#rubys spn watchthrough of doom

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Fuck, the moment Cas makes that deal with The Empty. It's like he knows exactly what The Empty is referring to, like he knows exactly what's gonna happen.

In a way, The Empty is almost like the showrunners. The anti-destiel execs. Consume it all, leave nothing behind. You can have happiness, but for just a moment, so I can torture you by taking it all away.

I wonder if that parallel-- the execs and the Empty-- was intentional. Like the writers knew this was the only way they'd let it happen.

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This is CW'S Supernatural. To me.

Folks have got to understand that they probably aren't messed up by some Secret Big Trauma that they just can't remember; but rather by a million tiny microtraumas that they do mostly remember but don't even register as traumatic because nobody actually understood that these things would cause trauma, much less stack on each other over the years.

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Supernatural S7 E12 "Time After Time"

Dean goes back to 1944 thanks to Time God Chronos

Back to November 5th, 1944

Chronos says Sam and Dean's futures are "covered in thick, black ooze." Referring to Leviathans

But he looks at Dean when he said it. And the way Cas went out...

Y'all this show cannot be real. Wtf. Too many coincidences

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i finished supernatural. here's some thoughts on the end.

I'm a fan of tragedies, okay? Call me a sick motherfucker, I can appreciate a sad ending. So when I kept hearing about the way supernatural was supposed to end, I thought, "Maybe it's just a tragic ending?" The start of season 15 seemed to reaffirm that, since it basically said "there will not be a happy ending for these characters."

Boy was I wrong.

There's two points that rub me the wrong way:

Destielgate

No one ever told me that half a speech before the "I love you," Cas says this:

The one thing I want… it's something I know I can't have. But I think I know-- I think I know now. Happiness isn't in the having. It's in just being. It's in just saying it.

To me, with how heavy the metanarrative is within season 15, this felt like the writers saying: "we know these characters can't get a happy ever after. but we can at least say their feelings explicitly. we can make it real, for a moment. we can give you canon."

So then to learn that, in the translations, the line after "I love you" got changed to "I love you too" based on what may have been an earlier script? To find out that somewhere along the way, Dean's line of reciprocation, his chance for "being" and "just saying it" was robbed of him? It feels criminal.

Like, I'm a lover of tragedies. If Dean and Cas didn't get a happy ever after together but it was explicit to the audience that they loved each other but couldn't be together? I would have eaten it up! But it's not that. Because Dean's words, the one thing he could have gotten, were stolen from him.

2. Dean's death

Dean died in a moment of absolute character regression. We spent 15 fucking seasons watching him grow out of "Prime Directive: Save Sammy" into a person who can care about his own life and feel like he has a purpose outside of saving his brother. And in his dying breaths, he makes his brother promise that he'll be okay?

It's not just that, too. It's the way that Dean is okay with not having that normal life he always craved. Remember that? How he used to dream of a life with kids and no more hunting, up until season 6-ish when he had that but watched it be ripped away from him because of his need to protect his brother? And how he morphed into saying "I'm going to die fighting" after that, like some kind of mantra that would make him feel okay with it if he just said it enough?

He almost, almost, cut that crap in the end. The scene where he's trading blows with Sam moments before Jack is supposed to kill Chuck in 15x17, he begs Sam to let him kill Chuck because he "can't keep doing this." He can't keep fighting, keep hunting. In that moment we see again a Dean who craves a normal life, and who is so damn close to getting it.

And you're telling me that this guy was okay with dying a hunter? Sure, just erase 15 seasons of character progression.

Again, I. Love. Tragedies. If he had died a hunter but in his final breaths told Sam that he regretted it, that he wanted a normal life, made Sam promise to go get his own normal life? I would have LOVED it. It would have made Sam's ending make more sense than him promising his brother he'll keep fighting and then seeing him basically quit hunting to settle down.

So the show forgot itself, and network censorship seems to have gotten in the way. These were the things that killed Dean Winchester.

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honestly season 14 went wild with the metanarrative. it feels like a punching bag for the network censorship.

"Byzantium" (e8) where The Empty says he'll kill Cas when he finally allows himself to be happy (which we directly know is when Cas lets himself love Dean).

"Nihilism" (e10) where Billie says that the only ending for Dean is something that could be considered torture or suicide, depending on how you look at it. (Plus the earlier seasons with Billie, where she puts a stop to the constant resurrections and tries to make their deaths final).

"Moriah" (e20) where Chuck comes back to call Sam and Dean's lives his "favorite show" and it's basically revealed that he doesn't let them be happy, ever, because he enjoys watching their suffering. And when they fight back against that-- because all of these characters have had their moments of yearning for a happy, normal life-- Chuck say's he's tearing it all down and heralds in the final season.

It's all giving me this big message: "The Powers that Be don't want these characters to be happy."

And damn, if that wasn't exactly what was going on behind the scenes . . .

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"Sam's been running into burning buildings since he was, what, 12?"

That's Bobby's line to Dean in S5E21 "Two Minutes to Midnight," when he's trying to convince him to let his brother say "Yes" to Satan and jump into the firey pit.

