6.03 The Third Man, part 3
I'm a big fan of Cas glibly fanning through Sam's research like it's a memory book and telling them that he's pretty sure that Moses isn't a suspect. That might sound strange coming from just about anyone else but the one dude who probably plays Owari with Moses on second and fourth Saturdays.
"When teh poxalisp got did, Ceiling Cat losez his disco stick."
Apparently the horsemen's rings shake loose all kinds of cages and containers.
*wonders how John's Castle Hill container in Buffalo is holding out*
Cas hasn't been around for them lately and now he wants their help? Oh, that's rich. That's got all sorts of entitlement written all over it. That's just peachy. How about you take your Pogo Plague Stick and hop on back to your nuclear playground in the sky, Obi Wan?
But wait.
Why could Cas leave them alone like that unless he was unconcerned, right? They've always watched out for each other. Brothers take care of each other. Dean had his family. Sam had his hunt for ... *ahem* ... and there was very little for Cas to interfere with at all. Angel Crutch he is not.
Unless, of course, there is some brother of his out there who has gone off the beaten path and is waving a death stick at people's enemies for $20 a pop. /pun oh so totally intended
THEN they have a mutual problem.
Dean goes into Dick Tracy mode. It's been almost too long for Cas to remember what motive feels like. I'm sure that it is difficult to find what and who when your grasp on the concept of revenge or justice or a sense of guardianship for your fellow man is a little "rusty".
Sam isn't too enthused about helping someone who didn't help him. But he follows Dean's lead and cuts Cas some slack.
Then Dean basically says they're going to be hunting people.
Dean says, "Well if the angels didn't pull the trigger..." Sam freezes for a split second, totally confused. Hunting people is not his idea of a worthwhile hunt at all. But all Dean can hash out is that people must be the bad egg in this situation. Some PERSON is pulling the trigger, right?
Cas and Sam look at each other like, what?, because THEY thought they were looking for an angel. But, you know, you find one perp, you find the other perp. Good enough.
The father of two boys sits in the dark with his newspaper clippings, reading about the third man who killed his son and finally got what was coming to him. He finally has revenge, has justice, and yet he just can't let it go. He is stuck living the day that he lost his son, over and over again.
Sam is far from convinced that he's totally innocent simply because he's reveling in the demise of other human beings, regardless of whether or not they "deserved" it. Because it's just wrong, Scooby-Doo. (His utter confusion at the father pulling the I DON'T BELIEVE YOU ARE A FED card in reaction to Castiel is priceless.)
Mr. Birch's son just wanted to protect him. Wanted to avenge the death of his brother. Find the man who did it and make him pay. He was willing to sell his soul to do it.
*tinkles a tiny bell* OH DEAN.... we're hunting YOU now?
Sam asks Cas if the weapon should be longer and Cas says yes, it's been sawed off, and my first thought is...
THIS.
Dean going through the trunk and always choosing his sawed off, the one he made at 12, to take out and reminisce over before he puts everything back and buries it again.
HUH.
I also noticed the severe shift in camera angles during this sequence. At first, Aaron is made tiny and easily overtaken by virtue of the camera being at an adult's height. Cas puts the father to sleep, overtakes a boy of 12 or so and recovers the staff without much effort. When Aaron is begging for his father's life (not his own because it holds no value to him) the camera haunts him down the hallway, Dean looming over him with heavy questions.
But as soon as Aaron admits his part in the recent events, the camera shifts ...
to the level of a dog.
That inspires two reactions from us: 1) it immediately puts all four of them at a more even height, bringing Aaron as level with Dean as possible, so that all opinions and motivations are now weighed equally and 2) since we are in the boys' house, it inspires loyalty to his side of the situation, although we don't really know him very well at all.
Dean takes the lead with the kid because he's been where this kid is standing and he knows what it's like to have some random, scary authority figure questioning you about your right to defend your own family. He's ready to believe that Mr. Aaron Birch would do anything to keep them safe because he's made that choice himself a few times.
And when Aaron says that it was an angel who gave him the weapon with which to slay his enemies, I thought of this:
John: Back in 1835, when Halley’s comet was overhead (oh hi, ANGEL), the same night those men died at the Alamo, they say Samuel Colt made a gun. --Dead Mans' Blood
BECAUSE SAME DIFFERENCE, RIGHT?
Another thing that struck me as odd was Aaron's comment about the men he'd killed. He called them LIARS.
"Those liars. They killed my brother and nothing bad even happened to them."
