#2x20: Show and Tell

[stella-de-nuce]

His expressions 🤣

[critterdotcom]

ok so like. i watched the episode of buffy where the swim team turns into fish monsters alá chemicals in the steam room and. the whole conceit to this ep is victim blaming and attempted group sexual assault. the VERY BEGINNING has buffy in a dude’s car where he locks the doors and asks if she’s wearing a bra, and says she’s playing hard to get. so she does what she does and gives him a bloody nose and a sprained wrist. and the guy and the principal both blame her and say “well you should be dressed more appropriately”. i was grinding my teeth at this point. then blah blah blah, we find out the how and why the swim team is turning into fish monsters and the swim coach throws buffy into the sewer system with them and she asks “so you’re gonna let them eat me?” and the swim coach. says “they’ve already have their supper. boys have other needs too, you know.” and like. there’s already angel losing his soul bc he slept with buffy and the weird comments xander sometimes makes about her. i’m not concerned with that. the issue is that i’m used to buffy being in peril, like, that’s the point of the show. evil rises, buffy’s in trouble oh no! but she prevails and is (relatively) unharmed. i just wasn’t expecting sexual assault to be the thing to almost get her in that ep, i guess

[karlcagathon]

Tai watches Stargate

Stargate SG-1 2x20 - Show and Tell

[spn2006]

the look on dean’s face when he sees his mom actually broke me down into a million pieces. oh my god. oh my god

the jinn episode is literally the most heartbreaking thing ive ever seen what the FUCK

[theroyalmisfitmess]

[Updated as of 07/11/23] Reasons why I think Sid is the father

I don’t think other viewers can call fellow Sid-is-the-father theorists delusional anymore. The show is already building up the final contenders and I know in my gut they’re gonna be Sid, Jesse, and Ian. Hopefully we get S4 because I will update this whenever there’s a season break or a season ends.

Possible hints from the show (not the obvious and usually stated ones + not hints that could also apply to other contenders):

- When Sophie enters Pemberton’s to switch phones back with Sid, the engagement party crowd thought she was Hannah

- Sid remembered how much Tinder dates Sophie went on; he paid attention to her well (more on this later)

- Sophie and Sid both experienced relationship problems then found each other at the same time and same place. Sid later gave Sophie advice about finding the right person (funny enough, the advice parallels the situation because Sophie and Sid found each other at the right time to give each other advice)

- Two of Sophie’s by far most important love interests are connected to Sid—Jesse who is Sid’s best friend, and Drew who is a close friend of Sid’s wife

- Sophie remembers the Electric Slide; this time she is proven to pay attention to him

- Sid tells Sophie that he hopes the man she’ll marry will give her a better reception that what he and Hannah have

- If the father isn’t Jesse and Sophie is still married to the father, only Sid would be the perfect candidate to be understanding on why Jesse’s photo is on Sophie’s wall since he is Sid’s best friend

- The father is hinted to have loved Valentine’s Day even before he and Sophie even got together. Unlike the other guys, Sid’s memory for Valentine’s Day was always consistently good. Additionally, when Hannah walked in Pemberton’s to surprise Sid, only Sophie’s reaction was the focus

- Sophie and Sid both remember random facts they found out about each other offscreen; once again solidifying that they do pay attention to each other

- Sid somehow is the only character who has profound or notable interactions with both of Sophie’s parents

- In the episode where Sophie and her father made a popup, she tells her son it’s a story of how she met her father; in this episode, Sid is the only father option to interact with Sophie and her father

- Since we know that Sophie narrates the story, it’s important to note that she often emphasizes Sid’s stories by giving us in-depth insight despite their minimal interactions in episodes before 02x13. While she also does this for her other friends, it’s only Sid’s stories that we actually see play out long. To add, Sophie always paints Sid in a positive light in her stories

- In the disengagement episode, Sid and Sophie are implied to know a lot about each other (Sid knowing Sophie’s lock screen, Sophie knowing the password to Sid’s iPad); this isn’t really a hint but again, recurring theme that they pay attention to each other

- Both Sid and Sophie have this storyline where they are judged for their jobs/careers (and in the same episode)

- By 2x18 we see Sophie’s parents again and it’s Sid who primarily consoles them when they (along with Valentina) follow Sophie into Sid and Jesse’s apartment

- Sophie slowly bonds with Sid as each episode progresses and have more significant plots with him more than with Jesse

- Hannah assumed that Sid emotionally cheated on her with Sophie, and it was without reason. After this scene, we then cut to Sophie

- EDIT: Season 1 also had another cheating conversation between Sid and Hannah where Sophie’s situation with Jesse and Drew was the trigger

- Sophie’s son says that he thought it was a happy story to which Sophie replies it was, but we immediately get Sid crying over Hannah—setting the mood that it wasn’t really a happy night for everyone

- By 2x20 we have finally taken Charlie out as a candidate to be the father of Sophie’s child because it’s been confirmed that he ends up with Valentina (Side note: love this revelation. I was on a fifty-fifty with them but they fit well and love each other); Drew can also be taken out of the equation because of how future Sophie talks about him as a mere catalyst, but since there’s not an official confirmation we can just put him down the list for now

- Once again, it needs to be mentioned that the way Sophie talks about Sid in her story is always in a good light. She talks about the father so fondly and only Sid is the male character who is presented with so much emphasis about his personal life, his goodness, and his ability to have someone stir up their fondness for him

Parallels & Connections with HIMYM/Ted and Tracy:

- Alliteration names (Ted Mosby and Tracy McConnell, Sophie and Sid—if Sid’s last name also starts with a letter “T” like Tompkins then that would be interesting)

- Both are romantics. Sophie is a hopeless romantic who can’t find “the one” like Ted, while Sid is a committed romantic who is (and possibly going to be was) in a longterm relationship like Tracy

- Sophie and Sid swap phones, paralleling the yellow umbrella swap

- Sophie and Sid’s banters are very similar to that of Ted and Tracy’s

- Sid has Ted’s old room

- In connection to a point from the previous section, Sophie painting Sid in a picture that’s so positive and feeling untainted is very similar to how Ted paints Tracy in his stories—perfect, an angel, someone who no one could say something bad about, with great fondness

- Not directly related to HIMYM, but in the original HIMYM spin-off (How I Met Your Dad), the lead character Sally met the dad as she was preparing to get divorced. The script of this scrapped spin-off was reworked into HIMYF. I’m not saying it’s a direct answer, but what if the divorce storyline is gonna go to HIMYF’s only married main character father option?

- Sophie and Sid both play detective in 2x19. In HIMYM, Ted and Tracy have this running gag that they loved sleuthing

- Both Sophie and Ted went through all the lengths to get with Jesse and Robin, respectively. When Ted met Tracy he didn’t have to work so much, he just let it happen. Both shows work with a philosophy on how love is hard but loving is supposed to be easy. Both Robin and Jesse have complicated love lines with Ted and Sophie, respectively

Also if it’s any consolation, I previously took a film course for my major. So while I do acknowledge that I could be reading into things too much, I did have backing since I tried to incorporate the concepts to pick these things up.

[norahastuff]

I’ve said this before, but 2x20 and Dean’s djinn dream really gets me. I mean, you have Dean bleeding emotions all over the place. His wish came true, he got Mary back, and it’s almost like he reverts to being a little kid. He’s so damn vulnerable. He gets to play house, his mom’s alive, Sam is happy... but he and Sam don’t have much of a relationship, because Dean’s fear has always been that the only thing keeping them together as a family was hunting. Without that, why would Sam bother with him? Then there’s also the fact that the Dean in this fantasy is a complete fuck up. He’s a drunk who steals, cheats, and lets down the people he loves. I think that’s another fear Dean’s always had about himself. Hunting and saving people allows him to think of himself as the hero, the good guy, but without that, he thinks there’s not much to him. 

Which is total bullshit. I mean, come on: can you ever imagine the Dean Winchester we know stealing his brother’s prom date? The same Dean who would walk over hot coals to see his brother happy. The second he ever notices Sam show interest in a girl, he completely backs away. But in this djinn universe, that’s the role he casts himself in. 

Also, John is dead, which is something that needs a whole other post to itself. The one thing I will say is that when Dean has his breakdown at John’s grave, when he pleads with him and asks “Why does it always have to be me?” John doesn’t answer. And Dean’s face is really something. It’s an “of course he’s not gonna fucking answer” expression. Whatever the universe, John will always be the unknowable, unreachable deity that Dean will never really be able to please. He’ll never get what he wants from John.

And then there’s Carmen. His partner in this world isn’t someone he knows or someone who knows him. It’s a model from a beer ad with the caption “go someplace better.” She’s not real. Dean doesn’t even have a concept of what a real partner would be. Dean seems a little troubled by that when he comes across the beer ad in the magazine. Like he’s disappointed by how empty his life is that he can’t even fantasise about a real person.

I also find that really interesting in the context of Lisa. The next time we see Dean fantasise about someone, it’s Lisa. He imagines a life with her and what could be. But the truth is, Lisa’s not any more real than Carmen was. She represents Dean’s fantasy of the kind of normal life he thinks he should want, but in reality doesn’t. Initially, you could claim he’s not happy with Lisa because he thinks Sam is trapped in the cage, but even after Sam comes back, Dean’s not satisfied with his suburban life. It’s not until he rips the tarp off the Impala and heads out on the road, do we see Dean actually smile and feel like himself again. 

Anyway, it’s all fascinating, especially in the context of s14/15. Like, take what everyone in his djinn world tries to tell him to convince him to stay: 

MARY: It's everything you want. We're a family again. Let’s go home.

JESSICA: You don't have to worry about Sam anymore. You get to watch him live a full life.

CARMEN: We can have a future together. Have our own family. I love you, Dean.

SAM: Why is it our job to save everyone? Haven't we done enough?

What Dean truly wants is a family. A home. He wants Sam to be happy and to have a life that he gets to be a part of. And he wants a partner who will raise a family with him. Someone who loves him. 

The reason he can’t stay in the djinn dream no matter how much he wants to? It’s not real. 

Cut to Cas, over a decade later looking Dean in the eye and telling him “Dean, you asked what about all this is real? We are.” And to Dean point blank telling John, in the home that he shares with his brother, his angel and their nephilim son, that he has a family. He’s happy with who he is, with who Sam is. 

And fucking cut to Cas, an angel who loved Dean so much, it rewired his entire existence. Someone who saw Dean, saw all of him, who knew him to his fucking core and loved him anyway. Loved him because of all that he saw, and not in spite of it. He’s not the fuck up he sees himself as. Cas sees him as he really is: someone who loves, who lights up the world around him, 

That’s something Dean thought he would never have. In the djinn dream Dean tells Mary that he has to leave. That none of this matters because it’s not real. Mary says: 

“It doesn't matter. It's still better than anything you had.”

It’s heartbreaking, but in the context of future seasons... Dean will have something better. And it’ll mean so much more because it’s real. 

