5.08 Changing Channels, Part 1/3
Episode reviews by tahirire and blacklid: 501 | 502 | 503 | 504 | 505 | 506 | 507
THE ROAD SO FAR...
The Far Side of The Curious Case of Dean Winchester
NOW...
I am filching (no, not felching, stealing) another great idea from Kroki-Refur (we miss you!) and I'm gonna start numbering these. We'll see how long I can keep that up. *sips Nyquil*
1. Know how I know it's the Pox-sa-slips? BECAUSE. Remember that time when Mr. Eric Kripke said he was going to give fandom EXACTLY what it wanted in Season Five and he was gonna pull out all the stops and use every fan fiction trope in the book? Does ANYBODY remember that? I seem to recall that. And then we get this season and I am laughing my ass off at the whining. "Why doesn't it make sense? What is with the hack job feeling because nothing seems to be blending into an over-arching theme?" Uh. Hmmm. Maybe.... it's because... WE wrote it. It's not GOING to make sense sometimes. Careful what we wish for or we might ALL get it. The hands of a few affect the lives of many... do you see where I'm going with that? ... So, where's my western?
2. We have a beer that looks almost exactly like that in Texas! I don't know what's more weird: that I can't remember the actual name of the beer, or that the bottles in this refrigerator are all turned to face me, like an Anal Girl lives here... and by anal I mean retentive and by retentive I mean NEAT.
3. What is Smeat? Does it taste like Spam?
3½. Sun N' Sands Motel! Palm trees! Did they get to go to Hawaii after all? Then why is everything this outrageous color? Oh wait. The last time this happened, Dean choked on a sausage and a taco and Sam choked on 100 days of solitude. DEAN, STEP AWAY FROM THE SCOOBY DOO SANDWICH.
(This video has more to do with this than viewers might realize. For one, we need more TRIFORCE OF WISDOM around here. Okay, moving on.)
4. If Supernatural actually WAS filmed before a live studio audience, would YOU go?
5. I don't know about y'all, but I was confused about how Sam seemed already PISSED AND SO OVER THIS whole thing, yet it was only about 2 minutes into the experience. And then I wondered if it just felt FAMILIAR, and I wondered how much Dean kept telling Sam back then that it was all going to be okay... and then I wondered if Dean could GET a bigger mouth.
6. This first cap reminds me of this other cap:
Dear Sam,
You know how when you do this hand fist motion thing, it actually means that you really want someone to believe you but you don't really believe it yourself? LIKE... believing that Dean does research? Psh! Nobody in fandom thinks Dean does research! How would you know better than fandom, I mean, The Trickster? Application DENIED.
-Lid, who is surprised at you
7. Dean's research involves girls. And food. All the time. Because he's never serious. ...Uh HUH. Something is off in this parallel universe, dude, but hey! Dean got laid! So ... or did he?
Sonuvabitch!
WHAT WAS THE POINT OF THIS? They are stuck in Trickster Land again and they are trying to get out and everything is real time and they have to roll with the punches and hang with the changes and stay by each other's side and I feel that Train song coming on about words or something. Show better start leaving me some clues about what the hell's going on around here, because this is totally ... normal. Ish.
AHA! I got it.
ROLL WITH ME HERE.
8. Scooby Doo. The later one. The redux. Sort of.
9. Ghosts in the closet? Grease on your face? Can someone tell me how these two relate? It feels like meta ketchup on rye bread.
10. I think I've got this next one. WAIT, don't tell me.
Oh holy heck in a bottleneck, it's Laverne and Shirley. (go to 1:08) You know...
Did any of them kids have some space alien with a face like a friendly turd in a bike basket?
11. It drove me nuts for weeks (because I am easy to sidetrack) trying to figure out what this one reminded me of. It's The Hogan Family!
Oh the hokey. MAKE IT STOP. I feel ... used somehow.
NO REALLY. STOP IT.
12. Dear Dean,
OMFG DEAN. You watch that show! THAT show! OMG WHY.
Oh. Nevermind.
