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trashyandtiredsol · 6 days ago

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OKAY EPISODE 8 LESSGO!!

1. OKAY first- the last episode had POWDER and Ekko on that music disk not Jinx and Ekko my bad y'all ajfhsjgjdkgj just realized when I say episode 8's music disk and it showed VI and specifically Jinx

2. AND WE ARE BACK TO MEL EVERYONE!! :D

Who is STILL going through it with the Black Rose might I add

3. OH SHE GLOWING SHE FAKIN GLOWING

And also yay she has her armor back!!! :D

4. OH SHIT SHE GOT EVEN MORE GOLD ON HER THAN BEFORE HELL YEAH

5. Oooo and she's rocking a new look!! :0

6. OOoooh THAT'S that shadow figure with the black eyes and gold pupils I saw in a spoiler thing for season 2 a while ago!!

7. "The Arcane is waking up." FUCKIN FINALLY HEARING THAT LINE HELL YEAH- not great for the characters but yay more lore connections!!! :D

8. OOoooh Mel's gonna kick some ass as a mage fuck yeah!!!

Also- nice for Mel- the shadowy figure and the Black Rose seem to want to help against Ambessa and save Piltover :3

9. OH THERE'S A NEW FRAME FOR JINX IN THE INTRO SONG THING :0

10. Aww fuck off Singed has Warwick/Vander back :/

11. FUCK OFF AMBESSA YOU AIN'T GETTING VIKTOR >:[

12. Also turns out Viktor isn't COMPLETELY dead, Singed is currently sustaining him, at least for a very short while, but other than that it's really up in the air if he'll actually want to not die completely

13. OH SHIT HE'S TALKING THROUGH THE DEAD CULT FOLLOWERS

Aaaaannd he's talking through that one person he first healed- well- this is definitely a turn of events

14. On the bright side- YAY WE GET TO SEE ASTRAL PLANE VIKTOR AGAIN :D

15. AMBESSA DON'T FUCKIN HAVE HIM POWER UP YOUR ARMY THAT'S FUCKED UP >:0

Well- at least he'll only do it if the soldiers are actually WILLING to be powered up by him so- at least there's that

16. And now back to the gay agenda

With today's current episode featuring: CAITVI✨✨✨✨

17. OOoooh sweet Jayce caught up with them!! I mean- idk about sweet but still

Connections!!!

18. LORIS DUDE HEY HOW'VE YOU BEEN!! :D

Well hope you've been good- everyone else is currently very traumatized

19. Aaaaannd now here's CaitVi fuckin FINALLY talking without something interrupting

20. And here's a Jinx and Caitlyn discussion!! A little one sided but hey they're not trying to kill each other!!

21. MEL MEL MEL MEL MEL :D

22. Not the same white cloaked figure Jayce back the fuck down

23. And third up this episode: We got a Jayce and Mel discussion!

24. Love how the council table shows there's a circle around Mel's seat that has no damage while every other part has damage- well- cracks filled in with gold for repairs

25. HOLY FUCK HOLY FUCK WE GOT A VIKTOR AND JAYCE CONFRONTATION HOLY FUCK

ALSO VIKTOR IS LITERALLY A ROBOT RIGHT NOW WHAT THE FUCK AJFJSKGJKXVIIDGKKDJG

26. Aww the girls are fighting :(

(the girl being Jayce and Viktor)

27. DID THEY JUST KILL VIKTOR???????? Oh okay no not completely phew

28. AW FUCK NO HE'S LETTING SINGED DO THE POWER UP THING D:

29. And now we got Jinx hallucinating SILCO with a blue eye instead of that yellow/gold/reddish one

30. OH WAIT THE TALISMAN IN JAYCE'S ARM'S GONE- does that mean Jayce and Viktor aren't connected anymore?? D:

Well- at least that arcane design is still there I guess?? At least that's something

31. Oh and now Jayce's is doing a full blown conference in the council room they JUST fought in- showing off Viktor's literal robot body as a "creature" ajfhsjgjdkgj

32. STEB MY BOY HI!!! :D

FUCKIN FINALLY WE'RE GETTING A AT LEAST A SCENE OF HIM

33. OOoooh they're getting ready for war

34. STEB STEB STEB STEB :D

35. Dang VI's hair really has gotten long

36. Are Cait and Vi really gonna fuck in a jail cell?????? Seriously???

37. Dang- Cait wants to tell Vi about Maddie and she does NOT GIVE A SINGLE FLYING FUCK

Go GIRL GET YO GIRL WOO

38. Oh yeah they're gonna fuck in that cell

39. Aaaaannd now we got a Mel and Ambessa confrontation

40. FUCK THERE'S MORE OF THOSE ROBOTS VIKTOR WAS USING- like

WAY MORE jdhajfjskgjj

41. Well Sky's gone now- and she said Viktor won't even miss her???????????

42. THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING TO VANDER/WARWICK SINGED????????

43. SINGED IS FUCKIN REVIVING THE CULT FOLLOWERS AND WARWICK AND VIKTOR AND PUTTING THEM IN THOSE FUCKIN ROBOTS JAHFJSJGDJJDJGJ

44. WE'RE GETTING THE MACHINE HERALD EVERYONE THIS IS NOT A DRILL I REPEAT THIS IS NOT A DRILL HOLY FUCK HOLY FUCK WHAT THE FUCK AJCJSJGJDJFJSKGJDJGJSKGJ

Aaaaannd that's the end of episode 8, episode 2 of act 3 of season 2!!

Time for the finale!! :D

Second Live Reaction Thing

OKAY FINALE ACT OF ARCANE SEASON 2 LET'S FUCKIN GOOOO :D

Starting with episode 7:

(Ps: this turned out WAY longer than expected, like, over double as long)

1. YO THAT MUSIC DISK THING AT THE START HAS EKKO AND POWDER THIS TIME INSTEAD OF VI AND POWDER :0

Hope that means we finally get Ekko

2. YO YO YO THERE IS EKO LESS FUCKIN GO

Also- TIME FUCKERY SHIT IS HAPPENING I KNEW OTHER TUMBLR PEEPS WERE ONTO SOMETHING

Okay I'll tone down the yelling text now andhsjfjskg (hopefully- okay this is a lie, it will happen again)

3. ALTERNATE JINX I REPEATE ALTERNATE JINX HOLY SHIT- or is it Powder-

4. Bro Ekko is fucking GOING THROUGH IT my gosh

ALSO WHERE'S HEIMERDINGER

5. VANDER TO???!!?!??

6. MYLO AND CLAGGOR WHAT THE FUCK-

7. OOoooh it's Powder then, not Jinx, subtitles just confirmed it 👍

8. Oh hey Heimerdinger!! :D

9. OH FUCK YEAH HEIMERDINGER KNOWS TO ABOUT THE PARALLEL UNIVERSE SHIT SHOW THAT'S GOING DOWN

10. Oooh and now they're discussing what the absolute FUCK happened to Jayce

Also- Heimerdinger: "The anomaly behaved differently around him.'

