Dear, Monster Hunter.
I've emailed you today because I have a job for you. I need you to take it on as soon as possible. So, whatever you're doing, drop it. Nothing is more important that what I am about to make you do.
Leviathan have infiltrated a well-known corporation. One that has influence and can greatly damage humanity if out of control. You're not the only soul I've tasked with taking down, Richard Roman Enterprise (RRE).
Their corporate influence is a great danger to society. So, do what you must, but don't let this bastard and his Levi-Lackies win.
Weakness: Borax (Temporary Kill), Beheading (Temporary Kill), Blood of The Fallen Aka. Bone of a righteous mortal soaked in the blood of three fallen (Permanent Kill), Bibbing Aka. Cannibalizing their own kind (Permanent Kill).
6x10 Caged Heat is a plot episode which finally does a bit to move the story of series 6 along. According to Paula's review and the comments thereon, viewers watching this when first broadcast were getting restless around this point and wanted answers regarding purgatory and the alphas. They were also frustrated with the soulless!Sam plot making no sense and turning Sam into a bigger arsehole than usual. Paula commented that the fact Sambot (as she calls him) does not care about getting his soul back and is making no effort to get it back renders that story impotent. I first watched these episodes on DVD in 2015, so my wait was much shorter, but soulless!Sam bored me even then. Crowley's 'death' in this episode also came as a bit of a relief to some as it progressed the plot and he became much less interesting once he was the villain.
There was some stupidity in this episode, as usual, but it was generally good. For all its faults, Paula's comments that The Walking Dead makes Supernatural look like Shakespeare is entirely valid. In answer to her criticisms of The Walking Dead lacking strong female, minority, and gay characters, though, I raise her Carol, Glenn, Maggie, Michonne, Aaron, Eric, and Jesus. Regardless, whenever Supernatural stuns me with its stupidity or god-awful writing, I remind myself that at the very least it is not as bad as The Walking Dead. Luckily, this is not one of those episodes.
On that subject, some were quick to throw accusations of misogyny and homophobia at the show for events in this episode. The accusations of misogyny came from the treatment of Meg, namely the 'sexualised' torture scene and Meg being naked. The charges of homophobia came from Crowley's death, although in spite of Crowley seeming to be into men much more than women, he is shown to have and enjoy coitus with women so perhaps biphobia would be a better description.
First, regarding the misogyny accusations, I must lament that the word 'misogyny' has suffered such concept creep in recent times that it reminds me of the deutschmark during the Weimar Republic. People are all too keen to throw it around believing it to be a magic word which will silence and destroy an opponent, but many seem to have forgotten that sometimes a piece of media is intended to make the viewer uncomfortable. That is the entire horror genre, after all; a place where viewers or readers can explore things which make them scared or uncomfortable without ever actually being in danger. This is a subject I have discussed more than once (e.g. 4x10 Heaven and Hell) so I will be brief: showing bad things happening to a woman is not misogynistic any more than showing bad things happening to a man is misandrist.
And as Paula pointed out, it could have been Dean strapped naked to the table, but most of the women probably would have been too busy drooling to pay attention to the point (to which I add: men's pain does not seem to register with most people, so to make it 'visceral' for the viewer, it was better to have a woman tortured. Compare, for example, the 10-episode long torture of Theon in Game of Thrones, including almost being raped on-screen and having his penis cut off, with Sansa's being raped off-screen by whatshisface. Both were unpleasant and uncomfortable, but one was laughed at while the other had fans in an uproar. I assume you can work out which is which).
Perhaps she gave the writers too much credit, perhaps not, but the point of showing Meg being tortured was perhaps to illustrate the fact that once upon a time she was a normal human being tortured in hell, just like Dean was. The reason she is who she is is that she was made into a monster, coincidentally by Alice Tear, the same demon who tortured then trained Dean.