-Lid, who thinks dark cowboys should totally get more mad props from nurses... random nurses, you know, even when they only dress up like nurses for Halloween or show up in hallucinogenic alternate universes brought on by massive blood-letting, 'cause that always turns out well
13. Dear Sam,
*straightens your always red tie* You remember that time someone wanted you to go out for Halloween, dressed as a nurse, and you didn't really want to? I mean, they were dressed as a nurse. Same difference. Anyway, I bet one way you could reach deep into Dean's heart and pull out all the icky stuff between you... is if you dressed up as a nurse. He might feel like he can open up to that. Also, I'm starting to think the Universe was getting you guys confused somehow, even back in the beginning. I'm just sayin'.
-Lid, who is probably on da shrooms but is DEFINITELY on cold medicine
14. OH LOOK. There, on the table. It's a DAY-Z MOTEL. Does that mean what I think it means? We're not living on a day that ends in Y? Which means that none of this is real? IS ANY OF THIS REAL? *breathes*
14½. This room looks so different. But it's exactly the same, right? Isn't it? I'm amazed how much something as simple as casting a different light on a subject can make it look completely different. *looks around*
15. "When did you hit menopause?" "Are you ready?" "Are YOU?" How about when you get back to your regular selves like this, you DON'T go right back to stabbing each other with all these WORDS you don't mean. I'm goin' to Beef Barn for a burger. I'll be back. Maybe.
16. So, this made me think that maybe we WERE back in real time. You know, like before was a nightmare or something and things were going to get more normal... or, you know, normal by our standards. But then, I thought, no, things are still fishy because... Dean's not wearing his ring.
17. Pst. Dean. Hey, Dean. You're being haunted by the drink cooler again. *pokes* You should watch out for that honkin' blue thing, seriously. It looks like it has a freakin' eyeball on it and it's staring at me. It probably weighs more than you. I've heard of people getting crushed under those. I might be paranoid.
18. Sam... do we have to walk past the cooler machine thing? Because NO.
19. Dear Mizz Cathy Randolph,
Your husband just got Hulk Smashed by spikey-haired Lou Ferrigno for NO APPARENT REASON. How often does this Show NOT give a reason for someone to be Hulk Smashed? Is this just a random, violent act of Hulk Smashing? I sense foul play. And you're worried about sounding insane? Lady, there's an APOCALYPSE. It's been happening for YEARS. Making things look like random, unpredictable evil. It is the name of the game. You'll admit that your husband got killed by the Hulk before you admit to what he did to you? OMG WHY?
-Lid, who totally didn't wait for Lou Ferrigno to show up once upon a time
P.S. I also want to load caps from I Love You, Man in here for no apparent reason because it ALSO didn't have random spikey-haired Lou Ferigno Hulk Smashings. In his house. Or anything. Recently.
20. Hey, you guys. Your dad's best friend was your brother, too. What are YOU laughing at? /related movie reference
21. Dear Dean,
When you ask her if The Hulk would have a grudge against her husband, you sound like a cop. You hate cops. Also, have you SEEN The Hulk? He was the first monster who was the Good Guy. And he had a girlfriend and... *makes hand motions* yeah, he dressed in green a lot, too. That's not where I was headed. I meant Betty Ross, his girlfriend? You know, the one who got killed? And so he goes around saving other people because he can't save her? You know that guy?
-Lid, who just facepalmed
22. For those who like to read, click for the bigger ones. OH. And also, here is proof that DEAN HAS DONE HIS RESEARCH YET. *sticks her tongue out at Sam* And isn't it weird how Dean stays at the motel to hack n' learn things on the internet while Sam drives the car and looks for giant sized holes in the walls and hey... it's kinda like Sam and Dean have traded places, hasn't it? Except for how they aren't acknowledging it at all.
23. Funny, Dean looks like he's feeling for this Cathy lady and maybe wondering if the guy got his just desserts and we should all move on to people who still have actual problems.
24. But Sam has already gone into deductive reasoning mode and decided that something else is going on here. Things aren't exactly as they seem. The candy wrappers foretell of a great Cookie Monster in the sky that has gone on a bender and left behind the vestiges of his Justice, I mean Fooling Around, I mean Justice.
