SPN 5x06 meta/picspam: heroes, lies, and action figures
Hey, all. Am still alive! Was too zonked Friday to gather my thoughts or go on LJ. Was still a bit zonked when I put this post together. I haven't had a chance to read my flist since early Thursday evening but I'll be catching up today (also napping and house cleaning and other thrilling adventures). Also need to watch the latest Flashforward, which I'm enjoying so far.
Uh, anyway. So, there's this show, and it's got some characters in it I'm fond of. Let's hit it.
What a sad episode this is. It has its funny -- "his face froze like that!" -- but the more I look at it, the sadder it gets. I thought it was a little heavy on the anvils, but there were things I really liked. Also, where does SPN find these kids? That was the most adorable, heart-wrenching, old-souled moppet they've had on the show to date.
Turns out I had a lot to say about this one. I picspammed the key Sam and Dean and Castiel scene. Because I've been waiting for Sam and Castiel interaction this intense. *pounces*
Sam and Jesse
Sam connects to Jesse right away, seeing his latchkey life and heating up his own soup as familiar from his own childhood, and he shakes Jesse's hand -- giving Jesse his fake name, starting with a lie even as they connect. We've seen Sam do this before, identifying strongly with the MOTW person. In S1 in Nightmare, with Max, Sam feared becoming a monster was inevitable. It was Dean who said no, you're you. Jump forward to S4, Metamorphosis, Sam needed to believe the guy wouldn't become what his DNA said he'd become. Rooting for nurture over nature. And Dean, worried about Sam slipping away and turning into something different, calls out Sam's motives for thinking the guy could overcome his monster nature.
To top it all off, consider the root of the kid's name (I can't be the only one to have noticed that).
It's like he embodies everything Sam's lost and all of Sam's issues in a pint-sized package.
Possession, vessels, and free will
In an episode that's a lot about free will and choice, we get the rock-bottom ultimate in loss of choice in the story of Jesse's mom, Julia, who not only was possessed, and watched the demon use her body to kill people, but she was forced to carry a demon baby to term. (The actress did a terrific job with it, and I liked how it was filmed, with the tight focus on her eyes and mouth and cheekbone -- a way to draw the audience in to the realness of this woman and what happened to her.) This was the most visceral and horrifying condemnation the show has yet presented about what it means to be possessed. Interesting, when that demon shows up again, it has a male meatsuit, and then possesses Julia again -- so, do demons identify as one gender or the other? Maybe not, maybe they become whatever meatsuit they're in at the time.
Meanwhile, The Rapture in S4 showed that being an angel vessel is equally a loss of agency and choice and freedom, even though it has to take place by consent, and with demons it doesn't. Presumably, angels aren't as into going around slitting the throats of innocent people as demons, but they certainly aren't the good guys either. We don't know everything they drag their vessels through, although Castiel showed at least some sense of responsibility towards Jimmy and his family in The Rapture. We also know what happens to those who become vessels for the highest level of angels.
Jimmy hasn't been mentioned in S5 yet, not once in six episodes. Given that we had an episode like The Rapture towards the end of last season, I seriously doubt SPN has simply decided to drop it, even more so now that we've had Jesse's mother's story. The pointed silence of that omission is starting to yell. I've been assuming that when the archangel turned Castiel (Jimmy's body) into Chunky soup, when he was put back together, his grace was put back into that re-formed body, but Jimmy's soul wasn't. That's a sad ending for Jimmy, but it's preferable to him still being dragged around with Castiel. If we find out later on Jimmy's still in there, that makes the whorehouse scene in Free to Be really ishy (ishier still, why Dean wouldn't object to it. Yes, he's a horndog, but we've recently seen Sam and Dean's disapproval of possession).
Sam and Castiel
I noticed the scene starts with blue behind Dean and red behind Sam, while Castiel himself looks washed out (with a hint of washed out blue background). Blue and red almost always seem to be behind Dean and Sam together. Then it progresses to Dean with blue plus a hint of red. When Sam starts arguing against killing Jesse, it turns to blue behind Sam.
