#spn 4.05

[invisible-brandy]

i realised what tipped off my queer alert bells in 4.05

i don't know anything about Porky's 2 so it wasn't that, but this?

i mean yeah there's still years until gaga releases "born this way" but the experience itself, the rest of the wording and me watching it much later than it was released definitely adds to my understanding of it

on top of that, the shifters were always my favourite monsters on supernatural even during my first watch. i had a very trans-but-didnt-realise-it-yet approach, wanting to be one to transform into men that i liked. ...yeah great logic very cisgender vibes (/sarc). So the shapeshifter feeling good in both the masc and fem versions of themselves was also ringing queer

[spngeorg]

Episode 65: 4.05 Monster Movie

Aah, I love Ben Edlund. This one feels, in retrospect, like a microcosm view of the Grand Narrative of Supernatural as Chuck’s story. I could probably do a thesis paper on this episode, but instead I kept the podcast version under an hour... I mean, the queercoding in this one ALONE, the direct commentary on the Hays Code shoved into every level of the storytelling from the surface “black and white that’s all shades of grey” in the most literal sense to Dean’s admission that the “simple” film he’d want to live out is Porky’s II, there’s almost nothing about this one that turns out to be what it appears on the surface.

There’s a lot of bonus content for this one, too:

The Superwiki page for this episode

My (remarkably small) tag for this episode

But especially these posts: this one about the metanarrative of the series, my watch notes from my post s14 rewatch, this one from lizbob’s Dean And Cas Are In Love series, this one about the Dracula references, a chat with lizbob from 2017, my old rewatch notes from April 2017, and a very long series of posts on the queercoding in this one

Casting sides for Jamie and Dracula

Two 15 second CW Promo videos for this episode that remarkably still work on youtube: here and here.

and for the heck of it, have my queercoding tag if you’ve got a few hours to kill... :’D

Listen now on AnchorFM, or wherever you enjoy podcasts!

[foxthefanboi]

make me choose: @righteoussoldier​ asked: dean or sam

Sam's got a darkness in him. I'm not saying he don't. But he's got a hell of a lot of good in him, too.

[mittensmorgul]

I just remembered we have seen Dean eat a pretzel before! In 4.05, Monster Movie, when he gets excited about the giant pretzels at the beer festival, in a case that starts out looking like a vampire but isn't. At the beginning, Dean tells Sam "Come on, man, it's like the good old days, an honest-to-goodness monster hunt. It's about time the Winchesters got back to tackling a straightforward, black and white case."

Hah! I just watched this episode on Halloween, and made rewatch notes on it related to s15′s current story. Obviously this was before 15.04 aired, but basically I pointed at the monster rewriting himself as the hero and the similarities to Chuck, so... probably relevant. :’D

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/188726041150/oh-look-ben-edlund-is-still-screwing-with-us-on

But yeah, as far as I know, these are the only two times Dean eats pretzels in canon. Only the one he had in 4.05 was a comically large soft pretzel, probably fresh-baked. I mean, it was Oktoberfest! This was handmade:

and the ones he’s munching in 15.04 are the tiny hard, crunchy commercially packaged, mass-produced ones:

I love crunchy pretzels, but I mean if I had a choice...

[foxthefanboi]

4x05 - Monster Movie

[foxthefanboi]

4.05 - The One Where Sam is a Third Wheel

[mittensmorgul]

oh look, ben edlund is still screwing with us on the tnt loop today. 4.05, Monster Movie, where the Monster attempts to write not only his OWN story, but to rewrite all the old monster movies to make the monster into the hero.

Because that’s not relevant to Chuck As Author at all, right? >.>

And the monster, confronted by Jamie telling him none of it’s real, and that prompts him to examine his own “reality.” And accept his death at the end, because that’s the story the monster always gets in the end.

And like in 3.13, where the Ghost of Freeman Daggett had acted out of a profound loneliness, so did this shapeshifter. From 3.13:

DEAN: Okay, so Daggett was a cold war nut, okay? He was -- he was an amateur taxidermist. He liked to slow dance with cadavers, and all he ate were c-rations, so what the hell are we looking for?! MAGGIE: Horrible little life. DEAN: Yeah, a lonely life...A cold war life. He was scared. He was scared...he was scared.

