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[watchingspnagain]

Rewatching Salvation

Welcome to “Truck Size Apparently Matters Too: A Supernatural Rewatch Blog” with Lor and Mace!

 Up today, s1e21: Salvation.

  Sam, Dean, and John are hot on the trail of the Yellow-Eyed Demon and think they have a good lead on where he will strike next. But then Demon Meg issues an ultimatum: John comes alone with the Colt or lots of people start dying. So Sam and Dean take off for Yellow Eyes and John goes to deliver a fake Colt, knowing that it won't trick anyone but may buy the boys some time. Things...don't go well on either end, although Sam and Dean do have a nice brotherly moment in the car. And Dean holds a baby.

 Below is a log of our real-time reactions as we watched. Remember that there may be spoilers for any part of SPN’s 15-season run here.  Note also that the nature of our conversation is adult and thus it may contain adult language and themes.

 [and we begin:]

 Mace:

i love that they seem to think priests just hang out at the pulpit all day

 Lor:

lolol

right?

also, isn't this pastor Jim? the trappings of this church do not look like he'd be a pastor

 Mace:

yeah I don't remember

 but the catholic church doesn't call their clergy pastors, I don't think?

 Lor:

yeah

 Mace:

 poor guy, anyway

 Lor:

he could be... Episcopalian? I thiiink? their churches would look like that? but I still don't think they'd be called pastors

 Lor:

mmmm sammy's polo over a long sleeved t-shirt

 Mace:

interesting. i have no idea what their nomenclature is like

 YAS

 Lor:

oh my boys

 Mace:

 yeah

 Lor:

of course john is in front with his jacked up monster truck of penile fortitude

 Mace:

YUP

 "at Jim's place"? the church is his "place"? Weird

 Lor:

yeah

weird

 he makes "you got any better ideas" sound like "fuck you" and FUCK HIM

 Mace:

 YES

 Lor:

does he HEAR himself?

 Mace:

 and then the little emotional display because he wanted the boys to know how 'sad' he is? UGH

 Lor:

he dragged his poor babies all over everywhere and fucked them up and wouldn't answer their calls when they were DYING but “ooooh, Pastor Jim died. End it. no matter what it takes”

BLECK

 Mace:

YUP

FUUUUCK YOU JOHN

 omg the raised eyebrows when he sees the girl

 Lor:

YES

 Mace:

 sweet little pumpkin of a hedonist

 Lor:

YES

and just a hint of "ah. I have an in for getting info"

 Mace:

yep

 Lor:

how many shirts is he wearing?

three? under the jacket?

 Mace:

SNORK!!

it's raining and he's chilly

 Lor:

yeah

 Lor:

maybe he needs some snuggles

 Mace:

 muffin needs layers

 Lor:

LOL

 Mace:

 YES YES HE DOES

 Mace:

   Lor:

lololol

 Mace:

 Monica is adorable

 Lor:

she IS

 Mace:

CREEPY CLOWN MOBILE

NOPENOPENOPE

 Lor:

WHO PUTS THAT IN THEIR KID'S ROOM

 Mace:

RIGHT?!?!

honestly

 Lor:

go OFF, Dean

 Mace:

 YES

 Lor:

go off more than that, baby

"I'm not crazy about this new tone of yours" HE IS 27 YEARS OLD, JOHN

 Mace:

 RIGHT?! My god, just fuck right off you asshole

 Lor:

interesting how much Dean is (literally) in the background in this episode

 Mace:

 yeah

 Lor:

"it doesn't really matter"

 Mace:

 "so you think Meg is a demon?" HAHAHAHA that seems like such a silly question at this point

 Lor:

LOL

 "I want you to go to school. I want Dean to have a home" like the only time he ever thinks about them, right there

 Mace:

yep

like, maybe you should have thought of that YEARS AGO, ASS

 Lor:

RIGHT?

