#Rowenagirls 🤝 Samgirls 🤝 loving Various and Sundry Villains

[according-to-the-laura]

StackedNatural Day 102: 2x13, 13x12

StackedNatural Masterpost: [x]

February 1, 2022

2x13: Houses of the Holy

Written by: Sera Gamble

Directed by: Kim Manners

Original air date: February 1, 2007

Plot Synopsis:

Avenging Angel, Sam’s faith versus Dean’s faithlessness, some of the best accidental foreshadowing of the entire series, Sam is Chosen, a righteous spirit, God’s will.

Features:

An angel causes people to cheerfully go out to murder, and when the Winchesters investigate one of them falls under its sway.

My Thoughts:

This episode is a contender for the coveted “Highest Density of Quality Accidental Foreshadowing” award, whose other option is 1x12 Faith.

Sometimes I really have to remind myself that they were not planning to bring angels or heaven into the narrative until right before it actually happened because episodes like this set it up so beautifully. I love that they keep similar mechanics of the rattling/glass breaking and white light for the “angel” talking in this episode, and actual angel possession in season 4 and beyond. And of course we can’t forget Sam pointing past Dean and saying, “Father, that’s Michael, right?” in a framing that has him pointing directly at the Michaelsword himself. Delicious.

I love that Sam is set up as the believer and Dean as the faithless one when Dean is going to be narratively aligned with Heaven and Sam with Hell. It makes the tension and stakes so much higher, especially when Sam meets angels in season 4 and they all fucking hate him.

It’s also super sad that one of the reasons that Sam believes in God and Angels is that he wasn’t old enough to remember being promised protection from angels and having that proven wrong, which also means he doesn’t remember even an ounce of stability in his life at all. Of course he prays, it’s probably the only thing that’s ever stayed the same from day-to-day for his entire life. Devastating that this angel turned out to be a spirit, and in season 11 he’ll think God was speaking to him and it will turn out to be Lucifer. No wonder he thinks he’s unclean.

The ambiguous Sign From God at the end of the episode where the would-be rapist is impaled by the pole becomes a completely unambiguous actual sign from god with the context of the rest of the series. Chuck literally wrote everything that happens in the first few seasons into his books. So while it’s a little on the nose, in the grand scale of the narrative, that’s the point. Chuck, God, is a hack writer. He sent that sign because he wanted conflicting emotions for his protagonists. This is the kind of thing I’m talking about when I say that the entire series is improved in retrospect by making Chuck God. Everything has a million more layers of meaning.

Absolute banger of an episode.

Notable Lines:

“Because it was God’s will.”

“Angels? I don’t think so.” “Why not?” “'Because there's no such thing, Sam.”

“Well, I like to think of them as more loving than wrathful. But yes, a lot of Scripture paints angels as God's warriors.”

“I mean, what's next, are you going to start praying every day?” “I do. [...] I do pray every day. I have for a long time.”

“I'll tell you who else had faith like that — Mom. She used to tell me when she tucked me in that angels were watching over us. In fact, that was the last thing she ever said to me. [...] She was wrong. There was nothing protecting her.”

“Some people need redemption. Don't they, Sam?”

“there's so much evil out there in the world, Dean, I feel like I could drown in it. And when I think about my destiny, when I think about how I could end up…”

“The way he died, if I hadn't seen it with my own two eyes I never would have believed it. I mean ... I don't know what to call it. [...] Maybe . . . God's will.”

Laura’s (completely subjective) Episode Rating: 9.9

IMdB Rating: 8.1

13x12: Various & Sundry Villains

Written by: Steve Yockey

Directed by: Amanda Tapping

Original air date: February 1, 2018

Plot Synopsis:

Dean falls victim to a couple of witches, sisters Jamie and Jennie Plum who manage to steal a powerful book of spells from the Winchesters. When Dean and Sam go after the book, they get help from a powerful and surprising ally when Rowena, back from the dead, intervenes to assist them.

Features:

Witch sisters with a love spell snag Dean, Cas and Lucifer break out of prison, Dean fully punches Sam in the face, Rowena is alive, Samwena bonding hours, siblings making bad decisions because of a dead parent, Cas learns from his mistakes.