and

SPRUCE: What's this Daggett guy's problem anyway? SAM: Loneliness. DEAN: What, he's never heard of a Realdoll? SAM: No, no, no, Daggett was the Norman Bates, stuff-your-mother kind of lonely. I mean, that's why he lifted these bodies from the morgue, threw himself a birthday party, except they were the only ones who would come. Anyway, so, at midnight, he sealed them in the bomb shelter and went upstairs and o.d.'d on horse tranqs. DEAN: How do you know this? SAM: 'Cause he told me. DEAN: Oh. yeah. Okay, so now that he's dead, what? Same song, different verse, trying to get people to come to his party? SAM: Pretty much, yeah. Stay forever.

and now in 4.05:

DRACULA: I-I scared you. You’re the only one I don’t want to scare. I used to love the movies. JAMIE: They aren't real. You can’t make them real. DRACULA: "Real" is being born this way. Different. "Real" is having your dad call you "monster" -- it's the first time you hear the word. And he tries to beat you to death with a shovel. Everywhere I ran, everywhere I tried to hide, people found me, dragged me out, attacked me. Called me "freak," called me "monster." Then I found them. The great monsters. In their movies, they were strong. They were feared. They were beautiful. And now I am like them. Commanding. Terrifying. JAMIE: Lonely. DRACULA: Was lonely. Now I -- I have you. JAMIE: Ever think that maybe you're lonely because you kill people? DRACULA: Or I kill people because I’m lonely.

But Jamie had been right. The shifter had convinced himself that he’d been wronged, that as long as he was in control, he could think of himself as the tormented hero of the piece. That he could rewrite his own story without having to truly engage with reality.

and now 4.06 is on, which is ALSO about a story that comes back to bite the lying authors of said story... even if this story was “real.” Heck I gotta stop and go do my adulting :’D

[mittensmorgul]

7.06, Slash Fiction.

gooey doppelganger crime spree. I love Frank. but this episode is an interesting take on point of view and perspective, in a season where the big bads are masters of deceptive identity, stealing identities to blend into human society, appearing perfectly normal at a glance but subtly shifting behavior to bring their hidden agendas to fruition...

They lie, they infiltrate and manipulate, and have a long-term plan to subjugate and devour humanity.

We get an interesting view into both Sam and Dean from the Leviathans who've assumed their identities:

Leviathan!Dean: [talking about a burger] You know, he has one of these every day? And in his heart, he thinks they're almost as good as sex. This? [gesturing with the burger] Is disgusting. Leviathan!Sam: [pushing away his own plate] Dead plants with creamy goo. It's like eating self-righteousness. Leviathan!Dean: I mean, honestly, I just... You know what? I can't stand the guy. Talk about a hero complex. And he doesn't have relationships. No, he has applications for sainthood. Oh, and he thinks he's funny. He thinks he's a damn comedian. Leviathan!Sam: Who has two thumbs and full-blown bats in the belfry? [points at himself with both thumbs] Leviathan!Sam: I'm serious. It's nothing but Satan-vision on the inside. I mean, how he's walking around in a jacket with detachable arms is beyond me. You know, I had a brother with this many issues once. Leviathan!Dean: Yeah? Leviathan!Sam: You know what I did? Leviathan!Dean: Mmm? Leviathan!Sam: I ate him. Leviathan!Dean: Of course you did. Leviathan!Sam: How are these guys even a threat? Leviathan!Dean: Boss says they gotta go, they gotta go. Leviathan!Sam: Right. Idea. You wanna trade? I mean, I'll take chuckles over schizo. Leviathan!Dean: No, I like this one's hair better. You can stay in the big one. Leviathan!Sam: All right. In that case, let's turn up the heat. The sooner I get out of this and into something more stable, the better.

Which... yep... validates Dean's mistrust of Sam right now, despite this being the episode that at the end has Sam storming off in hurt indignation:

SAM: Don't – don't lie to me again. No, don't even talk to me. Yeah, I can't. You know what, Dean? I can't. DEAN: You can't what? SAM: I can't talk to you right now! Dean... I can't even be around you right now! DEAN: Okay, so— SAM: I think you should just go on without me. Go. DEAN: All right. Sorry, Sam.

Referring back to Dean killing Amy Pond in 7.03, his guilt over which is pointed at with huge neon arrows in 7.04, but which he completely comes to terms with by 7.07, because DAMMIT HE IS NOT WRONG:

DEAN: You're pissed, okay? And you've got a right. SAM: Yeah, damn straight. DEAN: But enough's enough. SAM: Says who? Look, I'll work this damn case, but you lied to me, and you killed my friend. DEAN: No, I put down a monster who killed four people, and if you didn't know her, you'd have done the same thing. SAM: I did know her, Dean. DEAN: Yeah, which is why you couldn't do it. Look, I get it. There are certain people in this world, no matter how dangerous they are, you just can't. SAM: Don't pull that card! That's bull. Look, if I've learned one thing, it's that if something feels wrong, it probably is! DEAN: Usually, yeah. But killing Amy was not wrong. You couldn't do it, so I did. That's what family does – the dirty work. And I woulda told you, eventually, once I knew that this whole "waving a gun at Satan" thing was a one-time show. I think it's reasonable to want to know that you're off the friggin' high dive, Sam. You almost got us both killed, so you can be pissed all you want, but quit being a bitch.

