SPN Ep Rxn 6.3: NOOO not the CHAAAAARGER!
I'm horrified. Devastated. They killed Sam's car. Now whenever Sam has to get up to mysterious amoral shenanigans behind Dean's back, he'll have to borrow something way too small for him or steal the Impala. Now when Dean goes home on leave, Sam will have to come, too. WHATEVER WILL THEY DOOOO?
RIP, Charger. You were too young and pretty to live.
The Story:
A cop is in the locker room, shaving up. He discovers a cut on his cheek. Then another, on his other cheek. Then his cheek falls off. Then he backs away from the mirror, blood pouring from mysterious new orofices, and barely has time to confide to his horrified partner "I think I'm bleeding" before he collapses to the floor as a shower of clotted blood and dissolving bone.
SPN has created something worse than necrotizing fasciitis. Bravo.
Dean has one of those dreams where he dreams he just woke up: in a big soft bed with a down comforter, next to Lisa, rolling over for some sweet committed-relationship good-morning lovin'. Then he wakes up cramped and alone in the front seat of the Impala, clearly thinking "I must be insane."
Sam, meanwhile, is dishing out the fanservice on a ridiculous scale, bringing to mind Christian Bale's exercise sequences in American Psycho. He spent the previous night with a hooker. Apparently he was nice enough to earn himself a freebie - nice as opposed to the Sam sex in Season 4 - but he just ends up paying the woman and staring at her until she goes away. Boy's not quite right.
Dean calls to announce he's "about three hours out from the Campbell Base." Sam counters with a unilateral change of plans: he's found a hunt in Pennsylvania, which means that either the hunt was fed to him from some mysterious source, or he hadn't bothered telling Dean anything while he was researching. Sam continues to bull his way through the case, letting Dean trail along like a remora: a once-over of the latest victim whom he's failed to brief Dean on, kicking his way through the door of the witness' house, taking over the interview and barking at the poor guy as he tries to gather his sleep-deprived and booze-steeped and, as it turns out, locust-riddled thoughts.
Locusts in the brain. I was actually relieved it wasn't grubs or Ascarids. Those are gross.
Sam, who has been twelve steps ahead of Dean for the entire hunt, vouches that witches were not involved in the deaths. The Red Death was weird, the boils were gross, but the grasshoppers were specifically Biblical, so Dean suggests they call Castiel. Sam whines (that is Sam in there!) that he'd tried and tried and Cas just doesn't care about them anymore. Dean prays, Castiel appears, and Sam immediately protests that it's not fair and obviously Castiel just came because he likes Dean better. Now poor Castiel has to fend off Sam's feelings of abandonment and Dean's scolding, while explaining the apocalypse fallout in Heaven: civil war, Raphael's party still wants the Apocalypse on the table, looting, rioting, embezzlement, and still no God. The murders Sam and Dean discovered were curses inflicted by the Staff of Moses, and kiddie-grade curses, at that. The Staff is supposed to be in Heaven's Armory, and he needs Sam and Dean to help him get it back. He concludes with with air quotes and theoretical physics. "My 'people skills' are 'rusty;' pardon me, but I have spent the last 'year' as a multidimensional wavelength of celestial intent. But believe me, you do not want that weapon down here."
My favorite line here (after the air quotes): Dean explains to Castiel, "Cas, I think what (Sam's) trying to say is that . . ."
That there is Lisa's influence, or possibly a pop-psych book, or a therapist. Dean is mediating, and it's a lot more rational than what he probably used to do between Sam and John. Dean is throwing off dad-vibes left and right through this entire exchange. He's finally growing up.
Sam and Dean point out the human side of the case for the angel. All three dead cops were involved in an on-duty shooting of a boy carrying a firearm; the cop with the grasshoppers in his brain had revealed that they'd planted the gun, leaving the boy's family with prime motive for murder. Castiel jumps right to work like a bird-dog on the scent, and bamfs them all to the boy's family's living room. Sam pulls out his FBI badge for the grieving father as though the FBI began using teleportation decades ago.
The Federal Agents front starts to deteriorate when Castiel accuses the dad, "You smote them with the Staff of Moses," and the little brother barges in with a piece of driftwood, demanding, "Leave my dad alone." (Kid, if your lethal force deterrent doesn't inspire pants-wetting submission on sight, it's doing more harm than good.)
Dean is confronted by a preteen boy with a weapon.
