#that man shows to Cas in this season specifically.

[spnintheyearofourlord]

Okay Dean “You know I am not much for prayin’ ‘cause in my book it’s the same as beggin’” and “I prayed to you, Cas, every night” Winchester, I see you.

[narrynukezankielover]

This scene in Fan Fiction is interesting because it’s when Dean finds out that people ship Cas and him together and they have a ship name for it. He’s not mad or pissed off he’s more curious about it. Even before he found out the two girls are girlfriends in real life he wasn’t mad or pissed off about Destiel. It’s more like he didn’t realize that all those moments between Cas and him were written in the Supernatural books (up to the end of season 5 anyways).

This shows that the writers and actors know about Destiel and Destiel fan fiction but it also shows that Dean is fine with it and so is Jensen (Jensen has said quite a few times especially this year that he is fine with Destiel).

This is hilarious. Sam is trying to figure out what Cas and Deans ship name should be and he knows that Dean is getting flustered by it. Dean tells Sam to shut up and Sam laughs. It’s the little brother making fun of the older brother for having a boyfriend kind of thing. I would have loved to have seen Cas in this ep. It would’ve been hilarious to watch Dean and Sam trying to explain shipping to Cas and explain ship names to Cas.

This scene is great Dean looks directly at the girl playing Cas and says to put as much text into that subtext. Again showing that he’s fine with Destiel. I have more thoughts on this ep but I’m going to keep them to myself because I think I’ll piss some people off if I say them.

This scene in Girls, Girls, Girls is kind of annoying. I don’t like Hannah because she can’t take a hint. Cas has told her soooo many times that he only likes her as a friend, she’s the one that told Cas not to lose it over one man, she heard the Metatron saying that Cas did everything for Dean and she knew that at the beginning of the season that Cas was sick yet he did everything he could to help Dean become human again. Here she tries to say that all her feelings for Cas weren’t actually her feelings that they were coming from the human she was possessing which I think she lied about. I think she didn’t want to be on earth anymore and it stead of embarrassing herself she came up with this excuse because when Cas was possessing Jimmy the feelings Cas has for Dean weren’t Jimmys feelings considering I don’t think Jimmy even likes Dean.

I’m just adding this in from Hibbing 911 because it’s another gay scene well it was 2 scenes. The cop guy was obviously flirting with Dean when he said it was cute for Dean to try and find a case there but then Dean knew the best way to get information out of the cop was to flirt so that’s what he did by sucking up to the cop but here the cop had just walked past Dean and Dean clearly looks at the guys ass.

I think this ep is called The Things We Left Behind. This scene makes me extremely happy. Cas told Claire that Jimmy is dead and in heaven because an arch angel killed him on a sub atomic level but he was brought back and that that body was specifically made for him. I absolutely love that Cas has his own body now. He’s not possessing Jimmy anymore. That that brain is his brain all his feelings are his feelings. I assumed after Cas was blown up in season 5 ep 1 (Chuck told Dean that Cas was blown up but they didn’t show it which is why I’m assuming they go with when Cas was blown up at the end of season 5) that Jimmy was dead but to hear Cas say it and to say that that body was made for him just made me extremely happy.

Another scene where Sam is there yet Cas is just talking to Dean. Cas called Dean and Sam to come help him yet he was looking directly at Dean when Cas said he needed Deans help. Then Sam came up with a plan for Dean and him to go to the group home to find Claire but Dean obviously wanted some alone time with Cas because he gave Sam the keys and told him Cas and him would stay there. Sounds like Dean wanted an unofficial date with Cas.

This is beyond cute. Cas gave Dean a compliment and Dean got flustered. Dean obviously wanted this to be his alone time with Cas because up until Cas asked Dean how he was they were talking about random stuff and flirting. I also love that they cant hide how sick they are from each other. At the end of season 9 when Cas told Dean he was fine Dean knew he was lying and then Cas told him the truth the same thing happens here. Cas asks Dean how he’s doing and Dean says he’s great and Cas said no you’re not. Cas knew Dean was lying and Dean asked him if he turns into a demon again for Cas to kill him which Dean knows Cas can’t kill him considering Cas couldn’t kill Dean when he was being mind controlled to kill Dean there’s no way in hell he’d be able to do it when he’s himself.

It looks like Sam was expecting Dean to tell Cas to let go of the guy but instead Dean is impressed and I think a little turned on.

[scoobydoodean]

omg i just finished your emma vs amy takes and the subsequent discourse about it (which was so refreshing to see btw!! love it when adults can be Adults and argue about the topic without insulting the other person) and I might get fried for this but that incident aside, do you have any other scene/episode in mind where sam reacts the same way or does the same thing?

(im sorry if this isn't your cup of tea for asks! your takes have been Enlightening)

You mean another situation where Sam shoots a person with supernatural abilities who hasn't shed blood and has a sympathetic backstory without giving them a chance? Not as overtly—Benny in season 8's "Citizen Fang" certainly comes to mind, but even Benny, Sam at least made a show of giving a chance by assigning Martin to keep tabs on him and make sure he didn't do anything wrong before trying to kill him. (Though whether there was conscious or subconscious sabotage involved when Sam chose Martin specifically—someone he knew to be mentally unstable—is certainly a good question given Sam had already made death threats about Benny before then.)

The fact that Sam's behavior in 7.13 "Slice Girls" is pretty unique is really what I want to point out about this episode in the first place—that Sam's actions in "Slice Girls" are inconsistent with his previous behavior and future behavior as far as "good" monster episodes. We can turn to examples such as:

1.14 where Sam insists they try and talk Max down instead of killing him, because Max's murders are a result of extensive abuse.

Lenore and her nest in SPN's seminal "monsters can be good" episode (2.03)

Sam thinking Andy is responsible for the killings in 2.05 but still waiting for proof before acting.

2.09 where Sam insists they not kill someone they think might be infected with Croatoan virus before he turns and tries to kill them because that doesn't give him a chance.

Two episodes where Sam faces off against Gordon because Gordon wants to kill him before Sam kills someone (2.10, 3.07)

2.17 where Sam and Dean search for a cure for Madison, who is not aware that she has been killing people.

4.04 Metamorphosis where Sam is the one who takes the initiative to research Rugarus, learns that they can survive without giving into their urges, and insist they go and talk to him about how his body is changing (lol) so he has the chance to fight the urge to kill and eat people.

5.06 where Sam and Dean oppose Cas who wants to kill Jesse, who is a child who is not aware that he has powers and is hurting people.

6.02 where Sam, even soulless, recognizes the innocence of a shifter baby.

Then we have Amy and Emma in 7.03 and 7.13 respectively.

8.04 where the brothers let Kate the Werewolf go because she was turned against her will and killed the man who turned her in self-defense.

8.09 Citizen Fang (already discussed)

I'm getting lazy but then we also have Magda and Jack Kline—both children with powers, one severely abused, the other the son of the devil with uncontrolled explosive powers that could end the world, both of whom Sam attempts to help work with their abilities.

Dean has a more structured series of personal "rules"—a litmus test we see from the very beginning—one Sam often follows as well, but I'm not sure Sam ever really fully grasps that Dean thinks this way.

Has this person hurt or killed anyone?

Was it on purpose or was it outside of their awareness?

If it wasn't on purpose, are they capable of learning to control their urges?

We see this code as early as 1.12 "Faith":

SAM Wait, what the hell are you talking about Dean, we can't kill Roy. DEAN Sam the guys playing God, he's deciding who lives and who dies. That's a monster in my book. SAM No. We're not going to kill a human being Dean. We do that we're no better than he is.

Dean applies the same reasoning in 1.14 with Max:

SAM These visions, this whole time -- I wasn't connecting to the Millers, I was connecting to Max! The thing is I don't get why, man. I guess -- because we're so alike? DEAN What are you talking about. The dude's nothing like you. SAM Well. We both have psychic abilities, we both... DEAN Both what? Sam, Max is a monster, he's already killed two people, now he's gunning for a third.

Despite the exact opposite being the typical fandom perception, early on we learn that Sam tends to define a monster by their features/abilities, while Dean defines a monster by their actions. We see the same with Amy—she is "a monster who killed four people" (7.07) . She isn't a monster because of what she is but because of what she did. This again—is also why Dean doesn't even consider killing her son right after her kid swears to kill him one day. We see Dean, in the rare cases where it comes up, is also perfectly fine with taking out human serial killers they stumble across (ex: Thin Man).

Sam will also kill a human serial killer at times (and murderous witches by 3.09), but he reserves the word "monster" to describe individuals with supernatural features/abilities... and I think the fact that Sam's definition of the term differs from Dean's is something neither brother ever fully realizes about the other, leading at several points to arguments where they are talking past each other and do not understand one another. Sam hears "monster" and thinks "Dean is talking about me", when Dean is operating under a completely different definition of the term that is based on the actions of a person.

When Sam is in a headspace where he is thinking of himself as one of those monsters, he shows increased or lessened sympathy in turns. For example, he assumes Andy's guilt in 2.05 because he is panicked about becoming evil himself and is comparing the two of them (but again—still waits for confirmation) but his sympathy for Max in 1.14 comes from the same comparison with himself. Sam completely misrepresents Amy in 7.03 as an addict who relapsed but more generally is "managing", as a way to compare her with himself... when Amy didn't feed on anyone herself and her actions have absolutely nothing to do with addiction or battling "monstrous urges".

I've been bitching and moaning a lot, but I will reemphasize that there is a more sympathetic reason that Sam shoots Emma—Sam and Dean are both crowding up to the diving board at the deep end of the pool in season 7. Dean's grieving and is drinking extremely heavily to cope and Sam is hallucinating. They are both unraveling at the seams. Neither of them is in a place where they trust the other's judgement because they both know themselves and each other to be unstable. So if we imagine a reality where Sam and Dean give Emma a chance, and it doesn't take, Sam assesses himself and Dean to be in no mental state to cope with a potential surprise attack. It's just that Sam also erroneously compares Amy and Emma when they are not the same, and by doing so, frames Dean wanting to spare Emma but killing Amy as hypocrisy (because they are both "monsters") when Dean's actions are perfectly consistent with his personal ethical code and his definition of a "monster"... and Sam's actions aren't.

[autisticandroids]

Seeing as you provide every interesting in depth spn analysis I'm probably coming to the wrong person for something so possibly surface level but I'm rewatching spn and would really love something to keep notes on, so is there any interesting phenomena in there you think would be worth keeping an eye on?

i received this, like, a month ago 🥴 sorry. anyway.

so, first of all. i'm flattered but i have also always been a little uncomfortable with the superlatives people attach to my name. the reason people think of me as some kind of spn scholar is a result of four factors, give or take: first, i make a lot of posts. in the year after november fifth i made something like five thousand posts. i know because i tag all my spn posts spn. and a lot of those posts were half a sentence! or an ask i answered with emojis! but it's still a lot of posts. the second reason is that i'm kind of a last man standing. a lot of the big name post-nov fifth destiel fandom crowd has kind of evaporated in search of newer, shinier things; my fascination was more enduring, so i still get the credit. the third reason has to do with like... i have slightly different tastes than the average spn fandom person and so the things i pay attention to are different and so my takes are unique. there were a lot of blogs that were bigger than me that people don't remember as much because their takes were more in line with conventional fanon (and therefore more similar to other people's and less memorable), whereas mine, because i have specific interests and am an incurable contrarian, were more unique and therefore people remembered who i was. fourth, and here we are down to the meat of the issue, i speak very authoritatively and use a lot of big words when i'm excited about something so people think i'm right.

i guess what i'm saying is don't take me so seriously.

now that my narcissism is out of the way, let's talk about themes in supernatural.

first of all, the thing about supernatural is that it has three hundred and twenty seven episodes organized into fifteen seasons, written by fifty three different writers supervised by four different showrunners and that's just the writing! that doesn't even mention directing, or acting, or producing... personally i like to say that i can feel when the story editor changes! so there really is... almost nothing you can get out of the whole show as a text that isn't incredibly broad and/or vague and/or boring. "they say family a lot" yeah they sure do. "it's a reactionary macho fantasy" like every other show from 2005. "they kill all the women" mmmmhm. like, basically every consistent element of spn as a story is a result of either classic genre cliches from the scifi or procedural or teenie bopper genres, very basic conclusions from the premise, or just the material nature of the behind the scenes of supernatural. they're going on a case instead of working on the main apocalypse of the season because this is a monster of the week show. cas has gone away again because they don't want to pay misha collins. quiet emotional scenes get dropped from the script because they don't serve the plot. and while there's some interesting things you can get out of these elements - one piece of analysis i've been thinking about a lot lately is this video about the mcu that argues that the classic serialized storytelling logic of constant escalation leads inherently to a fascist politics, and i think this point applies very well to supernatural - it only goes so far. it's interesting if you want to look at how the show exists in the wider politics of the real world. it's not that interesting if you want to sit with the show supernatural in its particular uniqueness.

so basically my recommendation, first of all, is to divide the show up into chunks. there are some obvious chunks - by season, by showrunner. most people do these. i would also recommend other methods, for example tying together some adjacent seasons. for example, even though season eleven is technically carver era and season twelve is technically dabb era, i would argue that seasons eleven and twelve have more in common in terms of tone and style than eleven has with 8/9/10 or twelve has with 13/14/15. seasons four, five, and six have a lot in common in terms of tone and themes that they don't share with seven or the first three. i would also recommend paying attention to the individual writers; their bodies of work will usually have more in common with themselves than with the episodes around them in terms of character, tone, and theme. for example, in season six, ben edlund creates a whole other arc about the angel civil war that he wants the season to have that exists only in his episodes, and none of the other writers really pick up what he's putting down so he's kind of left hanging. you can see all sorts of patterns like this if you sit down and look, and i would recommend doing that. maybe you can be the first guy to memorize all the directors and have Thoughts.

and then the next thing i would say is just... pick some themes you want to iterate on. so for example: one of my favorite themes to contemplate is a theme that season six almost has - dean believing that it is his job to protect ben and lisa, which justifies anything he might want to do to them, or anyone else.

----

man everything above that line is an ask i half answered then forgot about in july of 2023. i NEED to check my drafts more often

[ananke-xiii]

One of the reasons why Nick's story in s14 doesn't work form me is because of the show's insistence to pigeonhole Lucifer as "the supreme agent of evil". Of course, this is considered true in our real world (lol), specifically Christian world, but in-universe it just... doesn't work? If we want to go full-on dichotomy (and S14 very much goes there) if Lucifer's evil, who's the primary agent of good? No one, exactly. Definitely not Heaven.

Because there are, like, TEN seasons of angels going total batshit crazy, I mean we know that angels=good isn't a view the show supports since Cas appears in "Lazarus Rising". And we know that ALL angels downright lie, manipulate and coerce humans to get their "consent". We also know that the main issue with "the devil's spawn" in s12 was not so much "the devil" but the fact that "a Nephilim came into being".

The problem is NOT that who'll later be Jack is Lucifer's son, the problem is that he's a Nephilim. Lucifer has weight in the discourse merely because he's an archangel, NOT because he's the primary agent of evil. The issue is that "grace+soul"=a fucking lot of power. And a fucking lot of power means a fucking lot of problems.

We also know that humans get severely depressed after a possession, they have to face many struggles and sometimes society alienates them (see: "Repo Man"). So the argument that Nick's psyche is damaged because Lucifer's so evil his influence's still there even after he's departed is just... weak? A random demon can possess a random Jeffrey and the damages on the human psyche are still IMMENSE. From the human perspective random demon or most powerful archangel in the world are the same thing: they can carry out the same violence, abuse and trauma.

I might be wrong but what I get from the season is that the "primary agent of good" is the soul. And this is ALSO not true? Because shit gets real when Jack starts losing it, sort of implying that without the soul, his luciferian grace will make him become evil or will make him do evil things ("the devil made me do it" mentality). But we literally have a character such as Castiel, Angel of the Lord and Maker of Huge Mistakes but also Not in Possess of a Human Soul who actively strives to do good things (and he fails miserably so maybe he's not a good example but HE IS JACK'S CHOSEN FATHER, it MUST mean something ffs).

I think, maybe, I don't find the shift from "Nephilim" to "Lucifer's son" compelling because Jack's real "problem" (if we want to call it so) is that he's half (arch)angel and half human. Like, being an angel is a fucking issue in this show because these creatures are a bit deranged okay? LOL. On the other hand, being human is ALSO a fucking issue because it 100% doesn't warrant inherent goodness. Humans can be deranged creatures, too, okay? :D Both species can definitely just make mistakes, do bad things wanting to do bad things or ending up doing bad things without intention to do so. Ultimately, Jack's dilemma is being Other, just like his chosen father and just like Kripke-era Sam.

