Reaction: Supernatural 6.01
Been so long since I did one of these, I forgot the format. Picspam is unfortunately not logo-free for this ep due to technical difficulties beyond my control. Sorry to disappoint.
Contains profanity, pondering, and positivity. If any of these bother you as a reaction to this episode, this is not the reaction post for you.
Spoiler Summary
Almost nothing for Episode 1. Seriously, an entire summer hiatus and nearly nothing for the premiere.
The only thing I have wasn't even a spoiler, just an inference. I got an... odd... reaction when I used my Fred!YED 'Howdy' icon, which makes me think... YED's back??? Must be a hallucination of some kind. Maybe. Especially if it's Fred!YED, because the janitor is dead, and the Colt took out YED. But still, even as a hallucination, that'd be awesome. OMG FRED!YED. \o/
Onward.
Picspam Reaction, with speculation and randomness for Supernatural 6.01 - Exile on Main Street
...hmm. Intriguing. *ponders*
-One year has passed. Duly noted.
-[Hm. The coloring on the 'Now' is a bit 'djinn-magic-fingers' colored...]
-No musical montage??? *pouts* Ahh. There's music. "Beautiful Loser?" Hm.
-Life then and now montage is kind of cool and also unutterably sad.
-Ha! Dean has a truck. [And a lunch box. OMG Bwah. And a new coat. Awwwww.]
-Construction. Unexpected. Maybe auto repair was too painful or something. Also BWAH! at Dean using assorted tools for their designed purposes instead of splitching vampires and whatnot.
-Barbecues. Yep. As always, regardless of the situation, Dean adapts. *nods*
-Aw, Ben and Dean at the truck. ...Hey. Dean's t-shirt has a logo. Dean's t-shirts never have a logo. OH MY GOD, THE WARDROBE'S BEEN REPLACED!!! Of course it has. O.O I... all the plaid... Aw. *raises a toast* [*waves at the Impala under the car cover in the background*]
-And of course, the gun and holy water is never too far away. Because while Dean adapts, he doesn't change when it comes to protecting family, even if the family is new.
-Interesting title card. Shattering glass, reversed text through the glass... [And everything's a bit that shade of blue...] hm. That has some fascinating implications.
-Title: "Exile on Main St." Oh, wait, I had seen that somewhere, but I'd forgotten it. [Yay, beer continuity! *waves at 'El Sol' beer sign* Whiiiich was the beer that had an ad that Dean got his djinn!world wife from... I'm reading too much into this aren't I? Yeah. Maybe.]
-Credits! Hi Jim Beaver! Hi... wait, what? Mitch Pileggi?? Grandpa's back?? So, time travel or hallucination, okay... *waves hi at Fred's credit and nods* Yep.
-"Crap jobs that nobody else wanted. (...) Pest control." Hee! Very true. Aw Dean. Your buddy here is pinging my 'secretly evil' buttons, but it's good to find ways to share. *pats*
-Hey, that waitress looked like Sarah from Provenance, kind of. [Naw. I was fooled by the very white teeth and the eyebrows. So much so that I didn't notice the FREAKING DJINN TATTOO! Shoulder. See it? So. She gave Dean the poison in the beer. Or more likely when she did that little lingering arm grope. Okay, that answers one question I wasn't too worried about. Show is getting sneakier.]
-"Unavailable." Awwwww. *smishes Dean*
-[I believe that odd pyramid-of-balls streetlight indicates that this was filmed in Gastown in the Lower Mainland, but I could be wrong.]
-Written by Sera Gamble, no surprise. Directed by Phil Sgriccia, also no surprise.
-Poster: DJ Sam. Is that what he's been doing? Got out of Lucifer's Cage and started scratching vinyl at night clubs? [Actually, Lucifer's Cage would be a heck of a name for a night club.]
-Screams and running around in the dark, and claw marks in the wall and blood... and then he actually talks to the cops like a regular person might. Wild. Oh wait. "Been a cop for a long time." Ha. He's lying to them. You never get out of the family business. *glee*
-[Devil's trap under the rug. I cannot believe I missed seeing the Devil's trap under the rug. Yeah, you never get out of the family business.]
-Following the trail again. It's a dream, right? That laundry's a little too cinematic...
-HA! IT'S EVEN THE SAME DOG ACTOR FROM YELLOW FEVER! Minus the bow! Isn't it? XD *lols forever* Dean's got serious Yorkie issues. Even the dog he mentions way back in "Devil's Trap" to the fire department, wasn't that a Yorkie too?
-"Possums kill." *snerk*
-Sulfur! Which, thanks to my office's Queen of TMI, I recently learned is good for curing gout. What implications that may have for the nature of demons, I have no idea.