They manage to calm the kid down and talk to him, luckily. If I saw a guy with a trenchcoat and crazy eyes knock my parent unconscious and another guy tried to convince me they were just sleeping, I'd just smite the room.
As it turns out, the kid's weapon is a cut-down segment of the full-size Staff, which is just cheap and wrong. Aaron (hah!), filled with helpless rage at his brother's shooting and coverup, prayed for justice. God didn't answer, Aaron reports, but an angel did, giving him a weapon - and the burden of shedding blood - in exchange for his soul. Castiel and Dean are horrified. Sam . . . who knows.
Aaron doesn't know the angel's name, but apparently it's written on his insides or something. Castiel knocks him out, slings him over his shoulder, and bamfs everyone back to Sam and Dean's hotel room without even a pause for physical contact.
Castiel presents Sam and Dean with the form of ethical dilemma they've been clashing over for possibly their entire lives: process or result? Rules or guidelines?
Castiel: "If the angel we seek truly bought this boy's soul - when a claim has been laid on a living soul, it leaves a mark. A brand."
Sam: "What, like a shirt tag at camp?"
Castiel: "I have no idea. But I can read the mark and find the name of the angel that bought the soul."
Dean: "How?"
Castiel: "Well, painfully for him. The reading will be excruciating."
Sam nods thoughtfully.
Dean: "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on."
Castiel: "Dean -"
Dean: "It's a kid, Cas. A kid. Sam!"
Sam looks surprised to be consulted. "Any permanent damage?"
Dean: "What?"
Castiel: "Physically, minimal."
Dean. "Oh, well, yeah, then by all means, just stick your arm right in there!"
Castiel: "Dean! If I get a name, I can work a ritual to track the angel down."
Dean: "And I'm all for that! But c'mon, there's gotta be another way."
Castiel: "There is no other way."
Dean: "You're gonna torture a kid."
Castiel: "I can't care about that, Dean. I don't have the luxury."
Blurred in the background, Sam tips his head back and swallows hard.
Logically, the kid needs to be read. He needs his soul back. That's as far as Sam and Castiel care to process: goals and means. In contrast, Dean has rules: kids are supposed to be protected. Torture is wrong. Dean has lived long enough to learn that sometimes hanging on to right and wrong will leave you with nothing worth protecting in the first place, but he still thinks these rules are important.
We could compare what Castiel is doing to a painful but lifesaving medical procedure. Consider that when we do medical procedures, we always make an effort to obtain the patient's consent, out of respect for the patient's free agency as a human being. If we don't, it's because the patient is a lower species, or we don't respect his or her agency.
Once they get the name after a bit of what looks like psychic surgery with a branding iron, an angel from Raphael's faction pops up just to demonstrate how deeply irritating angels are to work with. He and Castiel get into a knife-fight that takes them out the window and straight through the roof of Sam's Charger. What are the wings for, guys? Cas, you couldn't have aimed a little to the right?
Once again, Sam is driven back to the shelter of Dean and the Impala by the loss of his lady love.
Castiel flits back up to the room like nothing happened, and at Dean's urging, explains the sides of the Heavenly turmoil as he sets up a tracking ritual, appearing and disappearing on a whim. The world is his pantry. Turns out, there are still angels who want the Apocalypse. Might be a little difficult to set that up again what with Lilith already dead and Michael locked in a small dark room with Lucifer, but apparently they're creative. Raphael, the faction leader, misses God and wants the entire universe to be over, plus he has a grudge against Castiel for thwarting his plans and trapping him in a small firey cell. The weapons that would give either faction the winning hand in the upcoming war are in the hands of a lone missing-presumed-dead soul-dealing renegade.
The renegade angel's name is Balthazar, which I'm pretty sure was the name of an ambiguously evil demon on Charmed. Balthazar was Castiel's trusted brother-in-arms, and now lives in an ostentatious mansion with a disco ballroom. What is it with angels and taste? They should just stick with the Vulcan act, like Castiel and Raphael and Anael. Otherwise they're just crass and creepy. Balthazar, with his V-neck sweater and bling, comes off as Goldmember's British cousin.
Poor Castiel. Uriel was an assassin. Zachariah was amoral. Raphael smote him. Gabriel disowned his family. The Heavenly Host turns into a junior-high cafeteria when God leaves them alone for a thousand years or so. Now his buddy whom he mourned turns out to be a thief and a parasite.
