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lunabee34What do these things all have in common? I do believe it is the Lorraine sobbing and snotting and wailing and making more hand gestures at the computer screen than Rodney McKay ever dreamed was possible in a forty five minute period.
Jump the Shark was amazing. It was an excellent episode that really highlighted the ways in which the issues Sam and Dean have with John haven't disappeared just because he's in the ground. This episode made me want to hug John Winchester as hard as I can and then slap him in the face. I am so happy that Mary is not the only woman he ever loved. And, yeah, okay. I get that that's fanon; but what I extrapolate from those pictures and from the way he kept coming around and the way that SHE LET HIM is that there was a hell of a lot more than one night stand-age going on. And I am pleased as punch that the second John knew he had another Winchester walking the earth he hauled ass to be a part of that kid's life.
I know Sam and Dean both were jealous but what I think they missed is that whatever John had with Adam, no matter how much he loved him (and I believe he did and deeply), all Adam ever saw of John Winchester was masquerade. That was John Winchester playing the father, playing a part, trying on Little League like a pair of chinos. For what it's worth and despite how much it hurts, what Sam and Dean got? That was the real John Winchester.
I loved all the gothic elements in this episode. While the show is often genuinely creepy, it sort of astounds me at times how rarely it employs traditional gothic elements. As a Poe fan, I'm a huge fan of live burial but even beyond that, I loved the metaphor as one for hunting. We see Dean in ever-increasingly claustrophic situations and then the scene in which he is buried alive is cut with shots of Sam and Adam locking doors and salting windows and creating a small space for themselves to safely occupy. Pretty bleak, Kripke.
The final thing I want to say about this episode concerns the comparisons between Sam and his father. I love the way that from season one, these parallels between Sam and John have been drawn and I love (and also sob) that part of Dean's journey as a character is realizing how mistaken he's been about both these people he loves so dearly.
Now, "Rapture."
This hurt to watch, HURT TO WATCH, in the best flossing the gums kind of way. And not to toot my own horn or nothing....Okay, to toot my own horn, I think this ep basically proves me right re: the cosmology of SPN. "It's all in the blood." The distinctions between demon and angel at this point in the series are pretty much negligible and apparently blood is the key. They have the same powers. They each answer to some unknowable and unfathomable and NOT US entity; they seem to have agendas that eclipse and even ignore the human. Y'all, this is Anne loading the truck at the homeless shelter with Gunn in all its glory. There is no cosmic, overarching sense of good and right and justice. The TPTB? Who knows that the hell or who the hell they are. Their power is felt, but their goodness? Not in any sense that we would recognize. They're about the mission, about the big picture, about geologic time. Only the goodness of individuals--the decisions made by very small and very finite and often very powerless individuals--matters.
I like very much that Jimmy's arc is Dean's arc. He buys the party line. He's a good soldier. He's a believer, hook line and sinker. And it destroys him. He sacrifices himself to save a family he loves for a cause he no longer believes in. When he saves his baby, his child, HIS DAUGHTER, from what he knows will be the eradication of her self, her will, and CASTIEL DOES NOT GET IT, no not at all, this is when the sniffling I started at the reunion with his family finally culminated in full blown tears. Jimmy is obliterated in the way that Meg is obliterated and in the way that John is obliterated and in the way that all Winchesters obliterate themselves--subsumed, consumed.
Adam. He may have been John's son, but Jimmy? He's a fucking Winchester.
Very Important Question that has been bugging me since the season 2 finale:
Demon blood? Really? Don't you mean host blood? Cause any blood coming out of a possessed human belongs to the host, not the demon. Demons don't have corporeality in SPN and so they don't have blood. This has always thrown me out of the mytharc. How do y'all wank it? *wink*
Jump the Shark was amazing. It was an excellent episode that really highlighted the ways in which the issues Sam and Dean have with John haven't disappeared just because he's in the ground. This episode made me want to hug John Winchester as hard as I can and then slap him in the face. I am so happy that Mary is not the only woman he ever loved. And, yeah, okay. I get that that's fanon; but what I extrapolate from those pictures and from the way he kept coming around and the way that SHE LET HIM is that there was a hell of a lot more than one night stand-age going on. And I am pleased as punch that the second John knew he had another Winchester walking the earth he hauled ass to be a part of that kid's life.
