#s13x08

[thedogsled]

4x01 - 13x08 (with a bit of sneaky 13x06)

Hi guys, I come bearing pizza gifts via your favorite pizza guy. (yeah, it’s the one on the left. Have a bonus Gen though.)

So remember when this guy crawled out of the earth, out of Hell, and started putting his bad choices behind him? I mean an angel of the Lord might have had something to do with that...

Remember when Cain told him he was living his life backwards?

Anyway, I’m starting with 13x06 because I missed some stuff about GIANT RESURRECTIONS, so let’s skim through that quick because I love 4x01. Now remember that like Cas, there was no way to bring Dean back. Sam couldn’t find a demon to do a deal for him. As far as everyone knew it was over.

Dean’s resurrection

Cas’ resurrection

Dean’s resurrection

Cas’ resurrection

No big deal no big deal I’m fine. And you know what else? We don’t hear Cas saying ‘Hello Dean’. We can’t hear his voice or it will melt our brains out our ears.

But we’re not done with 4x01 because when we aired 13x08 we got more flashbacks to it, and this time we were TOLD to be looking for them because we had that actual in the text visual of Dean in Hell. Now I’ve talked about how this is to foreshadow having to save Cas, but as others have pointed out the promo for next week has Mary screaming, and she needs saving from a Hell of her own. I think it’s telling that we’re expecting to go to S1 next week because if the boys are going to save their mom then imagine what a big deal it must be for them.

So. 4x01. I wrote to @amwritingmeta about Shrike being the dark Cas mirror in 13x08, and I dragged up some thoughts about why that was. 

He’s immortal and becomes vulnerable and dies. He goes to hell and back of his own accord for someone else. He’s done terrible things, inexcusable, unforgivable things, but he’d presumably always done them with the belief that he was doing the right thing. 

He’s a dark mirror specifically because he allows the bad things he’s done to distance himself from the rest of the world. Shrike is alone, jaded and miserable, and Cas is not. Cas has his family.

But I needed to put my finger more surely on why I was getting these Cas feelings from Shrike and when I watched 4x01 it all fell into place.

Enter Castiel

Enter Shrike

Who gets hit by projectiles that can’t kill him

/humming noises

But that’s not convincing enough really, so how about this?

You know where I’m going with this.

Would you look at that! Stabbed with the same knife in his tan coat, pulls it out, then puts Bobby/Sam to sleep.

Now there’s a bit of a point to be made here, because this isn’t just a ‘wow look at all these parallels’ thing. Because while I said before “hey look at that Dean’s living Cain’s life in reverse” the difference imo is I don’t think Dean’s going to kill everyone he loves. 

But Dean isn’t the one who stabs Shrike in the chest. Dean isn’t the one who decides to push him down that corridor and fill him with darts. A corridor that’s covered with sigils and symbols, incidentally.

Nope. That’s this guy. Sammy walks right across that Devil’s Trap the same way that Castiel does. He takes Ruby’s knife into the room to give it up, to let go of his past, to begin to move on. Dean has to go on a journey of finding his faith in a divine being, in himself, and ultimately he’s grown I think. But you know who hasn’t had a chance because, in some ways, he’s been following Dean’s emotional lead for all this time? Sam.

...Lol it was a mystery Sam meta all along.

This is Sam’s journey. This is Sam’s healing. I said before that we’re building toward Swan Song (at least wrt the parallels) and I still expect to get there, but we have to deal with Mary and John on the way. We need to take it back to the start and undo the harm done to the boys, make them comfortable and happy with who they’ve become. Dean is almost there, Cas is almost there. And now Sam is being shown to be stepping out on that journey.

This is the dialogue from the end of 4x01.

DEAN: Right. And why would an angel rescue me from Hell?

CASTIEL: Good things do happen, Dean.

DEAN: Not in my experience.

CASTIEL: What's the matter? You don't think you deserve to be saved?

