#although I’ve always thought that the show absolutely failed to end the Dean and Jack tension in a satisfying way | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

lovelazarus · 4 years ago

Text

rating: Mature

archive warning: graphic depictions of violence

words: 2645

tags: Self-Harm, Suicide Attempt, Suicidal Thoughts, Self-Harm (fairly graphic), Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, graphic description of suicide attempt, Flashbacks, Trauma, Fluff, Fix-It of Sorts, Dean is alive, Castiel is alive, Hurt/Comfort, POV Dean Winchester, brief mention of John Winchester - Freeform, Canon-Typical Violence, Sad with a Happy Ending, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, Past Abuse, Homophobic Language, 15x20 Fix-It

summary: (This fic starts out with a graphic dream/flashback of Dean's mid-20s.) Cas showed up to save Dean in 15x20 after he let himself get impaled on rebar, his attempt to stop living while thinking Cas was truly gone in the Empty. It's been a few months since that event in the Barn. Things have been calm since Chuck lost his power & Jack brought Castiel back to help rebuild heaven (although Jack isn't in this directly!). Even with things being okay, Dean's decades of trauma are still bubbling up and Dean has to face the reality of his actions (past & present).

PLEASE read all tags before reading!

The last thing Dean remembers is sitting down on the couch in the Deancave, waiting for Cas to come pick tonight's movie. He must’ve dozed off at some point because suddenly it's 2004 and he’s 25 years old again.

The two years Sammy was off at Stanford was one of Dean’s lowest points in life; including his trip to hell, being a demon & helping kick start the apocalypse. He was completely alone.

Sam was gone, John was irate and blamed Dean for Sam leaving, for not stopping him from leaving. Dean was hunting alone, without his family, for the first time in his life. His last hunt however was the first to deeply scar him irrevocably.

A father and 2 sons, roughly the same age apart as him and Sam. Both attacked by an extremely vengeful spirit, the father was gutted and the sons were supernaturally manipulated into hanging themselves. Dean walked into their house hoping to save the family after following trails of the case, but he walked into a gruesome scene that left him shaking and holding back from vomiting.

In Dean’s mind, it was a representation of his own torn apart family. He left the home, found the grave of the spirit, and put it to rest with unsteady hands and bleary eyes.

“I’m sorry I didn’t get to you in time… I could’ve saved you and I wasn’t there. I wasn’t good enough to help you. I’m so sorry.” Dean whispers, half to the victims and half to his younger brother, thousands of miles away and unable to hear his plea.

He gets to the motel room he rented with his duffle slung over his shoulder and stands outside the door with the key in his hand, almost afraid to enter, lest he finds another sick and twisted scene inside. He exhales roughly and shoves the key into the door and strides in.

All that's inside his cheap bottle of gas station whiskey and a pack of menthols.

He drops his duffle on the extra twin bed before scooping up his liquor and smokes. He wants to erase this entire hunt from his mind if he can.

Oh, how he wants to.

Three hours later his whole pack is gone, cigarette butts shoved into an old ashtray, and 3/4th the bottle of whiskey is sitting harshly in his stomach. Dean can’t stop picturing that family as his own. Thoughts of his father’s anger circle inside his mind like a tornado.

“I told you to watch out for Sammy, boy! Do you even use that brain other than to continuously disappoint me and fail your brother? To fail Mary?”

HIT

“I left you alone for two weeks! TWO WEEKS THAT'S ALL! Now Sam has run off and you’re going to pay for it.”

HIT

“So you blew through all the money I left you and now you’re turning tricks like some little faggot? You’re going to influence Sammy to that shit and I won’t allow my sons to be like that.”

HIT

With each memory of John rushing back into Dean’s mind, he can still feel the physical hits coming. His dad was right. This would never have happened if he hadn’t been more careful. If he had protected Sam like he was told to. If he had been a better son.

He finishes the last of the whiskey as the screams of his father’s voice start to fade back into the black void inside his mind. But the moment the last drop of liquor touches his tongue, he breaks. Every punch landed by his father that he took in order to protect Sam comes rushing back. Every harsh word and drunken fight he got into. Every argument with Sam over being too controlling, too much of a soldier.

Dean feels sick.

The toilet in that crappy motel room has certainly seen better days, but no matter how much Dean vomits, he stays just as drunk.

In a moment of blind anger, he destroys the kitchenette, the TV, and the nightstand. He chucks the empty whiskey bottle at the wall and watches the glass fly everywhere as it shatters.

He absent-mindedly picks up a large piece of glass.

This could kill me. One quick and easy slash to my neck or wrist and that’d be it. No more pain for Sam, and no more disappointment for dad.

He lets his hand drop to his side and allows the shard to fall to the floor. This isn’t the first time he’s had thoughts like this in moments of weakness, but it's certainly the first time there was a calm push behind it. He collapses to his knees with a broken sob. He doesn’t want to do this anymore. He's tired.

God, he is so tired.

Dean isn’t sure when he decided this was his only option to stop the deep visceral pain he’s feeling, but it's where he’s at now.

Swallow all the pills in the med bag? No, that's what bitches and girls do, plus… it's painful.

Slit his wrists in a nice warm bath? Even worse than pills! You really are some kind of faggot, aren’t you?

Shotgun to the face? Now that's the man’s way out.

He pauses, looking over to his favorite sawed-off. It’ll be an absolute mess if that’s the way he goes. He thinks again to the family he couldn’t save; how gory and horrific it was. He shudders and breathes in sharply. He can’t do that to someone else, especially not some innocent civilian.

“Of course,” he mutters under his breath “I have a rope in the trunk.” So that’s the plan.

He stuffs all his shit into his duffle, writes out an apology to Sam, Bobby, and John (it’s a suicide note, but it doesn’t explain anything), and then he ties a military-grade noose. He finds a chair that isn’t completely destroyed by his earlier rage and begins to tie the rope onto the ceiling fan.

He stands there for a moment, contemplating. “Am I really about to do this? I’ve fought monsters and demons and ghosts for twenty years and this is where it ends?”

He shakes his head and shrugs.

��Always knew I'd die before thirty.”

He raises the noose to his head and just as he is about to slide it around his throat… The chair breaks apart, and he's left lying on his back with the wind knocked out of him.

“FUCK!” he manages to yell out before his lungs and chest start burning again. Tears begin to pinprick at his eyes as he lays motionless (and probably concussed, he didn’t break his fall at all). “I can’t even kill myself right.” he thinks to himself.

Slowly, he gets himself off the floor, groaning at the pain in his skull and back as he does. Crawling over to his bed, he sees the glass shard he dropped earlier.

“I just want to stop this fucking FEELING” his mind screams. “Just do SOMETHING you worthless son of a bitch!”

He picks the glass back up.

Everything is hazy when his brain starts to come into focus again. His hands feel slick and wet, so he brings them to his face to see what he touched.

Blood.

His own blood.

Three long gashes across his forearm, roughly a quarter-inch deep and four inches long each. He needs to stitch himself up for sure.

30 minutes later and it just looks like a hunt gone bad, his arm is sewn up and all the motel towels are stained red.

For a fleeting moment, he feels at peace. The rush of discovering what he did in a fog of failing to kill himself and the overwhelming feeling of failing his family, he feels like this was something he deserved. Like he deserved to be punished.

After an hour of dissociating and staring at the wall, he passes out and sinks into a moment of silent nothingness. No nightmares, not yet.

Dean practically jumps out of his skin when he hears Cas’s voice from the doorway.

“Dean? You look pale. What's going on?” Castiel asks with his familiar cadence.

Dean wishes he knew what brought that memory back up. Instead, he plasters on a fake smile and shakes his head reassuringly the best he can.

“Nothing Cas, just thinking I guess. What took you so long? You burn the popcorn or somethin?” Dean knows he sounds insincere, he knows that Cas knows, too. He doesn't want Cas to worry any more than he already does, though.

“Dean, your heart rate sped up and you were on the verge of hyperventilating, what happened?”

Damn it. He should’ve known Cas could still do that weird x-ray angel shit. Instead of trying to hide it further, he sighs and motions for Castiel to sit beside him on the couch.

However, he blanches when Cas passes behind him and brushes his hand against Dean’s shoulder. Cas sits down carefully, not to overwhelm Dean. Castiel has seen him during a flashback before, especially after hell. Cas looks inviting, ready to listen to whatever Dean has to say. Cas was always trying to be open with him lately, Dean knows it’s because of the struggles the last six months.

Cas dying, if briefly. Dean ALMOST dying, because of it.

Wait…

That's when Dean realizes.

Every time he’s lost someone, it's been bad. Drunk passed out on the floor, let Baby be filthy, run into hunts without any concern for his safety, bad…

The two worst times were when he lost Sammy, and when he thought he lost Cas to the Empty.

Dean must’ve been sitting there with a strange look on his face for a while cause Cas reaches out gingerly to silently ask if he’s alright. Dean gives him a half-smile and lets out the breath he was apparently holding.

“Cas, did I ever tell you about what I did in 2004 when Sam was off at Stanford and I was hunting by myself?”

Cas tilts his head in that endearing way he always does, “Not that I recall. Is something from back then troubling you now still?”

Dean clenches his jaw and runs a hand over his mouth, a nervous tic he picked up from John decades ago. “I did something similar back then to what I did in that barn. I gave up.”

Castiel’s eyes widen a bit, starting to understand what Dean is trying to say, but staying silent, to let him get this out.

Dean cracks a wry chuckle, “y’know, when you pulled me outta hell and into my body again, I was surprised you wiped the slate and got rid of all my scars.” He glances at Castiel, just for a moment, to see his reaction. It's soft but a little confused.

“At the time, I thought you would like to come back whole. A fresh start after what you went through in hell. I know now that life is about the imperfections and that the littlest things have meaning and memories. I’m sorry if I took those from you, Dean.” Cas meets Dean’s eyes with apologetic fondness and sincerity.

“Cas, it's okay. Really. Sometimes… I don't know, there's some scars I just miss sometimes.” He runs his hand along his forearm, where the self-harm scars would’ve been. “The ones that were here… they gave me a constant reminder of what almost happened. What I almost did.” Dean can feel his face getting warm as he talks about it, eyes watering up but no tears slip down his face.

Cas seems to nod along, waiting for him to continue with concerned patience. “I tried to kill myself back in ‘04. Sam was gone and doing fine without me, he had Jess. Dad was pissed at me for not getting him to stay and hunt. I had no one. I hit a low point after finding a really fucked up case about a vengeful spirit that gutted a family, father, and two sons…” Dean chokes up, as he pictures the glazed eyes of the corpses he found. A shiver runs down his spine as he can still picture it like it was yesterday.

“You saw your father and Sam in them and it brought up a lot of emotions, that’s understandable.” Cas tries to reassure him but doesn’t quite understand what Dean’s trying to get at.

“I got drunk after I salt and burned the spirit's corpse. I felt empty inside and like nobody needed me. I couldn’t save those kids and I didn't see any point in saving myself…” tears are now flowing gently down Dean’s face as he tries to push out what he needs to say, what he needs Cas to understand about this. “When you, when you said all that stuff before you left… I felt that same exact way. Even though I had Sam and Jack and then the whole bullshit after with Chuck and Lucifer and Michael… I felt so damn alone. Like I’d failed you, cause I couldn’t even save someone I love the most.” Dean’s voice goes harsh as he full-on sobs at those last few words.

The past few months since Castiel has been back, they haven’t talked about Cas's confession before being taken by the Empty, and Dean hasn’t said it aloud (even though his mind is screaming those three words every time he looks at Cas). Dean feels Cas touch his hand gently, reverently. A sob violently racks his body as he looks up into blue eyes also filled with tears.

“I’m so sorry Dean. I’m sorry.” the last word catches in his throat as Dean grabs his hand fully, intertwining their fingers.

“I know Cas. You did it to save me. You seem to keep doing that, huh? From hell, saying yes to Michael, Billie, from myself…” Dean softly strokes his thumb against Cas’s hand while tear tracks continue to stain his face. “Cas, thank you. I know I’ll never be able to pay you back for all that you’ve done for me and for Sam but… thank you.”

They lock eyes for a moment, Dean knows Cas loves him and he knows he loves Cas. He can’t think of a goddamn thing standing in the way right now. Dean releases Cas’s hand, cups his face, and brings their lips together, finally.

It takes a moment for Castiel to understand what's happening, but he quickly catches up and kisses Dean back fervently.

Cas tastes like summer rain after a long drought, like lightning and thunder all at once, like earth and something ethereal Dean can’t quite place. Cas tastes like coming home, and he is.

“Me too, Cas. Son of a bitch, I love you too.” he whispers into Cas’s mouth as Cas lets out a sob-laugh.

They pull apart for a moment, hands still against each other's cheeks. Communicating with their eyes is something they’ve mastered after 12 years, but there's something unknown now. Something new, something hopeful. And dammit if Dean isn't going to latch on to that hope.