 Mace:

you want those things for them, but only after YOU get what YOU want

that's not parenting

that's not putting your kids first

 Lor:

and does he realize that HE is the reason his boys don't have those things? it's not the demon, it's HIM

 Mace:

 that's literally putting them second

 Lor:

YES

 the way Dean's voice cracks when he says "you're no good to us dead"

 Mace:

ooof

 Ugh, I hate that John's such a fox. It's annoying because I need to hate him completely.

 Lor:

LOLOLOLOL RIGHT?

 if he had a soul, he would (well, first, he wouldn't have done all this) but he would have wrapped Dean up in a crushing hug before he left

  Mace:

EXACTLY

but NOOOOO, that's not manly

 Lor:

nope

but that's what Dean wants. he wants his DAD. the dude who picked him up and asked him if they should throw the football around with Sammy

 Mace:

 yep

 not to mention Sammy, who gets to sit back and watch this angsty tragedy play out and also doesn't get any love himself

 Lor:

YEP

 "naaaah" omg Dean's face

 Mace:

 don't you have to be an actual priest to bless water?

 Lor:

a REALLY feel like you have to be a priest to do this

 Lor:

HAHAHA

 Mace:

HAAAHAHAHAHA

 Mace:

 #US

 Lor:

YES

 Mace:

 when John does it, it just turns to jagweed water

 Lor:

SNORK

 Mace:

 oh SAMMY

 Lor:

YES

 Mace:

 Dean needs this right now and Sammy knows

 Lor:

and the way Dean is completely taken aback by this

 Mace:

 YES

 Lor:

oh Dean

 Mace:

 I don't like Meg but I do love her haircut

 Lor:

lol YES

 Mace:

how did John not realize that they'd of course test it

 Mace:

 numbnuts

 Lor:

yeah

maybe he did though

I mean, i don't put it past him to go off on what he suspects is a suicide mission/trap and not even hug his kiddos first

little turd

 Mace:

oh yeah, that's a fair point

  omg Meg is such a bad actor: "HOLY. WATER. JOHN. REAL. CUTE."

 Lor:

LOLOLOLOL

 in a SHOCK, John doesn’t answer the phone

  Mace:

SNORK!

such a twist to the story, that

 Lor:

lol

 Mace:

 Dean with a baby in his arms is peak ovary asplosion

 Lor:

YES

 oh Dean. he's gonna need a hug after this rescue. AND NO ONE'S GONNA GIVE IT TO HIM

  Mace:

 do you volunteer, Katniss?

 Lor:

I DO

 Mace:

 so many shocking twists today...

 Lor:

SO many

 Lor:

"i don't care! I DO!"

 Mace:

 YES

 Lor:

everybody STOP trying to sacrifice themselves and leave Dean bereft

 Mace:

 yes, because DeanDean NEVER has that notion. EVER.

 Lor:

NEVAH

 Lor:

aaaand that's the complete turn around from the pilot

 Mace:

 YUP

 how many times does Dean get slammed into a wall in this show? We should start a tally

  Lor:

YES

 "sometimes I feel like I’m barely holding it together, man" DEEEEEAN

 Lor:

(sometimes, baby? all the time. I hear angels are good at helping with that)

 Mace:

 (YAS)

 Mace:

 [in reference to Dean saying that Mary is never coming back, which echoes Sam saying this in the pilot]:

(it also makes no sense either time. They are, in fact, never coming back. Why does that make the boys so angry?)

  Lor:

yeah, I dunno

 Lor:

maybe they read it as some kind of disrespect to their memory? the suggestion that it might not be worth it to get revenge?

 Mace:

I suspect that yeah, that’s what they’re going for, but the writing is weird, then. Because it’s just a simple statement of fact with no hint that they don’t care that they’re gone. Just that nothing is going to bring them back. No hint of “it’s not worth it/their memory isn’t worth it” or whatever. I just think they could have written the dialogue better in both cases to make such violent reactions make some bit of sense

[watchingspnagain]

Rewatching Faith

Welcome to “Faith Healer Karens and Heretical Cookies: A Supernatural Rewatch Blog” with Lor and Mace!