I still stand by my idea that all angels are a little bit like Lucifer. And there are episodes such as "Of Gods and Monsters" that sort of confirm it. When Nick calls Cas out and tells him "Castiel, you’re just a stone cold body snatcher. You’re no different than Lucifer" he's exactly pointing out the hypocrisy. Hell, the whole episode seems to question the season's main theme because Michael is literally possessing Dean, he conned him, he tells him that he owns him, he's creating an army of monsters as they speak, he's brutally torturing them but the primary agent of evil is still little ol' Lucifer.

Although, truth be told, I didn't particularly feel the need to learn more about Nick (sorry Nick, I know you're there so that Mark Pellegrimo could stay on payroll, I don't hold it against you), I can't deny that it had great potential as a narrative choice (let's not even go into the Sam/Nick parallels). But, to me, it didn't deliver because the show's murky on where it stands: on paper it wants to show the fallacies of "black and white" thinking but it effectively supports the same "black and white" view of the world that it seeks to question.

[vendettasfanfictioning]

Sam-coded: Analyzing the parallels between Destiel and Sam's arcs with his love interests.

PART 1: JESSICA MOORE

FOREWORD & DISCLAIMER

With a fan community as enormous as Supernatural's, it is fair to assume that most, if not everything, stated here has already been pointed out or dissected multiple times before—especially considering the long span of time that the show has aired and the three years thereafter. The goal of this post is not to claim these ideas as my own but rather to compile and expand on them.

I also want to add that regarding Jessica, specifically, the canon facts about her are incredibly limited what with her only "real" appearance being at the Pilot episode (though she is referenced and alluded to in multiple episodes all throughout).

That said, she had a critical role in shaping Sam's goals, with emphasis on earlier seasons' Sam's development so it felt fitting to start this series off with her.

There are many instances that the fandom has pointed out cinematic parallels between Sam and Jessica & Dean and Castiel. In this post, I would be elaborating on all of the key points I have found, namely: 1. The scripted meeting, 2. Grieving a lover, and other random findings.

1. IN THE BEGINNING (WITH REGARDS TO GOD'S PLAN)

To start, both Sam/Jess and Dean/Cas were fated to meet to serve a higher narrative purpose.

Frankly, I think that is fucking beautiful, but not only that; it can be argued that, if we were to speculate that Sam met Jessica right after he ran away from Dean and John, then Jessica and Castiel did the same thing. They pulled their respective Winchester brother out of hell/a dark place. (That may just be me talking out of my ass, but it's such a poetic concept, isn't it?)

Most importantly though, both parties were doomed by the narrative, but in polar opposite ways.

(Screenshots taken from 5x20)

Sam was destined to love and then lose Jessica for two reasons: to start the story, and to make Sam go down the "dark" path i.e. adjacent to Lucifer, demon blood, evil. Their story was scripted from the get-go, even before Supernatural decided to go metatextual with God.

(Screenshots taken from 15x17)

On the other hand, Dean and Castiel were never meant to be anything more. God himself says that Castiel was supposed to continue obeying heaven, do what he was told, and it is one of (if not the one) that completely separated the Supernatural storyline from any of Chuck's other drafts.

(GIFs from 15x18 and 15x19)

Furthermore, Castiel's love for Dean and Dean's loss of him marks the end of the story and makes Dean defy the role that God made for him. Admittedly, it's a flawed parallel, as Dean has already moved on from being Michael's Sword and the Righteous Man. To that, I say it only further proves the point; their unscripted "profound bond" directly opposed God's word. It was what should have broken the cycle.

And still, both ended in tragedy. It's just that one was written to end that way and the other wrote itself.

2. THE WINCHESTER BROTHERS ON GRIEF

(GIFs are from 1x01 and 12x23)

This segment can't start any other way than with these iconic shots of the Winchesters holding their brother back from running towards the love of their life (as the lover, in question, dies/walks to their death). These shots are the very reason I started this whole analysis, and they speak for themselves.

Even their clothes are inverted here, because Sam and Dean are experiencing the exact same thing. The grief, pain, and helplessness that comes with losing a partner.

(While compiling these, I stumbled upon the eerie realization that the shots attached above and the ones below have swapped color palettes in a way? Granted, that may just be some editing thing. Technology and video quality aside though, you can't deny that the vibrance of the fire vs. the bleakness of Apocalypse World juxtapose aesthetically well with the shots below. Just another one of those, "is it intentional or did Supernatural just run out of options from the sheer breadth of it?")

(Screenshots taken from 1x05 and 8x07)

This parallel in particular is what makes me believe that Supernatural either has amazing writing or just a terrible retention for continuity and reflection. Because, again, Sam and Dean are going through the same damn thing here: guilt. Specifically, the guilt of their lover's death—how both had reasons to believe they could've prevented it.

Also, these are cinematically shot the same way: Jessica and Castiel by the road, a deadpan stare at the Impala as the brothers drive by, then disappearing from sight at a second glance. How else are we to take this other than Dean grieving a lover the same way Sam grieved for his girlfriend? Did they just forget this scene from 1x05 when they filmed 8x07? (Most likely, yeah, but that doesn't disprove its contribution to the narrative.)

The premise is also similar, damningly so, the only notable difference being the formatting, with season 1's monster-of-the-week almost-standalones and season 8's continuous, over-arcing conflict with hell and the tablets.

(Screenshots taken from 1x05 and 8x07)

At the very core, though, is Sam and Dean with their, "I could have—" statements. Sam had visions about Jessica dying, he could have warned her. Dean had Castiel right there at the portal to exit Purgatory, he could have pulled him out. It is that guilt they must carry around and that burden they must bear.

(Screenshots taken from 1x05 and 8x07)

They even give one another the same damn pep talk. Dean saw that Jessica's death was slowly killing Sam, the same way Sam saw that Dean's return from Purgatory without Castiel was tearing Dean apart.

(Screenshots taken from 1x05 and 8x07)

Lastly, here are the verbal acknowledgements of their grief. Because hey, who am I to try to explain subtext and nonverbatim connections.

2.1. TO BE JOHN WINCHESTER'S SON

In this segment, I would like to point out two of the instances that Sam and Dean accepted being compared to John Winchester, both in regards to losing Jessica and Castiel respectively.

(Screenshots taken from 1x20)

Again, this is what the story was all about. Sam and John could or at least find solidarity in this, as was intended for the plot. (They even mirror God and Lucifer here, which is an entirely different can of worms I am not opening today.)

Keep in mind, Sam's always hated how John raised them, but it is evident that he found some comfort with John given their undeniably specific situations.

(Screenshots taken from 13x04 I talked a little more about this arc here)

Sam openly calls Dean out on his John-esque behavior; an irony in itself given that the brothers have long since established that Sam was the one who resembled John the most whereas Dean was always, "yes, sir!" until the very end.

In this very same arc, there is a concerning increase Dean's alcohol consumption—and the use of alcohol as a coping mechanism in itself, rather than the leisurely treat it recurringly was in the show—which are telling signs for the headspace Dean was in.

They both lashed out in John Winchester ways they've internalized over the years growing up. Sam went down the path of self-destructive revenge-seeking, while Dean lashed out by rejecting being a father role to Jack, becoming the "drill sergeant," instead. These traits were what hurt them as children and were the crux of John's grief over Mary's murder. Round and round the cycle goes.

2.2. TO BE LUCIFER'S VICTIM

(GIFs from 5x03 (a) and (b))

Again, another iconic parallel considering Lucifer's go-to trick to getting what he wants was to pose as the person his victims want the most. Another example of this exact same scenario is when Lucifer appears to rock star Vince Vicente as his dead girlfriend (and Vince ended up saying yes.)

In the earlier seasons, the most obvious choice for Sam was of course Jessica, as Lucifer was desperate to get ahold of Sam as a vessel. That was narratively sound, right? Even though 5 seasons (so about 5 years in canon) have passed since Jessica died, Sam hadn't forgotten her and she remained his greatest weakness.

(GIFs from 15x19)

Then on the flip side, during a time the story's well past the Script and God's most definitely free-styling, Lucifer appears again—and it is on God's orders. The devil chose Dean's weakness (Castiel) to blindside him, so Dean ends up running on emotions instead of questioning it.

This happened right after the episode Castiel confessed, and before the episode that Should Not Be Named... That also speaks for itself, doesn't it? Insane, absolute insanity to me.

3. MISCELLANEOUS: SYMBOLISMS & OTHER COINCIDENCES

(Screenshots taken from 1x01 and 14x12)

This is where I might be reaching, but it's a small observation I noticed while bingeing the Pilot episode. Of course, at the time, production likely didn't even put much thought into Jessica's costume, but it's a funny thing to point out all the same. (I screamed a little about Cas' healer motifs here in comparison to Cesar/Jesse if you're interested.)

(Screenshots taken from 1x01 and 10x09)

They both have the same Look when their boyfriend is talking down on himself, I can't even make this shit up.

+ I'm so frickin' tired I cannot look for screenshots anymore but Jessica's cookies plus Castiel's "you don't understand, I need pie," moment in the convenience store resonate with me.

+ Might edit and add more to this later, for now I sleepge.

REFERENCES

1x01: Pilot 1x05: Bloody Mary 1x20: Dead Man's Blood 5x03: Free to be You and Me 5x20: The Devil You Know 8x07: A Little Slice of Kevin 10x09: The Things We Left Behind 12x23: All Along the Watchtower 13x04: The Big Empty 14x12: Prophet and Loss 15x17: Unity 15x18: Despair 15x19: Inherit the Earth

UP NEXT: SARAH BLAKE

[littletreetopper]

mo as my only dr supernatural phd i know. please give your insight on whether canon destiel ending (chaotic, beautiful, national holiday) is better than if they'd actually kissed on screen or at least let dean have a textual fling with a man. putting a plate of cheese out with a big smile

plate of cheese out for me? 🐭

ummm well this is kind of a hard question to answer. bc a lot of people seem to think the "canon destiel ending" was cas dying and going to "super hell" (does not exist. its called THE EMPTY and its a NEUTRAL ZONE where all angels and demons go when they die. and the empty looks like meg [hot] at the end).

however the actual ending in the finale, if taken at face value, is that cas is very much alive and somehow escaped the empty off screen. this isnt a conspiracy they out loud say it in the episode and dean just like smiles into the distance and cas never shows up in episode. so it is purposefully a destiel ambiguous ending.

i do not personally like the finale very much in the context of taking it at face value because its very rushed very badly made a lot of choices i dont understand (release the uriel cut. can anyone hear me). rating it on a scale of destiel on how much i like it as an ending for them specifically? id put it at a solid 6/10 because its very ambiguous and you can make up a continuation of it in your head and there's no sign of negativity/rejection on dean's end. cas is alive, we just didnt see him.

however there is a pretty strong theory by many fans that this ending is Fake (not in a TJLC way just in a 'i have an idea' way) and is actually the bad ending in disguise (known as the Chuck Won Theory) and this one is actually also pretty strongly backed up by the setup of season 15 as a whole and is much easier to explain and put together if youve actually watched season 15. personally its the interpretation of the ending ive gone with because it means i can make up a season 16 in my head and torment dean a little bit more and make an ending that makes more sense.

would it have been better if they had on screen gotten together and maybe kissed? also difficult question to answer due to the outside factors (COVID preventing certain scenes from happening/forcing them to do a lot of rewriting and reshoots) and the inside factors (would the CW writers do it right. personally i trust berens and yockey with my life but anyone else in that writers room id at least hesitate before handing them that). my answer is it would be nice because it wouldve made haters angrier and also ruined tv forever in a big way.

ALSO: to quote tumblr user maj casgirl if they made dean gay but not with cas id be on the news. also dean technically has previously had a textual fling with a man in season 10.

please watch supernaturallllll briar i need to talk abt it with youuuuu

[sageandred]

~My Last Minute, Heartbreak High Wishes for Season 2 ♡♤☆

the Bug Boys saw this on an artpiece, don't wanna take credit, or the asshole BoyFriends-Spider x Ant truly, the only Spider ship that makes sense 2 me; HH pIz say no to the het ship with a yt boy who bullies the ethnic protag Spider and Ant could be the bffs to lovers plagued by toxic masculinity pipeline I've set my mind on at this point. Each of them is gonna like the girl swapped version of the other; it's not over for me until HH officially crushes my dreams. Let their slowburn start at the end of the season, pleeaaaassse!

Still, I wanna see Ant and Harper play out. New of me, but I guess I have a love for a badass girl and a pathetic man.

I'd like to see Quinni have a girlfriend that's good for her with a significant main character at some point (I don't want them to just bring in a recurring character that doesn't have a storyline outside of being her gf). S/o to user for this specific scenario. The trailer shows a shot of Harper and Quinni partying together, which isn't abnormal seeing as they're friends, but it could happen.

I can't help but want Malakai and Amerie together. I just love them! I want Malakai to explore his sexuality, which it looks like is happening. Don't know what to make of Rowan, but I'm super intrigued by the concept of a triangle with ex lovers/fwb both liking the same guy

but I also want the show to explore Malakai's trauma, hinting at it in certain scenarios and letting him deal with it; I can't imagine how with the scenarios he's seemingly set in (Amerie/relationship things; Rowan/his sexuality; Harper), there isn't at least an undertone of his own individual exploration of his trauma and communicating deeper feelings that come up

I have no clue what Sasha's storyline will be, but I saw a clip of the cast talking about her redemption, and I'm interested to see where it goes.

So excited for Darren and Ca$h's storyline. I want to see how they navigate Darren's "hypersexuality" and Ca$h's asexuality and character exploration in both.

Some solo friendship dynamics like Ca$h & Amerie, Quinni & Malakai, Quinni & Ca$h, (Malakai & Ca$h would be interesting to see)

Doesn't have to be a ton, but I'd like to see the parents pop in every once in a while (I liked how they did in season 1- Quinni's dads at the beginning of her centric episode, Amerie's mom popping up every so often, Darren's dad). It should feel like they have parents and a life outside of the high school. And please give me more of Ca$h's grandma

[shirtlesssammy]

Dean Winchester's Multiverse Adventures

"Every notebook on this particular shelf tells a version of how you die. You specifically: heart attack, burned by a red-haired witch, stabbed by a ghoul in a graveyard, and on and on... But which one’s right? That depends on you, on the choices you make." Billie says this in Supernatural season 13, Advanced Thanatology. The books are impersonal portals into Dean's own personal multiverse.

When Mary Campbell talks to John about her experiences in the gateway between worlds, she tells him that she saw "everything - every possible version of myself." In the space between the worlds, she sees herself - her beginnings and endings, her triumphs and failures. First of all, it's pretty impressive that she's not insane after this. Mary's always been stronger than we gave her credit for. But the space between the worlds sounds shockingly personal.

In Supernatural, we got a multiverse which brought us back versions of long-dead characters, and we made our way to those worlds through god-level powers. Angels may have brought us there during the Kripke era (or it may have been Zachariah's illusion skillz?). Jack's impending birth split reality - ostensibly because he was so powerfully strong. However, I propose that there is no time and space when you're talking about god-powers. Jack became God and his heaven is apparently lousy with portals to other worlds. Jack became God and his birth was riddled with portals to other worlds. Is it the godhood, or a future story that will tell us exactly why he's the key to world traveling? When you're dealing with time and space, your ending exists alongside your beginning, after all. This is a rich area to explore! The void could be where the god-powers live - the special view into the multi-verse that let Chuck see it all.

Anyway, I digress. Dean Winchester's driving through Heaven. He's heavily traumatized. The man just died, after all. In doing so, he left Sammy behind to stumble through life on his own (abandoning Sam is its own kind of trauma). He lost his best friend in the most agonizing way. And I think the Dean we saw in the finale was terrified to meddle in those larger patterns of destiny - those cosmic forces that ripped so much of his selfhood from him. He's trying to find himself and who he should be (hello, job application), he's trying to convince himself that "what's dead should stay dead" (Cas sacrificed himself and they need to accept that and live their lives), and it all feels...terrible (beer bottles everywhere). Maybe because he's looking for something new once he gets to Heaven, maybe Chuck's obsession with Dean and his car gave them extra powers, maybe future!Dean gives himself those powers and we don't even know it yet...Dean finds those cracks in Heaven's armor that lets him slip through to other worlds.