25. Dean wants to revel in the death of a thing that caused him lots of ... deadness.
26. And Sam doesn't look too enthused. Sam's not a reveler. He's maybe realized that revenge isn't all it's cracked up to be. Maybe it'll make more of a difference if they just try to talk him out of it. Since killing him never seems to stick anyway... and what if killing him makes, oh I dunno, yet another Waffle House appear on Route 66... or acid rain or something? Am I being too dark? And he starts talking about the Trickster is more like Hugh Hefner and he wants the world to go on existing just like they do -- that maybe he'd make a better ally. And that made me think of Good Omens ((BOOK SPOILERS!), where the angel and the demon were in their own little Bureaucracies of Destiny and yet, they were on the same side in enjoying their stint on Planet X and they end up working together to keep it in one piece... only how they don't. But they did. Sort of. Anyway, so, the Trickster is like that angel dude Azriaphale, right? I can dig that.
27. I find it interesting that if Dean had gone out and found the wrappers, he would have come in and performed the same informational download, and then probably told Sam that he was ready to kick some God-teeth in. And thinking of it that way, I find it doubly interesting that they wrote it so that Sam is the one who goes out and finds them instead, and yet Sam won't want to hunt The Trickster or kick his God-teeth in because of what happened before when he was trying to teach him something, and he could have hidden this detail about the wrappers from Dean and they would have gone on their merry way, but he was honest and upfront about it instead because he NEVER TOLD HIM ABOUT MYSTERY SPOT. Oh, Sam.
28. Maybe it's some of all of that, but I can't help thinking that it's mainly because Sam is trying to keep Dean safe from the one thing on the planet that seems to have a never-ending fascination with killing him... and because he hasn't told Dean the hows and the whys of it not working the last time, he can't tell him that the possibility of it happening AGAIN is what scares him the most. Oh, SAM.
29. So they make wooden stakes out of some sapling they found out back? Where do they go, really? Home Depot? Do they buy a tree? Go down to the river and chop, chop, nobody will notice? If Dean has already failed to kill him once with one of these things, and unknown to him, Sam failed, too, WHY do they keep using it? These are life's great questions.
30. I got a case of the flashbacks to Dead Man's Blood here, even though it's a totally different situation, just because watching Sam listen to the police scanner on the table, instead of on the bed like Dean does, reminds me of John. *remembers John* It also gives me a creepy feeling that the boys are already being watched. If they are in Trickster country, he's gonna have to do something about this quick. And I seem to remember that in Dead Man's Blood, that John heard the call on the police scanner and knew immediately that it was a trap, so he went out prepared. *misses John*
GO TO PART TWO
THE ROAD SO FAR...
The Far Side of The Curious Case of Dean Winchester
NOW...
I am filching (no, not felching, stealing) another great idea from Kroki-Refur (we miss you!) and I'm gonna start numbering these. We'll see how long I can keep that up. *sips Nyquil*
1. Know how I know it's the Pox-sa-slips? BECAUSE. Remember that time when Mr. Eric Kripke said he was going to give fandom EXACTLY what it wanted in Season Five and he was gonna pull out all the stops and use every fan fiction trope in the book? Does ANYBODY remember that? I seem to recall that. And then we get this season and I am laughing my ass off at the whining. "Why doesn't it make sense? What is with the hack job feeling because nothing seems to be blending into an over-arching theme?" Uh. Hmmm. Maybe.... it's because... WE wrote it. It's not GOING to make sense sometimes. Careful what we wish for or we might ALL get it. The hands of a few affect the lives of many... do you see where I'm going with that? ... So, where's my western?
2. We have a beer that looks almost exactly like that in Texas! I don't know what's more weird: that I can't remember the actual name of the beer, or that the bottles in this refrigerator are all turned to face me, like an Anal Girl lives here... and by anal I mean retentive and by retentive I mean NEAT.
3. What is Smeat? Does it taste like Spam?
3½. Sun N' Sands Motel! Palm trees! Did they get to go to Hawaii after all? Then why is everything this outrageous color? Oh wait. The last time this happened, Dean choked on a sausage and a taco and Sam choked on 100 days of solitude. DEAN, STEP AWAY FROM THE SCOOBY DOO SANDWICH.
Click to view(This video has more to do with this than viewers might realize. For one, we need more TRIFORCE OF WISDOM around here. Okay, moving on.)
4. If Supernatural actually WAS filmed before a live studio audience, would YOU go?
5. I don't know about y'all, but I was confused about how Sam seemed already PISSED AND SO OVER THIS whole thing, yet it was only about 2 minutes into the experience. And then I wondered if it just felt FAMILIAR, and I wondered how much Dean kept telling Sam back then that it was all going to be okay... and then I wondered if Dean could GET a bigger mouth.
