#if the show is gonna use dean’s reaction (and trauma) to drive the emotional plots then i can enjoy dean jumping into the deep end 😇 | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

mittensmorgul · 6 years ago

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Thought: Half of why John is more accepting in 14x13 than most of us would expect based on his past behavior is because John kinda thinks it's a dream. The other half is because he is just a better person when Mary is around. See the "John would have hated John" posts re 5x13.

I’m gonna use this opportunity to point out a few things about the episode that I think a lot of people may have missed, because it goes a very long way toward understanding John’s reaction here:

2003 John, who from the way he showed up in the bunker, armed and apparently mid-fight... I can’t even imagine the shock of suddenly finding oneself supposedly sixteen years in the future, you know? And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

From Donna’s cabin, where Mary was before they called her back to the bunker, it would’ve been approximately a 12 hour drive. Sam and Dean had TWELVE HOURS or so to talk with John before we rejoin them in the kitchen just before Mary shows up. Because heck, they had SIXTEEN YEARS worth of stuff to catch him up on, you know?

First off, he had to be so shaken when he arrived. He might’ve been thinking he get clobbered in the fight he’d thought he was in and was this all a hallucination or a dream? Or was he actually killed, and this was heaven or something? Who even knows what he could’ve been thinking at first, but he seemed to pretty quickly accept that it was real.

This is where one of the lessons the show has been encouraging us to learn really comes in useful. That being, STUFF HAPPENS OFFSCREEN and the show has encouraged us to accept the fact that what happens offscreen actually counts. So we have to assume that in the hours upon hours they talked with John, they laid out the vast majority of stuff that’s happened in the last decade and a half.

Some of it would probably be pretty difficult to hear, like the fact John didn’t survive to get revenge on Azazel (heck, 2003 him might not even know he was legit getting CLOSE even), but that Sam and Dean DO. How difficult would it be to tell this version of John that Dean sold his soul to save Sam, that he spent 40 years in Hell and was rescued by an angel, to tell them about how angels and demons were manipulating them all for decades to start the apocalypse?

Or that Sam let himself be possessed by Lucifer to stop the apocalypse, pulling both Lucifer and Michael into a cage in Hell to save the world? Like... this is still just the tip of the iceberg here... There’s still Raphael and the second attempt at the apocalypse, Soulless!Sam, Dean’s year in the suburbs, Purgatory, Leviathans, how they’ve befriended angels and demons and monsters oh my... oh, and God. Who also wrote a series of novels about their lives that are technically one of the gospels now... all the way up to how Dean earned a gift from God’s sister, the primordial darkness herself... that Mary has been resurrected...

Plus all that stuff about time travel and alternate universes they’ve experienced.

And for John, personally, the story of how they discovered the bunker in the first place, when the father John had always thought abandoned him as a child had actually traveled into the future, saved Sam’s life, and was killed by the demon Abaddon in the process. I mean THAT RIGHT THERE had to be a horrific shocker to learn, you know?

For JOHN, that’s possibly the most life-alteringly earth-shattering thing they could’ve told him, you know? Just to have an ANSWER to that question that had plagued him since HE was four years old and his dad disappeared off the face of the earth. Not to mention learning that he should’ve been a MoL legacy himself, and that if his father hadn’t been hunted through time by a Knight of Hell, John would’ve grown up “in the life” of monsters and magic himself... Kinda an eye opener, you know?

Oh, and learning that their family was a bloodline going all the way back to Cain and Abel (yes, that Cain and Abel, and by the way Dean killed Cain that one time), and that their family was part of a much larger cosmic plot to bring on the apocalypse in the first place, and Azazel-- John’s lifelong obsession-- was only the first step in all of that and a whole bunch of worse stuff happened after.

Oh, plus, Dean killed Hitler.

They’ve met Samuel Colt, Eliot Ness, Dean was on a sub during WW2 for a day or so, and traveled back to 1973 and 1978 and met with John both times (oh, and Dean was the dude who talked John into buying the Impala when he’d intended to buy a stupid VW van).

And this is STILL only scraping the tip of the iceberg here... They talked for TWELVE. HOURS. or so...

Sam and Dean have had some shockingly full lives, you know? It’s not even a surprise to me that after all that, after seeing the evidence of his sons’ lives laid out like that for him-- the good, the bad, the cosmic and the mundane-- (GOD! HIMSELF! MADE THEM PANCAKES! RIGHT OVER THERE!) that John’s only possible reaction would be to understand just how far his children went after his death.

In the wake of learning all of that, what they went through pre-2005 is just kinda... overshadowed, you know? Almost unreal itself.

But yeah, because of all of this ^^, and then the absolute SHOCK of seeing Mary again after all this time, after spending the majority of his adult life seeking revenge and justice for her death, and the long and painful search for the truth that kinda wrecked ALL their lives, to see her again alive and happy and whole... well, heck... everything else kinda pales to that. The literal horror show he and Sam and Dean endured (even the bits that were blatantly his fault) just... they’re suddenly worth it all, just for that moment, you know?

In a weird way, in that moment John had the burden of suffering with Mary’s death lifted off of him, and he could stand there in the perspective of that more innocent John from 1978 who’d unwittingly judged his own future actions so harshly. For one night, he got to step through to the other side of all that trauma and look back on it from a point where he and his family had finally WON. Where they’d emerged from it and built a life for themselves that he might never be able to understand, but he can appreciate it.

Even in 1.21, he told Sam that his goal was to finally be able to walk away from their mission when it was done, for Sam to be able to go back to school, for Dean to have a normal life, for him to finally be able to rest thinking he’d been able to serve Justice on Mary’s behalf. John himself didn’t even plan to continue hunting out beyond killing the demon who killed Mary, you know? I’m not sure he even had considered a future at all for himself out beyond that singular life goal. Because that’s what living for revenge does to a person.

But this also offered him the fresh perspective that of course there wasn’t really an end to hunting, and that Azazel wasn’t the Final Boss they’d needed to defeat. And he’d have some small notion of just how awful the burden he’d left Sam and Dean with all those years ago-- which THIS John is still THREE YEARS AWAY FROM DUMPING ON THEM.

Ow, time travel.