[halforcdad]

nightwatch 2 was a great episode! and it really built on all the good stuff that came from nightwatch 1: a look at the teams' personal lives, a killer fight scene, and good emotional storytelling. it's definitely meant to be a happier episode, though, and it does it well by showing positive progression for the characters (kai finally opening up to someone, chase helping ernie learn to stay still and being a friend) and in particular, lucy and of course kacy. as lucy sums up in the beginning of the episode, nightwatch 2 celebrates kacy's awesomeness as a couple (and as individuals) and how far they've come.

nightwatch 2 is filled with a lot of great parallels that help the episode come together as a fitting full circle moment:

lucy being called in during a date and being forced to go fetch whistler because she's the only one who knows whistler's routine vs. whistler already being there because she knows lucy's routine and taking care of lucy's a big part of whistler's routine now, and she immediately jumps to help lucy. whistler being asked to help in s1 on her off day because they needed her vs. whistler not being needed but staying on her off day anyway because she wants to be there to support the team and lucy

whistler outright asking about the cupcake and the anniversary message (in our fridge! bc they live together!), the open dialogue between them this episode compared to s1 nightwatch when they were walking on eggshells around each other because of confusing relationship status (are we friends or just exes) and things left unsaid (whistler's promotion and lucy's loved confession)

kate and lucy finishing each other's jokes, proudly showing off their chemistry in front of ernie, kate openly showing her worry and outrage in front of tennant when she could barely acknowledge lucy in front of their colleagues before (whistler even going as far as basically telling tennant she didn't agree with the decision to leave lucy alone with joe and keep hpd out of it).

their strong chemistry and banter is still there in 1x20, but it dies a quick death when the conversation, naturally, gets more personal and crashes into the gigantic wall erected between them after the breakup. throughout s2 (and especially in 2x19 and 2x20), it's allowed to flourish and develop, it's so apparent and obvious it ends up constantly on the receiving end of Ernie's teasing comments ('heart-eyes' and 'so now you're a comedy team')

lucy getting to show off how she's matured and grown since her time afloat, properly reading the situation with joe, talking him down, not panicking even with a gun trained on her and him getting violent with her, and handling the situation almost singlehandedly

kate showing her growth and experience as an agent, coming in with the timely rescue to save both lucy and joe (taking out the guy who hurt/tried to kill lucy ala lucy taking out andrea medina, whistler being able to prevent Lucy from looking like the bloody mess she was in 1x20)

1x20 parallel with the tables turning on lucy, she's the one getting scolded this time for going off on her own, whistler's the one getting upset at her for almost getting killed and fussing over lucy using the compress (an elbow to the face eliciting the same frustrated reaction as blood, head trauma, and a cracked rib makes me feel something). funny enough, both times their arguing is interrupted by their bosses arriving. while lucy talks up kate to curtis even tho she's mad at her, kate doesn't even attempt to hide her offense from tennant at lucy waltzing back into danger and leaving her ice pack. (also Whistler being so annoyed and concerned for lucy's safety she gets involved as backup on a case she and fbi have absolutely no role in Lol)

whistler hugging a crying lucy at the crime scene in front of their colleagues, whistler in nightwatch 1 having to stand there helplessly, watching lucy cry because lucy doesn't want her to talk or come closer, while whistler in nightwatch 2 is allowed to do exactly that to comfort lucy after her emotionally grueling day.

in 1x20, they end the episode separated with lucy walking away while 2x20 ends with lucy moving closer to kate at the crime scene and at the bar

kate spends the latter half of s1 chasing after lucy, trying to win her back. kate can't go after lucy at the end of 1x20 because of injury and lucy telling her not to say anymore, obviously asking for space and distance so kate's left there alone. after they finally talk in a roundabout interrogation (lol) in 1x21, they're friends again, and they're supposed to move on, kate finally stops chasing.

then we get to 2x20 and kate spends the episode trailing after lucy (she's still going): she heads to pearl to see lucy on nightwatch, goes after lucy after she walks out of the conference room to make sure she has backup, goes after lucy when she's in trouble on the boat, and walks up behind her after joe leaves. lucy handles a lot of the case on her own, but kate is always right around the corner in case she needs her.

lucy being on unsteady footing all of nightwatch 1 because she just came from a date and is now suddenly thrust into a case with her ex, had to see her looking hot at the beach, had to see the aftermath of said ex getting beaten up by a trained assassin knowing how close she was to dying, had to hear about a promotion her ex turned down to stay close to her and throwing everything she knew and assumed about their relationship for a loop, had to somehow pull herself together after finding out her ex did in fact care and was serious about them and still broke her heart anyway. lucy is hit with nonstop emotional blow after emotional blow and can't trust her feelings or her judgement. being around whistler just makes it worse so she puts some distance between them, moving back when she steps closer, leaving when she tries to talk.

lucy in nightwatch 2 is steady and sure the entire episode. she starts the case off in 1x20 rattled, but she starts off 2x20 happy and excited, she's in a good stable relationship that leaves no room for doubts, is able to trust her feelings and intuition about joe, is able to appeal emotionally to him and when she finally does let herself cry at the end, she can lean on whistler, wants nothing more than to be around whistler. whistler's a steady pillar for her in nw2 vs. the unsteady, emotional minefield she was in nw1

both cases in 1x20 and 2x20 leave lucy feeling terrible for different reasons. in the former, kate is the cause, the lingering pain from the breakup + seeing kate hurt + finding out about the promotion are a deadly mix for lucy. in the latter, kate isn't the problem, she's the support. she's there physically and emotionally for lucy, doesn't hesitate to tell her she was right and how proud she is of her while in 1x20 its more implied when she mentions medina's takedown, like kate is afraid she might say too much, push too far. the ending of 1x20 leaves both lucy and kate emotionally devastated, lucy finally letting all her emotions out and then steeling herself to go on a date to try to move on and forcing herself to have fun. at the end of 2x20, she goes on a date with whistler, nothing's forced (except whistler wanting them to diligently follow the script LMAO) lets herself be silly and do things like steal whistlers fries, breaking character, both of them laughing at themselves, being free and easy and comfortable

zero stakes because we're two strangers in a bar and youre only here visiting from dc so this'll be a fun hookup vs. zero stakes because this literally a zero stakes non-anniversary, we're just having fun on a date, reliving a moment neither of us knew would change our lives forever, in a comfortable, committed relationship we never thought we would have, sharing an intimacy we couldn't have before. zero stakes because ill never see you again vs. zero stakes because I love you and us and nothings going to change that

whistler being all touchy feely at the bar, leaning in super close and touching her hand, relaxed and comfortable vs. whistler in 1x10 still visibly trying to let her guard down even in an exclusive pop-up restaurant with almost no chance of seeing anyone from work, and still surprising lucy by reaching out across the table to hold her hand, being so hush-hush about their relationship that even something as simple as that in public was a big milestone for them. a whistler who's in love and not shy to show it vs. a whistler still trying to come to terms with everything and make the leap

whistler being hesitant about most of lucy's date ideas in s1 to now being super excited to recreate their first meeting, being on board with lucy's unconventional non-anniversary celebration, being able to let go and have fun with her unabashedly

lucy meeting whistler the first time at the bar she'd go to compartmentalize and be seen as a regular person outside of her job, whistler who was so remarkable she helped lucy forget for an entire weekend vs. lucy going back to that bar with whistler, winding down after a tough case and having someone shoulder that weight with her, someone who's ready to comfort her and stand with her (whether it's reassuring that lucy did the right thing or reassuring her that this date idea isn't silly and is actually super romantic), who also knows how to take her mind off it, whos helping her through it with love and compassion because she knows the job, understands the struggle she's going through, was there for her during the final confrontation and wants to be there for her now. lucy doesnt have to hide or swerve around her job, she can be open about it and share it with whistler, whistler who met lucy tara retail worker or lucy tara finance broker first, whistler who wanted things to be professional, but ended up falling for lucy anyway, whistler who's always seen and known lucy the person underneath it all. recreating their first meeting is a cute non-anniversary date idea, but it also helps separate them from the case and the day they've had, let's lucy be lucy from hawaii and whistler be kate from dc and lets them live in a happy moment from the past with all the perks of their present day relationship

I think Yasmine sums it up perfectly in the interview she gave about the episode: “That was fun to play in this scene especially because since it is a recreation, it’s the trying to be how we used to be and playing all of that out. But then clearly obviously we have a relationship now and just seeing the transformation from where I know Kate was to where Kate is and the fact that she even wants to do this is, I just think it’s so adorable and it’s so cute and Lucy loves that.”

how far they've come indeed

also kai trying to eat his spam musubi and lucy trying to eat her junk food and getting interrupted by a person (johnson and whistler) and then the case is the best parallel of all time

[bronx-bomber87]

Happy Saturday :) We have reached S2 Finale. I can’t believe we are here already. Feels like I just started on S2. This has really helped me get through this unusually long hiatus. Fun we can do this together. Thank you all for lovely likes, comments, and re-blogs on last one. I had a lot of fun writing it. Not a ton of Chenford in this one sadly.

So it'll be a lot shorter than our content heavy ones. It is closing an important chapter for Tim though which is important to go over. This is a fairly Nolan forward ep and its good but low Chenford. It’s time to close out this season so let’s get started.

2x20 The Hunt

We start off with our couple just starting their day. Tim confides in her about an informant he has a beat on. Love him confiding in her about this BTW. They are a slow burn with a lot of little pay offs like this we get to see along the way. I love it. Tim tells her about vice having an informant for the last 9 months in the Derain organization. A man named Cisco. Lucy gets excited cause means that he could give them Serj. A much needed win after losing the weapon that killed Chris. They don't have much on him right now. So this would be huge if they could track him down. I love how intently she listens to him knowing him sharing this is a huge show of trust.

Although this is a great lead for them Tim is worried he’s been killed. Says he hasn’t replied to a meet since yesterday. Before we continue I must note I will forever and ALWAYS love him opening doors for her. Like second nature habit with him. He never allows himself to go first. Makes my shipper heart happy. Chivalry is sexy af with Tim Bradford. He shows that constantly with her. I've said before it's the little things that make me happy. I also love them having their own secret op. I need more of this in S6. They’re going to try and track down this informant and see if they can find out where he’s hiding if he's not dead.

Their secret op is going to start with trying to see if he can be found at his normal places. Tim mentions checking their new sex trade businesses and a karaoke bar. Lucy makes a joke how she can’t believe a karaoke bar could be a front for a brothel. Tim and his jaded cop ways saying it’s LA of course it could be haha I mean where’s the lie? Ha That anywhere in this city is a cover for a brothel. Her reply and facial expression is priceless LOL

Lucy mentions it’s Rachel’s last night. Asking if Tim has anything planned? Tim doesn’t say much just dinner and taking her to airport. He is being very detached about the whole thing. Defaulting a little to his old ways with this. Lucy can’t help herself and give him a hard time about the airport though. Let’s note the smile he’s flashing in the first gif when she’s teasing him. You know that man loves it when she does.

She also calls him out on his ‘visiting’ plans. Clearly Rachel told her Tim would come see her after she moves. Tim continues his further detachment. Says no that he’s just going to be straight with her. Rip that emotional bandaid off about this. Insisting just like he did in 2x18 that long distance doesn’t work. (Also this scene continues my love of their height difference. These shots are my fav. I must comment on them every time ha)

Lucy can't help herself in trying to help him see it could work. She hates him having to go through this. The look on her face says it all. She hates the idea of him just giving up. That continued guilt of setting them up and watching it fall apart. Tim is decided and says no it’s not going to and he doesn’t see it happening at trying. Now we all know if it was Lucy he would wait for her. Make the effort. Show her she’s worth that effort. But this is Rachel and she is not that person for him.