While Castiel's faith in his brothers is being stomped into small smoking fragments and doused with acid, Raphael shows up with some friends. Balthazar and Castiel are both attractive targets, Balthazar for his weapons and Castiel for his ideological leadership.
For hunters, following Castiel is a bit like following a tracking dog off the leash. He moves faster. He knows more. He doesn't really care whether the Winchesters are close behind him or not. But despite the power gap, Sam and Dean still manage to take out some of Raphael's flunkies when they crash the confrontation: Sam distracts them with an angel-killing sword and a cocky one-liner, while Dean activates the banishing sigil.
Castiel and Raphael have a swordfight, which deteriorates, once Castiel is disarmed, into Raphael kicking Castiel's vessel down Balthazar's staircase. Raphael is one vindictive vulcan-angel. The emotionless front actually highlights his fractured self-discipline. As a villain, I like him much better than Zachariah (who I just plain hated, as opposed to loved to hate) and I hope they get an actor of equal or greater talent to replace his unfortunate vessel.
Balthazar saves Castiel from Raphael by introducing a ranged weapon to counter Raphael's short sword. We can see how the Weapons of Heaven might be tactically important if none of the angels have access to the multidimensional wavelength equivalent of a gun. Raphael's vessel dissolves, and as Balthazar is still grinning smugly at Castiel, maybe hoping for a thank-you handshake, the Winchesters light up some Holy Oil and trap him.
Balthazar really doesn't care much for lower species, no matter how much he imitates them.
They coerce Balthazar to release Aaron's soul, and to clear his debt for the recent save, Castiel breaks the fire. All bets are off.
Dean is left bewildered by Castiel's sudden exit and Sam's shocking lack of instinctive compassion. Sam moves back into the Impala, and they're in for some long awkward silences and sideways glances in the weeks ahead.
Next week: Dean gets cursed to hear the truth! It's another fandom classic!
The Facts:
Everybody wants your souls. We know souls are immortal, so they store well. They can be used to make demons out of, and demons tend to accumulate a lot of power, which may then be mobilized into armies or eaten by certain persons. Souls can be fed to horsemen. Pagan gods might harvest the souls of their sacrificial victims. Until now, however, there was no indication that Angels wanted souls for reasons other than divine decree. Angels can release souls at will; no need to visit the previous owner.
Castiel's tracking ritual: A steel kitchen bowl, holy water, myrrh, human blood. In white chalk, a circle, a bisecting line, and other smaller symbols. Castiel chants in Enochian at the same time as he pours holy water onto the blood and myrrh. When he finishes, the contents of the bowl steam faintly. His target's location apparently comes to him as he meditates.
The Staff of Moses can subdue an angel. Mechanism unclear.
The Crystal of Hypersalinity will turn the physical body of anyone the holder desires into granular salt. The crystal glows during use.
Vessel divestment is very inconvenient to angels.
Closing Thoughts:
Sam: We don't know what the holy heck is going on with this guy. Neither does Dean.
He's not a robot. He gets jealous and lonely.
He's hiding stuff.
He doubts himself, but not while Dean's around.
He likes to hunt, but we can't tell yet if he likes to save people or kill things or just solve puzzles.
He's bewildered when Dean is being a dad to Ben, and mocks him for it.
Sam definitely came back as an A-hole. Time will tell if it's a coping mechanism or spending too much time in a small dark hole with Lucifer for company.
"We're different": There are at least three ways I can think of for a person to handle an intolerable situation like Hell or the Cage.
1. Grit it out until you can't take it anymore, then curl up into a weeping pile of despair. This is Dean's method. It involves breakage, where the person knowingly betrays some fundamental value, without justifying or rationalizing it, simply because they can't take the alternative. At no time does the broken person believe that what they are being coerced to do is right, and breaking this way is actually less damaging in the long term for them. Recall that Dean came out of Hell with a new perspective, but essentially the same core values as he had when he went in.
2. Double-Think. For double-think, you don't even process the fact that the situation is intolerable. There is a category in your mind for "bad things," that has, for example, incomprehensible agony, and a category for "things that are happening to me" with the same contents, but you never compare the categories and come up with "bad things are happening to me." Or, on the other end, "things that I am doing." In the long term, it makes your mind mealy and worthless, as self-aware as water flowing downhill.