-EEEE!! CAR! CAR! HI CAR! HI! *WAVES LIKE AN IDIOT* [doesn't screencap worth beans]
-"Just gettin' a hammer!" *snort* suuuuuure. Nice cover.
-Lisa is very understanding. Like Batman's butler level of understanding, almost. Rather awesome.
-Jacket! Journal! Aww! Don't worry, I'm sure you'll be out of storage soon.
-Heh, flickering bulb. Would a compact fluorescent be effected the same way by a demonic presence? They don't have a filament after all. *ponders*
-Balls that bounce when there is no apparent source of them moving are creepy. See also "The Changeling"
-Aaaaand is it? Is it?? Yep! HI FRED!YED! \o/ 'Hiya'? Not 'Howdy'? Now I really know you're a hallucination.
-"Look what the Apocalypse shook loose"? Hunh. What does Dean's subconscious think the Colt does when it shoots things that aren't Lucifer?
-Hey! The audio feed edited out a word there! Must attempt to lipread later. ["Add a little spice to all that (-) sugar." Okay, on rewatch and slow-mo, it isn't an edited word, it's just an... odd tongue-bite facial gesture thing. The audio is still there and has moist tongue moving noises. Weird.]
-"Really? After all we've been through together?" Hee!
-"Did you really think you were gonna get to keep all of this? You had to know that we were coming for you." Yep. Exactly. Everything else aside, a lot of evil things still have valid reasons for wanting Dean to die or suffer.
-... Um. So Sam saves Dean by injecting him with a white fluid. ...maybe something milk-based, or spinal-fluid-based? Yeah. *koff*
-*absolutely does not facepalm through the entire commercial break*
-[Actually, given the live capture at the end of this episode gives me a really nasty feeling about how "Grandpa Samuel" is getting his miracle Djinn antidote. O.O]
-Hi Sam! If you are actually Sam.
-Poisoned. Oh it was totally the neighbor. *nods* [Or not.]
-"Yellow-eyes. That's what you saw?" Well, given Yellow-eyes was the big bad for the Winchester family from 1983 to 2007, it's only understandable that he'd have a bigger imprint on Dean's subconscious architecture. And Fred!YED was the incarnation they interacted with most. Yep. *nods*
-"I'm real." Says possibly-unreal-Sam. And then proceeds to prove it without Dean directly being involved in the testing process... Hmm...
-Punch him. Aw, hugs. Okay, fine, hug him first, then punch him.
-"[Castiel] hasn't answered my prayers." ...Castiel was answering prayers? What? Since when? And since when has Sam been praying to Castiel? Nope. Something isn't right here. I'm thinking that's a deliberate 'not right' moment and not a random script-pit 'whatever, lol' moment.
-"And I'm lying in that field, alone." Except it wasn't a field, it was a graveyard. That's... another 'not-right' thing, really close to the others. [Okay. Call me paranoid, but the show-runners and writers know fans are hyper-analytical and jump on little inconsistencies. This little cluster of inconsistencies, all at once, right when we're trying to see if this actually is Sam or just something Sam-shaped? And Dean wouldn't see it because there's something alive and not overtly evil and Sam-shaped right in front of him and he's too busy being boggled and emotionally fubared to notice? Yeah, somethings wrong. *nods*]
-Weeks. Oh, no, wait, it was almost the whole year while you were thinking he was dead. PUNCH HIM DEAN. I can understand Sam's reasoning, and can see its validity, but punch him anyway. I would. Gah.
-"You wanted a family." Uh, Dean had a family. You (and Bobby and Castiel), you well-meaning dumbass. Sam's attitude of 'I know what you want so I'm making you accept it' is a bit annoying, but it's absolutely Sammish. And yeah, Dean also wanted normal on some level, but knowing you were alive would have been, you know, nice. Seriously, Dean, punch him. Just a little.
-Family. Here. Gwen Campb- ...you're shitting me. What??? O.o [She looks like Ellen Ripley from the Aliens movies. Cool.]
-Christian and... Bart? Mark?... Campbell. And Gwen. Third cousins and a 'twice removed' (which, would he even still have the same last name?) Raised to be- Okay, this is totally still a hallucination of some kind. But, but... ALL MARY'S FAMILY AND FRIENDS AND EVERYONE WHO KNEW HER DIED!!! What the serious fuck? Hey, did Sam ever tell Dean about that stuff he found out back in early Season 3? Hm... If he didn't, there's no way Dean would know how hinky these cousins are.
-"Thought all of Mom's relatives were gone? (...) Why didn't we know about any of you?" Yes, exactly, Dean! Thank you!