It's one thing to think of Dean slipping blithely from world to world, with his view of his other selves a bit myopic. He could take a trip to Squirrel World, and a trip to Dean Smith Verse, and that one world where everyone's a mermaid. After all, he's only seeing a sampling of AUs, just like he did in Supernatural. Right??? But Mary says she saw every version of herself when she was in the space between the worlds. Think of what that must have been like for Dean! Just stepping into that void is enough to see everything. He doesn't even need to put a toe into another doorway to know himself more than anybody should. He knows himself more than he would from reading through Death's books because the void between the worlds also shows his lives. He's dead and therefore more tear-proof in the void. I propose that he saw it all and retained it too. And being Dean Winchester, he probably focused on the worst aspects of himself.

The Dean we see in the Winchesters finale carries a sorrow that I think can provide a rich well to explore in (hopefully) future Supernatural properties. I think it's important to understand that the Dean we see would have also experienced Mary's revelation: he must have seen every version of himself. His family history spiders out from there - Dean's heard his own story out of Chuck's mouth often enough to follow the threads. I think Dean saw all of his lives and wondered if he really was cursed, or broken. I think he mostly saw sorrow. There can be no peace - no pacification in Heaven - with that weighty burden.

Dean Winchester knows all about death. He's died over a hundred times and that was just in his OWN world. What Dean doesn't understand - the frontier he's so rarely pursued - is living. In future multiverse adventures (please, please, please) I think he's going to finally learn about that.

[quietwingsinthesky]

8 and 16 for the choose violence ask

8. Common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about.

That Dean would return Cas’s love confession

Okay no actually you know what. I’m gonna talk about that. Maybe it’s just me being deep in Aro!Dean land, but I’m not seeing it. I’m not seeing at any point in the show where Dean loved Castiel. And I’ve been looking, I swear, but I’m. There’s no destiel on my screen. There is a lot more sastiel than I remember but there’s no destiel happening on my screen! There IS a lot of Castiel clearly having Problems and Issues and Angst about dean, and. Zero doubt here there that that angel wants to fuck him. But I honestly can’t imagine any happy ending for dean that revolves solely or even mostly around a romantic attachment. That man is hardwired for family being the most important thing to him, and I love that. Aro!Dean wins again.

Other notable things include: headcanoning Sam as not queer/trans because he’s too boring. Talked about that. Weird fucking opinion to have. That Gabriel is not exactly as fucked up as the other archangels, especially when presenting sabriel as the Good Sam Ship as opposed to samifer. My dudes, did we not watch mystery spot, do the reading. Also. Also. Not acknowledging the really clear character degradation of Lucifer in the later seasons/attributing later seasons stuff to how he acts in s5, just a personal gripe because whatever, people can read him however they want, but I really feel like on a meta level you gotta talk about how these are Two Different Characters who just happen to have been jammed into the same character. Okay. I think that’s it.

16. You can’t understand why people like this thing (characterization, trope, headcanon, etc.)

I do not like coffee shops AUs. Actually, it’s more that im Extremely picky about AUs that aren’t canon divergence, and will drop them immediately the minute I feel like I’m no longer reading about the characters I like and am instead reading about Generic Guys who say funny quips and then kiss. Which is not a coffee shop au specific problem but the frequency with which that kind of au attracts that writing means I have kind of been turned off from ever reading them again.

if you are writing Sam into your coffee shop au and at some point he does not drop some insane backstory about the time he was kidnapped and forced to fight to the death with a bunch of other college kids, you have failed at writing this au and I am banishing you to the shadow realm /j

The other thing that I do not understand at all, and this extends into a problem with canon, I’m well aware, is how happily people will accept the idea that Castiel is rebellious/different from other angels because he was just Made Wrong. he’s too Broken to be like a real angel. that all the other angels are mindless drones and Castiel is the one good one who could learn about free will, usually justified with it being that “his love for dean is what makes him special”, but even outside of destiel circles, this kind of thing gets very annoying lmao.

And it’s just. That’s wrong. The show might have decided post-s8 that it believed this about Castiel but it’s False and Bad. I’m gesturing wildly at Uriel and Anna and Gabriel and Lucifer and Balthazar and Michael and shit what’s that one angel doing pinball I love them, them too, and Castiel is not special!!! He should not be special!!! All angels have the capacity for free will, they are living under a terrifying system of suppression that has stripped them of their ability to use it and has taught them that when an angel does something they disagree with, killing them is a mercy! (See: the implications of that one angel healer in s9 + Uriel and Cas being sent to kill Anna for falling in s4)

CASTIEL IS NOT SPECIAL. STOP SAYING HE IS SPECIAL. THE CRACK IN THE CHASSIS LINE IS BAD TO HOLD UP AS EVIDENCE OF HIM BEING UNIQUELY FLAWED.

ahem. sorry. i like the supernatural angels. i think making castiel into some separate special being who is the only one capable of rebelling and feeling love and etc does a massive disservice to the heaven storylines and angels as a whole. i think the show’s choice to never have another major angel character who wasn’t killed off quickly/made “too evil” to redeem was a bad decision and contributes to this view of cas as Different and The Good One.

[dont-end-with-blood]

I'm working my way through my first watch of the series and I'm coming to the end of Season 6. Specifically, I'm on episode 20 'The Man Who Would Be King.'

(Please don't give me any major spoilers, this is my first watch of the show and I have tried so hard to avoid spoilers like a plague from Pestilence himself.)

I had no choice but to stop watching to write this theory out. I think Cas is in love with Dean. Moreover, I think everyone knows.

So, here are my reasons for my theory:

1) Throughout season 6, characters that talk about the boys to Castiel often mention or draw reference to his 'weakness' or 'sentiment'. If there is anything this show has taught me, it's that sentiment and love, while not a weakness in isolation, can be used as a weak point.

2) Crowley. In Episode 20, there are so many references and mentions of the boys, specifically Dean. "I can smell the impala on your trenchcoat."

3) Rachel. When Cas' lieutenant greets the boys in Cas' stead, she begins to berate them of their treatment of Cas. It's almost like she's a close friend who can see who Cas' heart belongs to and wants nothing more than to hurt Dean, should he take advantage of Cas.

All of this, for me, points to two very clear things. Number one, Cas is in love with Dean Winchester. Number two, anyone who gets close to Cas, that isn't Dean, seems to know.

I just wanted to know if anyone else agreed with me, saw it too, or after reading this realises it 😊

[autisticandroids]

one thing that makes me feel crazy is when people like. man this is about to sound like a "slash fans devalue male friendship" ass take which is not like. what i'm saying. but people like. they don't differentiate between ordinary care and romantic love. if that makes sense. like one thing i have noticed is that fanfictions and posts will kind of blur the line between dean caring about cas at all, or dean being closer to cas than sam is, and dean being in love with cas.

like, to me, the general vibes of evidence that dean is in love with cas goes as follows: 1) i think dean is gay, 2) i think dean essentially treats cas as a life partner, 3) it's clear to me that dean has some degree of repression and secrecy in his relationship to cas, and 4) there are certain specific behaviors that dean engages in with cas (touching him a lot, being obsessed with his sex life, etc.) that i think sexualize their relationship to some extent.

and each of these categories on their own doesn't really mean that dean is in love with cas. like, for an easy example, dean could be gay and simply not in love with his best friend. like just because dean and benny fucked raw against a tree in purgatory doesn't mean dean wants to get with cas.

the life partner thing is sticky specifically for dean because he's also treated sam that way in the past and i don't think dean is in love with his brother lol. like i think for a lot of people their experience of romantic love and their experience of having a life partner-esque relationship are like, the same thing? the venn diagram is a circle? but that's not dean's experience.

the repression is harder to handwave away, but i think you can reasonably argue that dean is repressed in all his affection because he has a masculinity complex about showing vulnerability.

and then there's the sexualized behaviors which like. honestly on their own they are indicative of at the very least a crush. come on man. there's only two things i know for certain etc.

i think these four pieces of evidence, taken together as a whole picture rather than individually, are evidence that dean is in love with cas. but i don't think any of them on their own is really proof of that except maybe number 4, but even then crushes are fleeting, they fade, dean making heart eyes in season five doesn't necessarily mean he was *in lurve* in season ten. like you need to look at all the evidence for a complete picture.

and it's notable that there's a lot of behavior i don't really put here at all. like i don't think a lot of the care dean shows cas can reasonably be argued to be evidence that dean is in love with cas, or like, i don't think dean's extreme jealousy and possessiveness is indicative of that either because he is also jealous and possessive of his family members (at least, sam and mary) and he would probably be possessive of anyone else he was super close to if there was anybody. the only person we've seen dean get that close to and not get jealous over is bobby, which is interesting but i think mostly comes down to the fact that dean sees bobby as an authority figure over him rather than the other way 'round.

(also a little off topic but i'm always saying this and it bears repeating: i also think dean is happy in their relationship as it is in the late seasons, at least 13/14/15, like i think that what he wants, he has. the positive things that would result from them making it official are 1) dean unpacking his own sexuality would be good for him in a variety of complex ways that mostly don't really directly touch on his relationship with cas and are more related to his own identity, 2) cas would be a LOT happier for a variety of obvious and not-so-obvious reasons that i won't enumerate here because they're not really relevant to the dean analysis i'm doing, and 2.5) with the relationship now named, dean would be forced to contemplate and think about his relationship with cas and what it consists of, instead of just using it as a building block of his life without really looking at it. anyway, don't get me wrong, dean would be very happy to be explicitly in a romantic relationship with cas. but he's also very happy in a platonic domestic partnership.)

(also re: the abandonment issues objection: personally i think dean has fewer abandonment issues as the show goes on and sam and cas stop leaving/trying to (for evidence, see the divorce arc: dean is extremely confident that cas won't leave, so he feels comfortable taking out his anger and pain on cas, and is then shocked when this drives cas away), and i don't really think getting into a relationship would either increase or decrease his level of abandonment issues anyway.)

anyway the thing is that this is all motivated by a fanfic i saw that assumed that it would be logical for sam not to differentiate between "dean and cas' relationship is close and intense, and certainly dean has more of a right to cas' time than i do by dint of how close our different relationships to cas are" and "dean and cas are In Love." when it's like... no. i think that from, say, sam's point of view, from what sam has seen, it's perfectly logical to simply think dean and cas are extremely close.

(personally imo if sam knows dean is in love with cas it's because sam already suspects that dean is gay from the evidence he has from other situations (e.g. the siren, the way dean acted with benny), and because he has that information, he can then put two and two together wrt. dean and cas' extreme closeness. like just the closeness isn't enough.)

and then i started thinking about another fic i read which wove the concept of dean and cas being in love into the homeless cas arc in a way that made me feel like the author was failing to differentiate between dean being in love with cas and showing him basic care. like in fact i think that dean was both in love with cas in season nine and a phenomenally shitty friend and person to him during that time, both are true.

anyway the point of this essay is elusive to me it's a collection of thoughts that don't quite fit together in a way i can verbalize but essentially it's... i don't know. people inject too much romance (and too many ideas about romance) into destiel even though destiel is a romantic relationship? that's not right but it's part of it. there's not only one way to interpret most of dean's actions even though overall they paint a specific picture? that's also not it even though it's in there. people can be important to each other without being in love, and person a being important to person b is not good evidence that person b is in love with person a? that's closer to what i was going for.

anyway the thing is i do think dean is in love with cas and that this is the most accurate reading of the text but i don't think it's obvious and it's definitely not obvious to anyone but the audience because only the audience has all the evidence from which this conclusion can be drawn.

[ananke-xiii]

As much as it pains me to say it (because of my visceral dislike of the BMoL storyline), “The Raid” is a good episode. So far in the season the BMoL hasn’t succeeded in recruiting any American hunter but Mary Winchester. We’re mid-season now, it’s time for The One where the BMoL seduce Sam and Dean. And Mary is the key. And Sam picks a side. And he’s wrong, of course. (in a cruel twist of fate, I’m starting to suspect I should be “grateful” to SPN writers for writing a main character who’s always so blatantly wrong. Like, without Sam (and Cas) consistently screwing things up we would have no plot and therefore no SPN, so thank you??? I guess???). Anyway, let’s see what this seduction is about.

Quick note before I continue: as per classic SPN, the ones that die.die.die are women and black people. This episode is, sadly, no exception. Billie, Benjamin, The Vampire Alpha, the “Death Siren” music producer + other extras. I mean, come.the fuck.on. Ugh.

“I’m not just a mom”.

Mary is this episode’s (well, obvs primarily this season’s) keystone. She came clean to Sam and Dean about her involvement with the BMoL in “Family Feud” and now she’s facing the consequences of her actions. Her sons (well, mostly Dean) throws her out of the bunker. Dean is pissed, Sam is… how is Sam?

Sam: Look I-I am pissed and – and frustrated and confused, too. But we've frozen her out for days.

Firstly, let me say that the use of the verb “to freeze” in relation to Mary The Fridged-Unfridged-Refridged-Character-Of-All-Time is… hilarious, not gonna lie.

Secondly, Sam is pissed, too, okay? But he’s not THAT pissed. He wants to hear her out. This is big because, so far in the season, Sam hasn’t exactly showed a propensity towards communicating with Mary. She wanted space, he gave her space. She didn’t text him, he didn’t text her. So why is Sam suddenly so interested in Mary? I think it has to do with the fact that she has clearly stated that she’s their mother but she’s not just a mom. I’ve talked about how Sam is subconsciously very VERY VERY pissed at Mary, specifically at her role as his mother. Sam is known to be able to easily compartmentalize events, things, people, feelings into what he can handle and what he can’t. He can’t handle his mother right now but he thinks he can handle Mary.

Dean calls bullshit on his excuse:

Dean: She lied to us, Sam. Sam: I know. Dean: For months. Sam: I know, but it's Mom! I mean, whatever she was doing, she must've had a good reason. Dean: A good reason? A good reason for working with those ass clowns? Sam: Look, I hear you, all right? But – but at the end of the day, she's family. We owe it to her to at least –

In “Lily Sunders has Some Regrets” Sam says something similar about Kelly and Jack: “at the end of the day it’s a mom and her kid”. I mean, this starts to sound like a mantra he tells himself in order to avoid sorting out his feelings. Of course, she had her good reasons, but can Sam accept those reasons for what they are while disagreeing with his mother and being pissed at her for making wrong decisions? Spoiler alert: Sam cannot. So, at the end of the day what can he do? He can play neutral and, again, Dean calls bullshit:

Dean: And this whole peacemaker shtick that you've been running, first with Cas, now with Mom, it's getting old, man. Sam: What's that supposed to mean? Dean: You're always playing the middle, Sam. For once, why don't you pick a side?

(And, again, it’s just hilarious that Dean’s saying this, Mr-Pick-A-Bloody-Side, lol, Bob Berens knows his references)(also, wait so is it Sam who’s stuck in the middle with them (ep12, Sam: “Mom... what the hell did you get us into”)? Oh-oh, yeah guys, Sam is very VERY VERY pissed at Mary)

Picking a side.

If it wasn’t clear, Mary is not a saint, okay? And the previous episode did show us a mother, Rowena, being cunning and evil and getting her revenge. You don’t mess with mothers in this show, cause they are not “just moms”. So Mary plays her “Sam we need to meet. It’s urgent” card and boom, Sam is baited. She didn’t send the same message to Dean, we have two clear shots of her text chats with both her sons. Mary is smart. The only good thing Ketch has ever said in the whole of SPN is that they [the BMoL] didn’t need Sam and Dean because they already had the best Winchester, i.e. Mary. He was not wrong.

So now the brothers are split and the seduction game can begin.

In order to seduce the brothers, Mick and Ketch must find out either what they want or what they need. To be fair, Ketch is better at this than Mick, Mick so completely lucks out in this episode, like he literally cannot believe that, in the end, he’s the one who’s succeeded in attracting Sam (he really, really needs to send a fruit basket to Mary for this). What do Sam and Dean want? Well, good question, let’s skip it for now. So what do they need?

Let’s start with Dean cause it’s easier and he literally tells us. He needs to hit something. Now. Oh, and he also needs drinks, plural. But, he hasn’t been able to find a case and he’s alone in the bunker with no alcohol around. (so reminiscent of s11 Crowley drinking alone vs Dean and Cas on a fake beer run, Berens did study). The magic can begin: knock knock who’s there? It’s jolly good pal Ketch with a bottle of great scotch, a nest of 10 vamps to kill and a lot of fun toys to play with. This is the perfect recipe for Dean but Ketch still fails at seducing him and we’ll see in a moment why.

