5.10 Abandon All Hope, part 2/3
< PART 1
38. Because it's about TRUTH and JUSTICE. ... AND THEN, there's the American Way... which apparently involves cell phones Pocket Voyeurs.
39. But what is God's Way? We don't talk about God much.
Dean was healed by a blind man who saw that God had a bigger, unfinished plan for Dean... only Dean knew that "healing" him caused someone else to die just like always happens when things are artificially unbalanced - it will try to auto correct.
Coupled with record low levels of self worth, that messed with Dean's view of God more than a little bit, just in the sense of that being allowed to happen over and over again, especially when it was people who were deciding who deserved to live or die and then crediting God for it.
Sam still believes in God, even though he's not praying anymore, because he wants to believe that there's hope for rescue. But, would Sam still believe in God if what he's always thought was God's primary agenda... actually wasn't?
... I need more coffee for this.
40. Castiel may be trying to find God, but what does that mean? If God is God, doesn't God wanna stay... ambiguous? If God is everywhere, all-knowing, all-seeing and working Mysterious Ways™ on people, places and things, how can God show up on a tortilla in New Mexico?
The answer is YES.
41. But seriously, if anti-God is anti-American, it follows that God is American and that is ... country-ist. I mean, what about New Zealand? What if God is Australian? I have a sneaking suspicion that God is actually a tortoise living in Tibet, but that some people want God to be American so that they can feel better about all the other chicanery they're propagating.
42. Hey, guess what? I have no idea.
43. Isn't it weird how every time demons are in town, all the transmitter stuff, like cell phones and telepathy and stuff has nothing but static? Including the Impala's radio? It's like some huge, city-sized flux capacitor goes drick.
I doubt that the "PD" is gonna know anything about an entire town disappearing, but if that's where everyone is hiding with the ammunition, then that's better than the church basement, I guess. Good God, y'all. One can only hope.
44. I wondered if Castiel stayed with the girls because he thought it was best or because the boys asked him to. It doesn't really matter because if they had asked him, they were just suggesting something he'd already thought of ... he just didn't say anything.
Kind of like door handles.
45. He's probably also been staring at the reapers since they rolled into town. He waited until then to explain why he had to leave them: to find out what catastrophe was about to happen (and clearly hadn't happened yet or all the reapers would be gone).
46. And we get that camera movement again (FTW!!) We move behind Cas - who's like a pillar standing between worlds - and we see what he sees for a second... and holy crap, but Dean lucked out with Tessa is all I can say. Yeesh. Okay, luck isn't a relevant word in this case, but you know what I mean.
46½. I still really love the echoes that this camera work is implying. Because it echoes the one in the beginning of the episode, I immediately started to wonder if Crowley was more deviously involved in sending them here (as opposed to just being insulting and helpful) than first meets the eye because it's...meeting my eye. *squints*
*facepalms*
47. Cas keeps walking past them all - one reaper for every single person in town, apparently - until he reaches a building with a reaper standing INSIDE the building instead of outside... and his eyes are totally white, like a blind man. And the sign outside says JESUS SAVES the rest of you take full damage.
48. He beams into the building, right where the reaper was only a second before and to an untrained eye (HOMG SHOW THAT IS SO COOL!!!11!), he might have even seemed like the SAME, shape-shifting person to someone looking outside from under the JESUS SAVES the rest of you take full damage sign, but luckily no one is, and he walks deeper into the darkness of the building - like a tunnel or a cave - with the sounds of water dripping and everything - and all of a sudden he sees a bright light at the end. At first I thought, oh shite, Death. But no. It's Castiel's "brother". *shifty eyes*
49. Castiel: "I have sees teh Light. Teh Light, I sees it."
50. Is it just me, or does Dean seem completely un-bewildered by the fact that the po-police station is deserted and that Cas is missing since he struck off on his own to hunt reapers? Sam, however, looks totally bzuh... DOES NOT COMPUTE. I kinda love that a lot.
51. I also love that Jo does not seem all that bewildered either. She's just takin' it as it comes and being practical and did you know, that once upon a time I wanted Caroline Ingalls from Little House on the Prarie to be my mom and now I have the same feeling about Ellen because these two are rockin' so much? ... /random?
