Do you think it’s really Nick or could it be Lucifer? I don’t know if I want Nick or Lucifer myself! Lol but I’m thinking maybe Lucifer’s angelic side did die and it’s really him but human and not tainted by the mark anymore. I feel like it shouldn’t really be Nick because Crowley rebuilt the vessel and Nick should be long gone. I don’t know so I’m asking you because I always LOVE your meta and opinions :)
Man, has this episode ever garnered something attention and speculation concerning Mark’s character! Which is entirely A-OK with me {Yes, sing your praises to our Lord}, and probably means I should offer up a few of on my own thoughts, considering the nature of my blog, as well as the handful of kind requests received to do just that.
The majority of voices seem to be murmuring about a depowered/amnesiac/human!Lucifer. Of course, we already saw a near-powerless version of the Archangel last season, and though having little/no Grace didn’t initially do much to curb his arrogance, nor his confidence, we did get a few glimpses of his vulnerability that seemed to suggest that much of that behavior was a facade. He was humbled enough to ask for and accept help from others, even going so far as to cry in front of a human who was a complete stranger to him.
When it comes down to it, Lucifer is, above all, a survivor. He has spent eons fighting for his life and his sanity, after all, and he knows well how to adapt to a situation in such a way that things often turn out in his favor. That being said, it goes to reason that, should this being truly be Lucifer, it would not be unthinkable that he might forgo his pride and jump through whatever hoops he needs to in order to simply stay alive.
But is it Lucifer? Or is it Nick? If it is Nick, there may be some serious retcon at play here. Not that any of us would find that shocking, considering how often the writers leave us questioning our memories and sanity.
Crowley cites that the demons essentially scooped up Nick’s body from the floor of that empty house where Sam said “yes,” patched him up, and kept him around in case of a rainy day when the devil would come back to play. Does that make a lot of sense? No. Not really. But it did give us Mark P back, and, let’s face it, that’s all anyone really cared about.
Was this vessel alive? Was Nick’s soul still inside? Is an Archangel’s Grace powerful enough to prevent something like a gunshot to the head from offing their vessel? Does that mean a vessel does not need to say “yes” if it has done so in the past? Was Lucifer simply being a gent when he asked Sam for his consent back in Hell’s visiting block?
If Nick was found alive, what’s he been doing all of these years? Did the demons keep him in some sort of medically induced coma? Did he prick his finger on a spinning wheel needle and Luci was his Prince Charming? Furthermore, have we ever been given evidence of a case in which a vessel survived the death of its angel via an angel blade? Or a host surviving the wound of a demon blade?
I would love to get some real answers to any of this, but I’m pretty sure the writers are as in the dark as we are. So, until we get some half-baked explanations, let’s consider the tidbit we’ve seen.
Nick’s greeting…
It is definitely lacking the usual adoration and confidence we see whenever Lucifer greeted his True Vessel in the past. For example:
He has this way of always giving off a “we were bound to meet again” vibe, and, say what you will, he exudes an air of affection whenever he is near Sam. “Nick,” on the other hand? He looks pensive, and almost apprehensive, as though he is worried about Sam’s reason for visiting him. He behaves like a prisoner awaiting sentencing, and while some might argue that Nick has long been Lucifer’s prisoner, it can also be said that Lucifer has long been a prisoner, not just of the cage, but of prejudice and fear and a monstrous reputation no one could be bothered to disregard in favor of objectivity.
It’s hard to say that the overall demeanor of this man is not the same as that of Nick in S5, but, of course, who would know Nick better than Lucifer? I strongly believe that Lucifer picked up a lot of his “human” traits and ticks from the influence of Nick’s subconscious, so who’s to say he couldn’t mimic the man to a T? Especially if doing so kept him alive?
On the other hand, surely Sam would be able to differentiate Lucifer from Nick. He spent more time with the Archangel than with anyone else in his life, and S5 already proved that he can sense when the angel is near. Besides that, could Lucifer really hide right under the noses of his own brother and son? I am inclined to believe that he could not. I am even, however begrudgingly, inclined to believe that Lucifer is, in fact, dead. My reservations only come into play when I consider {{potential spoiler}} that Mark, when asked, hinted at Nephilim Grace being powerful enough to save the Archangel from certain death.
Whatever the case, we’re sure to learn more very soon. Personally, I’d love to see how all of this came to pass. How did Nick manage to sit up in that church and brush off the ash and not get immediately murdered by an on-edge Sam or Jack? We can only pray the writers gave all of these little details some actual thought.
So, there you have it. My two cents, if they’re worth that much. Hopefully, we are offered more insight this evening {although… Bucklemming… don’t hold your breaths}. Until then, I’ll leave you with the teensy scene that made me question whether it might actually be Luci, and, consequently, broke my heart:
I’m SO EXCITED because of last nights episode. I mean, I literally wrapped my scarf around my mouth because I was freaking so much. But I’m still just upset over Jack. Poor kid had to hear them arguing about him. And I’m sure he is going to take it to heart in terms of the “Sam only liking him so he can save Mary” (which IMO, at first it was like that but I think Sam kind of does care about him in a way). He’s just so depressed and just needs a hug. I really feel bad for Jack 😩
IKR. Same.