He's been running into burning buildings since he was a tween, but Dean's been pulling him out of them since Sam was six months old.

That's their dynamic, at least for these first five seasons. Sam runs into a burning building (dies), Dean pulls him out (trades his own life to get him back). It's the one order of John's he's followed above all else. It's also the trust form of his need to keep his family safe, to not lose another one like he lost Mary.

And now he has to stand back and watch Sam run into the flames again

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Okay supernatural rewatch season 1 recap

It strikes me on rewatch that Dean isn't just the golden child. He's parentified into taking care of Sam, literally carrying him out of the burning building.

And even though it's Yellow Eyes speaking in s22, what he tells Dean when pretending to be John about Dean being the one that holds the family together rings true. Dean tries desperately for most of S1 to keep Sam and John from fighting each other.

I think I always falsely compared Dean to John, because he was the one taking orders like a good solider. But the meta commentary in E22 is right; Sam is more like John, because they both can get a little more obsessed. Dean cares about his family more, but the way he shows it looks twisted. He's not hunting in S1 because he's obsessed with the hunt or feels like he can make a difference; he's hunting because he thinks it will make John happy

Look at the way John and Dean have conflicting priorities in the end of E22. Dean's been obsessed with killing the demon that killed Mary same as everyone in this season. But the second it means losing a member of his family, he turns

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Okay I'm on s1e10 and a few things have struck me

This show is SO desaturated

Mary telling Sam "I'm sorry" in s1e9 is so much sadder when you know that she knew about the supernatural all along and hid it from her family

When I first watched this show, I identified a lot with Sam. He's an academic trying to live a normal life out from under the thumb of his dad; it echoed a lot of my issues with my mom. At the time, I thought Dean was a dumb jerk. But now I see Dean's own dad issues. How he was never good enough for John, either. How him following his dads orders was his way to try to find attention and love. It's heartbreaking.

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it amazes me how much Dean's description to Cas of what it's like to have Michael locked in his head (s14 e14) sound exactly like someone dealing with chronic pain. the way he makes light of it, the way he pushes on through. the concern from Cas that he brushes off. Like honestly replace "there's an archangel who wants to destroy the world locked in my head" with "chronic migraines" and we're tehre

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New year same watchthrough of supernatural, in which I try to rewatch the entire show between when my senior year started in August and when I will graduate in May. These are my thoughts

For season 8: a lot of it is Benny and the word of God tablets. Benny, I feel, is notable, not just as a gay experience for Dean but because he represents Dean making peace with monsters and, to some extent, the monster inside himself. That's important for s9

Speaking of s9: wow, a definite continuation of the upswing after the s6 disappointment.

The Abbadon storyline is useful for giving us the men of letters and making the Winchesters not literally homeless anymore, but the fight with Crowley is kinda meh. I guess it sets precedent for the later power struggles though

Metatron is kinda cringe writing wise, but it's actually well done because of it. It feels like metatron himself wrote that plot line.

Cas and the stolen grace is a lot. Gadreel is there to kind of model Redemption for him after his failed attempt of stealing back the symbolic representation of his good guy status: the thing that literally makes him an angel. Also lots of really big "Cas is gay for Dean" vibes at the end of the season with TWO times that other angels make it clear Cas is risking it all to save Dean's life specifically.

And finally, my beloved, the Mark of Cain arc. Holy shit. This is such a good revisit of the things we barely started to explore in the original 5 season arc with Dean's literal inner demons. Like he clearly struggled for a long time coping with a fact that he almost became a demon torturing souls down in hell, that he broke a Seal doing so. But for him to recover for a couple seasons only for Crowley to literally press a new blade, push him to be a remorseless killer, push him to fall into being the thing the Mark-- and the demons torturing him-- wanted him to be? Holy fuck its so good. Always reminds me of the Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge storyline

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For me, s5e8 "Changing Channels" really hammers home how many alternative parallels there are between Dean and the various angels

The show does a lot of work to emphasize the most obvious parallel: Dean is like Michael, the solider defending an absent father.

But in this episode Gabriel is like Dean: he just wants to see his family stop fighting. It's a perfect parallel of every interaction up until this point (mostly in s1) when John, Sam, and Dean are in the room: John and Sam are at each other's throats, and Dean is caught in the middle of their buffer and wants them to quit.

And also s4e22 "Lucifer Rising" Cas is is like Dean, because Dean tells him he can't be a soldier following orders because he needs to choose the morally right path. It mirrors s1e21-22 "Salvation Army" and "Devil's Trap" when Dean deviates from John's orders to hunt and kill Yellow Eyes to keep his family together.

And the look Cas gives Gabriel at the end of this episode? Like "do you see what I mean? He's right. We can learn from him."

So much of the first three seasons was spent on Dean breaking his ties from being John's soldier and leaning more into what he wants: a normal life, keeping his family alive and together. So much of his s4 and s5 interactions with angels are parallels to that character arc, him imparting this lived wisdom on Cas and Gabriel.

So to hear that Dean dies hunting? After all of that? I think his storyline is a true Tragedy.

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The Smith & Wessen surnames in "It's a Terrible Life" HAHA

In all seriousness this episode's significance to Dean's character as he contrasts with Sam....

