Supernatural 5.10 Meta & Picspam Part 3
Usual caveat lector: I am pro-pretty-much-everybody. Yes, even him. I especially love Dean. And Sam. And Castiel. And Bobby. And John. And Ellen. And Jo. And Ruby. And Bela. And Andy, Ash, Ava, Gordon, Victor, Rufus, Missouri, Jimmy, Amelia, Claire, Anna, Zachariah, Uriel, Meg, Azazel, Sarah, Lucas, Ben, Lisa, Kubrick, Travis, Jim, Caleb, Josh, Jefferson, Rumsfeld... Um. Yeah.
My mandate for these picspam/meta things is two-fold: What I loved. What made me think. Sometimes what made me think is less than squeeful. But I always find plenty to love, too. Just a friendly warning. It should go without saying that these are my opinions, and my opinions only.
ALSO: I swear in this one. I don't swear often, but I am doing it now. A LOT.
Part 1 Part 2
This almost feels like an after-thought after the last part, but... You know, better out than in. Almost there. And since when did writing an episode review start to feel like running a marathon, anyway? I blame Kripke and his terrible timing, doing this to me right before Thanksgiving, that bastard.
And this is why dickensgirl is my favorite sister (shh, don't tell the others). I watched this with her (fortunately it was my second time through, I'm glad I watched it alone at first), and when we came to this scene she said, slowly and thoughtfully, "I want my last words to be about jellybeans."
I said I would try to remind her, if I was still around then. Not a bad choice, really. I'm sure Dean would approve.
Dean, you are a badass. Though I don't understand the need to TALK before you shoot him. Just shoot him! What if he had tried to teleport away while you were talking?
Haven't you read the Evil Overlord List? Don't warn your enemies that you're going to kill them, just kill them!
It was still beautiful, though.
But holy crap, you guys, they shot the Devil. They shot the Devil. THEY SHOT THE DEVIL.
If the Winchesters weren't legendary before, they certainly are now. I can almost understand now why Chuck's books might eventually be called the Winchester Gospel.
THEY SHOT THE FREAKIN' DEVIL HOMFG.
And this hope in their eyes is almost impossible to look at, the way they look at each other, and you can see the relief, the adrenaline crashing around them as they stand there. They did it, they did it, they shot the Devil with the ever-loving Colt. Is this the end now? Is it over?
Everyone's hopes were pinned on this. Demons, angels, men--everyone believed that this was the best and only chance of killing Lucifer. And Sam and Dean came, and saw, and shot. They shot him.
They didn't miss. That counts for a lot. It really, really does.
They didn't miss, and Ellen would be proud. So fucking proud. Her boys shot the Devil. They shot him right in the head.
Alas, I saw that there was no flash of light. The death of Lucifer would be like an atomic bomb going off. Even rank-and-file angels expire in a flash-bomb of grace and fire and leave the mark of their wings on the ground where they fell. There should have been something, and there wasn't, so I knew this wasn't the end.
And truly, in my opinion, this does not make Elllen and Jo's sacrifice worthless. They gave their lives to give Sam and Dean this shot, and they got it. It didn't work, but that's not the fault of the Winchesters or the Harvelles. They did everything they could, and the attempt had to be made. If nothing else, the information is invaluable.
And Lucifer's little "Owwww" was the whiniest sound I've ever heard in my entire friggin' life, I swear. Wow. What a big, fat, spoiled baby.
Actually, it kinda reminded me of The Three Amigos when El Guapo's minion shoots Steve Martin in the shoulder and he falls off his horse, gets up, touches his shoulder, sees the blood, and looks at El Guapo with this look of incredulous betrayal. Then he gets all huffy that they're using REAL BULLETS, demands the minion's gun, takes out a bullet all, "I'LL KEEP THIS!" Just so indignant. And then he slowly, slowly realizes that this is real and they are in way over their heads. And he's been shot already. (And they all start crying like wee babies. It's hilarious.) But anyway.
Maybe Lucifer is getting an inkling that this is real, too. They really want to kill him and they're pulling out all the stops to do it. I hope he is, anyway. Friggin' jerk needs to be pulled down off his high horse. So to speak. His faith in destiny is still strong, though. He still believes that Sam will bow to him eventually.
In Detroit, too. What do Zachariah and Lucifer know and how do they know it? (Or did Zachariah actually send Dean to the future, not just place a vision in his head, and he doesn't know anything either? I was always pretty sure it was a vision...) If we hadn't seen Chuck in the last episode, I'd be getting worried about our little prophet of the Lord.
There's something very chilling in the way Lucifer is doing his own labor here, burying the women and children and less-than-able-bodied men of this town. This was a moment of true horror for me, another thing this show rarely touches, but when it does...
Sam's face here is pretty much exactly how I felt in that moment.
It's impressive, really, how well this scene, and Mark Pellegrino's performance, manage to impress on us how very evil Lucifer truly is. I mean, we knew he was evil. He's Satan, right? But seeing it first-hand is something else. He's not just misunderstood. He doesn't have good intentions. He's not noble, he's not right, he's not good, he's not fair, and he's not even remotely worthy of the worship even of demons, let alone humans. He's evil personified, and he's walking the earth.
Evil is no longer abstract. It has a shape and a color and a smell and a face, and it is absolutely horrifying.
I love Sam's response. The first time I saw this expression I had a flash of deja vu. Took me awhile to figure it out.
This is the face we saw in 2.22. Right after Sam shot Jake, smearing the blood on his face, seeming to wipe it off but actually just rubbing it right into his skin. This is the face we saw when Sam slowly and inexorably forced the wire through Gordon Walker's neck. This is grim determination, righteous rage.
This is "I'm going to murder you where you stand."
He's now completely on board with Dean's plan to kill the Devil, if he wasn't before. Sam Winchester is out for revenge, and there is nothing in this world that is scarier than that.
Lucifer would do well to take warning. But of course he won't, because he's not just evil, he's also dumb.
I knew this was coming. Before they even said the word "tribute," I knew. And this is horrifying, too. I suppose I shouldn't really care about the death of demons (though the innocent hosts are a tragedy in themselves), but this is Lucifer killing his own devoted followers. They see themselves as his children. And he offered them up on a spit to fulfill his own selfish desires. It is a truly and wholly terrible scene.
And that twist of the lips, almost confused, as he reminds Sam that "they're just demons." Well. That's the worst thing he's said yet.
We've seen the heart of a monster.
Good God, how I adore sneaky!Cas. He is completely and utterly adorable.
Of course, in my canon this happened, like, an hour ago, right before that explosion, because he got there and grabbed them and got them to a hospital....
He tried so hard to save this woman from the demon inside her. And then, out of options, he did the only thing he could. And that was horrible, too.
I do want to point out that he didn't actually step on her, though. Just over her. Somehow I find that...reassuring. I had absolutely no desire to screencap that, so you'll just have to take my word for it.
It was still an awful scene, even though I knew he was going to do it pretty much the second the exorcism failed. The demon's screams were completely wrenching as she burned in holy fire.
Another human gesture from Castiel. He is learning things from them in so many tiny, subtle ways. Possibly not a good thing, actually.
And Lucifer doesn't even care that they escaped, entirely focused on the ritual, bringing Death into the world, with dead bodies behind him, beneath him, all around him, surrounding him. He is so quietly pleased here, so smugly satisfied.
That hubris will be his downfall. I hope it will mean his death. I hate this version of Lucifer oh so very much, it kind of amazes me.
These empty shot glasses.
Fuck.
I wonder how long they'll sit there, how long Bobby will let them be. A symbol of camaraderie and friendship and simple pleasure, abandoned and empty, haphazard, alone. As bereft as we are without the amazing woman who touched them last.
Damn you, Eric Kripke.
Bobby.
As if I haven't been shattered enough by this episode already. The way his hand shook...
This isn't fair, dammit. How many friends has he lost? How many have the Winchesters? I have no idea how to mark that tally.
How many are even left?
This was a hunter's funeral, and it was fitting. But I hope they kept a copy, I really do. It was the sweetest photograph I've ever seen on television.
And we end on Jo's face, this unbearable loss. What an awful place to leave us for two months.
So, this episode. Taken as a whole, it was absolutely amazing, one of the best episodes of television I've ever seen. It made me laugh and giggle and clap my hands. It made me cry. It horrified and delighted me. It gave me goosebumps. I didn't want it to end.
Taken out of context, Jo and Ellen's deaths were magnificent, heroic, everything a character could ask for. Especially on this show, where almost everyone dies in horrific ways, sometimes with barely even a pause to note their passing. I found a lot to love in these forty-two minutes of television. I did. I took more screenshots than I ever have before. I wrote more words talking about it than I have for any other episode, ever, and most of them combined. (More than ten thousand words in these three posts, for goodness' sake. I'd almost rather they were words in a fic instead. Surely that would bring more joy to you, and me.)
But I still feel so hurt. So betrayed. It's going to take me a long time to get over this. I might never really get over it.
These are my thoughts only. Your reactions are your own. I respect that this episode worked wholly for a lot of people, that some (or many?) fans do not have the same feelings I do. All points of view are valid and I've read many commentaries on all sides of this issue. I understand where people are coming from. But nothing changes how broken and bruised and wounded I feel, myself.
Because it did happen, no matter how I protest and fight and bury my head, no matter how much I love my flimsy little raft in the middle of this Egyptian river. Castiel didn't get out in time. No one else came.
I want them back. I want them back so bad. But in this show, resurrection is only for the men.
Damn you, Eric Kripke. Damn you, damn you, damn you.
And that's all I have to say.
If you enjoyed this picspam/meta thing and you'd like some more, I have a few places I can point you. My ep reviews tend to focus mostly on the characters, because that's who I am as a person and a writer, and I'm okay with that. But there's a lot more to say, a lot more to see.
A few recs:
caffienekitty's 5.10 meta/picspam. She tends to focus more on plot and cinematography, which I find fascinating, and she's a force for squeeful positivity, which can be very refreshing in this fandom.
smilla02's 5.10 meta/picspam focuses more on artistic choices. Her graphics are gorgeous.
animotus's 5.10 picspam and meta is really beautiful, as always.
tracy-loo-who's morning-after picspam is squeeful (and all about the Dean/Cas).
I also love erinrua's reviews and dotfic's commentary. dotfic also had a link round-up that helps put the entire 5.10 experience in perspective.
I'm not really interested in discussing whether or not Supernatural is or is not misogynistic or anti-feminist, not because I don't think that's worth talking about or that fans shouldn't dare to question their shows or because I think Supernatural is perfect and sacrosanct, but just because I don't want to go there at this point in my life and at this point in my fandom experience. I'm clinging to my squee with whitened knuckles, I am. If you're interested, though, musesfool does a lot better job of talking about that stuff than I ever could.
My mandate for these picspam/meta things is two-fold: What I loved. What made me think. Sometimes what made me think is less than squeeful. But I always find plenty to love, too. Just a friendly warning. It should go without saying that these are my opinions, and my opinions only.
ALSO: I swear in this one. I don't swear often, but I am doing it now. A LOT.
Part 1 Part 2
This almost feels like an after-thought after the last part, but... You know, better out than in. Almost there. And since when did writing an episode review start to feel like running a marathon, anyway? I blame Kripke and his terrible timing, doing this to me right before Thanksgiving, that bastard.
And this is why dickensgirl is my favorite sister (shh, don't tell the others). I watched this with her (fortunately it was my second time through, I'm glad I watched it alone at first), and when we came to this scene she said, slowly and thoughtfully, "I want my last words to be about jellybeans."
I said I would try to remind her, if I was still around then. Not a bad choice, really. I'm sure Dean would approve.
Dean, you are a badass. Though I don't understand the need to TALK before you shoot him. Just shoot him! What if he had tried to teleport away while you were talking?
Haven't you read the Evil Overlord List? Don't warn your enemies that you're going to kill them, just kill them!
It was still beautiful, though.
But holy crap, you guys, they shot the Devil. They shot the Devil. THEY SHOT THE DEVIL.
If the Winchesters weren't legendary before, they certainly are now. I can almost understand now why Chuck's books might eventually be called the Winchester Gospel.
THEY SHOT THE FREAKIN' DEVIL HOMFG.
And this hope in their eyes is almost impossible to look at, the way they look at each other, and you can see the relief, the adrenaline crashing around them as they stand there. They did it, they did it, they shot the Devil with the ever-loving Colt. Is this the end now? Is it over?
Everyone's hopes were pinned on this. Demons, angels, men--everyone believed that this was the best and only chance of killing Lucifer. And Sam and Dean came, and saw, and shot. They shot him.
They didn't miss. That counts for a lot. It really, really does.
They didn't miss, and Ellen would be proud. So fucking proud. Her boys shot the Devil. They shot him right in the head.
Alas, I saw that there was no flash of light. The death of Lucifer would be like an atomic bomb going off. Even rank-and-file angels expire in a flash-bomb of grace and fire and leave the mark of their wings on the ground where they fell. There should have been something, and there wasn't, so I knew this wasn't the end.
And truly, in my opinion, this does not make Elllen and Jo's sacrifice worthless. They gave their lives to give Sam and Dean this shot, and they got it. It didn't work, but that's not the fault of the Winchesters or the Harvelles. They did everything they could, and the attempt had to be made. If nothing else, the information is invaluable.
And Lucifer's little "Owwww" was the whiniest sound I've ever heard in my entire friggin' life, I swear. Wow. What a big, fat, spoiled baby.
Actually, it kinda reminded me of The Three Amigos when El Guapo's minion shoots Steve Martin in the shoulder and he falls off his horse, gets up, touches his shoulder, sees the blood, and looks at El Guapo with this look of incredulous betrayal. Then he gets all huffy that they're using REAL BULLETS, demands the minion's gun, takes out a bullet all, "I'LL KEEP THIS!" Just so indignant. And then he slowly, slowly realizes that this is real and they are in way over their heads. And he's been shot already. (And they all start crying like wee babies. It's hilarious.) But anyway.
Maybe Lucifer is getting an inkling that this is real, too. They really want to kill him and they're pulling out all the stops to do it. I hope he is, anyway. Friggin' jerk needs to be pulled down off his high horse. So to speak. His faith in destiny is still strong, though. He still believes that Sam will bow to him eventually.
In Detroit, too. What do Zachariah and Lucifer know and how do they know it? (Or did Zachariah actually send Dean to the future, not just place a vision in his head, and he doesn't know anything either? I was always pretty sure it was a vision...) If we hadn't seen Chuck in the last episode, I'd be getting worried about our little prophet of the Lord.
There's something very chilling in the way Lucifer is doing his own labor here, burying the women and children and less-than-able-bodied men of this town. This was a moment of true horror for me, another thing this show rarely touches, but when it does...
Sam's face here is pretty much exactly how I felt in that moment.
It's impressive, really, how well this scene, and Mark Pellegrino's performance, manage to impress on us how very evil Lucifer truly is. I mean, we knew he was evil. He's Satan, right? But seeing it first-hand is something else. He's not just misunderstood. He doesn't have good intentions. He's not noble, he's not right, he's not good, he's not fair, and he's not even remotely worthy of the worship even of demons, let alone humans. He's evil personified, and he's walking the earth.
Evil is no longer abstract. It has a shape and a color and a smell and a face, and it is absolutely horrifying.
I love Sam's response. The first time I saw this expression I had a flash of deja vu. Took me awhile to figure it out.
This is the face we saw in 2.22. Right after Sam shot Jake, smearing the blood on his face, seeming to wipe it off but actually just rubbing it right into his skin. This is the face we saw when Sam slowly and inexorably forced the wire through Gordon Walker's neck. This is grim determination, righteous rage.
This is "I'm going to murder you where you stand."
He's now completely on board with Dean's plan to kill the Devil, if he wasn't before. Sam Winchester is out for revenge, and there is nothing in this world that is scarier than that.
Lucifer would do well to take warning. But of course he won't, because he's not just evil, he's also dumb.
I knew this was coming. Before they even said the word "tribute," I knew. And this is horrifying, too. I suppose I shouldn't really care about the death of demons (though the innocent hosts are a tragedy in themselves), but this is Lucifer killing his own devoted followers. They see themselves as his children. And he offered them up on a spit to fulfill his own selfish desires. It is a truly and wholly terrible scene.
And that twist of the lips, almost confused, as he reminds Sam that "they're just demons." Well. That's the worst thing he's said yet.
We've seen the heart of a monster.
Good God, how I adore sneaky!Cas. He is completely and utterly adorable.
Of course, in my canon this happened, like, an hour ago, right before that explosion, because he got there and grabbed them and got them to a hospital....