On the other hand we have Sam, what does Sam need? To be honest with you, I don’t really know. Like, textually, Mary tells him three times that “he needed to know” and she successfully baits him and is able to give him her sales pitch so I guess she was right, that’s what Sam needed. And knowledge is a huge part of who Sam is, this episode in particular shows us how his knowledge is far superior than any other hunter and how it’s the only thing that saves them (well, that saves only Sam, Mary, Mick and the Hunter King of Baton Rouge ‘cause the rest of the BMoL is dead). The show is ambivalent in this regard, sometimes I think Sam wants out, sometimes I think he wants to keep hunting but in a different way, sometimes I think he’s more or less fine with his life… I mean, really, I don’t know. But the show ended with Sam getting out of the life so I must presume that Dabb’s endgame was exactly that.

Anyway, let’s go back to the seduction thing. Mick, by pure chance, manages to seduce Sam with the illusion of organization and method. Sam wants to be a part of it because he thinks they’re changing the world which is ridiculous because the audience has literally just watched how unorganized and unprepared the BMoL are. And I’m not talking about the vampire attack against the base, but we see Ketch going on a hunt certain of his intel but when he arrives at the supposedly vamp-infested motel he finds only one of them. So I think that, all in all, even if I don’t know what Sam needs I think I know what he wants and he wants power (the knowledge he has, the power he wants). He sees the results: the Alpha is dead, doesn’t matter how bad the night was, he sees it as an opportunity and he wants in.

Mick thought they had failed to “attract the, uh, top shelf of American Hunters. Like you” but he actually managed to work well with Sam, they worked in sync to kill the Alpha and that’s not something that goes unnoticed. A connection has been made between the two and Sam picks a side.

On the other hand Ketch’s seduction fails. Dean and Ketch don’t work well together, they’re not on the same page. Ketch reminds Dean that he’s a killer (“You’re a killer, Dean Winchester”, the same line Rowena uttered in “Regarding Dean”) and that they share the same “inclinations” but he’s wrong. What drives Dean is not a crazy impulse to kill but it’s family.

Dean: (to Mary) When I thought something might've happened to you, nothing else mattered. Mary: Dean, the things I said – Dean: No, Mom, you were... It's not your job to make my lunch and kiss me good night. It's – We're adults. You're gonna make your own choices, even if I don't like 'em. Even if I really, really don't like 'em. That's just something I'm gonna have to get used to. Okay, Mom?Mary: Yeah.

(I really really wanna ask: whose job is it to make you lunch and kiss you good night, Dean? 'Cause I know you've given that a thought and you might have an answer, share with the class, maybe?)

And just like that, even if this was an episode where Sam and Mary finally have some screen-time together and manage to somehow connect, we are once again reminded that Dean is the only one who’s putting in the work to establish a relationship with her and who’s willing to sort out his feelings about their frankly messed-up situation. Dean is growing up a lot, being in your late thirties changes your perspective on life, man. Ain’t nobody got time for bullshit anymore.

To the way things are supposed to be.

I love when Sam delivers his little manipulative speech and people fall for it. every.time. He’s that bitch, after all. So one thing is sure now: although Sam has picked the wrong side, he’s aware that they cannot go back to how things were, how things were supposed to be. This will be incorrect as far as the BMoL storyline is concerned (voice of the narrator: things will go back as they were, hunters and vampires, cops and robbers, a fair fight), but it’s correct in terms of Sam’s relationship with Mary: it’s a small step compared to Dean’s emotional growth this season, but Sam is also (slowly) starting to realize that they are indeed adults, Mary is indeed not just a mom and, more importantly, he doesn’t want to go back, he wants to change the world (voice of the narrator: or so he thinks, poor Sammy).

So yeah, good episode. The Mick/Sam-Ketch/Dean parallels worked really well (Ketch invading the bunker and Sam infiltrating the BMoL’s base is visually cool), the family theme smoothly underpins every dialogue, every character has changed (to varying degree) by the end of the episode and the acting was solid. Cool.

[kmze]

When stefan said 'I'll get Elena out of my life & get my own life back"(4×18),itfelt like he was yearning to be detached from the triangle BS and when asked specifically about this scene,Paul said he wanted Stefan to have a story of his own outside of MF because he felt Stefan worked better when he was not with the gang.Then he could return & see where his relationship stood with Damon & Elena.I think the writers should have gone with this.I mean yes at this point PW didn't know how far they were gonna go with DE and Plec was still talking about SC on open-ended terms.But I think Paul was probably the only cast member who had some say about his storyline.Early s6 jerk Stefan was probably all Paul's idea and he even admitted mechanic stefan was his pitch.A season's arc or half a season's arc as Special Guest Star on The Originals would have been great for him.At the beginning of tvd s5,even Candice was interested in crossing over.Although I wonder in that case if anyone would have stayed back to watch tvd. lol. (1/2)

2/2) I also think,if tvd was indeed commissioned to be a six season show then the decision to continue beyond s6 without Elena was on the producers,network and the actors who renewed their contract because all of them wanted the show to live even after Nina didn't change her mind.But then they continued to cater to the elena fandoms and actively sabotaged the last two seasons.They had the choice & opportunity to end the show on a high note instead of that ridiculous mess:the brothers sacrificing,elena becoming a doctor and maybe a flash forward of Caroline and Bonnie sitting on a beach at St. Tropez freed from all MF nonsense.

Well the actors all had six season contracts when they signed on, then after six seasons the actors decide if they want to renew or not. Nina didn't want to renew and the others wanted to stay on, I mean the show is not just Nina it's not even just the actors and producers there's hundreds of people who work on the crew, writing staff, production staff etc. All those people are not millionaires like Nina and shouldn't lose their jobs because she wanted to explore other things. I also think people give Paul too much credit for the schtick he does acting like he doesn't care about the show and doesn't remember anything at these cons because it's like whatever man. He's the first one signed up for these conventions and he's got a bourbon line based on the relationship he built with Ian on the show and being brothers so I don't know why people buy his "woe is me" act. While S7 is a mess it's not my least favorite season (that honor goes to S5) and the second half of that season was entertaining, I enjoyed it a lot more on rewatch. I mean from a SC perspective they got tons of great stuff I just think people care way too much about SV and CA since both were just filler props. And S8 was great for SC especially the first half, why would I not want to have two proposals, a wedding, I love you forevers and all the domestic stuff. For Bonnie as well even if I don't really care for BE that's a great ship for Bonnie and she deserved to have that love story.

[samanddeanwerehere]

Ladner Harbour Park, Delta

Ladner Harbour Park, and more specifically the playground in the park, would be on any shortlist of the most recognizable SPN locations in the series.

The park is located across the Fraser River from the village of Ladner, which was itself used extensively for filming over the years.

Like several of the recent locations in the repeat locations series, the park's first appearance was in 1x03 Dead in the Water, where the boys run into Andrea and Lucas.

The park then took a nine year vacation and didn't appear again until 9x23 Do You Believe in Miracles? when it became the first playground entrance to Heaven.

If you go to the park hoping to enter Heaven via this sandbox, you're likely to be disappointed as the sandbox was a set piece added by production.

The playground is particularly notable for being one of the few locations that appeared multiple times on the show as the same location. The boys don't retrace their steps much but Cas did return to the entrance to Heaven five more times. First in 10x02 Reichenbach.

Then again in 10x10 The Hunter Games. Note that except for the sandbox, the playground equipment is part of the park, making this an excellent spot for reenactment pictures/video.

Back again in 10x17 Inside Man. (Cas' leap here is a particularly good one for reenactment.)

We take a little break for Season 11, and when we return the park is doing double duty in 12x15 Somewhere Between Heaven and Earth and we get to see of some of the park beyond the playground. A section not far from the playground was home to the campsite where the unfortunate boyfriend is attacked by a hellhound.

This picnic shelter where the boys meet up with the cops is between the playground and the spot used for the campsite.

And it's the same spot seen near the end after the hellhound is dealt with.

Turn around and you'll see a familiar sign at the entrance to one of the trails - the actual sign says Swenson Walk but the sign posts are the same.

Down that path where Crowley is headed you'll find the trail where Dean and Crowley went hellhound hunting.

And of course, back at the playground, Cas is headed to Heaven once again.

The final appearance of the park was in 12x19 The Future. But wait, you say, the playground entrance to Heaven appears in Season 13 and 14 too. You would be right, but they used Willard Park in Burnaby for those seasons (reportedly the production was not welcome back to this park after this episode).

If you are visiting the park now, there is a little spring horse right in the spot where the sandbox was placed so be careful not to land on it when making your journey to Heaven. The last time I was there I also saw a beautiful owl so potential for good bird watching in addition to location hunting.

While you are out at the park, be sure to check out the nearby Ladner Slough Bridge on McNeely's Way, which featured in a previous post on repeat locations. And the Ladner Harbour Authority Pier which was also used in 10x02 - it's just past the entrance to the park or accessible from the park trails.

Coming up next in repeat locations is the next set of driving footage on 68th St in Delta.

[bustyasianbeautiespod]

Episode 60 Transcript: Some People are Misogynistic to Cope

[intro guitar music]

G: Hello! My name is Grey.

C: And my name is Crystal.

G: And this is Busty Asian Beauties, a Supernatural commentary podcast where I, someone who has seen the show several times...

C: And I, someone who only knows the show through social media, discuss every single episode of Supernatural from start to finish. Also, we are both Asian.

G: Both Asian! For this episode, we will be discussing Season 3, Episode 16: "No Rest for the Wicked," written by Eric Kripke, directed by Kim Manners.

C: What else did Eric write this season?

G: I think the first episode, which was truly downright atrocious.

C: Yeah, it was terrible. Okay. And now this one. Alright, Eric.

G: Why was the first episode atrocious? I just remember it being atrocious.

C: I think they were quite rude to Tamara and Isaac, and also just the concept of the seven deadly sins being real demons, but completely uninteresting in any way.

G: Yeah, and like, they die, and it doesn't affect anything whatsoever?

C: Yes. Well, Dean got torn to shreds today.

G: He sure did.

C: That was pretty funny. [both laughing]

G: You know, let's just talk about it when we get there, but I had some incredibly funny thoughts while I was watching this scene.

C: Yeah, can I just say the moment during this episode that I felt the most emotions was me zoning out of the episode and remembering that the next time we watch Supernatural we'll see Cas?

G: Oh yeah!

C: That was my deepest moment of emotion while watching this.

G: Multiple times during this episode I was like, "Oh my god! We're going to see Cas next week!" And then I remember that next week we're gonna do the–

C: We have that damnable Q&A.

G: Yeah. We have a Q&A. So we're not going to do it next week. We're going to do it the next. So for the Q&A, our deadline is going to be April 1st at–

C: Midnight Eastern Time.

-

G: Anyway, what did you know about this episode before going in? I mean, pretty much- my guess is that you knew how it ends, but not really the specifics of how we get there.

C: Yeah. So I knew that there was a little girl involved. I knew that it was going to end with Lilith taking over Ruby's vessel and tricking them, and causing the hellhounds to tear Dean to shreds, and then it'll end with Dean chained up and screaming in Hell or whatever and Sam crying a bunch. So yeah, that's what I knew.

G: Yeah. I mean, I didn't know the specifics of this episode. I just knew that they're gonna interface with Lilith, and that until the very end we're going to think, "Oh, they're going to save Dean." But alas! They are not.

C: They're so not gonna save Dean.

G: Yeah. So, "Road So Far," we have “Carry On My Wayward Son.”

C: Yeah.

G: Nothing really jumps out to me in the recap. But it does end with the [mocking voice] "You're going to die. And this- this is what you're going to become." [normal voice] Which I thought was so corny.

C: Yeah, the music cuts out and the screen is black for a second, and then it just flashes that scene.

G: Yeah. To be fair, even though nothing in particular jumped out at me, I was so hyped. I was like, "OMG! The season finale."

C: Were you?

G: Yes, I was! I was super excited.

C: That's good.

G: And like, “Carry On My Wayward Son" is...I went through a phase of like, "Oh, I love this song because it reminds me of Supernatural." And then, like, "I hate this song because it reminds me of Supernatural. [C laughs] And now I think I have grown back to liking it, like, it's a good song. It's a hype song. It's fun, and it reminds me of my boys.

C: That is good.

G: [laughing] I hate that. I hate that I just called Sam and Dean “my boys.”

C: I don't- Cas calls them boys in "The Man Who Would Be King." So it's okay, you're just letting your inner Cas out.

G: Yeah, I'm Cascoded for real.

C: Yeah. This episode is only 39 minutes long.

G: Yep. Yes.

C: And sort of like, seeing that, it's sort of how I felt when I saw that The Magnus Archives finale was 25 minutes long, like, "Oh, this isn't gonna be good."

G: [laughing] Well, can you elaborate on that?

C: Oh, I just like- I think a lot of people were expecting The Magnus Archives finale finale to be like, 40 minutes long to fully wrap things out and be a fully immersive cinematic podcast experience, and I just didn't like it very much, and I just feel like finales that are noticeably shorter than the regular runtime of a show, it's like, “Oh, they put this together at the last minute, didn't they?”

G: Hmm. Okay. So it's not like a fully fulfilled vision.

C: Yeah.

G: Yeah, I can see that. I thought this episode was not-

C: It was fine.

G: It was fine, but it was not a finale episode in the way it felt.

C: Yeah.

G: It didn't feel like a season finale. But I suppose when this season started, the season beginner didn't feel like one as well, so like.

C: And what was the common denominator in both of these episodes? That's right.

G: [laughing] Eric!

C: Eric Kripke!

G: It's Eric Kripke, baby. Yeah.

C: Lost his touch.

G: That- you know what, he did have his touch before this. [C laughs] I was gonna say like, "Did he ever have the touch?" But he did.

C: He did, unfortunately.

G: And we all watched Season 2, Episode 1 and we all did cry and moan and throw up.

C: It's true. Have you been keeping up with the Tumblr brackets with voting for best Supernatural episode?

G: I have seen it! I... [C laughs] Well, what's winning right now? What's the situation?

C: I mean, there's just so many polls going on that I can't say who's winning, but yeah, I think "In My Time of Dying" has definitely trounced anything that it's gone up against so far.

G: I think "In My Time of Dying" is just a spectacular episode.

C: It's a really good episode.

G: Yeah, it's a really good episode, I think that was the beginning of the end for us. [both laughing] Season 2, Episode 1 of a 15 long season show. But that was like, it peaked here, and now we're watching it decline.

C: Yeah, only 300 more to go. [G laughs] Less than 300. Like 270 or something.

-

G: Yes, so we start the episode with Dean in a forest, running-

C: With the worst shakycam.

G: Yes.

C: Atrocious.

G: Yeah, I mean, it's just like he's being chased by the hellhounds, and then, blood spatter, and then he wakes up, and you know, he's having nightmares. and he's very scared. And did you notice in any way, shape, or form that there is a difference in the camera this episode?

C: Yes! The camera angle looked really bad on Dean's face in this scene, it looked like shit. I don't know what the angle was.

G: It looked like shit, both as an angle, but also the graininess? “Like shit,” I mean, “that looks like shit,” I mean, it looks old, not that it looks bad, the graininess. And I- because I watched this in a [laughs] different website today, [C laughs] I'm not sure if that's because the quality change in the different servers or whatever, or it was like, they use a different camera this episode. Or in that scene specifically, because it looks like early season Supernatural, you know, it looks like season- this is the last season that they did with the film cam, right?

C: I think so.

G: Yes, I think so. I think in Season 4 they change to digital. So this is still the same camera that they've been using from Seasons 1 and 2. But I think maybe the color grading or something changed because this episode does look different.

C: Yeah, I did notice the coloring felt different, but I could not describe how it is different.

G: Maybe they were going for a heavier vibe, you know, for obvious reasons in this episode, so they were like, "Let's change up the color into something more akin to the earlier seasons."

C: Dean is also just notably uglier this episode, did you notice this?

G: [laughing] Give him a break! [C laughs] Give him a break! He's dying.

C: He has 30 hours left to live. Yeah, I guess you can give up on the shaving routine a little bit.

G: [laughing] Yeah.

C: Just, terrible camera angle on his face this episode, but especially in this scene. To the point where at points I was like, "Is this Dean? Yeah, okay, I guess it is. But is it? Yeah, it is."