They decide on an old western, Dean’s seen it a hundred times before. They’re leaning into each other silently watching as Dean’s eyes begin to close. He can feel Cas running his fingers against his arm, where those scars would’ve been. It's then, in the comfort of his Angel, that Dean falls fast asleep.

For the first time in 40 years, he doesn’t have nightmares. Not of yellow eyes, not of losing Sammy; not of John’s anger, not of hell; the apocalypse, Michael, Chuck, losing Cas… it all feels distant and far behind him now. When Dean wakes again, Cas still has his arms around him, eyes closed, and is running his fingers through Dean’s hair.

Dean knows all his trauma won't just vanish, but in this moment with Cas...it feels possible.

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caranfindel · 5 years ago

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Recap/review 15.12: “Galaxy Brain”

Oh, my friends, so many things have happened since we last got together. Most of them bad. But let’s try to forget them and immerse ourselves in our favorite show again, shall we?

THEN: Sammy lost hope (Saaaaaaammmmmm!!!!), Chuck needs to visit his other worlds, and oh. Crap. Kaia. Claire’s wooden response to Kaia’s death, Dark Kaia’s stupid dramatic poses… ugh. I’m not here for any of this. And also, Jack has to do exactly what Billie says if he wants to kill God.

NOW: Four weeks ago. Earth 2. Apparently Radio Shack Shed is still in business in this other world. Maybe because Hillary Clinton is the president. Oh, but things are going to go downhill for Radio Shed, because Chuck just walked in.

I take it you’re unsatisfied with your viewing experience at home?

You have no idea.

Hee!

The friendly Radio Shed employee tries to interest Chuck in his giant wall o’televisions, but he’s not here for a TV. What is he here for? “An audience. It’s monologue time.” Each of the TVs begins to show scenes from one of Chuck’s worlds, including the interior of the bunker in our world, as he begins his monologue. As we watch Sam’s visions from the other worlds, Chuck complains that he created his one world, created copies, and should be happy. Because he’s gotten what he wants from hundreds of Sams and Deans, and could get more. But the other worlds don’t spark joy like the original Sam and Dean do. “They challenge me. They disappoint me. They surprise me. They’re the ones.” Chuck doesn’t need more. He suddenly realizes he needs less. It’s time to cancel “all the other worlds, the alternate realities, the subplots, the failed spinoffs.” YES, CHUCK, ESPECIALLY THE FAILED SPINOFFS.

Title card!

Sioux Falls. Our version. Jody is examining a dead cow. Alex calls, wanting to know when she’ll be home to eat vegan lasagna. Which sounds nasty. I’ve got nothing against vegan cuisine, but I think taking a dish that’s supposed to be loaded with cheese, and loading it with not-cheese, is a mistake. Just make spaghetti. Jody says she thinks her dead cow is evidence of humans, not monsters. She sees something suspicious in a barn and heads inside, where she is promptly clobbered.

Bunker. Sam’s wearing that orange plaid shirt that fits him just right, although the collar is higher than I’d like, and we’ve discussed my feelings on orange. Whatever TFW is talking about, he doesn’t like it. “Which part?” Dean asks. “Jack’s deal with Death, or the part where she’s got him eating angel hearts?” Yeah, there’s a lot to dislike there. Sam doesn’t think they should trust Billie, and he’s concerned about Jack’s state of mind, considering that he is still soulless, and was in the Empty for months. And I’m sure this was not intentional on the writers’ part, but I like the way this played out. When they first saw Jack, Sam was the one who immediately reached out, because his boy was back, and it wasn’t until later that he thought oh, things might be fucked up. Dean, on the other hand, immediately had his guard up, and took a moment before he decided it was okay and accepted Jack. This feels true to the characters and I like it. But as I said, I’m sure it’s an accident.

For his part, Jack is wandering the dark rooms of the bunker. He comes across the initials scratched into the table and touches Mary’s, then retreats to his room. Where a strange woman suddenly appears behind him and says she’s answering Jack’s silent prayer to Death, who is busy at the moment.

Meanwhile, Cas says he has some concerns, but Jack trusts Billie and he trusts Jack. And that makes sense. Jack is, what, two years old now? So of course he’s learned who is trustworthy. It’s not like he ever trusted Lucifer or anything like that. Sam reminds them of the required cosmic balance, what with Amara needing to be cancelled out by God. Dean says, having spent time with Billie and visited her library, that he believes in her and her commitment to the rules. He thinks she’s probably got it all figured out.

“Probably?” Sam says. “Like she had the Ma’lak box figured out?” Well, there’s an interesting point. Billie was sure there was only one road that didn’t end in chaotic destruction, and she was wrong. {Or she was lying. Discuss.} But Dean’s still willing to put his faith in her. After all, she was right about Rowena. And it’s the only plan they’ve got, which Sam reluctantly agrees with. Well, he doesn’t agree as much as he just stops arguing.

Skeptical Sam!

Jack is telling his visitor about how he called out to Billie for help with the Grigori, but she didn’t respond. The visitor must be a reaper. She’s a pleasant change from other reapers – a middle-aged woman with gorgeous silver hair and a matronly outfit. She assures Jack that Billie must have known everything would turn out okay, or else she would have stepped in. All Jack has to do is follow Billie’s rules – lie low, wait for instructions, and don’t use your powers under any circumstances, because God might find you. Oooh, what could possibly happen now? Whose life will be in jeopardy, forcing Jack to use his powers?

Approaching Jack’s room, Sam hears him talking to the reaper. Sam knocks on the door and then opens it, which is not cool. {Sidebar: A knock is supposed to say “can I come in,” not “here I come.” You should wait for permission to open the door.} Anyway. When Sam enters, the reaper is gone. Jack claims he was talking to “no one,” and Sam lets that pass. He tells Jack he’s just checking in on him, and stumbles a bit when trying to express how glad they are to have him back. He tells Jack that he could have come to them, even though I’m pretty sure Jack said he couldn’t because he was hiding from God, but that was so long ago that I’ve forgotten. But let’s concentrate on the important part of this conversation. Sam’s face.

He’s awkward and endearing and I adore him.

Dean and Cas are sharing a decanter of whiskey now that Sam’s finally out of their hair. {waves to the Destiel shippers.} Cas explains that he was sure Jack would save the world somehow, and he was “lost” when Jack “died” because he knew Jack’s story couldn’t be done yet. And now, he is absolutely sure that he was right all along. “Here’s to being right,” Dean offers as a toast. He’s also excited about the idea of revenge against Chuck, though Cas says he’s only interested in “Jack fulfilling his destiny.”

Can we just have several minutes of Dean drinking whiskey? Please?

But before Dean can spend a lot of time basking in his anticipated revenge, his phone rings. It’s Jody. Someone’s holding a phone up to her face, so she must be tied up. “Dean, I’m in trouble. Route 11, Fletcher Farm, the old barn. If you don’t come, I’m dead.” Yeah, looks like trouble, all right.

Fletcher Farm. The Impala pulls up next to Jody’s Sheriffmobile. (Aw, typing that makes me miss the Pimpmobile.) It’s just Sam and Dean, though Sam is on the phone with someone when they arrive.

Hello, gorgeous.

The guys find Jody tied up, as predicted, inside the old Fletcher barn. Sam starts to untie her, as Dean conveniently looks the other way and therefore completely misses someone attacking Sam. You will probably not be surprised to hear that this someone is Dark Kaia. She dispatches Sam easily, as people always do when it’s convenient for plot reasons, and gets Dean by the throat. “You have something that belongs to me,” she says. Which, as we know from the Then, is her magic spear. That got broken. Oops. Dean doesn’t care that he promised her he’d get her back to her own world, or that he promised to return the spear, because “that promise expired the minute you hurt our friend.” Although, Dean, you were conveniently ignoring that promise long before Jody got involved, but okay. Luckily, Jody is able to sneak up behind Dark Kaia and hit her with something, allowing Dean and Sam to pull their guns. Yay! {Sidebar: I love Jody, y’all, but that doesn’t mean I want her being the badass instead of Sam.} Sam asks Dark Kaia why she’s so desperate to get back to “that hellhole,” because apparently Sam doesn’t get that your home is your home, even if it’s a hellhole, which makes perfect sense, she said sarcastically.

It turns out the awful orange jacket doesn’t actually match the orange plaid shirt all that well.

Dark Kaia explains that her world is dying, and she knows this because she’s psychically connected to Kaia 1.0. Who is still alive, somehow. Jody feels awful, but Sam and Dean are the ones who didn’t even bother to haul her carcass back through the rift, so. {Sidebar: Coincidentally, I just watched “Defending Your Life.” I wonder if Dean’s feelings of guilt have changed since that episode?}

Bunker. Jack is beating Cas at Connect Four when they hear the creaky door open. {Sidebar: The Husband winces every time he hears the Impala’s squeaky doors. Do the Winchesters not know what WD-40 is?} Sam comes downstairs with Jody, and we have this weird conversation.

Jody!

Hey, Jack, Cas.

Nice to finally meet you in person.

Have Jody and Cas really never met? And if not, why did she casually greet him with “hey, Cas?” Weird. Carrying on. Dean appears with Dark Kaia, who also greets Jack, because I guess she knows him from Kaia 1.0’s dreams or whatever.

Time jump. Cas insists Jack can’t help Dark Kaia, and the guys are like, no shit. But they still want to rescue Kaia 1.0 somehow, so they send Jody into the depths of the bunker to look for something they might not have thought of that can help them jump worlds. Let’s just think about that for a minute. These two, experts in hunting and lore, residents of the bunker for the past 7 years and at least one of them a cataloguer of its contents, who spent a huge part of previous seasons trying to break into a different world and scouring the bunker for anything that would help, think Jody will find something they didn’t?

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

Cas says he’s going to call Sergei to see if he has any more archangel grace. Sergei? Sergei who almost killed Sam recently, and had to be threatened with death to fix what he’d done?

Oh, seriously, for fuck’s sake.

Carrying on. Cas wants archangel grace because, other than Jack, it’s the only thing that’s opened a rift before. And Sam agrees, because both Sam and Cas have forgotten that an angel’s vessel retains some grace which can be extracted after the angel is gone.

Come on, guys. I’m trying, but you’ve got to meet me halfway. And this isn’t even a Buckleming episode.

Shhh. Concentrate on the pretty.

Dark Kaia yells that they’re wasting time, and Jack is right there and could get them to her world right now. “Hey, Not Kaia?” Dean says. “Not helping.” Hee! Jack decides he’ll do research instead, and then they have to decide what they’ll do with Dark Kaia. Jody says “She killed a prize heifer just to get my attention, then she jumped me, beat me up, and threatened to kill me. Do I get a vote?” Oooh, I like Dark Jody.

But the worst thing that happens to Dark Kaia is that they handcuff her to a table and force her to read a fashion magazine. She pretends she’s not interested, hurling it across the table, but sweetie, you’re not fooling anyone. I’m looking at your hair and makeup right now and I can tell you’re into it.

{Sidebar: Is this model supposed to remind her of Claire? Is that why she got upset, because she feels Kaia 1.0’s love for Claire? Discuss.}

Jack throws himself into the research and finds an old Italian spell that requires the liver of a monster which is, unfortunately, extinct because John Winchester killed the last one. Awkward. Dean suggests Jack check on Cas and Jody, and Jack does the oh, because I’m a failure look. The guys are sure they won’t find anything, but to me, the possibility of one spell that requires a monster’s liver implies that other spells might be possible. I mean, how special could that one monster be? Unless it was an archangel monster. Sam suggests he might be able to jerry-rig some magic using a substitute, and oh, guys, once again I’m sure this was accidental, but I love Sam being able and willing to do magic. Love it so hard. Unfortunately, he abandons this idea, since no substitutes are available.

In another part of the bunker, Cas is leaving fruitless messages with Sergei, who presumably remembers the last episode he was in better than Cas does. And Jody’s not having any luck identifying what she finds. They have a little chat about Claire, who is out of cell phone range (which means she won’t show up in this episode, thank you baby Jesus). Jody doesn’t want to involve her anyway, because she loved Kaia so freaking much after knowing her for, what, a day, and if they’re not able to rescue her, Claire would just be crushed.

I don’t know how we’ll be able to tell, since this is Claire’s crushed-by-the-loss-of-her-true-love face. And it’s also her Alex-borrowed-my-sweater-without-asking face. And her Patience-ate-all-the-Cheetos face.

Uh oh! Jack was listening! What will that do to him? He goes to see Dark Kaia and apologizes for not being able to do more. Dark Kaia blames him for Kaia 1.0 crossing over, and reminds him again that she’s going to die soon. Oddly, she doesn’t try this guilt trip on Dean, who pointed a gun at Kaia 1.0 and forced her into the car, as we saw in the Then. Dark Kaia says she crossed over into our world because she envied Kaia 1.0’s peaceful world, but it turns out she hates it, and desperately wants to go back to her own world. She grabs Jack’s hands and begs him to fix it. Jack touches her face, like he did when he was showing the Winchesters where Mary was being held in AU World, and sees Kaia 1.0 in the Bad Place. She’s got a shelter and a campfire and a lizard in a cage, so I guess things could be worse.