As for the sexualised nature of the torture, it was not shown in a way which was 'sexy' for the audience. No cleavage was visible, and the shots of her body were minimal. Though it was very far from gratuitous, it was obvious the demon possessing Christian was cutting up Meg's vagina with the knife. This is what would have been done in hell, to her and everybody else, male and female. It happened to Dean, it happened to the demon possessing Christian. Which also means there is a good chance Dean used sexual torture on his victims when he was a torturer in hell. Why would we think otherwise? I concluded that years ago, and Paula came to the same conclusion years before that. This happens in real life; if an invading army is raping the women, they are also raping the men and the children. Sexual torture is used in prisons in Iran, Iraq, Gaza, Russian-occupied Ukraine...
Returning to the misogyny claims, the torture of Meg served the purpose of humanising her. Paula speculated that perhaps this might have the beginning of a 'demon turning good' story and a possible alliance and friendship with Dean. This would have been a good direction to take things, especially considering the many parallels of their characters, but it never quite got there.
Before moving on from the Meg torture, her straps had bindrunes etched into them. These are combinations of Germanic runes put together for magic effects. After pausing and studying for a while, I discerned the runes gebo, tiwaz, and raido in one; what looked like an inverted tiwaz boudn with ansuz or a shortened algiz with fehu; othala with tiwaz and fehu; fehu and thurisaz; and then a big one apparantly made of ingwaz, fehu, berkanan, and lauguz with one or two I cannot quite make out. Whether these are actually extant bindrunes with history is beyond my knowledge, but the props department probably just made random etchings because they thought they looked cool and expected nobody would be paying that much attention anyway.
I will return to the 'homophobia' later, but one of the big flaws with series six is Sam's absence of a soul. What precisely a soul is in the Superverse is never made clear, nor is the effect it has on a person clear or consistent. Compounding this confusion is the fact that soulless!Sam's behaviour is erratic, as if the writers themselves have no idea what is going on. In 6x09 Clap Your Hands If You Believe, Sam seemed to be some kind of autistic with a variety of Tourette's, whereas in 6x05 LIve Free or Twi-Hard he was callous, manipulative, and ruthless.
He is supposedly hyperintelligent and one of the most competent hunters around, yet he is shown to be less skilled than a capybara with a sword as well as a danger to himself and others. In this episode, he is supposed to be shown as tough and more than a bit twisted when he bites his wrist and uses his blood to make a demon trap, but as Paula pointed out, this was just all kinds of stupid. How did Sam manage to reach the ceiling, and if as he implied he was standing in dung or some variety of human waste while in the cell, why did he not just use that? Thank Allah's sparkly nipple-tassles this plot is soon to be over because it really is to the show's detriment.
Sam also threatened to kill Cas which is one of the stupidest moves any character has ever made in this show. Rather than making Sam look badass, it made him look a pillock. In his defence, he did manage to almost prove that Cas actually was listening to all his and Dean's prayers, but only appeared when it suited him. However, as Paula pointed out, taking the plot of an Indiana Jones film to get him to appear does not mean Cas is stupid: in a Judaeo-Christian world like the Superverse, the Ark of the Covenant probably does exist and Cas would know about it.
The problems of Sam do not end there, though. The reason he and Dean are working for Crowley in the first place is because Crowley is using Sam's soul as leverage. Sam does not even want his soul back, yet is going along with things anyway. Why does he not just call Crowley's bluff or something? If he does not care, he could say 'I am having nothing to do with this, I do not want my soul back and I am not going to help or hinder you.' Of course then Crowley could torture then, but the result of that is that he would no longer be able to use threats of violence against soulless!Sam to control Dean.
Those watching the show when broadcast would be forgiven for thinking that this is exactly what Sam decides to do at the end of the episode when he storms off in a huff, but alas. He was right to point out that he was saying something Dean does not like (and you can bet more than one Dean crit has run away with that line), but who cares about soulless!Sam's autonomy anymore? If Sam's soul is in the cage being tortured, why would Dean et al leave it there?
