Initial reaction 15.09: "The Trap"
We're back!
THEN: Since we're coming off a hiatus, we get "The Road So Far" instead of simply "Then." But you know all of this, and it's set to AC/DC, who I do not like, so let's skip it.
NOW: Lucky the Pink Elephant spins slowly, taking in his casino. And in his casino, facing each other, are Sam and Eileen. Sam is gaining consciousness, and he starts to struggle and panic when he realizes he's ziptied to a chair.
Chuck appears next to Eileen. "Hi, Sam." Eileen says "I'm sorry," and she is not tied to her chair, and for a second I think she's apologizing for betraying Sam and leading him straight into Chuck's clutches.
{Sidebar: I was toying with a 15.08 coda where Chuck snapped his fingers and Eileen disappeared and Chuck laughed at Sam's horror and said she wasn't even real, Sam, she was just an image I created.}
But Sam knows what's going on. He tells Eileen it isn't her fault. She asks Chuck what he's doing to her, presumably referring to her inability to move. But he goes further than that, and expositions that he's spent weeks setting this up - getting her to the bunker, nudging her into romance (Sam's sad headshake at that, oh my heart), strategically placing Rowena's spell so Sam would find it (oh my heart again, because I wanted Rowena to be behind that "accidental" discovery). Sam's disturbed too, having assumed his advisor and mentor was behind it. "That was you?" he asks. "It wasn't all me, Sam," Chuck says. "I just gave you half the spell. You did the rest, all on your own. Which, I knew you would. Because you're such a good guy." YES. YES HE IS.
Chuck says he did it because "I couldn't see you. I needed eyes and ears on the inside." He looks at Eileen. "Well. Eyes, anyway." OH NO YOU DIDN'T. That's COLD, Chuck. And it's also confusing. He's been just looking through Eileen's eyes? (Oh, Sam must be SO RELIEVED they never did the deed, assuming they didn't, and I do assume that.) Why couldn't he see Sam? What about Dean or Cas? And presumably this means he's been watching but not listening, so how much information was he even getting? ("Pancakes. They like pancakes.") Chuck says he hates missing his favorite show. And I feel personally called out, gotta say. (Also, was he able to turn on closed captioning?)
Sam's all, aha, I was right, you're weak. And can I just mention here how much I love Sam Winchester, physically helpless, snarking at God Himself? (And can I also ask why Eileen can be restrained with simple mind power, but Sam requires zipties?) Chuck denies being weak, but does admit that he's stuck in this world (the one with your favorite show, Chuckles, so what's the problem?) while he and Sam are connected by their wounds. But he has a solution - and it's a scalpel. "All good things must come to an end." Uh oh. Meanwhile, Eileen has discovered that she can move a little bit. Maybe because Chuck is distracted by the amount of throat Sam's exposing here. I know I am.
What can I say? He's distracting.
Title card!
Bunker. Cas is making borax bullets. Dean is trying to call Sam, and apparently has been for a while. But he's not answering, and neither is Eileen. "Maybe they just have their hands full with their case," Cas suggests. "Or they're in trouble," Dean says. Funny that no other options occur to these two.
(To be fair, Cas and Dean are both right. Their hands are full, and they're in trouble. And any other options I might be thinking of are not on the table.)
Back at the casino, Sam anxiously eyes Chuck's scalpel and asks what he's doing. "Our wounds aren't healing properly," Chuck says. "Because of you. It's like there's something festering inside of you. Something that won't let go. I can't see it, I can't snap it away, but I know it's there." Meanwhile, adorable badass Eileen has managed to get her phone out of her pocket and dial Dean, so he can hear what's going on.
Chuck warns Sam that he doesn't know what he's looking for, so it might get messy, and y'all know I'm a sick little puppy so you can imagine how much I appreciate that. He pulls Sam's shirts aside (and once again, can we please stop with the awkward pulling aside of Sam's shirts? Even if we don't want to take that t-shirt off, could Chuck at least cut it instead of pulling it off Sam's shoulder?) He aims for Sam's godhole, but then stops and says "I think we have an audience." He turns to Eileen and says "come on, Eileen," and I guess someone had to say it eventually. He takes the phone.
Hi, Dean.
Chuck, you dick.
Bye, Dean.
Hee! Chuck flings the phone against the ATM, because he's not cool enough to simply crush it with his bare hands. (But we all know who is, don't we?) Chuck approaches Sam, Sam struggles, and maybe the neck of his t-shirt is cut wider. Hard to tell.
Bunker. Dean tracks Sam's phone to a casino in Milford, Nebraska. Haven't we been in Milford before? During Dean and Crowley's bromance? Dean naturally wants to go rescue Sam, but Cas convinces him that Chuck won't kill Sam, and they only way they can rescue him is by following their plan and building their cage. "That's the way we'll save Sam, and that's the way we'll save the world."
Casino. Sam squirms as Chuck gets closer with the scalpel, but eventually notices that Chuck can't go through with it. Well, of course he can't. When one of them feels pain in the wound connecting them, the other does too. This would be like Chuck sticking the scalpel in his own shoulder. Sam accuses him of stalling. "You blink people out of existence. But when it's time to get your hands dirty, you can't do it. You just like to watch. Wow, Chuck, that's... I don't even know what to call that."
Once again, defiant-though-he's-about-to-be-tortured-or-killed Sam DOES THINGS TO ME, FRIENDS.
Eileen joins in, calling Chuck pathetic, and that probably wasn't a wise move. "You know what?" says Chuck. "You're right. I do like to watch. Eileen." Suddenly she's on her feet, hand extended, accepting the scalpel. And moving toward Sam. Whoops.