-And hi Grandpa Campbell. Just in time to be a massive distraction from the questions just posed. Soooo.... are we still hallucinating? On some level? Or is it all a plot? Ooo.... Ooo. It could be... Nifty! *cackles*
-Resurrections. Hm... All of them? I guess... or... gah! Brain hurts. *headdesk*
-Jem? Djinn? Can't be Djinn, Djinn work differently. [Except they are Djinn, who do work differently. According to the impossible people. Okay fine.]
-Aaaaand it's imperil the allies time? Yep! Getting emotionally connected to a Winchester drops your life expectancy waaaay down.
-Aw, was this another cousin-uncle-three-times-removed hallucinatory/monster-in-disguise? I think I'll call him Leonard. Poor Cousin Leonard, we hardly knew yah. At all. Really.
-Hey, either one of those photos is a flopped print or Dean and Ben were in a right-hand drive vehicle at some point. [Or as it turns out, my TV screen is so woeful I couldn't tell it was actually a photo of Ben behind the wheel of the truck with Dean in the passenger seat.]
-"We were at the movies, you knew that." Ah, the tragic loss of poor unknown cousin Leonard becomes even more tragic, as he died failing to protect an empty house. Actually, cousin Leonard kind of sucked. [That is, if cousin Leonard wasn't just a random corpse-inna-car they parked outside Lisa's house for verisimilitude while Dean was unconscious to cover this whole fake hallucinatory, I don't know what but something's wrong here and I'm really reading too much into this. *moves on*]
-Hi Bobby! "Dammit!" Yup, that about covers it.
-"Assume it's all loaded." Never ever change, Bobby. \o/
-BOBBY KNEW TOO??? OMG! PUNCH- um. PUNCH SAM!
-Even so, given Bobby's past and recent experiences re: his wife, I understand his reasoning here too and see its validity. It's just really painful.
-Yay for desperate!research!smart!Dean. It's off-screen but it's there.
-"Those things are coming for me, and I should've known." Yep, you should've known. And since you had devil's traps, guns and holy water lurking around and were still carrying a weapon with you, you did know, and were doing what you could to keep everyone safe. You just didn't expect possibly hallucinatory undead family members djinn.
-Lisa has a good coat. What is it with coats on TV? Do they all know mine is crap?
-"You're an idiot." Yes he is, but he's a well-meaning heroic idiot and we love him for it anyway. *pats Dean*
-"A guy that Ben could look up to." Aw. Aw Lisa. "Best year of my life." Seriously? Wow. O.O
-Okay, it's driving me nuts. What the hell kind of car is Sam driving?? It almost looks Mustang-ish around the headlights. [2008 Dodge Charger, I think. That took way too much Googling.]
-I really do not trust the 'cousins'. I just have feeling like they're vampires or some other kind of monster pretending to be 'cousins'. Like I said above, Sam did all his own tests and no one tested the cousins or Grandpa, who showed up conveniently in time to distract Dean from questioning. They could all be something other than they claim. Or it could all be a hallucination still. *is paranoid*
-Golf. Ah, a poke at Jensen's hobby, yes? Also a very logical choice of sport for Dean. *nods* It's a sport that involves a lot of bullshitting, frequently a lot of beer among the players, and convenient weighted clubs which can be readily adapted into weapons with no modification. Beer, bullshit and improvised weaponry. It's like golf was made for Dean. Makes absolutely perfect sense. *nods again*
-Aw, Dean reminds Grandpa Campbell of Mary. And yet if this is some thing other than actual!undead!Grandpa Campbell, this is a huge emotional manipulation on his/her/its part and still serving to distract Dean (and the audience) from questioning what's going on.
-It's a monster's ball! Apocalypse is over, the big guys aren't stomping around anymore, party time for all and sundry. Yep.
-"You don't know what you're part of, Dean." Oh really. Vampires on the Mayflower. Hunh....
-Which cousin is ths one with the not talking, and why is that? Is he actually some kind of monster that would give itself away if it talked too much? Maybe a Siren? They can shapeshift after all... *ponders*
-Three djinn in... trees? Wha? I was unaware that Djinn are arboreal. Must be part of the 'half-moon werewolf' issue. Yeah. *handwaves*
-Um. Dean? With the lights on, you can't see anything outside but your reflection unless whatever's outside is lit too. You know this. Oh, wait, you're drawing them into attack, so you are making yourself an easy target. Ah... *nods* [Except it's still light out the back window while it was dark out the front... aw nuts. No, no, wait, maybe... uh... gimme a minute, I'm rusty after the hiatus... Ah! There's a big storm system passing in the direction of the front side of the house, and the back side is clear. Sure. See that kind of thing around here all the time. *handwaves*]
-"Do you remember it? The Cage." The Cage! Thank you! Not Hell. And you may be able to relate, Dean, but you should know better than anyone that talking about it won't be on Sam's 'things to do' list for... hm. Depends if this is really Sam or not. I'd say, depending on how this 'sudden cousin invasion' turns out and the implications it has, Sam won't talk about the Cage until for a very long while. 6 or 8 episodes. Or never.