52. While we're in the basement of totally random facts, here's another one: the Ring of Fire is the name of the expanding tectonic fault in the Pacific Ocean. The exodus of continents - the shift of people away from each other in a literal and figurative sense - experiences the majority of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. It's doubly interesting if you consider that two out of three things Castiel listed as catastrophes: San Francisco and Pompeii, were an earthquake and a volcanic eruption... and the exact cause of the Great Chicago Fire remains a mystery.
53. Love is a burning flame and it makes a fiery ring
Bringing hurt to the heart's desire
I fell in the ring of fire
I fell into, into a burning ring of fire
I fell down, down, down, down into the deepest mire
and it burns, burns, burns, burns
the ring of fire, the ring of fire, the ring of fire
The taste of love is sweet
when two fiery hearts meet
I believed you like a child
Oh but the fire went wild
54. Lucifer: "Castiel, right? (translation: oh, lowly minion, I believe I have your file here somewhere) I was told you came here in an automobile? What's that like? (translation: Industry intrigues me, just not the cockroaches that make it possible... like senators.)"
55. Castiel: "It's faster than a wagon. Tell me if you've heard this one: What's black and white and red all over?"
Lucifer: "I'm red all over. You're red all over. We both wanna be tight with the Winchesters. It's hard out here for a pimp, why you hatin'? I am he and you are he and we are all together. Come be my boo boo."
Castiel: "I am the walrus. You are an element'ry penguin."
56. Wait. Lucifer was TOLD that Castiel was coming with the Winchesters? WHO TOLD HIM? *looks around*
57. Oh. Crap.
58. Dean wants to shoot her in the face, which would be awesome except for how she doesn't seem all that worried about it. That makes me wonder if it would actually work and think maybe it definitely won't... which really freaks me out a hell of a lot. Also, hi, there's hell hounds all over the place waiting to pounce on the four of them if he does shoot her and they sound like they're growling and then burping and I was trying to be serious, Show, and be skurred, but I couldn't be skurred because there were invisible burping hell hounds and I can't un-hear it.
No. Seriously.
59. So instead of shooting her in the face, Dean shoots a burping hell hound in the face and they all run. Well well, that was an excellent good idea, righto.
60. The splashes in the water, Show, to make them visible and skeery is so awesome that I nearly forgot about the burping.
RUN MUTHER HEIFERS, RUN.
61. And I get to see things from the monsters hunters hellhounds' point of view, which is interesting because when Meg said they were Dean's favorite it was like that time when Dean said that Ruby was Sam's favorite and it made me cringe and wonder WHAT THE HELL DOES THAT MEAN. Also, it gave me tunnel vision.
62. When Dean gets taken down this time, they don't immediately rip into him... which was weird. And then Dean says to Jo to stay back and in my weird brain, something made me think that if she had, those hellhounds would be rolling around on their backs and licking his face like a puppy in about two seconds flat. Because you can kick a dog and it will still love you. Um.
63. But Jo doesn't stay back because she LOVES him and she starts shooting hell hounds and drawing blood just like Dean did ... only she's never been to hell and she shouldn't be able to see them, so she's either a scary good judge of burp distance or she can see them, which ... doesn't make any sense. Unless it does. In which case ... oh, crap.
64. JO!!!!!!!1!!! See oh, crap.
65. The nearest hardware store should have the best stock of everything they will need to hold off the devil and his creepy ass info-maniac daughter. MAKE A NOTE, BOYS.
66. I'm just telling you right now, if anyone else asks again at a convention what these two would do if the Apocalypse really happened, I fully expect them to mention that they've already bought stock in Lowes and Home Depot because CLEARLY *hands*.
67. There is not enough ANTIFREEZE salt on this earth. I feel like playing rock, paper, scissors, lizard, Spock with all the weird uses of the five elements in this episode so far and what they are pointing to, but I'm left wondering whether it's on purpose or if it's just awesome coincidence. Because I'm obsessed, that's why.
68. Dean carries Jo. DEAN CARRIES JO. She's bleeding all over the place. I got finger-biting flashbacks to No Rest For The Wicked right then because you all know that's what Sam would have done if he could have. *cringes even more*
ALL OVER THE PLACE. He has GOT to be covered with it from carrying her. But everything immediately after this is tight shots and we are spared the visual of that idea, except for how I'm dark and creepy and I just made you imagine it anyway. Aren't you glad you came?