{Sidebar: I could heap scorn onto Chuck for being the type of guy who likes to watch Sam get hurt, but we all know how hypocritical that would be. Chuck hasn't done anything to Sam that I haven't done myself, plenty of times. And making Eileen do it? Well, Sam being hurt by someone he loves is just another tasty flavor of that particular cupcake, isn't it? I mean, I may as well create a new fic tag: Sam is hurt and Dean's the one who did it.}
Chuck forces Eileen closer and closer, silencing her when she begs him to stop. Sam does try to get through to her - or does he? He just says her name. If this were Dean, he'd be telling him that he could stop this. Maybe he knows she's not strong enough to overcome God. "She's still in there, Sam," he says. "This is going to hurt her as much as it hurts you." When she thrusts the blade into Sam's godhole, he backtracks. "Maybe not quite as much."
Oddly enough, Eileen stabbing Sam in the godhole doesn't have any impact on Chuck's samhole. Odd because they were connected that way earlier. When Chuck felt pain, Sam felt it too. I wonder what happened to that particular connection.
(Continuity? That was 7 or 8 episodes ago, you fool!)
Purgatory. It's dark. Apparently Cas and Dean made it through. Dean complains that they don't know what they're looking for, and I think you didn't ASK, did you? Neither of them remember ever seeing anything that looks like a flower. Dean hopes they'll run into Benny. He checks the timer on his phone, showing a little less than 11 hours left, and suggests they split up. Cas once again tells him he's an idiot, and they go off together.
Casino. Eileen is just shoving the scalpel into Sam's wound as he screams. I don't know what Chuck is looking for, but she's not going to find anything using this method. Sam tries to assure her, between screams, that he's okay and he knows it's not really her. Like Chuck said, he's such a good guy. (sob) Meanwhile, Chuck plays guitar in a way that makes you wish Dean was here to grab it and smash it again. Sam tells Chuck his plan isn't working, and Chuck puts Eileen on pause. "I'm gonna die in this chair," Sam tells him. Chuck responds by pushing play and having Eileen start up again, harder. "Cause you'll keep cutting until I bleed out, and that's cause you don't know what else to do. What then, Chuck? You just bring me back and try again?" (Sam's little laugh of agony and frustration, guys. I'm dead.)
Well, there's not a whole lot of blood, considering, so I think it's gonna take a really long time for Sam to bleed out. But Chuck decides it's time for plan B. "Son of a bitch," he yells. He stops Eileen, heals the new damage to Sam (but not the godhole itself), and sends Eileen away. "How are you still like this?" he yells at Sam. "Like what," Sam says, shaky, barely looking at him. "This. Defiant!" "It's not my first time on the rack," Sam responds, and OH NO THAT IS NOT OKAY.
But that's not it. Chuck suddenly realizes the problem is Sam's hope. "That's what's stopping me. You. You still think that Dean and Cas are gonna fly through those doors just in the nick of time. You still think that you're the hero of this story. You still think you can win." Well, of course he does, Chuck. Hope is one of the defining characteristics of Sam Winchester. You should know; you made him.
And good job there, Chuckie. Damn good job.
Purgatory. Dean thinks they're going in circles, Cas says they're not, but the whole conversation is probably just a setup to trap the leviathan who's been following them. The leviathan tells them a "leviathan flower" is something that grows out of the soil where a dead leviathan decomposes. And he happens to know a place nearby where one could find some. How convenient. Before they head off on their quest, Dean asks about Benny, and learns he was murdered by his own kind because they didn't trust him. {Sidebar: what happens to monsters after they die in Purgatory? Where do they go from there? Discuss.}
Casino. Chuck tells Sam that it's not that he can't win, it's that he shouldn't. He won't like what comes next. And Chuck's willing to show him what does happen if he wins. He claps his hands and we flash forward to April 17, 2020. As our timeline Sam watches, Future Sam and Future Eileen sit in the bunker, talking about a case. Dean's there, Cas shows up with beer, and everybody's happy. Then Sam's phone rings. It's Jody, in shock, woodenly informing Sam that Claire was killed on a vampire hunt. (Okay, but is there any reason to think this wouldn't happen either way?) Sam gasps awake in the current timeline.
We need more hair-in-his-face, open-mouthed Sam in the world, even if it's not entirely in focus. You're welcome.
Chuck tells him that was just the beginning, and shows him a pocketwatch that can be set to show the future. All Sam has to do is set it to any day or time to come, and "you can see it all." Sam tells Chuck that nothing he shows him will change his mind, and Chuck's all, fine, whatever. "Come on, Sam. Don't you want to see the future?"
NO, SAM, YOU DO NOT.
{Sidebar: Would Sam actually play along? Would he want to see the future? Discuss.}
Purgatory. It's daylight now, so these blossoms that were allegedly "nearby" seem to actually be a pretty fair piece. Dean feels guilty about Benny's death, and Cas says "this place will bring that out in you; guilt." For example, Cas now feels guilty about unleashing the leviathans upon the world in the first place. I wonder if any other guilty feelings will pop up here? Cas tells Dean that he has already apologized to him, "but you refused to hear it." Dean gripes about Cas leaving them, Cas points out that it was Dean's fault, and I'm sorry, guys. I just don't care. Especially when Cas says "I left, but you didn't stop me," because GOOD LORD that sounds like a couple's argument and I. AM. NOT. HERE. FOR. IT.
Purgatory isn't even as pretty as it normally is. I'm ready to go back to the casino.
