#spn 7.04

[spngeorg]

Episode 130 - 7.04 Defending Your Life

This episode is here seemingly only to flog us with the fact that Dean Is Not Doing Well. Sam may have bounced back guilt-free and performatively coping with his hallucifering, but when Dean gets a second to breathe he just dives head-first into feeling trauma, guilt, and loss. And that's a super terrible combo platter on a good day.

And this is not a good day... >.>

Yes I get a little grumpy with Sam, and Dean, and this whole stupid situation. At least Osiris has cool decor, I guess.

LINKS!

The Superwiki page

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My rewatch notes from July 2017

My rewatch notes from May 2017 (aah, the good old days when the tnt loop took less than 3 months)

Listen now on Spotify, or wherever you enjoy podcasts!

[lower-the-volume]

dean winchester. defending your life

[scoobydoodean]

Bobby clocking Dean’s overactive sense of guilt and responsibility from a mile away. 😭

[ardentpoop]

damn right it's a complex question

[nguyetdahuong]

I'm wheezing =))))) the fcking attitude

All hail the queen

i love sam for this hes like osiris operates under the american constitution "are you gonna respect his rights or not?" go off king

[ballsdeepinturbohell]

SPN 7.04 - Defending Your Life

Dean was so pretty this ep 😭

[castiellesbian]

Adam Glass:

6.02 Two and a Half Men

6.08 All Dogs Go to Heaven

6.12 Like a Virgin

6.19 Mommy Dearest

7.04 Defending Your Life

7.11 Adventures in Babysitting

7.18 Party On, Garth

8.06 Southern Comfort

8.12 As Time Goes By

8.18 Freaks and Geeks

9.07 Bad Boys

9.12 Sharp Teeth

9.17 Mother's Little Helper

10.04 Paper Moon

10.12 About A Boy

Eric Kripke

1.01 Pilot

1.02

1.09 Home

1.16 Shadow

1.22 Devil's Trap

2.01 In My Time of Dying

2.22 All Hell Breaks Loose: Part Two

3.01 The Magnificent Seven

3.16 No Rest for the Wicked

4.01 Lazarus Rising

4.10 Heaven and Hell

4.22 Lucifer Rising

5.01 Sympathy for the Devil

5.09 The Real Ghostbusters

5.22 Swan Song

6.22 The Man Who Knew Too Much

[godsofhumanity]

SUPERNATURAL 7.04 “Defending Your Life” | REVIEW

OVERVIEW: Dean Winchester is put on trial by the Egyptian god Osiris. Sam acts as Dean's defense lawyer and tries to save Dean from Osiris' lethal punishment.

RATING: 7/10. this was a lot more of a slow-paced episode, it was dialogue-heavy i think, not too much action. but i think that suited the story and characters, so i did like it.

AVAILABLE AT: prime or binge.

previous episode // all episodes // next episode

THINGS I LIKED:

honestly, Osiris' character i thought was pretty good!! Osiris is a very important guy in Egyptian mythology, and he's meant to be quite revered and respected, and i felt that the way they did Osiris in this episode, he was fairly king-like and it made sense.

the plot of the episode also felt fairly consistent with myth-- i liked the idea of the trial... this matches Egyptian burial rites/death beliefs where they thought that Osiris and a hall of gods would evaluate your life.

for clarity, they cut out many crucial gods; Anubis and Ma'at, notably, weren't included, but that was ok to me... too many characters might be confusing, and SPN usually does 1 god per episode with the exception of a few apocalyptic episodes.

Sam telling Osiris that Dean should be allowed a defense lawyer and Osiris permitting it-- this was funny to me. obviously, that's not a traditional Ancient Egyptian trial, but i like the idea of Osiris adapting to modern standards and allowing it.

THINGS I DIDN'T LIKE:

Osiris just nabbing people off the street and pushing them into the trial of their life-- Osiris wasn't really a vicious god, i think. so i just thought it was a bit uncharacteristic for him to be forcing people to undergo their trial before their time is even up..

the premise of SPN's Osiris was that he gravitated towards "guilt" but this suggests a kind of "guilty until proven innocent" approach rather than "innocent until proven guilty" approach, and that just doesn't make a lot of sense. Osiris was the guy was supposed to be unbiased; a judge of souls. SPN's Osiris was a little vindictive, i felt?

no Ma'at references... i think it's ok that Ma'at herself wasn't there, but there didn't seem to even be any references to the weighing of the heart, or the feather of justice. Osiris was the only element the SPN writers bought further.. and that's kinda sad to me because Egyptian mythology is very rich, and SPN has done better in previous episodes!

