#spn 15x04

[eversw]

sam + sam?

[deancrowleycas]

babygirl...

[2sw]

You have one card today. But we’ll find another tomorrow. But if you quit on us today, there will be no tomorrow.

[sirlancenotalot]

[angelsdean]

this episode is also SUCH a jab at networks and interference from higher ups. the original writer is PISSED that they completely changed his story. then there's all the little jabs from the network exec giving "notes" like "the scenes are too dark can't we brighten them up" "sir this is a horror movie" and the exec not understanding the "rules" and "logic" of the supernatural lore and having them put "explainers" in the dialogue. this is a creative team saying FUCK YOU to the network and it's only season 2. which just makes me think of chuck in s15 portrayed not as a mere writer anymore but as an executive canceling shows bc they won't follow his "notes" as well...it's very loud. and you can say what you will abt the season finale and s15 as a whole and i don't like how it ends either but...everything chuck says to becky...the way chuck is portrayed the entire season...and the fact that the creative team have been fighting (and calling out) the network since so early on it paints a pretty clear picture to me that whatever ending they may have wanted was never going to happen bc of network interference. so they planted those seeds throughout s15 to be like "hey......this is going to be the bad ending. but the network is going to try to spin it as a good ending. but it's not. remember what becky says."

[wraithlafitte]

in the final stretch of spn! just finished 15.04 and oh my goddd dude. showing sam’s struggle with depression, him saying “sometimes it feels like i can’t breathe”, AND HIM SAYING “maybe i’ll feel better in the morning” ???????? it’s just so real. you can say what you will about s15 but sam’s mental health struggle was portrayed really well

[shallowseeker]

Becky Rosen-Baron, MIA.

Becky's "death" + Dean's side of the fireplace mantel

Becky loses her husband, then her "junior" and daughter...and then she herself dies. Just like Dean.

///

The two sides of the mantel:

Ahh, the mantel, nestled as the hearth of home. Hearths are associated with home and family because the hearth was historically the main source of heat in the home, as well as where the cooking was done.

The left side is Chuck's side, black chess pieces. Sam is driving the car with TFW safely confined to the roadhouse at the end. The monster hand is pointed away from Sam.

The right is Becky's side: white pieces, glass half-fall.

It's also Dean's side, with Dean driving the car and heading towards Cas and "mini Cas," plus a family portrait showing what Cas and "mini Cas" are to Dean. The monster's hand is reaching for Dean's side, as Dean-action-hero figure frantically fights against it.

Awww. the cute little family picture with Rod Baron, Rod Jr, their daughter, and Becky Rosen, which also foreshadows the order of the losses (hub dies first in the form of Cas and finale-dad).

This is right next to...Dean in a car, Cas, and a "mini Cas." (Becky doesn't know about Jack.)

///

Other suspicious details: Dean prime is in the car driving towards Cas in front of a reddish Hellscape.

Alternatively, the photo behind Cas bears some resemblance to a blossom, like the Leviathan blossom he was searching for, crazed, as he rushed through the lands of Purgatory on the verge of losing Cas. They even look like they could be two blossoms straining towards one another. Who knows? It could be a famous fanart I'm just not familiar with.

Anyhoo, both Cas and "junior/little" Cas are turned away from Dean.

This is a nod to Dean...without? Bereft. A la The Winchesters companion series. Here's Dean's ending. Limbo. Wandering. Searching for a happy family he doesn't have.

///

If the more-discussed left side was Sam's ending, then the less-discussed right side is Dean in The Winchesters. It's the head side versus the heart side.

And the heart ending, which we sort of get from The Winchesters is a wandering, driving Dean, looking for this nebulous happiness he can't seem to find without Cas and..."mini Cas/Cas junior" Jack.

///

Becky was "doing great"

But Becky's life is so cute, y'all. That hub is adorbs.

ROD: "We'll be fine, babe...it's just Lake Michigan. Hardly any chop!"

Famous last words, Rod. You don't know that it's you who is going to mishandle that "Michigan chop."