Hell it’s why in 5x08 when Tim tells Lucy ‘She deserves someone who’s worth the effort’ was him saying she would be for him. That he would be willing to make ANY effort for her. Rachel was not that for him and this just shows in this episode. She helped him heal a lot post-Isabel but not deep enough of a connection for that kind of effort. Lucy finishes their convo out with saying she’s going to miss Rachel. Tim cracks a little emotionally and says me too…

They’ve reached one of the spots they’re checking for Cisco. Once again Tim opens the door for her. She even says Thank you *be still my heart* I love these two so much. They use the guise of their ABC’s to check out this place. To be able to get eyes on everyone there if possible by doing this. The lady who runs this place is a real peach. Tells them to kiss her ass. That she follows the rules. Even the dumb ones. Tim doesn't care about her attitude they are there for a reason.

They have everyone step out into the hallway. Clearly seeing if they can get eyes on Cisco if he's there. This is a pretty slick way of getting him to show himself. To be able to get to him without exposing the real purpose of their visit. I love watching them work in the field for this reason. They are a well oiled machine at this point. Very fun to watch them in action. I will say it is sexy to watch Tim dissect this business with his cop eyes. Walking through the hallway as Lucy follows his lead. Ready to follow any play he has in mind. Lucy finds the one door still shut. Alerts Tim and he knocks on the door to get them to come out. That’s where they find Cisco thankfully.

Tim pretends he is coping an attitude with him and shoves him back into the room. He "searches" him so they can talk. Cisco says after the shooting everyone's phones were taken. So Tim gets him a new phone since his old one was taken. Slips it into his pocket during his "search' Tells him to text him Serj’s location. Not gonna lie love watching him in this mode. 'Take no shit from anyone' mode right now. He’s already suppressing how he’s feeling about Rachel leaving so he’s a little pent up. It’s coming out here just a bit. Tim ends their convo and says he’s clean to the hallway of people. Then he and Lucy leave having gotten what they came for.

Rachel calls Tim expecting him to be at the station. She’s on speakerphone so Lucy can hear everything. He says the day got away from him he can be back in 20 minutes. Clearly having forgotten the time for their dinner. Lucy interrupts and says Cisco texted them a location. You can see the regret on his face he apologizes he won’t make it now. Rachel is also devastated he can’t make it. He apologizes profusely.

She tells him she’ll text him when she lands…In New York…Poor Tim looks so sad he’s disappointed her. He’s such a loyal person to not come through for someone is going to weigh on him. Before Lucy can say a word he says ‘it’s better this way’ her face though... Lucy has learned when to say something and when not to. This is one of those times. Doesn't say a word let's him be. She’s hurting for him though. It's written all over his face how upset he is about this. Not the way he wanted them to end.

Luckily they’re able to get to converge on Serj quickly and arrest him. Tim is able to catch her before she leaves. This is a huge moment for growth for him believe it or not. Instead of just shunting away his feelings about her leaving. (Which he was doing this entire ep and ever since she announced she was leaving really) And ignoring everything their relationship was for him he faces it. Tim's way of showing her this relationship meant a lot to him. Honestly It did she was his first real one since his divorce. It was an important chapter for him. I’ve said it all season. I am grateful to Rachel. To everything she helped him heal over.

Showing him he could open up again and have a healthy relationship. One with the possibility of a deep future. She helped heal that portion of himself. Show him he was capable of it. Which ultimately opened him up for Lucy in the future. Tim tells her he’s willing to actually give this long distance thing a go. He can't predict the future but wants to try. Now we all know they don’t make it past this episode. Because she was not his person. The growth is him pushing past his usual M.O. of suppression.

