SPN review - 8x11
THAT WAS SO MUCH FUN. LARP and the Real Girl fits beautifully as a subtle previously-on for the first half of the season. The first person we see is drawn and quartered - torn and frayed, if you will. The victims are brothers-in-arms with matching tattoos, and a conflicted personal/professional relationship. The last murder we almost see in the episode is the suit of armor attempting to cut off Sam’s air - the warrior identity is smothering him. And the villain is the man behind a couple of curtains, which is even more the case than the characters know at this point. We knew Naomi was using Cas against the Winchesters, but we have no idea to whom she’s reporting. The only right answer is another authority (maybe Metatron?) (then again, the unassuming villain-of-the-week's hiding in plain sight makes me more suspicious of Garth than anyone). But as neat as it is in retrospect, it didn't feel heavy-handed at all as I was watching it. This was just a very nicely-done episode.
I think it's also my favorite of the meta-episodes in a long time. It’s a bookend to Hunteri Heroici in some ways? At that point, the escapism was about Sam desperately clinging to his life with Amelia as a potential reality for himself, and while that impulse wasn’t belittled or dismissed, he knew on some level it wasn’t tenable in the way he wanted it to be. Here, there's a time and place to play games, and that's good.
A big part of that comes from the ability to acknowledge that there is something from which they need some escape. Dean being told and acknowledging that he should not have done something that he did does not happen often. He doesn’t own it to Sam, but still. He frequently has his self-perception as the hammer reinforced by outside characters who point out things he has done, but limiting their conversations to that framework where there wasn’t another realistic path - you’re terrible but it’s not your fault, you unfairly-low-self-worth-having little lamb. Dean starts out trying to converse with Sam in a way that conveniently leaves his own choices out of the picture - he says they’ve “both had a rough go;” he obliquely references “what [Sam] gave up.” Then he suggests that they have “fun” together, as defined by Dean as a night on the town, which we have never seen Sam suggest or particularly enjoy.
Sam responds both times with what Sam does best - avoidance and passive-aggression. At the beginning of the episode, he deflects Dean’s overtures with pissiness about how they can’t use their biggest baddest demon-killing weapon ever; at the end, he diverts Dean entirely into playing dress-up. You’re right, it’s going to take time; you’re right, we should have fun; you’re right, YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE DONE THAT. It’s implied to be much healthier at the end there, to acknowledge that he’s play-acting rather than his earlier attempt to co-opt a very real problem into a diversion strategy. But just because it’s a sweet, fun little moment doesn’t make it coping. Which I think is both fair and realistic, ofc? Nobody is under any moral obligation to let shit like that go, but if they’re going to try, they’re not going to be able to do it right away.
And it really was a nice gesture. Sam is never comfortable in situations or celebrations that require pretense. Pretense is a survival skill for him, and he does it as easily as breathing; admitting that’s what’s going on is difficult for him. He doesn’t like Christmas, he doesn’t like Halloween, he doesn’t like getting dressed up for the trip to the Wild West. Sam doesn’t share Dean’s love for performativity. But in the end, after avoiding getting too closely involved with the renfaire, he does the whole fake-fighting bit so that he and Dean can have some fun together.
Also, I'm (unsurprisingly) with Sam on being creeped out by Garth stalking them (in part because he's understandably sensitive to phone fuckery atm), but Dean just thinks it’s smart, and then ascribes that kind of behavior to Bobby. Um. Bobby does not do that?! I can imagine Bobby asking hunters to call and check in to be able to get them cases. And on the one hand, I like the idea that hunters are starting to organize and create some infrastructure for themselves. On the other hand, ASK before you track people. This is not a Garth-ocracy! (THIS SETTLES IT. GARTH IS THE BIG BAD. YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST.)
I also really liked the way we're invited to see through Dean's straw-Sammy. He wants things to be okay, so he takes an argument that is really quite reasonable -that running from monsters clearly hasn’t worked out so well in the past - and seizes on it to try to establish that Sam has not merely embraced the life, but doubled down more than ever before. More than S4, more than Soulless, more than the time he JUMPED INTO HELL - the argument to ask for help from someone who can consent to giving it is the MOST HARDCORE SAM HAS EVER BEEN. And the fact that even Charlie sees right through it is so much fun.
The MOTW doesn’t really matter, but I liked the use of fairy-tale logic and letting us see how it applies to S8. The villain was an upstart who started off small and got more and more violent for his little power struggle (like Crowley); he overstepped in tangling with the Winchesters. When Charlie’s caught, she’s stuck in a loop, one that doesn’t care who she is or how desperately she wants to leave. (Oh boys.) She has an enemy that doesn’t talk back or respond to anything; it doesn’t matter what she offers it. It doesn’t even matter that the enemy doesn’t want to hurt her; it’s a being way more powerful than the humans in its path but does not have the agency to make the ethical choices she wants to make. (Oh, Cas.)
I always worry about depictions of geek culture, but this one was fun. They really have to wait months to see the queen? Man, these people plan fan-stuff way the hell in advance. My approach is more to be like “word, I’ll totally be there for a comment meme tomorrow” and then forget. Generally, though, I loved this picture of geekery a ton. I liked how rigorously they were shown to be working to preserve their positive environment.
Charlie/Carrie is such a gift, a fan written by and for fans with all kinds of easter eggs peppered into her dialogue. (The "Heinlein" reference is pretty self-evident; I almost wonder if Carrie isn't a reference to Carrie Bradshaw, a construct who's a reflection of her creator as well as being a creator in her own right.) She might just want her old life back - but it’s unclear what her old life even was. Charlie Bradbury wasn’t her given name, either. And maybe this is the theme of the episode - that if you do get the golden opportunity to choose for yourself, you can build the identity that lets you be a hero, not just someone who fakes it.
At first I was going to snark that Charlie had game when we first met her in 7x20. This time around, she’s so sweet and awkward and totally believable. There’s very little romance on SPN, and this was a nice way to upend the conventions both of the show and of typical fairy-tales. The shot didn’t feel particularly male-gazey? Like, I don’t think we were supposed to see the scene from the boys' pov (and even that response was more OMG AWKWARD than OMG LESBIANS), I think we were supposed to feel her irritation about the c-block.
This episode could have been so gimmicky, but it worked so well. I thought it did a graceful job of deflating us from the angst of last week without being dishonest about the conflict - there were no minimizations or false equivalences; it’s not over, but I don’t feel like I’m expected to pretend it’s over. Which should go without saying, but: S5. S8 makes me less pessimistic about the Winchester relationship than I’ve been since S2. It is still absolutely toxic, and if Sam had any options at all I would say it was criminal to show him as not taking them. But I believe he’s getting through the best he can. We watched Dean behave himself without someone leaning over his shoulder threatening him into acting right. We had an acknowledgment that there are real issues here, but no dwelling.
I don’t think the season should end with them closing gates. I wouldn’t have a problem with shutting down the crossroads scam and the like, or making it harder for demons to get loose on humanity. But things fester with no outlet. And imagine if they could close heaven and purgatory too, the world would fill up with spirits. The human soul can't be destroyed in this mythology (it is stronger than you can imagine), which means it has to go somewhere once it shuffles off the mortal coil. What if the arc of this season is about them learning not to be all-or-nothing?
ALSO BALTAR, HAHHAHAHAHA.
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