In 5x04, we saw how blue was a Dean color. Red...for blood? A reminder of what Sam did, what Jesse is? Dean and Sam's shots being full of color and Castiel's washed out is a reflection of the cold path Castiel's choosing -- drawing him farther out of Sam and Dean's colorful, messy, dangerous, morally ambiguous world.
So, Castiel tells Sam and Dean the adorable moppet is the anti-Christ, and they have to kill him, because Castiel is fun like that. If Lucifer gets a hold of him, Jesse will become Lucifer's weapon and "with a word, this child will destroy the host of heaven."
Sam: "Wait, we're the good guys, we don't just kill children."
Castiel: "A year ago, you would've done whatever it took to win this war."
Sam: "Things change."
Regardless of Sam's past actions, he's not coming across as self-righteous here, unaware of those actions. This is about what Sam wants to be *now*. But he's also probably not in the best position to be judging at Castiel about the decision to do something awful in the name of a greater goal. Not sure Sam is being judgmental towards Castiel -- I think he's only arguing for Jesse's life (and his own hope of redemption -- more on that below).
Sam and Castiel are glaring at each other (THANK YOU SHOW) and Dean steps in to mediate, which made me think so much of Dean stepping between John and Sam's fights in S1 -- offering a compromise, saying they can't kill Jesse but they know they can't just leave him where he is.
But Castiel says kidnapping him to Bobby's won't do any good. "You cannot imagine what it will do if it's angry." Note that Castiel calls Jesse a "thing" and "it," while to the Winchesters, Jesse is "he."
Sam: "We tell him the truth. You say Jesse's destined to go darkside, but he hasn't yet. So if we lay it all out for him, what he is, the apocalypse, everything, he might make the right choice."
Castiel: "You didn't. And I can't take that chance."
On that, Castiel disappears. Argument over. (How very passive-aggressive of him).
Here's the thing...nobody told Sam the truth. Nobody laid it all out for him, no one said, if you do this you will start the apocalypse instead of averting it. Sam hasn't once tried to duck out on his culpability; he didn't need another slap on the wrist.
He was warned not to use his powers. Nobody told him *why*, because nobody who could possibly be on their side knew about that last seal -- not until just before The Rapture and Castiel was going to tell Dean but the other angels persuaded Castiel to go another way. Castiel made bad decisions too. And nobody ever told Castiel *why* either (see the deleted scene from It's the Great Pumpkin Sam Winchester). Knowledge matters.
So I'm left with feeling Castiel was out of line, but that's not the end of it. Castiel isn't just being some self-righteous jackass, and this wasn't about him giving Sam another slap on the wrist. There's more going on here. Castiel wasn't talking about blame for the breaking of the last seal. If we want to go there about Castiel's culpability, he's in it up to his pretty neck. This was about the decisions Sam made in the course of using his powers, and Castiel did encourage Sam not to use them, long before he knew heaven's end game (not knowing that in fact heaven was trying to jigger things so Sam would use them and free Lucifer). This was about free will and its dangers, not Sam's mistakes -- Sam's mistakes were just a point in the argument. Castiel still finds free will new and scary. This was an argument with big picture dire stakes that was also about Sam and Castiel's inner struggles, and Castiel lashed out. Which is, ironically, a very human thing to do.
eta: sistermagpie has a really good post here on Castiel and his flaws. /edit
To Castiel, Sam's the example that proves free will is dangerous. Castiel's also doing what he thinks is right, but in doing so, defaulting to his old familiar habits. He's chosen a mission for himself and intends to go through with it. To Sam, Sam is the proof that free will works, that people can change and make the right choice. But also, if Castiel is right about Jesse, even though Sam has already proven himself, and made the right choice, then Sam (in Sam's view) is doomed. If Sam is right about Jesse, then Castiel is wrong. His hard-line, single-minded decision that killing Jesse is the only way, would be wrong, and in using his free will, Castiel will have done something reprehensible.