Granted, the episode didn’t try to explain or defend any of this to the audience, because it should never HAVE to... Can you even imagine how much of a mess of an episode that would’ve been if they’d even tried? Because the story of this episode was being told on multiple levels:

they didn’t try to overwhelm the GA with all of this heaviness, because the GA wouldn’t even care. The GENERAL notion of Sam and Dean’s lives to this point and their emotional states in canon during s14 would be enough of an explanation (trust me that the GA doesn’t have Strong Feelings about John the way Fandom does)

this was also the big PR push episode this season, and a lot of JDM folks likely tuned in just for him while having only a tangential knowledge of SPN canon to go on... introducing 14 seasons worth of emotional turmoil for their sake is kinda... pointless...

They assumed that people in the fandom who ARE invested in these characters emotionally would actually understand all of this already without needed to be spoon-fed all of this again

Because that’s how writing works. The writers have to trust that the audience is actually engaging with the story and possesses critical thinking skills.

I think some of the disconnect here was that we each went into this episode with our own personal baggage attached, with our own feelings about how WE might personally react if we were in Sam and Dean’s positions here. And if Sam and Dean didn’t react the way we hoped they would, whether it be via expressing anger at John over how he raised them, or just yelling about any or all of the above, then it was OUR job as the Thinking Audience to ask WHY, and to consider the past fourteen years of canon in coming to a clearer understanding of Sam and Dean themselves.

I wrote something the other day (yesterday? maybe... hang on... http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/182723615495/rosewhipped22-so-i-havent-rewatched-lebanon-yet) about Dean’s wish that the pearl granted, because he HAS been thinking about his entire life-- including the baggage he’s been trying to lay down all season exemplified in his conversation with Sasha about her father in 14.05. And I think this episode nailed that aspect of Dean’s personal growth, by bringing John back the way they did and specifically NOT making it about anger or bitterness, but about finally being accepting of HIMSELF and of the entirety of his own life, setting down all the shit he can’t change while also acknowledging that he wouldn’t change any of it if it meant it wouldn’t bring him to this current point in his life. And that is HUGE. That is GROWTH and MATURITY.

Because this episode wasn’t really about John at all, but about Sam and Dean (and even Mary) finally getting to lay John’s memory to rest so they can move forward without dragging his ghost along in their wake.

#spn 300 #spn s14 spoilers #spn 14.13 #the ghost of john winchester #Anonymous

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elizabethrobertajones · 8 years ago

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12x20 watching notes

reblog if AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

expectations: it's Yockey. Despite that, wee bit nervous he'll kill off one of the twins or their mom in a kill your darlings move since they're his original characters and they're MotW level people even if they're reoccurring - obvious character mirrors will be obvious, and also the show is having a pretty horrendous time of killing off PoC even for their usual standards. Which, I suppose, is kind of good they're having a few more roles but it's still like... that vet from 12x01 is still alive, and the witch twins and their mom, for now...

Still there's 3 of them, so I'm hoping at least 2 make it out the episode.

also just gonna assume since we know nothing that the BMoL are behind it. Kinda terrified Mary is gonna be the MotW and she has no idea what she's doing, but she's emotionally tied to Asa and his family, is in this episode, and so far hasn't really stepped over any of the show's personal moral lines. Killing a "monster" who is actually a friendly witch/the mother of Asa's children/one OF Asa's children since she's attended a party with them and all, will be a good sort of thing to use to give her current trauma and something for them to use in their arguments about her actions. It also looked pretty clearly like Ketch turns on her/she turns on Ketch and if this happens it would be a good motivation for her to do it - we would EXPECT from what we've seen that Ketch would just immediately try to kill her, because he's been told to, but he seems to be thinking hard about her, and at the very least feeling like her recruitment is at least halfway successful even if she had a ridiculous idea she could do this and still hang out with her own sons - he may at least give her a chance/choice, so the unexpected while it seems he may be the threat and has immediate orders to eliminate the Winchesters, is that Mary lashes out first... Who even knows.

Anyway that's the model of the episode I've constructed from spoilers, and I'm not wedded to it all, it just seems to make sense to me with what we see so far... And of course, the only way to know more is to watch, but this is where I'm coming from :P

Recap! Dad's on a hunting trip - immediately back to the start, making me wish this is a backdoor pilot and the dynamic is the witch twins looking for their mom in a mirror to 1x01. Since it's Dabb era, maybe penance for Bloodlines. Look, I would understand if Dabb burned everything he could find that proved he wrote that episode, but on the other hand maybe he does have room to be contrite about it in the text of the show :P

Then an implication they hunt witches, a lore recap that witches can be evil/get their power from demons, and the Max and Alicia recap that they're witches that hunt.

Onto the BMoL, reminder of a bug, reminder that Ketch is jealous of Sam's shiny hair...

Caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaas

This is a nice looking house.

Heee smart car.

Okay I like the mom just because she drives one. She's a Smart Witch.

... Then she gets Old White Ladied and witchy bitches at her. Okay I love her now. I hope Old White Lady is the bad guy. She's doing something with yarn, which is not the promised twine from the title, but very possibly is creating a yarn/twine sort of dichotomy for some reason.

Awww Tasha has the twins as her lock screen. "All good?" Alicia asks. Tasha is too busy doing witchy things to answer.

Tentatively assigning her as a Dean mirror since he was the one keeping in contact with Mary at the start of the season, and Max did have a thing for Sam in 12x06, and we should probably just apply the destiel principle that crushes mirror each other.

PURPLE EYES.

I love Tasha even more. I think witchy magic has been coded purple a while - Rowena and Crowley both used stuff with purple effects. Possibly it happened more in witchy Buckleming episodes I didn't pay a whole lot of attention to.

Reminds me the Old White Lady had a purple ring that Tasha commented on.

Randomly a creepy doll in the background. Nephilim-related imagery, because creepy babies, or just a general comment that dolls are creepy. Of course, brings back 2x11 with that hotel, the creepy dolls, and all related issues (Sam having the freak out that he's a monster, can't save anyone, and Dean has to kill him if it comes to that - also unrelated, the "why does everyone assume we're gay" thing - both Tasha and Dean were judged as soon as they walked into the hotels, Dean for being gay, her for being black) which I'll have to remember to stow away the reference to talk about if they are relevant later...