My Thoughts:

This is an episode we skipped on our watch through for time since it doesn’t have a ton of overall plot relevance (actually shocking because usually @weedsinavacantlot would NEVER skip an episode with this much Cas when he’s this petty). So I got to watch everything pretty much fresh! I had seen a couple gifs of Dean saying he’s in love and of Sam and Rowena in the car, but not much else. Oh, and the scene where Cas kills Lucifer, because Nic and I accidentally found it looking for a different set location and stopped to take pictures so they showed me the scene on their phone. ANYWAYS.

We love a completely non-subtle brothers parallel. Let's show two siblings who have gone totally off the rails trying to save a parent and leave a trail of death in their wake until they eventually destroy each other. Jensen is a great actor so even though it’s obviously a spell he’s still completely charming when he’s in “love” with Jamie. And it’s nice to see him be so light and bubbly even if it’s the effects of a spell. I don’t totally buy Sam’s reaction as pro-destiel - I saw a few posts several months ago talking about how he didn’t get confused until after Dean started using she/her pronouns (would link one if I could find it but it’s definitely lost to the ether) - but I don’t NOT buy it either. This is Yockey, after all, and Sam was talking about Cas immediately prior to Dean announcing that he was in love.

Rowena coming back didn’t really hit the way it was supposed to because I also didn’t see the episode where Lucifer roasts her, but her scene in the car with Sam and at the end when they’ve gotten the book were excellent. Ruthie is one of the best actors they’ve been lucky enough to cast for a recurring role and she has really excellent chemistry with Jared. This is a Rowenagirl/Samgirl episode. Also, Rowena thinking Dean got pegged made me choke on my drink. If I didn’t have subtitles on I would have assumed that she said “what’s bi is bi”, not “what’s by is by” in that scene. God bless.

Steve Yockey does the fucking reading, and I love that he made space to explore Sam’s insane amounts of trauma while also subtly calling out the other writers for never bringing it up. I’m a Deangirl at heart, but I’m weak and I can’t obsess about Sam as much because he gets so much less attention from the main narrative. I really think Jared is at his best when he’s given a script that pulls Sam together as a complete character with the weight of everything that’s happened to him on his shoulders. And he wants to talk to Dean about it but he can’t! He gets shut down every time!

At first I was a little bit torn with the Lucifer and Cas stuff in this episode - one of my notes says “there are two wolves inside me, one wants to watch the Cas scenes and one wants to ignore the Lucifer scenes,” because I find Mark Pellegrino more and more annoying the later we get in the series. I changed my tune because Cas got to be a raging petty bitch and he deserves it. And even within that he finds space to be so proud of Jack. I really thought he was going to say “he looks like me”. And then even though Pellegrino Lucifer sucks in season 13, the team-up breakout kicked ass extremely hard. I LOVE when Cas gets to smite a demon. It doesn’t happen nearly enough times. And then he gets the rawest kill line. There will never be another character like Cas.

Notable Lines:

“Excuses aside, you’re saying you’re too weak to overcome even your weakest creation.”

“​​He’s thoughtful. He’s emotional. Remarkably intuitive. You – you know, he resurrected me just out of instinct. Isn’t that a beautiful gesture? [...] Jack would rather kill you than hug you. Seems relevant.”

“I’d much rather have a living son, even one that hated me, than a dead hero.”

“I guess I don’t deal with it. Not really. I mean, I pushed it down and, um, the world kept almost ending, so I keep pushing it down, and I don’t know. I really don’t talk about it, not even with Dean. I mean, I could. You know, he’d listen, but… That’s not something I really know how to share.”

“You won’t ever be able to change what happened. You won’t be able to change how helpless you felt, or how helpless you feel. You’re still gonna get scared. And that feeling… that feeling never goes away.”

“This is me, learning from my mistakes.”

“I know what Rowena is dealing with. And she’s not the only one who… feels helpless.”

Laura’s (completely subjective) Episode Rating: 9.3

IMdB Rating: 8.2

In Conclusion: today was about watching Sam go from full of righteous hope to completely helpless :(

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