarious and fitting, no?
The other takeaway I got from that conversation was, I MISS GABRIEL. D: GIVE HIM BACK TO ME, WRITERS. RIGHT NOW. ALONG WITH ALL THE LADIES, BALTHAZAR, AND ADAM.
+ Biggerson's. Oh, Cas, using this restaurant and hiding the tablet in your stomach, I love you.
+ Sam's incredulity that Metatron hadn't heard of them- "We're the freaking Winchesters!"
+ Dean's face after Sam said that.
+ Dean's face in most of this episode, TBH. Jensen had some excellent expressions going on.
+ Jared's acting in the beginning when he was the demon pretending to be Sam. His sudden good health aside, you could tell there was something fishy going on there because wow, he was so not acting like Sam. Jared, how do you act. Also when he was giggling about the donkey farts- farting aside, that was kind of adorable.
+ Crowley saying he could have played Dean. LOLOLOL.
+ Sam telling Dean that Indians wasn't the correct term to use.
+ Kevin pwning Crowley. "My demons were too...polite?"
+ So when we cure a demon, can it please be Meg?? Obviously I would cry from happiness if it were Bela, but that's not going to happen, so PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, GIVE US MEG BACK. Maybe they killed her because Rachel Miner couldn't do the role anymore and they'll bring in a third actress? I just really hope it isn't Abaddon. Like Naomi, she's a great villain; also like Naomi; IDGAF if the boys kill her because, yanno, evil. Please can the cure not be wasted on a demon we barely know?
The other possibility I can think of is that they'll cure Crowley in order to defeat him. Again, I much prefer Meg and I want Crowley's guts for garters, but that would be an interesting twist.
Bad Things:
- Metatron being a middle-aged white guy. C'mon writers, he hangs out with Native Americans, and you make him white? WTF, you could at least try.
- This isn't really something I disliked so much as don't understand- I don't get what was going on with Crowley and Kevin and how Crowley was controlling the situation (I think he mentioned wiping Kevin's short-term memory before, so I guess he really did kidnap Kevin two episodes ago and then wiped the kidnapping so Kevin thought he was translating in the ferry as normal?) and how Kevin expected to be rescued if he didn't know Metatron would save him, but it doesn't matter. Well played, Kevin, you rock. Crowley, suck it.
8x20, "Pac-Man Fever" also gave me a lot of Feelings, but I wanted to quickly bring up something I haven't seen discussed elsewhere. Did anyone else notice the parallels between Jennifer the Djinni and Amy the Kitsune? Obviously Jennifer was gung-ho about killing humans and Amy was not, but they were both still "monster" mothers taking care of their children. Again, Dean killed the mother, and this time Sam killed the son. It makes me wonder if we'll see Amy's son try to exact revenge on Dean as promised in an upcoming season and Sam will have no choice but to kill him. That would be heartbreaking and fascinating.
I don't think I've felt this enthusiastic about the season arc since "Trial and Error" AKA the Dallas-themed episode, AKA the episode that demands crossover fic with Wildfire and Kris Furillo. And by that I mean, I still think closing Hell is going to backfire drastically and I'm sick of Crowley and there's so much I wish this season had done differently, but I'm excited for the last two episodes (and also despairing because how can a finale entitled "Sacrifice," end without devastating heartbreak, I really hope it's ironic).
Good things:
+ SAMMY SAMMY SAMMY I LOVE YOU. I cannot get over how resilient he is. I just want to hug him and feed him comfort food and wrap him in blankets and tell him it's going to be okay, and yet apparently he doesn't need it. And how he thinks these trials are purifying him and how he just lost it and yelled at Metatron, ugh my heart.
+ Any mention of kid!Dean taking care of kid!Sam. So Sam remembering Dean reading to him? MY HEART. And then, of course, I was all MY HEART in an entirely different way because him thinking as far back as childhood that he was unclean. *sobs* SAMMY.
+ Dean'n'Sam. Dean was a complete blockhead about Sam's condition and what could fix it, but I appreciate it all the same because it's (a) an in-character reaction and (b) a not-at-all unrealistic reaction for an older sibling to have. He can't see the forest for the trees here; he sees his little brother dying and so he digs his heels in, hoping that inertia will solve the problem. It won't, but it's a very human reaction for him to have and a very sympathetic one, even though it's also, yanno, block-headed.
I loved him making soup for Sam and his deadpan remark about airplane noises and the fact that he bought a freaking thermometer. It's misguided, but his intentions were good, and I am always up for the brothers taking care of each other so cue, MY HEART. Also, just picturing Dean desperately trying to drag Sam to the bathtub full of ice while no doubt panicking is giving me ~feels.
One thing that disappointed me about Dean was how when Sam said he felt unclean, Dean said "it's not your fault" as opposed to "that's not true." It's completely in-character for Dean to say that, and I guess by the mythology's standards, Sam is "unclean," but it's just sad and so not the correct words of comfort. It also makes me wonder how Dean thinks of himself because I'm guessing he probably wouldn't think of himself as clean, either, and if he stressed that it wasn't Sam's fault, does he think is own "impurity" is his fault? Sam's "impurity" was forced on him by Azazel, but Dean had the ~choice and ~broke in Hell.
+ I love Naomi. I am totes fine with the boys killing her because she is a villain (the waitress in the diner, oh god), but I am going to enjoy her while she's around because Amanda Tapping is awesome.
Why did she keep referring to angels in the third person as though she weren't one, WHAT ARE NAOMI AND CROWLEY.
