Review--SPN 7.03
This episode disturbed me, Watching the last two eps I felt like I was running in fast forward. With this one it was a slow build up. I can't say the end was a surprise--except for her son showing up. And wasn't he f'ing creepy. Like Toby from Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd.
I feel like Sam and Dean are working their way back to where they started emotionally in Season 1. I don't mean their emotional maturity. After what Sam and Dean have been through over the last six seasons we know we will never see that Sam and Dean again. Dean hasn't been the same hunter since he returned from Hell, since Cas has entered his life. I've mentioned before that since John's death in the beginning of Season 2 he and Sam have slowly been moving to the opposite ends of the spectrum--Dean growing more empathic, Sam becoming less. With Dean coming back from hell, I thought he and Sam might flip back.
Then Castiel showed up. As Season 4 rolled into Season 5, I thought Dean saw Cas as a younger version of Sam, a little too naive, someone he could teach things. By the time Season 5 was heading down the second half, Sam was so darkside Dean found it was actually easier to relate to one of God's warriors than his own brother.
Then Cas went darkside. It was Sam all over again for Dean. Cas may not have thrown himself into hell with Lucifer, but he did make his vessel into his own little hell, all the residents of Purgatory its demons. Cas tried to rescue himself from his hell, but something got left behind. Cas doesn't have a soul to lose, but the Leviathans, if Cas' vessel could have survived holding them, are having the same effect as plucking Sam back from hell without his soul.
Okay, now that I have that laid out, let me step back to 7.03. Disturbing. Not so much that Dean ended up killing her, or that he laid in wait for her. It was the fact that right in the middle of the conversation, without warning, without much reaction, he slid the blade into her.
Yes, we've seen Dean kill ruthlessly before, but he was usually driven by anger or fear. This killing happened the way it did because he's seen Sam and Cas, two people he though he could trust to stay on the side of good no matter what, turn into monsters by walking down the road of good intentions. So no one gets a free pass anymore, not even a monster who saved his brother's life.
Hai, Jewel Staite, who played present day Amy in the ep and Kaylee on Firefly. She had this to say about Jensen:
"I saw that Jensen was directing," Staite tells TVGuide.com. "He's an old friend of mine, so I thought, 'Ooooh, fun! That would be great.' Luckily it all worked out. When you get on a show where one of the actors is directing, it can go either way. Sometimes they can stress out if they have too much on their plate, but he was so calm and so cool and so collected. He just really impressed me. We had some days we didn't even go the full 12 hours of shooting. We were let out early because he knew exactly what he wanted and when he got it, he moved on."
Source Just as a warning, the rest of the article is a little more spoilery than my review.
I did not know they were friends. The sci fi community is a tiny tiny world.
Jensen did a great job of directing this ep, but I still like last season's effort better. BTW, I thought it was time Jensen got a 'director' tag. I still need to add one for Guy Bee.
Wasn't Colin Ford totally awesome as jailbait!Sam?! I wonder if he's been watching Jared's performances or if it was Jensen's direction that had him working on Sam's body language and speech quirks.
However!!!! I didn't like the way the cliff hanger from last week was wrapped up.
And next week? So looking forward for it.
Off to read everyone else's thoughts.