-Well, if the neighbors aren't evil, they're dead. That was a given.
-Ooo, nice tatts. Retractable. Must be handy for job interviews.
-Golf clubs. See? What was I saying? Like I said, golf is a sport with frequent ready access to beer and weapons. Let's see you try and subdue a Djinn with a football, Sammy. *nods*
-Ooo, hallucinations. Hallucination cam! Wheeee!
-OMG LISA CEILING FIRE AND BEN WITH THE- jeeeeeez, Dean. O.O [...aaand ya know, Ben's got at least half-archangel-vessel bloodline so if this was YED and not a hallucination, feeding Ben demon blood for a second go round at trying to pop Big L out of the Cage again might be a viable plan. Ooo. Except of course it's all a hallucination, (ETA: And also it doesn't matter because Ben's almost certainly not biologically Dean's although my subconcious and possibly Dean's thinks so, at least at seven minutes to one AM or while under the influence of a double-dose of djinn-juice respectively) but still. Eeek.]
-...A live capture...? That's... hunh. That's really suspect. Particularly since they got Sam out or the room first... [So. 'Grandpa Campbell' and all the little assorted 'Campbells' have something they are keeping from Sam and Dean regarding Djinn. Or maybe monsters in general. Sam so far has been pretty Sammish, so if he is something other than Sam, he may not be aware of it. The Campbells are definitely not to be trusted, but this does imply that the Djinn weren't willing assistants in whatever is going on. Hm. Some ploy to get Dean back hunting again? Something to get him out of cover? I don't know. Something's not right, and it's going to be interesting finding out what it is.]
-Aw. Lisa onna mini-bike. Hee!
-[Just taking a moment to evaluate Sam's hair. Looks a bit helmet-ish in this particular scene, but his hair does tend to clench on occasion. It wasn't distracting me one way or another in earlier scenes, so I think it's livable. *nods*]
-"No." No? Why? What? Ohhh. Of course. Lisa and Ben are pretty much screwed if he leaves. See, Dean's been living at the same place for a year, and from his perspective (regardless of whether this was all a set-up by the 'Campbells' or not), the monsters have started showing up on the doorstep. Leaving Lisa and Ben on their own, they have very limited experience with monster defense, even after a year of picking up bits from Dean who has done some around the house defenses, but given his and Lisa's earlier conversation in the episode, it isn't something he's been avidly teaching them, and since Dean's location info might have been uploaded to Monster Facebook or whatever, unless Lisa and Ben pull up stakes and leave town, they're going to be in danger as bargaining chips on getting Dean's attention, or as bait for a trap, or as 'shifter templates, or... Yeah. So. Dean's choice here is to let Sam go off with a group of people he's obviously comfortable hunting with, who seem to have his back even though they're obviously evil fakes and stay with two people who he's come to consider as family to protect them from danger he feels he's brought them into, or go with Sam who doesn't appear to need him too much anymore (ow), and leave Lisa and Ben undefended. There isn't even a choice there. Of course he'd stay, even though it probably hurts like Hell to not be back hunting with Sam, at least he knows Sam's (apparently) alive, well, and backed up tactically, and they can call each other, or email, or visit anytime they want to. Of course it's all going to go to hell, but right now, this is the most logical decision Dean could make, given his character. *nods*
-Or what Dean said. *nods again*
-Wha? Wouldn't even think to try? Come on, Sam. You care. Now I'm starting to wonder if you aren't something other-than-Sam. [Oh, wait. It's Sam. Only Sam could look like this. XD]
-Impala handoff attempt. Oh. Oh Dean. (Did he call her Hunter? If so, Awwwww. [Nope. "She should be hunting, take her." Also very true. Also awwwww.])
-Um, Dean? Not to harsh your new found state of calm, but there's still dead or incapacitated people (or things that look like people) in your house. Tricky to explain. Might be traumatic for the mundanes. Oh, and your neighbors are dead, maybe. Your life is going to involve a lot of cops in the very near future.
Hm. Interesting. Kind of a Pyrrhic start to the season, but I can see all kinds of things developing from it. More of a setup for a gradual reintegration and a possible ton of 'things are not what they seem' down the road. That title card with the reversed text... hm. Something is not right here, and it's not Dean.
Oh and by the way, speaking of Campbells? Those of you who know Joseph Campbell? Refusal of the call to adventure and refusal of the return. Possibly. Just sayin'. ;-D
(PLEASE, NO SPOILERS OR REFERENCES TO SPOILERY MATERIAL IN COMMENTS! Any and all promo material for unaired episodes is considered to be a spoiler in this journal. The further definition of what constitutes a spoiler for this journal is located in left hand sidebar. Theory and speculation based on aired episodes only.)