By facing what he was feeling and trying to make it work instead of being stubborn and not even trying. Lucy set them up because she wanted him to get past his S1 trauma. To push past all the crap Isabel dragged him through last season. To see him happy. That he deserved that so much in her opinion. So I’ll always be grateful for the role Rachel played in his life. It helped him eventually get to where he could be with Lucy. After this episode this chapter with her is now closed. I would get a kick out of her finding out about them now. Be interesting what she would say. Alrighty that’s all she wrote for s2 finale.

~~~~~

Side Notes-Non Chenford

Not a ton of chenford the episode mainly focus on John and his terrible decision making skills LOL I would've done things so differently than he did my god. Pained me to watch his terrible choices through out the episode.

Only good thing he does is go to Roslyn for insight. But the rest I would've done so differently. Harper put her career on the line for him and he just did most of it with out her. Loved Armstrong saying 'You know your problem John? You think you're better than people.' He was a dirty cop but damn if that isn't true LOL

Kills me every time to watch him tear apart that beautiful home looking for the evidence though.

Unreal we’re done with s2. Thank you to everyone who’s been with me since the pilot, to the newer ones who’ve joined me in s2, I appreciate you all more than I can say. The likes/comments/reblogs are the best. I shall see you in s3 :)

[supernaturalkickparty]

Happy birthday week, day 3, bestie 💜

Here's a StellaCordi coda i started in July but haven't finished...

The setup:

​​Geri soft breaks up with Cordell in 2x20, telling him it was too soon. Telling him they should ​focus on Stella Blue because she’s about to graduate. He looks at Stella for a long time, heart ​aching; wanting. They all move back into the ranch, and he and Stella have their talk over the ​game. Stella’s “or pick up where we left off” shows that she’s not sure if she’s ready to go off to ​Sauber, and Cordell reassures her she can go. They hug, but Stella still isn’t sure she’s ready to ​leave. She feels like she just got her dad back—Twyla is gone and Geri let him loose, too, and ​Stella’s finally an adult who can make her own choices. He doesn’t need to be worrying that he’s ​taking advantage of a child (he still is but it’s stella lol).

They’re hugging in the middle of the ​ranch house, where everyone is helping unpack, but as Stella tucks her head under Cordell’s ​she wishes they were alone. She puts her hands over his arms as he holds her, hoping he’ll feel ​her need through her fingertips. She can feel his intake of breath—soft; startled; hopeful—and ​he squeezes her and kisses her head, letting her go. He clears his throat, and Stella blushes at ​how obvious it sounds. There’s no one in the living room, but most of the family is in the house ​around any corner.

​“Uh…I just remembered something I need to grab—uhh, from the boxes they took up to the ​farmhouse. Something I wanted to give you before your party.”

​“Oh, I’ll come help you look,” Stella says, equally not subtle but too distracted by the sudden ​heat in her body to care.

​Cordell takes her hand, and she follows him to his truck and they get in. They barely get out of ​sight of the ranch before Cordell grabs her hand again, and when she looks at him she can see ​his uncertainty. She moves their hands to her lap, at the top of her thigh, her heart races.

​Cordell squeezes her hand once and then loosens his grasp, and she feels his fingers tremble ​as they drag across the edge of her shorts. Her breath shakes, and her hand jerks a little as she ​tries to pull his hand subtly higher.

​Cordell laughs, but he’s looking at her with elation, and he grips her thigh, fingers just beneath ​her hemline. “Let’s just hold our horses, babygirl. We’ll be there soon.”

​They pull up to the farmhouse and it looks deserted. Inside, the furniture is in place and their ​boxes have been distributed, but everyone’s been focusing on unpacking up at the ranch so ​they can have Stella’s graduation party like they’d always planned. Daddy leads her inside and ​up to his room, and Stella’s heart pounds so hard she feels dizzy. Finally… finally.

​“What did you want to give me, daddy?” Stella says. It comes out more goofy than suggestive, ​and Stella suddenly feels nervous and embarrassed. It’s been months since they’ve been alone ​like this. There’s been so much going on to separate them—the Davidson stuff, getting kicked ​out of their home and losing their privacy, Dad’s work stuff, and everything with Colton and ​Todd—and she’d started to think Daddy really was done with her; that the guilt she knows he ​grapples with over her had won out.

​Cordell smiles at her—that little quirk of one side of his mouth that he does when he thinks she’s ​cute. His eyes seem to twinkle at her with mischief as he kisses her hand and lets it go. ��Well, ​we’ll get to what I’d like to give you in a minute,” he flirts back, so cheesy Stella feels her face ​​heating up at how embarrassing they both are. “First I do have something else for you, Stella ​Blue.”

Bestie👁👄👁 oh my goddddddddddd

First of all I love cheesy cordell because he is so cheesy but its so adorable.

The uncertainty!!!! They're trying to regain what they once had and they both want this and want it to work out so bad.

Too bad someone's gonna get kidnapped and just when things are on the mend they're about to break again👀👀👀👀

[songbirdlopez]

Santana and Brittany should’ve been senior prom queen and king.

This is something I've believed since Prom Queen 2x20. 

Let's start with why I believe this would be a perfect full circle moment for Santana's high school experience. 

Santana Lopez had from the beginning wanted to be McKinley High's "top hoe". 

In season one we are introduced to her as Quinn's second in command, but it's made obvious that she wants the full glory. 

Of course we don't know why popularity is important to her yet, but we'll get there. 

When Quinn becomes pregnant Santana takes the opportunity to take over the cheerios. 

She does support her friend with the New Directions, but as far as one-on-one chats and encouragement go, she gives nada. She is even out right cruel about Quinn's situation, there's no denying that. 

Throughout season one she focuses her attention on the two most popular guys. Noah Puckerman is her on-again-off-again boy toy who she feels nothing for until someone else wants him. Finn Hudson is purely a conquest to cement her place on the Cheerios.

Onto season two. We find out why Santana is so cagey and cruel. Santana is in love with her best friend Brittany Pierce. But with raging internalised homophobia and the general homophobia of the time and place she suppresses these feelings. 

We finally get insight from Santana herself, she's scared of being herself and the consequences. 

As she starts to address and deal with these feelings she lashes out, but she also shows her soft side. We begin to see that she can be a "hardcore friend" when she wants to be. 

Then we get to Prom Queen. After Kurt is announced Santana breaks down and tells the last of her insecurities. She has been an outcast all her life and believes she always will be. She wanted to be prom queen so that there would be one night where she felt normal and accepted. That's why popularity has been so important to her.

Finally, season three. Santana and Brittany start dating officially, yay! But in secret as Santana isn't ready to come out publicly. 

Then disaster strikes and she is outed to the entire state by Finn Hudson. I will not start talking about this event because I will never stop. Because of this she comes out to her parents who are supportive, but up next is her abuela who is suggested to be her main caregiver, and definitely the person Santana looks up to the most. When she comes out to her she is rejected and disowned. Santana's worst fears have come true, being herself has had terrible consequences. 

Despite this heartbreak she moves on. Throughout this season we get to see Santana Lopez's friendship in full force. 

She gives Brittany the confidence to run for Senior Class President, she helps Kurt when Blaine is assaulted, forgives Finn for his unforgivable act, makes up with Rachel, goes to help shut down Sebastian's bullying, etc. Now to Senior Prom. 

Promasaurus is the perfect episode to complete Santana's high school arc. Her and Brittany winning prom queen and king, respectively, would show her that being herself isn't something that always ends in rejection. 

Her whole life Santana has known she is different from the norm and wants to feel fully accepted by her peers, this is how it happens. Unlike Prom Queen, where she doesn't win, she is finally being her full self and for once she is being rewarded for it. 

Her metamorphosis from a conniving, cruel, scheming mean girl to an open, warm, still snarky, out-and-proud lesbian is complete. Now she isn't popular because she's feared, she's popular because she's herself and she's brave. 

The relationship with Brittany that took her so long to come to terms with in fear of rejection is being put on a pedestal.  

There are also the real world effects. Seeing a sapphic couple be Prom royalty and be celebrated by their peers would be instrumental to young queer kids, even in a TV show.

In conclusion Santana Lopez and Brittany Pierce should have been Prom royalty. The story line was set up for over a season, and it is much more meaningful than what actually happened. Thanks for your time.

[cynicalone94]

Fanfiction Master List

Hey guys,

I've been a whump fan since I was a kid. My primary mode of expression is through writing fanfiction.

Most of my work is in the Chicago PD fandom with Jay Halstead as my number one target. I also write fiction here and there for Marvel, Brooklyn 99, and 9-1-1 Lone Star.

Chicago PD

I Don't Have Any Beneficiaries Anyway

Alternate Ending to 2x03 Weigh Station. When Jay fails to get the upper hand and is traded for Alex Price, the team scrambles to find him before its too late.

Just Another Day

Jay gets hurt during a raid. So just another day for the Intelligence Unit.

Rather Take a Bullet Than Get a Flu Shot

Friendly teasing goes too far. And just why does Jay hate needles so much?

Cost of Doing Business

A trip to Med to meet his brother for lunch becomes more dangerous than Jay had anticipated.

He's My Brother

Will knows about the death of Roy Walton and the cover up and he's not happy with his brother's new wife.

Living Donation

With his daughter's life on the line, a rich businessman makes a risky decision. But did he make the right choice?

Your Boy Tough

An annual taser recertification course brings up bad memories for Jay.

In The Wind

In a dense forest, sometimes even ten feet is too far.

I'd Rather Stay At Work

Jay actually admits he's sick. It doesn't go well.

Imbalance of Power

Sometimes the easiest way to make someone talk is to give them the upper hand.

Sacrifices

How do you judge whether a sacrifice is "worth it"?

Where He Should Be Safe

A sixteen part series of Jay having a bad time in places where he should be able to feel safe.

The Past Has a Price

When someone from Jay's past returns to take Will hostage, will the brothers make it out of this one alive?

Guilty Until Proven Innocent

Tag to 2x20 The Number of Rats. Gregory Yates becomes aware that Will Halstead is being questioned and sees an opportunity to shift the blame. **Update 11/19 Tags and warnings have been updated to include rape/noncon elements. It's kind of implied with the Tag to 2x20 but better safe than sorry. There's nothing explicit in this story but it is mentioned.

Upstead One Shots

A series of oneshots featuring Upstead and their beautiful family.

Up-Hill

Tag to my story In The Name of Justice. They might not be on the best terms but when Jay has a panic attack, Will can still find a way to bring him home. Pre-series.

Repaid in Kind

Tag to 9x13 Still Water. After Dylan was arrested, they thought all that was left to combat was Hailey's guilt over not saving Lisa. Turns out there was more.

Tripwire

Pre-series story from Jay's days in Afghanistan. Tag to Guilty Until Proven Innocent. How did Jay recognize the sound of the tripwire in time to dive out of the way?

What's Your Verdict?

The final day in court to wrap up a case that Intelligence has invested so much in takes a surprising turn. Hailey is put in a difficult position and every choice that she makes can only hurt her husband more.

Witness Tampering

The mundane lead up to a trial suddenly becomes a race against time when Hailey's husband is kidnapped to keep her from testifying. Will they find Jay in time? Or will a dangerous criminal evade justice yet again?

Chrysalis

An on the job injury changes Jay's life forever and he struggles to navigate the aftermath.

I Don't Know Me

Jay (at least that's what she said his name was) wakes up after a serious head injury with no memory of who he is or what happened to him. He's relieved when a woman shows up, telling him his name and claiming to be his wife. Finally, someone to fill in the blanks and answer some questions. Only… something about Meredith doesn't seem quite right and he isn't sure he can trust her. But what other choice does he have?

Friends in Strange Places

Jay is taken hostage by drug dealers when a sting goes sideways. But when they find out that his name isn't Ryan Clarke things take an interesting turn.

Missed Opportunities

Have you ever watched an episode of Chicago PD and been disappointed that Jay wasn't more seriously hurt? Well then you're a monster but you're also in the right place because so am I. Alternate episode endings focused on the idea of increasing Jay Halstead Whump.

Childhood Secrets

When Jay learns that the man who molested him as a child is out of prison and that two of the man's other victims have been brutally raped and murdered since his release, he's pretty sure it's not a coincidence. But will he survive long enough to prove it?

Missing PTSD Moments

Missing moments from the show where the events taking place really should have triggered Jay's PTSD. Starting with the ambush from the opening of Forty-Caliber Bread Crumb.

Stigma