Future: January 6, 2021. Dean's driving; Sam's watching flames on the side of the road. Whoever they were trying to save, they didn't. And if Cas was still there, he could have helped them. "Yeah, but he's not," Dean snaps. Oh, dear. "We're not winning, Sam. The monsters are winning." Present Sam, in the back seat, is horrified.
Purgatory. Here are the flowers! Oh, but they're in the middle of a giant angel trap! Because Eve is pissed at Cas! How was this set up ahead of time? Can leviathans communicate telepathically? What's the plural of leviathan? Don't know, don't care. There's a fight. Dean is knocked unconscious. When he wakes up, all the blossoms have been burned, and he's alone.
Future: November 3, 2021. Sam's packing his weapons. Dean asks what he's doing, and with an almost maniacal smile, Sam says they have to hustle before the nest moves on.
No, Sam. It doesn't matter.
What are you saying?
What I've been trying to say for months. It's time. Time to stand down.
You want to quit? What's happened to you, Dean? Ever since -
Ever since what? We lost pretty much everyone we've ever cared about? Ever since the Mark made Cas go crazy? Ever since I had to bury him in a Ma'lak box? Ever since then? Yeah, you know why? Cause the monsters, they're everywhere! Everywhere! What we do, it's not even hunting any more! It's whack-a-mole! We don't even save people. Every friend we've ever had is either dead, or they got wise and they packed it in.
Jody's still fighting, and Bobby -
Bobby has a death wish and you know it. And Jody, ever since what happened to Donna and the girls, she does too. And after Eileen? So do you.
No. What happened to Butch and Sundance? Dean, what happened to going out swinging?
We lost, brother. We lost. I'm done.
Oh, boys. That's a bleak future.
Bleak but oh so pretty.
"This is a lie" says Present Sam. "Chuck, I know what you're doing. You're just showing me this so I give up. So I lose hope." Chuck says he's just the messenger, and Sam says "The Dean I know, the Dean who raised me, he'd never give up. No matter how bad things got." Chuck says "Oh, like the time Amara was killing me, and the sun was going to die and take the planet out with it, and Dean decided the only thing left to do was get drunk?" No, he doesn't. But he could.
(THE DEAN WHO RAISED ME!!!!! OH MY HEART!!!!!)
Purgatory. I'm finding it really difficult to care about what's happening in Purgatory, friends. Dean's looking for Cas, but he's only got about half an hour left before the rift closes. Realizing he won't be able to find him in time, Dean prays to Cas, apologizing for letting him go and forgiving him. He doesn't know why he always gets so angry, and why his anger comes out when things go wrong. He really is quite upset. It would be an Emmy reel on any other show. He wraps with a calm "okay," like he always does when he gets emotional. Oh, Dean.
Future. It's still November 3, 2021. Sam tells Dean he's raiding the vampire nest with or without him. "Well, I guess I don't have a choice, do I?" says Dean. They make their way out of the bunker, slow and quiet and not speaking to each other. Chuck declares it a bad idea. "You should have trusted your gut," he says to Future Dean.
Sam tries to move the watch forward, but finds it won't go past December 9, 2022. "Guess that's as far as it goes, Sammy," Chuck says. "The end of the line." DON'T LOOK, SAM. But he does.
Purgatory. Dean has less than three minutes to get back to the rift. Assuming, as they always do, that an archangel's "you have about x hours" means you have exactly x hours. He's shocked to see someone who looks like Cas leaning against a tree. I mean, obviously it could be a leviathan, right? Or a shifter? He's going to check, right? Wrong. Dean hugs him and accepts his story about escaping from his captors and finding a leviathan blossom. So, okay. Dean wants to apologize (TIME'S A WASTING, BOYS!!!) but Cas says it's not necessary because he heard his prayer. So, that totally pointless spat is over? Thank you baby Jesus.
Future. December 9, 2022. Sam and Dean are pushing furniture to block the door of whatever hovel they're holed up in. "Those bastards take us down," Dean says, "at least we go down together." Well! It's nice to see that Dean's found his purpose again. "Butch and Sundance," says Sam. On the other side of the blocked door, we see two people approaching with guns drawn. And here are two more people and oh, no, it's Bobby and Jody. "You're sure you want to do this, Jody?" asks Bobby. "It's Sam and Dean." Except it's kinda not, because suddenly the boys are sporting UTTERLY RIDICULOUS FANGS. They look more leviathan than vampire. Jody shoots Sam, presumably with a dead-man's-blood bullet, and he goes down. Dean tears Jody's throat out and looks up just in time to watch Bobby decapitate his brother.
WELL.
Present Sam gasps into consciousness. "So, what'd you think?" asks Chuck. He tells Sam that he and his brother still matter deeply to him and they deserve a better ending. Sam points out that he's seen Chuck's plans, and they're not "better." Because yeah, Chuck, Sam would rather die a vampire than kill his own brother, okay?
Bunker. Dean and Cas are putting together Michael's spell. Cas starts to cut his palm open, and Dean asks if he's sure. "Dean, you've already taken the Mark," Cas says. "You can't take it again." Oh, snap. I didn't realize that's what they were doing. I thought Future Dean's remark about Cas going crazy after the Mark was just some random horrible future, not anything related to what they're doing right now. I guess it makes more sense, then, what Chuck is saying. That if TFW wins at what they're trying to do right now, this is the consequence - without a sane, unMarked Cas, this is what happens. I'm not thrilled that Cas seems to be the linchpin, but okay.
The spell emits a cloud of smoke that gets absorbed into a magical softball. "Because I'm taking the Mark, someone else will have to destroy this," Cas expositions. "You or Sam." He puts it in his pocket.