YEAH probably cuz his doomed yaoi partner in science is connected to the Arcane AND they both literally created HexTech, with the HexTech core thing sucking Jayce and Ekko and Heimerdinger into wherever the fuck they are right now, like- yeah DUH it's gonna act differently around Jayce

11. Yay Vi mention!! :D

Wonder if she and Cait are dating or married in this universe-

12. Welp- time for the Jayce shit show to commence

13. OH THIS BETTER BE VIKTOR BEING OMINOUS AS SHIT RN

OKAY no Viktor... HOWEVER

14. THE FUCK KINDA APOCALYPTIC UNIVERSE IS JAYCE IN RN?????????

15. IS THAT PILTOVER!!???!!?!?!!

16. Lol Ekko questioning this Powder like she's Jinx- my man you're paranoid as all hell- but yeah, understandable

17. WAIT WHAT VI'S DEAD HERE D:

18. Ekko my boy PLEASE don't fuck up this universe and whatever relationship's this you has going on hfhajfjskgja

19. OOoooh jeez yep now Powder's upset at him

20. FUCKIN WHAT- okay now it's another alternate universe way more similar to the main one, with Jinx dead now

21. Oh nope- back to the "good future" one of sorts

22. Heimerdinger that song is way to upbeat for the shit fest going on right now- especially with Jayce

23. YO WE'RE GETTING TI SEE JAYCE'S OLD APARTMENT NOW IN THE UNIVERSE EKKO AND HEIMERDINGER ARE IN :D

Hope alternate Jayce in this universe isn't dead tho- the whole place looks abandoned

24. And now we're back to main Jayce, in an apocalyptic Zaun now! Think he's looking for Viktor

25. OH SHIT- VI DIED ON A JOB TO CHECK OUT JAYCE'S APARTMENT ALTERNATIVE UNIVERSE EKKO SENT THEM ON

26. Oooo main Ekko found an early development HexTech crystal!! :D

Sweet sweet help yourself get home my dude!!

27. Damn Jayce is finding a LOT of standing dead people- or.. husks of dead people from what it looks like

28. OOoooh what else is watching you Jayce huh? Also please don't die figuring that out

29. OOOOH SHIT THE HUSKS ARE MOVING OH SHIT RUN JAYCE RUN

30. Oh so THAT'S why he has a brance on his leg earlier in the season after coming outta the parallel universe(s)

Fuckin his HexTech hammer absolutely knocked that knee out falling down that hill

31. Well shite that was a fucking hard as fuck impact Jayce

32. "How can I forsake a brilliant lad in need.. again." Well Heimerdinger definitely has some guilt, also that cut right to Jayce when he said "again" so I believe he's talking about him, even though I believe Heimerdinger forsake Jayce AND Viktor

33. Ohh shiiiit that leg looks baaaad as fuck

34. BRO WHO'S THAT WHITE CLOAKED FIGURE THAT JUST APPEARED THEN VANISHED?????

Hope it's Viktor honestly-

35. Does he SERIOUSLY spend the entire time he's in the parallel universe(s) trying to get outta a fucking huge hole in the ground??????? Fuckin hope not

36. The husks are watching him start to go insane in the solitude??? Fuckin REALLY?????

37. OH SHIT THERE'S THE HALLUCINATING, YA GOT black eyed Mel with the gold pupils and Viktor before the arcane bullshit with fully black eyes and Mel's makeup for some reason

38. OOoooh okay he made a brace outta his Hammer alrighty

39. Yay he's outta the hole!!! :D

40. Aww Ekko painted main Vi as an apology to Powder 🥺

41. Where the fuck are you going Jayce???

OOoooh the husks are watching- glad they're not attacking!! Which I think may have to do with Viktor?

42. YAY Ekko got Powder to help him and Heimerdinger with the HexTech crystal shards!! :D

43. Yay they're making progress!! Also I think Ekko just went back in time a little- oh yep yeah definitely

44. Well fuck that's definitely a way to know the limit being 4 seconds ajfjsjfjsjf

45. OOOH AND THERE'S SILCO! Weird eye thing going on but still Silco

46. And now Ekko made it awkward ajdjsjfjdkfk BRO IT'S A DIFFERENT UNIVERSE- like yeah obviously that's the fucking case with the eye Ekko don't bring up past trauma you're probably not even supposed to know about here

47. OOoooh and there's Powder making an entrance!! At least her and Jinx got that in common

48. Awww Powder and Ekko being adorable as fuck rn ahdhajgisjgu

49. YOO KISS TIME LESSGOOOOO

50. Fuckin flash banged by the change to Jayce in the post apocalyptic world from that wholesome moment ajfhsjfhsjfj

51. Well- looks like Jayce found his alternate universe self, dead- but still definitely him- at least I think- cuz that husk is I believe holding this universe's version of his hammer????? Oh yep definitely his hammer

52. OH THAT WHITE CLOAKED FIGURE HAS TO BE VIKTOR- IDK IF IT'S THIS ALTERNATIVE APOCALYPTIC UNIVERSE'S OR THE MAIN VIKTOR AFTER HIS DEATH BUT I REALLY HOPE IT'S VIKTOR

And if so- yep Viktor is definitely implying here that Jayce needs to kill main Viktor

53. AND WE GOT MAIN EKKO IN HIS ARCANE (Main universe in this case) LOOK AGAIN FUCK YEAH

Alrighty and that concludes this Live Reaction of episode 7!! Or in other words the first episode of season 2 act 3!! :D

Gonna probably go eat something then get back to watch the next episode

#arcane season 2 spoilers #arcane season 2

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elizabethrobertajones · 8 years ago

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9x19 Rewatch

I had Mel threatening me with being shoved in a woodchipper if I didn’t carry on this rewatch.

I also haven’t watched Fargo in years but it’s left lasting imprints on my psyche

We get the full Jody recap and some basic vampire lore. It’s got a little reminder of the time Dean WAS a vampire, if you look closely, which is especially relevant to his arc this season and honestly I don’t know why they didn’t harp on that more :P Okay, he was made a vampire entirely involuntarily as part of that stretch of season 6 which is all rape metaphor all the time. Dean and vampires is already a huge mess because of this and that thing where John used him as bait in 1x20, and other stuff, and vampire episodes are closely connected to Dean’s issues - scroll to the bottom of this page for a great series of posts on it that sadly only goes through season 2 but is where I got this thought from like... literally the week this episode originally aired since I had in fact reached fandom at that point and this was super relevant to the new episode:

http://sleepsintheimpala.tumblr.com/mymetamess

... anyway, the pattern keeps up. I know I and a couple of others have written about Dean being slam-dunked back into the closet around season 6-ish area (tbh, really just a Gamble era thing) and 6x05 either is something you can point to as a real inciting incident especially while Dean’s still desperately clinging to his year-long relationship with Lisa, or just a good sort of one episode summary of where he’s at... However it is, Boris the vampire rape-metaphors him and introduced it via creepy hitting on Dean, so all round is a terrible incident, that fits strongly with the themes of where Dean seems to be at around that time in relation to his sexuality...