He goes to Sam and Dean and tells them he saw Kaia 1.0 and is going to save her. He confesses to dreamwalking, which is against Billie’s rules, but he insists it’s the right thing to do. “You’ve gotta be kidding me” says a voice from the shadows. Jack introduces Merle, his silver-haired reaper. “How did you get in here?” Dean asks, because he’s forgotten how reapers work, I guess.

(Checks again to make sure this isn’t a Buckleming episode.)

Merle says being willing to risk everything for one person isn’t just dumb, “that’s Winchester dumb.” Dean is offended but, well. She ain’t wrong. Merle says if Jack tries to use his power to save Kaia 1.0, she’ll tell Death. Jack says she should go tell Billie, but while she does that, he’ll open a rift, and therefore Merle will be in big trouble. And I kind of had the impression that reapers didn’t have to, you know, physically go find Billie to tell her anything, but maybe I’m the one who forgot how reapers work.

{Spoiler alert: I don’t think I am.}

Anyway, Jack’s threats work. Merle agrees to fix the bunker’s cosmic warding, which the Winchesters did not completely repair after Amara destroyed it. It can’t be restored permanently, but she can put up a temporary fix that will hopefully hide Jack from Chuck. And she’ll need to use Cas to juice it up. Oh, so many possibilities for disaster here. Later, Sam performs a spell and we see glowing sigils appear on the walls, which is a nice effect.

Sam reading the spell is also a nice effect.

Another time jump. The guys are packing for their journey. Dean asks how Sam feels about it, and Sam says “Honestly? It feels like we’re taking a big, probably stupid risk. It feels good. Disobeying cosmic entities, doing the dumb right thing. Feels like we’re back.” Aw yes. My boys, doing the dumb right thing.

Jody thanks Cas for staying, and he asks her to stay too. Because he’s concerned that if she gets killed, Claire will never get over it. Jody agrees that he’s right. And I’m pretty sure this is going to be important somehow; that something awful will happen because Jody isn’t there, or Jody staying behind will mean she’s able to save the guys somehow. {Spoiler alert: I’m wrong.}

Oddly enough, Jody doesn’t seem to actually tell the Winchesters she’s not going. I guess it happened off camera. Merle and Cas power up the sigils, Jack does his thing, and the rift opens. Dark Kaia goes through first, followed by Sam and Dean.

Bad Place! It’s dark and windy and there are lots of those weird little red-eyed dudes around, but they don’t attack. Dark Kaia says they’re afraid of the oncoming storm. {Sidebar: What evolutionary purpose is solved by glowing eyes? It seems like a hindrance.} They yell for Kaia 1.0, and she comes out to meet them, grabbing Dean for a hug. {Sidebar: Yeah, of course it’s Dean.} They turn to leave and wait, you’re just going to leave your lizard? He’s in a cage! He’ll starve! Dark Kaia doesn’t follow, and says she’s going to stay. Sam reminds her she’ll die, but she doesn’t care. She can’t live in our world. Which, well. It sucks sometimes. No judgment here, kiddo. And I guess she can take care of Kaia 1.0’s lizard. The Winchesters head back to the rift with Kaia 1.0 just as the lightning picks up and a huge cloud of destruction approaches. Oh. I guess that lizard didn’t need anyone to take care of him after all. Bye bye, Bad Place!

Bunker. Jody is sitting in front of the rift when the boys burst through with Kaia 1.0. Big hug! Later, we see Kaia (I’m gonna just call her Kaia now, since I think she’s the only one left) wearing Jack’s clothes. It’s cute. Jody invites her to move back with her. “Will Claire be there?” Kaia asks, because, you know, the love story for the ages, blah blah blah. Kaia thanks the guys, and leaves with Jody. Yay! Job well done, right? Except there’s a little too much time left in this episode for a happy wrap-up, so.

Merle tells the guys that if she gave a rat’s ass about Kaia, she’d call this a victory. But she’s pretty sure their scheme worked, since none of them are dead and oh crap, she’s impaled by a scythe. Guess again, Merle!

So, yeah, Billie’s here and she’s not happy. She lectures everyone and points out that one life isn’t important, because all the worlds are dying. All of them except this one. Sam angrily asks Billie what her plan is. She tells them everyone has a death book in her library, even God. God didn’t plot his own death, but “the books wrote themselves,” so Chuck’s death is in there, pre-plotted. But no one gets to read their own book unless Billie lets them. Jack is in Chuck’s book, and so are the Winchesters. “This is your destiny. You are the messengers of God’s destruction.”

Back at the Radio Shed, Chuck is watching his worlds self-destruct on the bank of TVs. He’s been there a while, judging by the number of takeout containers. The sales clerk is curled up on the floor, having served him “for weeks.” He asks Chuck if he’ll be spared, and Chuck says “You’ll be fine. Everything’s just fine.” Then he walks out of the store just as the sky fills with falling meteorites. Hey, I think that was a lie!

So. Several annoying things happened (yes, we know, because you wouldn’t shut up about them) but I can’t call this a bad episode. But I can’t call it a really good one, either. As mytharc episodes go, I guess it could be worse. What did you think? (And what does the title mean?)

Please help me stay unspoiled, thanks!

#spn #15.12 #recap #tv recaps

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a-winchester-fairytale · 6 years ago

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Left Behind

Summary: You make a choice that leaves you stuck in Apocalypse world. When your brothers find a way to come back for you, they are surprised to find that you are no longer the same innocent little girl they remember.

SisterReader, Dean, Sam, Bobby, Ketch, Charlie, Jack

Word Count: 2,207

A/N: This was written for @eyes-of-a-disney-princess Rapunzel's Tangled Up With Supernatural Challenge. My prompt was "No! You were wrong about the world and you were wrong about me!" and it is in bold below.

There are some similarities to the episode, but it doesn't match up exactly. Please feel free to let me know what you think!

“Charlie and Ketch are still out there.” You said, staring off in the direction of the storm. The wind started picking up, blowing the trees around you and you glanced over your shoulder at Dean’s concerned face.

“We don’t have much time; the door is closing.” Dean said, but you took a step back away from him. “We have Gabriel with us now, we can come back for them.”

“Something is wrong, Dean. They should have been here already. I’m going to go find them.” You told him, but he shook his head forcefully.

“This world is too dangerous and you will only get yourself killed. Now, come on!” Dean argued, waving his arm for you to step through the door, back to the bunker before him.

“I’m not leaving without them!” You shouted against the wind. He reached for you, but instead you pushed back, forcing him through the door. You could barely hear him call out as it faded closed.

6 months Later…..

You stepped from your tent, sliding your angel blade into your boot and pulling the hair from your eyes into a makeshift ponytail. When you heard the horn blow, signaling that someone was coming into the camp, you assumed it was the scouts you sent out a week ago to check another encampment for Charlie. They were due back today, although you expected it to be much later in the afternoon.

“Y/N, come quick. You will never believe who it is.” Jack exclaimed running toward you and waving enthusiastically. You laughed and picked up the pace, trotting behind him. By the time you reached the gates, there was already quite a crowd.

“I’m looking for Bobby Singer.” You heard a familiar voice say to the rifleman guarding the camp. Unable to believe your ears, you pushed your way through the gathering until you stood only a few feet from your brothers.

“Dean! Sam!” You exclaimed, ignoring the rifleman and running out to meet them.

“Y/N?” Dean asked in disbelief, hardly recognizing you. By the time you reached them, they had slowly lowered his hands in sync with the lowering of the guns pointed in their direction. “It’s so good to see you kid.” Dean whispered as he hugged you tightly.

“You’re really okay?” Sam asked as you hugged him and you nodded against his shoulder.

“I’m so happy to see you both. Come on, I’ve got so much to tell you.” You said, leading them into the camp.

You gave them both a chance to get settled and cleaned up in Bobby’s bunkhouse before they came into the meeting house. It was really just a shack that was used to serve meals and plan raids, but everyone had been calling it the meeting house for longer than you had been in camp. They joined Jack and Bobby at the main table and you set bowls of stew down for them to eat before joining them.

“So Ketch and Charlie got separated. We managed to get Ketch back and he is in the infirmary now.” Bobby was explaining.

“He had severe malnutrition and was badly beaten, but he said they were keeping Charlie alive for ransom and that’s why they took her elsewhere. We sent scouts to follow the trail and report back.” You added.

“You said they want to use her for ransom?” Sam asked, and Bobby nodded. “For what?”

“For me.” Jack answered for Bobby, ducking his head in guilt. You reached out and put your hand over his which raised an eyebrow with Dean.

“That’s not going to happen, Jack. We will find her first.” You said, reassuring. Jack glanced up at you and smiled. It was obvious that he believed you, although you never could understand why he did so unquestionably.

Your thoughts were interrupted when the horn sounded to announce the return of the scouts. They were ushered into the infirmary tent where you all went to meet with them.

+++

“Charlie is there, and still alive as of two days ago.” Eric, the lead scout, confirmed. “We counted 12 men, at least 3 of them are angels.”

“Any sign of Michael?” Bobby asked.

“None. We think he was there a week ago, but by the time we got there, he had moved on.” Another replied.

“We better take advantage of his absence. Boys, I know you just got here from several days on the road, but we could use your help.” Bobby asked, turning to Sam and Dean.

“Absolutely, Bobby.” Sam volunteered.

“Yeah, Bobby. Anything you need.” Dean added.

“I feel as though I should be going with you.” Ketch said, struggling to hide how much pain he was in.

“You’re not well enough, Ketch.” Sam told him.

“He’s right. Besides, someone has to stay here and make sure these people are safe.” You told him. Although he knew you were saying that to save his pride, Ketch agreed.

“Okay, little Winchester.” Ketch said, playfully using his old nickname for you. “Please be careful.” He added.

“I will. I promise.” You replied. “When we come back, everyone should be ready to head for the door. We won’t have much time.”

“You’re not going! You are staying here at camp.” Dean told you forcefully.

“No! You were wrong about this world and you were wrong about me.” You argued. Dean retracted at your outburst and you took advantage of his shock. “I have been here for 6 months fighting alongside these people and you don’t get to just show up and treat me like a child. I stopped being a child a long time ago.”

Without another word, you stormed out of the infirmary and back to your tent to start gathering your things.

“She’s right, Dean. She is the best fighter we have, and I am sure we all have you and Sam to thank for that. You trained her well.” Bobby said. You saw Dean’s demeanor change, and he nodded in surrender. Even though Bobby was different from the one you all remembered, Dean still respected his opinion just as much.

“Ok, so we meet back here in 20 minutes then.” Jack said and the group marched to their tents to grab what little weapons and ammunition they could gather.

You had been so elated to see your brothers, having missed them terribly. It had been less than two hours and already you could feel your blood boiling. You had always resented the way they treated you like a child back at the bunker. You weren’t about to let them start doing that here too.

You were throwing an extra angel blade in your backpack when Dean stepped into the tent. You paused, bracing yourself for another argument, but that didn’t come. Instead he sat quietly down on the edge of the cot.

“I’m sorry.” He muttered before looking up at your astounded face. “I just don’t want to lose you. This last 6 months has been so hard on Sam and me, trying to find a way to come back here for you. Now that I’m here, I can’t help but want to protect you.” He explained calmly. You sighed and knelt down in front of him.

“I know that, and I’m sorry too. Staying here the way I did was reckless and impulsive.” You admitted and Dean chuckled.

“Well, you wouldn’t be a Winchester if you weren’t a little reckless and impulsive” He teased.

“Ready?” Sam asked, poking his head in the tent. You nodded and pushed yourself up, slinging your bag over your shoulder as the three of you moved to join Bobby, Jack, and 3 others from camp.

+++

It took a couple of days to march to the angel encampment, but you crossed it with relative ease. A couple of times you all ran into a rouge angel or two, but they were outnumbered and with Jack along, they were defeated with minimal effort. Before long, you were hiding in the brush peaking around some rusty tanks to get a look at the encampment.

“Look, I can see Charlie through that window.” Sam told you, gesturing to a small metal storage building on the opposite end.

“We could sure use those trucks.” You whispered, pointing to the two large army trucks parked near the far gates. You knew that with vehicles like that, you could get your entire group to the door to the bunker sooner than on foot. “Jack, think you can create a distraction?” You asked and he nodded.

“Dean and I will head for those trucks. It will split that group in half and make them easier to fight.” Bobby said, realizing where you were going with that question.

“Perfect. We will meet you there.” You said, starting to get up before Dean grabbed your arm.

“Where are you going?” He asked, more concerned than angry.

“Sam and I are going to sneak into the back door and get Charlie.” You answered, ignoring the surprised head jerk from your other brother. Dean glanced at Sam and he shrugged, grinning at how much you had changed.