Because we're all taught when we're young that lying is a horrible sin and that when you lie, it will always come to light and you will always get what's coming to you. The truth didn't stand up for Aaron's family, so he stood up for them instead, and since when is that wrong?
I seem to recall other little boys who were lied to by authority figures quite regularly in order to keep things even keel. It was Gary's parents... and Jesse's... and Max's... and Sam's.
HUH.
Dean knows how to get a kid to tell the truth and he knows what the truth is here because... well, we all know why he knows.
It killed me, when Aaron admitted that he bought it, Dean knew exactly what he was talking about... how Sam had no clue... and how Dean looks pained to stop himself from reminding Sam that angels don't give a rat's ass about money, you idiot. Even though we expect it, it's no less painful to hear that Dean is not alone in wearing the pants in the family whenever Daddy checks out.
*wonders which angel has Samuel Colt's soul*
*also wonders why Cas hasn't considered that possibility, because duh, Azazel is a fallen angel, what with the yellow eyes and the love for good breeding and the knowledge of weapons and radiowave interference and lightning storms and all COME ON.*
Cas needs to question the boy further, but he won't have enough time before the father comes around and it's probably dangerous to put a human out like that two times in a row. Buying time is important. Going back in time isn't really a feasible option though, because Cas simply wouldn't recognize this angel on sight... he has separated himself at best, fallen at worst, is "out of range" of spiritual recognition, and he could be wearing almost anyone.
Dean, on the other hand, is all WHY ARE YOU SEIZING THE BOY. He sees it as kidnapping because of that one time that Sam was kidnapped as a kid, taken by someone that his father trusted but he did not... and how he saved them both with his driving skills and his sawed off and... that one demon turned into a train.... but I digress.
Sam, on the other other hand, sees the importance of the boy as the solitary source of information: a truth that would keep scores of other people from dying and losing their souls. Sam knows that, given they had the time to explain, the boy would agree to it whole heartedly if it meant that he and his father would be safe and together. Gee, I wonder how he knows that... *crickets chirp as Sam crosses his arms and protects his middle below his ribs before anything ever happens with Aaron... HELLO, IS THIS THING ON?*
Pay attention, children. This is how you get groped by an angel.
Love, Sam
So, now this makes sense, right? I don't need to explain why Sam stops Dean and flinches an unspoken apology... and watches so intently... right? Okay, good. Because my gut hurts just watching it.
I imagine that if your soul belongs to someone else, that you know it in the very deepest part of you, even though you may not remember how that happened exactly. You know, like you lost some time somewhere between being in the cage and showing up in the middle of a dark corn field in the rain.
Dear Sam,
I seem to remember that the only other times you've lost time like that is when God's around, but hey, I'll let it go... since you're ready to write off that possibility.
-Lid *whistles*
*stands beside Sam as he watches what an angel does to someone's insides... from the outside this time*
Lid: I love these special effects. So, it's in his blood? Is that why it looks like a tree?
Muse Dean: I love the joint themes of blood and fire being synonymous with absence and truth, and how blood and water in tandem are synonymous with presence and lies this time around.
Lid: ... Would you stop sucking all the awesome out of the room? Leave some for me.
Sam and Dean still get freaked and get the heck outta the way when angels fight - very cosmopolitan of them.
They fight super fast with super strength and then Cas grabs him and flies out the window and they fall super fast and it's so fast that regular speed gets slowed down and it's so slow that we forget that they are ACUTALLYHURTLINGTHROUGHSPACETIMECONTINUUMS faster than the eye can see and it's like they are AIMING for Sam's baby.
-_-
NOT FUNNY, SHOW.
*would call the windshield repair guy and the body repair guy, but then Cas leaves without fixing the car he just landed on... and Dean gets his secret wish granted thanks to their James Bond and THIS IS NOT APPROVED.*
This is the part where we have to explain to normal people that there's lots of angels in this world and most of the ones we see are not exactly the poster children for answered prayers.
Click to viewAlthough I would like to state for the record that IDUNNO is on THIRD.
Far from controlling this situation, Sam takes a back seat and lets Dean drive the 20 Question Bus straight over the cliff. Cas doesn't have time to explain everything and Dean makes it stop.
When Cas takes five milliseconds to breathe, Sam finds out that heaven is in a state of war because of what they did and that whoever has the weapons wins the war... but what he didn't say was that the weapons are only as good as the people they can use them on. against. with.