Contains profanity, pondering, and positivity. If any of these bother you as a reaction to this episode, this is not the reaction post for you.
Spoiler Summary
Almost nothing for Episode 1. Seriously, an entire summer hiatus and nearly nothing for the premiere.
The only thing I have wasn't even a spoiler, just an inference. I got an... odd... reaction when I used my Fred!YED 'Howdy' icon, which makes me think... YED's back??? Must be a hallucination of some kind. Maybe. Especially if it's Fred!YED, because the janitor is dead, and the Colt took out YED. But still, even as a hallucination, that'd be awesome. OMG FRED!YED. \o/
Onward.
Picspam Reaction, with speculation and randomness for Supernatural 6.01 - Exile on Main Street
...hmm. Intriguing. *ponders*
-One year has passed. Duly noted.
-[Hm. The coloring on the 'Now' is a bit 'djinn-magic-fingers' colored...]
-No musical montage??? *pouts* Ahh. There's music. "Beautiful Loser?" Hm.
-Life then and now montage is kind of cool and also unutterably sad.
-Ha! Dean has a truck. [And a lunch box. OMG Bwah. And a new coat. Awwwww.]
-Construction. Unexpected. Maybe auto repair was too painful or something. Also BWAH! at Dean using assorted tools for their designed purposes instead of splitching vampires and whatnot.
-Barbecues. Yep. As always, regardless of the situation, Dean adapts. *nods*
-Aw, Ben and Dean at the truck. ...Hey. Dean's t-shirt has a logo. Dean's t-shirts never have a logo. OH MY GOD, THE WARDROBE'S BEEN REPLACED!!! Of course it has. O.O I... all the plaid... Aw. *raises a toast* [*waves at the Impala under the car cover in the background*]
-And of course, the gun and holy water is never too far away. Because while Dean adapts, he doesn't change when it comes to protecting family, even if the family is new.
-Interesting title card. Shattering glass, reversed text through the glass... [And everything's a bit that shade of blue...] hm. That has some fascinating implications.
-Title: "Exile on Main St." Oh, wait, I had seen that somewhere, but I'd forgotten it. [Yay, beer continuity! *waves at 'El Sol' beer sign* Whiiiich was the beer that had an ad that Dean got his djinn!world wife from... I'm reading too much into this aren't I? Yeah. Maybe.]
-Credits! Hi Jim Beaver! Hi... wait, what? Mitch Pileggi?? Grandpa's back?? So, time travel or hallucination, okay... *waves hi at Fred's credit and nods* Yep.
-"Crap jobs that nobody else wanted. (...) Pest control." Hee! Very true. Aw Dean. Your buddy here is pinging my 'secretly evil' buttons, but it's good to find ways to share. *pats*
-Hey, that waitress looked like Sarah from Provenance, kind of. [Naw. I was fooled by the very white teeth and the eyebrows. So much so that I didn't notice the FREAKING DJINN TATTOO! Shoulder. See it? So. She gave Dean the poison in the beer. Or more likely when she did that little lingering arm grope. Okay, that answers one question I wasn't too worried about. Show is getting sneakier.]
-"Unavailable." Awwwww. *smishes Dean*
-[I believe that odd pyramid-of-balls streetlight indicates that this was filmed in Gastown in the Lower Mainland, but I could be wrong.]
-Written by Sera Gamble, no surprise. Directed by Phil Sgriccia, also no surprise.
-Poster: DJ Sam. Is that what he's been doing? Got out of Lucifer's Cage and started scratching vinyl at night clubs? [Actually, Lucifer's Cage would be a heck of a name for a night club.]
-Screams and running around in the dark, and claw marks in the wall and blood... and then he actually talks to the cops like a regular person might. Wild. Oh wait. "Been a cop for a long time." Ha. He's lying to them. You never get out of the family business. *glee*
-[Devil's trap under the rug. I cannot believe I missed seeing the Devil's trap under the rug. Yeah, you never get out of the family business.]
-Following the trail again. It's a dream, right? That laundry's a little too cinematic...
-HA! IT'S EVEN THE SAME DOG ACTOR FROM YELLOW FEVER! Minus the bow! Isn't it? XD *lols forever* Dean's got serious Yorkie issues. Even the dog he mentions way back in "Devil's Trap" to the fire department, wasn't that a Yorkie too?
-"Possums kill." *snerk*
-Sulfur! Which, thanks to my office's Queen of TMI, I recently learned is good for curing gout. What implications that may have for the nature of demons, I have no idea.
-EEEE!! CAR! CAR! HI CAR! HI! *WAVES LIKE AN IDIOT* [doesn't screencap worth beans]
-"Just gettin' a hammer!" *snort* suuuuuure. Nice cover.