3. Assimilate the intolerable until you become something that will tolerate it. This is what I do with bad smells. I smell chicken diarrhea or eviscerated alpaca, and instead of gagging, I think of something delicious and use the mantra "I assimilate this experience into my tolerances. This is a pleasant experience for the person I am becoming." This also encompasses rationalizing my own actions. To use another personal example, while I was butchering meat rabbits, I told myself, "I have no moral objections to humane slaughter. I do not feel guilt." In telling myself this, I made fundamental changes to my core values. If there ever was a time when I did object to humane slaughter, I don't remember it. Rejecting these assimilated values, as I would have to do if I became a moral vegetarian, would require that I change my core values. Replace "slaughter" with "torture" and "vegetarian" with "not a demon," and you see why some people would have a bigger problem than Dean did with being normal after Hell.
As for Sam, I really doubt he went for option #2. He's a logical person. He could have held on to his morality until it broke under the strain of whatever happened to him, but unlike Dean, he could have gone option #3, coming back to Earth with whatever adaptations he'd picked up downstairs: resignation, contempt for humanity, "might makes right," who knows. Sam's nothing if not flexible.
Dean: Dean has had character growth. Is this the first time? I'll argue that this is the first time.
For the first five seasons, we mostly witnessed the gradual overload and breakdown of all of Dean's masks and delusions, leaving us with the flint-sharp core of a guy who loves his brother and really wants to do the right thing. At the end of every season, Dean got traumatized and tested again, until finally he was pared down to the one bit that doesn't budge.
In the interim of this season, Dean got new family, learned new truths, and dealt with tragedy in a way that he had never had to before. He has more love in his life. He has built new coping mechanisms and has a new perspective on the world and himself. There's a lot of potential here.
Castiel: It's fanon come to life - Heaven is in turmoil, angels are going rogue, in-fighting, out-fighting, whooping and hollering as they wave their vessels' underwear over their heads as they fly down the Heavenly streets. Castiel is the lone sane voice in the chaos.
Sucks to be him. It's like when you're a teenager watching a bunch of kindergarteners and you try out some crazy move on the monkey bars, and all of a sudden all the little kids are flinging themselves around, somebody's going to crack their head open, and no one will listen to you as you scream, "No, you morons! You're doing it wrong!" And you pray, pray, pray that the parents are going to come back, but they're not, because they booked you until midnight.
Revolutions get real ugly, real fast. And they're complicated.
I'm actually pretty glad the show is focusing on Earth events. Angels automatically out-class all the more interesting characters.
RIP, Charger. You were too young and pretty to live.
The Story:
A cop is in the locker room, shaving up. He discovers a cut on his cheek. Then another, on his other cheek. Then his cheek falls off. Then he backs away from the mirror, blood pouring from mysterious new orofices, and barely has time to confide to his horrified partner "I think I'm bleeding" before he collapses to the floor as a shower of clotted blood and dissolving bone.
SPN has created something worse than necrotizing fasciitis. Bravo.
Dean has one of those dreams where he dreams he just woke up: in a big soft bed with a down comforter, next to Lisa, rolling over for some sweet committed-relationship good-morning lovin'. Then he wakes up cramped and alone in the front seat of the Impala, clearly thinking "I must be insane."
Sam, meanwhile, is dishing out the fanservice on a ridiculous scale, bringing to mind Christian Bale's exercise sequences in American Psycho. He spent the previous night with a hooker. Apparently he was nice enough to earn himself a freebie - nice as opposed to the Sam sex in Season 4 - but he just ends up paying the woman and staring at her until she goes away. Boy's not quite right.
Dean calls to announce he's "about three hours out from the Campbell Base." Sam counters with a unilateral change of plans: he's found a hunt in Pennsylvania, which means that either the hunt was fed to him from some mysterious source, or he hadn't bothered telling Dean anything while he was researching. Sam continues to bull his way through the case, letting Dean trail along like a remora: a once-over of the latest victim whom he's failed to brief Dean on, kicking his way through the door of the witness' house, taking over the interview and barking at the poor guy as he tries to gather his sleep-deprived and booze-steeped and, as it turns out, locust-riddled thoughts.
Locusts in the brain. I was actually relieved it wasn't grubs or Ascarids. Those are gross.