When a minor on the job injury opens a can of worms, how will the team handle the revelation that one of their own has been trapped in an abusive relationship? And that another member of the team isn't the person they thought she was. NOTE: This story might be difficult for Erin Lindsey lovers. Please know that I do not hate her, nor do I think she was abusive to Jay, she just fits with the plot that I've come up with.

9-1-1 Lone Star

Burner Phone

Someone from TK's past arrives in Austin to make amends. But is everything as it seems?

Making Him Jealous

When Sadie Beck escapes from prison, she finds another crazy way to get the relationship with Owen that she thinks fate has promised her, making him jealous. Will Carlos survive her latest strategy?

Miscellaneous

Thanksgiving - Brooklyn 99

Jake gets hurt when he and Amy's fathers are fighting, adding injury to insult. Tag to "Two Turkeys"

First Impressions - Marvel

Bruce Banner gets to meet Tony's new intern.

[jensensitive]

some ghostfacers effect headcanons~

glimpsing Reality here!! what Really Happened™️!!

* = from scripts, etc

1x07 Hook Man - Dean blew the sheriff in hook man to let him and Sam off link

"Backside" is gay porn 

SAM Yeah, but hustling pool? Credit card scams? It's not the most honest [legal] thing in the world, Dean.

1x08 Bugs

DEAN Hunting's our day job. And the pay is crap.

DEAN Well, let's see honest [legal] (He holds out one hand.) Fun and easy. (He holds out the other, and gestures that "fun and easy" outweighs "[legal]".) It's no contest. Besides, we're [I’m] good at it.

1x15 The Benders - Dean hooked up with a guy in the restroom while Sam was getting kidnapped 😔🙏

2x01 In My Time of Dying - John and Azazel kissed when John made his deal

2x20 What is and What Should Never Be - Carmen is maybe a man from a car ad (and this was all Chuck)

3x01 The Magnificent Seven - Dean: Hey, I appreciate you giving me a little quality time with the Doublemint [Wonder] Twins.

3x10 Dream a Little Dream of Me - *Dean confronts John in his nightmare and stands up for himself*

4x01 Lazarus Rising - Dean crawled out of his grave naked

4x05 Monster Movie happened before 4x03 In the Beginning

*DEAN: For a fed, you’re not a total prick.*

4x14 Sex and Violence

dean and Nick kissed

-

NICK I should be your little brother [yours. *I’m what you need.*] Sam? You can't trust him. Not like you can trust me. In fact, I really feel like you should get him outta the way, so we can be brothers [together]. Forever.

-

SAM You poisoned him.

NICK No. I gave him what he needed. And it wasn't some bitch in a G-string. It was you [me.] [*Nick strokes Dean’s hair*] A little brother that looked up to him [partner,] [someone] that he could trust. And now? He loves me. He'd do anything for me. And I gotta tell you, Sam, that kind of devotion? I mean, watching someone kill for you? It's the best feeling in the world.

4x13 After School Special - Amanda Heckerling was maybe a boy dean made out with (her name is Amanda and they made out in a closet idk) (although this entire flashback and all flashbacks are up for debate because of not only it being skewed by the perspective of whoever is remembering it, but with the Chuck revelation, Chuck having the ability to change and implant memories entirely)

5x04 The End - ghostfacers plus possible Zachariah and/or Chuck effect, Cas's orgy isn't just women because i mean come on now. And Dean and Cas were very much fucking in that future, all the more reason for dean to think he corrupted him.

*"The only thing we have left, Dean and me, is each other."*

5x22 Swan Song - when Dean drives up at Stull, he’s playing Led Zeppelin, maybe Immigrant Song or Kashmir

5x18 Point of No Return

"last person who looked at me like that? I got laid [fucked]."

6x10 Caged Heat - The porn was hardcore bdsm

7x20 The Girl With the Dungeons and Dragons Tattoo - Dean has a dumb nerdy tattoo on his ass

season 8 - Benny fed off Dean in purgatory to make him stronger in fights while dean’s human body was in a perpetual state of stasis (and/or they fucked)

8x22 Clip Show - cas buys dean lube with his porn and toilet paper

9x04 Slumber Party - Dean and Charlie are high for the entire episode after they watch Game of Thrones.

9x06 Heaven Can’t Wait - anti ghostfacers effect, headcanon that nothing happened after they left Nora’s and Chuck blipped them ahead in time to the morning giving them false memories because he saw what could happen otherwise. I think he did this a lot (see also: 5x03)

9x08 Rock and a Hard Place happened directly after 9x06 Heaven Can’t Wait

9x08 Rock and a Hard Place - the born-again virgin group is an ex-gay support group

9x10 Road Trip - Crowley and dean kissed to make the deal to let crowley out to help Sam.

10x01 Black - dean and Crowley argued about Anne Marie while fucking male triplets

10x02 Reichenbach - Dean said “I ain't your fuckin boyfriend” not “I ain’t your friggin bestie”

11x17 Red Meat -  "choking on a burger [*auto-erotic asphyxiation*] while binge-watching Charles in Charge." "That was peak Baio."

11x18 Hell’s Angel - "there's times I want to get slapped [whipped or choked] during sex by a girl wearing a Zorro mask. That don't make it a good idea."

Nick was never brought back in s12, lucifer had a different vessel

12x19 The Future - *Cas's vision was like in the script, with him shirtless and Dean thanking him* (I don’t know if this was Chuck’s doing or not though)

13x05 Advanced Thanatology - *Dean didn’t go to the strip club or steal anyone’s bra, he just drank a bunch and passed out on the floor drunk*

13x06 Tombstone - *Dean spread Cas's ashes in a garden with a windmill and a brook.*

13x12 Various and Sundry Villains - It’s Max and Alicia who are trying to steal the Grimoire for Rowena, and Max casts a love spell on Dean, but it also goes differently and they aren’t killing people and don’t die xoxo

14x10 Nihilism - Cas looking through Dean's happy memories, he sifted through a bunch of dean fucking

Michael!Dean flirts with cas

15x07 Last Call - Lorna doesn’t actually exist, she’s Chuck (so not ghostfacers effect, more Chuck effect)

15x18 Despair - Dean said “I love you too” when he was all distraught on the floor of the dungeon ignoring Sam’s calls :(

"Busty Asian Beauties" is gay porn (see: "steam baths" "boys night" on the covers)

*Sam and Dean don’t say “Jerk, Bitch” but “Jerk, Prick”

Sam is vegan.

Dean and Cas hang out and have date nights all the time, and they're constantly on the phone.

Sam and Cas both laugh at Dean's jokes sometimes.

Dean still has the handprint

[sophsun1]

i never noticed before that when justin pulls away, brian lurches forward. he really didn't want that kiss to end 😭 i would kill to know what brian's thought process in that scene was

Hey!

Right?! He literally tumbles, loses his balance and tips forward once his lips lose contact with Justin's lmao because he was *so* into kissing him and lost in the moment. That when Justin breaks away his internal monologue to his body is like "No, wait why aren't you kissing me anymore?" I think tbh his brain short circuited because it had been months since he'd been kissed by anyone let alone Justin. So he literally gets his first kiss in months by the love of his life I'm surprised he didn't die right then and there I mean I did. Also his face at the end, you can see the wheels turning and him thinking about what to do next now he knows Justin still loves him and wants him back.

Even though Justin initiated the kiss after Brian practically dared him to, Brian was all the way gone aswell. Otherwise he could've pushed Justin away or told him to stop. But who are we kidding he was dying to be kissed by him once more. I'm absolutely feral over so much about this whole episode with them at Kinnetic and season three in general for them - I LOVE IT SO MUCH. I could go on forever but I adored the loaded callback to 2x20 with Brian saying "It's just like you, you don't hear what you want so you leave." aka You left me for Ethan your dreamy eyed schoolboy because he told you what you wanted to hear and even though I never said it I thought you knew I did love you and you could see it. Maybe we weren't perfect but I showed you how I felt etc. Then the actual reunion with the flirty boss/intern roleplay with the underlying metaphor of talking about their relationship should they reunite is *so them to a t* i gotta hand it to the writers for that one it worked brilliantly and doesn't come off as cringe or anything because it fits them as a couple. They were always having kinky, flirty banter also the foreshadowing to when Justin literally gets caught under Brian as the intern by Stockwell in 3x11 😂😂😂.

Alongside the parallel to Justin telling Brian in the office he knows what to expect from him and he loves him anyway to telling Michael once they'd reunited that even though Brian won't ever say I love you (so you thought Justin) he knows that he loves him and he did show him whilst they were together he just wasn't in the right headspace to see it.

All this to say they're insanely in love with each other and always will be. I'm having intense britin and qaf feels this evening I could post like ten gifsets lol send help.

[destielshippingnews]

Edvard's Supernatural Guide: 2x10 Hunted

This episode is Raelle Tucker’s second solo script for the show, and while it is not terrible, it is not her best work. Miles better than her erstwhile co-writer Sera Gamble’s lamentable soap-opera offering 2x17 Heart, but falling far short of 2x20 What Is and What Should Never Be. Funnily enough, the thing I like most about Raelle Tucker’s scripts seems to be the weak point of this episode: she is a Dean girl. Her portrayal of Dean in this episode is spot on, but the way she wrote Sam made him seem like an utter dunderhead.

Let us begin near the beginning of the episode with Dean’s revelation to Sam that John told him he might have to kill Sam. Sam’s reaction to this news is exactly what I would expect from him. As has been eloquently displayed, Sam is a master at making everything about himself and whining about it, so of course he would not even see the fact that Dean’s own father has burdened him with not only murder, but fratricide – one of the gravest sins in almost all cultures. This is all in character for Sam, a guy who likes to think he is doing good but forgets that the road to Hell is paved with ignoring Dean good intentions. Sam himself knows that there is something ‘wrong’ with him, that his visions are portents of something much worse, and he still shoots the messenger. Fine, whatever, nothing new here.

Sam abandoning Dean and running away in the middle of the night ‘to find answers about himself’ was similarly stupid, especially considering he knows at this point that people like Gordon are after him, as are Azazel and co. What could have happened here to make Sam seem much more mature, thoughtful, and actually respectful of his brother, would have been for him to say to Dean:

‘I don’t want to be around you at the moment. I know this is hard for you, and I know how much you’ve always done for me, but knowing what Dad told you has made me wonder whether I’m safe being near you. I’ve been watching you getting more violent and scary for months, and a few days ago you seemed to have no problem killing people who might have been infected. You’ve already killed innocents: remember Meg and her brother’s hosts? I do. I hate having to leave you, but I don’t know how much longer I’ll be safe around you. If I go to sleep in the same room as you, am I going to wake up with your gun pointed at me? I can’t take that risk, Dean. And I don’t think seeing the man Dad told you to kill every day is doing you any good. I’m sorry. Go to Bobby, or Ellen. But I can’t be around you at the moment.’

That would have been respectable and adult. It would have been like Buffy choosing to not have Angel in her life rather than continuing with their messy, doomed relationship. Given Dean’s behaviour and Sam’s fear of and for him over the last ten episodes, this would be perfectly understandable. What we got, however, was something quite different. Sam simply left Dean, and gave his reason to Ellen as ‘I have to find out about myself and Dean can’t protect me from that.’ In other words, since Dean cannot protect Sam in Sam’s estimations, Dean is useless and Sam does not need him. Paula R. Stiles worded it thusly:

When Ellen tells him she has to call Dean, Sam whines that he has “to find answers” and Dean can’t “protect” him from that. The self-centered, utilitarian view Sam has of Dean in this episode (He only wants Dean around when he needs him for something) is stunning. I’d forgotten how far into the episode it went.

Sam is supposed to be intelligent, caring, and heroic. This is what The Show tells us over and over again, but Kripke’s self-insert really is just an overgrown teenager. Please do not misunderstand: he is young and even if he were not, people are allowed to make mistakes and occasionally be selfish, silly, and stupid. The problem with Sam is that it is a good day if he is not any of those things. His motivation for leaving Dean had nothing to do with Dean’s recent behaviour and everything to do with 'finding out who he is'.

But even given Dean’s behaviour, I felt so sad for him. He is the one burdened with his entire moral framework being shattered after losing his father and being resurrected. He is the one showing serious signs of being driven towards ‘evil’. And he is the one abandoned, rejected, yet struggling with all his might to not become the monster he has to become.

As if Sam’s self-centred nocturnal abandonment of him were not enough, his instantaneous reaction to hearing that Dean might have to kill him is to attack Dean. Constant Readers may well remember my referring to Dean as John and Sam’s ’cat’ (and Missouri Moseley’s dog whom she would not stop kicking): people will sometimes kick the family cat in anger instead of lashing out at the person who angered them, and they do so because they know the cat cannot kick back. John did this to Dean in 1x20 Dead Man’s Blood, and Sam does it to Dean whenever he gets the chance. 1x08 Bugs, for example, with his ’cum ’n ’av a go if ye fink ye’re ’ard enuff’ act when Dean took issue with Sam bitching about him to strangers. Sam’s behaviour in this scene with his blatant aggression towards Dean, and his threat that ’you might have to waste me [because otherwise I’m gonna batter you]’ smacked of knowing full well he can treat Dean as badly as he likes with impunity.