I know Sam and Dean both were jealous but what I think they missed is that whatever John had with Adam, no matter how much he loved him (and I believe he did and deeply), all Adam ever saw of John Winchester was masquerade. That was John Winchester playing the father, playing a part, trying on Little League like a pair of chinos. For what it's worth and despite how much it hurts, what Sam and Dean got? That was the real John Winchester.
I loved all the gothic elements in this episode. While the show is often genuinely creepy, it sort of astounds me at times how rarely it employs traditional gothic elements. As a Poe fan, I'm a huge fan of live burial but even beyond that, I loved the metaphor as one for hunting. We see Dean in ever-increasingly claustrophic situations and then the scene in which he is buried alive is cut with shots of Sam and Adam locking doors and salting windows and creating a small space for themselves to safely occupy. Pretty bleak, Kripke.
The final thing I want to say about this episode concerns the comparisons between Sam and his father. I love the way that from season one, these parallels between Sam and John have been drawn and I love (and also sob) that part of Dean's journey as a character is realizing how mistaken he's been about both these people he loves so dearly.
Now, "Rapture."
This hurt to watch, HURT TO WATCH, in the best flossing the gums kind of way. And not to toot my own horn or nothing....Okay, to toot my own horn, I think this ep basically proves me right re: the cosmology of SPN. "It's all in the blood." The distinctions between demon and angel at this point in the series are pretty much negligible and apparently blood is the key. They have the same powers. They each answer to some unknowable and unfathomable and NOT US entity; they seem to have agendas that eclipse and even ignore the human. Y'all, this is Anne loading the truck at the homeless shelter with Gunn in all its glory. There is no cosmic, overarching sense of good and right and justice. The TPTB? Who knows that the hell or who the hell they are. Their power is felt, but their goodness? Not in any sense that we would recognize. They're about the mission, about the big picture, about geologic time. Only the goodness of individuals--the decisions made by very small and very finite and often very powerless individuals--matters.
I like very much that Jimmy's arc is Dean's arc. He buys the party line. He's a good soldier. He's a believer, hook line and sinker. And it destroys him. He sacrifices himself to save a family he loves for a cause he no longer believes in. When he saves his baby, his child, HIS DAUGHTER, from what he knows will be the eradication of her self, her will, and CASTIEL DOES NOT GET IT, no not at all, this is when the sniffling I started at the reunion with his family finally culminated in full blown tears. Jimmy is obliterated in the way that Meg is obliterated and in the way that John is obliterated and in the way that all Winchesters obliterate themselves--subsumed, consumed.
Adam. He may have been John's son, but Jimmy? He's a fucking Winchester.
Very Important Question that has been bugging me since the season 2 finale:
Demon blood? Really? Don't you mean host blood? Cause any blood coming out of a possessed human belongs to the host, not the demon. Demons don't have corporeality in SPN and so they don't have blood. This has always thrown me out of the mytharc. How do y'all wank it? *wink*
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angels and demons
Date: 2009-05-02 04:13 am (UTC)The way I think of it is that the demon taints the human body in the same way that the angelic presence tends to heal the host. In a demon, the blood becomes impure simply by being exposed to evil. (Or, you know, something like that.)
Re: angels and demons
Date: 2009-05-02 01:25 pm (UTC)I'd love to see the show (or even fanfic) deal with the reprecussions of what being a host to a demon would do to a person long term. I can't imagine the demon leaves and the person is unchanged by the experience, much less the blood alterations.