-Lisa is very understanding. Like Batman's butler level of understanding, almost. Rather awesome.
-Jacket! Journal! Aww! Don't worry, I'm sure you'll be out of storage soon.
-Heh, flickering bulb. Would a compact fluorescent be effected the same way by a demonic presence? They don't have a filament after all. *ponders*
-Balls that bounce when there is no apparent source of them moving are creepy. See also "The Changeling"
-Aaaaand is it? Is it?? Yep! HI FRED!YED! \o/ 'Hiya'? Not 'Howdy'? Now I really know you're a hallucination.
-"Look what the Apocalypse shook loose"? Hunh. What does Dean's subconscious think the Colt does when it shoots things that aren't Lucifer?
-Hey! The audio feed edited out a word there! Must attempt to lipread later. ["Add a little spice to all that (-) sugar." Okay, on rewatch and slow-mo, it isn't an edited word, it's just an... odd tongue-bite facial gesture thing. The audio is still there and has moist tongue moving noises. Weird.]
-"Really? After all we've been through together?" Hee!
-"Did you really think you were gonna get to keep all of this? You had to know that we were coming for you." Yep. Exactly. Everything else aside, a lot of evil things still have valid reasons for wanting Dean to die or suffer.
-... Um. So Sam saves Dean by injecting him with a white fluid. ...maybe something milk-based, or spinal-fluid-based? Yeah. *koff*
-*absolutely does not facepalm through the entire commercial break*
-[Actually, given the live capture at the end of this episode gives me a really nasty feeling about how "Grandpa Samuel" is getting his miracle Djinn antidote. O.O]
-Hi Sam! If you are actually Sam.
-Poisoned. Oh it was totally the neighbor. *nods* [Or not.]
-"Yellow-eyes. That's what you saw?" Well, given Yellow-eyes was the big bad for the Winchester family from 1983 to 2007, it's only understandable that he'd have a bigger imprint on Dean's subconscious architecture. And Fred!YED was the incarnation they interacted with most. Yep. *nods*
-"I'm real." Says possibly-unreal-Sam. And then proceeds to prove it without Dean directly being involved in the testing process... Hmm...
-Punch him. Aw, hugs. Okay, fine, hug him first, then punch him.
-"[Castiel] hasn't answered my prayers." ...Castiel was answering prayers? What? Since when? And since when has Sam been praying to Castiel? Nope. Something isn't right here. I'm thinking that's a deliberate 'not right' moment and not a random script-pit 'whatever, lol' moment.
-"And I'm lying in that field, alone." Except it wasn't a field, it was a graveyard. That's... another 'not-right' thing, really close to the others. [Okay. Call me paranoid, but the show-runners and writers know fans are hyper-analytical and jump on little inconsistencies. This little cluster of inconsistencies, all at once, right when we're trying to see if this actually is Sam or just something Sam-shaped? And Dean wouldn't see it because there's something alive and not overtly evil and Sam-shaped right in front of him and he's too busy being boggled and emotionally fubared to notice? Yeah, somethings wrong. *nods*]
-Weeks. Oh, no, wait, it was almost the whole year while you were thinking he was dead. PUNCH HIM DEAN. I can understand Sam's reasoning, and can see its validity, but punch him anyway. I would. Gah.
-"You wanted a family." Uh, Dean had a family. You (and Bobby and Castiel), you well-meaning dumbass. Sam's attitude of 'I know what you want so I'm making you accept it' is a bit annoying, but it's absolutely Sammish. And yeah, Dean also wanted normal on some level, but knowing you were alive would have been, you know, nice. Seriously, Dean, punch him. Just a little.
-Family. Here. Gwen Campb- ...you're shitting me. What??? O.o [She looks like Ellen Ripley from the Aliens movies. Cool.]
-Christian and... Bart? Mark?... Campbell. And Gwen. Third cousins and a 'twice removed' (which, would he even still have the same last name?) Raised to be- Okay, this is totally still a hallucination of some kind. But, but... ALL MARY'S FAMILY AND FRIENDS AND EVERYONE WHO KNEW HER DIED!!! What the serious fuck? Hey, did Sam ever tell Dean about that stuff he found out back in early Season 3? Hm... If he didn't, there's no way Dean would know how hinky these cousins are.
-"Thought all of Mom's relatives were gone? (...) Why didn't we know about any of you?" Yes, exactly, Dean! Thank you!
-And hi Grandpa Campbell. Just in time to be a massive distraction from the questions just posed. Soooo.... are we still hallucinating? On some level? Or is it all a plot? Ooo.... Ooo. It could be... Nifty! *cackles*
-Resurrections. Hm... All of them? I guess... or... gah! Brain hurts. *headdesk*
-Jem? Djinn? Can't be Djinn, Djinn work differently. [Except they are Djinn, who do work differently. According to the impossible people. Okay fine.]