Of course, Benny, a vampire, is used to show Dean opening up to monsters as friends later in season 8 to go along with a much more positive, happy depiction of Dean, as, even with all the angst that inevitably comes, he seems a little better off emotionally, and his strong bond with Benny is used as one of the indicators of at that at the start of the season. (Along with plenty of paralleling in the vampire-related incidents around that - Edlund precludes the entire Carver era conclusion with the “god” vampire in 8x05 >.>) Dean, later with the Mark at a more advanced stage, blows off steam with killing vampires, and all the nuance in these cases disappears, and to me that feels like completing what is now almost a prophecy Gordon made back in 2x03 about becoming a killer (echoed by Cain in 9x11). I’ve been over this territory a lot, if you read everything I write meta on, but anyway, this is why it feels obvious to me to use the last MotW slot of the season for a vampire episode. Dean’s now spiralling down in his descent, and his personal-arc related monster is back...

I suppose this time, the lesson is not being able to let go of a child, with Dean as the Mom Vampire, and Sam as Alex (she acts as the neatest parallel to him in 11x12 as well, at least in the sense of reflecting his established character/history - he and Claire are really interesting for where Sam feels he might be going... I suppose if I ever scrape myself together long enough to get to the end of this, I’ll have to try and collect up and make sense of all of Sam’s random honesty hour moments to Claire, Charlie, Eileen and others about how he feels about hunting...) - anyway, this is the easiest surface level parallel of this episode as a whole: that Dean couldn’t let go, he struggled with turning Sam (into an angel, not a vampire) to preserve him, and it was his ultimate downfall. And as the title of the episode shows, the names are really important, as they have been all season since the Gadreel/Zeke thing.

Anyway I suppose I should actually watch this :P

We start with a whole lot of red exit signs, because this episode is super doomy, given where Dean is going:

DEPUTY FRANK Yeah, copy that, but the bullpen's empty, and I got someone in holding.

RADIO Sheriff's heading to the station now. They won't be alone long.

Oh, I love lines that are just meaningless chatter on a first watch. (This is also part 3 of just fawning all over Berens this season, bee tee dubs.) Of course the vamp has no idea that the Sheriff will be heading to the station, or that the Sheriff will be BE-heading him in the station before the title card. :P He’s accidentally completely right in a throwaway comment while he thinks he’s clearing the police station so he can get uninterrupted time to threaten Alex.

There’s also many times I wish the recap wasn’t there, because the first indication this is Jody territory in the episode is an external of the police station with Sioux Falls on it, and that establishing shot is also a warning that this is her jurisdiction... Just a quick blink and you miss it hint that Alex is not as unprotected as she seems...

A lot of the vamp episodes mess with typical cold open expectations; 2x03 especially uses the vampire as the victim and the hunter as the monster. Here, Alex seems like she’d be vulnerable and dead with vampires after her, but this totally isn’t the case with Jody around to save her, again making the vampire the one who bites the dust for the obligatory end of cold open blood splatter. Jody’s protection/right as a police officer-hunter is explored beautifully in this episode, such as her insistence she goes with Sam and Dean to save Alex later, as well as using her cabin for a safe house and so on.

GIRL A-are the others with you?

CODY Everyone was off on a hunt when I'd realized you'd run away. Figured I'd do you and them a favor and come take care of this before they even know we're gone.

Also with the inversions - the vampire talking about being “on a hunt” is a vague term that both hunters and the things they hunt can use about their activities. Alex has the whole vulnerable girl in a cold open thing going for her to have us on her side, but Cody’s language certainly COULD be blurred with being a hunter, especially as he’s clearly treating her as something that needed to be, well, hunted.

Anyway yay Jody, the real hero of this episode :D

Dean is much better at parking than in 9x08. Cue meta about his heterosexual parking to compare to how he “couldn’t even park straight” back then while in his sexuality crisis of the season. (Great parallel because Jody episode. No parallel parking though. The Impala can not be parallel parked. 9x06 proved this)

JODY Eh, only aches when it rains. How you boys been?

DEAN Peachy.

SAM Touch and go.

JODY I know the feeling.

Did they wait for it to rain for this scene or was that just luck? :P

Making use of the rain around that line, anyway, is pretty neat for expressing Jody suffering with an unseen injury or... mark... that flares up circumstantially - and the fact that it’s clearly currently bothering her is also an omen for Dean.

This whole episode is an omen for Dean.

Anyway she asks how they are as one unit, but Sam and Dean have conflicting replies and emotional needs at this point and are working out of sync. Their fight is buried, but: Dean expresses he’s fine as Winchesters do (and of course being the one with something to hide, especially that he’s currently spiralling... Jody in 10x08 tells him he can talk to her about shit because it’s all on the other side of this, and again in 12x06... Dean does not seem to be good at making use of the resource of Jody’s shoulder, freely offered. Her shoulder is hurt though :P Maybe he doesn’t want to hurt her further by telling her the horror show of his life - the casual, fun fling of a friendship they have with her, in a way, of keeping the Big Plot Nonsense away from her, though she had directly got involved and helped them with it in season 7...) And Sam, the currently hurt one whose season is all coping and recovering and holding a justified stance in the argument (that is, when the argument is on track) gets to express dissent to Dean talking for them, assert himself as an individual AND be open about being currently hurt in a way Dean can’t be.

Interesting little exchange.

I love Jody keeping things she beheaded in the boot of her car.

Though.. she had to have a really good instinct to know that it was vampires since she jumped in on that conversation late. Does she habitually behead people?

Anyway Sam and Dean joke about her being all grown up - there’s a lot of instances of them JOKING together which I think has been taken as them being back in a good place, but is really just a thin layer of humour slapped on top of all the awful for the sake of working together.

JODY Total Jane Doe. She won't even give me her name. Girl's basically feral.

names are important - in this case, without one she is basically less than human in Jody’s language choices... Or dead, as “jane doe” is also used notoriously for unidentified corpses. Which ALSO foreshadows that she’s replacing a dead girl (the Vamp Mom’s baby girl)

Sam notices the marks on her neck, while Dean is just enjoying threatening her. He sees her as vamp adjacent (and the fact she’s marked by them though he hasn’t even seen it yet, is already symbolic of her connection to them, especially because it’s causing Dean to treat her as basically a monster or not on the side of hunters anyway. This is all ignoring that she ran away and was clearly trying to get AWAY from the vampires and NOT be like them. She is “marked” and because she snarks at them for being hunters, it draws the “us” or “them” lines immediately, so Dean moves into interrogation mode.

(And yeah the “mark” is in quotations because the parallel is obvious there - Dean thinks she’s become a monster or is less than human even before he turns into a demon, that mark is making him into something he doesn’t want to be. He KNOWS it. He’s known it since he got it. Probably BEFORE he did. But now the consequences are hitting him and it’s terrifying and so he’s not giving her any benefit of the doubt because he wouldn’t give himself)

They learn what’s on the record about Annie and Dean’s response is just,

DEAN Eight years is a long time for a human to live with vampires without getting killed or turned.