Casino. I think Sam might be losing his mind. "It'll be better, it'll be better," he mutters. He starts yelling at Chuck, who is no where in sight. "If we win, when we win, when we beat you, I will make it better!" Chuck tells him he can't, and instructs him to think about what he saw. Beyond Cas and the Mark, beyond him and Dean fanging out. Oh. The monsters. The very dramatic increase in monsters. Yeah, that. Without Chuck, monsters will take over the world. "Dark forces prevail, monsters rule, and you, your brother, and everyone you love will die. Can you really live with that?"
Do I need to tell you how much I love Sam's despair? Probably not.
I guess there's a time jump here, because we see Cas and Dean on the casino floor. Apparently they didn't run in yelling Sammy! Wonder why. Eventually they do find Sam, and Dean's able to cut off one ziptie before Eileen shows up, still under Chuck's control. She hits Dean with something that looks like a plunger but probably isn't (although that would be a fun callback to an earlier episode, wouldn't it?), and then goes after him with the scalpel. Cas tackles her, Sam retrieves Dean's knife, and then Chuck shows up. Dean punches him, hard, but gets punched back even harder.
Cas rolls the magic softball to Sam, and Dean tells him to smash it. It's interesting that Sam has no idea what these two are up to. He wasn't there when Michael told Cas and Dean about the spell, right? It's also interesting that Cas didn't roll the ball to Dean, who would have smashed it immediately. I guess Sam's been appointed the smasher of all spell balls as far as TFW is concerned.
So Sam can't know what the ball does, but he does know that it's part of Dean's plan to take Chuck out. And he can't do it. He drops to his knees (PLEASE SOMEONE HELP ME FIND A GIF OF THIS) and releases the ball, which rolls to Chuck. "I can't," he says. "I can't, I'm sorry. I just can't." Dean and Cas are horrified. "What did you do to him," Dean says to Chuck. Chuck doesn't answer, but he does clutch at his Samhole and make a very happy noise. Sam grabs his godhole at the same time. They're both healed. "Sammy lost hope," Chuck says. "And now, I'm free. Hey, take it easy on the kid. Took a lot to beat it out of him."
(BEAT IT OUT OF HIM. I AM DEAD.)
ETA... the gif has been found, thank you baby Jesus. Stolen from jarpadandjensens on Tumblr.
Chuck picks up the ball and crushes it, and I guess it doesn't have the same effect it would if Sam or Dean crushed it. Dean asks Chuck what he's going to do now. Obviously he's not going to kill them, because he wants them to kill each other. They know the endings he has planned. "Sam got a little look into your draft folder."
"Sam's visions, they weren't drafts," says Chuck. "They were memories. My memories. Other Sams and other Deans, in other worlds. But guess what? Just like you, they didn't think they'd do it either. But they did. And you will too."
"No," says Dean. "Not this Sam. And not this Dean. So you go back to Earth 2 and play with your other toys. Because we will never give you the ending that you want."
"We'll see," says Chuck. He disappears.
Mmmmm. I love Dean's complete faith here, in himself and in his brother.
I also love his little snarl of disgust.
Bunker. Eileen picks up her bag. "I wish you'd stay," Sam says. "I wish I could," she replies. "After what happened, I don't know what's real any more." Sam puts his hands on her face and kisses her and friends, no matter what you think about Sam and Eileen, surely you cannot dispute the absolute RIGHTNESS of Jared Padalecki taking a girl's face in his big hands and kissing her.
And is that a forehead touch?
"I know that was real," he says. And Eileen says "You know, if you'd done that earlier, I probably would have stayed." No, she doesn't. But she could. She puts her hand on his face (and let's not forget the last woman who did that!), they exchange sad smiles, and she leaves.
So what is Eileen afraid of? That nothing she feels for Sam is real? That it was all implanted by Chuck, as part of his little scheme? I can see why she'd feel that way. I'm surprised Sam doesn't feel the same way, honestly. Especially given what he knows about how his parents were matched. (But on the other hands, his parents were mostly happy together, so... no harm done? Discuss.)
Cas and Dean are sitting in the kitchen. Dean asks if she left, so I guess she didn't say goodbye to him. Sam, barely holding it together, apologizes for not taking advantage of their chance to stop Chuck, but insists he believes Chuck showed him the truth. Surprisingly, Dean says "well, that's good enough for me."
Sam seems surprised to hear that too.
So, what do they do now? They can't kill or trap Chuck. "Well then, we find another way," says Dean.
Cut to black. But it's not black, it's the Empty. "It's time," Billie says to Jack. Hey, welcome to your other way!
So. What do we think about the presumed end of Sam's relationship with Eileen? Honestly, I think we got the best case scenario. No happy apple pie ending, no death, just lots of angst. I'm satisfied.
And let's talk about Sam's belief that Chuck wasn't lying to him. I kind of agree. So, here's the deal. Chuck was watching the guys through Eileen. So if Eileen didn't witness something, neither did Chuck. And Eileen wasn't there when Michael told Dean and Cas how to trap Chuck. So Chuck can't know their specific plan, can he? That it involves Cas taking the Mark of Cain? And therefore, how would he have put that in the future he showed Sam if it wasn't an actual future? {Discuss.}
Also, I'm going to take a chance and put this out there... I don't think we're getting the Butch and Sundance ending. I think by framing it as the worst case scenario, Show has effectively taken it off the table. I'd like to know what you think, though.
Obviously this episode hit some of my buttons. And when I say "hit," and "some," I don't mean it gently tapped a couple of them. I mean:
On the other hand, there was a lot of Dean and Cas nonsense that CERTAIN SHIPPERS are going to go hog wild over. And I'm not one of them.
Anyway. What did you guys think? And as always, no spoilers, please and thank you!