6. This first cap reminds me of this other cap:
Dear Sam,
You know how when you do this hand fist motion thing, it actually means that you really want someone to believe you but you don't really believe it yourself? LIKE... believing that Dean does research? Psh! Nobody in fandom thinks Dean does research! How would you know better than fandom, I mean, The Trickster? Application DENIED.
-Lid, who is surprised at you
7. Dean's research involves girls. And food. All the time. Because he's never serious. ...Uh HUH. Something is off in this parallel universe, dude, but hey! Dean got laid! So ... or did he?
Sonuvabitch!
WHAT WAS THE POINT OF THIS? They are stuck in Trickster Land again and they are trying to get out and everything is real time and they have to roll with the punches and hang with the changes and stay by each other's side and I feel that Train song coming on about words or something. Show better start leaving me some clues about what the hell's going on around here, because this is totally ... normal. Ish.
AHA! I got it.
ROLL WITH ME HERE.
8. Scooby Doo. The later one. The redux. Sort of.
9. Ghosts in the closet? Grease on your face? Can someone tell me how these two relate? It feels like meta ketchup on rye bread.
10. I think I've got this next one. WAIT, don't tell me.
Oh holy heck in a bottleneck, it's Laverne and Shirley. (go to 1:08) You know...
Did any of them kids have some space alien with a face like a friendly turd in a bike basket?
11. It drove me nuts for weeks (because I am easy to sidetrack) trying to figure out what this one reminded me of. It's The Hogan Family!
Oh the hokey. MAKE IT STOP. I feel ... used somehow.
NO REALLY. STOP IT.
12. Dear Dean,
OMFG DEAN. You watch that show! THAT show! OMG WHY.
Oh. Nevermind.
-Lid, who thinks dark cowboys should totally get more mad props from nurses... random nurses, you know, even when they only dress up like nurses for Halloween or show up in hallucinogenic alternate universes brought on by massive blood-letting, 'cause that always turns out well
13. Dear Sam,
*straightens your always red tie* You remember that time someone wanted you to go out for Halloween, dressed as a nurse, and you didn't really want to? I mean, they were dressed as a nurse. Same difference. Anyway, I bet one way you could reach deep into Dean's heart and pull out all the icky stuff between you... is if you dressed up as a nurse. He might feel like he can open up to that. Also, I'm starting to think the Universe was getting you guys confused somehow, even back in the beginning. I'm just sayin'.
-Lid, who is probably on da shrooms but is DEFINITELY on cold medicine
14. OH LOOK. There, on the table. It's a DAY-Z MOTEL. Does that mean what I think it means? We're not living on a day that ends in Y? Which means that none of this is real? IS ANY OF THIS REAL? *breathes*
14½. This room looks so different. But it's exactly the same, right? Isn't it? I'm amazed how much something as simple as casting a different light on a subject can make it look completely different. *looks around*
15. "When did you hit menopause?" "Are you ready?" "Are YOU?" How about when you get back to your regular selves like this, you DON'T go right back to stabbing each other with all these WORDS you don't mean. I'm goin' to Beef Barn for a burger. I'll be back. Maybe.
16. So, this made me think that maybe we WERE back in real time. You know, like before was a nightmare or something and things were going to get more normal... or, you know, normal by our standards. But then, I thought, no, things are still fishy because... Dean's not wearing his ring.
17. Pst. Dean. Hey, Dean. You're being haunted by the drink cooler again. *pokes* You should watch out for that honkin' blue thing, seriously. It looks like it has a freakin' eyeball on it and it's staring at me. It probably weighs more than you. I've heard of people getting crushed under those. I might be paranoid.
18. Sam... do we have to walk past the cooler machine thing? Because NO.
19. Dear Mizz Cathy Randolph,
Your husband just got Hulk Smashed by spikey-haired Lou Ferrigno for NO APPARENT REASON. How often does this Show NOT give a reason for someone to be Hulk Smashed? Is this just a random, violent act of Hulk Smashing? I sense foul play. And you're worried about sounding insane? Lady, there's an APOCALYPSE. It's been happening for YEARS. Making things look like random, unpredictable evil. It is the name of the game. You'll admit that your husband got killed by the Hulk before you admit to what he did to you? OMG WHY?
