#spn 9.19

[jennsens]

Dean Winchester | SPN 9.19

[foxthefanboi]

9x19 - Alex Annie Alexis Ann

[bowleggedean]

9.19 | Alex Annie Alexis Ann 

I forgot how hot it was when Dean yelled "look at me, bitch!" before deheading a vampire.

[mittensmorgul]

9.19, Alex Annie Alexis Anne.

WAYWARD. I love this episode, but really the only thing I need to point out from it re: s14 is that this is the point Sam truly began worrying about Dean, and how the mark is affecting him. This has gone beyond "keeping it a business relationship" and moved into scary cold...

9.20, Bloodlines.

Consider this some weird alternate universe, and proof that Chuck really does only tell the same stories over and over again, and that this was a one-off failed experiment with some new leading characters that he didn't end up liking as much as Sam and Dean, and not actual Supernatural, and move along... >.>

there, that was quick!

[nancylou444]

My two cents

THIS is the Mark of Cain talking, not Dean. I’m seeing too much Dean hate because of this line.

I feel that the Mark of Cain is not only making Dean a cold-blooded and bloodthirsty killer, but is also messing with his mind and making him think that Sam no longer loves him.

WHICH IS FAR FROM THE TRUTH. Sam has shown in the last episodes, that dispute his words, he still loves his BROTHER more than ever.

I’m getting tired of the Dean hate on my dash.

[jennsens]

Dean Winchester | SPN 9.19

[mittensmorgul]

9.19... This is about choices and their consequences. Lies and manipulation and fear, when some of the choices weren’t choices at all. And what makes “family.”

There’s SO MUCH in here about what Wayward will likely deal with, but since Lizbob’s doing the Wayward Rewatch, I want to focus really briefly (uuh, hopefully... for me anyway) on this stuff ^^.

Because a lot of this is just me screaming THEEEEEEMES! and pointing dramatically at s13.

Alex, originally called Annie until she was kidnapped as a child by a vampire nest, spent eight years as their blood slave. We don’t really know much about her life before that, only that her only other relative-- a grandmother-- had died several years earlier. We know nothing of the circumstances from which the vamps took her. Her home life before the vampires was implied to be just her and her grandmother.

What Alex knows about family, she learned from a vampire nest. She was told it was love, convinced she fed her “brothers and mother” because they also brought her food, and convinced herself it was because they all cared about each other. Yet she lived as a shut-in when she wasn’t being used as a honey trap to lure in other victims for the vamps to feed on. She ran away when she couldn’t take the guilt of the blood on her hands.

Years of conditioning left her torn, still reluctant to give up the rest of her “family” to hunters despite having run away from them.

It was only Jody understanding that the vampire changed her name that gave Alex the full truth-- that she’d only been taken to replace the vampire’s lost daughter Alex, and that she’d been groomed for years to be that replacement.

And yet... Jody had felt instantly protective of this girl, because she’d been projecting her own loss of her son on Alex. But Jody freely admitted it, and instead of looking at Alex and seeing her own grief and loss, she was able to see Alex for who she was:

ALEX: But, uh, thank you. I want you to know that... When mama offered, I just... I couldn't disappoint her again. I had enough to be ashamed of as it is. Jody, I-I've done things. JODY: You don't have to explain. I know. Whatever you want from me, I'll give it. If you want, I'm here. But what you've been through the last 48 alone, losing your entire family, everything you've ever known or loved -- no one can understand that. ALEX: You can.

There’s clearly a lot more baggage to handle here, but this is a start. It’s a healthier start for the both of them, from a place of mutual understanding and honesty and agency. Jody didn’t demand loyalty, or coerce it. She asked Alex what she wants and needs, and promised to be there for her if she chose to take her up on it.

From the beginning, though, the entire episode is framed as “choices and consequences.” Alex blaming Jody for her brother’s death in the police station, but Dean telling her it was a direct result of HER choice to run away and essentially lead the vampires there. The thing of it is, LEAVING the nest was probably the first real choice she’d made for herself since the day she’d been abducted eight years earlier.

What a hard lesson to have attached to her first act of Free Will.

These vampires had taken her, erased her identity and given her a new one, convinced her she was family, and used her body as a source of food (both feeding on her directly and luring others in to feed on). That was her “normal.”