THEN: Since we're coming off a hiatus, we get "The Road So Far" instead of simply "Then." But you know all of this, and it's set to AC/DC, who I do not like, so let's skip it.
NOW: Lucky the Pink Elephant spins slowly, taking in his casino. And in his casino, facing each other, are Sam and Eileen. Sam is gaining consciousness, and he starts to struggle and panic when he realizes he's ziptied to a chair.
Chuck appears next to Eileen. "Hi, Sam." Eileen says "I'm sorry," and she is not tied to her chair, and for a second I think she's apologizing for betraying Sam and leading him straight into Chuck's clutches.
{Sidebar: I was toying with a 15.08 coda where Chuck snapped his fingers and Eileen disappeared and Chuck laughed at Sam's horror and said she wasn't even real, Sam, she was just an image I created.}
But Sam knows what's going on. He tells Eileen it isn't her fault. She asks Chuck what he's doing to her, presumably referring to her inability to move. But he goes further than that, and expositions that he's spent weeks setting this up - getting her to the bunker, nudging her into romance (Sam's sad headshake at that, oh my heart), strategically placing Rowena's spell so Sam would find it (oh my heart again, because I wanted Rowena to be behind that "accidental" discovery). Sam's disturbed too, having assumed his advisor and mentor was behind it. "That was you?" he asks. "It wasn't all me, Sam," Chuck says. "I just gave you half the spell. You did the rest, all on your own. Which, I knew you would. Because you're such a good guy." YES. YES HE IS.
Chuck says he did it because "I couldn't see you. I needed eyes and ears on the inside." He looks at Eileen. "Well. Eyes, anyway." OH NO YOU DIDN'T. That's COLD, Chuck. And it's also confusing. He's been just looking through Eileen's eyes? (Oh, Sam must be SO RELIEVED they never did the deed, assuming they didn't, and I do assume that.) Why couldn't he see Sam? What about Dean or Cas? And presumably this means he's been watching but not listening, so how much information was he even getting? ("Pancakes. They like pancakes.") Chuck says he hates missing his favorite show. And I feel personally called out, gotta say. (Also, was he able to turn on closed captioning?)
Sam's all, aha, I was right, you're weak. And can I just mention here how much I love Sam Winchester, physically helpless, snarking at God Himself? (And can I also ask why Eileen can be restrained with simple mind power, but Sam requires zipties?) Chuck denies being weak, but does admit that he's stuck in this world (the one with your favorite show, Chuckles, so what's the problem?) while he and Sam are connected by their wounds. But he has a solution - and it's a scalpel. "All good things must come to an end." Uh oh. Meanwhile, Eileen has discovered that she can move a little bit. Maybe because Chuck is distracted by the amount of throat Sam's exposing here. I know I am.
What can I say? He's distracting.
Title card!
Bunker. Cas is making borax bullets. Dean is trying to call Sam, and apparently has been for a while. But he's not answering, and neither is Eileen. "Maybe they just have their hands full with their case," Cas suggests. "Or they're in trouble," Dean says. Funny that no other options occur to these two.
(To be fair, Cas and Dean are both right. Their hands are full, and they're in trouble. And any other options I might be thinking of are not on the table.)
Back at the casino, Sam anxiously eyes Chuck's scalpel and asks what he's doing. "Our wounds aren't healing properly," Chuck says. "Because of you. It's like there's something festering inside of you. Something that won't let go. I can't see it, I can't snap it away, but I know it's there." Meanwhile, adorable badass Eileen has managed to get her phone out of her pocket and dial Dean, so he can hear what's going on.
Chuck warns Sam that he doesn't know what he's looking for, so it might get messy, and y'all know I'm a sick little puppy so you can imagine how much I appreciate that. He pulls Sam's shirts aside (and once again, can we please stop with the awkward pulling aside of Sam's shirts? Even if we don't want to take that t-shirt off, could Chuck at least cut it instead of pulling it off Sam's shoulder?) He aims for Sam's godhole, but then stops and says "I think we have an audience." He turns to Eileen and says "come on, Eileen," and I guess someone had to say it eventually. He takes the phone.
Hi, Dean.
Chuck, you dick.
Bye, Dean.
Hee! Chuck flings the phone against the ATM, because he's not cool enough to simply crush it with his bare hands. (But we all know who is, don't we?) Chuck approaches Sam, Sam struggles, and maybe the neck of his t-shirt is cut wider. Hard to tell.
Bunker. Dean tracks Sam's phone to a casino in Milford, Nebraska. Haven't we been in Milford before? During Dean and Crowley's bromance? Dean naturally wants to go rescue Sam, but Cas convinces him that Chuck won't kill Sam, and they only way they can rescue him is by following their plan and building their cage. "That's the way we'll save Sam, and that's the way we'll save the world."
Casino. Sam squirms as Chuck gets closer with the scalpel, but eventually notices that Chuck can't go through with it. Well, of course he can't. When one of them feels pain in the wound connecting them, the other does too. This would be like Chuck sticking the scalpel in his own shoulder. Sam accuses him of stalling. "You blink people out of existence. But when it's time to get your hands dirty, you can't do it. You just like to watch. Wow, Chuck, that's... I don't even know what to call that."
Once again, defiant-though-he's-about-to-be-tortured-or-killed Sam DOES THINGS TO ME, FRIENDS.
Eileen joins in, calling Chuck pathetic, and that probably wasn't a wise move. "You know what?" says Chuck. "You're right. I do like to watch. Eileen." Suddenly she's on her feet, hand extended, accepting the scalpel. And moving toward Sam. Whoops.