Sam, who has been twelve steps ahead of Dean for the entire hunt, vouches that witches were not involved in the deaths. The Red Death was weird, the boils were gross, but the grasshoppers were specifically Biblical, so Dean suggests they call Castiel. Sam whines (that is Sam in there!) that he'd tried and tried and Cas just doesn't care about them anymore. Dean prays, Castiel appears, and Sam immediately protests that it's not fair and obviously Castiel just came because he likes Dean better. Now poor Castiel has to fend off Sam's feelings of abandonment and Dean's scolding, while explaining the apocalypse fallout in Heaven: civil war, Raphael's party still wants the Apocalypse on the table, looting, rioting, embezzlement, and still no God. The murders Sam and Dean discovered were curses inflicted by the Staff of Moses, and kiddie-grade curses, at that. The Staff is supposed to be in Heaven's Armory, and he needs Sam and Dean to help him get it back. He concludes with with air quotes and theoretical physics. "My 'people skills' are 'rusty;' pardon me, but I have spent the last 'year' as a multidimensional wavelength of celestial intent. But believe me, you do not want that weapon down here."
My favorite line here (after the air quotes): Dean explains to Castiel, "Cas, I think what (Sam's) trying to say is that . . ."
That there is Lisa's influence, or possibly a pop-psych book, or a therapist. Dean is mediating, and it's a lot more rational than what he probably used to do between Sam and John. Dean is throwing off dad-vibes left and right through this entire exchange. He's finally growing up.
Sam and Dean point out the human side of the case for the angel. All three dead cops were involved in an on-duty shooting of a boy carrying a firearm; the cop with the grasshoppers in his brain had revealed that they'd planted the gun, leaving the boy's family with prime motive for murder. Castiel jumps right to work like a bird-dog on the scent, and bamfs them all to the boy's family's living room. Sam pulls out his FBI badge for the grieving father as though the FBI began using teleportation decades ago.
The Federal Agents front starts to deteriorate when Castiel accuses the dad, "You smote them with the Staff of Moses," and the little brother barges in with a piece of driftwood, demanding, "Leave my dad alone." (Kid, if your lethal force deterrent doesn't inspire pants-wetting submission on sight, it's doing more harm than good.)
Dean is confronted by a preteen boy with a weapon.
They manage to calm the kid down and talk to him, luckily. If I saw a guy with a trenchcoat and crazy eyes knock my parent unconscious and another guy tried to convince me they were just sleeping, I'd just smite the room.
As it turns out, the kid's weapon is a cut-down segment of the full-size Staff, which is just cheap and wrong. Aaron (hah!), filled with helpless rage at his brother's shooting and coverup, prayed for justice. God didn't answer, Aaron reports, but an angel did, giving him a weapon - and the burden of shedding blood - in exchange for his soul. Castiel and Dean are horrified. Sam . . . who knows.
Aaron doesn't know the angel's name, but apparently it's written on his insides or something. Castiel knocks him out, slings him over his shoulder, and bamfs everyone back to Sam and Dean's hotel room without even a pause for physical contact.
Castiel presents Sam and Dean with the form of ethical dilemma they've been clashing over for possibly their entire lives: process or result? Rules or guidelines?
Castiel: "If the angel we seek truly bought this boy's soul - when a claim has been laid on a living soul, it leaves a mark. A brand."
Sam: "What, like a shirt tag at camp?"
Castiel: "I have no idea. But I can read the mark and find the name of the angel that bought the soul."
Dean: "How?"
Castiel: "Well, painfully for him. The reading will be excruciating."
Sam nods thoughtfully.
Dean: "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on."
Castiel: "Dean -"
Dean: "It's a kid, Cas. A kid. Sam!"
Sam looks surprised to be consulted. "Any permanent damage?"
Dean: "What?"
Castiel: "Physically, minimal."
Dean. "Oh, well, yeah, then by all means, just stick your arm right in there!"
Castiel: "Dean! If I get a name, I can work a ritual to track the angel down."
Dean: "And I'm all for that! But c'mon, there's gotta be another way."
Castiel: "There is no other way."
Dean: "You're gonna torture a kid."
Castiel: "I can't care about that, Dean. I don't have the luxury."
Blurred in the background, Sam tips his head back and swallows hard.
Logically, the kid needs to be read. He needs his soul back. That's as far as Sam and Castiel care to process: goals and means. In contrast, Dean has rules: kids are supposed to be protected. Torture is wrong. Dean has lived long enough to learn that sometimes hanging on to right and wrong will leave you with nothing worth protecting in the first place, but he still thinks these rules are important.