Also, all I can hear is her gasping for breath.
They're all looking at each other with this defeated shudder and Jo sees it and OH, dear JO. OH, ELLEN. *covers mouth* THIS. IS NOT. HAPPENING.
69. Sam helps her because he can't bear not to. Dean doesn't help because he can't bear to. *bites lips*
70. He isn't stupid and he isn't blind. He knows she's dying and he has to make her death mean something. He doesn't even know what it is he's going to do yet, but he's going to show her that he's doing everything he can to make something meaningful happen fast so that she knows it. *hugs Dean*
70½. I'm pretty sure that Sam knows all of that, too, but he can't help voicing how he feels... trapped by the whole situation, like rats in an invisible maze, possibly with a guy in a trench coat and a fedora.
71. Hey Sam,
I've got the number for this really great labyrinth girl named Ariadne. Did you know? The greatest maze ever built was for the King's daughter to dance in and later it was the only place that could contain the monster that was both man and bull. I bet you knew that, since it doesn't have ANYTHING to do with all the motel rooms that had bullfighting themes over the past two years.
-Lid, who is holding a red cape
P.S. ... TORO.
"Then it seemed like falling into a labyrinth: we thought we were at the finish, but our way bent round and we found ourselves as it were back at the beginning, and just as far from that which we were seeking at first." -- Socrates
72. Dean makes a short wave radio out of a lighter, a battery, a magnet, two bananas and some duct tape. Bobby, meanwhile, is calling him on his cell phone because he just found something in The Book of Revelation of That John Guy that made him pop a few pills.
73. Bobby hears static.
Dear Bobby,
You know what I do when I hear static? I think the angels are coming. Or, you know, a ghost.
-Lid
P.S. Oh wait. My bad. It's just Dean.
74. Dear Dean,
You've died a few times yourself. You know it's not permanent for you, so when someone you love dies, it's hard to bear because you think you'll never see them again. I know. *puts a hand on his shoulder* But to see you so upset after all the things you've lived through and seen... it makes my heart soar like a hawk.
-Lid, who has misplaced her tact by quoting the blind grandfather from Little Big Man at a time like this, gosh.
P.S. Since you got ham radio to work in a town that's been completely drick in the city-sized flux capacitor department what with all the reapers and the Devil bein' in town, I'm fully expectin' you to: A) remember that short-wave falls outside the jurisdiction of drick and, B) keep keepin' those bananas handy for stickin' in your ear.
75. Bobby keeps Dean focused on what they have to do next and figure out what the devil is doing there. They exchange information and this is the part where Show missed a terribly good chance at having Bobby say something about why the Devil went down to Georgia because:
76. I got really giddy when Bobby started to mention the Battle of Carthage in Missouri because I am also a Civil War nut (come see my library, it's ridiculous) and I got all squirmy because that particular battle had absolutely NO TACTICAL meaning and a relatively small loss of life... and it made me get a knot in my stomach about Jo.
Dear Show,
Not only that, but the battle itself was between the U.S. military and some evangelical paramilitary militia quacks who were supposedly ON THE SAME SIDE.
Is THAT what you were aiming at? Because, Show.... The Battle of Carthage was NOT known as The Battle of Hell Hole. The battle in Hell Hole was nearly three years later in a little town in Georgia called NEW HOPE CHURCH.
Now tell me, Show, why you changed that. Is it too early for Hope?
-Lid, who is really bzuh trying to draw any kind of recognizable symbol in a map from Maryland to Colorado and back to Carthage and getting nowhere, but Georgia would have actually helped
77. Everybody is on lockdown waiting for midnight and Lucifer is quite content not to tell HIS daughter anything about what he's planning to do here, in huge contrast to Bobby, who may not be physically there but is only a banana away, and he's sharing as much knowledge as possible as long as Dean focuses and asks the right questions.
78. This is both creepy and intimately horrible and horrific. I'll come back to why.
79. Castiel has one more chance to change his mind, and I think within that time, he's figured out for himself the same conclusion that Bobby and Dean were just discussing ... more brain power than Lucifer would give him credit for.