G: [laughs] Sam walks in, and they start talking about how they're trying to find Lilith, and they just have 30 hours to go. At some point, Dean says, "Why are we still doing this? Why don't we just go out and get some drinks? Have some señoritas serve us?"

C: Jesus Christ. God, I'm fucking sick of this guy. Yeah. And again, another reminder that the next most fetishized group after Asian women in Supernatural is Latinas given the existence of Casa Erotica, and also this scene.

G: Yeah, I completely forgot about Casa Erotica. Why do they have so many canonical porn things going on in this show? Why do we need to know about what Dean's porn preferences are?

C: Yeah, and also Gabriel's I guess? Casa Erotica is Gabriel's favorite, right?

G: Yeah, yes.

C: I don't know, this is what's important to men?

G: Yeah, they just continue talking about how Sam is "not going to let Dean die, I promise you," like he says-

C: He prommies!

G: "I swear everything's gonna be okay, I prommy." And Dean just looks at him and says, "Okay." But as we see from Dean's point of view, he's starting to have hallucinations, and he's seeing Sam's face turn into that of a monster's.

C: Yeah. Which, like, they bothered to have scenes from “Crossroad Blues” in the “Road So Far” to show what hellhounds were, but they didn't bother to put the scenes from “Crossroad Blues” where people who are close to being killed by hellhounds start hallucinating that everyone around them has a monster face, which I feel like was an oversight? Bobby brings it up later so you're not left in confusion for too long. But I guess for a lot of people who forgot that part of “Crossroad Blues,” that is confusing.

G: Well, I guess- I suppose you're right, it's just I didn’t consider it, because I do remember that that's a thing.

C: Yeah, but “Crossroad Blues” was a whole season ago, right?

G: Yeah! It is, yeah. I mostly laughed at the fact that they made Jared Padalecki rotate his head like that to get this shot. [C laughing] I was like, “Oh, they're making Jared Padalecki do that, and that's why we have this scene.”

-

C: So we cut to Bobby's place, and he has some device hanging over a map of the US. And apparently, it's gonna be able to tell them the town that Lilith’s in, so he does some chanting, and the machine lands on New Harmony, Indiana. So Sam’s, you know, ready to go. Oh, also, I forgot, Bobby is wearing a sweatshirt in the scene, which is not his usual fare, but good for him.

G: I did not notice that! He was wearing- he puts on a vest after, which is his usual fare. 

C: Yeah, but before that it was just a sweatshirt, and he had the sleeves rolled up to the elbow on both arms? Which is an odd look, but like, go Bobby, I guess. 

G: He's feeling adventurous.

C: Yeah, he's looking glamorous.

G: I love that. [laughs] Is it an actual thing people- is that like an actual rhyme that people say, or did you just happen to rhyme?

C: Oh, I was just referencing the “Cult of Dionysus” lyric, what is it, “You're looking glamorous. Let's get mischievous and polyamorous.” Yeah, that's the line. [G laughs]

G: Yeah, that’s Bobbycore. 

C: Bobbycore is getting mischievous and polyamorous. [laughs] So Sam is, you know, ready to go kill Lilith, and Dean tells him to hold up because he first doesn't trust that Lilith is even the one who holds his contract. He says, “We're going off of Bela's intel. Now, when that bitch breathes the air comes out crooked.” She’s dead. She died last week! [G laughs]

G: She's literally dead, bro.

C: Like, she does not- that bitch does not breathe anymore! [G laughs] She died! You caused her to die, in many ways. You were on the phone as she died going, “Tee hee, it's what you deserve.” God. Whatever. Some people are misogynistic to cope. 

G: [laughing] How many episodes in a row will you bet that we can insert “some people are just misogynistic to cope” in it? [C laughs] Because this is the second one in a row. Perhaps we can have it next episode as well.

C: In “Laz Rising”? Yeah, maybe. Yeah, he’s probably really rude to Ruby. 

G: He interacts with Ruby there. Yeah.

C: He doesn't even know she's Ruby, and he's still not very nice to her, I'm pretty sure. So yeah, and he also says that, you know, they don't have a weapon to kill Lilith, and also Lilith wants to kill Sam. So this is just not a good idea. He says that just because he has to die doesn't mean Sam has to as well, and Sam goes like, “Okay, well, I have a solution to all of the problems, which is, to summon Ruby and ask her for the knife, and also to confirm that Lilith holds your contract.” And Dean is very against this.

G: He says, “She's the Miss Universe of lying skanks!”

C: God. 

G: At least he's getting creative! [both laughing] I mean, he could have just said she's a lying skank. But he added that little flare of “she's the Miss Universe.” So, you know, he’s having fun.

C: Dean just learned what metaphors are in fourth grade English class and he's trying to apply his knowledge to the real world.

G: He's a creative writer for real.

C: I mean, that's what The Winchesters is, isn't it?

G: [laughing] What do you mean, he’s writing fanfic about his parents?

C: Yeah.

G: R.I.P.  

C: R.I.P. So yeah, he says that they shouldn't trust Ruby, because “for all we know, she works for Lilith,” which in Season 4 ends up being sort of correct, right?

G: In a way. But she's not working for Lilith there, even then.

C: Wait, what’s the scene where she’s like, “No one knew, except for like-” she says like, “Alistair didn't know,” did she say Lilith also didn't know, or did- was Lilith in the list of people who did know?

G: No, because the intention is that they need to kill Lilith, so obviously Lilith doesn't want to die. 

C: Fair. That's true. Good point. Okay, so she's not working for Lilith. She's just working for Lucifer. So, Dean gets all yell-y, and he says that “we're not gonna make the same mistakes all over again, and they have to find a new way to save him,” Blah blah blah blah blah. But Sam is still pro-summoning Ruby. I think in response to the “Miss Universe of lying skanks” he says, “Okay, fine. She's a liar. She's still got that knife.” So, you know, I know he's just being practical. But I've decided that every sentence is a Samruby rights sentence.

G: No, he calls her a bitch later.

C: Yeah, no, that wasn't good. But it hasn't happened yet in this episode as we’ve summarized it. 

G: That’s true. We'll discuss it when we get there.

C: Yeah. So Bobby decides to go off and find another way to save Dean, yada yada yada. 

G: So Sam doesn't listen to Dean and still summons Ruby. So Ruby appears. 

C: Yeah, and I did cheer and clap and scream when she appeared. 

G: I'm still happy to see her. 

C: Yeah, she's leaning against the doorway and being so cool, and I understand that being hashtag badass is a way to avoid giving women personalities in depth, but have you considered that she's so cool?

G: She is so cool, and like, maybe not right now. But I do feel like we get some depth out of her.

C: I agree, yeah.

G: And it's bubbling in this to the surface in this episode, and, you know, all throughout Season 2, and she does have a personality, although yes, the personality is like, “I'm cool, I'm cool.” [C laughs] But for example, I mean, we're jumping to the future of this episode. But how she tells Dean, like, ‘I want to skin you alive,” you know, all that shit. And then, later on, in the episode, she says, “I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy,” and it shows self control, like she doesn't mean all things she says, and I think she was being honest when she said she wouldn't wish it to her worst enemy, and that's supposed to give us depth of her character in some way. Yeah, I think she's a good character, and many characters in Supernatural who are men I feel like don't necessarily have that much depth, or they didn't have at the beginning. And then, you know, the fandom received them well, and that led to their depth. Or they just don't have depth, and then the fandom just gives it to them, and it's not just for Supernatural. You can see this in a lot of fandoms, and it frustrates me that a lot of female characters are not given that benefit of the doubt, you know? It's all convoluted. 

-

G: Sam asks here, like, “How do you get around so fast?” Does he not know at this point that demons can teleport? Or the better question should be, can demons teleport? What's their deal?

C: I assume that they can. But I guess I don't- do we know either way for certain?

G: I have no idea. Maybe one day we'll get a proper confirmation. Because when Dean was a demon, he was just walking around and driving around. [C laughs] 

C: That's just because he was a loser demon, though. 

G: He was a loser demon. Yeah. And Sam asks, like, “Did you know about Lilith and the contract,” and Ruby says yes, and Sam is offended that she didn't tell him. And she says, “You guys weren't ready, because you would have just charged after her half-cocked, and Lilith would have peeled the meat from your pretty pretty faces.” And Sam says, “Okay, but we're ready now, and we're gonna have your knife because you're gonna give it to us.” And Ruby does her reveal here. which is that she can't do anything about killing Lilith, but Sam can, and she elaborates that all that shit about Yellow Eyes’s powers that Sam has, if he cultivates those well enough, he can kill Lilith without even lifting a muscle. That's how she words it. And she says that Lilith is doing a little bit of a rest and recreation moment right now, so they can attack right now. It's a good time. Yeah, at some point, Sam says like, “Why are you just telling me this now?” And she says, “Well, I’m a demon, manipulation is kind of in the job description. And also, you wouldn't have considered it until now, because only now are you desperate enough.” I think that's interesting, her reasoning for holding back, it’s like, if I told you that earlier you would have just did it your way, but now that we're here and you're desperate, you're more likely to do it my way, and it's conniving, you know, but I think it's so interesting, like, she is portrayed as such a smart character. and she is. and I find that super interesting.

C: Yeah, I agree. Though I feel like the only reason Sam wouldn't do it her way is because of Dean. But Dean is always gonna be in the picture, so I guess it does matter. Sam has to be desperate enough to go against what Dean thinks he should do, is sort of what's happening. Okay, I have two other thoughts about this part of the scene. First, you can see the sweat on Sam's neck when he's setting up the summoning ritual. So that's just a thing. Thank you, Sam. And secondly, when Ruby appears, she says, “A phone call would have worked as well.” And I really like the idea of, like, Sam could have texted her at any point but he's still doing this whole summoning ritual, the way that I like the idea of Sam and Dean praying to Cas when he has a phone in the future, just the idea that you could communicate normally, but there is a way for you to communicate that sort of forces your voice into their head, or forces their physical presence in a way, and that is what you're choosing to do.

G: Yeah, like, you can't mute my notifications if my notifications are in your head. 

C: [laughs] No, yeah, exactly, like, I think it says something about the way that Sam and Dean view both Ruby and Cas as tools or not human, you know. It's interesting.

G: Yeah. 

-

G: At some point, Ruby tells Sam, like, “You don't like being different. You hate the way Dean looks at you sometimes like you’re some kind of sideshow freak.” And she calls that out, but, “Suck it up, I don't care if you hate being different. We've got a lot of ground to cover.” But that first part of the line reminds me of that one post that's like, “I like Dean’s queer allegory better than Sam’s queer allegory, because Sam queer allegory is about being queer and hating yourself.” [laughs]

C: What's Dean’s queer allegory, does Dean have a queer allegory?

G: I have no idea. I mean, I suppose he has. [laughs]

C: Not to kick up a million discourse, but I don't think Dean has a queer allegory. 

G: I think he’s just queer. [both laughing]

Yeah, but what they're saying is that with Sam it's like, “Oh, woe is me, I hate myself for who I am.” And I do get that, and that it's, you know. Yeah, I mean, I understand, but I remember reading that whole situation back in the day and being like, “God, that's funny.”

C: Yeah. I saw some really funny tags the other day where it was like, Sam is trying to come out to John like, “Dad, would you still like me if I was different from the other kids?” John, thinking that Sam's demon powers are coming to light, “Sammy, you have to ignore it, you have to repress all of it forever and ever. Never think about it again.” [both laughing]

G: Literally.

C: And I think that is exactly what happened, and that is what created this man that you see in front of you today.

G: Anyway, Dean shows up and goes, “So that's you, huh? Our slutty little Yoda.” [laughs]

C: [groans] God, I knew about this line years in advance, and I was still not prepared.

G: It's so funny, because I think you mentioned this line super early on, when Ruby showed up, like, “Doesn’t Dean call her slutty little Yoda?” And so when it showed up, I was like, “It's here. She’s literally their slutty little Yoda.” [both laugh] What a line!

C: Why does he even say it?

G: What does it even mean? 

C: What has she done to make him think that she's slutty besides be a woman?

G: No, yes, that, but also like, what does he mean by Yoda? Like, what does Yoda do, say truth?

C: Like a mentor figure that guides you but is sort of mysterious about it?

G: Yeah, I suppose. Anyway, Dean says, like, “I knew you'd show up, because Sam wouldn't listen.”

C: I hate this half of the scene. 

G: Yeah, it’s sort of annoying. I did like the fight scene, though, but we'll get to it when we get to it. But Dean is like, “You're not gonna teach Sam anything, over my dead body,” and Ruby goes, “Yeah, I bet.” [both laugh]

C: Ruby’s thinking about Season 4 and going, “I am about to be hilarious.”

G: She literally is about to be hilarious. But he demands for the knife and says, “Just give us the knife, and then never bother us ever again.” But Ruby keeps on insisting until Sam interferes, and Dean just says, “Don't you see that this is all a trick? She just wants you to become her little Antichrist Superstar,” and Ruby says, “I want Lilith’s death, that's all.” And she's being honest here, right, as we said earlier, she's being completely for real here. And she says- Dean asks why, and she says, “I told you why,” and Dean says like, “Oh, right, because you were human once?” blah blah blah blah blah, and Ruby says, “I’m so sick of proving myself to you. You want to save yourself. This is how, you dumb, spineless dick.” Dean punches her. And she punches back, baby!

C: And she has blood on her face. She has blood on her face, and she looks great.

G: She looks great. She punches the hell out of him. Sam just goes, “Ruby, no!” [C laughs] And then, you know, she punches Sam as well. I love this because the moves here are super fun, Dean is on the floor, and she kicks him in the stomach. So she flips around, and then she knocks him over with her head, and I don't know, it reminds me of video game choreography, like the fight scenes. And I thought it was super fun.

C: Yeah, I feel like a lot of these moves are very obviously choreographed, I think Dean’s original punch, I was like, “That did not connect.” But I don't care because I'm having fun.

G: I love that it looks like a little dance, when she- there was a part where she lifts his head to headbutt it, and I was like, “That's so cool. I love that.” Because you know how in a lot of fight scenes in the show sometimes it'll just go, and then they're fighting. [both laugh] 

C: Yeah. 

G: But like this one, this one I can describe the fight because I thought it was choreographed very interestingly.

C: Yeah, it’s fun. 

G: Anyway, at some point, Dean, you know, just starts laughing and smiling and giggling, twirling his hair. [C laughs] And Ruby just goes, “What are you doing?” And he goes, “I think you're missing something,” and then he pulls out the knife, he swiped it from her during the fight, and Ruby is like, “I’m gonna kill you,” and she tries to step out but she is, in fact, in a devil’s trap. So yeah. Sam and Dean start going upstairs. Do you think Sam was in on this? I don't think so.

C: No. I don’t think so. 

G: Yeah. And then, Ruby, as they're going upstairs, just goes, “Oh, you're too stupid to live, is that it?” [both laughing]

C: She’s so for real.

G: She's so for real, and he is too stupid to live, and she goes like, “Then fine. You deserve Hell! I wish I could be there, Dean. I wish I could smell the flesh sizzle off your bones. I wish I could be there to hear you scream!” [C laughing] She was doing her everything in this scene.

C: Yeah, right, which I appreciate. 

G: Yeah, Dean goes, “And I wish you'd shut your piehole, but we don't always get what we want.” And at that moment I was like, “I'm glad you're dying at the end of this.”

C: No, literally!

G:  I'm glad her dreams are coming true. 

C: Exactly. I hope that she did get to smell the flesh sizzle off of his bones.

G: Exactly. 

C: Anyway, I just hate this scene because it starts off as Sam acting independently, doing his own thing, doing what he thinks is right to save Dean, and then Dean swoops in, he's like, “Actually, I'm BBC Sherlock and I anticipated all of this because I'm so smart. And I studied one million psychology. So actually you lose, and the camera’s only gonna focus on my face. And as soon as I enter the scene Sam will literally be in the background, out of focus the entire time, and just follow behind me like a kicked puppy as we leave Ruby on the ground,” like, I'm sick of him. I'm so glad he's gonna die.

G: Yeah.