However, remember that he probably does have to go darkside at some point to then be brought back into the light/family in the end and it be even more monumentous than if he was just accepted from the off.
The negative stuff is in order for it to become positive in the end, same as all the others, like Dean’s grief and Sam rehashing over the time of his life he wants to forget.
That’s a good question! I’m well over 20k worth of words into my fic at the moment (it ran away from me entirely lol, it was meant to be a small oneshot) and I’m forming my view of Ward the further along I go into it. I don’t have particular short headcanons about him to share, but I do have some ideas of his character that inform my current writing..
One of the things that stands out to me about him is that this is the guy they say became ‘head of the board room’ at age 18. That’s something that could have gone horribly wrong in every way imaginable, especially for a huge company like Rand Enterprises, and his young age would likely have met with some resistance despite him being the boss’s eldest child stepping in. The fact that the company not only survived but thrived is very telling: it shows that Ward is a very competent and skilled person on his own merit. Of course, his not-quite-dead father was pulling strings behind the scenes all along, but daddy wasn’t in the board room holding Ward’s hand so at least a scrappy fighter part of Ward had to fend for himself from a pretty young age onward. I have this headcanon that Ward at his best reads almost anything he can get his hands on, is very aware of what goes on in the city as a whole, works hard and expects the same efforts from the people around him, and is overall a more humanitarian authority than his father and sister are. I also feel like any kind of his social awkwardness that he may have in interpersonal relationships would vanish if you got him talking about more cerebral, intellectual subjects.
Naturally, this workaholic no-fun-for-Ward state he seems to be functioning in throughout the show has a big drawback: we have little to no clue about what he likes to do in his free time, and the fact that he’s taking meals and sleeping in his office says that he doesn’t really have much of a home or a connection with domestic life in any form. I feel like Ward was discouraged from having fun back when he was a kid and was made to see everything as some kind of competition to win/excel at. He reads to me as someone who had to grow up way too quickly and never really enjoyed his childhood. He wouldn’t really know what it’s like to just kick back, relax, and do something for the hell of it. A lot of his drug issues are informed by Ward being unable to let go of tension -- he keeps all the tension locked in his mind and body, so he needs medication to help him get to a state where the tension fades enough for him to function. His random flashes of anger also factor into that, in my opinion, as he doesn’t have a safe outlet for everything that’s bothering him. It’d be a foreign concept to him to not be under any kind of pressure to perform, so it’s going to be really interesting to see how he proceeds now that his father’s not holding him in a chokehold any longer. I have this notion that he would at one point find himself ‘catching up on lost time’ by doing something completely childish, silly, and fun.. and he’d really enjoy it for the very first time in his life without having to look over his shoulder or ‘be the man’ he was raised to be. He might look ridiculous doing it, but I also have the impression he’s a bit of a goofball deep down inside and that he’s got this wonderful sense of humour so who knows what he’d get up to if he actually got the chance to relax!
I also have this very persistent idea that he may be a hopelessly clingy sort of partner, but that he would always try to solve all his problems by himself without involving anyone else. He’s a very strong and resilient sort of person who’s unfortunately become used to going through life entirely alone. If confronted with certain things that he wouldn’t know how to cope with, he’d sooner withdraw from personal contact than engage in it. It would take a long time for him to trust that not everyone in his life would use his ‘weaknesses’ against him, and even longer to truly be vulnerable with someone. However, he showed such a deep self-awareness in one of his final scenes this season that he may be entirely aware of his own shortcomings and would do anything to minimise their impact on a relationship in future. I also have this idea that he has the ability to read people, or is able to form a sort of hyperawareness of them in the part of his mind that’s been utterly wrecked by his father, and that in time when surrounded by the right people he’s going to learn how to use that to his own benefit rather than have it be a source of fear for him the way it currently is. I think he can make very astute observations of someone’s character and that this often comes out in the worst possible (very rude) way. I always have a good laugh at how utterly done he seems to be with everything in his life, but now that he’s essentially been ‘cut loose’ and is able to become his own person for the very first time in his life.. who knows what he’s going to do? That unpredictability factor is something that I think is really integral to him somehow, with unexpected results for the future perhaps. (He’d balk at being a superhero sidekick, though, haha. I can only imagine how done he’d be with Danny and the other Defenders if he had to help them out in any way, lol.)
I have two up on 8tracks! http://8tracks.com/ninjathrowingstork/ward-meachum-s-ipod-side-a-middle-fingers-in-the-air is the lighter, crack/fluff/defiant one, and http://8tracks.com/ninjathrowingstork/ward-meachum-s-ipod-side-b-i-m-doing-it-to-him is the sad/moody one.
EDIT: because of 8tracks' dumbass listening cap, I've also put the songs into individual playlists on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL00zp0XZn52p_p9MiThxjzbUnDUTY-lQKAnd http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL00zp0XZn52qOuOGRCy9tiDcyASbKduQj