PART 3 >
38. Because it's about TRUTH and JUSTICE. ... AND THEN, there's the American Way... which apparently involves cell phones Pocket Voyeurs.
39. But what is God's Way? We don't talk about God much.
Dean was healed by a blind man who saw that God had a bigger, unfinished plan for Dean... only Dean knew that "healing" him caused someone else to die just like always happens when things are artificially unbalanced - it will try to auto correct.
Coupled with record low levels of self worth, that messed with Dean's view of God more than a little bit, just in the sense of that being allowed to happen over and over again, especially when it was people who were deciding who deserved to live or die and then crediting God for it.
Sam still believes in God, even though he's not praying anymore, because he wants to believe that there's hope for rescue. But, would Sam still believe in God if what he's always thought was God's primary agenda... actually wasn't?
... I need more coffee for this.
40. Castiel may be trying to find God, but what does that mean? If God is God, doesn't God wanna stay... ambiguous? If God is everywhere, all-knowing, all-seeing and working Mysterious Ways™ on people, places and things, how can God show up on a tortilla in New Mexico?
The answer is YES.
41. But seriously, if anti-God is anti-American, it follows that God is American and that is ... country-ist. I mean, what about New Zealand? What if God is Australian? I have a sneaking suspicion that God is actually a tortoise living in Tibet, but that some people want God to be American so that they can feel better about all the other chicanery they're propagating.
42. Hey, guess what? I have no idea.
43. Isn't it weird how every time demons are in town, all the transmitter stuff, like cell phones and telepathy and stuff has nothing but static? Including the Impala's radio? It's like some huge, city-sized flux capacitor goes drick.
I doubt that the "PD" is gonna know anything about an entire town disappearing, but if that's where everyone is hiding with the ammunition, then that's better than the church basement, I guess. Good God, y'all. One can only hope.
44. I wondered if Castiel stayed with the girls because he thought it was best or because the boys asked him to. It doesn't really matter because if they had asked him, they were just suggesting something he'd already thought of ... he just didn't say anything.
Kind of like door handles.
45. He's probably also been staring at the reapers since they rolled into town. He waited until then to explain why he had to leave them: to find out what catastrophe was about to happen (and clearly hadn't happened yet or all the reapers would be gone).
46. And we get that camera movement again (FTW!!) We move behind Cas - who's like a pillar standing between worlds - and we see what he sees for a second... and holy crap, but Dean lucked out with Tessa is all I can say. Yeesh. Okay, luck isn't a relevant word in this case, but you know what I mean.
46½. I still really love the echoes that this camera work is implying. Because it echoes the one in the beginning of the episode, I immediately started to wonder if Crowley was more deviously involved in sending them here (as opposed to just being insulting and helpful) than first meets the eye because it's...meeting my eye. *squints*
*facepalms*
47. Cas keeps walking past them all - one reaper for every single person in town, apparently - until he reaches a building with a reaper standing INSIDE the building instead of outside... and his eyes are totally white, like a blind man. And the sign outside says JESUS SAVES the rest of you take full damage.
48. He beams into the building, right where the reaper was only a second before and to an untrained eye (HOMG SHOW THAT IS SO COOL!!!11!), he might have even seemed like the SAME, shape-shifting person to someone looking outside from under the JESUS SAVES the rest of you take full damage sign, but luckily no one is, and he walks deeper into the darkness of the building - like a tunnel or a cave - with the sounds of water dripping and everything - and all of a sudden he sees a bright light at the end. At first I thought, oh shite, Death. But no. It's Castiel's "brother". *shifty eyes*
49. Castiel: "I have sees teh Light. Teh Light, I sees it."
50. Is it just me, or does Dean seem completely un-bewildered by the fact that the po-police station is deserted and that Cas is missing since he struck off on his own to hunt reapers? Sam, however, looks totally bzuh... DOES NOT COMPUTE. I kinda love that a lot.
51. I also love that Jo does not seem all that bewildered either. She's just takin' it as it comes and being practical and did you know, that once upon a time I wanted Caroline Ingalls from Little House on the Prarie to be my mom and now I have the same feeling about Ellen because these two are rockin' so much? ... /random?