Raphael has always wanted to end the story the way it was written and Sam does THIS:
Dean is the one taking up the gauntlet and bringing this information into Sam's brain, and Sam is barely processing that there are forces in heaven who still want Lucifer and Michael to end each other, otherwise the world keeps right on spinning in the hands of monkeys.... and they might have to do this all over again for real, for real.
Sam: DEAR GOD, THE MONKEYS.
Dean: WHY.
Cas: "IDUNNO. BECAUSE. DIS DAI NEEDZ MOAR MYRRH."
For all of Cas' people skills being rusty, he doesn't have trouble remembering the one thing he did learn when he was an outcast: that a bond of brotherhood like Sam and Dean's and the loyalty it has required through thick and thin, is something that he thought he had... and has found lacking in his own brethren. And he looks at Sam... and apologizes... for leaving him high and dry, maybe even for blaming Sam a little for the ways things have gone in heaven due to what he accomplished and perhaps even for his belated faith in Sam that he could beat Lucifer in the first place.
And then he grabs Dean's hand and slices it open... and mixes it with holy water.
hmm.
Because even though Cas looks human and has memories from then, he isn't, actually, anymore.
*wonders what would have happened if Sam had been the one standing closer*
Cas: "DOAN U FINKZ TEH POLICE WILL TAEK HIM HOME?"
Dean: WHO?
Sam: NATURALLY.
And they land near a sparkling pool, which also doesn't mean anything but now I'm just paranoid and noticing it everywhere. Dammit, Dean, not Dr No. You HAVE a Bond; you're not IN a Bond. Unless... hm.
Once upon a time, there were three stooges. Stop me if you've heard this one.
The last time I saw a room like this, it was when the Trickster was around, building round beds and pretty girls out of thin air and giving people their just desserts while he sat around, while pretty girls pranced around, giving him his desserts ... and we ended up liking him eventually, after he grew a brain.
Somehow, I see this guy and I think... Liberace and Sting had a secret love child, didn't they? This guy is the "I just bought a yacht on eBay" version of that creepy bastard with the coins and shiny shoes in Constantine... oh, and also the plagues ring a bell.
ewwwwww
What did he kill HIM with a plague for? Balty doesn't appreciate good old hand to hand combat? Not much of a traditionalist, then. Mmm, you know.
Good old Balty is gathering up all the power balls that belonged to heaven and making the two sides duke it out the old fashioned way. How very cosmo. You know.
But he's doing it because Cas is his HERO. His brother ripped out destiny's throat, spat on it, and lived to tell about it. He changed everything. Nothing - no one - has to play by the rules anymore. It's liberty run amok. Freedom has conquered; he is a shining light blinding the horizons halfway around the world before Consequences even has a chance to get his pants on.
One brother proved to another that they could do anything, so why not? Let's try everything.
So LIVE. Find how it all works. Ask questions. Be curious. Find out what it's like to be bad. Maybe all we need is perspective. Maybe if we all acted like brothers, it wouldn't matter that we have so little in common anymore.
WHY? BECAUSE. It will never stop. There will always be something to fight about. Dad isn't going to blow the whistle.
THERE IS NO DESTINY.
You KNOW?
No. NO, IDUNNO.
OH. WAIT.
...
I'm beginning to think that the spot on the lawn by the pool is a teleporter.
AND THEN.
Raphael shows up like a storm trooper (Azazel again? Anyone?) and his advice to his brothers is THIS:
"Watch them. They're all snakes."
Snakes in the angelic sense typically represent... liars.
TIME LOOP.
Aaron: "Those liars. They killed my brother and nothing bad even happened to them. It's not fair. So I prayed to God every night he would punish them. God didn't answer. But he did. ... He said I could have justice, but I would have to take it myself."
So let me get this straight.
The side that believes in Destiny is declaring war on the side that believes in Free Will.
The one in the middle that they both want to stop is the only one doling out Consequences in the traditional way, but he's the renegade because he's also holding orgies and smoking the drugs.
HUH.
Dear Cas,
I seem to remember an angel doing just that last year when he lost the person that he believed in.
-Lid, who found that stick in your ass
I mean, Sam has it.
Sam plays the bait to distract them both into a trap -- because Sam is a big fat liar -- so that Dean can zap them back to Neverland. Good teamwork. I bet Cas misses that.
The cut on Dean's hand came in handy! I really want to be happy about that, but somehow, no.
What I AM happy about is how Dean's angel spell sigil lights up with fire now, too. I don't know what it means, but it's Approved.
Free Will stands in the face of Destiny and says that you don't have to do this, brother, you have a choice, why won't you listen?