DEAN: Why'd you do it?

CASTIEL: Because God commanded it. Because we have work for you.

So if Sam is taking the role of Dean when he stabs Shrike with that knife, then it’s possible that at the moment he doesn’t think that good things happen. It’s possible that Sam doesn’t believe that he deserves to be saved. We already know that Dean has work to do because Billie told us, reminding us of 4x01 already--but what about Sam? 

I talked about Sam needing a win, but he also needs to believe in himself, and he voices in 13x04 that he was afraid he was losing his faith. Incidentally during those eps Dean was the one leaning on him, relying on him to fake it; they were switching roles with each other, but Dean’s requirement for faith has needed Castiel to fulfill it since mid season 4, not Sam, and he was never cut out for the role. So Cas is back, fulfills Dean’s requirement for faith, but Sam is the one who is having his faith slip and has nobody to put it in. So I’ll reiterate: Sam needs a win. He needs his faith to be restored.

Sam needs his own Cas. And as @tinkdw pointed out to me he’s all in blue next week, so. Welp. My poor boy is doing his own growing, okay.

PS DID I MENTION ALL THE ACTION HAPPENED AT A FARMHOUSE?

Anyway. I hope this was fun. Go Sammy! Go Sammy! Go Sammy!

[thedogsled]

I love that Dean’s Hell flashback is setting us up for a parallel. Sammy had the cage with Lucifer in 11 while Dean’s flashback was silent and wholly interpreted into the scene by Jensen. This time it’s about Dean, and if we’re going to mirror raising him from perdition with Cas it needs to be forefront in our minds.

I love that he’s hung up his cowboy hat next to the mourning jacket. Tiny little touch there.

I love that Dean really is over demons since Crowley. And they burned his bones because they know better now.

I love that even a plaid jacket and cherry pie doesn’t save Barthamus.

I loved the Charlie mention even if it was dressed up as something else.

I love that everyone flirted with Dean and he was largely unthreatened by any of it.

I love that they created that whole Indiana Jones floor puzzle and didn’t bother to solve the password, they just Winchestered their way through it. Seriously.

I guess I’m a little bit sad that ‘love, loss and darts’ was about Shrike but I’ll live D= at least now I don’t have to go hunting for those dartboards...

I LOVE next week’s promo, but that’s another story. Hello 13x09 tag...

[thedogsled]

Coda 13x08: A Little Bit About Crowley

Link here on AO3

Pairings: Drowley and Destiel if you squint

Words: 902

Warnings: My only warning is I chose a really weird tense and I don’t stick to it, but I think it mostly works...

His thoughts are on Crowley today, have been since a goddamn demon called him up speed dial, unknown number, and proceeded to woo him with promises of having exactly what he needs. It’s not the only way his mind goes, of course. He remembers another crossroads demon, another deal, remembers claws and teeth tearing through his flesh, but that pain had been relatively fleeting in comparison to what comes after. The last ten years of his life seem like a dream since then, sometimes good but often nightmarish, a very different kind of suffering because it had always seemed to come hand in hand with people to suffer for; good things that could be stripped away from him at a moment’s notice.

 But Dean is at peace with himself in this beautiful new way, like a weight lifted, and for all the responsibility that Billie has placed on his shoulders, she gave him the news he needed to hear most: that he would die when it was his time, and most likely he’d die hunting, saving other people because that was what he wanted to do; what he chose.

 He’s thinking of Crowley when they walk down the street, thinking of what that relationship had been, the flavour of his life given physical form, all ups and downs, mostly darkness. That wasn’t what he chose to be any more, and it wasn’t because, ultimately, Crowley was evil; he hadn’t been that to Dean for the longest time, even if Dean had never been able to find the words to tell him.

 It was that Dean was just over demons in general.