Becky/Rod - But OMG can we just take a minute? They LIKE each other. They tease each other. They know the motion sickness comes from him, probably. And he knows she's gonna be nerding out during her relaxing weekend (that's part of the point of getting away--to let her have that time).

AAaaaaaahhhhhHHHHhhhhh.

Rod knows about Becky's writing and her superfan status (hard to miss in her office hehe) and loves her for it. And it's just so damn cute.

BECKY: Four hours in a boat? Rod, Junior gets seasick in the tub. ROD: Where would I be without you? BECKY: Covered in puke. [BECKY taps on the window.] Have fun, sweeties! JUNIOR: Thanks, Mom, we will. [ROD and BECKY kiss.] ROD: (fondly)Wow. Felt that. You can’t wait to have the house to yourself. BECKY: (flirtatiously) Oh, you have no idea.

///

Along comes Chuck, the metaphorical stop sign to Becky's life; her "off-screen murderer"

Chuck sees her big house and her van and her fam and notes sees that she's doing "great" for herself. She doesn't know it yet but he is the end of her life--he even appears in front of a stop sign!

BONUS: Becky's wearing the gray duster/caretaker warrior/hearth of house/"dead guy robe!"

Instinctively, she runs. See, even with their baggage, Becky's already got a bad feeling, "Well I don't need or want to see you."

So naturally, he worms his way in.

CHUCK: I’m sorry, I… I know we’re not together anymore, and it seems like you’re doing great. I just – I… I wanted to talk. Catch up. It’s been a rough couple of weeks. BECKY: That’s not my problem. [She turns to walk into the house.] CHUCK: Wait, Becky, please. I don’t have anywhere else to go.

So then, after denigrating her POV:

BECKY: I’m a writer, too, Chuck. CHUCK: Oh. I mean, fanfic… it’s not really the same thing… BECKY: Writing’s writing. The self-sabotage, the doubts, the struggle against time. So, whenever I have a spare minute, I write.

He steals.

///

He will wind up taking everything

First, he steals her rosy little laptop with her cute little rose decal-skin and the rose keyboard cover and he even puts on HER GLASSES:

///

Then, clever girl that she is, she fakes liking it to try to get him to leave! The LYING motif. "It's so good! I loved it....it's so good I'd love to get back to my own work."

CHUCK: "No...no no. You're shining me on. ...Come on, one note."

Then Becky makes her fatal misstep

She gives concrit, which is what Chuck said he wanted but not what he actually wanted. Just look at this face. Becky's starting to feel that...wrongness.

Something's off.

It's the same subtle change--that same whiplash we saw when he cruelly turned on Metatron in the diner.

After he writes his hopeless ending on her computer, and she lets her criticism rip. He sadistically enjoys her discomfort. He's sticking it to her, with her love of laundry and conversations and banter, which will appear in the terrible finale. Then, he says this:

[BECKY walks but turns to CHUCK.] BECKY: You have to leave. CHUCK: Nah, I kinda like it here.

He took a crap on her computer, wore her glasses, sat in her seat...now he's taking her office. Her house.

///

Chuck takes all

[ROD enters the living room.] ROD: Babe, you wouldn’t believe what happened.

JJLKgj! Aw, Rod. He cannot wait to tell her that he's the one that wound up puking. KJALGJAGH get you a man like that!

Then he kills Rod right in front of her.

[BECKY looks at CHUCK.] BECKY: Please. ROD: Junior was fine, but I puked everywhere. [ROD walks in and sees CHUCK. He looks at BECKY, confused.] ROD: Babe? CHUCK: Hey. [CHUCK snaps his fingers. ROD disappears in a puff of dust.] BECKY: (screams) Rod?! What happened? Where is he? CHUCK: He’s gone. BECKY: What?!

Her children enter next; we can only hear them off-screen. Rod Jr. can't wait to tell her about the puke incident either. They just know she'll love it.