Her pendulum leads her to a basement with the sort of door that looks a LOT like the one most significantly used to keep Sam captive at the start of the season. The fact it reeks is used to show it's evil - you can see the silhouette of witchy herbs hanging from the rafters, but we don't get a good look around.

Also ARGH I got attached and now I hate everything. Poor Tasha >.>

I mean I kind of figured something horrible happening to her would be the cold open but that was unexpectedly more horrible and harsh than I imagined :<

At least the knife was all rusty and gross so probably not a slick BMoL kill.

I suppose the Mary stuff maybe be happening off in a bubble then.

This is why you don't marry your speculation :P

Okay so there was stuff I didn't say last night but wanted to about the scene opening with Dean's hands after the title card. I thought it might be the opening but I wasn't totally sure, and if they used it as a reaction shot that would have been even worse in a way. But we start with Dean wringing his hands, or nervously self-soothing by stroking the knuckles of one hand with the other... We leap right into the middle of a conversation with him and Sam about what Cas did, and Dean's hurt but defending Cas as not being Cas and his decisions being, well, exactly as we all said. Manipulated because the complete turn around on his faith and idea of the nephilim is just too much to credit for being Cas. Dean heard Cas say he has faith and if ANYONE knows how Cas feels about faith, it's Dean, because over 5x16/17 but all of season 5 up to that point in a way as well, they dealt with a joint storyline about faith, and had it shattered together in 5x16, before the conversation in 5x17 about their fathers which is the key Destiel scene in season 5, really.

And it starts with this:

and now we have

And of course this shattering was because of what Joshua said - who is now dead and aside from serving as an example of not marrying your speculation because this is season 12 and Dabb's steering the ship like Willy Wonka taking us into the chocolate river tunnel on the candy boat, he is representative of ALL this stuff about faith that happened with Cas and formed his whole arc, to the point of cold shouldering God at the end of the universe, to repeat myself from doing this last week. Now Dean is mirroring this exact position Cas sat in, which I have to feel serves as a tie back to that moment, if only to show it's part of this story - that Cas had that moment, that Dean witnessed it, bonded with him, tied their lives together over it, and it was a human moment for the both of them in the middle of all the epic apocalypse level shit. Lucifer and armageddon is too much to handle, but absent fathers? Dean knows how to be sympathetic about that :P And so he's got that human moment tying him to Cas's faith arc, which has not substantially changed since it broke back in season 5, except that he's explored his hopelessness and lack of faith from a whole lot of different angles, from trying to be god, to being a human sitting in a church questioning, or trying to pray and feeling disconnected and miserable about it, to refusing to engage with God when he returned.

And for Dean in this moment, mirroring to all that aside, shows how deeply he's involved in Cas's side of this argument that he's not able to represent himself so Dean will speak for him, Dean's feeling hurt and miserable and needing to self soothe. Like 12x18 opening on Cas's answerphone and Dean worrying about him, the first thing on screen is an emotional close up of Dean's hands, his reaction to what Cas did, and basically Destiel immediately into your eyeballs on the word "go". This close up without words really says EVERYTHING about Dean's position in this conversation...

Sam, meanwhile, does NOT want to comment, and the camera switching to his face, shows he's conflicted, miserable, and what Dean is saying is deeply troubling him. He doesn't have a profound bond whatever that's supposed to be with Cas (to dip into his POV for a sec :P) but he is troubled by what Dean is saying. Whether he thinks Dean is putting too much faith in Cas after being screwed over AGAIN and he feels Dean is just going to get hurt and he's making excuses for Cas that go too far, or he got a totally different read of it and feels like he KNOWS Cas has committed to this path and troubling as it is, this is the wrong way to talk about it...

Point is, Sam and Dean have two different perspectives on what's happened, and as usual Dean is powering ahead leading by emotion and also gut instinct and a close understanding of Cas... Sam is being neutral and objective - prepare for the worst, what if Cas really has turned on us, we don't know how he thinks, maybe Lucifer jr really is that persuasive, etc. He says it doesn't make any sense but that means he's NOT wedded to Dean's reading of the situation.

He says they have to think of what Cas might do/think, to try and predict his actions, feeling like there might be a reasonable reading of what is to come and they can base it on past experience of Cas, and they can make a kind of... plot speculation... on what Cas might do next.

Dean however is convinced that Cas is not Cas, and therefore lost to them in the sense of using Cas as a measure to predict his next actions; literally lost to them that it's not Cas in there, but also lost in the sense they can't find him.

Sam deflects to look at their poor melted gun.

Alicia interrupts them with a buzzing phone - they locate one that is presumably Mary's and seems to confirm the Bunker just endlessly charges their phones for them theory, because even with phones bought specifically for great snoozing battery life, when was the last time they saw Mary and how long has that phone been there

I mean this must imply they see her more often than we have seen them interact, and that months have been going by, but they have been out of contact a looong time per the show. This works like the mixtape moment to show that they have more interaction than we know about, but in a harmless, non-romantic way where it just shows she's been in and around the Bunker lately. She won't know it's bugged because that's info the BMoL'd keep from her, but they made a sort of truce after 12x14 and I don't think have interacted since. She hasn't been shown in the Bunker since she left after 12x13/14's argument.

Witch twins!

("Like Max and Alicia?" - Dean knows everyone. I mean yeah he met them but Sam's weird about knowing people or remembering the people they encountered - more of the tiny bit of characterisation where Dean remembers all the hunters and so on that pass through their lives with very little prompting, or can guess something like Claire hanging around working the same case when Sam doesn't. At this point, basically ready to call it a parallel to Cas knowing every angel by their name and face instantly.)

Alicia is weird about Sam answering in a very awkward way that sounds like me on the phone, like, these are the exact noises and tones I make when trying to deal with someone calling/answering I did not expect :P I love her.

Alicia thought that Mary might help - and omg yes. A "we" - "nnuhuh" - "okay I" correction. Yeah, we had one where Dean corrected Sam for saying "we" were happy to have Cas back, but then he "we"'d Cas all the way through the rest of the episode to avoid love confessions, so maybe that got a bit lost or maybe we need a reminder of his hypocrisy about hiding behind that. Max will not let Alicia talk for him. Is Max a good Sam mirror for giving us the "oi don't involve me in this" we needed shouted from off-screen last episode?