{Sidebar: I could heap scorn onto Chuck for being the type of guy who likes to watch Sam get hurt, but we all know how hypocritical that would be. Chuck hasn't done anything to Sam that I haven't done myself, plenty of times. And making Eileen do it? Well, Sam being hurt by someone he loves is just another tasty flavor of that particular cupcake, isn't it? I mean, I may as well create a new fic tag: Sam is hurt and Dean's the one who did it.}
Chuck forces Eileen closer and closer, silencing her when she begs him to stop. Sam does try to get through to her - or does he? He just says her name. If this were Dean, he'd be telling him that he could stop this. Maybe he knows she's not strong enough to overcome God. "She's still in there, Sam," he says. "This is going to hurt her as much as it hurts you." When she thrusts the blade into Sam's godhole, he backtracks. "Maybe not quite as much."
Oddly enough, Eileen stabbing Sam in the godhole doesn't have any impact on Chuck's samhole. Odd because they were connected that way earlier. When Chuck felt pain, Sam felt it too. I wonder what happened to that particular connection.
(Continuity? That was 7 or 8 episodes ago, you fool!)
Purgatory. It's dark. Apparently Cas and Dean made it through. Dean complains that they don't know what they're looking for, and I think you didn't ASK, did you? Neither of them remember ever seeing anything that looks like a flower. Dean hopes they'll run into Benny. He checks the timer on his phone, showing a little less than 11 hours left, and suggests they split up. Cas once again tells him he's an idiot, and they go off together.
Casino. Eileen is just shoving the scalpel into Sam's wound as he screams. I don't know what Chuck is looking for, but she's not going to find anything using this method. Sam tries to assure her, between screams, that he's okay and he knows it's not really her. Like Chuck said, he's such a good guy. (sob) Meanwhile, Chuck plays guitar in a way that makes you wish Dean was here to grab it and smash it again. Sam tells Chuck his plan isn't working, and Chuck puts Eileen on pause. "I'm gonna die in this chair," Sam tells him. Chuck responds by pushing play and having Eileen start up again, harder. "Cause you'll keep cutting until I bleed out, and that's cause you don't know what else to do. What then, Chuck? You just bring me back and try again?" (Sam's little laugh of agony and frustration, guys. I'm dead.)
Well, there's not a whole lot of blood, considering, so I think it's gonna take a really long time for Sam to bleed out. But Chuck decides it's time for plan B. "Son of a bitch," he yells. He stops Eileen, heals the new damage to Sam (but not the godhole itself), and sends Eileen away. "How are you still like this?" he yells at Sam. "Like what," Sam says, shaky, barely looking at him. "This. Defiant!" "It's not my first time on the rack," Sam responds, and OH NO THAT IS NOT OKAY.
But that's not it. Chuck suddenly realizes the problem is Sam's hope. "That's what's stopping me. You. You still think that Dean and Cas are gonna fly through those doors just in the nick of time. You still think that you're the hero of this story. You still think you can win." Well, of course he does, Chuck. Hope is one of the defining characteristics of Sam Winchester. You should know; you made him.
And good job there, Chuckie. Damn good job.
Purgatory. Dean thinks they're going in circles, Cas says they're not, but the whole conversation is probably just a setup to trap the leviathan who's been following them. The leviathan tells them a "leviathan flower" is something that grows out of the soil where a dead leviathan decomposes. And he happens to know a place nearby where one could find some. How convenient. Before they head off on their quest, Dean asks about Benny, and learns he was murdered by his own kind because they didn't trust him. {Sidebar: what happens to monsters after they die in Purgatory? Where do they go from there? Discuss.}
Casino. Chuck tells Sam that it's not that he can't win, it's that he shouldn't. He won't like what comes next. And Chuck's willing to show him what does happen if he wins. He claps his hands and we flash forward to April 17, 2020. As our timeline Sam watches, Future Sam and Future Eileen sit in the bunker, talking about a case. Dean's there, Cas shows up with beer, and everybody's happy. Then Sam's phone rings. It's Jody, in shock, woodenly informing Sam that Claire was killed on a vampire hunt. (Okay, but is there any reason to think this wouldn't happen either way?) Sam gasps awake in the current timeline.
We need more hair-in-his-face, open-mouthed Sam in the world, even if it's not entirely in focus. You're welcome.
Chuck tells him that was just the beginning, and shows him a pocketwatch that can be set to show the future. All Sam has to do is set it to any day or time to come, and "you can see it all." Sam tells Chuck that nothing he shows him will change his mind, and Chuck's all, fine, whatever. "Come on, Sam. Don't you want to see the future?"
NO, SAM, YOU DO NOT.
{Sidebar: Would Sam actually play along? Would he want to see the future? Discuss.}
Purgatory. It's daylight now, so these blossoms that were allegedly "nearby" seem to actually be a pretty fair piece. Dean feels guilty about Benny's death, and Cas says "this place will bring that out in you; guilt." For example, Cas now feels guilty about unleashing the leviathans upon the world in the first place. I wonder if any other guilty feelings will pop up here? Cas tells Dean that he has already apologized to him, "but you refused to hear it." Dean gripes about Cas leaving them, Cas points out that it was Dean's fault, and I'm sorry, guys. I just don't care. Especially when Cas says "I left, but you didn't stop me," because GOOD LORD that sounds like a couple's argument and I. AM. NOT. HERE. FOR. IT.
Purgatory isn't even as pretty as it normally is. I'm ready to go back to the casino.
Future: January 6, 2021. Dean's driving; Sam's watching flames on the side of the road. Whoever they were trying to save, they didn't. And if Cas was still there, he could have helped them. "Yeah, but he's not," Dean snaps. Oh, dear. "We're not winning, Sam. The monsters are winning." Present Sam, in the back seat, is horrified.
