SPN 10x01, Black
I know it’s trite to talk about the “banality of evil,” but I really do love that Dean’s idea of being a demon is being a creep in exactly the way human beings are creeps. His awful behavior toward Anne Marie was so perfectly gross. He tries to put her down with that subtle “you were begging for it” comment. That doesn’t work, so he tries ~breaking up with her. And then later when she actually says something he doesn’t like, rather than just not giving him the response she wants, she’s a “skank.” (Telling, too, that he wanted credit for protecting her “honor,” rather than protecting her.) This isn’t someone who’s out of control or struggling to control himself, it’s just a nasty habit of putting people down when they seem to be a little too confident around him.
And just generally? He doesn’t even hit Vegas, just drove a couple of days out from the bunker and set down in a tiny town where he could be an overwhelmingly large fish. He hogs the mic and does the least pleasant job possible, and violently shoves people off the stage.
Mostly, though, what I loved about this was the way that the character’s self-righteous/sadistic and protective/possessive mindsets are so close to the surface. These are aspects of the character traits that could also make him a great warrior and a decent guy. It’s not that it’s wrong to be decisive in self-defense, it’s that his self-defensive behavior is indistinguishable in viciousness from the fights he instigates. The ability to read a situation and turn on a dime can be self-protective. Someone who can value and enjoy an apparently drab situation can elevate it for everyone. If a person does have a decent moral code, the desire to live up to it is an actual conscience. Hero or psychopath, indeed. But instead....
On the small scale, there’s the way Anne Marie laid out for him that she knows he didn’t deliver that beat-down for her sake, just that the guy gave Dean an excuse. Her commentary there was a very close echo of Sam’s “you didn’t do it for me” line from mid-S9. And then there’s the phone call with Cole, where he says all but “go ahead, make my day.” This one I don’t know what to think of so much, because playing down the value of a hostage is arguably a good negotiation move right here. Still, I think he says what he says because he wants Sam to feel like he thinks that way. I honestly would not be surprised if he rode into town to try to rescue Sam and then went after him with an axe the way we all saw in promos.
And then he locks a bunch of lawyers in a - wait, no.
And that weird relationship with Crowley, lol. An ego boost indeed, to have the King of Hell following you around with googly-eyes! I feel like there’s a weird safety-net with Crowley, in that Crowley ~deserves whatever Dean feels like dishing out, so there’s no way that hanging out with him poses a threat to Dean’s self-image.
I thought Crowley’s conversation with Sam was really telling. Like, he was so excited to drop the bomb about Dean being a demon (which, while Sam had to be aware of the possibility on some level, he’s been operating on the assumption that it’s not true) AND to inform Sam “here’s how you feel about the thing I know you didn’t know, HA, YOU WISH YOU WERE ME.” He was ready right away with that one, lol. Crowley wants, more than he realizes, to be important enough that Sam will be jealous of him, that the bitch/jerk exchange he tried to horn in on earlier actually meant more than Dean thinking of others as interchangeable.
Meanwhile, poor Sam just cannot win. SAMMY LET ME GO, after I carped at you for two solid years about having let me go! As much as I don’t blame Sam for doing what he’s doing, given everything that’s happened, the emotional humiliation porn is still pretty tough to watch. Sam’s desperate, run-down, telling everyone who will listen that “I WILL save my BROTHER!!!” even though he has every reason to think there’s nothing left to save - this self-destruction is the kind of “saving,” of self-flagellating suffering for the sake of suffering is exactly what people (Dean and fans) were so mad at him for not having gone through between S7/8. And now he’s with Cole, face-to-extremely-close-face with someone who’s telling him that Dean being a monster is absolutely not contingent upon Dean being a demon.
And I liked the parallels between Sam and Cas. Sam is distracted, in a sling all the time, thin and weak. Cas is burning out more literally. And they’re turning down each other’s help…well, I think it’s a little bit for the reasons that they think, about Cas not wanting to drag Sam down and Sam not wanting to put Cas out. But it’s also about Cas not wanting to be seen in such bad shape, and especially not to be put in a position where there’s a huge additional motivation to getting new grace. I think he can deal with his suffering when it’s a zero-sum thing between him and another angel, but when it’s about his and Dean’s need to survive versus another angel’s and possibly its vessel…that’s a much harder choice to make. And it’s about Sam’s lifetime of training to do everything himself, and also that he really doesn’t want to hear the truth that Cas is likely to point out.
I love the angels. As awful as Metatron is, I blanched a bit at Heaven’s ability to make his door permanent. The angels’ general lack of adjustment (or glacially slow adjustment, more likely) to freedom touched on a lot that was resonant with Sam’s and Dean’s reactions to being separated. Some of the angels try to run back to Heaven, despite (because of?) the brutality of their conditioning; others dig in their heels and stick around doing nothing JUST BECAUSE WE CAN. Also, for people wondering why other angels aren’t ~appropriately pissed at Cas having become god, this episode was some great perspective on why that’s more about audience projection than angels as subjective thinkers. After Michael and Lucifer, who conscripted them all into genocide, and Raphael who wanted to do it all over again, and Naomi who mindwiped all the angels and killed the ones she couldn’t control completely, and then Metatron who ruined all their lives by destroying their home…..Cas having sincerely attempted to implement a policy of “do what you want EXCEPT go running back to Raphael the totalitarian,” in context, makes him come across as being a lot more freedom fighter than terrorist. As with all else in this episode, the gray areas are where it's at, and Cas is in many ways the most liminal of the regulars.
The way the characters were paired off set up some promising things throughout the season. Dean is comfortable with his demonic half, just as long as it doesn’t ask him to make any choices or do any self-reflection. Cas is struggling to live up to Hannah’s angelic missions and expectations. And Sam is trapped in a no-win situation with another man who insists that humanity itself is conditional.
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