Because once upon a time, there was a Tree of Knowledge and the apples on the tree were very nommy and the snake in the tree said you have a choice, why don't you bite me?
0.o
And Destiny comes silently forward anyway because it's silly to listen to snakes, especially when your heart is not your own.
Goofy angels, kicking Destiny in the face. Don't they know that's evil?
*shifty eyes*
Goofy angels. Don't they realize that humans went off book thousands of years ago (apples are very nommy) and nothing you do to get things back on script is ever going to work? There's just too much ad-libbing going on and people huffing fog machines and drawing on the walls. IT WILL NEVER STOP.
Poor Cas. Poor Raphael. Fighting each other when they could be... you know... not.
They could be re-balancing the world in other ways. But no.
WHEN SUDDENLY POTATO.
LOOK AT MY JUNK. MY JUNK, LET ME SHOW YOU IT.
Dear Raphael,
I think this has happened to me before. I feel your pain. But that's what happens when you stare at it too long. You get... yeah never mind.
-Lid, going to take a shower now
He just wanted to help his brother out the one time with a sodium cure and ride off into the sunset in his Bentley, but monkeys have abandonment issues. You know.
Walker: [the boys are running around when they should be in Sunday school] ANARCHY! ANARCHY!
Texas Ranger: I don't know what that means, but I LOVE it!
Dean and Sam threaten a fiery barbeque if Balthazar doesn't release Aaron's soul. And as much as Dean has done for the cause of Freedom, he doesn't care about Dean at all. Dean isn't part of his family. Having a ménage-a-dozen with women appears to sit quite differently with him since they are actually useful... seeing as how he probably actually owns their souls... and then I remembered why I don't like this guy any more than I like Raphael, which is to say, not at all.
He appeals to Cas, as a brother, favor for favor, and Cas tells him that he found that stick in his ass he was talking about and by the way, do you like your fried wings to be extra crispy?
Cas still values human life over any life in heaven, which was the higher law to which angels were being held.. and they've all seemingly forgotten it. It's hard not to be the top of the food chain anymore. It's better to be a wounded lion than an impeccable flea.
When Cas does not relent, Balty tries to show his good faith by giving back what he bought with God's weapons. Which is to say, God's weapons will win heaven, but they won't win down here. Might as well distribute and get the one commodity that is worth more no matter what country you're in: SOULS.
one kid's soul > six inches of heavenly staff
When Balthazar holds up his end of the bargain, Dean does not. He still has leverage in the situation and he's going to use it. It's Cas who holds true to the agreement and lets him go, although he did let Dean lead right up until he made the wrong choice.
I just find it interesting that with all the attention Sam is getting lately about how strange he's acting, nobody has said anything about Dean. And his drinking. And his nightmares. And his temper. And his ability to stave off lethal doses of Djinn poison... and I don't think he was killing it off with alcohol even though he probably could have.
Dear Dean,
It's kind of adorable how you act like you had no idea how much stuff you had back here when we all know you have it all on a list in your head in great detail, you just may not know where it shifted to since the last time you took a sharp turn. You're cute.
-Lid, who thinks foam inserts take the whole organization thing just a bit far
P.S. Your immunity to monsters is, like, INSANE. Where did you get that?
Dear Show,
I don't know how to tell you this, but considering that this was the monster that they couldn't really remember hunting a year ago because it was buried under all the other crap they've lived through, and considering it is the one that they were trying the hardest to forget because it was the first hunt where they had to strike out on their own without dad -- two brothers alone together with only their father's words to keep them on the road -- considering all of that, it hurts a lot to know that, once they were separated, THIS hunt was the one they both seem to remember vividly now. It's downright creepy. Also, you keep bringing it up and Sam finds the choice intriguing and eerily accurate.
I don't even know where this is going, but if it's going where I think it's going, I'm gonna need to stock up on flares.
-Lid
Interesting choice here with the camera work. Other than noticing that Dean still likes to make pit stops beside calming bodies of water and the car has been through a rainy day or two lately and they're about the size of two little army men, and we're hiding any part of the car that had any hand in the events of a year ago... I'm not really sure what this angle is saying.