Although most of the others drew the attention away from the building, you did have to fight three of Michael’s followers to get through the doors. Dean didn’t fail to notice the way you fought. He couldn’t help but be proud to see all the techniques you had picked up from mimicking him and Sam over the years. He grinned and shook his head, feeling pride at his little sister for a moment until an angel headed his direction and he was forced to change his focus. By the time he defeated the angel and turned around, you and Sam were already inside.

“What are you doing here?” Charlie asked as soon as she saw you.

“What does it look like?” You asked sarcastically while you untied her ankles. She smiled, glancing back at Sam who was undoing the binds holding her hands hostage.

“Thanks” She said to the both of you, rubbing her wrists. Sam couldn’t stop himself. Once she was free, he grabbed Charlie and pulled her close for a hug.

“Charlie…meet my brother Sam.” You said as she looked at you, slightly confused. Your tone reminded Sam that this was different than seeing the Charlie that had died at the hands of the Thoule.

“Sorry.” He said weakly, releasing her. Charlie just nodded, learning to get used to this ‘other world’ stuff. You heard a loud rumbling and smiled.

“What is that?” Charlie asked.

“Sounds like Dean and Bobby got the trucks.” Sam answered. The three of you ran out of the building and watched as the trucks pushed the gates down.

“Come on!” Jack encouraged, sticking his head out of the back of the closest one. With a quick glance between you, Charlie ran for the truck with you and Sam at her heels.

With a quick hand up, you made it in the back and rode the rest of the way back to camp and a cheering group of refugees. The guys managed to get everyone loaded into the backs of the trucks and, once everyone was safely aboard, you jumped in the front of the truck between your brothers.

“You were right.” Dean told you once the door was in sight.

“Right about what?” You asked.

“You aren’t a kid anymore.” He answered. “I’m proud of you.” He added, pulling you into a hug.

“We both are.” Sam echoed and you beamed. As much as you tried to fight for your independence, having their approval was all you ever wanted.

Ketch and Charlie led the way through the door, followed by a reluctant Bobby. The rest of you stayed and guided the remainder of the refugees through until it was the three of you with Jack.

“I hate leaving Michael out there. Lots of people are still under his rule and they don’t have anyone else to help them.” Jack admitted, looking out into the wilderness.

“We will come back. I promise.” Sam told him, placing a hand on his shoulder. Jack nodded. He knew that the best bet was to regroup and come back when they were better prepared to battle with the archangel. He turned and stepped through the door. “See you on the other side.” Sam said and followed behind Jack.

“Ready to go back? I know this place has been home for a long time.” Dean asked you, knowing what it felt like to be in a world where you found yourself. He had done the same in Purgatory and as much as he wanted to go home, he appreciated the primal feeling he had there.

“Dean, this place was just where I stayed. No place could ever be home to me unless I could be with my family.” You told him honestly. “No amount of time could change that.”

He smiled and you could have sworn you saw him tear up for a moment. Instead, he put his arm around your shoulders and kissed the hair on the top of your head like he used to do when you were little. You rested your arm around him and the two of you walked through the door together just before it faded closed.

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movietvtechgeeks · 7 years ago

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Latest story from https://movietvtechgeeks.com/supernatural-good-intentions-aka-paving-road-hell/

'Supernatural' Good Intentions aka paving that road to hell

I’m going to do something I never thought I’d do for a review. I’m going to give you a disclaimer with this Supernatural review: If you cannot separate any actor from the character they play (the main picture above is a helpful hint), then you’re free to go. Class dismissed. No hard feelings. Seriously. In fact, I’d rather you go. Still here? Okay, then. I’m going to start with a brief rundown of an episode I skipped reviewing last month, “Devil’s Bargain.” I skipped it for a very personal reason: because unlike some fans, I don’t hate Eugenie Ross-Leming and Brad Buckner. I don’t think they’re awful writers. I don’t think they’re misogynists or racists, in fact, I think the opposite. I don’t think “Taxi Driver” is that bad compared to a lot of other episodes we’ve endured. I think “Route 666” is unbelievably underrated and if possible more relevant now than it was twelve years ago. Finally, I think a lot of fandom screaming “canon fail” at them is a two-fold issue: one, we’re all very married to our head-canons and two, all the writers do it and alway have. Blaming just them is simply childish. And before you say it, no, I don’t care that they wrote the death of Charlie Bradbury. Seriously. I don’t care. The character was way past expiration, like a couple other characters that we’re still enduring. I digress. For now, a quick rundown of “Devil’s Bargain.” It was… okay. Danneel Ackles made her Supernatural debut as faith healer Sister Jo, but frankly, even before her first scene aired, we all knew she’d be revealed as an angel. Now, as someone in fandom, it’s hard to remove yourself from knowing that you’re watching Jensen Ackles’ wife onscreen, but since I’d watched Danneel on TV way before they even began dating I have a slight advantage, and there were definitely shades of her One Tree Hill character, Rachel Gatina, in Sister Jo. While, I would’ve liked to see a bit more comedy out of this role, because I think that’s where Danneel Ackles shines, the sultry selfishness of Sister Jo wasn’t unwelcome. In fact, it was refreshing to finally see an angel who wasn’t wearing a boring suit and acting like an office drone. Honestly, Supernatural, the angels and demons on your show have become so homogenous. One big blurry blob of maybe good, maybe bad, but all definitely bored, ad execs. Sister Jo and Lucifer were the actual highlights of this episode, separately and together. Their encounters were unsettling, but they were supposed to be, and the performances were there. Yeah, the dialogue was wordy, that’s Ross-Leming and Buckner for you, but a good actor can turn wordy into conversational. Danneel Ackles and Mark Pellegrino were able to do that. Was the sexual metaphor heavy handed? Oh, yeah, totally. That said, after the very literal hammers to the head in Steve Yockey’s episode “Various & Sundry Villains” we learned that it’s not a deal breaker for an episode. Misha Collins himself once said there was nothing subtle about the writing in Supernatural. You know what is a deal breaker, though? When your tertiary characters outweigh your primary leads and secondary regular. I spent every moment that Dean, Sam, and Castiel were on screen thinking, “can we get back to Lucifer and Sister Jo?” And it wasn’t the director, I can’t blame Eduardo Sanchez for the drag in momentum, because if anyone can build tension and deliver it’s the director of The Blair Witch Project. Sanchez is horror royalty, a tension king. I’m not going to blame the writing either because again, Danneel Ackles and Mark Pellegrino were engaging. I blame the show running and the editing. I know, I know, I’m not being subtle in where I’m going with this, but we’ll get back to that later. Anyway, “Devil’s Bargain” was passable. Not a top 20 episode, but not a bottom 20 one either. It existed. It’ll be mostly memorable for the fact that Danneel Ackles was in it. Her presence, whether it was because you know her from One Tree Hill, know her as Jensen’s wife, or just plain enjoyed Sister Jo, basically saved this episode from complete obscurity. What’s that you say? But what about the big reveal of Gabriel at the end? Well, if we hadn’t seen it coming, it might have been cool. Same with Bobby in the next episode. There’s no shock left because like with Ruthie Connell’s, between the cast, crew, and PR we know everything weeks in advance. Speaking of the next episode, let’s get into episode 13.14, “Good Intentions,” penned by Meredith Glynn and directed by P.J. Pesce. I’m going to get two petty things out of the way because they are the least of the problems with this episode; the camera angles were really awkward, and the use of the episode title in the dialogue during act one was, wow, hammers to the head again, anyone? I have one more issue that’s less about writing, directing, and acting, but I’m saving it for, you guessed it: later. Have you been filing away those “laters”? Hope so. What I am going to get into here is the overall writing of this episode, specifically the dialogue and characterization. First of all, can we stop asking how Castiel is all the time? I get that you are all struggling to justify the character, but no one, absolutely no one, gets asked about or talks about their feelings more than the soulless angel. It’s honestly preposterous when you think about it. We’re also going to have Castiel be the one both worried about and coddled over Lucifer being free? The dude who let Lucifer free? I know you’re fairly new, Meredith, so hey, let’s give you a break, I mean no one expects you to understand twelve years of canon. Who can? Except millions of fans who aren’t paid to do so. Let’s also discuss how you’re going to have characters that are “sometimes referred to as brothers” and then send Castiel and Dean off to fight them? Meredith, Meredith, Meredith. No ma’am. That’s just bad narrative symmetry. A rookie move, honestly. So is using “migraine” and “headache” interchangeably, but that’s a pet peeve puddle I’d don’t have the patience to play in, not when there’s an entire pond of “what even is going on here??” to paddle through. Actually, no, I’m going to address this a bit further; if I’m so removed from your storyline that I have the ability to focus your very common, yet annoying, medical inconsistency then something is very wrong. And what’s wrong is that this episode is an Everlasting Gobstopper of info dumping. It’s all exposition. No heart, no soul, no characterization. All tell and no show. This episode felt feature length and not in a good way. Actually, the only one in character is Mary. Her caring about six-month-old manchild, Jack when she can’t seem to genuinely care about her six-month-old baby turned hero of a man; Sam was very spot on. Although, I somehow don’t think you intended that bit of irony. Speaking of Mary and Jack, let’s get into a bit about the alternate world. It’s a cool idea, Andrew Dabb. In theory, it really is. I mean, apocalypse AUs have never been my personal preferred fanfic trope, but I get that it’s popular. In execution, however, if you’re going to retread the characters of Michael and Zachariah in new bodies then you need to have writers that can keep the characterization consistent with the season 4 and season 5 characters we knew. These two dudes aren’t that. Don’t get me wrong, the physical casting for Michael is superb, very nice eye candy, and hey, I’ll even allow the argument that we saw so little of Michael in SPN 1.0 that you and your writers have room to play. But Zachariah? Kurt Fuller’s performance is what brought Zachariah to life, the combination of determination, manipulation, and exhaustion all delivered with smug sarcasm. This Zachariah, he’s a generic second in command character. He could literally be anyone. You’ll notice I’ve barely mentioned Sam Winchester. Yeah. That’s because you forgot to write him and the director forgot to focus on him and yo, I’m so tired. So let’s talk about all the “laters”, shall we? I said I wasn’t going to blame director Eduardo Sanchez and honestly, I have very little blame for P.J. Pesce aside from some dubious camera angle choices. I blame the writing and the show running. Now if you’re someone who preaches Team Free Will, that door from earlier is still open, please, walk through it, because there is nothing more tedious than a scene with Dean, Sam, and Castiel or Dean and Castiel. I’m not here to debate that; it’s my opinion in my opinion piece. Not one single writer can keep the dialogue in these types of scenes flowing. It’s forever awkward, stilted, and redundant and very clearly existing because it’s required by the showrunner. Every season for the past few years has been Castiel screwing up, then storming in thinking he knows better, then screwing up again. Maybe that’s a sign the character has overstayed? Perhaps. Fact is, it’s become so boring. The only consistent thing about Castiel is his hubris followed by his pouting and moping. Another I later implied was editing. I have so many issues with the editing in this episode. Listen, horror genre is my thing. Good horror movies, bad horror movies, slasher flicks, torture porn, psychological thrillers, ghost, monsters, all of it. I love it. Often times what makes or breaks a horror movie isn’t the acting or the writing, it’s the editing. It’s the way scenes are put together. It’s the sound mixing. It’s practical effects versus reliance on CGI. This episode failed on each of these points. The thudding steps from the “giants” Gog and Magog sounded comical, not to mention the fact that we suddenly had subtitles for an ancient language. Oh, I get it, Meredith had jokes. Anyway. The other editing failures were the cut from Zachariah tossing Jack into his cell to Jack landing and several other POV switch edits that were equally as awkward and choppy. Not to mention the random moments of surprise!shaky cam. This episode felt cobbled together out of several other things. Not other episodes, actual different projects. As for the CGI, the lighting in the AU world was very near animated in appearance. The reveal of Zachariah pretending to be Castiel felt like funhouse horror editing, which can work… if you’re watching The Houses October Built. Not to mention the beheading of the giant was pretty bad, especially for a show that has had amazing beheadings in the past. And Jack turning the angels into missiles was just… I don’t even have words. Again, I come from a horror background, so these things matter a lot. But finally, my last, and biggest gripe is this: what even are we doing? Season 13, what is your thesis statement? We are fourteen episodes into this season, and there’s no story. Not really. We spent the first half setting up a spin-off that may or may not happen, and now we’re just throwing spaghetti at a wall. Michael, Mary, Jack, Lucifer, Asmodeus, Bobby, the AU world, the real world. It’s all a hodgepodge. The only thing I know for certain is what this season isn’t about. Sam and Dean Winchester.

Movie TV Tech Geeks News

#Dannell Ackles #Featured #Good Intentions #Jared Padalecki #Jensen Ackles #Supernatural

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elizabethrobertajones · 7 years ago

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13x05 watching notes

I’m not used to getting what I want.