+ Cas. Depending on where they go with this world-building, I reserve the right to do a 180 and say I hate the reveal about his characterization, but for the moment, I'm so on-board with the fact that apparently he's been rebelling throughout history. Part of the reason I didn't particularly care about Cas's S4 arc when I watching it was because while I could appreciate the idea of someone defying their nature (I mean, hello, who are my favorites, of course I appreciate that), I didn't understand how after millennia of existence, knowing Dean freaking Winchester for less than a year was enough to make Cas turn his back on his family/culture/beliefs. So I quite appreciate the idea that Cas's rebellion wasn't a crazy random happenstance but was indeed something he was prone to- with presumably, the right trigger, like Dean. Maybe his arc would make more sense to me on a rewatch (because I was definitely also annoyed that Misha got to stick around and become Important when all the ladies were killed, so I was not exactly Cas-friendly to begin with), but as of now, 8x21 makes me happier about his characterization than I otherwise was.
This reveal about the extent of Intelligence's power also makes me feel slightly better about Anna's characterization in "The Song Remains The Same." I'd like to imagine that Naomi or someone else in Intelligence was really controlling her or that like Cas in the beginning of S4 (I guess), she had been completely reset.
So basically, I am prepared to love this mythology hardcore. Depending on what they use it for, I am also prepared to hate it.
Re: Cas's characterization in this particular episode, I also really appreciated how brutally and efficiently he killed Ion when he got the chance. The ruthless execution of his "brother" was fascinating juxtaposed with Cas lamenting how cruelly angels treated humans. Cas cares and feels and loves but holy hell, he's also scary. I appreciated what Ion represented, too, that there are angels who aren't evil for evil's sake but because they've seen the inside of the machine and despair of any hope for better options.
+ What Metatron told us about the archangels really interested me. I have a hard time keeping track of all the he-said-she-said we got from the archangels in S4/S5, and so I don't remember if we already knew that God was gone way before Michael trapped Lucifer in the Cage. I really like the fact that he was gone, though, because it makes all the in-fighting make a lot more sense to me. The archangels decided to rule the universe and had different ideas of how to do it; Lucifer wanted to kill humanity, and Michael wanted to stick with dear old dad's plan and let them live. Rafael sided with Michael. Gabriel said to hell with you all and went to play on Earth. Or something like that. I just really liked how the sibling dynamics Metatron referenced so easily made sense. SIBLING DYNAMICS FTW. I have not mentioned yet, but my new archangel song is Taylor Swift's "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together."
We are never, ever, ever getting back together [Lucifer]. You go talk to Rafael talk to Gabriel talk to me. But we are never, ever, ever getting back together. Lolarious and fitting, no?
The other takeaway I got from that conversation was, I MISS GABRIEL. D: GIVE HIM BACK TO ME, WRITERS. RIGHT NOW. ALONG WITH ALL THE LADIES, BALTHAZAR, AND ADAM.
+ Biggerson's. Oh, Cas, using this restaurant and hiding the tablet in your stomach, I love you.
+ Sam's incredulity that Metatron hadn't heard of them- "We're the freaking Winchesters!"
+ Dean's face after Sam said that.
+ Dean's face in most of this episode, TBH. Jensen had some excellent expressions going on.
+ Jared's acting in the beginning when he was the demon pretending to be Sam. His sudden good health aside, you could tell there was something fishy going on there because wow, he was so not acting like Sam. Jared, how do you act. Also when he was giggling about the donkey farts- farting aside, that was kind of adorable.
+ Crowley saying he could have played Dean. LOLOLOL.
+ Sam telling Dean that Indians wasn't the correct term to use.
+ Kevin pwning Crowley. "My demons were too...polite?"
+ So when we cure a demon, can it please be Meg?? Obviously I would cry from happiness if it were Bela, but that's not going to happen, so PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, GIVE US MEG BACK. Maybe they killed her because Rachel Miner couldn't do the role anymore and they'll bring in a third actress? I just really hope it isn't Abaddon. Like Naomi, she's a great villain; also like Naomi; IDGAF if the boys kill her because, yanno, evil. Please can the cure not be wasted on a demon we barely know?
The other possibility I can think of is that they'll cure Crowley in order to defeat him. Again, I much prefer Meg and I want Crowley's guts for garters, but that would be an interesting twist.
Bad Things:
- Metatron being a middle-aged white guy. C'mon writers, he hangs out with Native Americans, and you make him white? WTF, you could at least try.
- This isn't really something I disliked so much as don't understand- I don't get what was going on with Crowley and Kevin and how Crowley was controlling the situation (I think he mentioned wiping Kevin's short-term memory before, so I guess he really did kidnap Kevin two episodes ago and then wiped the kidnapping so Kevin thought he was translating in the ferry as normal?) and how Kevin expected to be rescued if he didn't know Metatron would save him, but it doesn't matter. Well played, Kevin, you rock. Crowley, suck it.
8x20, "Pac-Man Fever" also gave me a lot of Feelings, but I wanted to quickly bring up something I haven't seen discussed elsewhere. Did anyone else notice the parallels between Jennifer the Djinni and Amy the Kitsune? Obviously Jennifer was gung-ho about killing humans and Amy was not, but they were both still "monster" mothers taking care of their children. Again, Dean killed the mother, and this time Sam killed the son. It makes me wonder if we'll see Amy's son try to exact revenge on Dean as promised in an upcoming season and Sam will have no choice but to kill him. That would be heartbreaking and fascinating.