#spn 12.06

[ironworked]

SPN 12.06

After the cold open and the title, we catch up with Jody as she's about to settle down to watch some tv... until Dean and Sam interrupt. From Jody's shocked face after Dean tells her he killed Hitler, we cut to:

Dean: Jody, you watching some kind of chick flick here? Jody: Well, Dean. I’m a chick. D: No. No, no. You’re– you’re a badass sheriff chick. You’re not a-a rom com chick. Wait, are you a rom com chick? J: Are you? Sam: He’s more of a, uh… animated Japanese erotica chick. J: Really?

But here's the thing - wait, hold on, look at these first:

They're finishing their food. Someone is leaning forward, towards the tv. That someone also holds the remote, and keeps looking at the tv.

That someone is not Jody.

...

Then they go to Asa's wake, meet his mother. Dean and Jody have the same reaction:

Next bit I want to highlight is this:

D: He died on the job. No better way to go. S: You really believe that? D: Yeah. What, you don’t? I mean, come on, Sam, it's not like we're in the “live till you're 90, die in your sleep” business. This? This only ends one way.

GODFUCKINGDAMMIT

Aaanyway. We meet the Banes twins and I'm just going to say what we all say: love them, wanted more of them.

After that, Mary arrives and we get this after a start to the conversation where it's clear that Dean still isn't okay with Mary leaving BUT I think this is why:

D: So you’ll text us once a week, maybe, but you’ll drive all the way to Canada to see some dead guy? Well, that’s awesome. I’m gonna get some air. Mary: Dean, wait…

No wonder Dean had a soft spot for Crowley! he left him multiple voicemails when they were living together. Sharing a room, even! People in Dean's life don't just leave, they also tend to be terrible at keeping in touch!

I LOVE this scene between Dean and Jody:

Meanwhile, Sam is being surprisingly insightful in his conversation with Mary.

S: [Dean]'s just scared we're gonna lose you again, that – that because we're hunters, you're gonna walk away. But I know that’s not true. Even looking at these… I mean, you saved Asa in 1980, after Dean was born. After everyone thought you quit hunting. Seems like you couldn’t stop then, and… I’m guessing you can’t stop now, either. This job, this life, is crazy and insane. But it’s in our blood.

Tell me that is not the face of someone who's been 'caught':

'tying up loose ends', my ass. I think that's what she told herself, and what part of her wanted to do. But I don't think she would've ever stopped hunting completely.

And the last bit:

D: Go away. Billie: You’re not the boss of me.

If they were intent on Dean dying, this should've been foreshadowing for the after. Dean always had a connection with Death (capital D) and reapers, and it's a waste that they didn't end up doing anything with it. Also it would have matched the 'glow-ups' of Jack, Cas, and Rowena.

[saltyhuntress]

supernatural random moments [1/∞]

12x06 | Celebrating The Life of Asa Fox

[mittensmorgul]

This is going to sound like a weird question, and for that I apologize. In your opinion, what episode do you think the subtext really hits you on the head with the fact that Dean is bi? Every time I think about Dean's sexuality, I'm always reminded of that episode with the siren being the one undeniable proof that Dean is into men (as well as women), because sirens are traditionally woman-shaped to seduce men, but this siren was man-shaped. I think it really proves it, in my opinion. Thoughts?

OH gosh, honestly? I stopped trying to “prove” the subtext was there and real years ago. I’ve stopped looking at each individual incident as its own thing, because there honestly is no definitive moment for me. Plus that’s the sort of straw man that’s always put up for debate by folks who try to explain each point or incident away.

On their own, each of the examples I could put forth can be argued against and debated as to the intent or meaning, but honestly? You can’t debate the entirety of canon. For me, it’s the entirety of canon that proves to me that Dean is bi.

Folks who do not want to admit it will argue that “well obviously it was about brothers, what dean really wanted from the siren was a brother, not a lover,” and it’s clear that these people are being deliberately obtuse and ignoring everything else that has been said about Dean and his siren (for reference: see this post from a little over a year ago where I collected a few relevant links to further reading)

Some moments, yeah, are more “obvious” than others, but like... 

Look at something like Max and Alicia Banes. You’d think that Sam would be paralleled with Max as the sibling with “magical powers” and Dean would be paralleled with Alicia as the badass hunter but with no special powers. And yet... Dean was EXPLICITLY paralleled with Max... the queer hunter who also loved Dean’s car and his trunk full of weapons, who hit on bartenders and made a horrific choice about resurrecting his sibling at the cost of his own soul... but again... someone who was explicitly and inarguably queer and who considered the most important thing he learned was how to pick up men.