His suspicion about her I think also comes from a feeling that if she IS still human she has to have been indoctrinated somehow just because how is she still alive - I don’t know if he suspected exactly that she was a lure, but I seem to remember he isn’t very surprised at this information either. This is before Sam points out she was being used to feed on, and of course back in 7x22 they had a girl who looked a LOT like Alex turn on them (hi Jenna from season 11 :P) - I said back in my 7x22 rewatch that this episode was doing right by this story of the girl, not least because it gives her much more time, but also it’s a much more nuanced exploration of her and why she’d act and feel how she does, and her choices are so important to the story, rather than the girl in 7x22 being a plot token.

Anyway then Sam says that thing that’s relevant for, like, everything:

SAM Jody's right. And she had scars on her neck, feeding scars. Uh...They're layered, as if they'd been built on for years.

Which is a super dark metaphor for basically any sort of trauma you want to apply here. Especially as here I feel like there’s a lot of projecting going on - this was how Dean broke in hell, essentially, but with torture instead of feeding, and of course now he’s picking up where that left off and finally turning into a demon. We could say Dean’s trauma has been built on year after year...

And then the chilling imagery of:

DEAN We've seen it before -- vampires keeping people as pets, human feedbags. Sometimes these slaves...

SAM Stay loyal to their captors.

DEAN Yeah.

SAM Right.

which might have them in sync again but for really chilling commentary on their loyalties. I don’t think OVERALL their relationship is THIS bad but it’s definitely a comparison they make as a worst case scenario, and honestly, the chill bliss of season 11 and 12 so far with no Giant Bro Drama has really taken the edge off my feelings of HOW bad it got in Carver era, when we had to suffer it week by week.

Anyway. Using winsync to deliver this info is just... brr. This is the point in the story when they’re most tied to each other in this horrible way where the resurrection codependency problem has flared up the most and Sam’s next on the block with demon!Dean lurking. The threat that Sam would go dark was huge over the hiatus, because of how his season ends, with him sitting LITERALLY in the dark...

Actually, lemme just remind you of how we find him at the end of 9x06 -

since, well, I have the gif, it’s another Berens ep, and the foreshadowing in season 9 is just a thing of beauty.

Also, the “captors” thing reminds me that Berens’ other episode this season was Captives, which through every branch of the story stressed this theme, and of course included Sam and Dean’s own sense of being captive in the Bunker with each other. Sam is in a precarious position where he’s fallen out with Dean and honestly has a pretty fair grievance about the Gadreel thing, but is working with Dean anyway, living with him, making jokes with him, and completing his sentences. About loyalty to their captors.

Now of course I’m a total Dean!girl so I see this all as fairly metaphoric of where they’re at in the argument, that though Dean is in the wrong I still find him sympathetic and empathise with his actions (as much as I want to slap him upside the head and tell him to get himself together :P)...

The other side of this is what is buried so deep it’s barely whispered in the subtext a lot of the time, and you have to catch it by implication or in very rare special episodes like 9x07, is only suddenly thrown out into the main text in 10x03 where demon!Dean really lets Sam have it about feeling like HE has been shackled to HIM with the whole looking out for Sammy thing. He tells him that he quits on that job, and equates his sense of freedom to not having to worry about Sam. Obviously that’s all garbled through demon!Dean filters for what Dean may actually feel in a non-evil way, but it makes the point of how over the years it’s been so forced on Dean to save Sam that this metaphor works there too, of the scars building up and loyalty to what he feels has been a captive situation with having to look after Sam...

I mean the real tragedy is how this is all such a mess that they BOTH have this horrible metaphor apply to them and they need to be freed from it - on both sides. Season 12 seems to be shaping up to a group effort, larger core family feeling (keeping Jody around in this discussion, great metaphor to that in 12x06 with the group exorcism), and I’m enjoying the dynamics so much more...

Oh wait and I haven’t even commented on the obligatory prison imagery - yes this is in a police station and all, but the interview room is given bars by the blinds -

it was in the earlier round of questioning too... I like how this episode is shot a lot. :D

Also this shot of Jody listening in at the door:

I love that it gives us this indication she is the POV (as much as there is one - the looking in through the windows makes it SO impersonal and I would write an essay on that, but it’s all gut feeling and I do not have a media studies degree despite the apparent dire need of one I have in my day to day life since fandom :P)... Jody is listening in and watching over this conversation, and this look shows her obviously ready to arbitrate or step in by putting the camera’s focus on her, like this fade from Winchesters to Jody, indicates that she is in control here.

DEAN And they didn't love you. They loved your blood. They fed on you.

ALEX I fed them. My choice. My brothers -- they brought me food when I was hungry. So when they struck out on a hunt, I fed them. They're my family.

Family don’t end in blood? Doesn’t start there either - especially not when they’re drinking your blood :P Idk, it feels like a subversion of this saying because it’s about family and blood. Sam and Dean keep using the wrong name for her, which makes her angry and even more uncooperative. If her name is like... a passcode to talk too her, they’re failing to gain entry by sticking to the name they THINK she should react to, trying to reason with the stolen child instead of the person Alex has become.

Alex stresses choice here, about choosing family, and again the parallels are all sorts of awful here because of the chosen family theme of the show, and how Sam and Dean choose each other, but from an outside POV that they have that Alex has been raised by vampires, they see the damage and toxic nature of this in a different way from her. She may have been running away but she needs, well, the rest of the events of the episode to see clearly and to choose a family that is good for her. It’s making the point it’s not EASY to break these bad family bonds, especially when they seem to be chosen (Dean is made to pick Sam many times over others - e.g. Death making him pick between Sam and Adam in 6x11, which I have recently rewatched so it’s on my mind :P But at the same time these choices are forced, and made out of a desperation where Dean is unable to lose Sam and fail him, so the choice is dubious and it plays into a much more complicated dynamic that needs change and repair...)

Sam carries on being a BIT more sympathetic. They’re SORT of playing good cop bad cop but both with being hunters and Alex isn’t going to get on with that however they approach it.

They also talk about her decision to run away:

DEAN And how do you think that decision is gonna sit with the rest of the nest? One of them already pursued you. You think when the rest of them find out that you left that they're just gonna shrug and cut their losses?

SAM You lived with them for years. They've tasted your blood. They have your scent down cold. I mean, how far can you run and for how long?

DEAN You didn't think this out, did you? What would happen, who might get hurt -- your, uh, "brother," for one.

which is REALLY accusatory there that she got Cody killed and putting all the blame on her actions...

(Honestly the fact this episode doesn’t start (after the cold open) with cutesy Winchesters in the Bunker getting the call from Jody while living a slice of life, really isolates us from them. This episode is already really making them look bad, Jody look good, and definitely our POV player)

DEAN Because of a choice you made. These are the consequences.

Dean, currently wandering around with the Mark, having made a choice that will get a lot of people hurt and killed, including, nearly his brother too...