We could compare what Castiel is doing to a painful but lifesaving medical procedure. Consider that when we do medical procedures, we always make an effort to obtain the patient's consent, out of respect for the patient's free agency as a human being. If we don't, it's because the patient is a lower species, or we don't respect his or her agency.
Once they get the name after a bit of what looks like psychic surgery with a branding iron, an angel from Raphael's faction pops up just to demonstrate how deeply irritating angels are to work with. He and Castiel get into a knife-fight that takes them out the window and straight through the roof of Sam's Charger. What are the wings for, guys? Cas, you couldn't have aimed a little to the right?
Once again, Sam is driven back to the shelter of Dean and the Impala by the loss of his lady love.
Castiel flits back up to the room like nothing happened, and at Dean's urging, explains the sides of the Heavenly turmoil as he sets up a tracking ritual, appearing and disappearing on a whim. The world is his pantry. Turns out, there are still angels who want the Apocalypse. Might be a little difficult to set that up again what with Lilith already dead and Michael locked in a small dark room with Lucifer, but apparently they're creative. Raphael, the faction leader, misses God and wants the entire universe to be over, plus he has a grudge against Castiel for thwarting his plans and trapping him in a small firey cell. The weapons that would give either faction the winning hand in the upcoming war are in the hands of a lone missing-presumed-dead soul-dealing renegade.
The renegade angel's name is Balthazar, which I'm pretty sure was the name of an ambiguously evil demon on Charmed. Balthazar was Castiel's trusted brother-in-arms, and now lives in an ostentatious mansion with a disco ballroom. What is it with angels and taste? They should just stick with the Vulcan act, like Castiel and Raphael and Anael. Otherwise they're just crass and creepy. Balthazar, with his V-neck sweater and bling, comes off as Goldmember's British cousin.
Poor Castiel. Uriel was an assassin. Zachariah was amoral. Raphael smote him. Gabriel disowned his family. The Heavenly Host turns into a junior-high cafeteria when God leaves them alone for a thousand years or so. Now his buddy whom he mourned turns out to be a thief and a parasite.
While Castiel's faith in his brothers is being stomped into small smoking fragments and doused with acid, Raphael shows up with some friends. Balthazar and Castiel are both attractive targets, Balthazar for his weapons and Castiel for his ideological leadership.
For hunters, following Castiel is a bit like following a tracking dog off the leash. He moves faster. He knows more. He doesn't really care whether the Winchesters are close behind him or not. But despite the power gap, Sam and Dean still manage to take out some of Raphael's flunkies when they crash the confrontation: Sam distracts them with an angel-killing sword and a cocky one-liner, while Dean activates the banishing sigil.
Castiel and Raphael have a swordfight, which deteriorates, once Castiel is disarmed, into Raphael kicking Castiel's vessel down Balthazar's staircase. Raphael is one vindictive vulcan-angel. The emotionless front actually highlights his fractured self-discipline. As a villain, I like him much better than Zachariah (who I just plain hated, as opposed to loved to hate) and I hope they get an actor of equal or greater talent to replace his unfortunate vessel.
Balthazar saves Castiel from Raphael by introducing a ranged weapon to counter Raphael's short sword. We can see how the Weapons of Heaven might be tactically important if none of the angels have access to the multidimensional wavelength equivalent of a gun. Raphael's vessel dissolves, and as Balthazar is still grinning smugly at Castiel, maybe hoping for a thank-you handshake, the Winchesters light up some Holy Oil and trap him.
Balthazar really doesn't care much for lower species, no matter how much he imitates them.
They coerce Balthazar to release Aaron's soul, and to clear his debt for the recent save, Castiel breaks the fire. All bets are off.
Dean is left bewildered by Castiel's sudden exit and Sam's shocking lack of instinctive compassion. Sam moves back into the Impala, and they're in for some long awkward silences and sideways glances in the weeks ahead.
Next week: Dean gets cursed to hear the truth! It's another fandom classic!
The Facts:
Everybody wants your souls. We know souls are immortal, so they store well. They can be used to make demons out of, and demons tend to accumulate a lot of power, which may then be mobilized into armies or eaten by certain persons. Souls can be fed to horsemen. Pagan gods might harvest the souls of their sacrificial victims. Until now, however, there was no indication that Angels wanted souls for reasons other than divine decree. Angels can release souls at will; no need to visit the previous owner.