Sam can tell where this is going, because this is always the point where Dean brings stuff up -- before they get in the car and start the next thing. I could number on my fingers the times that BOTH of them have been acting strangely and I'm really having to admit to myself that Dean is leading that margin by a small amount. Yeah, Sam isn't good, but he's okay. He's making do with what he's got to work with... which is a brother on the verge of the brink of a meltdown all the time and friends who won't return his calls and family he can't trust further than he can toss a pigskin and who trust him equally as much. He's better when Dean's around, no matter what shape he happens to be in. *snerk*
Also worthy of note is that, of all the rooftop confessions we've been through, I can't think of a single one where I am watching BOTH of their full reflections in the hood of the car. There's the real them and then there's the image mirroring their every gesture in duplicitous shadow. Things are not simple, but it's going to take time to peel back the layers.
Dean hasn't been hiding his suspicions about Sam, as much as he might think he has. Sam hasn't been hiding that he's not like he was before. Somewhere in there, Sam began looking at everything with an air of detachment. I think it was when he realized that visibly caring about someone could increase everyone's chances of being a target. If he acts like he doesn't care, he, and they, will appear less vulnerable. One of the ones he needs to appear less vulnerable to... is Dean. Interesting, considering that it was Sam who went back for him in the first place, but it doesn't mean that he trusts Dean completely. He doesn't. Obviously. Season one, anybody?
But why is Sam doing this? Well, we know he's been watching Dean for a long time. He was even in the same bar as Dean without Dean knowing it, despite him casing the place with his eyes constantly. So that means Sam is only visible when he wants to be. The minute Dean got hit with Djinn blood, Sam should have rushed in to give him the antidote. But he doesn't. What if it was Sam in the building under restoration that night? What if it was Sam who Dean was seeing in the garage but he looked and sounded like Azazel? (Wouldn't be the first time... 4.06.) Why did Sam take so long to help Dean, and why was he so hard to shake loose from Dean's side once Dean was under the influence?
What if Sam is testing Dean? Seeing what monsters his blood and the strength in it will prevail against? What if it's all of them? What if Dean's blood can reverse a monster's "condition"? ... like Sam's can (2.09)?
Dean wants to know how Sam could be so ready to sacrifice a kid to catch a monster when they don't know for certain if the kid would have cooperated, given the choice.
Sam wants to know what happened to the guy who was willing to use Asher's brother Michael as bait to kill the soul-sucking thing that was after him when he was little. I imagine that felt a little worse than some angel drugging you and tickling your appendix.
You can rationalize a lot of things that Sam does, but then he goes and says stuff about how he's only rough around the edges because he's been hunting nonstop for a year, "kinda out in the wild" and that doesn't ring my Wendigo bell AT ALL. /sarcasm
That doesn't mean that he's not feelling things or that he doesn't have empathy. Those things might be a little rusty by now, sure, but overall he still gets scared, still can react to someone's emotional and physical condition, he still gets annoyed and surprised and amused and frustrated. What he ISN'T being is completely genuine.
But we know that about Sam because he wasn't totally genuine that whole year before Dean went to hell. This isn't new territory for Dean or for us. Back then, Sam was hiding something about himself that he knew no one else would approve of, something he was convinced would save the world. So, is this the ground we were meant to trod before Lucifer and Michael cut in? Mmmmaybe. All I know is, this time Sam really sucks at lying. Sam has never sucked at lying this much. Ever. EVER ever. And THAT, more than anything, makes this feel like it's not 100% Sam. We don't know, for the first time, if it's a good thing or a bad thing, or if it's a good intentions road to hell, or if it's a dark road with a light at the end of the tunnel. Either way, we're gonna have to trust him in order to find out.
Of all the kinks in your armor that you could come back from hell with, lying badly is a pretty mild one.
Dean is still tortured by what he went through and what he did... and Sam knows that. He KNOWS. If Sam had told him everything that happened to him in hell right now, Dean would take it personally and he might not ever live it down. He's just not ready. He doesn't feel as strong as he really is.
Sam didn't get broken in hell the way Dean did. He doesn't have the burden of guilt that Dean has. All he has is a secret that he keeps because he thinks he has to... just like before.
Once upon a time, a man went to hell. While he was there, he learned anatomy. He learned it really, really well. He knows his own better than anyone else's. He knows it so well that when he would see someone else's anatomy laid out in front of him, he would feel the pokes and prods as if they were part of himself. He approached it clinically. He had a process. He took people through the same process he knew so intimately and he it saw it do the same thing to them as it had done to him. Their pain was his pain and their eyes were glassy mirrors and he'd stare into their souls and stab and slice and cleave to get down to the part of himself that housed the hole in his soul. His eyes would turn black, but he didn't know it. He finally wouldn't have cared. It felt too good to know what he was made of and how much nothing can swallow up until he was alone.
Once upon a time, a man went to hell. While he was there, he learned biology.