Worse still, Dean allows it. He wastes no time whatsoever in taking all the blame and guilt Sam hurls at him, and confesses he ’deserves it’. Even this early in the show, it makes me very sad to see this because this is 100% true to life codependent behaviour. If you want evidence of a child who has been treated horrifically, here is some right here. If Dean can absolve others of any blame by taking it all on himself, then he can perhaps avoid punishments such as being shouted at or beaten: if he abases himself and crawls in the muck for other people, they might let him be. Clearly he has learnt that such behaviour is necessary in maintaining relationships with John and Sam. Only with Cas does he refuse to take on all guilt (at least all of the time), but that does not stop Cas ultimately letting Dean take all the blame for their fall out between 14x18 Absence and 15x10 The Trap.

This never stops with Dean, and it makes me sad. In this scene, he is clearly trying his hardest to maintain the only relationship he has with anybody, but to do so he must allow himself to be attacked and blame himself for it.

As much as I write this, I am aware that some readers will not ’see this’, and all I can say is: I am glad it is invisible to you. The thing about abusive behaviour and poisonous relationships is that they are often invisible to people who have no experience of them. They are the real-world equivalent of monsters: the fact you cannot see them does not mean people are not fighting them.

It is understandable that Sam be angry, but not that he direct it at Dean. I would have been over the moon if Dean had punched Sam in the face and pushed him into the river for acting like that. Especially galling was Sam’s ’Take some responsibility for yourself, Dean’, which stank of an immature little boy trying to talk big but exposing his own arse by doing so. Think of all the responsibility Sam has not taken for himself, like for example him being to blame for Dean’s taking the fall for shifter!Dean’s crimes in 1x06 Skin, or electro!Sam shooting Dean in 1x10 Asylum because it was much easier to blame Den for all his problems that to admit the fact Sam chose to travel across America with Dean. And then there is 1x11 Scarecrow when Sam ran his mouth off to a stranger about his life... Ironic, really.

All of this would be forgivable, mind you, if the show were not so adamant of absolving Sam of all responsibility, of having other characters treat him like a good boy (Ellen, Bobby, Missouri), and denying Dean the opportunity to get angry at Sam on more than one or two occasions over the whole fifteen year run. The end result is that it looks as though I am supposed to think Sam’s actions are generally good and justified while Dean is in the wrong. Even when Sam is responsible for raising Lucifer, he still tries to pass off the blame to Dean for ’being too controlling and pushing him towards Ruby’, (5x05 Fallen Idols) a claim the show makes no effort to disprove and which Dean humbly accepts.

I just want somebody to give Dean a hug and a big mug of hot chocolate. I think he will have to wait until 15x14 Last Holiday before anything even close to that happens.

Moving swiftly on before series seven Sam’s sideburns distract me too much, this episode shows that though Dean’s overblown, exaggerated archetypical masculine side as represented by Gordon in 2x03 Bloodlust was wounded and momentarily defeated, it is still alive and trying to take over Dean.

Gordon is once again the antagonist in this episode. ’Baddie’ would probably be a more fitting word, but the show ends up proving Gordon to not be completely wrong. It shows Gordon to be pathological in his willingness to believe what one demon told him about somebody he conveniently knows, and his willingness to kill people for what the might one day commit (according to a random demon because demons never lie). He also has a hate on for Sam for turning Dean against him in 2x03 Bloodlust, which likely added to his willingness to believe anything which could justify his killing Sam. Gordon seemed to believe Dean could be a companion for him, but he wanted Dean’s complete, undivided loyalty. For that reason, he sought to turn Dean against Sam and cut him off from his brother in the way that abusive, manipulative, controlling boyfriends and girlfriends do.

Gordon even attempts to convince Dean of the rightfulness and necessity of killing Sam, and apparently believes Dean will see his side and not torture and kill him afterwards.

It is strange, then, that the show almost proves Gordon’s point right later on, given Sam’s dalliance with Ruby and the apocalyptic consequences thereof. Two things can be true at once, though: Sam is a potential threat at this point in the show, but killing somebody for an innate part of themselves or something they might do is unjustified.

Scott in the cold open is an innocent being tormented by Azazel in order for him to develop his psychic powers and become a ’soldier in the coming war’, a line which sounds nice but had about as much as pay-off as Soldier Boy in The Boys. By which I mean there is none: the Stephen King-adjacent storyline of psykids comes to nothing since all of them bar Sam die by the end of series two, and later revelations of Dean and Sam being the divinely-pedigreed vessels for Michael and Lucifer make that whole plot redundant. Scott, however, was destined to be one of the young people (who are all American because Azazel lacks a passport) forced to fight for a chance to open the gates of Hell and release Satan.

We meet Scott at a counselling session where he reveals he is one of the psychic children with a similar story to Sam: nightmares which began roughly a year ago followed by some kind of power. The counsellor seems unsure whether he believes Scott or not, given he refused to shake his hand, and afterwards Scott gets killed like a gutted fish in a car park. The killer is Gordon, but this is revealed later.

This happens a month prior to the episode, so perhaps sometimes around episode 2x06 No Exit if we assume that there is roughly a week or so between episodes. Unlike other cold opens involving ESPkids, this one does not turn out to be a vision of Sam’s, and he does not find out about it until after he abandons his brother in the night instead of doing the clever thing and waiting and planning with Dean. His first stop seems to be Harvelle’s Roadhouse in Nebraska, quite a drive away from Oregon (where presumably Dean and Sam had their discussion after 2x09 Croatoan took place there). Here, he is essentially welcomed with open arms and firmly absolved of any wrongdoing or guilt in running away from home like a dumb teenager. The show wants us to think Sam is in danger of becoming evil, but everybody is intent on acting like the sun shines out of his arse and ignoring his bad behaviour.

A prime example of this is presented in this episode as Sam wanders in through the door of Harvelle’s Roadhouse: rather than giving him the excoriation he so sorely deserves after going AWOL whilst Big Things Regarding Kids Like Sam are in motion, Ellen acts almost exactly as she would if the writer (or script editor) thought Sam’s behaviour was good and justified. She gives him a warm smile and speaks in a quiet, soft voice as if she is a mother welcoming her son back home. Ellen enquires as to the nature of the schism between Dean and Sam which Sam deftly deflects, and rather than pushing him on the subject, she conveniently goes along with Sam’s conversation, allowing Sam to refrain from giving an accounting of himself.

Would she have done this if things were the other way around and Dean had abandoned Sam? Almost definitely not, and I am having flashbacks to Missouri Mosely in 1x09 Home. Dean would have been flayed alive, but Sam is practically welcomed with open arms and commiseration. Even after Sam shifts the topic to Jo (whom Sam had a pivotal role in getting into the hunting life. Remember: Sam also neglected to call Ellen and inform her Jo was with them, yet only Dean got the reprimanding), none of the anger she directed at the brothers (one of them in particular) is apparent.

That would have been acceptable to an extent, since he is not her teenage son and it is not her place to reprimand him, but even if his scarpering from the one person most able to protect him from Azazel did not put himself and everybody around him in danger, he has still run away without explanation and let the people in his life fear the worst. In spite of that, he gets not a single sharp word.

As if that were not bad enough, Ellen even gives Sam what amounts to an almost-apology for her behaviour at the end of 2x06 No Exit. Sam is the one in the wrong here, and not only does he get called ’Sweetie’, but he gets the almost-apology which by rights should be Dean’s almost-apology, since he seemed to be the one both Ellen and Jo specifically rejected and drove away at the end of that episode, even though Sam AND Jo were equally to blame for what happened.

Anyway, Sam went to Ellen to get help with finding other psychics like him. Ash searches for people in certain criteria: born in 1983, mother died in a house fire, etc, and manages to call up four results, two of which are dead (Max from 1x14 Nightmare and Scott from the cold open) as well as Andy from 2x05 Simon Said whose adopted mother died in a housefire. Sam decides that since Scott’s death is the most recent (one month prior), he should go to where he died to try to find answers. ...An idea which makes exactly the kind of sense that’s not, but whatever, Sam. I would have gone to find Andy since he is still alive and a possible next target, but Sam is Big Smart so my idea is clearly stupid.

Upon leaving, Ellen tells Sam she will have to call Dean to tell him where Sam is, but Sam requests she not do so. Apparently Sam is going to find out the truth about himself and Dean cannot protect him from that, which makes exactly the kind of sense that’s not, but whatever, Sam. Is this one of those déjà thingies? Anyway, Ellen is apparently a sucker for Sam’s ’puppy dog’ act because she agrees to acquiesce to his request. Personally, I want to cut his fringe off and tell him to stop shaving so closely whenever he tries that face.

Why Ellen did not ring Dean while Ash was doing his thing is beyond me. Sam would not have been happy, but what would he have done to stop her? Assaulted her in a bar full of other hunters? Good luck. Sam would have had to wait around if he wanted his information anyway, so that would have been a smart move. Why she did not ring Dean directly after Sam departed is also beyond my ken: if she is supposed to be a mother hen character, she should do some mother henning and make sure her hens are safe. Sam is safer with Dean than without, whatever Sam’s misgivings may be, so wherefore the lack of henning?

Plot convenience. And treating Sam like Mummy’s Special Little Boy. What else would be appropriate for Kripke’s s Oh-So-Sensitive self-insert? Gross. Sam’s a perfect example of spare the rod, spoil the child.

But speaking of children, Sam’s tendency to run away is likely connected to his need for control over other people, particularly Dean. If he is in control he feels he can minimise potential risk to himself, a trait apparently common among people whose childhoods were characterised by instability, neglect, and abuse. It is a truism that abused children may come to embody the worst aspects of their parents, but such is the nature of trauma: it is often passed from one person to the next like a disease. John abused his children, mainly Dean, but Sam was there too and he suffered instability, neglect, and a lack of control and direction. In order to give himself a feeling of stability and control over his life, he appears to try his hardest to exert control over those nearest to him – namely Dean. If he cannot do this, his instinct seems to be to run away.

People call Dean emotionally repressed because he does not talk about his feelings and ’lies about being ’fine’, but Dean’s problem is that while he mostly understands what he is feeling, he does not have the support or tools to process things properly, wherefor his reliance on hunting as catharsis and alcohol as a painkiller. However, he does not run from his issues (mostly): he just locks them in the room next door. Sam on the other hand talks about other people’s emotions but rarely talks about his own, and appears to be much worse at running from them than Dean is.

Apropos running, Sam’s flight from Dean leads him to Lafayette, Indiana where Scott is buried. Sam interviews Scott’s father and investigates Scott’s bedroom which is home to video tapes, cassette tapes, and novels which look like they were probably taken from Eric Kripke’s bedroom in the 1980s or early 1990s. Further investigation reveals that the wall of Scott’s closet is plastered with pictures of yellow eyes taken from magazines.

Following this, Sam receives company at his motel in the form of Ava, a psychic who had a vision of Sam exploding. She explains that she had visions of Scott’s death but thought they were just dreams until she saw a report of his death in the newspaper. After that, she tracked Sam down by searching for the name of the motel she saw on the notepad Sam used. Clever girl. Shame she will not be around for long, but still.

The actress Katherine Isabelle played Margot Verger in Hannibal (2013), as well as one of the leads in Ginger Snaps (2000) alongside Emily Perkins who will appear several times in Supernatural as Becky Rosen, the fangirl who essentially roofied Sam, tried to marry him, then tied him to a bed when the spell stopped working. Oh, and we were probably supposed to be laughing at that. At least her final appearance in 15x04 Atomic Monsters is much more grown up and socially conscious.

Returning to the episode at hand, Paula R. Stiles concluded that Azazel sent Ava the vision in order for her to prevent Sam getting killed (or at least, that is her interpretation of what the episode must be about to make sense), but if that was the case, why did Azazel not just kill Gordon? Unless it was a test or whether Sam would kill Gordon, or whether Dean would kill Gordon. That is getting into the realm of speculation once again, though, so I will leave it there.