Re: angels and demons
Date: 2009-05-03 12:15 am (UTC)That would be an amazingly cool fic. Demons ride their hosts really hard so mostly what the hosts do is die when the demon leaves, but I'd love to read a fic about a person who was possessed for a long time but not physically harmed. That would be really cool.
Re: angels and demons
Date: 2009-05-03 01:14 am (UTC)Re: angels and demons
Date: 2009-05-04 12:12 am (UTC)Be sure. Get tested for Demonic VD" (http://foxfic.livejournal.com/17562.html)
Be warned, I wrote this in the middle of the night with no betaing. Also it might suck, just 'cause.
Re: angels and demons
Date: 2009-05-03 12:14 am (UTC)But then that opens a whole 'nother can of worms. Does the blood *stay* tainted? Is each person whose ever been possessed irrevocably marked in that way? Very interesting. (And this episode seems to imply that something "in the blood" allows for possession in the first place. Remember way back in season one in Haints on a Plane, Sam and Dean talk about demon possession being really rare and that the possessed allow the demons in by being emotionally cracked or lonely or into vice. That implies that demons can't just sneak into any meatsuit. Now, of course, lots of what we've seen onscreen seems to contradict that idea, but I wonder if there is something special like quality of blood that allows demon possession. I think someone could write a really neat fic based on that premise.)
no subject
Date: 2009-05-02 01:32 pm (UTC)That ending hurt to watch. Castiel's the one angel who seemed above reproach, even his questioning was done in a pure, almost child like way. But when he essentially took Jimmy under duress. Damn. That was harsh. That moment perfectly personified what you've been saying about the real divides between good and evil in the SPN verse. What does seperate demons from angels, if the best among them would cross a line like that?
no subject
Date: 2009-05-03 12:18 am (UTC)*nods nods nods*
I love the way Misha Collins plays both Castiel and Jimmy and the profound distinction between the two characters. That was some damn fine acting.
And I feel so badly for Castiel; he's clearly been sent to the principal's office (and for who knows how long since time moves very differently in these other planes) and he's either learned his lesson or faking it extremely well so TPTB don't yank his leash again.
no subject
Date: 2009-05-02 05:21 pm (UTC)YES. Exactly. And like you said, and i've said before, they're *not us*. At all. In this world, God may have made angels and humans, but he and they are as divorced from humanity in all its messy organic-ness as we are from the yeast in our bread. It's there, we *made* it, but we don't consider it in any way other than how we can use it.
I like very much that Jimmy's arc is Dean's arc. He buys the party line. He's a good soldier. He's a believer, hook line and sinker. And it destroys him. He sacrifices himself to save a family he loves for a cause he no longer believes in. When he saves his baby, his child, HIS DAUGHTER, from what he knows will be the eradication of her self, her will, and CASTIEL DOES NOT GET IT, no not at all, this is when the sniffling I started at the reunion with his family finally culminated in full blown tears. Jimmy is obliterated in the way that Meg is obliterated and in the way that John is obliterated and in the way that all Winchesters obliterate themselves--subsumed, consumed.
Adam. He may have been John's son, but Jimmy? He's a fucking Winchester.
GOD yes. I found the 'test' of Jimmy putting his arm in boiling water to be uber-creepy. If angels can read your thoughts, like they seem to be able to, like demons can - why can't he just know that Jimmy is sincere? Why this sick, Job-like 'test'?
And yeah, Castiel *didn't get it*, and that hurt, because i think pre-reprogramming Castiel would have had some compassion there. And i think that he'll be this new and 'improved' Castiel for a little while but Dean and Sam and life will break him down again - make him doubt again. He's already on the road - no turning back now.
I loved this last ep, so much. Loved it, hated what it showed us. Sam fooling himself *so hard* that he's got this shite under control, that he's okay, that it's all good. And Dean is so freaked out and fucked in the head over it all.... He's more than tired, he's overwhelmed, and i think this leads to bad decisions. But something had to be done. Because when pushed, Sam goes self-righteous, and that only leads to more badness.