Another important aspect of this episode is Samuel's betrayal of Dean and Sam. He believes Crowley is able to bring Mary back to life, and has been working with him ever since to that end. When Dean and Sam were about to throw a wrench into Crowley's plans, Samuel grassed on them. Other than being an absolute banana by believing the king of hell would ever live up to his end of the bargain, why would Samuel even think Crowley had the power to resurrect Mary in the first place? And why would he even want Mary returned to Earth if it were possible? He knows heaven and hell exist, and that Mary's probably in heaven, so why? And even if she were returned, why would she want anything to do with him if he were to sell her sons out? Even if she were to, does Samuel not realise that betraying his own kin like that would earn him a one-way ticket to Crowley's dungeons of delights?
I can understand a character being desperate, so this does not necessarily qualify as bad writing, but it is incredibly stupid of Samuel.
Samuel called Dean a hypocrite earlier in the episode after Dean called him out for making a demon deal, though what precisely that accusation was regarding is left ambiguous. My understanding was always that it was a reference to Dean's deal to bring Sam back to life in 2x22 All Hell Breaks Loose Part 2, but it could also be a reference to their current situation, i.e. Dean is working with Crowley now, so it hypocritical for calling Samuel out. Quite how Samuel came to this conclusion if such is the case is beyond me ken, since -- as Paula pointed out -- Samuel is the one who dragged Dean back into hunting and got him enmeshed with Crowley scheme in the first place. If it was in reference to Dean deal at the end of series two, learning from one's mistakes and trying to prevent others making the same errors is not hypocrisy. Claiming it is is argumentation on the level of that dumbass Mohammad Hijab *shudders* I wonder whether he has learnt to leave his nose alone yet. Anyway, Dean's not a hypocrite but Samuel is a moron.
But this makes one wonder why Dean and Sam trusted Samuel in the first place. He might as well have had the imperial march playing when he made his appearance in 6x01 Exile on Main Street, and Paula wasted no time dubbing him Grandpa Shady as soon as he was introduced. He never showed any care or concern for his grandsons, and his betrayal while unexpected did not feel out of character. His comeuppance is on its way, at least.
Perhaps another instance of Paula giving the writers too much credit is her explanation that, since Dean is almost certainly a victim of rape, his comments regarding 'needing a daily rape shower' and the later reference to the Shawshank shower scene are not 'jokes' mocking or belittling rape, specifically men being raped. The show has done this enough times that the intent behind it really does seem to be an attempt at edginess. People can and do laugh and joke about their own damage and difficult experiences they have had as a coping mechanism, but this was not the vibe the lines of dialogue gave.
Apropos the homophobia of Crowley's death (i.e. the Bury Your Gays trope), all I can say is Crowley's going to be back very soon, so this is a nothing burger. Of course people at the time did not know that, and Crowley's death could have been another case of vilifying then killing a gay/bi character á la the Hays Code. The show definitely has problems with its depictions and treatments of its gay and bi characters, though. And one of the reasons it has been over three months since I last published one of these is Jensen and Misha's comments at a convention earlier this summer to the effect of Destiel being as valid as an incest fetish, that Dean's reaction to Cas's confession in 15x18 Despair was 'like a dad listening to his son coming out', and that it is all just fanfic anyway. Even 6 years after the show ended, that episode title is still apt. In five minutes, the actor men undid several years of progress, contradicted their earlier statements, and perpetuated the gaslighting. I have such a big exhaustion, but I am glad their interpretation is just that: their interpretation.
And while this is not just going to be a critique of somebody else's review, Paula's objection to the scene where Cas was watching porn fell flat for me. The scene in question involves Cas watching a porn film in confusion as he does not understand why the pizza man keeps slapping the woman's bum if he loves her. Dean tells him to turn it off because 'you don't watch porn in a room with other dudes'. Paula felt this to be almost puritanical, and stated that there is no injunction against men watching porn together. She is, of course, completely correct; absolutely nothing whatsoever is preventing men watching porn together. The thing is, men generally avoid being in any sexual situation with men at all. In my experience at least, men do not even talk much about sex with other men, at least not in any detail. This includes any talk about penis, especially their own.