-Aaaaand it's imperil the allies time? Yep! Getting emotionally connected to a Winchester drops your life expectancy waaaay down.
-Aw, was this another cousin-uncle-three-times-removed hallucinatory/monster-in-disguise? I think I'll call him Leonard. Poor Cousin Leonard, we hardly knew yah. At all. Really.
-Hey, either one of those photos is a flopped print or Dean and Ben were in a right-hand drive vehicle at some point. [Or as it turns out, my TV screen is so woeful I couldn't tell it was actually a photo of Ben behind the wheel of the truck with Dean in the passenger seat.]
-"We were at the movies, you knew that." Ah, the tragic loss of poor unknown cousin Leonard becomes even more tragic, as he died failing to protect an empty house. Actually, cousin Leonard kind of sucked. [That is, if cousin Leonard wasn't just a random corpse-inna-car they parked outside Lisa's house for verisimilitude while Dean was unconscious to cover this whole fake hallucinatory, I don't know what but something's wrong here and I'm really reading too much into this. *moves on*]
-Hi Bobby! "Dammit!" Yup, that about covers it.
-"Assume it's all loaded." Never ever change, Bobby. \o/
-BOBBY KNEW TOO??? OMG! PUNCH- um. PUNCH SAM!
-Even so, given Bobby's past and recent experiences re: his wife, I understand his reasoning here too and see its validity. It's just really painful.
-Yay for desperate!research!smart!Dean. It's off-screen but it's there.
-"Those things are coming for me, and I should've known." Yep, you should've known. And since you had devil's traps, guns and holy water lurking around and were still carrying a weapon with you, you did know, and were doing what you could to keep everyone safe. You just didn't expect possibly hallucinatory undead family members djinn.
-Lisa has a good coat. What is it with coats on TV? Do they all know mine is crap?
-"You're an idiot." Yes he is, but he's a well-meaning heroic idiot and we love him for it anyway. *pats Dean*
-"A guy that Ben could look up to." Aw. Aw Lisa. "Best year of my life." Seriously? Wow. O.O
-Okay, it's driving me nuts. What the hell kind of car is Sam driving?? It almost looks Mustang-ish around the headlights. [2008 Dodge Charger, I think. That took way too much Googling.]
-I really do not trust the 'cousins'. I just have feeling like they're vampires or some other kind of monster pretending to be 'cousins'. Like I said above, Sam did all his own tests and no one tested the cousins or Grandpa, who showed up conveniently in time to distract Dean from questioning. They could all be something other than they claim. Or it could all be a hallucination still. *is paranoid*
-Golf. Ah, a poke at Jensen's hobby, yes? Also a very logical choice of sport for Dean. *nods* It's a sport that involves a lot of bullshitting, frequently a lot of beer among the players, and convenient weighted clubs which can be readily adapted into weapons with no modification. Beer, bullshit and improvised weaponry. It's like golf was made for Dean. Makes absolutely perfect sense. *nods again*
-Aw, Dean reminds Grandpa Campbell of Mary. And yet if this is some thing other than actual!undead!Grandpa Campbell, this is a huge emotional manipulation on his/her/its part and still serving to distract Dean (and the audience) from questioning what's going on.
-It's a monster's ball! Apocalypse is over, the big guys aren't stomping around anymore, party time for all and sundry. Yep.
-"You don't know what you're part of, Dean." Oh really. Vampires on the Mayflower. Hunh....
-Which cousin is ths one with the not talking, and why is that? Is he actually some kind of monster that would give itself away if it talked too much? Maybe a Siren? They can shapeshift after all... *ponders*
-Three djinn in... trees? Wha? I was unaware that Djinn are arboreal. Must be part of the 'half-moon werewolf' issue. Yeah. *handwaves*
-Um. Dean? With the lights on, you can't see anything outside but your reflection unless whatever's outside is lit too. You know this. Oh, wait, you're drawing them into attack, so you are making yourself an easy target. Ah... *nods* [Except it's still light out the back window while it was dark out the front... aw nuts. No, no, wait, maybe... uh... gimme a minute, I'm rusty after the hiatus... Ah! There's a big storm system passing in the direction of the front side of the house, and the back side is clear. Sure. See that kind of thing around here all the time. *handwaves*]
-"Do you remember it? The Cage." The Cage! Thank you! Not Hell. And you may be able to relate, Dean, but you should know better than anyone that talking about it won't be on Sam's 'things to do' list for... hm. Depends if this is really Sam or not. I'd say, depending on how this 'sudden cousin invasion' turns out and the implications it has, Sam won't talk about the Cage until for a very long while. 6 or 8 episodes. Or never.