Chuck will take Rod right in front of Becky's eyes, but her children will die off-screen. "Away."

[ROD JR. enters.] ROD JR.: Hey, mom! We’re back! Dad got sick! He threw up all over the side – [CHUCK snaps his fingers again. The kids disappear.] BECKY: (gasping for air, on a whisper) No! (shudders) The kids. CHUCK: Oh, don’t worry. They’re not dead. They’re just away. [BECKY turns back to CHUCK.] CHUCK: Oh, yeah. I’m God. [BECKY looks horrified.] BECKY: What are you… No. You bring them back. You bring them back! [CHUCK smiles.] BECKY: Please…you can’t do this.

It echoes both Dean pleading with God in 13x01, "Now, you're gonna bring them back," and his 15x18 "Don't do this, Cas." Yeup. Becky is now bereft. Without. Rod's gone, like Cas will soon be gone.

CHUCK: Oh, Becky. I can do anything. [CHUCK steps closer to BECKY. He snaps his fingers. She disappears in a puff of dust.]

Becky faces him defiantly but quickly unravels into grief. "You bring them back...please."

And then he kills Becky.

And here we have these "withouts" culminating. The fun motifs about having the house to yourself end with a cheeky disappearance of the things Becky loves the most. It's cruel. She'd been trying to help Chuck, and he did not show the slightest glimmer of gratitude once her "fluffing" ceased.

And then she herself is gone.

///

It makes you think of this too from 15x18:

DEAN: "She's gonna kill you. And then she's gonna kill me."

///

Girls named Becky take things and break things?

In 13x01, the angel Miram ranted and raved about the specter-like example of a "super bitch named Becky."

This Becky would "take things and break things."

But the funny thing is...here? As Chuck settles into her office and takes her house…

He's the one taking and breaking. He stole everything from her the same way he tried to wrap himself up in Dean's gray MoL robe.

Just 'cause he can.

[cam-ulu29]

If you think Chuck lost I don’t even know what to say to you you just need to go watch Atomic Monsters again and hear Becky’s description of the ending now that you know what happened.

[ohsc]

NO WAY THEY PUT RADIO COMPANY IN THIS EPISODE THATS FUCKING AWESOME

[deancrowleycas]

It's insane how Atomic Monsters is about parents protecting their child and refusing to let go until learning that it's for the better and most importantly that they have to respect their child's wish. And then parallel to it you have Chuck mocking Becky, refusing to let his characters be free, and being the absolute opposite of the parents who actually love their child and accept their child's agency... yeah, that's the good stuff

[2sw]

What are the threads that are unwoven which this work of untying bears upon? Freud spoke of 'memories' and 'expectations' attaching us to the other. What he doesn't take account of, but which is rarely absent―precisely in the fabric, the context of those memories and expectations―is the place for the message of the other. For the person in mourning, that message has never been adequately understood, never listened to enough. Mourning is hardly ever without the question: what would he be saying now? What would he have said? hardly ever without regret or remorse for not having been able to speak with the other enough, for not having heard what he had to say. Jean Laplanche, Essays On Otherness

[mlobsters]

supernatural s15e4 atomic monsters (w. davy perez)

tumblr trashed my original post, it said it was processing the video but the post disappeared entirely so i'm having to re-write this from scratch. i was able to screenshot what i wrote while it was hung which is something, but this is something that's happened to me a number of times (usually on video focused posts though) and i'm FUCKING SICK OF IT. i always find all the fucking bugs. UGH.

oh, a becky episode. i really, really did not like her character. i understand the intent may have been all in good fun, but i only ever received it as making fun of fans. especially the way her actor played her. and i will never understand the choice to have her drugging and kidnapping sam to marry him.

is dean having an action hero nightmare about all his brothers-in-arms who died on his watch. it's pretty and a+ production values. bunker looks so much cooler in the red lighting. waiting for an explanation on the facial hair, scarf???, tactical vest, fingerless gloves look though. giving very military incursion.

