Thinky-thoughts post of DOOOOOOOOM. Srsly. (spoilers for ... the whole series so far, up to 4.6)
Hola peoples!
I am so long overdue for a thinky/ep review post it’s not even funny. So, this will probably be really long. Feel free to skip it.
IMPORTANT: There be meta in this here review. If you wish to read it, you MUST KNOW ONE THING FIRST. When I have thinky-thoughts, I put the episodes back into cannon order. Meaning, Monster Movie is really 4.3, as Kripke originaly intended. So, in this review, when I say ‘last week’, I mean Metamorphasis. Mkaaay?
I am spoiler free and want to stay that way. Anything resembling a spoiler in this review is just ‘cos I’m awesome. Please don’t confirm or deny my opinions for me. I want to be surprised.
Follow cut for thinky thoughts and SPECULATION LIKE WOAH.
I shall start by summing up observations/thinky thoughts I have had this season thus far. I’ll try to just stick to the main points that are relevant to now.
1)Lazarus Rising
An angel pulls Dean out of Hell. Things to remember:
a) Dean is not free of Lilith. He’s essentialy a fugitive.
b) Dean sees flashes of Hell while looking into the mirror. (If your eyes are the window to your soul, and your soul is in Hell … whassit mean?)
c) Castiel waited 4 months to bring Dean back. THERE IS A REASON FOR THIS, PEOPLE.
d) Dean doesn’t think he deserves to be saved. (wait for it, it’ll make sense later)
2) Are You there, God? It’s me, Dean Winchester
Dean finds out that Lucifer is real. Things to remember:
a) Dean doesn’t think he’s a hero. AND he doesn’t see why God would give a crap about him. (you are all rolling your eyes at me, but it’s important, I SWEAR! Just stick with me, I’ll get there.)
b) Dudes. The angels are LOSING. O-o. This means that Lilith is even more badass than we wanted to think.
c) Castiel lost 6 of his brothers ‘this week’.
d) There are 7 angels of Thursday. One of them was Azazel. (Is fallen angel blood demon blood? Or is it FALLEN ANGEL BLOOD. Y’all know what I think. *hee*)
e) APOCALYPSE! 66 seals, huh. In Revalation there are only 7 seals. *ponders*
3) Monster movie
The one where Dean is being Dean and Sam can’t quit staring at him. Things to remember:
a) Sam is pretty. That’s really it. Mucho, mucho love and lulz for all.
b) Dean came back without any of his old scars.
c) Dean is on a mission from God, and he’s ok with that. Because he figures, God just needs him to stop the Apocalypse. Which has nothing to do with anything personal to him, so he’s ok with it. Also, he’s saving people, and it feels good. (sound familiar?)
But I ask you …. This season, how many people has Dean saved? (psst - the answer is zero. There’s a good class.)
4) In the Beginning
The one that made us all make incoherent dolphin noises for like a week. *flail* Things to remember:
a) When Castiel says, ‘you have to stop it,’ what he means is, ‘you have to stop Sam.’
b) YED had an endgame. A big one. Like, a really big one.
c) Mary’s deal was made exactly 10 years before the day Sam was born, but the YED didn’t show up until 10 years and six months. Or did he? *ponders*
Note: I’d just like to interject here that I don’t think Dean going back in time is the reason the YED ever saw Mary in the first place. It would have happened one way or another. The point is that Dean wasn’t ever going to be able to change the past. He was just along for the ride.
5) Metamorphasis
The secrets are out. (Otherwise known as the one where Dean is an ASSHOLE) Things to remember:
a) Dean has no idea what Sam went through while he was gone, and he can’t even fathom how desparate Sam was because he doesn’t think he is worth enough to ever be the cause of such desparation. (broken record, I know, but HANG IN THERE I SAID)
b) Dean says: What else can you do?
Sam Says: I can send them back to Hell. It only works on demons, and that’s it. *eyes Sam warily*
c) Sam decides that using the power or not is HIS CHOICE. He says that it’s playing with FIRE. *glees*
d) Dean is thrown right back in to ‘You have to save him, and if you can’t, you have to kill him.”
Tangent: Sam lied, yes. But Dean lied, too, people.
Sam: And for what? So yellow-eyes can stand over my crib and bleed in my mouth?
Fangirls everywhere: *wince*
Dean: Sam, I didn’t say anything about demon blood.
Me: AND WHY NOT? *flail*
6) Yellow Fever
The one where it suddenly all makes perfect sense! \o/
First off, this ep was awesome. It was kind of Mystery Spot-ish in that you laugh and laugh until suddenly you realize that you feel ill and you can’t remember what was supposed to be funny.
I may or may not have been up like, all night talking about all of the ramifications of this episode with blacklid. *drinks more coffee*
On Sam:
Sam taking charge is hotter than Hades. I’ve been reading other people’s opinions on the ep, and many were concerned that Sam seemed OOC in that he wasn’t ‘worried enough’ that Dean was dying. To that I say, um … have you MET Sam?
