ep and that
So I went into this expecting awesomeness, and I feel it delivered pretty well! I had some of the same concerns others did--namely the torturing going on in the ep, after all the tears shed in previous episodes about torturing and also Sam butchering that woman (and the other people they killed at the end of s5), robbing some of those moments of significance. On the other hand, the scene was *fantastic*, and I'm always pleased to see a) some torturing and b)some Winchesters being absolutely fucking terrifying. So I'm still counting it as a plus in my book. Especially afterward, when they didn't recognize the name of the guy they nearly beat to death. They DIDN'T EVEN KNOW HIS NAME. They couldn't be bothered to remember. Oh maaaan. *fans self*
So there's that. And the ep was nicely creepy and the horror was fairly horrific. The head-banging was easily the best part--Lucifer wasn't all that terrifying at face value, and the flames are just...silly....so having something which was genuinely unrelated to either, and which captured the ways in which hallucinations could actually be awful and horrible, was a nice change. I've been bothered by the fact that there's seemed to be little connection between the presence of Hallucifer and and the *reasons* for his presence--Sam didn't seem to have any other real effects related to *why* he has the hallucinations--namely, that they're the product of like 180 yrs (or whatever) of horrific torture. It was almost like the hallucinations were just this neat little package tacked onto his psyche that had no connection with anything. "Oh, also Sam has hallucinations now, but everything else about him is exactly the same." The CGI flames certainly didn't contribute to the sense that the reasons for the hallucinations were anything particularly terrible. So the head-banging scene was really the first time I've felt like some sense of the the horrors that've caused the mental effects Sam's been experiencing were actually being depicted. It'd be nice to see more of that--and not in the monologuing, alterna-self format we had last season.
I'm suspicious of Hallucifer as a mere hallucination. I want him to be, of course, but the fact that he was talking after Sam got up and left had me going, "...uh." After that bit with the dog reacting after Sam 'banished' him in Jefferey's apartment. So I'm wondering if this is just a red herring/bit of silly writing, or if it's going to pan out.
I do think the ep had waaay too much exposition, but whatever. Overall, very fun. Lotsa creepy horror and that's always a thumbs up in my book. Dean not reacting much to being bled, very nice. About time, imho. I liked the fact that Sam seemed slightly...off this entire ep. Without actually really doing anything, there was definitely a sense of something being wrong, maybe teetering on the edge of something. I don't wanna say 'fragility' (because eurgh) but something more like a sense that he's lacking solid footing. Which I mean was conveyed aside from the hallucinations. Maybe going into it knowing how it would end up contributed to that. But Sam seemed very close to a very precipitous edge throughout. It kinda makes me think there may have been some other contributing factor aside from Dean's disappearance contributing to the final fall here. Though it probably wasn't the clowns. Or maybe it was....?
I'll enjoy rewatching this for sneaky subtle effects.