 Fuck demons. His whole entire goddamn life had been about demons. Right now the only thing he wanted was about as far from demonic as it was possible to get, off on some mission he’d been forbidden from joining. He was so wound up, frustrated with being cornered out of the game that he just wasn’t interested in listening to Cas’ excuses right now, and had placed that burden on his brother’s shoulders instead.

 He’s thinking of Crowley when this asshole – this god damn fake – tells him he knows all about him, shoving cherry pie across the table like it’s a come hither. And when he explains that he’s the crossroads demon now Dean just about considers taking out his angel blade right there in public, ten minutes from the bunker, and in broad daylight jumping over the table and stabbing this guy to death.

 That’s why they met here, after all, on this crowded street. Because Crowley’s the goddamn exception to the rule and this asshole knows it.

 Okay, so maybe it’s a little bit about Crowley.

 Sam doesn’t get it, of course. Sam thinks it’s just a general demon loathing thing. Sam whose entire life has been one demon thing after another, wants them to consider the possibility of taking this guy up on his deal. It’s almost laughable. Except Dean’s not laughing, and this guy keeps flirting, cocky son of a bitch, with absolutely none of Crowley’s charm.

 When he touches his mouth, Dean’s mind drifts just barely, but not so far as to allow him to lose focus on the conversation. He remembers a thumb pressing against the corner of his own lips, his own demonic darkness drawing up to the surface in answer. When Dean remembers the experience he’s being consumed by black lust, pressing his mouth back roughly in answer to Crowley’s kisses as though to challenge him, threatening, mocking: Is this what you wanted? Is this what you wanted me to become? Drag me down to your level—is it broken enough for you now? Am I ruined enough now?

 It was Crowley who’d thrown him out of that darkness too, who’d said that enough was enough and ensured that he was returned to humanity and pain and all the awful things he’d been running from for so long. He kind of hated him for that. Kind of loved him too. And he’d never thanked him.

 This guy thought he could just slide in, take Crowley’s place, rule in his stead? No way. Dean was done with demons. Dean was done with his own darkness, and like it or not that was what Crowley represented: darkness, but with his own light at the end of the tunnel, coming closer in incremental shades of grey but black as night none the less. Didn’t he deserve that light now? Hadn’t he earned some peace?

 He’s never going back: not to black eyes, not to nightmares, not to being consumed by a litany of sins. Summer of love? More like summer of lust, summer of not caring any more, summer of freedom that was never truly free, bound in burden by his continued self hatred. There are good memories, like any drunken vacation, but lack of inhibitions didn’t mean lack of regrets, and Dean was done blaming himself for the things he’d done.

 Dean didn’t hate himself any more. He was free. He stood over burning bones and it was like standing over the pyre he hadn’t been able to make, setting Crowley free. As Sam ran his hands through his hair and fretted about how to clear up the dead immortal lying in the road, Dean warmed his fingers over the flames, and sighed down at them.

 “Goodbye, Crowley,” he said, softly. “And thanks for everything.”

[thedogsled]

Dean cleaning his guns to the point of extremes. He’s anxious about Cas. And there’s his mourning jacket hung up next to his cowboy hat at the door. And Sam angles his body off toward it at one point to draw attention to it.

Nothing to see here.

[thedogsled]

Okay but the irony of Sam being called the smart one when he’s the one taking Cas’ phonecall (what? why?) and therefore stretching the logic around that whole situation to make it more palatable.

And you know why? Because they had to textually avoid Dean being on the phone to Cas too much because literally none of us would have believed that he didn’t realize something was wrong.

[thedogsled]

But mom I don’t want to watch Indiana Jones this week I have other things to do...

[thedogsled]

s13x08 qotd

13x08 The Scorpion & The Frog

Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality – Lewis Carroll

Practice like you’ve never won. Perform like you’ve never lost.

We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us – Charles Bukowski

Life has a way of testing a person’s will, either by having nothing happen at all or by having everything happen at once – Paulo Coelho

[zelenaranger-blog]

Medalion Rahimi as Fatima Namazi in NCIS LA