52. While we're in the basement of totally random facts, here's another one: the Ring of Fire is the name of the expanding tectonic fault in the Pacific Ocean. The exodus of continents - the shift of people away from each other in a literal and figurative sense - experiences the majority of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. It's doubly interesting if you consider that two out of three things Castiel listed as catastrophes: San Francisco and Pompeii, were an earthquake and a volcanic eruption... and the exact cause of the Great Chicago Fire remains a mystery.
53. Love is a burning flame and it makes a fiery ring
Bringing hurt to the heart's desire
I fell in the ring of fire
I fell into, into a burning ring of fire
I fell down, down, down, down into the deepest mire
and it burns, burns, burns, burns
the ring of fire, the ring of fire, the ring of fire
The taste of love is sweet
when two fiery hearts meet
I believed you like a child
Oh but the fire went wild
54. Lucifer: "Castiel, right? (translation: oh, lowly minion, I believe I have your file here somewhere) I was told you came here in an automobile? What's that like? (translation: Industry intrigues me, just not the cockroaches that make it possible... like senators.)"
55. Castiel: "It's faster than a wagon. Tell me if you've heard this one: What's black and white and red all over?"
Lucifer: "I'm red all over. You're red all over. We both wanna be tight with the Winchesters. It's hard out here for a pimp, why you hatin'? I am he and you are he and we are all together. Come be my boo boo."
Castiel: "I am the walrus. You are an element'ry penguin."
56. Wait. Lucifer was TOLD that Castiel was coming with the Winchesters? WHO TOLD HIM? *looks around*
57. Oh. Crap.
58. Dean wants to shoot her in the face, which would be awesome except for how she doesn't seem all that worried about it. That makes me wonder if it would actually work and think maybe it definitely won't... which really freaks me out a hell of a lot. Also, hi, there's hell hounds all over the place waiting to pounce on the four of them if he does shoot her and they sound like they're growling and then burping and I was trying to be serious, Show, and be skurred, but I couldn't be skurred because there were invisible burping hell hounds and I can't un-hear it.
No. Seriously.
59. So instead of shooting her in the face, Dean shoots a burping hell hound in the face and they all run. Well well, that was an excellent good idea, righto.
60. The splashes in the water, Show, to make them visible and skeery is so awesome that I nearly forgot about the burping.
RUN MUTHER HEIFERS, RUN.
61. And I get to see things from the monsters hunters hellhounds' point of view, which is interesting because when Meg said they were Dean's favorite it was like that time when Dean said that Ruby was Sam's favorite and it made me cringe and wonder WHAT THE HELL DOES THAT MEAN. Also, it gave me tunnel vision.
62. When Dean gets taken down this time, they don't immediately rip into him... which was weird. And then Dean says to Jo to stay back and in my weird brain, something made me think that if she had, those hellhounds would be rolling around on their backs and licking his face like a puppy in about two seconds flat. Because you can kick a dog and it will still love you. Um.
63. But Jo doesn't stay back because she LOVES him and she starts shooting hell hounds and drawing blood just like Dean did ... only she's never been to hell and she shouldn't be able to see them, so she's either a scary good judge of burp distance or she can see them, which ... doesn't make any sense. Unless it does. In which case ... oh, crap.
64. JO!!!!!!!1!!! See oh, crap.
65. The nearest hardware store should have the best stock of everything they will need to hold off the devil and his creepy ass info-maniac daughter. MAKE A NOTE, BOYS.
66. I'm just telling you right now, if anyone else asks again at a convention what these two would do if the Apocalypse really happened, I fully expect them to mention that they've already bought stock in Lowes and Home Depot because CLEARLY *hands*.
67. There is not enough ANTIFREEZE salt on this earth. I feel like playing rock, paper, scissors, lizard, Spock with all the weird uses of the five elements in this episode so far and what they are pointing to, but I'm left wondering whether it's on purpose or if it's just awesome coincidence. Because I'm obsessed, that's why.
68. Dean carries Jo. DEAN CARRIES JO. She's bleeding all over the place. I got finger-biting flashbacks to No Rest For The Wicked right then because you all know that's what Sam would have done if he could have. *cringes even more*
ALL OVER THE PLACE. He has GOT to be covered with it from carrying her. But everything immediately after this is tight shots and we are spared the visual of that idea, except for how I'm dark and creepy and I just made you imagine it anyway. Aren't you glad you came?