-

C: So we cut to a little bit later, and Sam and Dean are loading up guns and shit, and yeah, I think it's pretty clear that Sam wasn't in on this because he’s like, “Are we actually just gonna let Ruby rot down there?” And Dean says, “Yes.” And Sam starts expressing a desire to know what Ruby's plan is, and to try to stop Lilith. I think one of the biggest weaknesses of this episode is that we don't even get a hint of what Ruby's plan for Sam is. We have like ten different arguments of Dean being like, “No, whatever she wants you to do is evil, and it’ll warp you forever, and it's just demon trickery.” But we have no idea what it is. 

G: We don’t, yeah.

C: If we knew about it, and it seemed menacing in some way, maybe I would get Dean's perspective, but I just don't get how neither of them just even bothered to ask her “Hey, what is it?” before they decided anything. 

G: Really makes you think that maybe he really is just too stupid to live. 

C: [laughs] Literally. Dean references Carrie, which I haven't read or watched. Have you read or watched Carrie?

G: I've watched the more recent one.

C: Okay. I know that a lot of the Sam fans enjoy comparing him to Carrie. What do you, as the person with knowledge- in what way do the similarities lie?

G: I watched Carrie when I was really young, so like- which you probably shouldn't do, but I don't remember much about it is what I'm saying. I just remember there's a lot of blood and killing and murder and it's about this girl with religious guilt or something. And she was abused by her mother, stuff like that.

C: Yeah. 

G: And like, yeah, I don't remember much about it. I mean, for sure you know the iconic scene of blood being poured down on her, and the whole like- yeah.

C: Yeah. 

G: I mean, do people put Carrie in the feminine rage category? What's the deal with that?

C: Maybe.

G: Yeah, I mean, maybe, it's like- I feel like it's a story that's very, you know, about girlhood in a way, so in that way, I don't think it can be related to Sam, but I'm sure it has, you know, more to say than being about girlhood, that I completely missed by virtue of not remembering much of it. So maybe this is a Sam thing. Yeah.

C: Yeah. So yeah, Dean says, “Who the fuck cares what Ruby has to say, we have the knife now.” And Sam reminds him that Lilith is very powerful, she has a bunch of demons backing her up, and that knife is not going to be enough. So Dean says again, “We are not going to make the same mistake all over again,” and Sam, thank god, asks the question that I was thinking the first time Dean said it, which is “What the fuck does that mean?”

G: [both laughing] What the fuck does that mean?

C: Yeah. So Dean says that this is part of a pattern where, like, John made a deal with a demon to save Dean, and then Dean made a deal with a demon to save Sam, to Sam working with Ruby at all is equivalent to Sam making a deal with the demon to save Dean? I'm honestly still not clear on what his point is, but I think that’s what he’s saying. 

G: Yeah, he says some pretty words, like, “She's just yanking your chain down the road and you know what it's paved with, and you know where it's heading.” [C laughs] And I was like, “This is all to trick us into thinking that this means anything.” 

C: Again, this is literally him learning about figurative language in his fourth grade English class. That's all he's doing. He's doing an exercise for class.

G: Yeah.

C: I feel like Dean is doing a false equivalence here. Sam is not making a demon deal. He is tapping into his psychic powers, which he should do all the time, because it's cool and sexy of him to do it. But yeah, I don't know, so much of this episode’s conflict is predicated on “demon equals bad” and that probably works for most people, but as someone who's just opposed to Supernatural's bioessentialism on principle it's just never gonna work on me.

G: Yeah, also, given that Sam has demon blood, in and of itself, there should be conflict in the show because of that, and not just be straight up “demons are evil.”

C: Right. Well, yeah, the way it is currently going, it seems to be like, yes, Sam has demon blood in him, but as long as he fights against the demon blood that is fundamentally evil inside of him that he can still be good.

G: Yeah.

C: Boring.

G: Yeah. You know how universities, you're required to take an ethics class or whatever?

C: Yeah. Well, I wasn’t.

G: You weren't?

C: No.

G: R.I.P. But I was required to take an ethics class, and I did think, like, “What would Sam feel while taking this class?” for real, like, I don't know, it's just- because, you know, a lot of those is about action, and Sam is so guilty about everything in his life.

C: Yeah.

G: That is, it's not rooted in actual, like, “What did I do?” It's rooted in, “Who am I?”

C: Yeah. There were a lot of actions he should feel guilty about that he doesn't.

G: Yeah, he's more focused on, like, “What are my thoughts, what are my feelings?” It's just like, maybe, Sam, you should look at it more, you know, “What have I done,” you know, and maybe that won't solve the problem. Maybe it'll just make him feel guiltier, but.

C: But at least he’ll be guilty about real stuff, like killing Jake. He should feel bad about that.

-

C: So Sam says like, “Dean, what do you think is gonna happen? This is me. I can handle it,” which is also a sentence that means nothing.

G: Yeah, what do you mean, like, “This is me? This is real? I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be now, [sings] gonna let the light, shine-” [C laughs] Sam should have been singing that song, he should have broken into song.

C: Well, he thinks that Dean should have sung “Eye of the Tiger.” So yeah, he could have joined in with his own song. 

G: Oh my god, they do sing this episode!

C: They do this episode. 

G: I forgor, I forgor. 

C: So Sam says that he's willing to risk anything, because Dean's his brother and Dean did the same thing for him. And you know, Dean says like, “Well, yeah, that's actually an argument against all that, because we are each other's weak spots, and all the demons know it, and they're using it against us.” Are they? Are they even? They say this a lot this season, but I just don't really get that vibe.

G: Dean is so like, “I'm so special, they all care about me so much they're willing to find everything that can control me, whatever whatever.” Maybe they are, but they didn't do a good job of showing it this season. So this falls kind of flat.

C: Yeah. Like, if I saw more demons conspiring with each other and shit, I might believe that more. I do know that they all generally know about Sam and Dean, but it seems like the factions are fractured enough that it's hard for me to believe that there's a big demon conspiracy happening, even though there sort of is. Yeah, Sam's hurt by the idea that they're each other's weak spots. He's like, “You don't mean that, we're family.” What does that even mean? [laughs]

G: None of these words to me to anything to me, they’re having two different conversations. 

C: Just because they’re playing the piano theme of “Americana” throughout the scene doesn't make it good. [G laughs] It is “Americana”, right? Like there's some kind of a piano theme that sounded familiar. 

G: I don’t know, I don't think so. I feel like I would have recognized it. 

C: Okay, it's some other piano thing that sounds kind of like “Americana.” And then Dean says another sentence that means nothing. He says, “We go after Lilith our way, the way Dad taught us to.” What does that mean? [both laughing]

G: “Dad taught us to be stupid. So alas, we shall be so.”

C: Literally, that is literally what it is. They reference John twice this episode, and it's like, Eric Kripke literally wrote the first episode of Season 3 then took a 14 episode nap, and then woke up to write this, and he was like, “What have I done in the past? Reference John? Yeah, let's put that in.” I just don't get it. I don't know what they're going for. Yeah. So he's all like, “And if we go down, we go down swinging. What do you think?” Yeah. So Sam makes fun of him. Which, okay, usually I don't like when they end serious conversations with one of them making fun of the other. But it works really well here because the conversation was stupid as shit.

G: Yeah, like when Dean said, like, “I rehearsed that, too.” I was thinking, “It's obvious, because none of the things Sam said you interfaced with in a meaningful way. You were just trying to get out what you wanted to say,” [C laughing] and same goes for Sam, I have no idea what the fuck you guys are talking about. You were having different conversations.

C: Yeah, Sam makes fun of him, and says that he should have been jamming “Eye of the Tiger,” and Dean says he rehearsed that, like you said, which is so funny to me, and they're like, “Okay, let's go to Indiana,” and “I wonder what a demon has to do for fun.” So many fun things, is the answer.

-

G: Yeah, we go to Indiana. And so there's, you know, two old men collecting their mail, and one of them goes like, “Hey, hey, how's that granddaughter of yours?” And the guy goes like, “Oh, she's home sick, but you know, how’s you and your wife, tell your wife I said-” you know, they're just doing the niceties, and then-

C: The niceys?

G: [laughs] The niceys. They literally are doing the niceys. And they shake hands, and as one of them leaves, the other notices that he left a note on his hand, so he opens it, and it just says, “Help us!” And we enter with the grandfather, who from now on forward I'll call the grandpa, and he opens his door to a dead lady on the floor covered with bugs. So she's been there a while.

C: Yeah, she was not treated very niceys.

G: Yeah, he continues, walking forward. And in the kitchen there is a dad and a mom, and the mom is mixing something up in a bowl, and the dad is just there with his eyes closed, and the grandpa asks like, “Where is she?” And the mom says, like, “Upstairs playing with Freckles,” and the grandpa is like, “If we just stay here, we're dead,” and the father is like, “Shut up! She'll hear you. It's her or us,” you know, they're very quiet and talking about how they can't kill her because she's their baby girl, and the grandpa insists that like, “Well, not anymore, because that's not her anymore.” And then suddenly, a little girl comes down the stairs and she's wearing a very pretty dress, except the dress is completely drenched in blood.

C: I love this actress so much. She's having so much fun.

G: She is, and it's like, I think she's a really good actress, she's really good at what she was doing, because it was so convincing that this is like an adult- like, not adult, but like this is a not-child trying to play a child, that really is the vibe that you're getting, and it's super fun and creepy and cool. I mean, we all know it's a trope to have an evil little girl, because it's like, “Ooh, evil little girl.” 

C: Literally “ooh, evil little girl,” that is so fun. 

G: Yeah. And you know, she’s saying, “What happened to you,” and she says, like, “Oh, Freckles was mean to me.” But she says it like this: [cheerily] “Freckles was mean to me.” Like that, and the parents are like, “Oh, that's nice, dear,” and she goes like, “Will you push me on the swing?” and the dad goes, “Yes, but don't you want to change clothes for us?” And she's like, “Oh, you're so smart, Daddy. I love you!” And then she hugs him, and you can hear the squelching of the blood. And the dad just goes, “Hey. Do you think, after a while, you could let us go?” And Lilith- who, you know, is the little kid, I think we forgot to mention it, but like, you know. Obviously, it's Lilith. She goes like, “Why would I let you go?” And the father goes, “Well, I don't know,” and she’s like, “Don't you want to be here? Don't you love me?” And as soon as- the dad goes, “No, we do,” and the mother goes, “We love you so much,” and Lilith is just like, “Don't be mean to me. I don't like it if you're mean to me, just like Freckles or the mean old babysitter.” And as soon as the dad says sorry, Lilith just goes like, “Okay. It's okay, silly. Now let's go and play,” and it's like, super creepy for real. 

C: She’s having so much fun. Love it. 

G: It's such a fun scene. So fun.

C: Yeah, yeah, I just really like the idea that like, this is a millennia old demon. But when she wants to have fun, what she does is possess a little girl, and terrorize a family via being a little girl who is also so creepy, it's just very fun, like that does sound like a fun thing to do. I get it. Good for her.

G: This is her rest and recreation, baby.

C: Yeah.

-

C: So Sam and Dean are about to head to Indiana, but for some reason, the Impala just Isn't starting, and Bobby shows up holding a car part, and he is like, “Hello! I have taken this from your car. Where the fuck do you think you're going?” And Bobby is upset that they plan to go off and try to defeat Lilith without him. He goes, “Do I look like a ditchable prom date to you?” And Sam looks so chastised at this sentence. He's like, “No, Bobby. Of course not!” So true.

G: I love this line. I think it's famous, I think somebody turned it into a “Ditchable Prom Date Tuesday” or something.

C: Oh, that's fun.

G: Is it? Did someone do that? I have no idea. But if they haven't done it, they should.

C: And Dean says, “Well, You're not part of this. This is just about me and Sam,” and Bobby goes, “Fuck no, family don't end with blood,” which I know is a famous Supernatural line. But I don't- we needed a flashback episode with Bobby before I would care about this line, you know?

G: Yeah, I suppose. We’ll get that in Season 7

C: Like, I know that he raised them, I know that he raised them, but at this point in the show no one else knows that.

G: Yeah. It's fascinating how much Bobby's in this show. But he just doesn't feel like a character that you're meant to love, he feels like very much a utility character. Is that sad? 

C: Yeah. And I guess we're supposed to have his moment in the Season 2 finale where we're supposed to be like, “Oh, he really cares about Dean, and they have a close relationship.” But I just don't think we know enough about their history. So yeah, sorry. This is not my best line. Also, Supernatural has sort of done this line to death already with their #SPNfamily shit so like, it's done. It's over. So this is when Bobby brings up that Dean’s having hallucinations right now, and that means that he needs more help than he normally would, and Bobby says that he'll follow along with them in his own car. Which- why is that? Isn't there room in the Impala?

G: Maybe if they brought the other car they can bring more equipment as well. Blah blah blah, this is just me bullshitting my hypothesis. 

C: Maybe he just wants to give Sam and Dean some time to do scenes alone for the good show, to make the show good. 

G: That's literally the point. They need to sing “Wanted Dead or Alive” by Bon Jovi, and they need to do it alone.

C: It's true. It would be so fun if Bobby was just in the backseat trying to join in, and they're like, “Not you. We're having a moment.” We get a very ugly fade to the next scene.

G: We fade in to the Impala, and Sam starts talking in a way that implies that he thinks maybe there's a chance Dean is gonna die, and he wants to say goodbye, and Dean just goes like, “No, no, no, no, you're not gonna go goodbye speech on me, if this is my last day on earth, I don't want it to be socially awkward.” And he says, like, “You know what I do want?” Bon Jovi starts playing, and Sam goes, “Bon Jovi?” And Dean says, “Bon Jovi rocks on occasion.” I still don't understand what qualifies as good and bad for Dean, like music-wise.

C: I have no clue. I could not tell you.

G: Do you think Dean is a good KTV bar buddy?

C: Is that like the karaoke bar?

G: Oh, yeah, yeah, you don't have KTV bars there, or like, is it just called different?

C: Karaoke is not as popular in the US as it is in a lot of parts of Asia, I believe. I feel like all the karaoke places that I've seen have been in majority Asian districts.

G: So like Chinatown, Koreatown, Koreatown, probably.

C: Yeah. 

G: Cause like, here in the Philippines, all of the KTVs are in the Koreatown of Manila. I'm not sure, actually, but like that's where me and my friends do it.

C: Yeah. 

G: So have you ever been in one, or- where do you do your karaoke?

C: I don't really do my karaoke.

G: Aww. 

C: Yeah, which is kinda sad. 

G: Well, do you think Dean would?

C: Well, he does canonically do karaoke at some bars later in the series, right? 

G: Yeah, but like, that’s not karaoke- is that what karaoke bars are like in the US? It's like, open? That's just a bar with a karaoke, that’s not a karaoke bar.

C: Yeah, that's just a bar with a karaoke, that’s not a karaoke bar. I don't know, I don't think Dean would go to a karaoke bar, because that would be gay.

G: [laughs] Why would it be gay?

C: It's just, it would be gay in Dean’s mind, I think it would be gay.

G: Yeah, perhaps. I think Dean would be the type of guy who would, if he's drunk enough, he'll sing every song, even if it's not- he's not the one who put it in, you know? I think he will be that guy.

C: I agree. He would be just as unbearable.

G: I've been saying this, if Dean was Filipino, he would thrive as a tito, he would thrive as a Filipino tito, like a Filipino uncle. He has the vibes for it. 

C: Okay, what does that entail?

G: Like, you know, Karaoke, drinking, I suppose, being kind of an asshole to your nieces and nephews. Being a bad person. [C laughs] It sounds like him, right?

C: Being a bad person does sound like him, I agree.

G: Yeah, he's the type that will not give you money, but will give you drinking money, he'll be like, “Do you want to drink?” And you'll be like, “Okay,” and that's the only time in your life that you will give you any sort of money, including Christmas and Lunar New Year, occasions where they're kind of obligated to give something to people.

C: That sounds correct. Yeah.

G: It’s very Dean. 

C: Right, so you think he would be unbearable at a karaoke bar.

G: He would be unbearable in a karaoke bar. That is true. Do you think he would thrive in a situation where Sam has children, and he's the uncle? I think it would be better than if he had children.

C: Yes. Well, let me think, I think the closest thing that we get to that is how Sam is parenting Jack a lot more than Dean is in the early Season 14 days. But, you know, that's a very unique situation where Dean is threatening to kill this guy every second.

G: That is true.

C: So I could not extrapolate much from that. 

G: Also, there is just much to say about whether Sam is the type of guy who wants children anyway, which- I actually will be very happy to have that discussion in the future. 

C: Okay, yeah. So I think Dean would want to be involved like an embarrassing amount.

G: That's true. 