(just noticed this is a jackles directed episode. hmm.)

reminded of that article with serge ladouceur and he mentioned why they didn't use slow motion in fights:

Clearly, your producers always had in their creative vision a show that was dynamic, dark, moody, and expressive. Tell us about the meeting you had early on with series creator Eric Kripke, and how you all found that you were on a similar creative wavelength. Eric wanted the show to be embedded in reality. He didn’t want to create a fantasy world. What he wanted to see were stories where the supernatural would manifest itself in real time and in real life. This is what he wanted to convey and I was in sync with this concept as I was talking about a naturalistic approach to the lighting. Moreover, and as an example, he was against slow-motion. He didn’t want to beautify the fights by camera techniques. Even to this day we sometimes ask ourselves, “What would Eric want?” And that’s one thing.

imagine this doesn't qualify since it's a nightmare/vision/whatever

excuse to get benny back (extremely briefly). and the screechy noise is back too. zero chance i'm getting through this episode in one sitting. (update: this is day 3 or 4, since i had to retranscribe it on top of it all)

am i seeing things or does that look like a keffiyeh. oh, right. the evil!sam vision thing, i forgot about that

lovely lighting and yes to sweaty highlights all day every day

SAM You know, I knew you’d come looking for me. After Sioux Falls… I suppose you had to. DEAN What you did to them… what you did to Bobby… to Jody… SAM They tried to stop me. But I will not be stopped. DEAN Sammy, listen to me. This is the demon blood. You have to fight it!

what year is this now? anyway so is sam gonna tell dean about this nightmare/vision/whatever fuckery orrr.

fingers crossed today is the day i can finally get this episode done. i get halfway into the conversation with dean calling out sam on not being okay and brain is jumping ahead three stations (dean's gonna make an assumption about what's bothering sam and so sam isn't gonna actually tell him what's going on)

SAM Yeah. But every time I ask for it, you say, and I’m quoting, "I don’t want any of that hippie, Sarah McLaughlin grass-eater crap in the Meat Man’s kitchen". Which, by the way, for what it’s worth, you got to stop calling yourself "The Meat Man." It… it doesn’t mean what you think it means. DEAN Yeah, it does.

i mean meat->dick thing i get but does anyone use that phrase

SAM I’m good. DEAN No, you’re not. The past few days, you’ve barely come outta your room. Look, man, I get it, okay? With Jack… and Rowena… Rowena knew what she was getting herself into. She knew what needed to be done. SAM Doesn’t make it any easier. DEAN No, it doesn’t.

so, no on the telling dean about the nightmare/vision whatever. at least in these late seasons, if it's a plot significant thing, i can have some confidence that they will talk about it sooner rather than later instead of dragging it out for half the season. but it also could have been a showy action piece that was fun to make but not really amount to anything :p

SAM That… that’s real bacon, Dean. DEAN You’re damn right it is. Meat Man!

jackles your eyeline is all wonky, what are you even looking at

DEAN Well, local police are freaked. Never seen anything like this. They got no idea how to deal. SAM Of course not. That’s our job. We keep them from dealing with the truth, with what’s out there, and we carry the weight. It’s great. Meanwhile, they get to go back to living in their white picket fence bubbles. DEAN You know, ever since you were a kid, you wanted to live in a town like this. Lame, normal… SAM Yeah, we don’t get normal. And these towns, everything’s the end of the world. You’re late for work, your kid doesn’t get into the right school… whatever. They don’t… They have no idea what’s out there.

that's a lot more bitter than sam usually goes. must be feeling really disillusioned

well, things are looking up on the becky front. first impression seems like she gets to be an actual human now instead of just a breathless obsessive creepy fan

BECKY You mean my work. Look, what you were writing, it was real… like, really real. You sort of channelled Sam and Dean’s lives because you’re a prophet. CHUCK I… Yeah. Yes, I am. BECKY And, sure, I got a little obsessed, and it took me to a dark place. What I did to Sam… [shudders] So, after some pretty intensive counselling, I realized I wasn’t in love with the real Sam Winchester. I loved his character. So instead of reading your stories, I kept writing my own.