Max thinks Tasha is fine, Alicia is freaking out. Aside from involving someone else in all this, the 1x01 parallels would make her Dean and Max Sam as Sam was initially sceptical and Dean was already freaking out before we even met him as an adult, and had come to get Sam specifically for that.

Aaaand then Max says she's being dramatic, and mom's fine, because he's the Sam-est Sam mirror to ever Sam right now, literally using Sam's lines about mom being fine and telling Dean he's dramatic, while Alicia freaks out about their mom.

Dean's like what the hell what about Cas immediately, which now tops some of those season 11 MotW openings where Sam had to wheedle him out of the house and away from researching how to save Cas, to be the no 1 "Dean worried about Cas he's not in this episode but we're gonna have to leave the house for plot formula reasons so this is how we justify it" moment.

I would like to take a moment to remember that some people think that Dean doesn't care about Cas or that the show isn't about Dean liking Cas when we've now had two seasons on the trot where this is the formula for the last half of the season

Anyway they got Jody to help, which means she knows about the mytharc. Woah. Possibly the first time they've ever told her off screen and before she got embroiled in it herself or caught them dealing with the fallout of it :P They really try to protect her from the big stuff, but... Maybe Dean should take her up on the repeated offer to talk if he needs it. Happens so often in episodes by so many different writers that's clearly a Thing that the writers in general are working on including.

Today on direct callbacks to previous things they have said on the show: Sam demonstrates that deep down he's still traumatised by 1x01 to the point of remembering the exact phrasing Dean used to get him out of the house.

Interesting use of it because it's Sam wheedling Dean to get out of the house using someone else's scenario that happens to be the same one that Dean used to get Sam to go with him. I'm thinking of their duty to the next generation of hunters - that legacy they talked about in 12x18, and the sense of what happens next. Them being more community-minded, answering someone else's call to adventure to help them out on the way, with aaaall their experience of what happens when your parent has been on a hunting trip and hasn't come home... And hopefully to help and at the very least reassure and comfort them with something they never had, being so isolated and chasing after John with no experience, no connection to the hunting community, nothing they thought they could rely on. I mean, Bobby was a "shit we're gonna die" last resort because they remembered how John parted with him, and clearly up to that point were worried that they'd get the same reaction.

They want to be Bobby before everything goes to hell for someone else.

Or, well.

Sam does.

In that Sam gets a dog, is the next Bobby, Dean n Cas get married and do their own thing endgame scenario.

(Aaaah)

Jesus we get a shot of Dean where for a moment he holds his head the same angle as in 1x01 (thanks Speight) and he looks the frikkin same as he did in season 1.

I hate his face.

I hate that he spells it Cass.

his recent calls from oldest to newest are Sam Sam Sam Cass Mom Sam, all listed as "yesterday" which for them was the events of 12x19, so I guess the Cas call is where he figured Cas ditched his phone, the Sam ones are filler because Dean and Sam might talk for 17 minutes arguing about what groceries to bring home, but the mom one is listed in his recent calls from "yesterday" that he already attempted to phone her once, apparently immediately after calling Cas and getting no answer. I will take that as him wanting to reach out to his mom because he was upset about Cas >.>

Mittens and I just talked over that it's spring so the fact it was dark in 12x19 doesn't mean it was midnight, so they have time to fit in a lot of panicking if they woke up not long after Cas booped them, especially if they split up to look for them for a bit, hence Dean having called Sam 4 times before midnight.

Anvil heavy parallel about moms in peril and not answering their phones starting with the shapeshifter who they have captured with bolts in it, and in Mary's form, obviously a fake out that Ketch has randomly skipped ahead in the plot and captured Mary and is torturing her. Mary herself is fine, just ignoring her phone while Ketch works over the shapeshifter. We're just left with the unsettling possibility that Mary might stop not answering her phone because she's busy and not answer it because she's in peril.

I'm reminded of 6x10 and Crowley interrogating himself but this is interesting because it's casually using 2 of the same person in the room stuff while Mary isn't even the one confronting herself - because she's avoiding introspection to work with Ketch. Meanwhile Ketch is working "her" over and also talking directly to the shapeshifter Mary to ask her to turn her phone off, in the sort of anger where it sounds like he's asking her.

He has no lines between Mary as she is and a Mary-looking monster he's allowed to hurt. The only reason he's NOT hurting our Mary is because she's still useful to him.

Awww Dean wants her to help. He doesn't mention Asa, just that they're "the witch twins!" because he thinks they're as adorable as I do. Listen to him being a cutie.

And then his voice breaks and he asks her to call him back just to talk because he's upset, and we have him leaning on the table in the library, the room associated with home, and family, and the job but in a good way, with the view of the war room behind him, the dark part of the job, where it's a burden, a war they're drafted into... lurking over him like a thought bubble. Whether they face in or out of that room is important >.>

It also shows Dean being very, very alone, because of course the Mary and Cas parallels are still very much a thing, and as they were set up from 12x03 onward, because they're gone, and this time it's that they're both deliberately not answering for one reason or another, while in the earlier part of the season they were taking personal time, and in the middle of the season they were in it together while Sam and Dean were gone... Then they both get distracted taking on a mission with the BMoL and the nephilim, which were okay-ish but uncomfortable for a while, and now we have it turn on them, I assume 12x19 for Cas and this episode for Mary because yeeesh the use of the shapeshifter.

I suppose it amuses you to take Mary's form.

Ketch says it will do nothing to inspire hesitation. Mary has to watch him say that and then drive a spike into the shifter.

Ooh that was clever use of pronouns - Mary calls the shifter "he" I assume because of how they met it, which draws attention to pronouns... and then Ketch is like "It!" very emphatically.

Also Mary calling it "he" distances from the shape it's currently in. It's not *her* because that's both a pronoun and literally, not her. She sees a difference - Ketch really doesn't, or doesn't care not to.

He also sounds like he "cares" about people, in a sort of repeating my training monsters are bad because they kill people, I'm gonna dexter my way through it and kill monsters and who the BMoL tell me to instead of innocent people... Use them as a moral guide for what's okay to kill, and gives him an abstract idea that there are people who should not be killed. He doesn't CARE and probably WOULD kill them because he doesn't actually have this concept of innocent humanity who should be protected, but it's a rationale from the job to make killing as acceptable as possible for him. Anyway he spouts the justification that the shifter killed people.