C: I feel like he'd be quite pushy about being involved in Sam's children's lives, and I don't know, he still seems to think that John is a good parent, at least in this episode, written by Eric Kripke, so like, I don't know what his parenting style would be like at all.

G: That's interesting and so true.

-

G: So they start singing, and Sam is so bad at it, Dean sounds like a normal guy who's singing, and Sam is like, I don't know, his voice is cracking, and like [sings] “Wanted-”

C: I found his bad singing very charming!

G: I think it's charming. I think it's funny, it’s funny in like, “Aww,” that kind of way, not like in a “Haha, I'm laughing at you because you're so terrible” kind of way. I think it's endearing.

C: Yeah, and he’s smiling a lot, and he looks very beautiful when he does it.

G: Yeah.

C: Sam looks really good this episode. I don't know if I've mentioned that yet.

G: No, you haven't, and I don't agree. [laughs]

C: What? Oh my God! Okay, fine. Okay. Let's discuss this. Tell me more.

G: I think he looks kinda uggo. That's my- that's the only discussion you will have. I'll just go, “He looks kind of uggo,” and then you go, “I think he looks pretty,” and I’ll go, “No, he looks kind of uggo.”

C: Well, okay, I guess there's nothing we can do about how you're wrong and I’m right. So we must move on.

G: [laughs] They just keep on singing, and as they drive off there's a shot where we see that they have a busted tail light. I never understood this. I don't drive. Never have drived. Well, I have drived, and then it scared the crap out of me. So I've never done it again. 

C: That's correct of you. 

G: But, busted taillight, right? I've never had an experience in the Philippines where my family, or whatever, or whoever I’m with, gets stopped for a busted taillight, but it feels so stupid to me, that like- so what's the game plan? “You have a busted taillight. That's dangerous, I'm gonna pull you over and give you a ticket, and then go forth with your life”?

C: I don't know, because I have not had a busted taillight situation, either. Yeah, I don't know. I guess the point is like, maybe it's preventative? Like, as soon as you bust a taillight you should try to replace it as soon as possible, because if you keep driving around with it, you'll keep getting tickets?

G: Yeah, but like, in the moment you have a busted taillight, and then the police stops you.

C: I think you probably just go on your way. 

G: And then they let you go again, and then it's like, you're still in danger, because you have a busted taillight, and they’re just letting you do it, and all you need to do is pay a fee for it. I don't know, I think it's stupid.

C: I think each time you run across a traffic cop, you'll get a new ticket, for as long as you have a busted taillight, so I feel like it probably still works?

G: Why don't they just replace the light then and there?

C: That is a good question. I don't- is it the same for every car model? Do you have to go to the special Impala shop to get a taillight for the Impala? 

G: Yeah. The 1967 Chevy Impala shop. Real. 

C: [laughs] Yeah. There's probably like a “several sizes fits all” taillight. Yeah, I do agree that it makes more sense for traffic cops to just be mechanics. But, alas.

G: Basically the Impala gets stopped, and a cop comes over, and it’s like, “License and registration blah blah blah,” as soon as Dean gives it, he's like, “Yeah, I was gonna change the taillight,” and then he steps out of the car and beats the shit out of this officer, and then stabs him in the neck, and he does the whole “light up a demon from the inside” demonic thing. And we realize that it's a demon, and Bobby's like, “What the hell?” And Sam is like, “How do you know it's a demon,” and Dean just says like, “I just knew, I could see his face. Its real face under that one.” So, slay.

C: Yeah.

G: And they end up in the woods, and they're putting branches over the car-

C: [laughs] Yeah, the police car to hide the fact that Dean killed a cop.

G: [laughs] I thought that was so funny because it's like, the car is still there.

C: Yeah, they do not cover it very well.

G: And Sam is like, “How are you seeing demons?” And Bobby says, “Well, you’re five hours-” so this is five hours to go. “You're 5 hours to go. You're piercing the veil. You're glimpsing the B-side.” [laughs] Wow! They really are hammering home the metaphor. It's similes this episode. And Dean says like, “A little less new age-y please,” and Bobby just goes, “You're almost Hell's bitch. So, you can see Hell's other bitches.”

C: What a way to word it!

G: What a way to word it! But yeah, basically, that's what's happening, Dean seeing them because he's about to become them.

-

C: Yeah, so we cut back to Lilith, just having so so much fun. So yeah. Apparently, her thing is that she really likes sweets the way that Ruby really likes fries. So, you know, they're having like a semi-family dinner thing, but the only things available are candy and cake, and the mom is bringing in a birthday cake, and Lilith goes like, “Yay, it's my birthday every day!” and blows out the candles. I'm surprised that no one asked her what she wished for, she didn't say anything about what she wished for. I feel like that's a missed opportunity to do some corny horror.

G: What would you presume she would say? 

C: Oh, god, I don't know. Just general like, “That we can be like this forever,” like, semi-ominous cheesy shit, you know?

G: Yeah. Yeah.

C: So she goes like, “Hey, Grandpa? Can I ask you something? Why did you try to go to Mr. Wayburn for help?” And so the assumption is that everyone in this town is a demon, so that he passed the “Help us” message onto Lilith. Right, and the grandpa’s like, “I didn't,” and she calls him a big fat liar, and she asks the mom and dad if they were in on this plan, and both of them say no, meaning that they are leaving the grandpa to die.

G: I mean they really weren't, though so like. What do you want them to do? 

C:I don't know if they like- I couldn't tell if they were or weren’t in on the plan. I sort of assumed that maybe they were? And you know, she calls him a mean old man who doesn't really love her. And then, you know, she does a hand motion and his neck fucking snaps, let's go, and then she goes, “Nobody scream, okay, screaming makes me mad,” which was so so fun. So you know, the parents are crying and covering up their mouths, and you know, she's back to happy. And she asks to have ice cream with her cake. Oh, she's just so fun, she's so fun.

G: I love how for almost all the cases that we like this season, it involves a child in some way. Like, we really like “The Kids Are Alright,” because it involves a child being a creepy, creepy creature. And then we- oh, well, I liked the telephone, the “Long Distance Call” one specifically because of the conflict with the father whose child died. I really like what they did with that one, and it's like, I don't know. Why are children so effective in like horror and invoking feelings?

C: Yeah, I don't know, but they are just very good at it.

G: Yeah, I think it's very effective if you want to do a sad thing, it's like, “And then the child died.” [C laughs] But Supernatural is very strict with the “no child dying on screen” thing.

C: Yeah, which I guess is probably a good thing, but also, they allow so many other things that it's like, “Huh! Weird that this is where you draw the line.”

G: I think it's like a-

C: Like the network would lose a lot of advertising if blah blah blah.

-

C: So we cut to the outside, where Sam and Dean are peering- and also Bobby, he's also there- are peering into this window. 

G: [laughs] Bobby to is in this episode. 

C: Yes. And apparently Dean can tell that the little girl is Lilith, because her face is the ugliest of all the five million demon faces in this town. I still don't get that.

G: Yeah.

C: Like all of them are demons, and like, I don't know. Also, you know, the general trope of, “beauty equals goodness and ugliness equals bad evilness” is annoying in general. But yeah, okay, apparently Dean can just tell that this one's Lilith. Dean stops Sam from just going for it, because the whole town is full of demons, and it's gonna be hard for them to get past everyone and kill a ten-year-old girl, and Sam and Bobby are both like, “Yeah, it is pretty bad that we're gonna kill a ten-year-old girl. But this is about saving everyone in the town. It's for the greater good,” and Dean's like, “Okay, sure fine.” This is the only discussion they have about the “killing a ten-year-old girl” thing.

G: I mean, not only do they kill a ten-year-old, they killed multiple people via knife. 

C: Yes, because the knife kills the vessel fully.

G: Yeah. Also, I would like to say, I like that they never attempted to show us the demon faces, like thank fucking God. I don't want to see that shit. Like whatever Supernatural thinks of as a demon face. I don't want to see it. Keep that shit to yourself. I’m glad that they didn’t attempt it. 

C: Yeah. They went and looked at a dictionary of various skin conditions that they wanted to villainize, and they were like, “Huh, maybe not.”

G: [laughs] So we go back to Lilith and the mom and she goes like, “Read it again, Mommy,” and the mom goes, “But I've read it 26 times.” I love that she has counted up until 26.

C: Yeah. 

G: And Lilith just goes, “Again,” and you know, she goes, “Once upon a time blah blah blah,” and the story is about an evil dragon that demanded blood from the children, and about like, you know, a terrible being that is ravaging down. And it's very obviously like a “Lilith is the dragon in this story” kind of situation.

C: Yeah, which is fun. But I feel like what would be even more fun is if we saw that she makes the mom stop before the tide turns, and the princess starts winning, and then she makes her start from the beginning again. But I know it's already sort of implied. But I just love seeing evil little girl antics.

G: Yeah. Anyway, the mailman is still flipping through the mail at 9 PM when suddenly Dean goes like, “Hi,” basically, he just shows up at the mailman’s line of sight, and starts running. So the mailman follows him, and then, as they turn the corner, Sam shows up and stabs the guy, and then Bobby is putting holy water to the water system. I mean, putting holy water- making the water in the water system holy water, and then we cut back to Sam and Dean, who has now killed the other neighbor that they saw that is a demon. And then suddenly, as Dean’s running, he gets cornered up into a fence by none other than…

C: Ruby! 

G: Hi, Ruby! 

C: Hi, Ruby!

G: And she goes, “I'd like my knife back, please, or your neck snaps like a chicken bone,” and then Sam shows up and puts the knife against her neck and goes like, “He doesn’t have it. I have it.” And they ask her how she got out, and she goes, “What you don't know about me could fill a book.” And I would love to buy it.

C: Yes.

G: They exchange this look where Dean looks at her, and then looks away, and it's like a whole thing, and Ruby is like, “What?” and Dean is like, “I couldn't see you before, but you're one ugly broad.” He’s so rude. 

C: [sighs] Men are misogynistic to cope. [both laugh]

G: Yeah. And Ruby demands for the knife, and Sam says, “You'll get the knife when this is all over,” and she says, “It's already over. I gave you a way to save Dean, and you said no, so it's too late. He's dead, and I'm not going to let you die, too.” And Sam says, “Try and stop me, I’ll kill you…bitch.”

C: There is a very long pause in between.

G: Yeah, he was double thinking. He was like, “Should I call her ‘bitch,’ is this where I drop it? Now I’ve got to be just like Dean for real right now,” and then he goes, “Bitch.”

C: Yeah. It's a very interesting moment. Like, he's clearly making the choice to say it to indicate to her, “It's over, I no longer view you as an equal or someone whose advice i'm willing to take.” He is using it as a way of putting emotional walls up between them by using misogyny to indicate the difference that he views between them. It is very interesting, and I think it is like a good character moment, but like, gosh, Sam, really?

G: Ruby is unfazed by this. She just goes, “Hit me with your best shot, baby,” [C starts humming] and Dean calls this little fight that they're having a catfight. Some people are misogynist to cope! [both laughing]

C: I wonder what the title of this episode will be. 

G: Yeah. And then they notice that there's so many people who are now standing by the door. And everyone is there. And then they start running towards the house where Lilith is, and then people- the demons start running after them.

C: They're trying to get into Lilith's house, and they don't know where Bobby is. But then, when the first demon gets to the lawn of the house, the sprinkler system activates, and it is all holy water. So there's just a wall of holy water sprinklers keeping out all the demons, and it is pretty fun. Like, I do enjoy when they come up with creative ways to use holy water and exorcisms like in “Jus in Bello.” Yeah, that is like one aspect of the lore that they are not afraid to have fun with. So Dean's really psyched about this. Sam manages to get them in, and you know, they're inside the house. They see the dead babysitter, and they go, “Uh oh,” and the three of them run into the dad. Dean covers the guy's mouth and says, “We're here to help, tell us where your daughter is,” and he instructs the guy to go to the basement and protect himself with salt, and the guy says that he won't do it without his wife, and Dean just knocks him out with a punch in the face, and then just carries him downstairs. Meanwhile Sam and Ruby are upstairs. They're sneaking about. Tension is high.

G: They did this whole thing where Ruby goes into a room, and it's like, for what? For what?

C: Well, they don't know which room is her bedroom, right? 

G: They can look inside and see that she's not there.

C: That is true. 

G: What was the point?

C: Yeah, they just wanted to shut her in a bank vault.

G: They needed her to separate. They needed her to be separate so they can make the whole possession thing work out.

C: Yeah, when is the exact moment that Lilith possesses Ruby’s vessel?

G: I think the moment she entered that room.

C: Okay, yeah, that makes sense. So yeah, that is what happens, and Sam eventually gets into Lilith's bedroom, and, she has a canopy bed with this pink gauze around it, so he's a little bit hidden from view, and Lilith's asleep in the mom's arms, and Sam, you know, is sneaking up. He has a knife. He's getting closer, and the mom is awake and we see her right now, she's terrified, trying not to wake up Lilith, but she keeps mouthing, “Do it,”, she's doing it- she's saying “Do it” over and over again, and I enjoyed this moment. It was like, the mouthing of the “Do it,” that was fun. I think that the actress did a good job with this. And she's starting to get frantic, and she's starting to say the “Do it” out loud, but when the Lilith child wakes up, she screams like a regular kid and not like a demon. and Sam’s about to stab her to death when Dean grabs him and says, “That's not Lilith anymore, she's left this body.” So I thought earlier the reason that there was less discussion about why they weren't- about how they were gonna kill a ten-year-old girl was like, the lore that we got in 3.15, which is that it seemed like all the demons that they exorcized recently had worked their vessels so hard that they were just dead upon the exorcism. So I sort of assumed that we were supposed to think that all of these new demons had basically killed their vessels already, but this little girl is alive, and I know it is just because Supernatural won't show child death, but I do like thinking about what it means that Lilith tries to treat her vessels well.

G: Yeah.

C: But yeah, I guess I don't know. I guess we'll learn more about Lilith in the future. Will we?

G: I have no idea, actually.

C: Okay. 

G: Hopefully.

C: Hopefully, 

G: I think for me, because like, Lilith and Eve kind of are mixed in my head, so I’m pretty sure Lilith doesn't actually show up as Mary. That's Eve.

C: Yeah, I think so. 

G: But that's the only thing I remember. So like, the only thing I remember about Lilith is something that she did not do. [C laughs] So, R.I.P.

C: Yeah, I think the main thing that I know about Lilith is a post that I saw about someone liking aspects of Lilith about how they like that she presents herself as a child a lot of the time, and how her main thing is liking sweets, and how she sort of seems like she became a demon through being a spoiled child of Lucifer rather than by being tortured by Lucifer. So, I don't know. Maybe we will see more about her origin story, unless that person was just being creative. In which case, nice job.

-

G: Anyway. Dean, Sam and Ruby are all going downstairs, and Dean is putting the family in the basement.

C: I just realized, do we see Bobby again in this episode?

G: Nope! [C laughs] Well, we do. He's looking out the window.

C: That's it? 

G: Yes. 

C: Man, he made such a big fuss about coming along, and all he did was provide one fun sprinkler moment.

G: He literally only provided one fun sprinkler moment. But Sam asks Ruby, “Where is Lilith?” And she goes, “I don't know,” and Sam goes, “Could she get past the sprinklers?” and Ruby says, “Well, yeah, because she's, you know, high-ranking and everything,” and Sam says, “Okay, you win. What do I have to do to save Dean?” And she goes, “There's no fucking way in hell you're saving him now. You had your chance, and we needed time. So you can't just ask for us to do it now.” And Sam is like, “Whatever it is, I'll do it. There's gotta be some way,” and Sam says, “I'm not gonna let you go to Hell, Dean,” and Dean says, “Well, yes, you are. Yes, you are,” and he says, “Sorry, it's all my fault. But what you're doing, it's not going to save me. It's only going to kill you.” 

C: Like, there's no fucking proof of any of that.

G: Yeah, he's just being like-

C: He's just making shit up. He rehearsed this in the car, too.

G: Yeah. And then Sam says, like, “Then what am I supposed to do?” And Dean says, “Keep fighting. Take care of my wheels.”

C: “Remember what Dad taught you.” What? What did he teach you? What are you talking about? 

G: “And remember what I taught you,” and it's like-

C: What the fuck are you talking about?

G: Just say specifics, bro! [C laughs] Just say specifics, bro. And then the clock strikes twelve.