well, i appreciate they acknowledge that plotline was gross and awful, if we're supposed to like her now

CHUCK Your own… “Supernatural”? BECKY Where the guys didn’t have to hunt monsters all the time. They just sit around and do laundry and talk, you know? I mean, that’s what people like the most, anyway.

show could take a smidge of its own advice here. like with the xfiles, you needed those goofy ass episodes to take the edge off the mytharc that you couldn't quite do with the monsters of the week alone. spn humor doesn't hit that spot (for me, at least) so how about just a little domesticity as a treat instead. like 11x04 baby

CHUCK Well, I mean, people like monsters. BECKY Meh. Anyway, I got an online following, and it wasn’t paying the bills, so I started making these handcrafted miniatures. They took off, started turning a profit, and here I am. CHUCK Right. Right, right, right, right, right. But people like monsters though. They do. I mean, Leviathans are cool. What? They’re all teeth!

first the bmol shade, now the leviathans. yes, thank you

CHUCK Things were said. Uh… Now I’ve found msyself low on, um… resources. I went to ask my sister for help, and she rejected me. ‘Cause she sucks. And now I’m just… stuck. So, I thought I’d come see you, my number-one fan. And, I don’t know, see if you can help make me feel big again. BECKY So, you want me to… fluff you?

uh huh.

CHUCK I mean, no. BECKY You do. You thought you could just come back to me, your pathetic ex, your number-one fan, and get what you’ve always gotten from me… a nice big crank on your ego. CHUCK Well, I mean… BECKY Well, sorry, that’s not me anymore, Chuck. I am married to an amazing man, I have two great kids, and I like myself, Chuck. For the first time in a long time, I like myself. So, I don’t need you.

tell him, becky. good for her. now this is a character flip flop i am 100% on board with and won't question

BECKY I’m a writer, too, Chuck. CHUCK Oh. I mean, fanfic… it’s not really the same thing… BECKY Writing’s writing.

100%. the rest of her speech is very boiler plate online writing advice but sure. the show does get kind of navel gaze-y meta about writers/writing

BECKY Okay. If I had to give one note… the jeopardy, Chuck. It’s feeling a little… thin? Low stakes? It’s fun to hear the boys’ voices, but a story is only as good as its villain, and these villains are just not feeling very… dangerous? Not to mention, there’s no classic rock. No one even mentions Cas. The climax is a little stale. Boys tied up again while we get the villain’s monologue, which, frankly, isn’t one of your best. A little originality wouldn’t… … hurt.

all-in on the meta shade

HENRY You don’t have children, do you? Because if you did, you would know, that to see your child in pain rips your heart out. And you’d know that you’d do anything. You’d die for them. JANET Or kill for them.

lol kids or (some) brothers

so the kid is offering himself up to be killed, like madison. ok. the music for the montage at the beginning i was groaning at generic rock instrumental but once the lyrics kicked in it was perfectly serviceable. and i see it's radio company/aka jensen's band's song. which the wiki talks about it was not at his behest. it's a little odd but his voice doesn't sound anything like dean, so it's not like it's noticeable. i had no clue until i read the trivia bits for it.

“To be honest our editor inquired about it. He said, ‘I know you did some music over the break, do you think we could take anything and plug it in?’ I wasn’t angling for that, I wasn’t pushing that, and in fact we didn’t even tell Bob or Andrew or anybody. We just floated it in there and waited to see if anybody said, ‘I don’t really care for that song, I don’t know who that is,'” Ackles says. “And nobody said that.” In addition to “Sounds of Someday” Ackles says he had a few other music cues in his director’s cut, including a big one at the end. “Two of the three got taken out; mine was the last one standing,” he says of his new single. “That was a small victory. That was a nice vote of confidence, especially from a show that prides itself on music so much.”