eta Just throwing this out there: The more I think about it, the more I think Castiel's issue isn't that he was reverting to old ways. It's that he's gotten his head-space more into the new way and it's a huge struggle for him. With the old way, there'd be no argument with Sam. He'd just go do it, he wouldn't try to justify it, and he certainly wouldn't have done it looking like he was going to break down into tears of regret/horror/self-loathing. It's almost like Castiel argued because he *needs* Sam and Dean to approve of why he's doing it. Also, his reasons aren't just big picture -- he's scared on behalf of the only family he's known, his angel siblings./edit
Castiel, like Sam, at first made the wrong choice, and then made the right one. In Sam's case, it was free will both times. In Castiel's, he started in obedience -- made the wrong decision by not making decisions -- and never had reason to question to question his life as a soldier of heaven or the orders he was given until he met the Winchesters. Sam and Dean, in different ways, wreaked havoc with Castiel's worldview.
Dean looks sort of annoyed/chagrined/embarrassed (excuse my buddy, he's not from around here and sometimes he's kind of a dick). He stepped in to mediate earlier, but says nothing here, but I don't take that as Dean tacitly agreeing with Castiel. Sam and Castiel's argument had gained its own momentum, Sam was holding his own just fine facing down Castiel, and maybe Dean's trying to ease up on the protective big brother thing. Sam didn't need his help there.
The flourish on all this is that when Castiel goes to kill Jesse, he's enacting a parallel to what John's final worst-case-scenario instructions to Dean regarding Sam were. Castiel's reactions reminded me of how he was in When the Levee Breaks, where he's being a real bastard but also seems to despise himself for it. Feeling bad about doing a bad thing doesn't make it okay. But Castiel has a certain amount of self-awareness, and he's often unable to figure out how to act on his feelings -- he's an angel, and angels aren't supposed to feel guilty, they aren't supposed to question their own actions. They act righteously, and that's that.
Shades of gray also aren't his thing. Sam can have screwed up, and be right now. Jesse can be potentially dangerous, and it can be wrong to kill him.
("Witches can be right, giants can be good/You decide what's right you decide what's good"--Stephen Sondheim)
Jesse had to save himself by turning Castiel into an action figure (*is never going to stop going LOL WHUT?*) and Castiel has a long way to go.
"He's a good guy," Dean says. "He's just confused." And how.
It's so perfect that in an episode that references X-Men and Superman, the most flawed, mixed-up hero in it is the one who gets turned into the actual action figure toy. I'm also having a bit of a geekgasm over The Iron Giant parallels. The movie references Superman as an ideal (but not used in the context of a lie). The ep explores The Iron Giant's message of "you are who you choose to be." It's also a retread of the Little Hitler debate.
The chill you just felt was the shadow of Gordon Walker.
Dean deals with Jesse by lying, putting a positive spin on the situation. "You're a superhero," he tells him, to be trained at a secret base on South Dakota. "Like the X-Men." (Bwaha! Bobby=Charles Xavier). "You'll save lives, you'll get the girl..."
This sounds a little too much like Zachariah's speech to Dean at the end of IATL -- "You get to change things, save people. Maybe even the world. All the while, you drive a classic car and fornicate with women." Dean is pretty much doing the same thing to Jesse, trying to nudge Jesse to where Dean needs him to go. Dean's end goals are purer, but that Dean would use the tools of one of his tormentors makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
Demons lie -- but it's the demon who shows up and tells Jesse Dean's lying and the truth about what he is. The demon tells him his parents are liars for the childhood stories they've told him.
"You're not a superhero. You're powerful. You can have anything you want. You can do anything you want."
A sense of powerlessness is what helped draw Sam into making the decisions he made in S4 -- so he could avenge Dean, so no demon could mess with his family ever again. So he could stop feeling helpless.
"They treated you like a child. Nobody trusted you. Everybody's lied to you."
In A Very Supernatural Christmas, we find out John hid the hunting from Sam for as long as he could. In S2, Sam finds out what John's last words to Dean were, save Sam or kill him, and that Dean had kept that secret from Sam. Sam lost Dean's trust in S4, and even after he proved he'd beaten his addiction to his demon powers, and proved he'd changed, it wasn't enough, not yet, and he didn't have Dean's trust back. He told Dean one reason he went off with Ruby is using his powers made him feel strong, not just Dean's kid brother. "You're going to have to let me grow up."