Anyway this escalation of her teenage rebellious escape attempt into her family being killed, her being blamed, and Vamp Momma as a threat who might kill her for it, as Alex thinks, is what convinces Alex to put herself in their care. As far as I remember in this episode she never reaches out to the vampires and in a LOT of stories like this I know the victim often has a lapse and calls the monsters down on them. As far as I recall, a few clues about where she might have gone and her scent are enough to get Alex in trouble, and she genuinely does put her trust in the authorities - both hunters and cop - from this point. Though she’s not happy about it, she’s not punished more than this emotional blame for her attachment to the vampires? I might be wrong about that but I remember a lasting fondness for this episode’s treatment of Alex as a victim. Sam and especially Dean are blame-y and judge-y but Jody (our sympathetic character here) wants to reach out and save Alex for her own sake. And is rewarded for that.

(Thinking of blame, though... Don’t get me into her being turned into a vampire as a rite of, like, puberty or womanhood or whatever because it’s super weird but this is sort of what’s going on with Alex’s comment that it was “time” she left as her normal growth was about to be interrupted - Vamp Mom’s plan is to FREEZE Alex in this seemingly virginial-but-enticing adolescence in this fucked up backwards rite of passage, out of twisted love for her/her dead daughter but also it conveniently keeps her as the perfect honeytrap forever... Saving her allows Alex to mature normally and have control of her body, but all the stuff relating to her time as a lure is laden with the potential for blame about how her body was used - which 11x12 was about... There’s a whole mess of stuff there >.>)

DEAN Mills, you okay?

JODY No wonder she didn't thank me. That creep was her brother.

Again with the really impersonal - “Mills”... Dean knows Jody better than that but RIGHT NOW this is the story that is being told, and the feel of the episode that’s coming across.

After Jody says the thing about “brother” we get the obligatory reaction shot from a Winchester to the word - in this case Dean’s gruff angry facade momentarily cracking and sparing a moment to think about dead brothers. He’s not ALL gone yet, although we’re now very very few episodes from Dean losing that core sense of self that is his care for Sam...

(This isolated feeling from Dean is also good with us getting closer to that - keeping him at arm’s length to emphasise the coming loss of self, because we’re being cut off from him, and stuff like this shows DEAN is being cut off from his true self to, already.)

(Throwing in a reminder we’re 3 episodes from Dean yelling at Sam that their relationship is a dictatorship)

7 minutes in and Jody is already getting close to the name thing by picking at what’s so weird about it. I know for storytelling purposes it’s important to ask that question early, but I like that it’s ALL Jody getting invested in this and trying to work out how to understand Alex

Sam and Dean take the clue of where to go next and leave Jody with “babysitting” duty, though it’s already apparent Jody is invested.

I have so many questions:

The barbershop next door and this thing wedged on the other side of the bus terminal - I guess maybe the terminal is a tunnel between shops to a place out back where the buses come in if I had to make up a reason for this. But yeah, the OPEN sign, the chairs, the wedding dress? The poster that the only word I can make out is the middle one - “suede”... What IS that shop? There’s no other camera angle on it and I guess it was made up by the set department...

WHY a wedding dress though? THAT sticks out. Alex isn’t being forced into any marriage-equivalent situation, nor are any of the other characters... It’s a very odd thing but they captured it in this shot >.> I need back up.

@mittensmorgul seemed totally chill with the concept and assured me that this is a Thing that cleaners do to show off their competence... I guess the thing is now just that they chose to display this so obviously in the scene.

I’m going to go for retro DeanCas subtext and suggest the cleaner and launderette from 9x01 are linked except dry cleaners are an upgrade from launderettes in terms of self service vs someone doing it for you and them doing fancy stuff like wedding dresses... Like Cas had an upgrade from human (clearly linked to the launderette scene as that was where he accepted a lot of human limitations finally) but anyway, look, a wedding dress! Cas is gonna get married!

[disclaimer: I vaguely remember how this season ends]

For some reason all I take away from the rest of this scene is trying to make vampire hissing noises and realising it’s harder than it looks to do with your mouth open, bearing your teeth, without making phlemgy noises.

Jody’s cabin in the woods objectively looks creepy because cabins in woods are creepy as fuck, and the fact that it’s Jody’s doesn’t really do anything to smooth that over...

She does not do much to reassure Alex by giving her the old horror movie rundown on the setting:

JODY F.Y.I. -- The woods around here -- really easy to get lost in if you don't know your way around. Me -- I know them like the back of my hand.

ALEX I got it. "Don't try running. You won't get far".

ALEX Oh. Dead.

JODY [taking the picture back] You know, there are about a thousand more polite ways you could say that. I'll give you a pass on account of the whole raised-by-monsters thing.

Alex is obviously trying to get a rise out of Jody – maybe just testing the limits of this semi-captivity she’s in with her and seeing what sort of prison guard she’s ended up with. Jody gets in this barb despite trying to be high-minded (because Alex dragged her family into it) and the “raised-by-monsters thing” emphasises again the line between human and monster that Alex is wavering in between… By the definitions OTHER people put on her, not so much what she’s doing aside from being sarcastic.

I’m half sure the exterior shot for the vamp house was Cain’s AGAIN but from a different side. The interior is probably any old set. I’ve talked a lot about how the state of Sam’s soul and how in peril it is is almost a direct correlation to run down shacks with boarded up windows. This is a rare case where “Blackout windows” and the whole state of the decrepit house refers to Dean. Because windows are the eyes to the soul or something, and they’re all blacked out. Wonder what that means.

(I have a post on that in my queue, another relic of season 9 meta that I stumbled on and was awed about at the time)

DEAN Hey! Hey, you need a hand with that?

This is objectively one of the worst things Dean’s ever said :P

I remember meta about his flippancy about it being a sign of his decaying soul (everything is) but honestly I think he’d say it whatever was going on :P

Anyway I love the dedication to Fargo references in this show.

Remember that time Sam knocked a vampire out with a shovel?

(Teamwork!)

SAM Ralph Hedges. Stacy Kepler. Any reason you targeted them?

DALE Yeah. Hunger.

With the threat of the hunger of the Mark as the big bad in season 10, this is pretty ominous. Vampires being used as mirrors to Dean as well… Ironically he blows off steam killing them in order to feed that hunger and stop it being dangerous to random humans. (The main example of this I can think of… is from 10x19. Hi Berens :P)

Anyway Dean gets back to torturing, no hesitation. I’ve now left this rewatch too long to remember if this is the first time he gets into it since getting the Mark or what, but this is another neon sign that he’s not okay.

I’ve seen a lot of meta about the bit about siblings here –

DALE Well, all of us but little sis. She was, uh, "too good to turn". Mama couldn't bring herself to, no matter what we said, no matter how bad Alexis got.

DEAN Bad?

DALE Let me guess. You never had a teenage sister. Dragging her heels, whining, near constant, about everything, but more and more about the blood, like she's somehow above it, like she's better than us 'cause she don't feed on people.