Purgatory. Here are the flowers! Oh, but they're in the middle of a giant angel trap! Because Eve is pissed at Cas! How was this set up ahead of time? Can leviathans communicate telepathically? What's the plural of leviathan? Don't know, don't care. There's a fight. Dean is knocked unconscious. When he wakes up, all the blossoms have been burned, and he's alone.
Future: November 3, 2021. Sam's packing his weapons. Dean asks what he's doing, and with an almost maniacal smile, Sam says they have to hustle before the nest moves on.
No, Sam. It doesn't matter.
What are you saying?
What I've been trying to say for months. It's time. Time to stand down.
You want to quit? What's happened to you, Dean? Ever since -
Ever since what? We lost pretty much everyone we've ever cared about? Ever since the Mark made Cas go crazy? Ever since I had to bury him in a Ma'lak box? Ever since then? Yeah, you know why? Cause the monsters, they're everywhere! Everywhere! What we do, it's not even hunting any more! It's whack-a-mole! We don't even save people. Every friend we've ever had is either dead, or they got wise and they packed it in.
Jody's still fighting, and Bobby -
Bobby has a death wish and you know it. And Jody, ever since what happened to Donna and the girls, she does too. And after Eileen? So do you.
No. What happened to Butch and Sundance? Dean, what happened to going out swinging?
We lost, brother. We lost. I'm done.
Oh, boys. That's a bleak future.
Bleak but oh so pretty.
"This is a lie" says Present Sam. "Chuck, I know what you're doing. You're just showing me this so I give up. So I lose hope." Chuck says he's just the messenger, and Sam says "The Dean I know, the Dean who raised me, he'd never give up. No matter how bad things got." Chuck says "Oh, like the time Amara was killing me, and the sun was going to die and take the planet out with it, and Dean decided the only thing left to do was get drunk?" No, he doesn't. But he could.
(THE DEAN WHO RAISED ME!!!!! OH MY HEART!!!!!)
Purgatory. I'm finding it really difficult to care about what's happening in Purgatory, friends. Dean's looking for Cas, but he's only got about half an hour left before the rift closes. Realizing he won't be able to find him in time, Dean prays to Cas, apologizing for letting him go and forgiving him. He doesn't know why he always gets so angry, and why his anger comes out when things go wrong. He really is quite upset. It would be an Emmy reel on any other show. He wraps with a calm "okay," like he always does when he gets emotional. Oh, Dean.
Future. It's still November 3, 2021. Sam tells Dean he's raiding the vampire nest with or without him. "Well, I guess I don't have a choice, do I?" says Dean. They make their way out of the bunker, slow and quiet and not speaking to each other. Chuck declares it a bad idea. "You should have trusted your gut," he says to Future Dean.
Sam tries to move the watch forward, but finds it won't go past December 9, 2022. "Guess that's as far as it goes, Sammy," Chuck says. "The end of the line." DON'T LOOK, SAM. But he does.
Purgatory. Dean has less than three minutes to get back to the rift. Assuming, as they always do, that an archangel's "you have about x hours" means you have exactly x hours. He's shocked to see someone who looks like Cas leaning against a tree. I mean, obviously it could be a leviathan, right? Or a shifter? He's going to check, right? Wrong. Dean hugs him and accepts his story about escaping from his captors and finding a leviathan blossom. So, okay. Dean wants to apologize (TIME'S A WASTING, BOYS!!!) but Cas says it's not necessary because he heard his prayer. So, that totally pointless spat is over? Thank you baby Jesus.
Future. December 9, 2022. Sam and Dean are pushing furniture to block the door of whatever hovel they're holed up in. "Those bastards take us down," Dean says, "at least we go down together." Well! It's nice to see that Dean's found his purpose again. "Butch and Sundance," says Sam. On the other side of the blocked door, we see two people approaching with guns drawn. And here are two more people and oh, no, it's Bobby and Jody. "You're sure you want to do this, Jody?" asks Bobby. "It's Sam and Dean." Except it's kinda not, because suddenly the boys are sporting UTTERLY RIDICULOUS FANGS. They look more leviathan than vampire. Jody shoots Sam, presumably with a dead-man's-blood bullet, and he goes down. Dean tears Jody's throat out and looks up just in time to watch Bobby decapitate his brother.
WELL.
Present Sam gasps into consciousness. "So, what'd you think?" asks Chuck. He tells Sam that he and his brother still matter deeply to him and they deserve a better ending. Sam points out that he's seen Chuck's plans, and they're not "better." Because yeah, Chuck, Sam would rather die a vampire than kill his own brother, okay?
Bunker. Dean and Cas are putting together Michael's spell. Cas starts to cut his palm open, and Dean asks if he's sure. "Dean, you've already taken the Mark," Cas says. "You can't take it again." Oh, snap. I didn't realize that's what they were doing. I thought Future Dean's remark about Cas going crazy after the Mark was just some random horrible future, not anything related to what they're doing right now. I guess it makes more sense, then, what Chuck is saying. That if TFW wins at what they're trying to do right now, this is the consequence - without a sane, unMarked Cas, this is what happens. I'm not thrilled that Cas seems to be the linchpin, but okay.
The spell emits a cloud of smoke that gets absorbed into a magical softball. "Because I'm taking the Mark, someone else will have to destroy this," Cas expositions. "You or Sam." He puts it in his pocket.