The demon's playing to all of Jesse's worst fears and resentments and frustrations to goad him into using his powers. It's a microcosm of the long, slow manipulation Azazel and then Ruby aimed at Sam.
But Jesse's willing to listen to Sam. The demon's version of the truth played on emotions -- Sam gives Jesse a calm summation of the facts.
"You can go with her if you want. I can't stop you. No one can. But if you do, millions of people will die."
"You're half human, too. You can do the right thing. You've got choices, Jesse, but if you make the wrong ones, it'll haunt you for the rest of your life."
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Because I have to believe someone could make the right choice, even if I couldn't."
Oh, the sweet, sweet sound of SPN-shaped anvils thudding down. But they're good anvils.
"What should I do?"
"We can't tell you. It's your choice."
That makes me think of Castiel asking Anna what he should do.
Sam tells Jesse the truth, and Jesse makes a choice to disappear, and go off alone (*waves to the Aussies on my flist* Take good care of the cute wee little anti-Christ, guys!) -- his life is pretty much ruined.
The episode caps things off with Sam and Dean both coming to the conclusion that they might've been better off if John had kept the truth from them about what was really out there.
("How do you say to your child in the night?/Nothing's all black, but then nothing's all white/How do you say it will all be all right/When you know that it might not be true?"--Stephen Sondheim)
Sam thought telling Jesse the truth was the only option, a callback to his views in Jump the Shark and The Rapture, where Sam thinks it's better people know than stay ignorant, and there's no escape. Sam here agreeing with Dean about the comfort of childhood lies, though...that's a callback to S1 Sam, in Something Wicked when he expresses his regret about the loss of innocence for the kids they saved, and Dean expresses his for Sam's. Which is in keeping with what we've seen seeing lately -- not Sam going backwards, but Sam regaining more of the essence of himself, losing some of the single-minded hardness and tunnel-vision he picked up after Dean died and went to hell.
Uh, anyway. So, there's this show, and it's got some characters in it I'm fond of. Let's hit it.
What a sad episode this is. It has its funny -- "his face froze like that!" -- but the more I look at it, the sadder it gets. I thought it was a little heavy on the anvils, but there were things I really liked. Also, where does SPN find these kids? That was the most adorable, heart-wrenching, old-souled moppet they've had on the show to date.
Turns out I had a lot to say about this one. I picspammed the key Sam and Dean and Castiel scene. Because I've been waiting for Sam and Castiel interaction this intense. *pounces*
Sam and Jesse
Sam connects to Jesse right away, seeing his latchkey life and heating up his own soup as familiar from his own childhood, and he shakes Jesse's hand -- giving Jesse his fake name, starting with a lie even as they connect. We've seen Sam do this before, identifying strongly with the MOTW person. In S1 in Nightmare, with Max, Sam feared becoming a monster was inevitable. It was Dean who said no, you're you. Jump forward to S4, Metamorphosis, Sam needed to believe the guy wouldn't become what his DNA said he'd become. Rooting for nurture over nature. And Dean, worried about Sam slipping away and turning into something different, calls out Sam's motives for thinking the guy could overcome his monster nature.
To top it all off, consider the root of the kid's name (I can't be the only one to have noticed that).
It's like he embodies everything Sam's lost and all of Sam's issues in a pint-sized package.
Possession, vessels, and free will
In an episode that's a lot about free will and choice, we get the rock-bottom ultimate in loss of choice in the story of Jesse's mom, Julia, who not only was possessed, and watched the demon use her body to kill people, but she was forced to carry a demon baby to term. (The actress did a terrific job with it, and I liked how it was filmed, with the tight focus on her eyes and mouth and cheekbone -- a way to draw the audience in to the realness of this woman and what happened to her.) This was the most visceral and horrifying condemnation the show has yet presented about what it means to be possessed. Interesting, when that demon shows up again, it has a male meatsuit, and then possesses Julia again -- so, do demons identify as one gender or the other? Maybe not, maybe they become whatever meatsuit they're in at the time.