It laughs at him looking SUPER evil and creepy. Mary's face has been used a LOT for evil or to say and do horrible things across the years. The last time we saw her before season 12 was as Eve. The time before that, 5x16 when Zach used her image to torture Dean. (I mean I like Eve and think she was good in her own way and only acting as a neutral force that had a separate morality but was a good mom to her monsters... but for the sake of argument, WAS a big bad who wanted to turn all humans into monsters and killed a bunch of people to get there - a literal reverse this year of Mary trying to get RID of all monsters...)

"Your eye twitches when you lie" "My eye twitches all the time" - I mean we're gonna have to go back and watch how many times Ketch winks this season. Anyway the shifter takes his form, and they stare each other down, and like I said about MARY not doing any self-reflecting but only seeing what Ketch might do to her in that? Remember the shifters download memories after they contact people, and Ketch snapped and punched it instead of sticking spikes in it at a careful remove. He's just given the shifter a chance to copy him, and now it can get inside his head too.

Both Ketch and Mary have a visible reaction to this change. Mary is kind of fascinated what happens here - will the shifter betray anything else about Ketch to her?

AAAH it's not using the aaaaccccccccentttttttttttttttt IS THIS DHJ'S ACTUAL VOICE? I HAVE BEEN WONDERING ALL YEAR

"Well I guess I know aaall about you."

Ketch just smirks and takes another spike.

Nyoooom

mountains and laaaakes

Max sits on the bench like Sam does

"Anything else?" "I got the bartender's phone number" *grin*

*Sam parallel comes screeching to a halt* *turns into Dean parallel suddenly when it's about picking dudes up*

Also... gender neutral bartender pronoun. As far as on screen conversations go, Dean does not know Max is gay which is gonna amuse me as long as this lasts :P

Uh but also they tracked their mom by asking around at the vegan restaurant because of course she's a vegan. She drives a smart car. This is like the dead opposite of finding John's grimy motel room full of abandoned burger wrappers

Okay no I unpaused and Max complimented the car specifically to Dean and Dean offered him a tour. Pls.

They disappear off and Sam stays behind to have the Serious Conversation with Alicia - like, Max and Dean having a chill conversation in the background about cars is the reason to separate them off for the real stuff

Okay first we get some more grenade baiting.

Anyway Max seems to know their mom better - which is a Dean thing, that he THOUGHT he knew her better, even if he's still arguing from the 'she's fine' Sam position - because they have more in common, both being natural witches.

And Alicia has no magic, even though they're the "witch twins" which, ouch. "Magic is definitely their thing" but she's always getting lumped in as being a witch or associated with them. If we take that as a family business season 1 parallel, Sam was the outsider there to Dean and John at least to start with, because Dean had been hunting those missing years, on his own or with John, and was immediately picking up the burden of "saving people hunting things" and cajoling Sam onto the track - which took until John's death and 2x02 to get a real change on but then of course it was in reaction to grief, though Sam had chosen family in 1x22, it all gets messed up by John's death... Less a victory and more something that alarms Dean about Sam's coping methods :P Anyway Dean in season 1 was firmly family business coded, and Sam was dragged along with it while he had personal reasons to be on the revenge mission, but initially little interest in the family business. I mean the whole point that Dean had to give him the saving people hunting things speech in the first place was this.

fffffffffffff Sam just confirmed this analysis for me so take that as a deeper explanation on why he said exactly this and thinks John and Dean had a greater bond over hunting. I don't think Dean and John necessarily had more of a "bond" than him and Sam because that "spent it on ammo" conversation, but Dean was definitely closer to the JOB than Sam.

LOL "what about with Mary"

Awwwkward

Sam mumbles something which explains metaphorically Mary's absence all their lives, and how she acts now, and does NOT give a personal relationship kind of answer in the same way as talking about their bonds and relationships for all the other dynamics.

"Not a great hugger" though - the only thing Sam and Mary HAVE is that hug in 12x02. Puts it in stark relief how that's ALL they shared.

Sam uses the power of awkwardness to further the case. Incredible. he's finally harnessed it. The weirdo guy who came out the basement and possibly killed Tasha but is blatantly connected since he was just in there so must know something or other, just kinda stares at them. Sam gives him a super awkward wave, the sort that can be the only answer to awkward staring, and the man does not break and seem at all empathetic to the by now CRUSHING awkwardness of this scene, merely turns and walks off. Sam being a goober proved that there was something shady about this guy. I'm just... yeah. Brilliant application of characterisation. No one exploits Sam's awkwardness and it's RIGHT THERE for the taking :D

Tasha pulls a knife, storms into the hotel and is met by the adorable desk guy, holding flowers, butter wouldn't melt in his mouth etc

oooh dear, Tasha has her shirt half-tucked in, which is how Mary's been wearing just about everything this year. We've seen it so many times on her, that I can't help but read it as another reference.

Also hi Tasha but wtf you're supposed to be dead?

Also are you the same actress who was making out with Asa? I forgot to check earlier. *goes to re-watch his Up montage*

Nah, I don't think it's the same actress, although I still guess she could be the younger self of Tasha, since it was however long ago the twins are old, we'd have to assume.

Mittens keeps screeching to me about mirrors flipping, so I guess this is a formal note that all the stuff I was talking about earlier about not marrying speculation and how Dabb era is a totally wild ride where it yanks expectations out from under your feet is a thing being very very deliberately applied here by the show. They built up a Max > Sam, Alicia > Dean, Tasha > John backstory, but once Max said he hit on the bartender, we suddenly get Max > Dean, Alicia > Sam, Tasha > Mary thing going on.

As I was talking about 2x02, Sam and Dean flipped roles there. And in season 10 onwards we had a Sam is the new Dean theme going on where THEY flipped a ton of symbolic roles. It still happens from time to time depending on what themes you're looking at - swapping back to try out a theme on the other brother.