Sam is eager to go to a life of hunting monsters. Maybe it's the moral boost, as he justifies. Maybe it's the obsession (a very John-like trait). Maybe it's the demon blood. But he's happy to go back, happy with the monster hunting life. Think of when, in the wishing well episode, Sam admitted that he no longer dreamed of the lawyer life because he loves hunting monsters with his brother.

Dean resists the pull to go back. He doesn't want it. But he's drawn back in anyways. Why? It feels more like fate and duty compared to Sam's sheer desire. Compare Dean in this episode to the end of Season 1, when he wants to give up hunting Yellow Eyes just to keep his family intact.

Dean craves normalcy. That's why his jinn dream was normal life with Mary and Sam. That's why his dream in the other episode is life with the Lisa and the kid. But he never gets the normalcy. His duty is to be his father's soldier. His duty is to protect his brother. His duty is to break the first seal. His duty is to be Michael's vessel. And on and on.

It's really quite tragic that he never gets what he wants

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OKAY I finished season 3 and I have thoughts The Bella arc is literally my favorite. I just love a thief Okay It's very clear to me that Dean and Bella could have had a thing (and if we never got Cas, I would be rooting for her). Like she was completely set up to be his love interest. The way she was damaged in the same way as Dean, using lighthearted humor to deflect (the "they were lovely people" right after the flashback implying her parents were abusive killed me). And they literally had the same problem with the hellhounds. It just wasn't meant to be, because she's like Dean and wanted to fix everything herself or kill herself trying (Interestingly, there were 3 wincest jokes across seasons 1 and 2 but there's none in the season with Dean's first major love interests who show up in more than one episode: Lisa and Bella. I wonder if this is when the showrunners caught wind of wincest and decided to deflect?) As far as show thoughts... this era of the show is still pretty well written. I mean sure Sam and Dean have collectively cheated death 3 times and are halfway through attempt 4, but they actually have coherent character motivations and I can see how they're being pushed towards the big Michael v Lucifer showdown. They're also pretty equally the main character at this point, as there's a solid push and pull between Dean facing down death and Sam facing the dormant monster inside of him. I'd say things lean a bit more towards Dean in the latter half of s3, but I know we get a huge dose of Sam in the coming seasons when he starts drinking blood, so it makes sense

Anyways I'm gonna watch Lazarus Rising with @imgood-andyou tomorrow. Maybe I'll live react to it

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you know what's wild? Cas signs his death warrant in s14 e8 when he makes a deal with the Empty to let him take his soul when he finally lets himself feel happiness.

And two episodes later, where we see Dean's dreams for happiness (Cas and Sam on a hunting trip, old friends back alive, and Dean running a bar, because he no longer dreams of being a mechanic like his father), Dean gets his own death sentence handed to him by Billie: one possible ending where Michael doesn't escape his mind to raze the Earth to the ground.

Literally these two characters having their fates decided a season and a half before the end.

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There's something about end of season 13 / beginning of season 14 . . . I just feel Jensen and Misha's presence more in their characters. It's not that they're out of character. Sure, this isn't Peak Cas or Peak Dean, but they're still themselves. The characters just feel matured. There's an agency here.

Like, Dean is actively going through a loss of agency and getting pulled back into the s1-5 plot with Michael, but there's a set in his shoulders, a mellowness that wasn't there before.

Idk how to describe it exactly. But it's nice.

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Mary's first 3 episodes back, the first 3 episodes of season 12, fuck me up so much. You're Mary Winchester, and you were dead-- you missed your children growing up, missed Sammy's first word and Dean's first day of school and their birthdays and Christmases for almost 30 years.

Your husband, the love of your life and father of your children, is dead. He's dead, and you're alive. He died because of your death. He died chasing down the thing that killed you, a demon you made a bad deal with. He died because of you. He became a hunter-- joined the life you swore off, that you thought was too dangerous.

He raised your children to join that life, too. They tell you that it's their 'family business,' that they love this life, that they wouldn't have it any other way. Your babies have grown up to be strangers.

You feel like you've stepped into the worst timeline. You now have to grieve your husband, grieve the life you didn't get to have, grieve the life your husband and children didn't get to have. And then the rest of her arc this season--

She finds out her husband and children aren't the only lives she dragged into hunting. There's Asa, too, and how many others did she accidentally inspire to take up a rock salt gun and a silver knife?

And then a man comes to you and says he can rid your country of monsters. With your help, there will be no more things that go bump in the night. With your help, there will be no more things to hunt. With your help, there could be a world without hunting, without the need to become a hunter. And how could you say no, after watching so many people get dragged into hunting when they could have had a better life?

This season-- I'm only through rewatching episode 20-- really solidifies for me how much Mary and Dean are alike. Ketch tries to use the same ploy on them-- that they're killers, that they live for the thrill of the kill and need to satiate it. But they both wanted so badly to not live the hunting life. Mary tried to retire to have a family and died and then got dragged back in. Dean tried to retire with Lisa and got dragged back in. Literally they're just... doomed to be hunters. It's so tragic