Ellen eventually decides to call Dean, though it is unclear how much time has passed since Sam left. If the Roadhouse is in Nebraska and Sam is in Indiana, that would take a fair few hours of driving. 650 miles by road separate the state capitals of Lincoln and Indianapolis, but the location of the Roadhouse in Nebraska is not clarified, so it could be a few hundred miles farther if the Roadhouse is in the west of the state. However it may be, it appears the journey would take something like ten hours, so it must be the next day at least when Ellen rings Dean. Some pseudophilosophical preamble about ’not always being able to protect your loved ones’ is followed by Ellen spilling Sam’s whereabouts to Dean.

And speaking of Dean, I noticed Jensen’s unusual pronunciation of s while watching 1x15 The Benders last year. I had seen people mocking the way he talks before and never understood what they were talking about, but now I have actually noticed it, I am seriously casting negative judgement on people for making fun of it.

It is not a speech impediment because his speech is fine, but there is something about his s sounds at the end of a word in particular which strikes me as unusual in English. It is definitely not a sh sound, but it is a bit thicker sounding than a usual s. It is almost a palatalised sound like in Estonian, Karelian, or Russian. As well as that, he often does not turn his s into a z at the end of words like native English speakers usually do with words like dogs (normally pronounced dogz) and please (usually pronounced pleaz). Jensen’s please often rhymes with fleece, and his dogs is often pronounced with his unusual s, not a normal z. He also says cars with an s at the end, not a z. I have no idea whether this is an idiosyncracy of his, the remnants of a speech impediment, or a feature of the English spoken in his region of Texas. Now I have pinpointed it, I can hear it everywhere ranging from his work on Days of Our Lives and Dark Angel to the voiceover on The Winchesters and his performance in Big Sky. Valentine’s Day is approaching, and with it my yearly ritual of watching My Bloody Valentine 3D, so I will be listening out for it then.

Hello, I have been studying languages and linguistics for almost two decades, pleased to make your acquaintance. And now back to our regularly-scheduled broadcast...

Sam enlists Ava’s help in getting hold of Scott’s file from his counsellor (which involves Ava squirming as she tries to act like she belongs there and Sam being an idiot and climbing around on the side of what looks like quite a tall building). They later listen to the recording of Scott’s final session together in the motel room, and this raises the topic of Azazel and psychic children. Sam tries to explain the Yellow-Eyed Demon, psychic children, and ’the coming war’ to Ava, but she understandably thinks he is a weirdo talking a load of codswallop.

Returning to the subject of ambiguous passage of time, it is unclear how long it took Dean to reach Indiana, but he rolls up outside in his noisy, rumbling car which Sam appears not to notice at all. Dean sees his brother and Ava through the window, but rather than going into the room and giving Sam the stern talking to he deserves for being a melodramatic pantaloon, he is content to sit outside in the car assuming that Sam and Ava have engaged in coitus, or are soon to do so.

This makes sense, of course, because Sam in no way deserves a stiff reprimand for his behaviour in this episode. Even the man Sam hurt the most with his actions is not allowed to to be angry at him in this episode. Raelle Tucker, I am surprised. Or was this a script editor decision? Raelle did so well with 2x20 What Is and What Should Never Be.

Enter Gordon and the beginning of a fight scene which in all honesty is a bit naff. Other than Alec X5-494 once more momentarily taking control of Jensen to reset Gordon’s brain with a nasty-looking kick to the head, it is a little silly.

Nobody in the motel seems to hear either the motel window shattering, the gunshots (which were not that quiet), or two grown men whaling on each other across the street.

Dean’s Alec’s kick to Gordon’s head should have done some serious damage and put him at a considerable disadvantage in his fight with Dean Alec, but apparently his head is so thick that Dean’s Alec’s kick did not stun him at all. Neither does Dean Alec punching him in the head following said kick do much more than make his mouth bleed a bit. Luckily for Gordon, Dean and Alec’s vessel’s skull is much more fragile than his, meaning that a blow to the head with the butt of Gordon’s rifle is enough to knock it out cold.

Alas, that meant that Alec was once more driven back to the recesses of Dean’s vessel’s consciousness where, alack, he shall remain for a long while. I love Firefly to bits, but the reason series three of Dark Angel was cancelled three days after it got greenlit was because Fox decided to go with Firefly instead, so thrilled were they to have a Joss Whedon project on their network.

Have I told you about my best friend Alec, by the way? I miss him...

Rather than finishing his job and killing Sam, Gordon inexplicably leaves the scene with Dean and Alec’s vessel in tow without being seen and with what must be considerable head trauma quick enough that neither Sam nor Ava saw hide nor hair of him. Upon investigating the source of the bullets which nearly perforated him and Ava, Sam discovers a round and concludes somebody used a muffled rifle, much to Ava’s amusing bemusement.

Alec is alas in absentia, but Sam receives a phone call from Dean in which his vessel appears to have taken no damage whatsoever from being once more knocked unconscious with a blunt object, even though a blow to the head hard enough to cause unconsciousness is hard enough to cause serious brain damage or death. Dean is tied to a chair in what looks like an abandoned motel room, and with Gordon’s gun pointed at him he tells Sam to meet him at a certain location, but not without first informing Sam via a code that somebody has a gun on him.

What follows is probably the best scene of the episode for many reasons. Gordon attempts to justify his need to kill Sam to Dean in what sounds very much like trying to recruit Dean to his cause. He sees Dean as somebody who could be very much like him, something which shows Gordon sees all too clearly Dean’s propensity for violence and his homicidal, psychopathic potential. Why else would Gordon leave Dean alive after his phone call to Sam if he did not believe he could talk Dean around to his way of thinking? He could have shot Dean in the chest, cleaned up any blood off his face, and made it look as though Dean were unconscious if he wanted to lure Sam in, but he chose not to. Perhaps the thought of sitting in a room with a dead body which would empty its bowels soon after death was off-putting...

Dean for his part is still tethered to ’sanity’ by his moral compass, something Gordon appears to misunderstand. Dean would kill him, as indeed he intended to after Sam untied him, and nothing Gordon could say or do would prevent Dean making him sleep with the fishes. Whilst Gordon is busy talking about how it is necessary to kill the psychic kids to save the world (’necessary evil’, ’for the greater good’ and all that) Dean’s bravado slowly fades as he realises Gordon might just be able to kill Sam (the second tripwire wipes the smile off his face) but he almost never looks scared of Gordon. Though he is tied to a chair and eventually gagged, he gives Gordon looks which say ’you are so fraking stupid’ and ’oh my god, you’re an idiot’ and I cannot help being amused. Dean has no overt power in that situation, but he seems inconvenienced rather than weak and vulnerable. Gordon on the other hand has no idea what thin ice he is skating on. He should have ganked Dean while he had the chance, but he was clearly just too sweet on him.

Yes, I am aware not everybody is gay, but neither is everybody heterosexual.

Besides that, Gordon’s seeming belief that Dean will reciprocate his lust join him on the dark side of the force after realising the necessity and rightfulness of his killing people like Sam proves that his mentis is very far from compos.

Back to Sam, he tells Ava to leave town and go back to her fiancé, then goes to the address Dean gave him. He sneaks around the back of the abandoned motel and into the room. There is an explosion and Dean roaring like an angry bull through his gag, but Gordon is not so easily fooled. A second explosion soon follows, but it turns out Sam is alive and he pulls his gun out on Gordon… and then immediately proves he really is the stupidest child in remedial English by NOT PULLING THE DAMN TRIGGER!

Have I already had this rant in this analysis, or was it the previous one? Sam’s hesitancy to pull the trigger on bad guys might have been understandable near the beginning of series one, and even in 1x21 Salvation it was understandable he missed the first shot at Azazel. Even not shooting Azazel!John was relatable, but at that point he should have learnt that trying to have a clear conscience and not harm anybody is selfish, self-indulgent, and GETS PEOPLE KILLED! This is a lesson he should have learnt multiple times, with 2x09 Croatoan being the latest, but he seems incapable of learning form his mistakes. People think Sam is the intelligent one why?

Gordon had shown his true colours in 2x03 Bloodlust, and in this very episode he had beaten Dean with a gun, tied him up, then used him as bait to lure in Sam, not to mention the two explosions which were intended specifically to kill Sam. What part of this says ‘not shooting this man the first opportunity I get’ is a good idea in this context? Gordon might believe he is justified in what he is doing, but most people would call him ‘evil’ without hesitation. Even Sam would, but Sam lets him get away with a little bit of unconsciousness. Pull the ever-loving trigger, Sam, you floppy-haired prat. A clear conscience is a luxury he can ill afford, and one which endangers himself, Dean, and all the other kids like him.

Sam unties Dean, whereupon the latter wastes no time in going to dispatch Gordon, but Sam stops him and – for some unknown reason – Dean leaves Gordon be, taking Sam’s word that Gordon has been taken care of. Once more, people are doing what Sam wants in this episode to avoid conflict, even though Sam was the reason all of this happened in the first place.

As if to prove me right, Gordon wakes up in no time and comes after Dean and Sam as they walk to the car, trying to kill them with his pistol. They run and hide behind a grassy mound, at which point the police arrive and apprehend Gordon. They find lots of weapons in Gordon’s van, and we are left to conclude Gordon will be going to prison for a long time.

Here is my problem with the scene, and it is similar to Sam risking Dean’s life at the end of 1x13 Route 666. The police arriving was not guaranteed to happen at a certain time, and if they had arrived a moment later, Gordon could well have murdered both Sam AND Dean (although he might have spared Dean death). Had Sam arrived later, Gordon might have heard or seen them and run, possibly killing Dean beforehand, or else kidnapping him again. Sam might well have been thinking of the police when he refused to kill Gordon, but his plan was too dependent on contingencies and risked Dean’s life on numerous counts.

There is also the inconvenient fact that Dean is a wanted murderer after Sam made him take the fall for Shifter!Dean’s murders in 1x06 Skin. Had the police turned up whilst Dean was still tied to the chair, things would have gone badly for him.

Stupid, stupid Sam. Even Dean praises him at the end of the episode, for which I have to roll my eyes.

After this, Dean rings Ellen, assuming she must have had something to do with Gordon finding out Sam’s whereabouts. Ellen understands Dean’s assumption, but asserts that she did not tell anybody. Any of the hunters in the Roadhouse could have overheard, and according to her many of them would have easily been able to track Sam and the psychics down.

Anyway, the penultimate scene of the episode is Dean and Sam talking in the car. Ava will not answer phone and Sam is getting concerned, and after making a comment about marital infidelity and carnal pleasure as a reward for saving the world, Dean says ‘If you ever take off like that again…’ which is the extent of the anger he shows Sam in this episode. Sam’s response to this is a laugh, as though a microbe has just started getting lippy with him.

So those people who think Dean has a history of violently abusing Sam… take a look at how little Sam cares about Dean’s threats of repercussions. He does not, not in the slightest. Does that sound like the actions of a man being ‘threatened with violence’ by his abuser? Not to me.

Bismillah give me strength...

Oh, and Dean made a men-being-raped-in-prison joke, because that is hilarious apparently. I mean, those men deserve it, after all. Sam deserved a slap in the face after his behaviour in this episode, but Dean gets a time out. Why do the writers keep giving the characters stupid lines like that? Still, at least he does not make a joke about the man who is actually raped repeatedly in 2x15 Tall Tales, but more on that sometime in March when I get to it.

Ava’s radio silence worries Sam enough that he gets Dean to drive him to Peoria, Illinois (the state next door to Indiana). At Ava’s home, they find her fiancé dead and sulphur in the window: a demon was recently there, but the exact circumstances of Ava’s disappearance and her dead fiancé are anybody’s guess. Did the demon kill the fiancé and then kidnap Ava, or did it possess Ava, kill the fiancé, and then leave? Was the demon already possessing Ava when she met Sam?

Sam finds Ava’s engagement ring on the floor, and then the end credits roll.

Not the best episode, but not the worst either. The mollycoddling of Sam irked and vexed me, as did the writer not allowing Dean or anybody else (but especially Dean) to get angry with Sam. This might be a script editor decision rather than writer decision, but I am still miffed. In hindsight, the psychic kids plot is mostly redundant and never leads anywhere. It could have done, as Lucifer could easily have used the psychics in his army to fight the ‘war’ we never actually see but hear a lot about (probably a budget problem, just like the black contact lenses etc). Dean is struggling with his ‘dark side’ or his ‘exaggerated masculine’ which is trying to deaden him to killing Sam. Dean is, however, in a better position to fight his own corner, and unless I am very much mistaken there is no point in series two after this where it looks conceivable Dean would kill Sam. Although after Sam’s gallivanting off on a jolly jaunt this episode, Dean would only have my deepest sympathies is he chose to do so.