Max is snarky about Tasha being in peril, after i over-used that word >.>

Wine! Dean hasn't got to have wine since they were hanging out being fancy with Jody in 11x12

oh my GOD Alicia "we"s the anxiety over Tasha and gets corrected by Max AGAIN for using "we" intead of "i"

The room has a wood pattern all over the wall which reminds me of 3x10 but also the fairy episode

Tahsa says her phone wasn't charging which just amuses me that Mary left one of her phones and it was fully charged to get the call from Alicia

Okay that was gross. Is Tasha an actual zombie now? I guess being dead makes you fragile or something because there's no way a normal hand dislocates like that opening wine. I guess you're more brittle or something???

She is dead, right?

Is this zombie wine

Dean is holding his wine glass like an animal. Dude.

Sam goes to get their vegan food and Dean helps himself to a free top up of the zombie wine. I detect a faint note of 5x15 and Karen Singer's zombie pie - Dean being given treats by a dead mother figure and helping himself happily... Of course back then they knew something was wrong as soon as they got into town.

They should have heard the snapping of fingers because honestly I can make my joints pop loud enough to hear across the room, surely relocating your entire finger like that is even louder, as per the revolting sound effects?

I wonder why she's keeping it from them - I feel like this maaay be a Cas parallel to the mind control or whatever he's under now, that it's showing her behaving somewhat to totally normally, except for the parts where she's shifty about whats's happened to her. Is it a trap? Aside from lack of communication she did nothing to draw them there, they just stumbled onto her. She knows something's up with her but why is she hiding it? Is she totally lost and this is what's left of her, or is she changed, concerned but not sharing out of protecting them?

Ew killing things turns Ketch on - confirmed. >.> I mean not that that's a hard reach to make but it's very very clear now when he just asks her outright for sex because he's pumping with adrenaline now >.>

Mary having Ketchy second thoughts. Talking back to him way too easily as she tries to call him out for too much torture fun.

"That shifter was never going to betray his family" oo-er themes of family betrayal then.

"Sometimes pain works" You're really scary, you know.

Mary reveals she NEVER saw that side of Ketch before - the side that enjoys torturing. She's been missing the signs all along then, but what can you do about it :P She wanted to believe this was going to be a good thing.

He immediately says she's not going to become the Jiminy Cricket of the BMoL - of course, Dean already has volunteered that work to souless!Sam in season 6, and there are more than enough parallels to the scary work they do to the Campbells or how Souless!Sam acted towards hunting, with again that very unnerving idea of why they do the job - saving people as a sort of abstract idea or goal, while Dean will cry for random humanity that he's never met but he knows will suffer/have suffered.

Anyway Ketch fobs her off on Mick, who won't answer... He's just using her for as long as he can get work out of her until he has to kill her, and obviously seeing the signs this isn't going to last much longer if she's starting to question "ends justify the means"... I assume he tells her to call Dean as a way to let her say goodbye if he was compassionate - or to put one more phone call between them and the length of time it takes for Dean to realise she hasn't answered for weeks and run riot on the BMoL to find out what happened to her. If she checks in, he just thinks she doesn't love him and goes weeks without talking to him, and buys Ketch literal weeks before her not answering becomes a problem for Dean aside from the obvious trauma :P And Mick is also giving the illusion there's a higher up authority who cares/the human face of the faceless terrifying organisation, which, of course, he's killed off. It's JUST him there and the random heavies they've hired.

Dean checking his messages - nothing from Cas or Mary

He must be at that part of drinking wine where you get moody

Tasha also says he must be drunk and Dean's like pfft on wine so I think he's going to get unexpectedly sloshed because wine can really hit you if you're not expecting it even if you drink a lot reguarly :P

Max is trying to talk Alicia into letting him take the jeep to go hook up with the bartender, I guess, and Alicia is having none of it.

Dean gets into a deep conversation about parenting with Tasha, which can do nothing to make him feel good because his hunter mom has been not answering his calls, while he sees love and support here, stuff like "always call on day 4 of a hunt" for example.

Dean gets to field the question about where Mary was when they were being raised - her death portrayed by both Sam and Dean now as complicated, a situation of her being absent which sort of implies intent. Selling it this way for lack of awkwardness is exactly the problem I have with writing her in an unnamed terrible AU of mine, because now to match her current characterisation but where you can't kill her off for 30 years, she has to turn out to be a pretty flaky parent and mirror the season 12 characterisation all the way down the line. Like, what, she just got depressed and disappeared on them or something?? How do you handle her coming back into their lives, or the contact she would or wouldn't have had with them? Her death becomes negligence when you have to pretend she's been in their lives the entire time instead of dead, because both Sam and Dean are caught out speaking of their lives as if Mary was never there, because she WASN'T.

I don't know if the blame will actually fall on her or not but I think there's a hell of a lot of resentment they were never allowed to feel that their lives were this way and Mary made a deal and kicked it all off for them... sure greater circumstances, blah blah apocalypse was fated and the demons and angels both would do anything to ensure that... But on a human level, on a family level, it begins with Mary's deal. Her absence was still an accidental death but it happened. And now she's back, being a flaky, complicated parent with huge absences they have to explain when writing an AU of their lives where she didn't die to avoid explaining it... It sounds bad >.>

(I am of course fully on Mary's team and loving it, but for Sam and Dean's positive development, addressing this blame to Mary and bringing her to a level where they can DARE express it is a great goal to aim for here >.>)

"Parents always seem smart and strong and perfect. It's only when you grow up that you realise they're just people."

That is what Dean has needed to hear since well, ever

Mary finally listens to Dean's message, and looks deeply concerned. But being in Ketch's vicinity ruins her chance to deal with it. Dean coincidentally calls her right then, and she has to hang up because drama

Mick kindly lets Mary know he's going to be gone a few more weeks. Does that mean Ketch is buying a few more weeks where Mary isn't suspicious? He's dragging out killing her if he was supposed to do it already. You can say bugging the bunker was tactical because Sam and Dean might be dangerous enemies and at the very least you need to learn their patterns if you're going to attack.

But Mary's like, right here.