 Up today, s1e12: Faith

While saving a pair of children from a monster, Dean receives an electric shock that severely damages his heart—like, gonna die super soon damages. Dean is kind of *shrug*, but Sammy is fired up. He’s gonna find a way to save his brother, to the tune of tracking down every rumor of faith healers and whatnot he can. (Fifteen years later he can’t even dial 911, but sure, fine, whatever.) Sam does find a faith healer; Dean, all adorable in a sweatshirt, labels the whole thing hinky; then Dean does get healed—whaaat? Whoops, turns out the healer is using a captive Reaper to exchange the life of someone innocent, healthy, and not ready to die for whomever he’s saving. The boys have to figure out who’s really controlling the Reaper and how to stop them, all while Dean navigates the pain, grief, and guilt of knowing that shutting the healer down means the sweet woman he met who’s dying of a brain tumor will, in fact, die.

Below is a log of our real-time reactions as we watched. Remember that there may be spoilers for any part of SPN’s 15-season run here.  Note also that the nature of our conversation is adult and thus it may contain adult language and themes.

 [and we begin:]

Lor:

 I love this episode so much

 Mace:

 yeah it's a good one

especially looking backward post-Cas

 Lor:

 yep

Mace:

 all that crisis of faith nonsense just needed an angel in a trenchcoat who boops you on the forehead

 Lor:

 YES

 oh. i just realized. this episode now makes me go "fuck 327" REAL hard

 Mace:

 ope yep I thought about that too

 Lor:

 because they do "mundane thing (almost) kills Dean" here SO MUCH BETTER

 Mace:

 because THIS IS HOW SAM ACTUALLY WOULD RESPOND

 Lor:

 ALSO THAT

 Mace:

 yep

 Lor:

 HANNAH!

 I mean, not-Hannah, but HANNAH

 Mace:

 YES

 "we can't work miracles"

 Lor:

 "we can't work miracles"

 sobs

   daytime TV is terrible, is it, Jensen?

 Mace:

 ha!

 Lor:

 "I swear I'll haunt your ass"

   "aw, it's a little funny"

 Mace:

 adorable

 Lor:

 oh god fuuuuuuck 327

 AND FUCK JOHN

 Mace:

 "burial or cremation" aw, come on, you know you'd get a hunter's burial

 Lor:

 RIGHT?

 the way Sammy's got jiggly leg on this phone call

 Mace:

 oh Sammy

 Lor:

 I just want to hold him

 Mace:

 YES

 Lor:

 SWEATSHIRT!DEAN

 Mace:

 RIGHT?! Like, he never wears those

 is this his version of Buffy dungarees?

 Lor:

 OMG YES

he needs a hug and he won't ask for one so he wears a sweatshirt

  THE MUD

  "I believe I said a specialist" aw, lawyer Sammy

 Mace:

 HAHA YES

 oh Darla

 Lor:

 "I think you just turned me around on the subject" DEAN WINCHESTER

 Mace:

 HAHAHA

 Lor:

 Dean, baby, you can't even get out of a car, honey

 Mace:

 he wouldn't need to - Baby's backseat has seen things

 Lor:

HAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

 Sam making him sit up front

 Mace:

 one of my favorite things about pre-Cas SPN is the tension between what they do/what they know is real and Dean's faith crisis and Sammy's blind belief

 Lor:

 YES

 he already thinks HE DOESNT DESERVE TO BE SAVED

 "I didn't pick you, Dean, the lord did" I mean JEEZ

 Mace:

 hm, I think right now it's unbelief, but once he is healed, yep

and then when he finds out someone else died because he was healed? oof Dean Guilt Overdrive

 Lor:

 mmm, maybe both? like, nope, it's not real, but if it IS, someone else should get it

 YEP

 "no they don't"

 Mace:

 YUP

 Lor:

 Dean asking Sam to have faith in HIM

 Mace:

 which was all sarcasm of course

 Lor:

 yeah

 "when did the miracles start" like they're a disease

 Mace:

 Cas comes along and has complete faith in Dean and Dean cannot suss it out AT ALL

 Lor:

 omg YES

 Mace:

 YES

 Lor:

 it's like a ramped up "undone by kindness" trope and I LOVE IT

 Mace:

 YEP

 Lor:

 "what did you see in my heart" I can't

 Mace:

 YES

 Lor:

 (as we are rewatching I am noticing just how much people of color are literally on the margins of the narrative in so many of these episodes)

 Mace:

 (YEP)

 Lor:

 the look on Dean's face and then the way he just goes right to asking Layla what's wrong instead of engaging with the mom

 Mace:

 well, who would want to talk to that Karen

 Lor:

 HAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA

 I was just about to say that if you're Karening at a faith healer, you got some soul searching to do

 Mace:

 SHE WANTS TO SPEAK TO THE MANAGER

  HAHAHA

 Lor:

 Sammy apologizing before anything else squishes him

 Mace:

 YES

 and he looks so cuddly in that hoodie

 Lor:

 he does

 Mace:

 I love that the reaper looks like this and I wish they didn't change to normal-looking people later

 Lor:

 agreed

 wow, that dude getting healed reminds me SO MUCH of scene in Star Trek V

 Mace:

 mmm I don't know the ST movies really. I've only seen them once, I think, each

 Lor:

 I'll tell ya later

 Mace:

 k

 ope here we go with Dean and the black and white

 Lor:

 a guy playing god is a monster in Dean's book

 YEP

 Mace:

 we need to keep track of how he and Sammy flip-flop on this issue because they really do

 Lor:

 yeah

 Mace:

 I suspect there's a pattern with Dean somehow

 Lor:

 yeah

 one of Roy's parishioners needs to step up and trim those bushes for him

 Mace:

 snork

 when is it okay to kill a human and when is it really not, because I'm sure I remember Dean protesting against it at some point

 Lor:

 oh yeah, he for sure does

 and then there's the boys' flipflopping on when it's not okay to kill a monster

 Mace:

 yep

I put all that in the same category

 Lor:

 yeah

 Mace:

 because Dean is calling this dude a monster

 Lor:

 yeah

 also, he doesn't seem to have any problem with the reaper

 Mace:

 so it's more a question of at what shade of monster is it okay to gank

 Lor:

 yeah

 ooof I forgot that Dean LITERALLY has to stop Layla from getting healed

 Mace:

 yep

 yeah, well, I think reapers are more just part of the natural order of things? and don't they explore that notion later on, too? Like, it's VERY counterproductive to stop a reaper from their work

 Lor:

 well sure

but what makes them different from vampires then?

or werewolves?

or anything?

 Mace:

 because without them no one could die when they're supposed to

that sort of natural order

the necessary kind

 Lor:

 no I know what you mean

 Mace:

 then I don't know what your point is then, I guess?

 Lor:

 but from Dean's pov, if he doesn't have faith in a power, why does he see the reapers as a thing that's doing a job and that's okay?

 ooof, Dean's nod when she starts yelling like he's attacking her

 ooo Karen is DISAPPOINTED

 Mace:

 it doesn't seem to be a matter of faith for him

 Lor:

 I guess I wonder where any sense of people dying when they're "supposed to" comes from if he has no faith system?

 Mace:

 but maybe none of that is actually in this ep just yet. there's only one monster of the week and it's the pastor's wife here, controlling the dark power and not the dark power itself

 Lor:

 yeah

 Mace:

 yeah, again, I just think we're getting ahead of the characterization here

that notion isn't in play yet

 Lor:

 yeah, I suspect so

 "hey! gonna put that fear a god in me?" OMG Dean

 Mace:

 oh come on, cops wouldn't just drop everything and give chase like that

 Lor:

 nope

 Mace:

 that's just silly

 Lor:

 definitely not both of them

 clever Dean

 Mace:

 yep

 the tragedy of this episode is that she marks Dean to die to save Layla, and Dean wouldn't actually argue, to be honest

 Lor:

 YEP

 Mace:

 I mean, he's been arguing for that sort of thing to be the just thing all along

 Lor:

 yep

 Mace:

 he...doesn't run from the reaper...