Again the suggestion that a little sibling is a burden. Ironically Dean had it the other way around that Sam had a problem WITH drinking blood. Monsters tend to work in reverse to the Winchesters so that’s no surprise… It also suggests favouritism between siblings and the parent; I think Sam and Dean both relate to that, thinking John may have liked the other better for different reasons, even if it involved a lot of projecting. I’m getting pretty sleepy to remember what the meta I’ve read about it suggested though >.>

The “Bad” thing is also interesting too – Dean seems to be thinking it means she’s evil because he’s determinedly looking for signs of that still because they don’t trust her (and so he falls completely for the READING of the story that Alex as a lure was evil. This is about INTERPRETATION though – Dale tells the truth of events but the bias on the reading determines if she’s evil or a victim.)

Anyway Dale just found her annoying. :P

DALE Her moping? That teenage crisis-of-conscience crap? It's annoying as hell, but it's just an act. When the chips are down, she'll always choose us over humans.

That confidence that she’ll choose family – taking and corrupting the iconic line about it

Also talk about a Cas mirror for picking humans - which Alex does - and remembering 9x22 and the whole “humanity” thing is waiting in the wings for Cas...

MAN Come on, sweetie. Aren't you gonna give me a name?

ALEX It's...Ann.

That’s the 3rd name she uses so far (And Dale used “Alexis” for us, so Bingo! I guess) – a corruption on her original name – of the innocent little Annie who genuinely WAS, turned into the vampire lure. Like, no wonder she doesn’t want to use Annie again after reconnecting with her past. It’s not like LotR with Frodo calling Gollum “Smeagol” and luring out the old identity that could be reasoned with to a degree until things went really south… Alex has every right to keep the name she had been given by the vampires that still carries less baggage than this, especially as it seems to be more connected to her identity as herself (the “crisis of conscience” self that rebels) while she’s constructed a persona under “Ann” who is exactly what she wants to leave behind…

Then, the obvious demonstration of the story being wrong:

DALE Best a vamp could ask for. And you better believe you don't get that good at it unless you enjoy it. In her own sweet way...Girl's as bloodthirsty as any vampire.

SAM [suddenly realizing] Jody.

(Cut to Jody returning with firewood, finding Alex missing, a whole little horror movie tension building moment… aaaaand Alex is passed out on the bed, one sleepy, harmless teenager)

She also shows a sign of humanity:

ALEX Sheriff. My grandma?

JODY I'm so sorry.

ALEX No, it's -- it's fine. I figured -- it's been years, and she was old.

She tries to shrug it off, but the fact she asked at all is a great sign that she’s not a lost cause, because she’s got concern about another human being…

Dean kills Dale just because they’re done with him – it’s framed as a quick decision where Sam leaves, and though Dale is subdued and tied up, Dean goes back to kill him. It might not seem like much when they’re in a rush and Jody is in danger and these vampires are blatantly evil and by the Winchesters’ standards the type of monster they have a right to kill without hesitation, unlike some of the sympathetic vamps they’re encountered who should give them pause. BUT the way this all goes down, it leaves Dean making a snap decision that’s bloodthirsty and involves killing, right at the point of the story when every single kill he makes, from the moment he gets the Mark, is weighted with a huge amount to say about his current arc and how he’s doing. The kill at the end is a much bigger sign of him being Not Okay, but, yeah, this isn’t a good thing either, despite how it may seem like part of their regular job. Later in the episode his bloodthirsty choice turns the vampires against them even more than they’d normally react to hunters, although I guess it takes the heat off Alex for getting so many of the family killed. :P

I always hate to think about poor Jody spending a night sleeping on the cold forest floor. I like to think the vamps came at like, 4am, and the Impala gets there maybe like 6 or something.

Dean comes rushing in to save Jody – Sam too but we see the shot of Dean rushing towards her and his dialogue full of concern, so it sort of makes him more in the focus there.

It seems sort of normal until –

DEAN You think they went back to the nest?

SAM Of course they did. Why wouldn't they? Question is -- what are they gonna do when they find their brother dead?

Oops.

They try to tell Jody not to come out of honest concern that she’s hurt, but Jody has her own priorities that she’d had Alex in her care. When Dean tries to convince her Alex is evil, Jody has the alternative reading:

JODY I don't care. Whatever she did, she did because they made her.

DEAN Oh, and that's a reason?

JODY She's a kid!

She has a much better idea of consent and coercion, and the most tragic part is this –

DEAN Yeah, a kid who's been playing vampire murder since before she was in braces.

SAM Jody, he's right. A-at best her loyalties are...Screwed.

DEAN And how do you even know she wants to be saved?

DEAN YOU DESERVE TO BE SAVED

But yeah, Dean’s sense of self was ripped from him when he was 4 years old and he was set on the path of violence and revenge and hunting things. (Also saving people but that’s all shelved this year >.>) He has no point of reference for it NOT being weird to be screwed up by this sort of life since before you were in braces and for it to affect your adult self. He thinks he’s a killer right now – that he’s been shaped into one and that’s all he’ll be and he’s embracing it… So learning “Annie” was lost years ago just makes him all the more convinced she’s evil and unredeemable and NOT innocent of who she is.

Jody, despite missing the huge metaphor of Dean’s life or Sam’s issues with loyalties being screwed (see also: slaves and captors discussion earlier) emphatically declares that childhood is innocence no matter what happens in it and that Alex has a chance to be good because she was used and turned into what she was by the vampires…

SAM What is this even really about? You barely know the girl.

JODY [glares at the boys and moves to the car] I'm coming. And if either one of you lays so much as a hand on Alex...You'll have to go through me.

And Sam thinks Jody is being WEIRD about it – he’s following along with Dean a bit too much, and I can imagine Sam fans may have been wanky about this because Sam is normally more sympathetic. In this case he’s trying to understand Jody, but he’s essentially still in the same boat as Dean, not able to understand someone’s violent past from their redeemable present, and I quite like the way this story has him swept in Dean’s wake, following along (to a point) because the darkness affects both of them, just Dean more and this is a point of the story pushing BOTH of them deeper… I don’t think the wake up call REALLY comes until 11x01 when Sam starts making alarmed noises about how far they go and starts trying a few solutions for better ways…

Alex wakes up on what is clearly her bed

It has flowery covers and yet it very obviously in a gross vampire basement in all other respects. She’s probably slept her basically all her life that she remembers clearly. This is her idea of home. It also, not uncoincidentally, looks a LOT like a messed up version of Dean’s room in the Bunker. No actual private space – a sort of curtain around it. The same concrete décor, and a little shelf behind the bed, with books and candles on it… Garbage everywhere… Vampires upstairs… Nice.

MOMA Baby, why did you do it? Why did you run from us?

ALEX I love you, mama. I do. I just -- I couldn't take it anymore. The blood and the death, the sounds of their screams. I just... I can't do it anymore. And the way I feel afterwards, the guilt...I'd rather die than feel that way again.

“This is better… it’s making me into something I don’t want to be”

(I actually haven’t seen 9x23 in years but I think that’s the line >.> fairly traumatising episode tbh :P)

MOMA It's my fault.

ALEX What?

MOMA All of it. This is my fault. I should've turned you years ago.