I sort of feel like the vegan food thing is dangerously close to zombie!Tasha snapping and eating someone. Just... they are really making a deal out it :P

gosh creepy cellar guy is creepy no way

Dean no don't leave your phone unattended while going to go investigate

I mean, Mary potentially calling you aside, that's leaving yourself stupidly vulnerable to not having a phone on you if crap goes down

Oh, there's the creepy twine

And the twigs

brrrr

knew she was evil

it was the wool that tipped me off

I have a question. That has bothered me almost the entire show. They always use "dean's other OTHER cell" answerphone but is that just his main phone these days and the main no. is like one of his generic work phones they keep in the glove compartment (the "batphone") and... what. I mean I know they use the recording because it is useful to show someone's tried calling all 3 of his phones, but it implies Dean constantly has up to 3 phones on him and he leaves them all behind. So are all the messages on the other OTHER phone all going to the one he leaves in the car, in the Bunker, the emergency one he sews into the lining of his coat, what?

I mean it always seems to imply they're missing the call on the phone Dean keeps on him at all times, e.g. his main phone, the one we'd casually think of us "our phone" if it was ours, and all the others are emergency work related ones somehow or other. If the one he plays words with friends on is his other OTHER cell, why on earth is it the 3rd resort number phone as per his answerphone message? Or is it just a friend privilege to know that other OTHER cell is the one he's most likely to answer first?

Oh dear the "I love you" message is always the one that is really portentous that Mary's gonna be in trouuuble. That's what Dean only gets to hear at the end of the episode and by then we know something dreadful has happened to her.

"Ugh, smells like death" - didn't need to know that. Also how does it not seep out further than this.

Little bit worried that Max has excused himself and the bartender he's going to go hook up with is at the vegan restaurant (which has a bar apparently). I mean I'm just going off the endlessly relevant 9x05 and what Dean said about the source of all evil being at a vegan restaurant.

Also it's split him and Alicia up and at the moment Alicia's alone with Tasha, who is, well... signs don't point to very well :P

Oh cripes we're only halfway through the episode so I may be speculating as if it's a short MotW but we also have to splice it with the Mary stuff...

ew dead people and oh noooo the poor perky hotel clerk

Tasha noooo

She looks really dead.

Oh no, Max.

She was not fine after all :<

Meanwhile Mary

isn't this the exact same room you were knocked out in last time you couldn't trust someone working with the BMoL

Wait that coffin sized box was MICK okay that's horrible

Also weirdly paralleling what Max just found with his mom. It's dead body discovery time. At least that sort of defuses the Mary anxiety for a moment - Max found Tasha and Mary finds Mick.

Need to know the rest of the episode to comment on what this means for Mary and Cas... Doesn't look good that this is a copy but then if it's not Tasha but transformed, but something entirely other using her heart... well, Cas's heart has been hijacked to be used in defence of the nephilim it seems... Mary is in danger of losing her heart? Which is Sam and Dean?? Who knows

stop speculating mid-episode Lizzy

Oh dear, they have the demon!Dean Gas n Sip murder footage as Dean's picture on the wall. Also Garth (eep only one not to be in the season... so far...) Eileen, Claire, Dean, Mary and Sam... Eileen and Claire, the Winchesters basically lead them to, and Garth they only had to namedrop before they got some intel enough to give him a screen.

Mary Winchester - Age: 63 - SEE FILE NOTES

FILE: "WTF"

they have garth's naked CCTV footage from 9x12!

Claire confirmed to be 20, also I recognise that pic of her and I'm not sure where from but I have a weird feeling 10x20 and they're just reusing it as some CCTV footage

Eileen they have somehow got footage of her on the case in 11x11. Hrm. I suppose CCTV again and they've gone deep but they did encounter her much more recently than that and could have found out her more recent movements a bit more easily :P

Oh dear, Ketch knew she was in there. He probably stood patiently out there knowing she'd have to open the door sooner or later and what better way to get the element of surprise :P

Well that hastens their confrontation

"A werewolf shot him in the head" "it's not impossible"

I mean, Sam got shot by a werewolf just this time-ish last year

*loud yelling about the fight* AAAH MARY

She's getting knocked around so much I can TELL she's a Winchester. Wall slams for Dean and head trauma for Sam. It's genetic. And she is a vicious fighter herself as we've known since 4x03, but I mean, she once fist fought an angel :P

She breaks his arm like Dagon broke Dean's which is a weird parallel until you consider Dagon is the ultimate dark Mary mirror in a season concerned with mothers - she, Mary and Kelly make a weird collection except that motherhood links them. And Ketch of course is the dark Dean mirror. So good Dean gets arm broke by bad Mary, and good Mary breaks bad Dean's arm.

Ketch is going full villain monologue

He offers her protection if she just plays her part - and plays nice. Look, mate, I just watched 9x18 in the last couple of hours and am still hyped up about Metatron being the best thing that ever happened on the show, so you're kind of failing there :P But the "play your part" thing is something they're told all the time, especially in season 5 because TFW namedrop and 5x08 and all. Now Mary has a threat to HER free will - to become, well, the thing I wrote about in A World Without Monsters after 12x14 - Ketch's passive wife who does what he says and goes where he wants, who dresses her up in expensive clothes and keeps her at his side like a trophy >.>

God I'm just so amused at the directors these last 2 episodes. Naomi directs Cas having his agency taken away, and Gabriel directing Mary being told to play her part.

Mary doesn't play nice :D

I can't believe he didn't think the brass knuckles would work on him. Like, they're SO caught up in all their fancy technology and all their ways of doing things, that they forget the practical resourceful side >.>

The not-quite line about not being an angel was hilarious though.

I mean the BMoL HAVE been paralleled to Heaven all season but... Well, brass knuckles are brass knuckles

Ketch "wins" the fight with cheating after Mary utterly destroys and emasculates him

I really love Mary

ALSO MAX IS GREAT. Look at him chucking a guy through a window!

Everyone has glowing eyes - the stick people have white eyes. It's very similar to the original flavour nephilim eyes from 8x22, which were just a bit more golden. And angels have nearly white eyes but more blue when they glow. Pure white is associated with Alastair and Lilith, but theirs were kind of sick demonic eyes, while these are very obviously an inner glow of magic taking over them. The fact it's a taking over effect makes me even more certain the twig mom is a parallel to Cas.

Oh! Soul eater had white eyes for its possessed people (aka Dean) in 11x16. Nice.

Also Max and Dean have paired off while Alicia and Sam are dealing with twig mom.

I know this has all been pretty instinctive running around but I like that the story chose to put Dean and Max in one place and Sam and Alicia in another.