When Dean is panicking, Sam compensates by being calm and focused. It’s totally historically accurate. There are plenty of scenes where you can see the worry in his eyes, but he keeps on track - “Sam, what are we DOING?” “We’re hunting a ghost.” - he focuses on fixing it. (for previous examples of this behavior, see Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things, Long Distance Call, and No Rest for the Wicked)
I found Sam to be extremely gentle and patient with Dean the whole ep, quiet and calming, and there was lots of reassuring brothertouching, which warms the cockles of my heart. *sigh*
As for the whole reason that Dean was infected … I won’t go into the WANKERY that came from it, *eyeroll* but I WILL say this. The last time we saw the boys (metamorphosis, mind you), DEAN WAS BEING A TOTAL DICK. So, if Sam wants to give a small, introspective grin to the fact that the universe seems to be recognizing the fact that his brother is, at times, an asshole, then LET HIM.
The real reason is the reason Sam said after - he had something in common with the other victims. Which I’ll talk more about later. *GLEES*
The hallucination scene of AWESOME :
Dean is seeing his absolute worst fear - Sam becoming a full-fledged demon. But it’s a two-fold fear, as well, because it underlines his anxiety re: Sam not needing him anymore/not wanting him around. We’ve already seen it once, ‘You don’t need me, you and Ruby go hunt demons’ and then twice, ‘Do you actually like being stuck in a car with me 8 hours a day, every single day? I don’t think so!’
Not only is it two-fold, it has a third revealing layer - Dean hasn’t been thinking up till now that if he happened to die, he would go back to Hell. (see: ‘things to remember: Lazarus Rising’) Now, suddenly he gets it.
Interesting things to note: Even though it was Dean hallucinating, Sam saw it, and he heard Dean scream for something to get out of his brother. Meaning, at the end when Sam asks Dean what he saw, HE ALREADY KNOWS that HE was one of the things he saw. HE KNOWS, guys. He’s SMRT. He knows. *hands*
Now, WHILE Dean was hallucinating, he somehow got thrown across the room. (See: things to remember: metamorphasis) I gauge that the hallucinating started when Dean heard Sam say, ‘yeah, you are.’ But let’s take it from Sam’s POV.
Dean: I’m gonna die, Sammy.
Sam: *stares and tries to think of something to say. Maybe comes up with something brilliant, like,* No, you aren’t.
Dean: *looks confused* …Back?
Sam: What?
Dean: *Starts looking terrified, moves to attack Sam*
Now, at this point, Dean flies into the wall. The hallucination picks up with Yellow eyed Sam taunting Dean.
Dean: You get out of my brother, you evil sonnofabitch!
THE QUESTION OF THE DAY. Obviously Sam does, or did at one point, have telekenesis. Historically he’s been unable to control it, even unable to summon it when he really wanted to (see: Devil’s trap), but it is possible that he can control it now. DID SAM THROW DEAN AGAINST THE WALL or not? I honestly don’t know.
Dean jumped Sam, it could be an unconcious self-defense move, or he may have been trying to hold Dean still so he’d relax, or it could have somehow all been in Dean’s head, but none of the other hallucinations actually were able to bodily move/harm him, and he got across the room somehow.
Dean’s similarities to the Sheriff. (remember when I said hang in there? Here we go, people.)
The sherrif had a secret where somebody died. The voices whispering to him say ‘they know what you did’. Dean asks Lilith why he got infected, and she says ‘Silly goose (*pause for shiver*), you know why, Dean. Listen to your heart.’
BLOODY. FRAKKIN. MARY, people. Lemmy - you know how you’ve wanted to know FOREVER EVER about Mary? And you finally got your wish? THIS IS MINE. FOUR years, people, FOUR YEARS I’VE WANTED TO KNOW DEAN’S SECRET.
Dean was going to go to Hell anyway. (see: 4.2) Dean’s not worth saving. (see: 4.1) Dean doesn’t think his life is worth anything. (see: AHBL 2) Dean sees horrible things when he looks into the MIRROR. (see:Lazarus Rising, things to remember)
Things I can ascertain for SURE about the secret:
Someone died.
Dean blames himself.
Just because someone died and Dean blames himself does not actually mean it was his fault. Just because it counted to Bloody Mary does not mean it was his fault. (See: Bloody Mary re: Sam having a secret about Jess)
Whatever it was, he’s never told ANYONE. It’s something bad enough to (in Dean’s mind) deserve Hell for. To render his life worthless.
Things I THINK about the secret:
To be honest. I usually am pretty certain about my hunches. But this one eludes me. I have NO IDEA. BUT. That doesn’t keep me from thinking about it.