This also feels pretty ominous but I can’t put my finger on why. Honestly my best bet is Crowley to Dean – all the grief he’s ever got from him, and making him into demon!Dean seems at first to suggest he finally has a Winchester who’s compliant to him…

The vamp nest in daylight has a sheep carrying truck and an old school bus outside it. Humans as livestock and Alex’s lost childhood? Who even knows :P Anyway they give Jody the briefing like she’s a soldier, but with a lack of trust about dealing with Alex.

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

“human feelings” immediately hits me with Cas in 10x01 talking about “human things” – I guess this describes a crossroads they all come to. Cas, struggling between being an angel and human, ends this season on “I just want to be an angel” which suggests he doesn’t want to feel, or care, as much as he does. Though it sounded like that was a declaration of intent over the hiatus, when we catch up to him he’s actually moping in bed wallowing in the pain – maybe unable to escape it because of being sick.

Likewise, I have a post waiting in my drafts to reblog for 9x23 comparing Dean telling soulless!Sam that being human is suffering and if he died Sam was supposed to sit in a dark room and suffer about it… With guess what screencap placed under it? :P (Hint: it’s Sam sitting in a dark room suffering because Dean is dead)

I think they all have their humanity in question at this point – Sam doesn’t lose it in any magical way, but his actions as a result of all this are called into question as season 10 starts and ends with Sam taking really extreme actions with consequences in order to save Dean.

Anyway “Moma” is of course meant to be completely wrong (see also: Dean talking about suffering and being human in 6x09) and of course feeling human things is the most important thing. It’s the core of the entire show – humanity. This season is all about humanity and how important it is and of course showing Dean in a state of losing it to emphasise just how important it really is. Alex as a mirror character to him is threatened with losing it – shutting off all those emotions that mommy vamp thinks are too horrible to deal with… But what would be left behind is monstrous by this show’s definitions, and that’s exactly what’s about to happen to Dean.

And of course, Alex is saved by someone who wants to be her family and to care for her…

The blood cure for vampires is VERY similar for demons, and I suspect probably influenced the original idea – 8x18 featured the blood cure, shortly before 8x22 showed the demon one.

Oh there’s a really weird room here in the vampire’s garbage-filled house. Most of the rooms fit the trash everywhere, blackout windows aesthetic but one room Dean looks in has all these fancy and useless lace curtains over the gaps between the boards that the light is shining through. Not so obvious in the still but it seems like real beams of light effects.

I’m reminded of Cas’s phone background (established in 9x18 using images from 9x03, and confirmed he still uses it several phone models later in 12x09)… At the very least it’s a sign of hope – that Dean can be saved, that there’s still some light in his soul even when it seems at its darkest… or tbh we’ve had white lace already this episode with that wedding dress. Now Dean’s associated with a RIDICULOUS surplus of white lace which can only be here because Wanek or someone wanted to show this because it’s A: not practical, B: not very vampire-y and C: really weird even for a trashy house like this. Also they look clean and white and nice! So yeah Dean’s gonna get maaarried.

Might be because Crowley’s got an eye to have a consort though

JODY We got to go! What did they do to you?

ALEX I'm sorry, Jody. I made my choice.

BAD CHOICE IS NO CHOICE *wanders through the show banging a saucepan with a spoon*

I mean that’s the moral of this story when it comes to saving Alex, but I mean, there are sOME wider applications here.

CONNOR Hell of a sight to come home to... Brother lying dead on the floor.

No idea it was a Winchester that had done it.

Berens really starts off his first season on the show interested in the sort of legacy/mythical power of a name with a story to it – mostly through Cas, and how the angels relate to him, but it turns out these vampires know who the Winchesters are, and somehow or other worked it out after they captured them too (I doubt Sam and Dean go around saying, hey, I’m Dean Winchester, this is my brother Sam…) – maybe it’s their scent. Maybe vampires have a rumour mill of their own (demon bathroom walls too this season) and warn each other what to look out for if they have Winchesters on their case… Whatever it is, their names are known and they’re legendary enough figures the vampires know exactly how to taunt them.

Names are important.

Also that “hell of a sight to come home to – brother lying dead on the floor” thing – well that’s what Sam does in 9x23 when he comes rushing in to save Dean from Metatron…

CONNOR Which one of you took off my brother's head?! Was it you? Was it him? Pretty fitting -- brother for a brother.

The “brother for a brother” thing sounds an awful lot like passing on a brother-killing curse between people…

I have the TV instead of my second monitor to watch this so I’m less good at looking than normal, but I think this scene just has some ominous shots of Dean lying still on the floor. I can’t remember if it was confirmed he woke up and was listening to all this or not, and he just gets up at some point but the way he’s put in the front of the frame at several points, even blurry, makes it very ominous because he’s just lying there “unconscious” – I feel like he hasn’t actually slept since he got the Mark and knocking him out doesn’t do much good, really, but we don’t know that yet, so it’s harder to guess how he was doing at the time this aired… However now I’m convinced he listened in on this whole thing, and was being pretty cold and tactical about when he should jump in – even if it meant leaving Sam to get roughed up and even bled out a bit first. (In 4x19 Sam is also left to bleed out while Dean is fighting the ghouls and it’s very tense but Dean honestly want to get to him to save him – I have seen these moments paralleled anyway)

MOMA Hey. Don't be bothering my girl. She's going through something, a process.

JODY What did you do to her?

MOMA Fed her my blood. She's on her way now. All that's left is to feed.

Like I said, weirdass womanhood rituals going on here. First blood and all that, but instead of bleeding it herself, Alex takes it from another woman… (yeah I know Alex is older than this but… metaphors… Especially as Moma goes on to imply Jody is menopausal and is obviously barren herself either because vampire or because she was also menopausal when she was turned so could never even hope to have a replacement baby of her own – anyway Alex is being forced to take blood from both these mother figures, representing the end of her growth and stunting her before she can become a real adult…)

ALEX Please, mama. Let her go. I already drank from you. Let her go.

MOMA Made an impression on my girl, I see. Baby, this is the human half of you talking. After the change, this human -- she ain't nothing to you.

At this point I’m pretty much just quoting ominous lines to point at them

I like the “Human half” – I was talking a little way up about how Dean had some good left in him, and in a way the real metaphor for Dean is that he doesn’t fully “become” demon!Dean Cain 2.0 until he kills Sam – like Alex won’t be fully turned until she drinks from Jody. So demon!Dean still has a whole “human half” if you look at it that way, that there’s a final act of turning.

(Which was also compared in 10x03 to Soulless!Sam killing Bobby to “scar his vessel” too much for a soul to go back in it – to kill the human part of himself that could have remained. I have just read an essay about souls in supernatural and there’s a lot of conflicting philosophy bouncing around in my head so I’d better leave off here… Maybe by 10x03 I’ll have a clearer sense of what I’m thinking about this :P Also in 10x03 Dean is on a sliding scale of human to demon by how much blood is in him…)

MOMA I have fed her, clothed her, loved her going on nine years. You think motherhood's just about blood? You don't know the first thing about it.

JODY Maybe not, but I know what it isn't. And it ain't about forcing her to be like you the second she becomes inconvenient.