Expectations: holy crap am I excited to see Billie again. Yeah yeah Cas or whatever, we know he's back and would be coming back from the moment he died, and all the rest is just flavour text... BILLIE is an utter treat and given A: how she died (not just dead reaper killed off for man pain as a minor thematic antagonist, but also woman of colour on the show which was a bummer and at least she alters their post-death appearances dismal stats even if she isn't back-back as her full and healthy self a la Cas as a worst case scenario >.>) and B: the themes she embodied, and C: that Cas just got punted back OUT of the Empty, well, I am ridiculously pumped to have her (or the image of her >.>) around again, because of the utterly fascinating thematic conundrum she'll represent and because Billie was the most freakin awesome character ever, and Lisa Berry just exudes this raw calm power, and I went and watched Shadowhunters over hiatus 90% because she was on it in like 3 episodes and lo and behold she was a powerhouse in her scenes there too :P

Of course I have a personal stake too and as a meta writer it's not quite so obvious, as a shitposter you might have caught me endlessly referring to it, and as me personally inside my head, I know that I introduced Billie to Terrible Coffee AU to be a side character to the drama, meaning to embroil her in it as a voice of amused-warning-to-later-friend for Cas, and began constructing an entire narrative to explore cosmic consequences in as if post-death the show's Billie had wandered over to my silly AU and was using her extreme disappointment in them all to add another level of irony to the characterisation (listen: imagining what face the canon character would make at their role in your AU is a great way to characterise and people think I'm good at it, so free writing tip :P) and I had to make Billie proud about what I wrought.

I failed to actually write that section in time for this episode, had no idea there WAS an expiry date and that Billie would come back, but here we are and I've accidentally over-thought Billie to an absolutely astronomically disproportionate degree to probably most people around these parts for the sake of having her tease Cas about Dean from the deck of a boat while they were sipping cocktails together. :P

I can and will mentally insert a cocktail into Billie's hand in her scene(s).

OH AND THEN THROW IN THAT THIS IS A YOCKEY EPISODE. Of all the current writers, he's the one who makes me lose my chill completely. He's got an incredible way with character and emotion which I absolutely adore, so I find it pretty hard to worry about all the nervous little things I worry about aside from how much the grand scheme of things will let Billie back. And season 13 seems to be going pretty in my favour as a viewer and meta writer so. Super sublime chill.

Oh boy the recap people are trying to put us out of a job.

Superimposing Dean's speech to Patience over Sam crying over Dean nearly dying in 2x01 and ghost!Dean lurking behind him, which of all the reminders that they die a lot is a... lot of a thing. Because John etc. Season 2 theeemes everywhere. And then of course them getting shot as ghosts in 4x15 aka time to save Tessa. And Dean wasn't having an easier time in that episode, hell-damaged and talking to Tessa about how he wished he'd gone with her. Could just be subtle reaper reminders because the next shot is Sam detoxing demon blood in 4x21, nudging us into new territory for Jack theeemes. But that's part of the "pain" in his speech, "horror" is Dean hilariously dying in 3x11 when hit by a car, which, well, wasn't hilarious at all for Sam or the rest of that episode for us once the dying montage was over, and just reminds us how much they're dicked around with by the universe... And then "Death." Over. Death's hand.

Look, I am a simple person with simple wants. I would have been satisfied to just have this about Billie but now you're making me want to see DEATH again and see what the heck happened with him. I mean I've always sort of wanted to see him back again because if Billie would be pissed at them... :P But I could accept she was his stand in from now on. That she WAS the new Death all along, even, for our wild spec. Now I am MADLY excited about how they're going to utilise all this stuff because oh hi have you met me the reapers and death stuff is my absolute favourite stuff on the show. I was always hoping this wasn't going to be a cop out with the tasty sounding title, and it seems like they want us to really be on the ball about the themes here, to whatever end.

(Just having paused it to squeal here, it could be a fake out about Death because the first shot of him in his killer intro montage was his hand with his ring because in season 5 that was the cue we needed to know that was the ring we needed and that Death was who he was supposed to be... Logic dictates the ring crumbled in 10x23 but if they wanted to invoke Death without bringing Julian back...)

Weeeeeeeehheeheheheheeee Death's "affront to the balance of the universe" speech in 6x11 where he was resentfully giving Sam's soul back on one condition... The same thing Billie was pissed about in 11x02 onwards. Is he here to cover for her reappearance and make this seem like it's all just a big cosmic theme? Because something tells me this episode is about their deaths somehow or another, either temporary, threatened, or big picture :P

Or it's confirming that Billie is Death, there's always that because the next transition is Dean killing Death to Billie LITERALLY CONTINUING DEATH'S SENTENCE FROM 6x11 - "you cause disruption on a global scale -- so next time you die and your brother bite it, we're going to toss you out into the Empty."

"And *nothing* comes back from that" *stab*

Leaving it there with Cas - no cutting to him back alive in the bramble patch. Instead the last note, the only one ABOUT the Winchesters in season 13 aside from Dean's 13x03 speech being used - is Dean saying Sam needs to keep the faith for him, which was the comment only answered in dramatic irony by Cas's return. No comment on the dominoes of Cas stabbing Billie, getting stabbed himself, going to the Empty, and coming back from that. No comment on the deal. This is all stuff we're either meant to know already or isn't strictly relevant right now... But we'll see :P

Sort of scared to play the cold open because eye horror in the promo pics and I don't wanna see the doctor drill some random person of the week through the eyeball :P

Oh no, it's kids. I think they're still alive because of the promo where they refer to talking to some kids. Or one of them with the implication both made it out the house although I assume their time is numbered regardless.

They're visiting a house which used to be a mental health clinic, which has weird overlap to last episode and the fact the guys went to a fully functioning house with a modern day therapist in it. Mel pointed out the Asylum direct visual reference in one of the props we see in the fast promo so I suppose that's a good season 1 reference to keep in the back of your head.

The floppy haired kid with the backpack (aka the Jack mirror?) is more uncertain about doing this but encouraged by his friend to go along with it. His friend is a dick.

I hope someone's had a good look at the stained glass window because I can't tell if we've seen it before or not. This may or may not be set re-use >.>

You can tell the boys apart because one is half battery (the dick) and one has full battery still (our sympathetic guy)

Don't touch the plague masks!!!!

Literally that was your entire fault and at least the one we were rooting for legged it with a minor wound. I think even some other ghosts were yelling at them for waking up the doctor (I HOPE that's not a parallel to The Empty and Cas waking him up)

But yet... sam and dean seem to have visited both? Was it only "minor" brain drilling and the other kid comes back home slightly altered? Mel also made promo shot comparisons to Naomi and her drilling... Brrrr.

Anyway Dean is making himself PB&J so I don't have time for you all. Ouch.

Did Sam literally just compliment Dean for making himself a sandwich?

is it a recovery sandwich?

I get the feeling if we're seeing this and the promo was a lil later on and some investigating further into the episode then maybe we're basically seeing Dean's breaking point for being babied through his grief by Sam's attempts to cheer him up.

Makes you wonder why they picked that instead of this, but this could be a relatively dull opener and Sam trying to talk Dean into going to a strip club was too funny to resist, because it kind of was :P

Sam has been on screen 6 seconds and he's annoyingly peppy

I love Sam btw, like, you are not allowed to judge me for how I may talk about Sam in the coming stretch of episode because I get the sense he's in full on cheer up mode, which turns anyone into the most irritating person on the planet and then you throw in Sam's eyebrows and basically I can't with him :P It's not a judgement on his character, I know he's trying to help Dean because of what Dean told him, but Dean just wants to operate a shell of himself for a while and Sam's trying to dig him out of it because it's painful to see him like that and he doesn't know that Cas is reconnecting with them soon, and if not today then next week and also probably by the second half of the season Mary will be back with them.

Anyway Dean just carries on stoically making his sandwich and we all talk a lot about the symbolism... I think in this context perhaps it's loosely linked to Kevin operating as a ghost out of this kitchen after dying halfway through his PB&J and coming back for the crusts as unfinished business. He was mourning his mom while he was alive but then it turned out she was alive but too late he was dead.

The PB&J is also symbolic of humanity so idk. He could just be making it because it's sweet and he has a sweet tooth, it's vaguely reminiscent of pie filling but not enough to be traumatic and it's Dean's "I'm doing 1 good thing for myself today" personal quiet method of getting better in the long slow aftermath that Sam wants to rush.

"GET THIS" Sam is on full on Sam-ing

Awww Jack's watching DVDs. I assume Sam HAVING a stash of DVDs is stuff he's collected as an adult with a Bunker to go on a nostalgia kick. I assume they have a PO Box pretty much for Sam's Amazon deliveries. Like, he hasn't been lugging DVDs around with him since the start of the show and before that they had a bunch of VHS tapes in the back of the car or something :P They grew up dependant on what was on motel TVs and picked what they liked to come back to as adults with a settled address.

Also: the clouds part and bestow on us: a thing Sam likes!!!! That's like at least 4 songs, a couple of movies including Star Wars stuff, HP Lovecraft, and now liking old bad fantasy movies that even Dean judges him for.

Or, I assume, Dean has watched and may or may not reference if the opportunity came up but he needs to box something off as Sam's weird nerd shit that makes him unappealing to the ladies, while Dean, obviously, has never liked anything nerdy, and has had lots of straight edge manly sex with women and all comments about Zorro masks are stricken from the record.

Sam, being in a magnanimous, my brother is grieving, mood, just literally takes the hit and keeps going. Jesus Christ Sammy.

I would swear he's worn his worst plaid today just to give Dean something else to judge him for :P

Oh uh anyway point is Jack is being stashed in the Bunker just like Sam once stashed Cas with his netflix. Sam's being responsible for the pop culture education of 2 generations. At least Netflix lets you pick whatever you want once Sam's not trying to be helpful, and in 11x06 Dean related to Cas to switching to bad TV, rather than watching Sam's picks of the good stuff you're meant to watch.

Less chance of Jack going on a complete rampage through trash TV, but still if nothing else Dean's hands-off approach to the kid means that Sam is being allowed to mould him however he likes :P

I just went back and watched again just because I realised the credits were ALREADY over after 5 names. It was like, J2, Misha (yay!) and 2 people I hadn't heard of who I assume are too important named characters in this episode to skip but also not reoccurring characters. I wonder what the slippery slope is when you don't put Lisa Berry's name in the credits of an episode you've advertised she's in. Even people who've checked on TV guides will know... But I guess you treat the episode as internally self-spoiling and ignore what everyone knows for the sake of the person who buys the DVDs and watches through without even reading the descriptions in the sleeve or whatever. Anyway glad she wasn't spoiled but it does make me like *itchy teeth* about Death being in the recap, because naaah. Naaaaaaah. NAAAAAAAH. they wouldn't. they're not. it isn't. She's making like, a hallucinatory cameo for theeeemes and I got to stick with that until the episode proves me wrong, never mind bringing Death back :P

As a fan of Death and the reapers (probably already a band name) I'm like... so on edge right now :P

Oh wait also Dean said "what about Jack" - he's using his name even to Sam now. Not teasing him about the anti-christ

Ya know, based on how beer for breakfast (name of my band) went over and letting Dean be Agent Page (oh the promo is so the breaking point - Dean already is calling him out on all this IN THE TEXT, using his words to point out the weirdness) I am actually thinking that Dean would have actually quite liked to go on another job with Jack. That he was starting to see the use of him and to warm up to him ever so slightly as a person since he showed effort and did a good job and saved Sam and dug the graves for them. I don't think Dean would ASK out loud but if Sam had said, "Jack comes and that's final" Dean would have done that face shrug expression and let it happen without much complaint.

Sam is bending to Dean's apparent desires and being like, well Dean doesn't like Jack, this could be a chance to get Dean out of the bunker without Jack and let him forget all his troubles for a bit...

Like, I don't wanna worry you Sam, but last time you decided you needed to cheer Dean up from his extra super special worries about Cas, you took him out into the woods for a fun werewolf hunt, got shot and strangled and had to kill literally every single werewolf in the episode with your bare hands while bleeding profusely from your stomach, while Dean had a random encounter with Billie in the depths of utter despair that he'd lost everyone he ever loved and the world was now going to end without you all.

Dean's a drama queen about a lot of stuff but when he tells Jack your plans don't usually work out, this is the sort of shit he's referring to :P

*Sam looks so freakin smug with himself walking off after the badge exchange and Dean's like... what. What?*

Poor kid with his great big bandage on his forehead.

He "can't even talk" because the trauma was so bad and we cut to him apparently drawing in his room, which makes me think right back to 1x03.

Omg lol of course Dean walks in the door alone to chat to him. And sees him drawing repeatedly the MotW. We bonding over trauma so bad we can't even talk about it again?

OH there's 3 boys. Shaun/Sean (I'm gonna pick Shaun because this is America and I assume you all don't spell stuff proper - FYI to Americans reading this, please remember to read this all in a shrill British accent, what what) and Evan who was presumably the one who died in the cold open, and Mike is the third, who they're inseparable from but was NOT there in the house with them that night, and by nightfall at the promo scene they had not spoke to him yet.