[stahlop]

Once Upon a Time 4x03 “Rocky Road” Review

Reviews 1x01 1x02 1x03 1x04 1x05 1x06 1x07 1x08 1x09 1x10 1x11 1x12 1x13 1x14 1x15 1x16 1x17 1x18 1x19 1x20 1x21 1x22 2x01 2x02 2x03 2x04 2x05 2x06 2x07 2x08 2x09 2x10 2x11 2x12 2x13 2x14 2x15 2x16 2x17 2x18 2x19 2x20 2x21 2x22 3x01 3x02 3x03 3x04 3x05 3x06 3x07 3x08 3x09 3x10 3x11 3x12 3x13 3x14 3x15 3x16 3x17 3x18 3x19 3x20 3x21 3x22 4x01 4x02

So the ice cream lady is apparently the Snow Queen and she’s cursed Marian to become frozen! And she’s also, apparently, Elsa’s aunt and was trapped in the urn before Elsa was. Interesting that Elsa’s mother never thought to tell her scared daughter that ice powers run in the family! And Emma finally pushes past some of her trust issues with Hook!

Summary: Marian becomes frozen and True Love’s Kiss doesn’t work when Robin tries to save her. Hook resorts to blackmail to find out who else has powers like Elsa. In the past, Elsa and Kristoff fight Hans and his brothers and end up discovering a long-lost relative.

Opening: Any Given Sundae

New Characters:

Will Scarlet: He’s apparently an outcast from the Merry Men. How he’s come to be in Storybrooke is a mystery. He’s a thief and will always be a thief. The most helpful thing he does is show Emma and David that the ice cream shop doesn’t use anything to keep the ice cream cold. (For those that don’t know, Will was a favorite on the spin-off Once Upon a Time in Wonderland)

Character Observations:

The Snow Queen: She doesn’t have a name in Arendelle or Storybrooke yet, but Emma refers to her as the Snow Queen, so that’s what we’re going with. In Arendelle, she is revealed to have been trapped in the urn Hans was going to use to trap Elsa. Instead, the Snow Queen freezes Hans and scares his brothers away. She is revealed to be Elsa’s mother’s sister.

In Storybrooke, she is determined to make people think that Elsa is behind all the freezing mayhem that is going on. She does some kind of magic to Marian’s ice cream cone which eventually makes her frozen. She attempts to kill Hook in order to make it look like Elsa did it. Luckily, Emma comes and saves him. But the Snow Queen clearly knows Emma somehow, even if she doesn’t remember. Elsa also doesn’t remember her, but the Snow Queen tells her the Rock Trolls took her memories like they did with Anna when she was younger. She eventually disappears. We later see her talking to Gold. He offers to help her, which she rejects. He also warns her about Emma remembering her.

Regina: How the hell did she run a kingdom when she is terrible at subterfuge? She attempts to hook Henry in by buying him comic books and then makes obvious comments about how the storybook doesn’t have an author. Henry sees through her immediately. She goes on about finding the author and getting her happy ending. Henry, instead of telling her that’s not how this works, tells her it’s her best idea yet. Oy vey! Meanwhile, Marian has been frozen and Robin asks for her help to reverse whatever curse has been put upon her. It’s interesting that she automatically blames Elsa, when she, herself, has been unjustly accused of magical things happening in Storybrooke that ended up being other people (Cora in The Cricket Game).  She claims she’s trying to change, but she still jumps to conclusions at the first chance she gets. Elsa says only an act of true love can save Marian, so Robin kisses her, which doesn’t work. David claims the ice is acting as a barrier like when Frederick was turned to gold in What Happened to Frederick, but Robin later tells Regina it didn’t work because he’s in love with someone else. Regina takes it with grace, since he and Marian are technically still married. They decide to take Marian’s heart so she’s not frozen completely, and Regina can work on reversing the curse.

Emma: Her magic is acting wonky, but she won’t admit it. Regina calls her out on it when she goes to try and figure out what caused the freezing spell on Marian. Emma thinks she’s still mad about her bringing Marian back in the first place. Which, she’s not wrong, but also, neither is Regina. Hook wants to go with her, but she tells him to take Elsa to the sheriff’s station to protect her from the townspeople who think she’s responsible for Marian. Hook doesn’t want to leave Emma, but she gets angry and asks him to just listen to her for once. At Robin’s tent, Emma comes across former Merry Man, Will Scarlet. He runs when he finds out she’s the sheriff, but is taken down by David. Will gives them information about the ice cream shop’s ice cream still being frozen hours after the blackout happened. Will attempts to pick the lock of the ice cream shop to show them, but Emma gets impatient and does it for him, much to David’s surprise. They discover that Will was telling the truth when they see the back room is frozen. And also Will takes off and steals money from the till. Emma wants to go after him, but David says they have more important things to do concerning Marian and she can go after Will another time. Emma expresses self-doubt about her abilities, but David tries to lift her spirits. Emma and David arrive to the Snow Queen trying to kill Hook. The Snow Queen taunts Emma that her magic isn’t stronger than hers, but Emma knocks her back with a blast of magic and manages to magic David and Hook out of the way of the falling icicles. After the Snow Queen disappears, Emma tells David and Hook that the way the Snow Queen said her name sounded familiar, like she’d heard it before. Hook offers to help look for her lair, but Emma gets pissed at him for not following her directions and almost getting himself killed. Emma talks to Elsa who is upset that the Snow Queen told her that Anna put her in the urn. Emma thinks they’re all pawns for something bigger, since Emma brought Elsa there accidentally, but the Snow Queen was already there. Emma doesn’t think the curse brought her to Storybrooke. Emma runs into Hook outside of Granny’s and she’s not happy with his shenanigans. He accuses her of not trusting him, but Emma tells him the truth. She does trust him, but she’s afraid he’s going to get himself killed since every other guy she’s been with is dead. Hook promises her he’s a survivor and they start kissing in the middle of the street!

Hook: He certainly does not like being told what to do, which gets him in trouble with Emma, but not for the reasons he thinks. We start with him, Emma, and Elsa questioning Gold about how Elsa and the urn ended up in his vault. He claims not to know. Hook isn’t buying his BS about turning over a new leaf for a second. Even when Belle compels him to tell the truth with the dagger, you can tell he’s not buying it. Emma, Elsa, and Hook go to the mayor’s office when Marian has been frozen. Emma goes to look for whomever is responsible and Hook wants to go with her. He’s very upset when she asks him to take Elsa to the sheriff’s station instead. Immediately, Hook and Elsa decide not to follow Emma’s orders and take the investigation into their own hands. By going to Gold’s shop and blackmailing him. Can I just say how much this pains me to see Hook stooping so low when he’s trying to prove to Emma how trustworthy he is? To secretly go to Gold and blackmail him because he knows Belle doesn’t have the real dagger to get what he wants is the opposite of everything he’s trying to prove to Emma. I mean, I know it does help them find out where the ice cream lady/Snow Queen is, but using a way that harkens back to his villainous days is not the way to go about it. Sigh. Gold changes a piece of Marian’s frozen hair into snowflakes that leads Hook and Elsa to the Snow Queen. Hook attempts to call Emma, but she doesn’t answer and has to leave a message (the crux of which is, why did she get him a phone if she never answers it, lol). When Hook and Elsa attempt to leave to go find Emma (since she’s not answering the phone), Hook’s feet are frozen by the Snow Queen. Luckily, Emma saves him before the Snow Queen’s plan to kill him takes place. Later that night, Hook is drinking at Granny’s and Emma’s still pissed at him. He accuses her of not trusting him, but she says she does trust him. She’s just afraid of him getting killed. He tells her he’s a survivor before kissing her. And, this is the first time Hook has initiated a kiss with Emma, she’s initiated it every other time. Hot! Hot! Hot!

Elsa and Kristoff: In Arendelle, Elsa is freaking out over Anna. Kristoff is trying to calm her down by relaying all of Anna’s heroic feats, but Elsa is stressing big time. She then gets a report that Hans has an army and is heading towards Arendelle. Kristoff wants to go see what’s up, but Elsa won’t let him, using his status as Anna’s groom as her reasoning. He goes out anyway and overhears Hans telling his brothers about a magical urn. Kristoff reports back to Elsa that it can contain magical beings like her. He wants to bring some soldiers to go destroy the urn. Elsa wants to avoid war. She suggests just she and Kristoff go. Elsa almost walks herself off a cliff while she and Kristoff have a heart to heart. They get to the cave with the urn and Elsa goes to destroy it, but then some runes show up on it, and she’s trying to decipher them when Hans and his brothers enter. Elsa fights off two of them with her ice powers, and Kristoff dispatches another with a sword, but then Hans gets the drop on Kristoff and threatens to make Anna a widow if Elsa doesn’t hand over the urn (and Kristoff, with a sword to his neck, still makes a joke that he and Anna aren’t married so she wouldn’t technically be a widow). Elsa ends up giving Hans the urn, despite Kristoff’s protests. Hans continues to be the worst person ever by telling Elsa that she doesn’t belong anywhere so he’s going to put her in the urn like she doesn’t exist, which plays on all of Elsa’s magic insecurities. But surprise, surprise, when he opens the urn to put her inside, the Snow Queen comes out instead. And she freezes Hans and his brothers run off. Elsa is in heaven meeting someone who has ice powers like herself. They compare stories about making snowmen come to life and building ice castles. The Snow Queen sees the painting of Elsa’s parents and lets her know Elsa’s mother was her sister, making her Elsa’s aunt. Elsa is understandably confused as her mother never mentioned a sister. Elsa lets her know her mother was lost at sea and it’s just her and Anna now. She tells her how scared she is that Anna is missing, and the Snow Queen promises she’ll help her find her, because that is what family does.

In Storybrooke, Elsa is accused of using her powers to freeze Marian. Emma wants her and Hook to stay at the sheriff’s station, but they go looking for whomever actually froze Marian. They eventually find the Snow Queen in the woods. The Snow Queen wants the town to turn against Elsa and she doesn’t understand why. She tells Elsa the Rock Trolls stole her memories of when they met in Arendelle, but doesn’t say why. She also tells Elsa that Anna put her in the urn. Elsa is adamant that Anna would never do that.

Mary Margaret: She attempts to have a ‘fireside chat’ as the mayor to go over items in the town (complete with baby Neal in her arms), but all anyone wants to talk about is Elsa.Things go south quickly when Marian starts literally turning to ice. After the meeting, Mary Margaret gets some unsolicited advice from Archie about needing to let things go, meaning she doesn’t need to have baby Neal with her constantly and she’ll be better if they aren’t attached at the hip. Mary Margaret is obviously afraid she’ll miss something if she isn’t there with him constantly because of missing out on Emma growing up.

Questions:

Why isn’t Emma’s lie detector blaring when Gold says he’s decided to turn over a new leaf? Or when he says he’s given Belle the dagger? There should be sirens going off in her head.

Exactly how far away is Misthaven from Arendelle? With all the magic going on in the Enchanted Forest, how have they not heard of it in Arendelle?

Since the Snow Queen acknowledges Elsa is queen, why didn’t she realize her sister would have to be dead for that to happen? She seems genuinely shocked when Elsa tells her.

How did Elsa’s urn end up in Gold’s vault? Did the Snow Queen give it to Rumple since we know they know each other?

Have Gold and the Snow Queen been talking since the curse broke? How does he know that she knew Emma once? Does that mean the Snow Queen has been out of Storybrooke?

Observations:

This is the most casual we’ve ever seen Regina. Her hair is in a messy ponytail and she’s wearing a t-shirt and vest!

Emma looks amazing in this episode also. She’s letting her freckles shine through, and she just looks cute as a button.

The two comic books we see Regina get Henry are Thor and ShenLu.

Regina and Henry decide their search for the author will be called Operation Mongoose.

Hook tells Gold that he could have Belle summon him with the dagger and when he didn’t appear she’d have proof the dagger isn’t real. We’ve seen plenty of times when all someone had to do is say Rumpelstiltskin's name (even in other realms) and he’d appear.

The cage that Kristoff puts his torch in is already lit when he and Elsa enter the cave. Then he lights it again. Or there is another cage already lit, which should be a red flag that someone is already in the cave.

Hook now has a cell phone and it has an ‘Emma’ button.

Once Upon a Time Firsts:

Magic can change form but never be destroyed.

So, we find out a little bit more about the Snow Queen, but not what her end goal is yet. She is obviously very bitter about something having to do with her magic and people fearing it, and she doesn’t seem to care if people are okay with it like they are in Storybrooke. I am not happy about Hook blackmailing Gold as it just goes against everything he’s worked so hard to put in his past. But Emma and Hook seem to be getting on the right path for being together despite that! Yay!

Please leave comments and reblog! Let me know if you’d like to be tagged in future reviews.

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[dailyabbottelementary]

and if you take requests, can you gif the scene in 2x20 where barbara’s comforting janine and telling her she’s been called a bad teacher more times than she can count and telling her to show up every day etc etc?

here you go