Aah, all the lies, all around. Sam said in 7.04 that he just didn't feel guilty anymore, saying he just doesn't feel guilty anymore. He feels like yeah he did bad stuff, but he paid his dues in Hell, as if that suffering cancelled out all the bad. Which has long been one of Sam's go-to maneuvers. He's really REALLY good at compartmentalizing things like this, reducing his issues to equations and balancing them out. It explains his healthy food obsession-- using exercise and "healthy living" as a factor of "purity" to balance out his lifelong struggle with feeling "tainted" because of the demon blood he was fed as a baby. And he does the same thing with his own feelings of personal responsibility here. To Sam, his suffering in Hell was moral "payment" for his role in freeing Lucifer.

Dean expressed something similar when he got out of Hell (in 4.05), but for him the expression was entirely physical (the disappearance of all the evidence of his old injuries and a restoration to a baseline of physical wholeness), and in no way a "moral" restoration or absolution of his emotional state. In other words, in 7.06 and 7.07, Dean acts from an understanding that Sam is actively deluding himself, which is underscored by the Leviathan!Them coming to that same conclusion regarding Sam's inner mental state.

Avoidance works for Sam, but it's not honest. Meanwhile, Dean atones by his ongoing need to do the right thing, feeling like he will never be able to atone for the past, never truly be forgiven for the things he feels guilty over. He doesn't believe he can achieve a clean slate, in other words. No amount of good can undo the bad, but maybe in the end, his final tally will include more good than bad.

And this is the underlying message of the wound on Sam's hand. Even after the wound heals into a fading scar, he still finds himself squeezing it freaking CONSTANTLY. Skipping for a moment to 7.09:

SAM: Yeah. Yeah, I kind of mean more like, uh... more like ever since my head broke... and we lost Cas. I mean, you ever feel like he's -- he's going through the same motions but he's not the same Dean, you know? BOBBY: How could he be? SAM: Right, yeah, but what if -- BOBBY: What if what, Sam? You know, you worry about him. All he does is worry about you. Who's left to live their own life here? The two of you -- aren't you full up just playing Snuffleupagus with the Devil all the live long? SAM: I don't know, Bobby. Seeing Lucifer's fine with me. BOBBY: Come again? SAM: Look, I'm not saying it's fun. I mean, to be honest with you, I-I kind of see it as the best-case scenario. I mean... SAM presses the hand he injured in 7.01 Meet the New Boss. SAM: ...at least all my crazy's under one umbrella, you know? I kind of know what I'm dealing with. A lot of people got it worse.

This rather eerily harks back to Sam's manipulative thoughts about Dean from s4, when he was convinced that Dean was weak. Not strong enough to kill Lilith. Which led directly to Sam keeping all sorts of secrets from Dean because he'd convinced himself that only he was seeing things clearly while Dean was deluding himself. Considering Sam's lifetime of having been "manipulated" with half-truths and subterfuge John trained Dean to employ for Sam's own "protection," it's... kinda understandable to a degree, but it's so, so frustrating to watch.

But this was the line of thinking back in 7.02 that led Sam to hide the full truth of his Hallucifering from Dean, to shield Dean from having yet another thing to worry about, because Sam believed he had everything under control, consolidated under this singular umbrella that he could close and push side by explicitly refusing to acknowledge it. By squeezing his hand like it was the Ignore Lucifer Magic Button. In the short term, it worked perfectly, zapping the hallucination. But it was also something Dean could actively SEE happening. Every time Sam squeezes his hand, Dean knows Sam is experiencing a bout of Not Engaging With Reality. But he has zero guarantee that Sam would even recognize every instance of his hallucinations for what they are, and he has a history of rationalizing away whatever he wants based on what he chooses to believe. Kinda... scary...

(and this will come to a head later in the season, when Sam actively engages with his hallucination which serves to validate it as reality, at which point he succumbs to it completely-- which is what Dean's been half-expecting since 7.02...)

Heck it's all lies, all the way down.