 Lor:

 nope

 and the fact that her sense of who's wicked and who isn't is so TWISTED. like, obviously, given her black altar, sacrificial garbage, but she's also just picking HORRIBLY

 Mace:

 yeah

 Lor:

 bye, SueAnn

 Mace:

 omg when the reaper smiles

 CREEPY

 Lor:

 don't trip on your hypocrisy on your way out

 YEP

 Mace:

 HAHAHA

 Lor:

 the Impala door creeeeeeaks

 Mace:

 HA!

 Lor:

 ooof, Dean

 Mace:

 Aw, SAMMY

 Lor:

 YES

a beautiful brotherly moment

 Mace:

 YES

 Lor:

 THIS SCENE

 Mace:

 YES

 Lor:

 both of them, I just. it's so sad and tender and and and

 Mace:

 yeah

 Mace:

 although her blind faith...irritates me

 Lor:

aaauuuugh she touches his head

 "I'm not the praying type, but I'm gonna pray for you" HIS FACE

 Mace:

 yeah

  [after the episode ended:]

Lor:

 hmm. it... doesn't bother me. I think because it seems so contained in self for her? she's not trying to put it on anyone else

 Mace:

 that's fair. It just seems overly simplistic on a number of levels

 it's likely more me than the character or the writing - people who subscribe to the blind faith thing just baffle me in general

 Lor:

 huh. it seems peaceful to me. I am so often very annoyed by blind faith stuff, but she doesn't bug me

 Mace:

 no, she's not annoying herself, really. it's the notion of God Works in Mysterious Ways that irritates the crap out of me. Okay, you're terminal and you're at peace with it - that's commendable and I love that, but it should be inner peace and personal strength not blindly believing in some dude in a robe in the sky deciding that ope, you get a brain tumor now be happy about it because I WORK IN MYSTERIOUS WAYS

 Lor:

maybe it's that they don't' get into any theological or practical specifics that lets it work for me? and because I feel like for Dean it's so much about finding SOMETHING to have faith in

 Mace:

 yep, I'd love that to, but, she does actually say the mysterious ways thing and goes and ruins it

 Lor:

 iiiinteresting. see, I think "dude in a robe in the sky" is a fundamental misunderstanding of the theology. I know a LOT of people, when they say "god works in mysterious ways" DO mean "big sky daddy knows best," but I'm not sure that's really what's "supposed" to be at the heart of that kind of faith. I think it's a lot more like Tolkien's "despair is for those who know the end beyond all doubt and we do not." like, we just don't know enough to KNOW. I don't get sky-daddy vibes from Layla. Though I suspect the writers expect most of the general audience to assume that's what she's talking about

 Mace:

 the setting suggests fundamental christians are the ones in that tent, though, I'd argue

 Lor:

 for sure. I think the reason the episode works for me is that the setting and the atmosphere and the STUFF of the episode says "fundamental christians" but the writing of Layla leaves room to not read her that way. (it's interesting to contrast her with her mom.) which is kind of a brilliant move on the part of the show. I suspect it works for a really broad spectrum of viewers where with a slightly different presentation it could really NOT

 Mace:

 Ah. Okay. I think you are much more tolerant of such things than I am then. As I said, it works okay for me until she vomits out the platitude about god and his mysterious ways and then I’m out.

 Lor:

 Fair

I also grew up NOT having to deal with anyone who did the platitudes thing? So I may just be a little more tolerant of it because I didn't really ever have any bad experiences with religious folks in my most impressionable years

 Mace:

 Ah, sure. And I grew up getting kicked out of Sunday school classes for questioning all sorts of things

 Lor:

 WHAT? gives baby!Mace cookies and hunts down a Sunday school teacher to hit them about the ears

 Mace:

 munches cookies heretically

 Lor:

HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA