SPN 9x10 - Road Trip

[pocochina]

Metatron’s mind games with Gadreel were pitch-perfect. He rides Gadreel about you’re a screw-up, nobody’ll have you but me, you have to fight more and harder and maybe just maybe I’ll give you a way out of this shame spiral which you’re only in because you’re such a failure, have we talked lately about how I’m a saint for not reminding you of that

Comments

[a_white_rain]

I think this was the episode I'm pretty sure that I'll never like Dean because he was just so willing to throw away Sam's life and decided Sam wasn't strong enough it fight off Gadriel despite all evidence to the contrary. His need to control Sam is so great he was willing to kill his own brother. I very rarely actually dislike characters but this just cuts too close for me. It is hilarious to me because an hour before I actually felt for Klaus when Davina wolfed him out when my general feelings for the character can be summed up with LULZ, how he relates to other characters, and how I can best use his issues to write stories.

BUT I SO LOVED SAM. I actually realized I didn't want shouts and punches when Gadriel did it because it felt so flat to me. Sam is characterized as angry and screaming but I think that's a shallow reading of him. He was in a vastly different place in season one and his anger at Dean has always been very complicated. But Sam's actual reaction - tiredness and not wanting to engage and getting into Dean's games before pulling back is everything I love about Sam. He is profoundly damaged by Dean but in that moment he summoned the strength to protect himself. And my doubts about the writers getting it mostly washed away because this scene told me they know what they are doing and are just invested in Sam's story as Dean's. Which I don't in general doubt - I've never felt Sam's voice has been lost in a narrative sense. He's lost the much of his ability to voice his own feelings but that's not the same as the narrative not caring about Sam's character.

[pocochina]

DEAN WAS SO AWFUL. He passed the point of no return for me in early S7 with Amy and subsequent abuse of Sam for not being nice enough about being gaslit like that, but this episode was a low moment even by my standards for him. But as a viewer, ugh, I loved it, because it was so brutally deliberate about pulling apart the Righteous Man facade.

Of course people are already going on about how ~sorry he is and how ~guilty he feels. No, he's sorry there were consequences. He's sorry he got caught.

SAM MY POOR BABY. He's better off now than he's been for a very long time, now that Dean's finally overplayed his hand

I've never felt Sam's voice has been lost in a narrative sense. He's lost the much of his ability to voice his own feelings but that's not the same as the narrative not caring about Sam's character.

EXACTLY and it upsets me so much that people conflate those two things. I can't articulate my feelings either, what, am I not a real person? GOD.

[a_white_rain]

There are times when I literally have know idea what I'm feeling esp after some brand new trauma. It's taken me years to be able to access feelings I've had from being abused. Many I could not until I was away from my abusers. Sam's tiredness rang true to me.

It's okay if it didn't to others! That's just a different story than there is nothing at all from Sam's pov.