Motherhood does not get a whole lot of exploration in this show for obvious reasons, since Jody is one of the only mother characters to really survive like this and open us up to plots like this. And even taking in Alex and then Claire, her stories haven’t REALLY been strongly about motherhood outside of this episode, because she’s a fascinating, complex and interesting character with a ton of crap going on in her life :P

Anyway it’s a “family don’t end in blood” type message but again twisted and messed up as it’s coming from the villain. Honestly if you flip it around and make Moma into Bobby’s perspective but not evil, that’s kind of a lot of stuff he said about Sam and Dean in 7x10, in the best episode about FATHERHOOD in the show. And of course he’s the originator of the “family don’t end in blood” line.

Jody, though, is continually watching out for coercion and lack of choice (which is probably why Dean is banned by the plot from talking to her about his problems for, what, 3-4 seasons now of her offering, because as soon as he delves into it a lot of truths that Jody’s eye for this can pick out will suddenly be really uncomfortable for Dean).

This is also – from Jody – a good line addressing John’s parenting, especially looking at it like Dean was forcibly turned into John by subliminal emotional coercion… demon!Dean reminds us of 3x10 constantly because of how up to this point it’s the only exploration of what that would REALLY be for Dean, and that ended up with the “my father was an obsessed bastard” speech about everything he put on Dean. Now we’re back in this territory, we have this mirrored example of monstrous motherhood instead, but still mirroring where Dean’s going to end up…

Oh yeah there Dean goes with immediately being prepared for the fight, having been holding a syringe of dead man’s blood ready for the instant a vampire touches him. Beautiful choreography of the vampire grabbing his hair and him lunging up at it in one fluid movement but kinda sad there’s not a longer hair-pulling moment :P heh.

JODY Alex! Was that her name? You named her after someone. Was it your daughter? I couldn't figure out why you changed her name. I thought maybe you were ashamed of your theft, but you have no shame. You said that I was using her to fill a hole in my life, and you're right. I am. You are, too.

Just Jody nailing projection perfectly. See above: can’t talk to Dean about his shit :P

Meanwhile: Dean is stronger than a vampire and does the whole “Look at me, bitch!” thing when he kills it, which is… maaaybe a sign he’s not doing too well. I’m pretty sure we’ve lost him at this point in the story (all the stuff that keeps him distanced from being the emotional POV here especially) and we’re essentially one episode away from him being TRULY consumed by the darkness after he kills Abaddon

I guess there’s another episode in between though :P

He goes to help Sam and has a completely pointless bit of snark about their fight:

DEAN Yeah, I know. You wouldn't have done the same for me.

Dean still kinda sees killing monsters as saving Sam (messing up the line between saving people hunting things) and he’s still harping on that fight.

I’m guessing the words have got all twisted up and poisonous inside him along with the literal darkness doing this to him… Not a good time to have a serious argument while one of you is infected with a brother-killing curse that will feed off these dark feelings :P I think his descent is being accelerated by that – which also explains how it was much slower in season 10, to me, because Sam rescinds this statement while Dean is dying, and though they’re still completely messed up by the time they get back on track a little with doing MotW and living their lives, the fighting is replaced by Sam trying to help Dean… But then towards the end of the season when things are bad between them again because of the Book of the Damned nonsense, and then Charlie, Dean immediately and dramatically drops again.

Meanwhile: Alex saves Jody by rebelling against her old family and picking a new one.

JODY [to ALEX] Don't watch this, sweetheart.

I just love Jody so much.

“It looks like you were enjoying it, maybe too much…” Was I following a thread of Sam really really not seeing the warning signs until it was far too late? Dean brushes it off as part of the job – pretending it’s business as usual with the one liners, pride in what they do… You can imagine him on a good day seeming to act similarly, but Sam’s definitely picked up on the difference. I remember when I got to fandom reading something I think adjacent to this episode about Dean killing that vampire in 2x03 with the saw as one of the most brutal kills he ever made on the show… Again, vampires, again being used to show that something’s seriously wrong with him, and Sam being super alarmed to witness it. Of course this time Dean busted out some superhuman moves and strength to finish the fight so even ignoring his personality change, Sam should be worried :P

Jody interrupts this argument, which is always a bad sign when characters aren’t allowed to get to the end of discussions where something might have actually come of it. Sam was genuinely starting to dig into how Dean feels and has been acting and his VERY NEXT QUESTION could have got him the sort of answer he needed to be Truly Concerned about Dean, but nah. Here she is :P

Jody shifts the need to apologise back to herself, after Sam and Dean try to tell her she was right about Alex, which I think is Jody now too deep in her own confused feelings about wanting to keep Alex to really think straight about it. Moma did kind of get to her, but we’ll see when she goes to talk to Alex that it was in a good way where Jody’s even more clear and careful about boundaries and suggesting what Alex should do next than she would have been even as her normal caring self who wouldn’t exactly have been un-equipped to have this conversation… Anywho here with the Winchesters it kinda sucks that she exonerates them for their opinion of Alex – which while it was founded in experience, lacked the usual empathy even Sam at least should normally have for a victim. Jody’s feelings saved Alex’s life and she’s still apologising for being messed up about it >.>

Then aahahahaha oh my god Berens you fucker:

JODY Feelings I've been trying to bury for years, you know, buried it under work, religion...even dating. We know how that worked out.

*cut to a shot of Dean looking horrified/amused* Yeah, that’s Crowley they’re talking about and that’s Dean reacting to the thought of dating Crowley to bury feelings that have been sat on for years. I mean. Wow.

I knew Berens shipped Drowley like nobody’s business but I’m still finding nonsense little gems down in this part of the show which we couldn’t have seen coming at this time – even with people seeing a LOT of what came next :P

Anyway Jody says she’s going to address all her sad feelings head on because she is a well-adjusted character when it comes down to it and certainly in comparison to the Winchesters. Terrible example set in front of them :P they might actually learn to talk about their feelings!

/sarcasm directed at Carver era Sam n Dean from the safe perch of Dabb era

Oh god thinking of Dabb era remember how he nearly was a showrunner on something else like, next episode? Yiiiiiiiiiiiiiikes.

Anyway Alex says thank you very politely for Jody offering her something to eat, after she shrugged off Jody making her a sandwich earlier, so her return to humanity is marked not just by the cure but by showing her behaviour changing too. Now the threat of the vampires is all gone and she’s chosen humanity, she can begin to act like it too (after all of Jody’s comments about her being feral earlier)

The episode ends on a final gesture of empathy from Alex, which I guess is the biggest sign of humanity, and finally links them together in a way where from those 2 words you know they can try to build their family together:

JODY You don't have to explain. I know. Whatever you want from me, I'll give it. If you want, I'm here. But what you've been through the last 48 alone, losing your entire family, everything you've ever known or loved -- no one can understand that.

ALEX You can.

#9x19 #weird rewatching #spn rewatches #marshmallow era #rape mention cw #general talking about all sorts of grim stuff which you can guess from knowing this episode for ts #my stuff

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