The secret involves Sam, John, Mary, or someone closley connected to them. Dean has lost tons of people on hunts, Dean’s no stranger to colateral damage, if it’s bothering him this much than it has to be about someone he knows.
blacklid and I came up with 2 ideas that it could be - the first one was hers -
When Sam would have been about 16, the 3 of them were hunting a banshee in Orlando and Dean left in the middle of a hunt to go on a road trip. Perhaps something happened on the hunt? It seems very un-Deanlike to leave in the middle of a hunt, especially if it meant leaving John alone with 16 year old Sam to finish the job. (see: TKAA)
~or, this one is mine ~ (yes, I know about the deleted scene, and no, I don't really think this is the case, but I'm just throwing stuff out there)
If the YED only killed the mothers who interrupted, and he never killed any of the other psychic kid’s family/significant others until it was time for him to come for them (See: Hunted, re: Ava’s fiance), then why did he kill Jess? He told Sam it was because Jess got in the way. But now I wonder. And how did Dean know to come back to the house? Dean was set to leave. He was going to call Sam when he got to John. He was going to let Sam be happy and live a normal life. It was the anniversary of Mary’s death, but there had been 3 of those since Sam had been at Stanford, and nothing happened on those days. Suddenly Dean shows up and Jess burns? O-o.
IMO, Whatever the secret is, it’s nothing innocuous like ‘I lost someone on a hunt’. It would be a HUGE deal to Dean, and to the family specifically, and IMO the reason he’s never told Sam is that he’s terrified that if Sam finds out, Sam will leave him.
But those are just thinky-thoughts, like I said, I really have no clue. BUT IT’S COMING, PEOPLE! \o/
ETA: I just realized something else
In Monster Movie Dean feels like he has a fresh start/clean slate. Then in yellow fever he doesn't understand why he got infected.
It's like he finally was able to put the secret behind him, like he genuinley forgot about it until Lilith dredged it up and threw it in his face.
*wibble*
Oh, Dean.
The END HOMG
The flash in Sam’s eyes. Ok. Real or not real?
My FIRST, gut instinct impression is that now that Dean had his little face-to-face with Lilith, his memories of Hell have been stirred up, and the encounter was the trigger that will set off his PTSD.
I still tend to lean this way, but I did see a comment where someone said that since Dean’s memories of hell are surfacing, he may be a little too close to the veil again, (See: NRFTW) and will start catching glimpses of demons and things like he was before he died, meaning that the flash was real, but it wasn’t Sam doing it, it was just that Dean could see the power.
Now, I like that idea, because Dean DID come back different (See: Monster Movie, things to remember) and we still don’t know HOW different.
The other theory I heard was that maybe Sam was unconciously drawing on the power to try to prompt Dean to tell the truth. This is interesting because I DO think it’d be unconcious - for one, Sam would view mind-controlling Dean as abhorent, and two - Dean can tell when he’s being mind controlled and Sam knows that, and like I said, Sam is SMRT. (see: Simon Said)
The other reason it is interesting is (see earlier) if he can unconciously mind control people, then maybe he DID accidentaly throw Dean against the wall.
Only time will tell for sure. But! Best part of the WHOLE EP?
"Just the normal stuff, Sammy. Nothin' I couldn't handle."
*heartmelt* Dean knows Sam knows and he's admitting Sam's right and he's reminding Sam that Sam's not alone anymore. DEAN. SOMETIMES, I LOVE YOU SO, EFFING, MUCH.
In conclusion -
Dean has an epic seekrit. I wanna know eet. *grabby hands*
Dean will now start remembering Hell. *glees* Why do I glee, you ask? Think about it. If you are Lilith, and you are the Queen of Hell (she is, you know), and you’ve got the hero trapped for all eternity, no hope of rescue - would you not tell him every little detail about what’s going to happen to his precious brother as a means of torture? The truth hurts so much worse than lies.
What’s my point?
DEAN FOUND OUT IMPORTANT THINGS IN HELL. He needs to remember what he heard there. YED, plans, endgame, what Sam will become - all of these things were shoved into his face, I’m sure of it.
Why did Castiel wait 4 months to pull Dean out? (See: Lazarus Rising, things to remember)
DEAN HAS BEEN BEHIND ENEMY LINES, you guys. He KNOWS stuff. He needed time to gather information.
ALSO -
SAM NEEDED TIME TO MASTER HIS POWERS. That’s right, God wants Sam using his powers. He doesn’t want him working with demons, but SAM IS THE WEAPON AGAINST LILITH. He’s the one that can wipe her off the map. The angels don’t seem to be able to do it. (See: Are you there God, things to remember) They waited long enough for Sam to master his powers, then they pulled Dean out to stop Sam from going darkside.
In conclusion (for real this time) -
SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. This is the best season EVAR.
(Also, YED!Sam makes me happy in my pants.)
Wow. This is 2,610 words. O_O For some reason my WORD is not spell checking. I dunno why. Plz 2 b 4giving any errorroorrrs.
*goes to ice fingers*
MUAH!
OH. I almost forgot : I have become certain that Sam's next power to manifest (not the next one we will see, per se, but the next new power he will GAIN) will be Pyrokenesis. There are reasons. I'm too tired to type them.