Meanwhile, The Rapture in S4 showed that being an angel vessel is equally a loss of agency and choice and freedom, even though it has to take place by consent, and with demons it doesn't. Presumably, angels aren't as into going around slitting the throats of innocent people as demons, but they certainly aren't the good guys either. We don't know everything they drag their vessels through, although Castiel showed at least some sense of responsibility towards Jimmy and his family in The Rapture. We also know what happens to those who become vessels for the highest level of angels.
Jimmy hasn't been mentioned in S5 yet, not once in six episodes. Given that we had an episode like The Rapture towards the end of last season, I seriously doubt SPN has simply decided to drop it, even more so now that we've had Jesse's mother's story. The pointed silence of that omission is starting to yell. I've been assuming that when the archangel turned Castiel (Jimmy's body) into Chunky soup, when he was put back together, his grace was put back into that re-formed body, but Jimmy's soul wasn't. That's a sad ending for Jimmy, but it's preferable to him still being dragged around with Castiel. If we find out later on Jimmy's still in there, that makes the whorehouse scene in Free to Be really ishy (ishier still, why Dean wouldn't object to it. Yes, he's a horndog, but we've recently seen Sam and Dean's disapproval of possession).
Sam and Castiel
I noticed the scene starts with blue behind Dean and red behind Sam, while Castiel himself looks washed out (with a hint of washed out blue background). Blue and red almost always seem to be behind Dean and Sam together. Then it progresses to Dean with blue plus a hint of red. When Sam starts arguing against killing Jesse, it turns to blue behind Sam.
In 5x04, we saw how blue was a Dean color. Red...for blood? A reminder of what Sam did, what Jesse is? Dean and Sam's shots being full of color and Castiel's washed out is a reflection of the cold path Castiel's choosing -- drawing him farther out of Sam and Dean's colorful, messy, dangerous, morally ambiguous world.
So, Castiel tells Sam and Dean the adorable moppet is the anti-Christ, and they have to kill him, because Castiel is fun like that. If Lucifer gets a hold of him, Jesse will become Lucifer's weapon and "with a word, this child will destroy the host of heaven."
Sam: "Wait, we're the good guys, we don't just kill children."
Castiel: "A year ago, you would've done whatever it took to win this war."
Sam: "Things change."
Regardless of Sam's past actions, he's not coming across as self-righteous here, unaware of those actions. This is about what Sam wants to be *now*. But he's also probably not in the best position to be judging at Castiel about the decision to do something awful in the name of a greater goal. Not sure Sam is being judgmental towards Castiel -- I think he's only arguing for Jesse's life (and his own hope of redemption -- more on that below).
Sam and Castiel are glaring at each other (THANK YOU SHOW) and Dean steps in to mediate, which made me think so much of Dean stepping between John and Sam's fights in S1 -- offering a compromise, saying they can't kill Jesse but they know they can't just leave him where he is.
But Castiel says kidnapping him to Bobby's won't do any good. "You cannot imagine what it will do if it's angry." Note that Castiel calls Jesse a "thing" and "it," while to the Winchesters, Jesse is "he."
Sam: "We tell him the truth. You say Jesse's destined to go darkside, but he hasn't yet. So if we lay it all out for him, what he is, the apocalypse, everything, he might make the right choice."
Castiel: "You didn't. And I can't take that chance."
On that, Castiel disappears. Argument over. (How very passive-aggressive of him).
Here's the thing...nobody told Sam the truth. Nobody laid it all out for him, no one said, if you do this you will start the apocalypse instead of averting it. Sam hasn't once tried to duck out on his culpability; he didn't need another slap on the wrist.
He was warned not to use his powers. Nobody told him *why*, because nobody who could possibly be on their side knew about that last seal -- not until just before The Rapture and Castiel was going to tell Dean but the other angels persuaded Castiel to go another way. Castiel made bad decisions too. And nobody ever told Castiel *why* either (see the deleted scene from It's the Great Pumpkin Sam Winchester). Knowledge matters.