[deansrainbow]

HOW DID I NOT CATCH THIS 🤯

this is, and i cannot stress this enough, two episodes after cas gets killed by his own god complex and dean fishes his coat out of the lake and keeps it. i am chewing on cement. 

[i-make-fun-of-spn-characters]

Dean for several episodes after killing Sam’s Kitsune friend, Amy Pond, who murdered 4 people:

Sam after killing Dean’s Amazon daughter, Emma:

Season 7 Sam was simply too much of a Hot Girl™️ and could not be contained.

[deanwasalwaysbi]

“You two have got to get the hell out if dodge. This thing hones in on people who feel guilty who is that sound like to you?”

Love Bobby, telling it like it is

[foxthefanboi]

You deserve better. 

7x04 - Defending Your Life

[lower-the-volume]

defending your life

[scoobydoodean]

Caught between “Dean let him have this” and “Get his ass”.

[ardentpoop]

ancient egyptian god character in an episode set in dearborn michigan (the heart of muslim/arab america) who is going to target dean for the mass of guilt he's racked up by being a fucking asshole for 3 seasons straight. in theory an episode designed for me specifically but this is spn so it could go either way

also:

lol

[mittensmorgul]

7.02, Hello, Cruel World.

Cas would take it all back if he could, but oops too late, he wades into a lake and explodes into goo. Cue the Leviathan invasion, 16 episodes of Dean’s progressively intensifying angst, mourning via alcoholism, and complete loss of trust in pretty much everything because ouch this betrayal has left him shaken.

Dean can’t trust Sam because he’s hallucifering all over the place and compounding it all by lying to Dean’s face (because with the best of intentions he didn’t want to add to Dean’s pile of worries and like... SAM THIS IS HOW WE GOT IN THIS SITUATION IN THE FIRST PLACE YOU NUMBNUT JUST BE HONEST but no we need to twist everything tighter because nobody is apparently suffering enough yet...)

Sam can’t tell reality from his hallucinations, but Dean helps him find a way to test reality, squeezing the wound on his hand to understand which pain is real and which is just his imagination. But only after Sam nearly shoots Dean accidentally... so Dean gets it. Sam is really, really not okay rn.

which leads us to 7.03, The Girl Next Door, in which Sam just piles on the evidence that he is really, really not okay, demanding trust from Dean while offering zero trust or honesty in return-- literally sneaking out of the cabin, effectively stealing the car, and going off on a hunt when Dean had just confronted him about his zoning out into Hell-O-Vision... And again, Sam really is just trying to relieve some of the burden off Dean’s shoulders, knowing how bad stuff is for him now. Dean is literally hurting-- emotionally and physically, still recovering from his broken leg-- and yet Sam doesn’t understand that Dean will worry regardless. And that Sam’s protestations of being fine, objective, rational mean NOTHING when Dean can see the evidence that Sam is still suffering from his broken wall symptoms. Regardless of what Sam can say about his choice to let Amy go, Dean can’t trust him to have made the right choice.

which leads directly into 7.04, Defending Your Life, which was readdressed through Anubis in 14.08. (bless you again, Meredith Glynn).

OSIRIS: I don't decide anything, Sam. I don't decide Dean's guilt. I just weigh the guilt that's already there. This is solely about how Dean feels, way down deep. Them's the breaks. SAM: Wait. So, if Dean believes he's innocent, then he is? OSIRIS: If. A big if. Why do I bring up the past? To see if he feels like dog food about it. People want to be judged. They really do. When your heart's heavy, let me tell you, real punishment's a mercy.

But as Osiris weighted guilt, an individual’s burden they believe they deserve to be punished for, Anubis weighs... will... choices:

ANUBIS: This is a miscalculation. SAM: Fine. Then change it. Let her into Heaven. ANUBIS: I'm an accountant. I don't have that kind of power. SAM: Yeah, right. Like you or-- or God has never made an exception? ANUBIS: That's right. Because God doesn't decide. I don't decide. You do, each of you, your individual choices all tallied up at the precise moment of your death. Keep me here. Try and kill me. It is not going to change Lily Sunder's fate. But it might change yours.

But Jo... she gives Dean something to think about:

Jo: You carry all kinds of crap you don't have to, Dean. Kind of gets clearer when you're dead. Dean: Well in that case, you should able to see that I am 90% crap. I get rid of that, what then? Jo: You really wanna die not knowing?