-Lid, who totally didn't wait for Lou Ferrigno to show up once upon a time
P.S. I also want to load caps from I Love You, Man in here for no apparent reason because it ALSO didn't have random spikey-haired Lou Ferigno Hulk Smashings. In his house. Or anything. Recently.
20. Hey, you guys. Your dad's best friend was your brother, too. What are YOU laughing at? /related movie reference
21. Dear Dean,
When you ask her if The Hulk would have a grudge against her husband, you sound like a cop. You hate cops. Also, have you SEEN The Hulk? He was the first monster who was the Good Guy. And he had a girlfriend and... *makes hand motions* yeah, he dressed in green a lot, too. That's not where I was headed. I meant Betty Ross, his girlfriend? You know, the one who got killed? And so he goes around saving other people because he can't save her? You know that guy?
-Lid, who just facepalmed
22. For those who like to read, click for the bigger ones. OH. And also, here is proof that DEAN HAS DONE HIS RESEARCH YET. *sticks her tongue out at Sam* And isn't it weird how Dean stays at the motel to hack n' learn things on the internet while Sam drives the car and looks for giant sized holes in the walls and hey... it's kinda like Sam and Dean have traded places, hasn't it? Except for how they aren't acknowledging it at all.
23. Funny, Dean looks like he's feeling for this Cathy lady and maybe wondering if the guy got his just desserts and we should all move on to people who still have actual problems.
24. But Sam has already gone into deductive reasoning mode and decided that something else is going on here. Things aren't exactly as they seem. The candy wrappers foretell of a great Cookie Monster in the sky that has gone on a bender and left behind the vestiges of his Justice, I mean Fooling Around, I mean Justice.
25. Dean wants to revel in the death of a thing that caused him lots of ... deadness.
26. And Sam doesn't look too enthused. Sam's not a reveler. He's maybe realized that revenge isn't all it's cracked up to be. Maybe it'll make more of a difference if they just try to talk him out of it. Since killing him never seems to stick anyway... and what if killing him makes, oh I dunno, yet another Waffle House appear on Route 66... or acid rain or something? Am I being too dark? And he starts talking about the Trickster is more like Hugh Hefner and he wants the world to go on existing just like they do -- that maybe he'd make a better ally. And that made me think of Good Omens ((BOOK SPOILERS!), where the angel and the demon were in their own little Bureaucracies of Destiny and yet, they were on the same side in enjoying their stint on Planet X and they end up working together to keep it in one piece... only how they don't. But they did. Sort of. Anyway, so, the Trickster is like that angel dude Azriaphale, right? I can dig that.
27. I find it interesting that if Dean had gone out and found the wrappers, he would have come in and performed the same informational download, and then probably told Sam that he was ready to kick some God-teeth in. And thinking of it that way, I find it doubly interesting that they wrote it so that Sam is the one who goes out and finds them instead, and yet Sam won't want to hunt The Trickster or kick his God-teeth in because of what happened before when he was trying to teach him something, and he could have hidden this detail about the wrappers from Dean and they would have gone on their merry way, but he was honest and upfront about it instead because he NEVER TOLD HIM ABOUT MYSTERY SPOT. Oh, Sam.
28. Maybe it's some of all of that, but I can't help thinking that it's mainly because Sam is trying to keep Dean safe from the one thing on the planet that seems to have a never-ending fascination with killing him... and because he hasn't told Dean the hows and the whys of it not working the last time, he can't tell him that the possibility of it happening AGAIN is what scares him the most. Oh, SAM.
29. So they make wooden stakes out of some sapling they found out back? Where do they go, really? Home Depot? Do they buy a tree? Go down to the river and chop, chop, nobody will notice? If Dean has already failed to kill him once with one of these things, and unknown to him, Sam failed, too, WHY do they keep using it? These are life's great questions.
30. I got a case of the flashbacks to Dead Man's Blood here, even though it's a totally different situation, just because watching Sam listen to the police scanner on the table, instead of on the bed like Dean does, reminds me of John. *remembers John* It also gives me a creepy feeling that the boys are already being watched. If they are in Trickster country, he's gonna have to do something about this quick. And I seem to remember that in Dead Man's Blood, that John heard the call on the police scanner and knew immediately that it was a trap, so he went out prepared. *misses John*
GO TO PART TWO