-Well, if the neighbors aren't evil, they're dead. That was a given.
-Ooo, nice tatts. Retractable. Must be handy for job interviews.
-Golf clubs. See? What was I saying? Like I said, golf is a sport with frequent ready access to beer and weapons. Let's see you try and subdue a Djinn with a football, Sammy. *nods*
-Ooo, hallucinations. Hallucination cam! Wheeee!
-OMG LISA CEILING FIRE AND BEN WITH THE- jeeeeeez, Dean. O.O [...aaand ya know, Ben's got at least half-archangel-vessel bloodline so if this was YED and not a hallucination, feeding Ben demon blood for a second go round at trying to pop Big L out of the Cage again might be a viable plan. Ooo. Except of course it's all a hallucination, (ETA: And also it doesn't matter because Ben's almost certainly not biologically Dean's although my subconcious and possibly Dean's thinks so, at least at seven minutes to one AM or while under the influence of a double-dose of djinn-juice respectively) but still. Eeek.]
-...A live capture...? That's... hunh. That's really suspect. Particularly since they got Sam out or the room first... [So. 'Grandpa Campbell' and all the little assorted 'Campbells' have something they are keeping from Sam and Dean regarding Djinn. Or maybe monsters in general. Sam so far has been pretty Sammish, so if he is something other than Sam, he may not be aware of it. The Campbells are definitely not to be trusted, but this does imply that the Djinn weren't willing assistants in whatever is going on. Hm. Some ploy to get Dean back hunting again? Something to get him out of cover? I don't know. Something's not right, and it's going to be interesting finding out what it is.]
-Aw. Lisa onna mini-bike. Hee!
-[Just taking a moment to evaluate Sam's hair. Looks a bit helmet-ish in this particular scene, but his hair does tend to clench on occasion. It wasn't distracting me one way or another in earlier scenes, so I think it's livable. *nods*]
-"No." No? Why? What? Ohhh. Of course. Lisa and Ben are pretty much screwed if he leaves. See, Dean's been living at the same place for a year, and from his perspective (regardless of whether this was all a set-up by the 'Campbells' or not), the monsters have started showing up on the doorstep. Leaving Lisa and Ben on their own, they have very limited experience with monster defense, even after a year of picking up bits from Dean who has done some around the house defenses, but given his and Lisa's earlier conversation in the episode, it isn't something he's been avidly teaching them, and since Dean's location info might have been uploaded to Monster Facebook or whatever, unless Lisa and Ben pull up stakes and leave town, they're going to be in danger as bargaining chips on getting Dean's attention, or as bait for a trap, or as 'shifter templates, or... Yeah. So. Dean's choice here is to let Sam go off with a group of people he's obviously comfortable hunting with, who seem to have his back even though they're obviously evil fakes and stay with two people who he's come to consider as family to protect them from danger he feels he's brought them into, or go with Sam who doesn't appear to need him too much anymore (ow), and leave Lisa and Ben undefended. There isn't even a choice there. Of course he'd stay, even though it probably hurts like Hell to not be back hunting with Sam, at least he knows Sam's (apparently) alive, well, and backed up tactically, and they can call each other, or email, or visit anytime they want to. Of course it's all going to go to hell, but right now, this is the most logical decision Dean could make, given his character. *nods*
-Or what Dean said. *nods again*
-Wha? Wouldn't even think to try? Come on, Sam. You care. Now I'm starting to wonder if you aren't something other-than-Sam. [Oh, wait. It's Sam. Only Sam could look like this. XD]
-Impala handoff attempt. Oh. Oh Dean. (Did he call her Hunter? If so, Awwwww. [Nope. "She should be hunting, take her." Also very true. Also awwwww.])
-Um, Dean? Not to harsh your new found state of calm, but there's still dead or incapacitated people (or things that look like people) in your house. Tricky to explain. Might be traumatic for the mundanes. Oh, and your neighbors are dead, maybe. Your life is going to involve a lot of cops in the very near future.
Hm. Interesting. Kind of a Pyrrhic start to the season, but I can see all kinds of things developing from it. More of a setup for a gradual reintegration and a possible ton of 'things are not what they seem' down the road. That title card with the reversed text... hm. Something is not right here, and it's not Dean.
Oh and by the way, speaking of Campbells? Those of you who know Joseph Campbell? Refusal of the call to adventure and refusal of the return. Possibly. Just sayin'. ;-D
(PLEASE, NO SPOILERS OR REFERENCES TO SPOILERY MATERIAL IN COMMENTS! Any and all promo material for unaired episodes is considered to be a spoiler in this journal. The further definition of what constitutes a spoiler for this journal is located in left hand sidebar. Theory and speculation based on aired episodes only.)