Castiel's tracking ritual: A steel kitchen bowl, holy water, myrrh, human blood. In white chalk, a circle, a bisecting line, and other smaller symbols. Castiel chants in Enochian at the same time as he pours holy water onto the blood and myrrh. When he finishes, the contents of the bowl steam faintly. His target's location apparently comes to him as he meditates.
The Staff of Moses can subdue an angel. Mechanism unclear.
The Crystal of Hypersalinity will turn the physical body of anyone the holder desires into granular salt. The crystal glows during use.
Vessel divestment is very inconvenient to angels.
Closing Thoughts:
Sam: We don't know what the holy heck is going on with this guy. Neither does Dean.
He's not a robot. He gets jealous and lonely.
He's hiding stuff.
He doubts himself, but not while Dean's around.
He likes to hunt, but we can't tell yet if he likes to save people or kill things or just solve puzzles.
He's bewildered when Dean is being a dad to Ben, and mocks him for it.
Sam definitely came back as an A-hole. Time will tell if it's a coping mechanism or spending too much time in a small dark hole with Lucifer for company.
"We're different": There are at least three ways I can think of for a person to handle an intolerable situation like Hell or the Cage.
1. Grit it out until you can't take it anymore, then curl up into a weeping pile of despair. This is Dean's method. It involves breakage, where the person knowingly betrays some fundamental value, without justifying or rationalizing it, simply because they can't take the alternative. At no time does the broken person believe that what they are being coerced to do is right, and breaking this way is actually less damaging in the long term for them. Recall that Dean came out of Hell with a new perspective, but essentially the same core values as he had when he went in.
2. Double-Think. For double-think, you don't even process the fact that the situation is intolerable. There is a category in your mind for "bad things," that has, for example, incomprehensible agony, and a category for "things that are happening to me" with the same contents, but you never compare the categories and come up with "bad things are happening to me." Or, on the other end, "things that I am doing." In the long term, it makes your mind mealy and worthless, as self-aware as water flowing downhill.
3. Assimilate the intolerable until you become something that will tolerate it. This is what I do with bad smells. I smell chicken diarrhea or eviscerated alpaca, and instead of gagging, I think of something delicious and use the mantra "I assimilate this experience into my tolerances. This is a pleasant experience for the person I am becoming." This also encompasses rationalizing my own actions. To use another personal example, while I was butchering meat rabbits, I told myself, "I have no moral objections to humane slaughter. I do not feel guilt." In telling myself this, I made fundamental changes to my core values. If there ever was a time when I did object to humane slaughter, I don't remember it. Rejecting these assimilated values, as I would have to do if I became a moral vegetarian, would require that I change my core values. Replace "slaughter" with "torture" and "vegetarian" with "not a demon," and you see why some people would have a bigger problem than Dean did with being normal after Hell.
As for Sam, I really doubt he went for option #2. He's a logical person. He could have held on to his morality until it broke under the strain of whatever happened to him, but unlike Dean, he could have gone option #3, coming back to Earth with whatever adaptations he'd picked up downstairs: resignation, contempt for humanity, "might makes right," who knows. Sam's nothing if not flexible.
Dean: Dean has had character growth. Is this the first time? I'll argue that this is the first time.
For the first five seasons, we mostly witnessed the gradual overload and breakdown of all of Dean's masks and delusions, leaving us with the flint-sharp core of a guy who loves his brother and really wants to do the right thing. At the end of every season, Dean got traumatized and tested again, until finally he was pared down to the one bit that doesn't budge.
In the interim of this season, Dean got new family, learned new truths, and dealt with tragedy in a way that he had never had to before. He has more love in his life. He has built new coping mechanisms and has a new perspective on the world and himself. There's a lot of potential here.
Castiel: It's fanon come to life - Heaven is in turmoil, angels are going rogue, in-fighting, out-fighting, whooping and hollering as they wave their vessels' underwear over their heads as they fly down the Heavenly streets. Castiel is the lone sane voice in the chaos.
Sucks to be him. It's like when you're a teenager watching a bunch of kindergarteners and you try out some crazy move on the monkey bars, and all of a sudden all the little kids are flinging themselves around, somebody's going to crack their head open, and no one will listen to you as you scream, "No, you morons! You're doing it wrong!" And you pray, pray, pray that the parents are going to come back, but they're not, because they booked you until midnight.
Revolutions get real ugly, real fast. And they're complicated.
I'm actually pretty glad the show is focusing on Earth events. Angels automatically out-class all the more interesting characters.