cringed a bit and felt guilty with that last line, being how consistently i've ragged on the music in this show. the licensed stuff usually is good to okay, occasionally i disagree with the tone. but it's the original score i take issue with for the most part. but still :p

and chuck zapped becky and family to i guess not dead-"away"

right, i stopped watching this (two nights ago now) because we're talking about being suicidal, again

SAM Yeah. What Henry did… we’d have done the same thing. For Jack. If we had the chance. DEAN Yeah. Yeah, we would. Look, man, I get it. I get it. We have lost way, way too much. And it’s hard not to feel like just… cashing out. I felt like that. After Chuck, back at the crypt. But you know what brought me back? You did. By sayin’ that what we do still matters.

before i rant about the music and shots, i went and rewatched that scene in the crypt which i thought was 15x01? i don't know what dean's referring to though, because they don't really talk about it? maybe like, 14x20 in the cemetary with the stupid gun? dean almost killing himself to kill soulless!jack? or maybe the lead up to sam shooting chuck

on to my rant about the clip. the filming is really weird in this scene. it's shakycam but at times, especially when on dean, it's tilting and floaty in a way that makes it seem like they're not in the car but it's a dream or something. and they have that driving at night film set down pat so it was a choice or something. and the music? buh.

it's a combo of reminding me of the original musical score to the magicians and i believe it's got the spn-interstellar-ish theme again that was in a sam and dean car conversation ([suicidal] deathbed apologies) in 14x12 (this ep is christopher lennertz and philip white, 14x12 was lennertz and tim wynn)

and the dialogue itself is very... speechy. combined with the weird fimilng angles and not getting right up in their business, it's kind of lost that intimacy of the car convo and moved it into inspirational speech

SAM I know, I know, I know. I’m sorry. I know. But… but what I’m saying is that I don’t feel free. What we’ve done, what we’ve lost, right now, that is what I’m feeling, and… and sometimes it’s… it’s like I-I-I can’t even breathe. But maybe tomorrow. You know, maybe I’ll… I’ll feel better in the morning. DEAN And what if you don’t? SAM I don’t know.

and sam describing to me what sounds like flavors of depression and anxiety that i'm personally all too familiar with, it's a lot. the bit about maybe i'll feel better in the morning, reminds me of a song that has struck a chord with me on the depression front for years now. you can't really do anything but try to just keep going even though everything is so hard and hurts

Sometimes in the morning I am petrified and can't move Awake, but cannot open my eyes And the weight is crushing down On my lungs, I know I can't breathe And hope someone will save me this time ... But the lows are so extreme That the good seems fucking cheap And it teases you for weeks in its absence But you'll fight and you'll make it through You'll fake it if you have to And you'll show up for work with a smile And you'll be better and you'll be smarter And more grown up and a better daughter Or son, and a real good friend And you'll be awake, you'll be alert You'll be positive though it hurts

and this edit after the s4 magicians finale to this song changed me at a fundamental level (it's a fix-it)

(also on tumblr)

i know jared's history with talking about his mental health, which i've very much appreciated, and feels like bleeding some of that into sam which is a little unexpected but i think it's good, just tilted me a bit because sometimes things that are too relatable are.. too relatable :p

[waywardvamp]

I am glad Becky went to therapy.

[saturnismo]

yk still thinking about the no one even mentions cas in 15x04. It's like,, they said multiple times that that was a shitty ending LIVE

[shallowseeker]

The radical notion of self-acceptance. It's so difficult to hang onto!

14x13 / 15x04

JOHN: I guess that I had hoped, eventually, you would… get yourself a normal life, a peaceful life, a family. [DEAN nods. He smiles.] DEAN: I have a family. ... DEAN: And for the longest time, I blamed Dad...But I gotta be honest – I don’t know who that Dean Winchester is. And I’m good with who I am.

///

BECKY: Well, sorry, that’s not me anymore, Chuck. I am married to an amazing man, I have two great kids, and I like myself, Chuck. For the first time in a long time, I like myself. So, I don’t need you.

///

[garashir]

radio company jumpscare in 15x04