What a frikkin rug pull though, to have 2 boys in the open, so you think they're a duo of best friends, and it's like NO WAIT THEY COME IN THREES... Bahahahaha

Dean back upstairs with Shaun, and he's sat down to talk to him with a "you know" and at this point I am pausing and getting a stuffed toy because he's either gonna open up to a kid who won't squeal about it because he can’t talk, or say something completely awful because he's in an awful place and either way I don't need Emotional Honesty Hour from Dean Winchester at 9:30 in the morning without a friend :P

On no, Dean talking about knowing what it's like to be scared of monsters, but then trying to reassure the kid that he can at least make it go away PHYSICALLY even if the horrific psychological trauma can't be erased. Comforting!!

Promo sceeene!

Which we already picked over but aw yeah so Shaun didn't tell Dean anything after all, except for the plague doctor drawings (and he didn't show he had the mask with him? Really?? Did he drop it earlier?) so Dean really did just open up to the kid about understanding his pain but being the thing monsters are scared of... A better Dean pep talk than Patience got at least, since Shaun was a regular victim and Patience might have been angling to join the life... and it mostly just served to make him say that :P

Since I've been barrelling through all the Wayward Sisters old episodes this month, I am reminded that I spent a good long while wallowing in Yockey vs Sam knowing Dean's porn habits and outing them to Jody in 12x06...

I think Sam trying to make the sacrifice to go to a strip club with Dean (and I can't believe this is the third time I'm putting myself through watching this exchange because omg second hand awfulness and yet I went back and watched it twice it was so good) probably fits under this characterisation umbrella.

Of Sam vs performing Dean, as much as the callbacks to season 1 and Dean vs Sam's Jess grief that I was talking about last night thanks to an anon nudge. And parallels to 12x16 and their chat about the swimming pool outside a similar hotel set (although this one is infinitely lower rate :P) - the writers playing with the knowledge that Sam and Dean have grown up completely latched onto each other like this and Sam's been dragged to strip clubs by Dean almost certainly and they just kinda know more than they want to about the other's personal habits, and they have low, bad boundaries. 12x16 was asserting some back, letting them have separate rooms, and showing Sam grossed out by the thought of Dean skinny dipping which, I mean, fair (if you're Sam anyway :P) but they don't really GET those boundaries.

So there's some re-poking season 12 specific themes here as well, just in that Sam, who has historically had his own walls up about Dean's porn and interest in strip clubs (because they're extremely not his thing) is willing to cross a line for Dean and just go with Dean to a strip club and buy him a lap dance from a place with a decent online review. Which also shows low bad boundaries that he would try and manipulate Dean back to happiness this way, just like in 1x19 especially, Sam had to angrily re-assert his boundaries about Dean constantly trying to set him up with Sarah, and Dean had to point out he has a stake in Sam's sex life too, even if it's just having to put up with Sam being cranky and miserable. Historically, Sam having to put up with Dean's sex life is considerably more on the "ugh, TMI" range for him :P

... sorry, yelling "promo scene!!" usually means I stop analysing for a moment and just watch, because I already went over this ground last night, but I guess there's more untapped depths :P

Holy shit, though in the reaction shots for Dean after talking about the Clam Diver, he's standing with his back to some stuff that on my screen makes a beautiful bi flag. What the hell. I was thinking how colourful the backdrop was last night but...

I mean that's the blurry background to his close ups on this.

I THINK it's just the road lit up behind him but oh gosh getting it in the background of the shot for THIS conversation about the Clam Diver? GUYS what are you DOING.

Who directed this??

I overshot and landed on "how you ever got laid" "heh, tell me about it" I can't BELIEVE, STILL that Sam just gave him that win. For some reason it reminds me of Swap Meat where he judges Gary for being a virgin based on the Star Wars stuff, even though Sam is an established Star Wars nerd of more than the general audience variety, and mostly likely read the old tie in novels :P Sam owning that his nerdy interests as a teen didn't exactly make him very sexy is probably the most frank thing he's ever admitted to Dean and he's just trying to help Dean.

(Tbh, again, it may have helped Dean more if Sam just reacted all prickly and got wound up, which is generally what someone teasing wants - a reaction, not rolling over and showing your tummy. Anyway more on the pile of Yockey probing their sex lives in relation to how they see each other, with Sam letting Dean be the one with the more manly sexy interests and letting the performing Dean layer that all comes from win, and then trying to pander to it some more by looking up places to make Dean feel even more manly and in control)

And holy crap I'm glad I have no yoga today because Yockey's got me talking in loops and I've been back to this conversation in the kitchen 3 times and it's nearly 10am and I've made such bad progress. Mental contortions instead :P

Ooooh directed by John Showalter. I'm pretty sure he's been around for aaaages and contributed more than his fair share of nonsense... :P

I just looked him up on the superwiki, saw he directed the episode with HP Lovecraft (and that ridiculous "I was busy having sex with women" or whatever line about Dean not reading the novels) and basically I am gonna hit the brakes on this thought and just watch the episode or I'm going down a rabbit hole I don't come back from until 11am :P

Oh but the thing I was trying to confirm was... Not that I knew I was looking for it except in the most abstract sense that I was thinking of it in one hand and thinking maybe there was something by this director in the other without realising it was the same hand... the blue & red light falling on Dean in 10x16 which looks an awful lot like the bi flag and shortly preceded Dean confessing all that delicious confessional stuff?

Yeah guess which director according to Superwiki.

Now i'm done.

I want to know what metric The Clam Diver got "four and a half" of on whatever site Sam was reading about it.

That's in Sam's browser history.

"Is it my birthday? Did I win a bet that I don't know about??"

"I'm just trying to be nice."

"W h y."

"Because..... you know why."

"I'm f i n e."

Sam, back off, he's gonna stab you :P

I got to ask... is the automatic door not working an improv because the door broke, or thematically relevant, because that's the sort of random thematically relevant detail I could have a nerdgasm about for absolutely hours of typing while Sam is harassing Dean into the building talking about him not believing in anything. The higher powers aren't doing shit for Dean even when he waves at where he thinks the sensor should be, so he gives up and just opens the damn door himself.

The door has a sticker that says, quite clearly, "warning automatic door" and at the very least for the shortsighted is a great big yellow warning sticker on it, so I'm gonna have to go that they're signposting that it's supposed to open, so this is something either scripted or added with full intent to metaphor and my brain hurts.

Sam is trying to understand this massive great big VOID of misunderstanding and it's... frankly awful. He's babbling about his understanding about Dean and his confusion

"You're not, Dean. you said you don't believe in anything, and that's not true! you-you-you do believe in things, you believe in people, that's who you *are*, that's what you DO. I know you're in a dark place and I just want to *help*"

This is telling us a lot more about how Sam sees Dean than Dean's faith arc. Of course Dean believes in people and saving people and that the planet is worth saving. That's a baseline assumption around here. Dean and *faith* though, in believing in things, in how the universe treats them... it doesn't even open automatic doors for them. Cas is DEAD. Cas is where Dean's belief arc centred in the last minute of 4x01 and Cas is where it has freakin' remained for the next 9 years. Cas lost faith in God and Dean chucked away the amulet because he lost faith in everything - Cas and Sam and himself and their ability to save the world that didn’t want to be saved. Cas became God and Dean lost all hope he may have had left. Cas came BACK to Dean and his faith was restored but in THEM. GOD came back and Dean and Cas had similar and unchanging positions on it right down to Chuck basically telling Dean not to confuse him with his own father, but the ridiculous superimposing over John over Chuck and Chuck as Cas's failed father who Cas now just ignores outright and Dean lashes out on his behalf because he knows Cas doesn't believe. That Chuck broke Cas back in 5x16 and... Yeah. Cas is gone now and what does Dean even have left in his personal faith? Chuck didn't answer, the automatic door won't open even when he waves at it...

Sam sees Dean as having no faith in God (while Sam has had the much more complicated journey there with his personal faith, and feeling it in a religious way) but instead he tries to get a read on Dean's personal compass, and god dammit Yockey *takes a shot* in Wendigo of course Dean sits down with Sam and tells him HIS personal philosophy on why he does what he does: saving people, hunting things, the family business. The thing is, Dean has already in this episode reached out to Shaun and described himself and Sam as the people who know about the monsters, the ones who can't erase the trauma but they can erase the monster, and help what little they can there... Save *other people* from it - yeah it's a message full of regret and defeat that Shaun already got hurt and that's probably why Dean couldn't get him to open up because he didn't come in bubbling with wide-eyed optimism about saving the day, but heavy eyes that had seen this too much. But oh does he still care about the people, and saving them. He just doesn’t trust what HE can do, what they can do against the tide of awful. It's not in his speech to Patience, because it's not the motivation to be a superhero any more - he is just a guy doing a job. And he's lost his heart in many ways. But he will still fight to protect and help people because baseline, Sam is right, that IS Dean and even damaged like this he'll go on hunts and protect people. Take Jack into the Bunker with them in 13x01 expecting it to be a self-destruct thing where base case scenario they can take Jack out with them or something and contain the blast...

But yeah. 13x04 expressly ended linking Dean's lack of faith, via dramatic cast-iron irony, to Cas coming back as Dean voices what losing Cas has done to him.

And then Dean gets to say his bit -

"We've been down this road before, and I've fought my way back and I'll fight my way back again" which HONESTLY echoes Cas in the Empty telling his depression to stuff it and that he'll fight and fight for eternity if he has to.

Dean is trying to get better, he made himself a PB&J, he's just taking this all at his own pace, and Sam's starting to smother him.

"How?"

"Same way I always do: bullets, bacon and booze." Dean regrets his no bumper sticker policy because that and the "whole bottle of Jack" comment from last episode are both iconic Dean talking about his coping methods out loud way.

Also throws back to 10x11 and how Dean did that list of 3 things which he was getting back to when he lost the Mark and left a blank space which should have been "babes" or something and just put more booze into it. The swap of sex for food happens a LOT with Dean. For some reason the Dean vs cake explanation I wrote recently was floating around tumblr again last night, in which the middle of season 10 conveyed clearly that cake was stuff Dean hadn't tried yet (and 10x16's confession tied it all together - we're really delving deep into the stuff that was explored back then and I've thankfully been in fandom for so have the language down really well but I hope I don't have to explain this entire complicated web over and over later :P) and pie was coping methods heterosexual sex with women - tying what Dean wanted in 10x07 in the hook up he didn't get, to pie in 10x13 via that gross dating app... All this with the cake, croissookies, and that comment in 10x11 where Dean was trying to detox and eating egg white omlettes (hi 12x18) and cutting out booze.

And, of course, there's the whole bacon = bisexual experimentation thing from 8x13, 9x13, 11x21, and I guess now :P Cass had a much more thorough bacon masterpost somewhere out there which I may have to dig out and reblog with a knowing look...

And Dean slams his hand down on the bell to punctuate this statement and hopefully bring an end to the conversation by summoning a hotel receptionist.

Cue screaming kid having nightmares about what he's seen.

His mom kisses him on his forehead where the doctor drilled him, and leaves the door open so she can be concerned about him.

Oh no, his backpack DOES have the mask in it. Dr Monsterface used it to get to him :<

(Oh wait hi yes that thing Jody said about the Dr Sexy leviathan in 7x02 is still fresh in my mind. Leviathans as a depression metaphor in a way The Empty rapidly escalated.)

I saw/maybe reblogged a post about how Jack might have Kelly used against him and 13x04 was the nice version, but he's going around carrying his grief about her in a backpack. We have to hope like hell Mia gave him catharsis enough or he might carry that grief with him and things can use her image to get into his head.

(That and the 2x "shoot him!" order about Dean from Miriam and Buddy to the sheriff and Mia, 2 people who wanted to help, are causing foreshadowing concerns)

I love the cuts between the doctor coming for Shaun, though - the bell ending one conversation to Shaun waking up screaming, and then he gets up and pretty much goes to confront the doctor head on rather than cower - but cut to an empty bed.

Dean's empty bed, but he seems to have left the keys?

Ah, he went and had some, uh, catharsis somewhere. I swear to god those are probably the sunglasses from 1x19 dug up again and stuck on his head just to haunt Sam.

The fact his tie is tied around his head makes me feel like he was probably blindfolded at some point in all that... Hehehe. I doubt his tie is tied so nicely around his head with a pretty bow because he did it to look cool :P It would just be the same knot but on his head in that way.

Sam's like "oh great" but doesn't kick Dean awake? Like on a normal day when dumping a glass of water on his face and telling him to suck it up would be the correct thing, Sam's like, "Sam's got this!" goes and gets dressed, takes the keys, and leaves Dean passed out on the floor. In 1x19 he hit the horn to wake Dean up because serves you right.