*sniffles*
BOYS. Gods. They're killing me. The finale? Is going to kill me. I know it.
*flails*
And yeah - in my mind, since demons can manipulate the bodies their in - as angels can - by healing them, teleporting them, all that, they change the body. Change the blood. They *become* the blood and the body, and that's why Ruby's 'host' blood works. Demons and angels are like a virus. I'm thinking that if Dean had the 'right stuff' like Jimmy did, he could probably drink angel blood and become powerful. And angel blood might hurt Sam like holy water hurts a demon. Eventually.....
no subject
Date: 2009-05-03 12:28 am (UTC)YES! And I wonder how much of that was Castiel adhering to an ancient tradition of calling a person to holy service.
And yeah, Castiel *didn't get it*, and that hurt, because i think pre-reprogramming Castiel would have had some compassion there. And i think that he'll be this new and 'improved' Castiel for a little while but Dean and Sam and life will break him down again - make him doubt again. He's already on the road - no turning back now.
*nods*
Unless, and I do think this is a possiblity, he's pretending so that TPTB won't realize he's defected.
I love the parallels drawn between Sam and the ghouls. The ghouls are these perfectly human, perfectly attractive looking beings. They're not gross or scary to look at. They're not hiding a true face. They look like perfectly normal people. And yet, they eat people, and more specifically in the episode, they drink people's blood. They destroyed what was left of Sam and Dean's biological family by drinking its blood. And then we're shown Sam in "Rapture" chowing down on some demon's blood in a super nasty recreation of the scene in the previous episode.
I also love the way Dean played it so cool and didn't let Sam know how much he'd freaked until Sam was locked up in Bobby's panic room.
I like the idea of their blood as a virus; that helps me rather a lot actually.
no subject
Date: 2009-05-03 12:53 am (UTC)And yes - gods. Sam slurping up the blood was gruesome in the extreme and the fact that he's getting the DT's from it, and *still* thinks what he's doing is the right thing.....
I think Sam's decided he's not going to live past killing Lilith and he's just....going for it. Doesn't care. SAM.
Dean played it so calm but you know on the inside he was going fucking *nuts*. Grieving so hard. Gods.
DEAN.
*flails*
These boys. They kill me.
I'm glad virus helps! It makes perfect sense to me. :)
no subject
Date: 2009-05-04 11:30 am (UTC)"Rapture" was... damn, I didn't think Kripke could step it up after "Jump the Shark" but DAMN! I might have to go back and watch the first three seasons, because this has been so good!
Jimmy's arc is Dean's arc - you are so right.
no subject
Date: 2009-05-05 01:22 pm (UTC)I won't spoil you if you didn't see the trailers for the next episode, but hot damn. It looks awesome.
no subject
Date: 2009-05-05 10:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-17 07:38 am (UTC)And, OK, also? Watching all of this when you know the main plot twists in advance is *even better*. They did a good job, in Home, of keeping it ambiguous: Mary's a powerful, protective figure at the end there, so it totally makes sense that she turned out to be a hunter. Also, when she apologizes to Sam, that *has* to be about Yellow-Eyes and the deal, right? Makes me wonder how much of this they had plotted out from the start, even if only in a bare-bones sort of way. John's backstory, for sure, but maybe Mary's too. I love that John had no idea supernatural things even existed; his wife protected him from that, until she just up and died and he was thrown into this craziness! With toddlers in tow! Aaah! You can forgive the man for going a little loopy. And for wanting some of his normality back. He was a freaking mechanic, for crying out loud! He was Mister Blue-collar, working to support the wife and kids, but he had *no clue* how the world really worked, and Mary did. Jeez. Yeah. Awesome.
no subject
Date: 2009-05-17 08:43 pm (UTC)That could be part of the reason that Dean was upset, realizing that going to spy on Sam was just a cover for what he was really doing. I think it was mostly good old fashioned jealousy.