So like... there’s always someone who’s gonna argue with even the most blatantly obvious points, but within the larger context, and under the sheer weight of numbers of times these sorts of parallels can be made, arguing against it starts to look ridiculous, you know? I don’t need “proof” of anything, and I don’t think it’s possible to “prove” what you want to here with one single shining example. Because anyone who needs “proof” isn’t actually looking for it, they just want to argue.

[thebratfarrar]

Celebrating the Life of Asa Fox - John Badham

[lillysilverus]

“Celebrating the Life of Asa Fox” is on this morning.  Please, please let them bring  back the Banes twins to resolve that story.  They were actually interesting, well acted, well written characters with a good back story and actual recurring characters that I wouldn’t mind seeing again. Plus it would have a potential story for Rowena to be involved in. Come on show. All the ridiculous people you’ve brought back, but you won’t bring back characters with an actual unresolved story?  

[saltyhuntress]

Sam amd Dean | being recognized

12x06 | Celebrating The Life of Asa Fox

[saltyhuntress]

DEAN WINCHESTER

12x06 | Celebrating the Life of Asa Fox

[mittensmorgul]

I’m watching 12.07 on the TNT loop (and yeah, watched 12.04-12.06 this morning before this, and whoa does all of Dabb Era look different through the lens of 14.20. Even all the meta-screeching glee of early s12 where we reveled in all the callbacks to the past, all the reframing of the original narrative through mirrors and subversions and references... in retrospect it was all of us collectively being taught what the entire Original Narrative was. I’ve written a lot in s14 (and even in s13) about how the narrative itself had begun to deliberately educate the audience on How To Watch The Show, on how to understand narrative mirrors, narrative negative space, the tropes of horror and fantasy and how they function in this particular story, all building off what Chuck himself began showing us as he lifted the curtain in 11.20.

This has been a very long game, and I salute Dabb for pulling it off.

Yeah, I know there’s one more season to go, and anything could still happen, but whoa it’s almost like Dabb knows this entire story so well, and had set out a deliberate plan the moment he was handed the reins, and then has stuck to it at all costs, with the full intent of finally being the one to close the story, and the eternal narrative loop.

He understood the story, the spiral narrative, and hired writers who could write in circles, while also educating the audience and preparing the characters for this particular endgame situation.

And I’m thinking that as Dabb’s second in command in this era, Bobo was in on the twist from the start. Because of this conversation in 12.07:

Crowley: This whole Vince Vincente comeback thing… It's a joke, right Russell: No. Deadly serious, my friend. We've raided, repackaged, and resold everything else from our past. Why not give hair metal another shot? Yeah, okay. I doubted it, too, but Vince came to me with a killer pitch. The original Ladyheart lineup reunited. Back in the day, those cats sold, like, 10 mil. Crowley: So did Hootie & the Blowfish. Russell: And I'll bring them back, too. I know Ladyheart might be a punch line, but the band's got off-the-chart name recognition. And just talking to Vince, he seemed different, you know? Energized. Reborn. Lit. Crowley: Like a whole new man. Russell: Exactly.

Substitute “Vince” and “Ladyheart” with “Lucifer,” and put Dabb in Crowley’s role, you have the key to Dabb era on one meta level. And from that angle:

Vince Vincente: Did not take you for the martyr type, Crowley. Crowley: I'm really not. I just hate you that much.

and

Dean: Why are you doing this? Vince Vincente: [Chuckles] Why? Sam: You and God made up. You forgave him. What would he think? Vince Vincente: I'm not especially interested in his opinion. Dear old dad, he finally apologized for abandoning me. And what's the very next thing he does? [Voice breaks] He ditches me. [Laughs] And you, too, by the way. And rides off into the sunset with Auntie Amara. He needed my help, and he'd say anything to get it. His words, your words, they mean nothing. Don't you get it? This is all meaningless. Heaven, Hell, this world. If it ever meant anything, that moment is past. Nothing down here but a bunch of hopeless distraction addicts, so filled with emptiness, so desperate to fill up the void… they don't mind being served another stale rerun of a rerun of a rerun. You know what my plan is? I don't have one. I'm just gonna keep on smashing Daddy's already broken toys and make you watch.

and it wasn’t really a win, it was just losing slow. Because the story was always gonna be the story, right up to the point where the characters looked up and noticed the author was fucking with them from behind the curtain instead of being dead...