(if he only went to a strip club he may have just made off with someone's underwear thrown on him for being a good tipper rather than actually having sex with anyone... I kinda doubt if he was THAT drunk he'd be more than a very generous customer they don't mind kicking him out at closing with a bra still on his head :P)

(I'm gonna assume Dean did not actually have sex but just went out and had some very drunk miserable fun and made a friend last night and now he's gonna be dependant on Sam for cash for a while until he can scrounge some back up :P)

Also, um, what is he holding when he rolls over? Is that a fun kinky times toy whip? Exactly what sort of place did he find last night, and please, for the love of god, tell me it was not the place Sam was diligently reading the reviews for between his fingers yesterday, apparently.

Listen say whatever you want about the fact he walked home holding it, if that boy had his tie tied around his eyes he was not the one holding it while he was having fun :P

I like Mike. He's a burly farm worker hefting hay outdoors in the sun, which makes him like 3 different directions of Cas parallel (the strong one in the dynamic, sun, hay), and also he was sensible enough not to be running around in a haunted house for youtube hits.

...

Look, at some point Cas hefted a bunch of hay out of the back of his truck and onto the side of the road and that happened in canon and no one ever mentioned it

thank you Yockey for acknowledging off-screen hay hefting.

Aw no he's lying because he's scared and Sam makes him tell the truth and it's that he WAS scared and he thinks not going to the house was cowardly, but now his friends are missing and hurt (so far as they know because Shaun getting killed overnight might not have made it to them yet)... He does tell the truth in the end. He's also in DEEP denial about their deaths.

Is that enough bacon, Dean.

No, no it is not.

Sam, you're gonna kill him if you give him more beer right now. Is he smuggling local ales to Dean?

I don't think I can actually watch Dean eat this entire pile of bacon with Dean's bad mood eating habits. This pause is just to procrastinate dealing with that.

Wait also the friend is called "Mike" which, uh... Michael? is a thing we should be more worried about? What happened to that guy anyway?

Man, we're 16 minutes in and where's Billie?

I feel like Dean being hung over for the rest of this case is probably not going to help with him getting caught and threatened with a drill by a regular old ghostie.

I'm snooping Sam's tablet before he delivers the cliff notes exposition, and aside from the creepy images at the top, including an old school newspaper article in the top image results that is illegibly small, but seems to have photos of the doc alive, the first and only legible article mentions a woman with depression who goes to the doc because she had depression because her son drowned... Which makes 2 son drowning deaths in 2 episodes, with the kid in 13x04 who killed his mom in the car. Also reminds me of 7x14 where when Dean confronts the guy behind all the nightmares, it's because his little brother drowned in the sea and he could never let go of that guilt.

I think drowning is the metaphor for depression here - people losing a part of themselves metaphoric to small son, who is overwhelmed in the water... Dean related to that loss and used it against the Plucky's guy, and that was in the slight turn around section of season 7 - the part where he began confronting the loss of Cas through mirrors because of course Cas was coming back. In season 13 the plan has been set in stone and can be done briefly and with HEAVY dramatic irony that we're all aware of because we only actually have 1 episode without Cas so far, even if 1 was his death and one was his waking up, he's surrounding Dean's grief in a layer of dramatic irony. Dean may be overwhelmed and drowning. We may have SEEN the memory of Cas drowning in the Empty, but it's all done with dramatic irony, that Cas is not lost to Dean but presumably finding his way back.

Dean had better not puke at the grieving mother's house after all that bacon and beer for breakfast after a hard night out.

I love the cut between Sam asking what happened in one scene and the woman saying "I don't know" in the next - there's some good thematic transitions I've noticed already, especially this way of skipping exposition here, but I liked Dean ringing the bell for the hotel and Shaun waking up screaming, because Dean was about to go out on his grief metaphor night out and for all I know get the sexy kind of drilled while Shaun was getting the unsexy kind... and then the cut to Dean's empty bed, because this is how bad his grief was hurting him.

(Also after Sam tried to control and placate Dean's grief, he resisted Sam's attempts to smother him but he still has been accepting the offers, and did eventually go out and get wasted and Sam had encouraged it - just Dean did it on his terms and without Sam, just his tacit approval that Sam wouldn't bitch about it.)

ALSO WOW AFTER 13 YEARS YOCKEY FINDS A WAY TO SUBTLY WORK IN THE COLD SPOTS FOR GHOSTS.

LOOK HOW INTELLIGENT THAT MAKES OUR BOYS LOOK WHEN THEY READ THE SUBTEXT OF A SCENE FROM A SURFACE READ OF SOMEONE WHO DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT GHOSTS BUT IDENTIFIED THE SIGNS AND THE PEOPLE WHO KNEW WHAT TO LOOK FOR COULD UNDERSTAND WHAT WAS HAPPENING WITHOUT HER SAYING IT AND NOW THEY KNOW EVERYTHING JUST FROM INFERRING IT

WOW

Night time and they go to the house and we're at 18 minutes in. I mean we have time for a jump scare, some bad shit to happen, and then the ad break before pt.2 of the episode.

Buzz buzz

"What's up, doc?"

*ad break*

*back to Dean getting drilled*

Sam saves him and on with pt.2 of the episode.

All the masks are back in place.

Oops, don't touch the masks. *horrible screaming from elsewhere in the house*

Well, except to burn them. Sensible to stay in the room, defend their turf, and get to the burning asap instead of poking around or investigating the screaming any more. 13 years and they have learned a fair amount about ghosts and I am admiring how competent they are. Sam especially has the lead here, probs because Dean is off his game by an enormous degree to him.

Ahahah and Sam did a round circle at the door so we see the doc get partway through the door, realise there's salt, and have to awkwardly back out of it to have a second go and honestly that is the funniest shit a ghost has ever done on this show even though it's also terrifying :P

*burn burn burn*

So rescue Shaun?

What can possibly happen next with nearly 20 minutes left

LIGHTS BLOWING DOWN A HALLL

Now they dealt with the advertised ghost I'm just waiting for Billie to show up, because they're about to be mobbed by a ton of ghosts and she can save their asses, or else... well idk I have to watch, but I'm just laughing because of lights blowing down a hall - 3 times already this season, for Jack, for Patience at least with them flickering rather than exploding like this...

These are all the whispers about the doctor which we heard in the cold open

I love the Winchesters running around shouting sensible ideas about what the ghosts are doing though.

Is this going to be Dean's torch everything solution?

YIKES, no, it's 4x15/11x17. BAD IDEA, DEAN. i can't believe he even carries a pre-prepared take me to the veil kit. Like, that's the reckless nothing to live for might as well die trying to do something dramatic toolkit. We also get shades of 11x16 with him doing that in a super haunted house.

You can NOT pass into the veil in a super haunted house with just your brother to watch over you and stop these 1000s of ghosts killing you.

Jesus Christ Dean.

Wait is he literally doing this

Sam is like FFUCKING HELL RIGHT HERE WITHOUT EVEN A SALT RING? ON THE FUCKING STAIRS UNDER THIS SYMBOLIC STAINED GLASS WINDOW THAT LIZZY DIDN'T ANALYSE EARLIER?

DEAAAAN

And yeah this is 2x01 all over again with Dean walking down the stairs trying to get the attention of a ghost.

Wait back up new reaper with a customer service calm grief counsellor voice, but what did she say her name was? :P

"Hello, my name is JESSICA and I'm here to lead you to your next life"

... well I hope she survives the episode just because I always root for the reapers and she's clearly just a random obstacle to Dean who is doing her job, a regular old part of the natural order, but that is not a name you use at random :P

I'm just sitting here running my hands through my hair trying to deal with this right now. Gonna play a few rounds of Pokemon shuffle because I sort of knew this was coming since they showed 5x15 and 2x01 in the opening recap, but the way Dean did it and then walking immediately into a Jessica? Yeah I need a mo.

Dean maybe never told Sam what he did in 11x17 because he didn't at the end of the episode and idk if that's one of those things you don't just bring up at the breakfast table.

JESSICA.

"Hi, I'm the spectre of the loss of the most important romantically loved loved one in your life, do you feel like moving on from them to the next thing"

"sorry I can't come to the phone"

YOCKEY I AM DISTRESSED.

Accidents don't happen accidentally.

"Oh god."

She knows what she's got herself into.

Sam takes 20 seconds to set his waych and sdakdfjgkl hang on who cares about Sam

WE'RE IN REAPER HQ

"Dean Winchester is the the veil!"

Please say this whole thing goes to red alert.

Where's his file. It it like 5000 times the size of all these little ones?

Sam put down enough salt for Dean but not himself.

I don't think that's ghosts blowing lights any more, I think that's emergency lightning from the cosmos.

SHAUN! Oh no, you're dead :(

At least he's talking again.

Generally the freshest ghosts are the more talkative ones, and as Bobby showed us back in 7x19 which I generally try not to remember or rely on for ghost lore, because the older ones are fading and falling into patterns and the fresher ones still have a stronger sense of self and their old life.

OH NO Shaun got possessed because of course that's how he got back here with the mask. I think we saw a smaller ghost in a t-shirt in some of the promo stuff, but I thought it was a kid, not a teenager.

"I miss my mom" he's on the other side of the grief from Jack, who misses his mom because he's alive and she's dead. The doc said he'd feel better and he froze and let him kill him. Also Kevin parallels just of a kid whose most important relationship is his mom and now he's dead.

Dean's thinking clearly for the first time in a while because he's not in his body. All soaked in alcohol and grief. He realises he let Shaun down by not being there to protect him. Which may have all happened this way in another episode, but that PB&J, man. It was a Kevin thing all along. (I SAID it was a Kevin thing and you all were like blah blah Cas blah blah Jack, look, don't doubt me on my Kevin knowledge, guys, I am still RAW about his death and it was 4 years ago :P) Dean's remembering in the middle of grief that it's "saving people hunting things" after he let Patience down with that speech. Or so I hope. They used Dean's speech over the open of the episode like in a season 1 episode they'd usually layer the more optimistic and simplistic "saving people hunting things" from Dean's like, second day on the job, not where he's all messed up and old.

Anyway Shaun is an emergency Kevin patched into his life to make him feel bad about failing people, and I guess that puts Dean at similar crossroads to the middle of season 9. Hopefully to a different end, just like this should be subverting 11x17 for why he just abruptly decided to cross into the veil, because Jessica is not having a good day :P

DEAN GOING INTO THE VEIL TO HELP LOST PEOPLE is doubling up the job of a reaper. Reapers CAN'T COMMUNICATE across the veil to the living, and don't wanna solve the cases. They come to move on the one person with a ticket upstairs in a house full of hundreds of ghosts and just ignore them... Dean actively dives into their turf to solve the case and find out how to move the souls on. He SAYS he wants to help move the souls on.

I have such a huge love of Dean blurring the lines with being Death, and being a reaper. It's just such a symbolic thing. Their job is moving people on, basically handing souls to the reapers to carry on the job, when it's ghost cases. They're the human agents of the reapers breaking the ties that hold ghosts to the earth so that the whole process can carry on and the world doesn't fill up with ghosts - like it did when the veil was broken. (or is it still? Again, the whole Kevin thing not quiiiite answered, although maybe/maybe not that was a sign Chuck was fixing the thing... But then there were a whole bunch of souls Billie for for them out of the veil like 2 episodes later...)

Reaper lore is fucked up on this show :P But Reaper HQ just in the first glimpse looked aaaawfuully empty adjacent...

I'm guessing even though Dean's got back with the info he needs, and Sam's about to wake him up because the clock ran out, the reapers are going to intervene...

WAKEY WAKEY DEAN

Oh look Billie's back.

"Hey Dean"

I haven't been this happy in about 1000 years. Like seriously Cas getting back was great and all but HOLY SHIT have you seen Billie? I would set this as my desktop immediately but my mum and Cat are both gonna have to watch this episode with me and probably see my desktop in the process, so... Saving a screencap for later ;)

This is literally the best thing.

LOOK AT HER.

LOOK AT THAT SCYTHE. HOLY SHIIIT THAT SCYTHE.

Billie's understated attitude is just *clenches fist*

She just shows up!! LOoking LIKE THIS!!!!

I don't even wanna hit play, I don't wanna move past this point, I just want to bask in this one image forever.

THE COAT. NO one has shown up in a floor length leather coat in the entire show so far, because no one has been good enough for it.

"We need to talk" Yeah no shit babe.

LOL getting right to it - Dean like, Cas killed you. Billie like, "how's that working out for him?" - does she know? Either way, she's rubbing it in. Because of course she has eeeevery right to be pissed. :P

UTTER GLEE.

I have a sudden feeling... Billie says, "certain rules - after you kill one "incarnation" of Death" (Hey 1000 points to trisscar) "another one takes its place" and dude.

Death died and within 10 seconds Billie was singing "o Death" and following the Winchesters around, annoying them, making deals with them, making ultimatums with them... Like, the reapers aren't exactly itching to kill EACH OTHER and promote someone, and I guess just one biting the bullet and taking one for the team doesn't work... But this suddenly explains EVERYTHING about Billie getting all up in the business of the people who basically fuck up every deal and ally they make and hanging out with them... doesn't give you much of a life span.