At this point the line between "stressed about Cas" and "my boyfriend has been abducted by Lucifer's unborn child" put Deaan in sketchy grounds for a hook up and also Max is an acquaintance, someone in the life, which makes it more real, so sadly I can not root for them to hook up. But I do approve them being parallels and working together :P

Also Max was gonna go on his date but got distracted onto the case again and found out the truth - as Dean often does because him going to the bar is almost always a motivator to actually finding out vital info or getting dragged into things.

The stick people are terrifying. I'd love a longer episode about them.

Set them on fire. usually works.

(I'm hiding behind my fingers so no typing)

Aaaah the witch wants someone to take her magic?? Max don't do it! If you think it will save your mom it's not worth going to hell foooor you're already a good witch without it!!

Oh god Dean can see this too but MAX

Oh god

*reaches for him through the screen*

MAX SAID NO

Good, don't get into the Winchester's cycles. She's gone, she's just a memory now. >.>

(AAAAH not thinking about what other symbolism yeeeet)

OH NO SHE'S MAKING THE OFFER AGAIN

MAX YOU BETTER SAY NO AGAIN

ALICIA NO

Oh god Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaax

THERE IS TOO MUCH SCREAMING TO BE DONE WHO DO I SCREAM FOR FIRST?

I'M NOT DONE SCREAMING ABOUT ANYTHING

Oh god Dean saved his mirror but Sam's got a stabbed, dying Alicia to deal with

And Dean saving Max from going down a bad bad bad bad mark of cain looking path means Max may lose his entire family (although Tasha was already lost, let's be real, taking a doll home of her is as unrealistic and painful as a happy ending as Linda taking home Kevin's ghost)

Welp, they're all dead except poor old Max, who thought everything was fine and he was gonna go out and get laid, and instead his entire family died >.>

And he got to watch his mom die in excruciating detail

He wishes he'd just listened to his sister when she was trying to tell him she was worried. Hm.

Sam has said both Mary and Cas are fiiine this year, and Cas is now, well, a stick person, and Mary has has the BMoL thing bite her in the ass, so that's all going great. >.>

nyooom (over the same stretch of road as they were driving in the opposite direction to get to California... Uh.)

(I giffed it in the last couple of weeks while layering snarky captions over the background, I'm not that weird :P)

Oh no "You saved him" "he didn't look saved"

But letting him do a demon deal to keep his family alive? Nope. Sometimes you have to let it go

"Happy family - the kind we should have had"

well that's not massively depressing after they both had to explain their family history with no Mary in it to someone else

Whoopsie he went and picked up the ring

right as Sam was saying they couldn't let him do a deal for his soul

"we do terrible things all the time to save each other - that's what you do for family"

it's kind of horrifying this is the lesson about family they've learned, when it's the whole new better ways thing that's basically trying to find ways out of having to do this for each other, even while Mary and Cas are busy doing terrible things for their family >.>

Maybe the horror of thinking another set of siblings would be as dumb as them about saving each other is enough of an objective viewpoint to make them think about it.

Meanwhile, Max. Going and doing an actual demonstration of what not to do in the case of grief, when you know there's a magic spell out there that will make it all better.

She's his twig sister now

You can get all philosophical about it but in this world it depends on where the soul is or isn't. He has her heart and her memories... Did any of the other missing people act soulless? None of them really did - they were just under the witch's thrall when she needed them to be. I think she's not functionally human, but she is functionally living... The real bad part is not what she has transformed into, but that Max now has her under his thrall. Even if he NEVER uses that power, he HAS the capability to, and he's on a moral slide now, having made the choice to resurrect his sister using the dark witchy powers.

Kind of horrifying once you think about it, that it probably WAS for all intents and purposes, Tasha that they were talking to until the witch made her turn on them.

But yeah I think Dean read when Max was telling them to leave that he might do it - because Dean knew he would do it, or would have done it, in the same circumstance. He's worried and tends to know. He knows how hurt Max is, and like, "I'm not so sure" about Max being alright.

Max taking the journal also reminds me of Sam in 3x15 - if Dean hadn't stopped him, he'd have taken the creepy doc's journal and used its power to keep Dean alive at any cost - even having seen what a Frankenstien's monster that turned the doc into

Finally, Dean listens to his messages, and aside from an eyeroll about mentioning Ketch, takes the first message okay

but then...

we have a problem

... uh, why won't Sam wake up

Lol, Mary's in the exact same chair that the shapeshifter was in what a surpriiiise

Oh the grey suits messed me up, I thought that was Ketch.

Toni comes out of the same corner that Mary was lurking in hiding behind her own shapeshifter while they were making you think that that was Mary in the chair.

I guess the Mary stuff was just escalating the tension and moving on the plot while mirroring here and there what was going on - she and Cas are main plot things with their two sides of the story, so they are what the other stuff mirrors... I think the twig control thing is obvious enough for the nephilim control - not an exact thing because Cas presumably isn't dead, though the heart detail is interesting when Cas - "too much heart" etc, and the season 8 stuff where heart imagery was liberally splashed around and connected to him because of that line. But the partial control, the sense of self outside of anything relating to the control - the obliviousness to what HAS happened, like Alicia leaving her own dead body behind. I still feel like Cas might not necessarily think that he's been controlled. And that he's just himself, as Tasha did when they confronted her, and as Alicia does as she walks out the door, more concerned about the blood on her brother's hands without realising it's her own. (Symbolic.)

And then they parallel Sam and Dean but back and forth - some parts Sam some parts Dean. Max's final action, Dean says they've both done terrible things, and so Max stands for them both, mirroring things like 3x15 and Gadreel just for starters, never mind selling his soul to get his sister back, as Dean did and Sam tried to do. So it's really the social stuff which is interesting (Max's Dean-like behaviour, but Sam-like attitude to his family being fine, and Alicia's reflection on family getting some needed vocalisation of how Sam feels about it all, and the thing about hugging and all...)

Kind of wish we had more of the twig people but we had to fit in all the Mary stuff and she was brilliant this episode. I've been waiting for someone to get in a few good hits on Ketch and that fight was brutal, and let Mary get bloody and fight dirty, which was great...

In conclusion: AAAAAAAAAAAAAH

#12x20 #season 12 spoilers #my stuff #asdkfjfghhs lkdfj s ????/gfd #yockey fanclub

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