Despite the guilt that drove her to run away, she struggled with doing any direct harm to her old “family.” She still felt a loyalty to them even hating some of what they did to her, and forced her to do. She never intended harm to come to them, she just wanted out. When her family recaptured her, she was afraid they would kill her for deserting them and getting two of their family killed, but instead her “mother” offered to turn her. At the time, torn between the guilt over what she’d done all those years and the guilt over betraying her family to hunters, becoming a vampire herself seemed like the easiest way out, like this one (not really) choice could solve all her problems:

MOMA: It was so selfish. I wanted to watch you grow up. I kept putting it off. Don't you see? These things you've been feeling -- all the guilt and suffering -- those are human feelings. It ain't too late. I can take the pain away. And then we can stay together, as a family. Like none of this ever happened. Wouldn't you like that?

It was about “taking her pain away.” So she wouldn’t be burdened by these “human feelings” like guilt and suffering.

Sounds an awful lot like “paradise,” no?

But it was just another lie.

MOMA: I have fed her, clothed her, loved her going on nine years. You think motherhood's just about blood? You don't know the first thing about it. JODY: Maybe not, but I know what it isn't. And it ain't about forcing her to be like you the second she becomes inconvenient. [...] JODY: Alex! Was that her name? You named her after someone. Was it your daughter? I couldn't figure out why you changed her name. I thought maybe you were ashamed of your theft, but you have no shame. You said that I was using her to fill a hole in my life, and you're right. I am. You are, too.

In the end, it was also her choice to reject that life when she was able to see through the lies and was given a real choice for the first time in her life. From there on out, she’d reclaimed not only her agency, but her identity.

Sometimes choices suck. Consequences suck harder. But at least they’re real. 

[mittensmorgul]

Hi mittens! I love your blog and your meta is always really insightful! I had a question I was hoping you could answer. I was rewatching 9x19 on the TNT loop and I was wondering if you thought Mama (the vamp) did love Alex? I mean, obviously she loved the idea of Alex-as-a-substitute for the Alex she lost, but do you think she also loved Alex for herself? I mean she did raise her for 8 years. I have different opinions about it each time I watch it, so I was wondering what you thought. Thanks!

Hi there! And thank you! That’s really nice of you. :)

I just watched it as well (TNT loop high fives!) and I think Mama had some serious issues...

I mean, this was essentially a compare/contrast between Mama’s issues over her lost child from the past and how she dealt with it, projecting her lost child onto Alex (even going so far as to rename her Alex when her given name was Anne), alongside Jody who had similar issues and feelings of loss dredged up while trying to help Alex, only Jody ACKNOWLEDGED her issues and did her best not to let that get in the way of actually ///helping Alex/// first, and putting Alex’s wishes and needs ahead of her own.

Right from the start Mama was presented as toxic motherhood, and Jody presented as nurturing motherhood.

MOMA: Made an impression on my girl, I see. Baby, this is the human half of you talking. After the change, this human -- she ain't nothing to you. Clearly, Sheriff, you got issues, some hole in your life you're using my Alex to fill. I would say go and get a family of your own, but, well...you know.JODY: Wow. That's pretty rich coming from the woman who stole Alex to begin with.MOMA: I have fed her, clothed her, loved her going on nine years. You think motherhood's just about blood? You don't know the first thing about it.JODY: Maybe not, but I know what it isn't. And it ain't about forcing her to be like you the second she becomes inconvenient.

Moma wanted to mold Alex into the perfect replacement for her lost daughter. In the meantime, she trapped and used Alex to serve the needs of the whole family. She’d bided her time, waiting to complete Alex’s final transformation into a vampire, not for Alex’s sake, but for her own...

Meanwhile Jody:

ALEX: When mama offered, I just... I couldn't disappoint her again. I had enough to be ashamed of as it is. Jody, I-I've done things.JODY: You don't have to explain. I know. Whatever you want from me, I'll give it. If you want, I'm here. But what you've been through the last 48 alone, losing your entire family, everything you've ever known or loved -- no one can understand that.ALEX: You can.

Selfish obsession vs selfless love.

And this has been a recurring theme between Jody and Alex ever since. They’ve worked hard to allow each other to grow while supporting one another instead of Jody trying to control Alex. She offers Alex unconditional support if she wants it, and space to figure out who she is and what she wants.

They have their struggles with this, and they both benefit from their relationship in the long term, becoming a true family of choice.

So yeah, I think Moma (or Mama, both variations are used on the Superwiki), loved the idea of Alex, and not truly the person she actually was. She loved that Alex was “becoming her lost Alex” and not the little girl who’d once been Anne, you know?