Back in 12x06, Billie taunted Dean, made fun of him for not getting what he wants, and said she wanted something from him. Came to Mary and said she was there to reap her when she was ready. She LET Dean make another deal, a deal where one of his family would have to die, or he himself do it. In a car full of Winchesters, one of them is gonna take one for the team, or ruin everything and kill the reaper who's been bothering them, holds so much over them...

I'm thinking very hard about changes of state right now - that Billie and Cas had mirrored deaths, and Billie came back improved, and Cas... Well, we don't know how he came back except he's been put on a better path, for his character narrative, in confronting and overcoming the symbolic depression, and he has a better coat. Not much to go on yet, and I haven't been participating in the wild flailing about all the ways he MAY have come back different, but this makes a veeery interesting mirror about returns and changes of state, upgrades after death. Now I'm interested in what may have happened to Cas.

But, like, to a magnitude of difference to how utterly delighted I am that Billie won the game :P

But yeah this is a bit of a lore fudge but who caaaares because it brings Billie back and powers her up and makes her into THE BEST CHARACTER ON THE SHOW IN A TOTALLY INARGUABLE WAY.

I love her new ring :P

"This universe can be so many things, and sometimes it is poetic."

Hell yeah it is Billie. I've been saying so for ages, but this really puts it in such a beautiful way. This is Dabb's entire job. He makes this universe *rhyme* with itself. This is what his mirrors and parallels and character repeats have been doing. I even compared scene transitions in 13x03 to the way poetry ends each line in a verse. It's something all the writers have been doing - making the story rhyme.

Gaaaaah. THIS is Dabb's writer meta commentary, perhaps. I think I can trust Yockey to spell it out this way :D

She took him to Reaper HQ!!! Like Cas he's passing through states - I assume he'll be back in time to finish the hunt, but in the mean time... He's got to work through some shit, just like Cas did last episode. Rhyming with each other.

Dean is wearing a black and grey plaid with thin red lines, and a black jacket. He's bringing like the only colour here to all the blackness.

yeah, Billie, keep the scythe away from him.

I love she set her desk up in the W section because even though it's not the middle of the alphabet, she's keeping a CLOSE FREAKING EYE on the Winchesters.

Ooh she knows Dean went to the AU... She's interested in Jack. Dean's chance to protect him!!!???

Billie looks INCREDIBLE how did I ever let myself talk myself into doubting she was here to run the game?

wait shit Dean's doing epic character stuff. Not bargaining with his life, or asking for Mary or Cas back. He just wants to complete the job and free the ghosts because freakin sshdfkjsjlks PB&J brought him back to his senses and he needs to save Kevin-stand-in rather than let him wallow in the veil for 3 seasons again

THAT is one heck of a thing, Dean. I love you so much

not as much as billie but it was a beautiful character moment

Billie is STUNNED.

Jessica gets to take all the ghosts back. She thought this was going to be a terrible day and it actually worked out.

Again, with like 10 minutes left of the episode so this isn't how it ends.

Now Dean's talking about trust, and Billie brings up how they keep breaking cosmic bargains. I think he may be stalling - even planning to NOT give up Jack even though Billie went first... Or he's gonna tell her but... Natural order? She can't just go... kill him...

If Dean's still uncertain about Jack he could always make a query about IF she could kill him, but not give away enough, or have her as the weapon in his back pocket should Jack be a problem... something for him to regret later, maybe?

This is stressful

Dean spills. "Lucifer's son. Jack. When he was born it created a little rip."

What does Billie know about the AU?

Well she knows how the multiverse works, and she knows a "big dumb Winchester" is fairly statistically likely to be the one to knock it all down.

The warning not to try and get Mary back? Now Cas is back? The consequences may still be on Mary, however she's returned to them, intentionally or not, she could topple it?

Ugh I hate spec but all these lines are so leading :P The comment that Sam's plans don't work out, in this light, for example, is realllly nerve-wracking. And we know from spoilers the AU is going to become a more immediate problem at some point...

"That does sound like us."

"You've changed." Billie reading Dean deeply and now we get to the character part of this where she's just... analysing him.

"The Dean I know and love" look I'm die hard Destiel to the bone but Dean x Death is something I've always thought the dynamic for was absolutely stunning since their first meeting, and I hate to say it but making Death into Billie is making it aaawfully tempting to ship :P

Please show him his massive folders.

She's currently just calling him out on how bad he feels. Pure awful character exposition.

"I don't matter." OH DEAN NO.

He and Cas totally rhyming with each other about their passing through these dark other worlds...

Dean couldn't save mom, he couldn't save Cas, he can't even save this kid... But he already saved the kid with that bargain with Billie, and Cas is... out there somewhere. And Mary is a whole other problem and the one he can't solve right now. If she's alive, she's on the other side of a wobbling house of cards he can't touch. But the difference in the way he gets finality on Mary vs the finality on Cas? 13x01 vs this episode as Dean slides from dealing with Cas to dealing with Mary? Getting this blunt exposition from Billie about it...

I think Billie would have thought it was funny to show Dean his file, but then realised because he's changed she needs a different approach to intimidate and interrogate him. She sees that he doesn't feel like a hero any more, not the guy who saves the world. All his crushing losses have made him feel like he's still utterly helpless to make anything good happen in his own life.

And Dean can't work through it, won't work through it, and he knows it - this is the thing that has broken him hardest... That at this point there will be NO recovery except the story handing back Cas to him, and even then that's one hell of a shake to what he believes he can accomplish... If they wanted to scare him back down from "i kill gods" Dean who then went and killed Death too, to show him the universe his huge, and keeps on ticking and his actions have put Billie in charge and the natural order keeps on ticking... But he still can't get mom and Cas back...

I am literally sitting in that room in Alice in Wonderland where she's floating around on her tears.

I mean in my head, anyway :P

My heart is broken.

Billie's "don't you?" though when Dean says he doesn't matter... I wonder what she knows that Dean doesn't :P

But Dean starts ranting to her about how Sam's been trying to help and he's useless... :(

"You really believe that. You want to die." Well, yeah the universe has become a crushing hard place where no one makes sense and Dean doesn't even believe in the blaze of glory death, doing something HEROIC now, let alone not believing in it because he thinks he deserves better and a happy ending at the end of this all...

Lowest point, unlocked! \o/

Oh, ALL those notebooks are his individual deaths... How he dies. "heart attack. burned by a red-haired witch" HEY ROWENA

Are they potential deaths or ones still looming over him, disappearing as he passes those marks? Or are they his entire history of deaths not died?

"Unfortunately, none of these books say you die today"

....

So are they potential future deaths or what?

I mean, Billie just introduced hope to his life.

"I stand witness to a much larger picture" they could not have picked a better character to be Death. She has such DEPTH and WEIGHT to the way she speaks, and such an amazing calm, powerful aura of energy. I just love her so so much.

OH GOSH this camera angle with the scythe in the background behind Dean's face... Gotta save and remember to add that to this, because after telling him all the ways he dies, Billie moves onto his big picture cosmic weight. That he's important. And Dean has the scythe symbolically pointing at him as she talks, telling him he's at those crossroads of life and death but not today... Is this going to be a burden like the one Chuck laid on him, or Billie reminding him that a heroic life is not such a bad thing?

I really think this is one of the best episodes of the show and I got a few minutes left of it and don't know how this resolves :P

SHE IS LITERALLY giving him the 4x01 Cas speech - "you have work to do" and telling him he's important, telling him he deserves to live... Kinda still like I hate you but you're important, and setting aside past grudges. There's more for him to do.

"And trust me, having my eyes opened to the importance of any humans, especially Winchesters, is not a thrill." HA. yeah, she's an anti-Cas but she and Cas are literally bouncing off each other in the story anyway since he stabbed her and then got stabbed himself in turn.

Rhymes. Rules. Reason. Billie is the best character on the show and I love her.

"So, you wanna die, but I say, keep living." "Hmm."

This is NOT the same as what happened with Cas - but he may not remember it - but it works in sort of mirrored ways. Cas utterly defeats the Empty with his will to live, may not remember it, and may have to piece his newfound will to live together himself in this new hopeful return to life. I hope. Dean has no will to live, and orders of work and purpose are just the way his life goes, the orders endlessly being placed on his head by every cosmically powerful figure... God, Death that time in 6x11, Billie now, JOHN every day of his life from aged 4 to 27 and then one final order to haunt Dean to his first grave...

"I need to know. My mom" *wakey wakey*

Oh, and there's the so far missing hope. She can't lie to him and say Mary's dead, so she cuts him off in indecision and uncertainty, and THAT, unfortunately, is a massive step up from where he was in total despair that there is no one he can save...

And Cas may very well be back in his life to give him the hope that it can be done again by the end of this episode... Aaaaaaaaaaaah.

Anyway Dean goes wakey wakey at last and the house seems to be wrapped up, yay.

there's exactly 5 minutes left, which is always the omen. :P

Sam comforts Shaun's mom, and wanders through the scene, looking small in the chaos, to rejoin Dean at the car.

And like in 11x17 Dean lies again.

Sam is too smart for that, chases it up when Dean tries to brush it off as luck, and says that when Dean says they talk about it later, it means they won't talk about it and it's Dean's way of shutting off a conversation from ever happening...

Sam calling out their communication issues? I am LIVING

Dean glances at the mom, and is reminded that they do this job for a reason, that he bargained to save the souls of the children... Sold out the info about Jack for it...

"I saw Death. The Death."

*Sam does the eyebrows*

"He's dead"

"No she's not"

*EYEBROWS*

"it's billie"

And Dean goes on to even say that she wanted intel, and does Sam pick up on it?

... no he doesn't. He doens't ask or guess what it was...

Dean repeats the line about work to do, which is also, especially in the context of Sam and Dean talking, what they say in instances like for example 2x22 when Dean had just sold his soul for Sam, when they're about to go back to work with their regular job. The open the trunk of the car and look at their gear and announce they're going to go kick ass phrase. (Which, of course, in 4x01, Cas was subverting the context by saying it to Dean away from Sam, putting the burden on him - Billie at least made it about Sam and Dean both but that she was talking to Dean)

But they're sitting on the back of the car, keeping the trunk closed... Not moving on

And Dean starts talking about how he's not okay.

And how he always believed in what they did - saving people hunting things - that losing John or Bobby or people they cared about was a hit he could take for the higher purpose. Billie has just REMINDED him that he is bound to a higher purpose. But he's so lost, and he's lost people who he CAN'T lose. Mary and Cas at once is just TOO MUCH. It makes the universe cruel not poetic...

(I say, having it paused here but knowing Misha's in the credits again as an awful TEASE :P)

He just needs a WIN.

And he may just get one because he told 90% of the truth to Sam, conveyed exactly what was going on behind that line about not believing in anything from last episode, the power of which narratively brought back Cas because that was a huge step in his grief arc, to admit it. Now he's explaining it, telling Sam how badly it's all got to him...

Oh god where is Caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaas.

They're driving off and there's music, which... agh.

drive drive drive sexy car

Omg we're going back to the house... More grief on the mom for her son... Just really WALLOWING in how much loss hurts everyone, and even when the soul has moved on, that Dean got a win for their knowledge of the afterlife, that they know ghosts can go to a better place, the mom doesn't, she has lost Shaun and that's it for her. No closure, just pain.

drive drive drive

Billie reading Dean's book

I think Billie really has a huge interest in Dean... :P

drive drive drive... Okay so Yockey is the new Robbie montage guy.

Also Sam is asleep while Dean drives - this seems to parallel 12x20 where he was asleep and Dean checked his messages from Mary...

Bring bring?

BRING BRING.

Called that like a boss :3

WHAT, NO "HELLO DEAN" ON THE PHONE?

FUCK YOU YOCKEY I TAKE IT ALL BACK I HATE THIS ENTIRE EPISODE

I mean there probably was one under the music if that was Cas...

Well this alley has that cross from 11x06, aka the start of Cas's depression arc, the one where Metatron was teasing him about a real life angel on camera...

drive drive drive

Cross reflected in the car

Hey, bison sign

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Has he just been waiting at that phonebox for hours.

I'll just wait here then... I'll wait for you...

Well that got fucking tied up with a fucking bow, from all the left over crap Robbie left lying around.

God I don't even have anything to say... Cas waited. For Dean. Like the love ballad warned he would. Because he's Dean's real life angel, and Dean's win. It was FOR Dean. Dean's arc narratively brought Cas back into his life, but on Cas's side of the story they fully fleshed out the end of his depression arc and made Cas bring himself back on his own terms so it doesn't shove Cas into a subheading for Dean even when the bigger story is handing Cas on a plate back to Dean...

And that, my friends, was one hell of a fun game :P

#13x05 #season 13 spoilers #suicide mention cw #yockey fanclub #holy shit this episode was wish fulfilment of the highest order #Sometimes it is poetic #my stuff

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