C: The only conversation we had sort of about what Dean taught Sam was that conversation where Sam's like, “Well, I need to be ruthless now to win this war because I have to be like you,” and Dean's like, “Well, that concerns me, because I prefer when you're yourself and bring up ethical concerns that I don't give a shit about.” But I guess the outcome of this is “you should be ruthless like me”? Is that what “remember what I taught you” means?

G: I have no idea. 

C: What does any of this mean? Oh well.

G: Yeah, as the clock strikes twelve, Ruby tells Dean, “I'm sorry, I wouldn't wish this upon my worst enemy.” Is this Lilith or is this Ruby? I think this is Ruby still. I changed my mind. I think this is Ruby. 

C: Okay, so you don't think that Lilith has possessed Ruby’s vessel yet.

G: Yeah?

C: So where is Lilith?

G: I mean it's all ambiguous, no matter how hard we try to like, reason it out here, we're not going to get an answer. So I'm just going to believe that this is Ruby, and she's being for real.

C: I do believe that Ruby thinks this, but I don't know if it is still Ruby right now.

G: Anyway, Dean goes like, “Oh, there's a hellhound here, over there,” and they start running to another room and put the dust down and everything.

C: Right. Dean is like, “Sam, I've accepted my death. You should let me go to Hell,” and then as soon as he hears a dog, he's running? Like, whatever, according to your previous speech, you should just stand there.

G: [laughs] Well.

C: So right, they run into the other room, they're putting goofer dust down to keep the dogs out. And Ruby tells Sam, like, “Give me the demon killing knife, maybe I can go out and try to fight off those hellhounds,” and Sam is about to do it when Dean yells “Stop!” again, and reveals that that is not Ruby, that is Lilith. And upon this reveal, you know, Lilith stops acting. I don't think Katie Cassidy does a very good job embodying Lilith in this scene.

G: I think it's fine. I just didn't like what Lilith was doing, anyway.

C: Yeah. That's true. It's- yeah, no, the fact that the last vessel we saw her in was a little girl makes all of her future behavior quite questionable, like, from a writing standpoint.

G: What do you mean by that? 

C: Like she goes, “Oh, I like this new vessel. It's all grown up and pretty,” like, what is- I don't know. It's just a weird switch for her. I feel like they have made her a sexual being, but in a weird childlike way.

G: I didn't see it as that. I just was like- I was thinking more of like- 

C: It’s bad to sexually assault people?

G: Well, that one, and also the whole thing you mentioned before, where it's like, “every villain who's a woman has to weaponize her sexuality in some way” kind of situation.

C: Yeah, it's very, very annoying, can't she just be evil in a regular way? But yeah, so, her eyes turn white, which, do we get like- okay, crossroads demons have red eyes, princes of hell have yellow eyes. What types of demons have white eyes?

G: No idea.

C: Okay. Well.

G: [laughs] I'm so useless, I'm sorry!

C: [laughs] It’s okay, you’ve only watched this show several times. 

G: Yeah, I think it's just her, though.

C: Huh. Okay. Well, whatever, I guess, good for her. 

G: She's the specialest little princess of Hell. 

C: Good for her. Right, she says that she sent Ruby “far, far away for being a bad girl.” Also she's cracking all of her vessel’s neck bones, and murdering her with every step she takes. Dean makes a comment where he's like, “I should have noticed that you guys swapped earlier, but you all look the same to me,” which is supposed to be like a cool, badass line, I fucking guess.

G: It's so like- it doesn't make any sense, why are we saying this now? Is it supposed to be like a justification of how he did not notice before? By the writer?

C: I guess so.

C: Yeah. Also, it sounds like it's vaguely racist? [both laugh] But yeah, whatever, I mean, Supernatural goes back and forth on whether or not hating monsters is racist or not. Like, “It's racist when Gordon does it, but if Sam and Dean do it, it is not,” is what I mean by Supernatural goes back and forth.

-

C: Yeah, so, at this point Lilith tells Sam that she's wanted to meet him for a long time, and then she sexually assaults him kissing him really hard, and then she says, “Your lips are soft.” Why- what's the point of any of this? 

G: What is the point?

C: Why. What even goes on. Did Eric Kripke write “Shadow?” No, no, that was someone else. Someone else wrote “Shadow” because it was like, their only episode. 

G: No, he wrote “Shadow,” he wrote “Shadow!”

C: Wait, he did? Fuck!

G: Yes!

C: Is this a thing? [G laughs] Eric Kripke, do you have a kink that you are putting on our screens when you don't have to?

G: Yeah. He did write “Shadow.”

C: Eric Kripke just wants blonde demon women to sexually assault Sam Winchester so bad. Thanks. Alright, Eric Kripke. I really appreciate it. Great TV moments you're creating here. So yeah, so Eric Kripke does that to our eyeballs. I mean, does Dean sort of wince offscreen at this or something? I don’t know. 

G: I don't think so. I don't think so.

C: Yeah. I guess I was wincing offscreen. So Sam tells Lilith that, “Well, now that you have me you should let Dean go,” and Lilith says, "To bargain, you have to have something that I want, and you don't.” Dean says that her plan is to kill him and then kill Sam, and become the Queen of Hell, or whatever. Lilith does not confirm this, but I think we're supposed to assume that that is indeed the case. Okay, I have a question about Ruby's motivations. She wants the Apocalypse. Does she want the Apocalypse to happen, or does she just want Sam to become Lucifer's vessel?

G: No, she wants the Apocalypse to happen. I don't know, don’t ask me. We’ll figure it out next season.

C: Okay, so the righteous man breaking in Hell is a requirement, so like, why would she actually want Sam to manage to kill Lilith? 

G: Maybe it’s different right now. 

C: Okay, yeah. Also, yeah, I was like, what even is the definition of a “righteous man” for the seal breaking?

G: Well, isn’t like, the whole thing like, John was supposed to be the righteous man.

C: Okay, but he didn't break in Hell. So they were like, “We gotta bring Dean in, cause he could maybe torture people.”

G: What I wonder is if Sam was the one who went to Hell, if he breaks, would that be considered the breaking of a righteous man?

C: Right, yeah. I think I read in a fic that the definition of a righteous man is someone that makes a demon deal to save someone else's life. So it really could be anyone.

G: Hmm. Okay, it could be anyone. 

C: I don't know. It surprises me that that's never happened before then, I'm assuming plenty of people made demon deals to save someone else's life, and then ended up torturing people in Hell due to so much torture. I don't know if that fic was right, I guess we'll find out next season, or maybe we won't. And Lilith walks over to the door and she goes, “Sic ‘em boy,” and she opens the door, and a hellhound comes in, and she laughs a bunch, and Dean gets torn to fucking shreds! It is pretty brutal, but also not as brutal as a lot of Supernatural things. So it didn't have that big of an impact on me.

G: Sam is watching this.

C: Yeah. 

G: And all I could think of was the Bakugou tweet. [laughing]

C: What Bakugou tweet?

G: It's like, “They livestreamed his death. His brother saw that shit.” [C laughing] That's all I could think about. 

C: Literally they livestreamed the death and his family saw that. Yeah, Sam’s- yeah, Jared Padalecki’s putting his whole Jared Padalussy into this, you know, screaming, crying, throwing up, yelling, “No, stop,” I feel like this entire episode has been proof that Jared Padalecki is capable of acting in terms of like, he's capable of crying on camera, and Jensen Ackles isn't. [G laughs] So yeah, you know, he's screaming and crying and begging Lilith to make it stop, but it doesn't stop. I think there's like a fun moment where Dean gets clawed really bad, and he arches his neck back in pain, and it cuts to Sam, and he's doing the same thing with his face, but it's an emotional pain, crying, arching his face? That was a nice moment. Yeah, and you know, Dean’s being so killed. And then Lilith puts out her hand, and there's like a blinding white light that comes out of it, and it's supposed to hit Sam and kill him, I think. And then the light goes away, and she looks very confused. And I'm honestly a bit confused about what happened here? 

G: Yeah, cause part of me, when I first watched it was like, “She’s back to Ruby.”

C: Yeah, she's back to Ruby, or she's back to the vessel, what's happening? Exactly. Yeah, the acting choices made after the white light goes away makes it seem like she's a completely different character than Lilith, but Lilith is still in her? I don't know. I don't know what's happening. 

G: Yeah, I don't know.

C: I thought maybe this was like a fun preview to the thing that happens with the nurse in 4.22 or whatever, where the demon allows the vessel's consciousness to come to the surface to beg Sam not to kill her, but I don't think that is what's happening here. I think we're just supposed to read that she's acting so completely differently because she's so afraid at the fact that Sam was able to resist her power. But I was just confused. 

G: Yeah, it doesn’t come off that way. Yeah.

C: Yeah, it took me a while to figure out that that is what I was supposed to get out of this. So she tells Sam to stay back, but he's coming at her with the knife, and just as he’s about to stab, the vessel’s head falls back really hard, and a bunch of black smoke comes out of her, and she screams, and then she collapses dead, and then, you know, Sam is left alone in this room, and he walks over to Dean, and he's crying, and I've seen this shot a lot. I feel like he's doing a good job crying, you can see the tears going off of his nose, and one jumps free and lands on Dean. So yeah, he's, you know, cradling Dean’s dead body and going, like, “No, no,” but you know, more emotionally than that. And then we zoom into Dean's eye, and this is like a transition until we get into some weird, cloudy, green fart cloud world, and Dean is chained up by all of his limbs, and he's covered in blood, and he's screaming, “Someone help me,” and then he starts screaming, “Sam, Saaaaam,” and then we fade to credits.

G: We truly do. Man. That was an episode.

C: [laughs] Yeah. You said you had things to say about Dean's death when we got to Dean's death.

G: [laughing] No, it was that.

C: It was just the Bakugou tweet? [laughs] So fucking true. That's so correct of you. 

G: That was all I thought to say! Because of that though, I couldn’t get into the emotional space to mourn Dean’s death.

C: I also can’t mourn Dean’s death.

G: I was literally going like, “Sam saw that shit, man,”and he literally did. [both laughing]

C: Yeah, I can't even get into the emotional depths of how awful Sam must feel right now, it's just like, “Isn't it so funny that that happened” is the only thought I can muster about this.

G: [laughs] Yeah, I mean, what is your final thoughts about this episode?

C: I didn't like that Dean was- okay, I liked and didn't like that Dean was screaming Sam's name. It seems like a pretty cheap way to end the season, like the fade out of him yelling “Sam,” like, whatever, he does that all the time. That doesn't mean anything. But I guess I was thinking about various anecdotes from real life people about moments of greatest pain in their life where they've had really difficult relationships with their parents, but in their moments of being the most scared, their thought is like, “I wish my mom was here,” or something like that, and I do wonder if I would like the scene better if he was screaming for Mary or John. But then I guess-

G: The emotional something wouldn’t be the same.

C: Right, but I think this also does an amount of good work in that like, it's true that Sam is the only person he has left and it is true that during this whole season Sam was like, “You've always taken responsibility for me, so it's my turn to take care of you, and you can count on me, and it will be okay.” So it does make sense that it is Sam. But whatever, he does this all the time.

G: I think the whole “greatest moments of pain, you go back to who you were with in your childhood,” I think that is a thing that people experience. I've seen it in people who were dying, calling out to their siblings and stuff, or just the people they were with in their youth. So like, I think it does make sense, not even in a “This is the person who took care of me or protected me or stuff,” but like, “This is the person I was with during better moments of my life.” I mean, you can't really say that about Dean I guess, he didn't really have much good moments in his life. [C laughs] But you know what I mean, it makes sense to me. Anyway, Best Line/Worst Line.

C: Best line…I kind of did like Ruby's thing about like, how “You don't like being different, and you hate the way Dean looks at you.” Just, every time they actually bring up a Sam storyline that I feel like has gotten dropped, I start screaming and cheering, regardless of the quality of the line. So yeah, that is my best line.

G: I think for Best Line, I actually really did like when they were singing Bon Jovi together. I know I made fun of Sam, but my best line in this episode is just them singing together.

C: Yeah.

G: Yeah, ‘cause I don't know, it feels very, like, you would think that the intention of this scene is to break the tension in some way, but it doesn't, that's not the point. The point is to build to the tension that like, oh, he's dying for real, it's supposed to make you even more anxious and more- and I like that subversion, in a way, of like, this scene that’s supposed to be fun and something, looking back to it almost feels tragic in some way.

C: Yeah. 

G: Yeah. So I quite like it. For Worst Line, what's your worst line?

C: Dean’s very misogynistic this episode, so.

G: Yeah.

C: Any of them? I think “sexy little yoda” is too iconic to be my worst line. Maybe it's when he was so mean to Bela. I just hate that that is how we leave off on her character, and we never meet her again, you know?

G: Go back to her again. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have said this before, but I hate the word “skank” so much, I hate it so much it’s unreal, so I think the “Miss Universe of lying skanks,” that line.

C: Yeah. 

G: Yeah. Man, spreadsheet.

C: Spread. Sheet.

G: We are spreading that sheet, baby. [C laughs] That sounds so horrible.

C: I thought that was the point.

G: [laughs] We literally are spreading that sheet. 

C: Yes. So, misogyny, definitely present, would you say it's a 1 or a 2?

G: Yeah. I would say it's a 2 this episode. 

C: Yeah, I agree. He just hates women so much. And in fact, Sam also hates women so much by the end of this. Racism, I don't recall anything related to people of color or ever coming up-

G: No, I don’t think there’s anything.

C: So they manage to dodge it via omission. Homophobia, I don’t think so? 

G: No, yeah. 

C: Alright. So we got a 2-0-0. 

G: Alrightie, a 2-0-0. Okay, IMDb, I am not sure.

C: Yeah. I feel like the shock value of Dean actually crying- sorry, why did I say crying- the shock value of Dean actually dying could go either way in terms of the scores?

G: I would say this is an 8.9.

C: Huh, I was not going to go that high.

G: I mean, you know how season finales are.

C: That’s true. 8.7 is what I'm going to guess.

G: Okay, okay. So. 8.9 versus 8.7. Damn! It's a 9.2. 

C: Oh shit. Okay. That's very high, is that- what else has even been that high? Okay, it looks like 3.03 was a 9.2, which was “Bad Day at Black Rock”? Alright, fair. Alright, “In My Time of Dying” was a 9.2. This was not as good as “In My Time of Dying.”

G: “In My Time of Dying” was 9.2?

C: Yeah.

G: Damn. “Bad Day at Black Rock” is 9.2. And this is- I mean, maybe that's equivalent. Yeah. Sometimes I don't understand the ratings in this show.

C: Yeah. Nor do I.

G: Yeah. This review said that this is the best Supernatural season ender of the first three seasons.

C: Eh. 

G: Well, to be fair-

C: There's only been two others.

G: This one is just saying, “Excellent episode.” Oh, this one: “Zero payoff! What a disappointing season. This finale had zero pay off. We don't know any more about Lilith, Dean died, so everything they tried in this season was for nothing. Sam can suddenly resist Lilith without further explanation. This was such a nonsensical finale it's insane. Yeah, it was gripping, right until those last few moments when you realized it was all for nothing.” Somebody's mad Dean died. Like, he’s not real, dude. 

C: Have you considered that it's so funny?

G: [laughs] Have you considered that it's sooo funny? 

C: Trying to see if there's anything else that's interesting here.

G: This one just describes what happened in the last scene of the episode, and I was like, “Just like me and Crystal for real.” [laughs]

C: Yeah. Truly. 

G: Yeah, they don’t say anything else, they just describe it. 

C: Is this the 5 out of 10 one?

G: Yeah.

C: It’s true, they do not explain why it's 5 out of 10. They just summarize the episode, and it's titled “Death of one of the Winchester boys :(“. So real.

G: [laughs] Yeah.

C: I guess that's it.

G: I guess that’s it for this episode of Busty Asian Beauties. Next week, we will be discussing Season 3 in general and our expectations for Season 4. Leave us a rating or a review wherever you get your podcasts.

C: Follow us on social media! We are on twitter at twitter.com/BeautiesPodcast and on Tumblr at bustyasianbeautiespod.tumblr.com. You can send us questions for the Q&A at either of those locations, and those are due by midnight Eastern Time on April 1, 2023. Thank you to everyone who's donated to our Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com/bustyasianbeautiespod, and check out our merch at babpod.redbubble.com.

G: You can email us any feedback, comments, or inquiries at bustyasianbeautiespod@gmail.com.  See you guys next time! [both] Bye!

[guitar music]