I had the misfortune of reading Caitlin Moran's well-intentioned but ghaaaastly book What About Men? last year, and one thing which rang true is her memory of being with a man once and commenting on the fact he was circumcised. She claimed he did not know he was circumcised and did not know what circumcision is. She thought it was absurd (which it objectively is), but it is a part of men's bodies which men generally do not talk about in any detail to each other. It seems completely normal to me that a young British man would not necessarily know he is circumcised because we (especially the heterosexuals) do not spend much time comparing and contrasting with our peers.
Part of this is embarrassment and not a little bit of fear and shame, but also a general feeling that the specifics of one's sex life and genitals are strictly private and only to be shared with one's sexual partners. This is less true for gay men, and bisexual men who date men more than women, but even then it has rarely been a common topic of conversation in my experience. And as for the supposed 'locker room talk': I have been going to the gym fairly regularly since about 2017, and in the time spent in the changing rooms, showers, and saunas, I have never once heard men talking about anything to do with their sex lives. Their plans for the weekend, their workout schedule, study plans and the like are the topics of conversation. Details of sex lives appear to be strictly private.
I grew up with five sisters and a mum. Based on that, it seems as though the feeling is generally different for modern western women. Not only do they seem confident in talking about their own sex lives quite happily with close friends, but think nothing of talking about the fact that their current boyfriend's penis is a darker colour than the rest of his body, and to do so in front of their mum and younger brother. It also seems to be the done thing to laugh at a 17 year old boyfriend for having one testicle rather than showing concern for the fact that a teenager had cancer and letting him have his privacy and dignity. I have never once heard men in real-life talking about the women in their lives like that, and he would probably receive disgusted looks from his peers if he did.
The point being: Dean's 'you're not supposed to talk about it' sums up how men generally treat sex and intimacy.
In typical Supernatural fashion, Dean and Sam are a little bit silly at the end of the episode and allow Meg to try killing Crowley. This of course ends up with Crowley stealing the demon blade off Meg and using it to *checks notes* break the devil's trap by throwing it hard enough into the ceiling that it buries itself into the concrete and thereby ruins the devil's trap and frees himself. It was about as stupid as it sounds. Essentially the same has been done several times, but Salmondean (read: the writers) do not learn from their mistakes. Why are the lines narrow enough to be destroyed by a single knife? And why not draw a devil's trap on the wall and/or floor as well? Could Cas not have got a load of salt from somewhere? It would have taken him five seconds. All of these silly issues got lampshaded in 5x09 The Real Ghostbusters when Fritz dragged the stupidity, but the same mistakes keep getting repeated.
Whatever the case, Crowley goes up in flames when Cas burns his bones and the brothers are free to leave and not get eaten by ghouls (on the subject of which: ew).
The episode finishes with Cas killing all the demons in Crowley's prison (off-screen, of course, because what even is a budget?) and with Sam bitching and moaning about not wanting his soul back. Yawn. Sucks for Sam, because his situation is going to change quite a bit in the next episode. And on the subject of the next episode, it confirms that the writers of the show have indeed read Mort by Terry Pratchett.
That's all, folks!
But before finishing, the abandoned hospital used as the set for Crowley's hideout in this episode has been used in umpteen shows, including several episodes of Supernatural. It was used in The X-Files, Battlestar Galactica, Dark Angel, and Dead Boy Detectives. That building really does get around, the filthy little slut.
You can read more of my analyses here:
Series 1
Series 2
Series 3
Series 4
Series 5
Series 6
Sundry
You can read Paula’s review here and Demian’s here.
and im gonna say something quite controversial here: the way that dean talks about monsters is kinda similar to how racist monsters and characters in the show talk about people of color and i feel like that flies over the fandom's heads bc majority of the fandom is white #noshade #okaymaybealittleshade
oh and another thing: dean didn't raise sam. john raised them poorly into a dysfunctional family dynamic. a child can't raise a child and i wish we would stop using the rhetoric that encourages the idea of it
i want to know where salmon bean keep getting holy oil. when cas first uses it in ftbym (5.3) he says it's "very special. very rare" and can only be found in jerusalem which implies there is a limited quantity and must be very difficult to make. where does it keep coming from ???? they're very liberal with it in later seasons
