#spn 4.22

[ebenelephant]

i'm kinda fascinated by this strange form of legitimate affection we see ruby feeling for sam in between her tricking him into starting the apocalypse and dean finally killing her.

[idontwikeit]

The very touch of you corrupts.

[mittensmorgul]

just realizing as i finish editing the podcast for 4.22 that the narrative strategies chuck relied on for s4 to come to his desired conclusion (with Lucifer freed for the apocalypse to begin) are the exact same narrative strategies employed in s15 when he was actively manipulating the story.

at the end of 15.19 after Jack has taken on chuck’s power-- effectively become chuck-- he says “ Chuck put himself in the story. That was his mistake. “

well, that’s exactly what chuck did in s4. put himself in the story, wanted to be an active participant while manipulating events and people to do his bidding.

but what he finally realized, the only way to get the ending he wanted was to repeat what worked so well in s4. convince his characters they want the one thing HE wants them to want, because that’s the only way to push them into compromising themselves enough to do what he wants them to.

the essential mechanic of the Chuck Won theory boils down to freaking zachariah...

as long as the characters think they’ve won in the process, they’ll do literally ANYTHING for the narrative. up to and including surrendering their own free will and thinking they’ve achieved “paradise,” as if that was ever something any of them thought was a good idea in the first place.

and it’s fucking depressing af...

[spngeorg]

Episode 82, 4.22 Lucifer Rising

Spoiler alert: Chuck won. Mostly, anyway. Team Free Will is just finding their spark, and just having their eyes opened to just how badly the story had been manipulating them before. Only none of it happens in time to stop the apocalypse, and Chuck’s story gets to continue chugging along.

I hacked out this post the other day that sort of sums up my feelings on 4.22 vs 15.20, and I think it serves as a nice intro piece to this episode

We all know what happens in this one, and I have lots to say about it all.

Links of interest:

The Superwiki page for this episode

My tag for this episode (17 pages of posts! so many!)

An ask about Cas and doubt and free will

My rewatch notes from June 2019

Zachariah, Ruby, and Sam’s tampered voicemail

Chuck’s moment of perfection, only slightly marred by Cas’s rebellion

The CW promo video for this episode

Listen now on AnchorFM, or wherever you enjoy podcasts!

[waywardmaslow]

“You never needed the feather to fly; you had it in you the whole time, Dumbo.” -Ruby (4.22)

The most popular interpretation of this line of dialogue is that it indicates Sam’s powers weren’t from the demon blood, but I’m not sure I agree.

Based on the context:

..Sam has just metaphorically pointed an accusing finger at Ruby “The blood… You poisoned me” obviously referring only to the blood she had him drinking and Ruby’s response very much comes off as a deflection of blame off of her back onto him. To me, that implies not that Sam didn’t need the demon blood at all but that he just didn’t need the excess blood Ruby was giving him.

Sam was strong enough to kill Lilith on his own with just the demon blood that was already in his system from Azazel. Or he would have been, if Ruby had trained him properly. Sam’s powers could easily make him a threat to Ruby and, though he was working with her, Sam still wasn’t sure he trusted her, so Ruby would have had to make herself indispensable. Stunting the development of Sam’s abilities and getting him hooked on her blood with the promise it’d make him stronger would do that.

[i-make-fun-of-spn-characters]

Dean guessing that Ruby was working with Lilith behind the scenes way back in 3.16, then turning out to be completely right in 4.22:

[actiongirlmary-archived]

I do that, we will all be hunted. We will all be killed.

[jennsens]