Casino. I think Sam might be losing his mind. "It'll be better, it'll be better," he mutters. He starts yelling at Chuck, who is no where in sight. "If we win, when we win, when we beat you, I will make it better!" Chuck tells him he can't, and instructs him to think about what he saw. Beyond Cas and the Mark, beyond him and Dean fanging out. Oh. The monsters. The very dramatic increase in monsters. Yeah, that. Without Chuck, monsters will take over the world. "Dark forces prevail, monsters rule, and you, your brother, and everyone you love will die. Can you really live with that?"
Do I need to tell you how much I love Sam's despair? Probably not.
I guess there's a time jump here, because we see Cas and Dean on the casino floor. Apparently they didn't run in yelling Sammy! Wonder why. Eventually they do find Sam, and Dean's able to cut off one ziptie before Eileen shows up, still under Chuck's control. She hits Dean with something that looks like a plunger but probably isn't (although that would be a fun callback to an earlier episode, wouldn't it?), and then goes after him with the scalpel. Cas tackles her, Sam retrieves Dean's knife, and then Chuck shows up. Dean punches him, hard, but gets punched back even harder.
Cas rolls the magic softball to Sam, and Dean tells him to smash it. It's interesting that Sam has no idea what these two are up to. He wasn't there when Michael told Cas and Dean about the spell, right? It's also interesting that Cas didn't roll the ball to Dean, who would have smashed it immediately. I guess Sam's been appointed the smasher of all spell balls as far as TFW is concerned.
So Sam can't know what the ball does, but he does know that it's part of Dean's plan to take Chuck out. And he can't do it. He drops to his knees (PLEASE SOMEONE HELP ME FIND A GIF OF THIS) and releases the ball, which rolls to Chuck. "I can't," he says. "I can't, I'm sorry. I just can't." Dean and Cas are horrified. "What did you do to him," Dean says to Chuck. Chuck doesn't answer, but he does clutch at his Samhole and make a very happy noise. Sam grabs his godhole at the same time. They're both healed. "Sammy lost hope," Chuck says. "And now, I'm free. Hey, take it easy on the kid. Took a lot to beat it out of him."
(BEAT IT OUT OF HIM. I AM DEAD.)
ETA... the gif has been found, thank you baby Jesus. Stolen from jarpadandjensens on Tumblr.
Chuck picks up the ball and crushes it, and I guess it doesn't have the same effect it would if Sam or Dean crushed it. Dean asks Chuck what he's going to do now. Obviously he's not going to kill them, because he wants them to kill each other. They know the endings he has planned. "Sam got a little look into your draft folder."
"Sam's visions, they weren't drafts," says Chuck. "They were memories. My memories. Other Sams and other Deans, in other worlds. But guess what? Just like you, they didn't think they'd do it either. But they did. And you will too."
"No," says Dean. "Not this Sam. And not this Dean. So you go back to Earth 2 and play with your other toys. Because we will never give you the ending that you want."
"We'll see," says Chuck. He disappears.
Mmmmm. I love Dean's complete faith here, in himself and in his brother.
I also love his little snarl of disgust.
Bunker. Eileen picks up her bag. "I wish you'd stay," Sam says. "I wish I could," she replies. "After what happened, I don't know what's real any more." Sam puts his hands on her face and kisses her and friends, no matter what you think about Sam and Eileen, surely you cannot dispute the absolute RIGHTNESS of Jared Padalecki taking a girl's face in his big hands and kissing her.
And is that a forehead touch?
"I know that was real," he says. And Eileen says "You know, if you'd done that earlier, I probably would have stayed." No, she doesn't. But she could. She puts her hand on his face (and let's not forget the last woman who did that!), they exchange sad smiles, and she leaves.
So what is Eileen afraid of? That nothing she feels for Sam is real? That it was all implanted by Chuck, as part of his little scheme? I can see why she'd feel that way. I'm surprised Sam doesn't feel the same way, honestly. Especially given what he knows about how his parents were matched. (But on the other hands, his parents were mostly happy together, so... no harm done? Discuss.)
Cas and Dean are sitting in the kitchen. Dean asks if she left, so I guess she didn't say goodbye to him. Sam, barely holding it together, apologizes for not taking advantage of their chance to stop Chuck, but insists he believes Chuck showed him the truth. Surprisingly, Dean says "well, that's good enough for me."
Sam seems surprised to hear that too.
So, what do they do now? They can't kill or trap Chuck. "Well then, we find another way," says Dean.
Cut to black. But it's not black, it's the Empty. "It's time," Billie says to Jack. Hey, welcome to your other way!
So. What do we think about the presumed end of Sam's relationship with Eileen? Honestly, I think we got the best case scenario. No happy apple pie ending, no death, just lots of angst. I'm satisfied.
And let's talk about Sam's belief that Chuck wasn't lying to him. I kind of agree. So, here's the deal. Chuck was watching the guys through Eileen. So if Eileen didn't witness something, neither did Chuck. And Eileen wasn't there when Michael told Dean and Cas how to trap Chuck. So Chuck can't know their specific plan, can he? That it involves Cas taking the Mark of Cain? And therefore, how would he have put that in the future he showed Sam if it wasn't an actual future? {Discuss.}
Also, I'm going to take a chance and put this out there... I don't think we're getting the Butch and Sundance ending. I think by framing it as the worst case scenario, Show has effectively taken it off the table. I'd like to know what you think, though.
Obviously this episode hit some of my buttons. And when I say "hit," and "some," I don't mean it gently tapped a couple of them. I mean:
On the other hand, there was a lot of Dean and Cas nonsense that CERTAIN SHIPPERS are going to go hog wild over. And I'm not one of them.
Anyway. What did you guys think? And as always, no spoilers, please and thank you!