Also, all I can hear is her gasping for breath.
They're all looking at each other with this defeated shudder and Jo sees it and OH, dear JO. OH, ELLEN. *covers mouth* THIS. IS NOT. HAPPENING.
69. Sam helps her because he can't bear not to. Dean doesn't help because he can't bear to. *bites lips*
70. He isn't stupid and he isn't blind. He knows she's dying and he has to make her death mean something. He doesn't even know what it is he's going to do yet, but he's going to show her that he's doing everything he can to make something meaningful happen fast so that she knows it. *hugs Dean*
70½. I'm pretty sure that Sam knows all of that, too, but he can't help voicing how he feels... trapped by the whole situation, like rats in an invisible maze, possibly with a guy in a trench coat and a fedora.
71. Hey Sam,
I've got the number for this really great labyrinth girl named Ariadne. Did you know? The greatest maze ever built was for the King's daughter to dance in and later it was the only place that could contain the monster that was both man and bull. I bet you knew that, since it doesn't have ANYTHING to do with all the motel rooms that had bullfighting themes over the past two years.
-Lid, who is holding a red cape
P.S. ... TORO.
"Then it seemed like falling into a labyrinth: we thought we were at the finish, but our way bent round and we found ourselves as it were back at the beginning, and just as far from that which we were seeking at first." -- Socrates
72. Dean makes a short wave radio out of a lighter, a battery, a magnet, two bananas and some duct tape. Bobby, meanwhile, is calling him on his cell phone because he just found something in The Book of Revelation of That John Guy that made him pop a few pills.
73. Bobby hears static.
Dear Bobby,
You know what I do when I hear static? I think the angels are coming. Or, you know, a ghost.
-Lid
P.S. Oh wait. My bad. It's just Dean.
74. Dear Dean,
You've died a few times yourself. You know it's not permanent for you, so when someone you love dies, it's hard to bear because you think you'll never see them again. I know. *puts a hand on his shoulder* But to see you so upset after all the things you've lived through and seen... it makes my heart soar like a hawk.
-Lid, who has misplaced her tact by quoting the blind grandfather from Little Big Man at a time like this, gosh.
P.S. Since you got ham radio to work in a town that's been completely drick in the city-sized flux capacitor department what with all the reapers and the Devil bein' in town, I'm fully expectin' you to: A) remember that short-wave falls outside the jurisdiction of drick and, B) keep keepin' those bananas handy for stickin' in your ear.
75. Bobby keeps Dean focused on what they have to do next and figure out what the devil is doing there. They exchange information and this is the part where Show missed a terribly good chance at having Bobby say something about why the Devil went down to Georgia because:
76. I got really giddy when Bobby started to mention the Battle of Carthage in Missouri because I am also a Civil War nut (come see my library, it's ridiculous) and I got all squirmy because that particular battle had absolutely NO TACTICAL meaning and a relatively small loss of life... and it made me get a knot in my stomach about Jo.
Dear Show,
Not only that, but the battle itself was between the U.S. military and some evangelical paramilitary militia quacks who were supposedly ON THE SAME SIDE.
Is THAT what you were aiming at? Because, Show.... The Battle of Carthage was NOT known as The Battle of Hell Hole. The battle in Hell Hole was nearly three years later in a little town in Georgia called NEW HOPE CHURCH.
Now tell me, Show, why you changed that. Is it too early for Hope?
-Lid, who is really bzuh trying to draw any kind of recognizable symbol in a map from Maryland to Colorado and back to Carthage and getting nowhere, but Georgia would have actually helped
77. Everybody is on lockdown waiting for midnight and Lucifer is quite content not to tell HIS daughter anything about what he's planning to do here, in huge contrast to Bobby, who may not be physically there but is only a banana away, and he's sharing as much knowledge as possible as long as Dean focuses and asks the right questions.
78. This is both creepy and intimately horrible and horrific. I'll come back to why.
79. Castiel has one more chance to change his mind, and I think within that time, he's figured out for himself the same conclusion that Bobby and Dean were just discussing ... more brain power than Lucifer would give him credit for.
PART 3 >