He tried so hard to save this woman from the demon inside her. And then, out of options, he did the only thing he could. And that was horrible, too.
I do want to point out that he didn't actually step on her, though. Just over her. Somehow I find that...reassuring. I had absolutely no desire to screencap that, so you'll just have to take my word for it.
It was still an awful scene, even though I knew he was going to do it pretty much the second the exorcism failed. The demon's screams were completely wrenching as she burned in holy fire.
Another human gesture from Castiel. He is learning things from them in so many tiny, subtle ways. Possibly not a good thing, actually.
And Lucifer doesn't even care that they escaped, entirely focused on the ritual, bringing Death into the world, with dead bodies behind him, beneath him, all around him, surrounding him. He is so quietly pleased here, so smugly satisfied.
That hubris will be his downfall. I hope it will mean his death. I hate this version of Lucifer oh so very much, it kind of amazes me.
These empty shot glasses.
Fuck.
I wonder how long they'll sit there, how long Bobby will let them be. A symbol of camaraderie and friendship and simple pleasure, abandoned and empty, haphazard, alone. As bereft as we are without the amazing woman who touched them last.
Damn you, Eric Kripke.
Bobby.
As if I haven't been shattered enough by this episode already. The way his hand shook...
This isn't fair, dammit. How many friends has he lost? How many have the Winchesters? I have no idea how to mark that tally.
How many are even left?
This was a hunter's funeral, and it was fitting. But I hope they kept a copy, I really do. It was the sweetest photograph I've ever seen on television.
And we end on Jo's face, this unbearable loss. What an awful place to leave us for two months.
So, this episode. Taken as a whole, it was absolutely amazing, one of the best episodes of television I've ever seen. It made me laugh and giggle and clap my hands. It made me cry. It horrified and delighted me. It gave me goosebumps. I didn't want it to end.
Taken out of context, Jo and Ellen's deaths were magnificent, heroic, everything a character could ask for. Especially on this show, where almost everyone dies in horrific ways, sometimes with barely even a pause to note their passing. I found a lot to love in these forty-two minutes of television. I did. I took more screenshots than I ever have before. I wrote more words talking about it than I have for any other episode, ever, and most of them combined. (More than ten thousand words in these three posts, for goodness' sake. I'd almost rather they were words in a fic instead. Surely that would bring more joy to you, and me.)
But I still feel so hurt. So betrayed. It's going to take me a long time to get over this. I might never really get over it.
These are my thoughts only. Your reactions are your own. I respect that this episode worked wholly for a lot of people, that some (or many?) fans do not have the same feelings I do. All points of view are valid and I've read many commentaries on all sides of this issue. I understand where people are coming from. But nothing changes how broken and bruised and wounded I feel, myself.
Because it did happen, no matter how I protest and fight and bury my head, no matter how much I love my flimsy little raft in the middle of this Egyptian river. Castiel didn't get out in time. No one else came.
I want them back. I want them back so bad. But in this show, resurrection is only for the men.
Damn you, Eric Kripke. Damn you, damn you, damn you.
And that's all I have to say.
If you enjoyed this picspam/meta thing and you'd like some more, I have a few places I can point you. My ep reviews tend to focus mostly on the characters, because that's who I am as a person and a writer, and I'm okay with that. But there's a lot more to say, a lot more to see.
A few recs:
caffienekitty's 5.10 meta/picspam. She tends to focus more on plot and cinematography, which I find fascinating, and she's a force for squeeful positivity, which can be very refreshing in this fandom.
smilla02's 5.10 meta/picspam focuses more on artistic choices. Her graphics are gorgeous.
animotus's 5.10 picspam and meta is really beautiful, as always.
tracy-loo-who's morning-after picspam is squeeful (and all about the Dean/Cas).
I also love erinrua's reviews and dotfic's commentary. dotfic also had a link round-up that helps put the entire 5.10 experience in perspective.
I'm not really interested in discussing whether or not Supernatural is or is not misogynistic or anti-feminist, not because I don't think that's worth talking about or that fans shouldn't dare to question their shows or because I think Supernatural is perfect and sacrosanct, but just because I don't want to go there at this point in my life and at this point in my fandom experience. I'm clinging to my squee with whitened knuckles, I am. If you're interested, though, musesfool does a lot better job of talking about that stuff than I ever could.