So I'm left with feeling Castiel was out of line, but that's not the end of it. Castiel isn't just being some self-righteous jackass, and this wasn't about him giving Sam another slap on the wrist. There's more going on here. Castiel wasn't talking about blame for the breaking of the last seal. If we want to go there about Castiel's culpability, he's in it up to his pretty neck. This was about the decisions Sam made in the course of using his powers, and Castiel did encourage Sam not to use them, long before he knew heaven's end game (not knowing that in fact heaven was trying to jigger things so Sam would use them and free Lucifer). This was about free will and its dangers, not Sam's mistakes -- Sam's mistakes were just a point in the argument. Castiel still finds free will new and scary. This was an argument with big picture dire stakes that was also about Sam and Castiel's inner struggles, and Castiel lashed out. Which is, ironically, a very human thing to do.
eta: sistermagpie has a really good post here on Castiel and his flaws. /edit
To Castiel, Sam's the example that proves free will is dangerous. Castiel's also doing what he thinks is right, but in doing so, defaulting to his old familiar habits. He's chosen a mission for himself and intends to go through with it. To Sam, Sam is the proof that free will works, that people can change and make the right choice. But also, if Castiel is right about Jesse, even though Sam has already proven himself, and made the right choice, then Sam (in Sam's view) is doomed. If Sam is right about Jesse, then Castiel is wrong. His hard-line, single-minded decision that killing Jesse is the only way, would be wrong, and in using his free will, Castiel will have done something reprehensible.
eta Just throwing this out there: The more I think about it, the more I think Castiel's issue isn't that he was reverting to old ways. It's that he's gotten his head-space more into the new way and it's a huge struggle for him. With the old way, there'd be no argument with Sam. He'd just go do it, he wouldn't try to justify it, and he certainly wouldn't have done it looking like he was going to break down into tears of regret/horror/self-loathing. It's almost like Castiel argued because he *needs* Sam and Dean to approve of why he's doing it. Also, his reasons aren't just big picture -- he's scared on behalf of the only family he's known, his angel siblings./edit
Castiel, like Sam, at first made the wrong choice, and then made the right one. In Sam's case, it was free will both times. In Castiel's, he started in obedience -- made the wrong decision by not making decisions -- and never had reason to question to question his life as a soldier of heaven or the orders he was given until he met the Winchesters. Sam and Dean, in different ways, wreaked havoc with Castiel's worldview.
Dean looks sort of annoyed/chagrined/embarrassed (excuse my buddy, he's not from around here and sometimes he's kind of a dick). He stepped in to mediate earlier, but says nothing here, but I don't take that as Dean tacitly agreeing with Castiel. Sam and Castiel's argument had gained its own momentum, Sam was holding his own just fine facing down Castiel, and maybe Dean's trying to ease up on the protective big brother thing. Sam didn't need his help there.
The flourish on all this is that when Castiel goes to kill Jesse, he's enacting a parallel to what John's final worst-case-scenario instructions to Dean regarding Sam were. Castiel's reactions reminded me of how he was in When the Levee Breaks, where he's being a real bastard but also seems to despise himself for it. Feeling bad about doing a bad thing doesn't make it okay. But Castiel has a certain amount of self-awareness, and he's often unable to figure out how to act on his feelings -- he's an angel, and angels aren't supposed to feel guilty, they aren't supposed to question their own actions. They act righteously, and that's that.
Shades of gray also aren't his thing. Sam can have screwed up, and be right now. Jesse can be potentially dangerous, and it can be wrong to kill him.
("Witches can be right, giants can be good/You decide what's right you decide what's good"--Stephen Sondheim)
Jesse had to save himself by turning Castiel into an action figure (*is never going to stop going LOL WHUT?*) and Castiel has a long way to go.
"He's a good guy," Dean says. "He's just confused." And how.
It's so perfect that in an episode that references X-Men and Superman, the most flawed, mixed-up hero in it is the one who gets turned into the actual action figure toy. I'm also having a bit of a geekgasm over The Iron Giant parallels. The movie references Superman as an ideal (but not used in the context of a lie). The ep explores The Iron Giant's message of "you are who you choose to be." It's also a retread of the Little Hitler debate.
The chill you just felt was the shadow of Gordon Walker.
Dean deals with Jesse by lying, putting a positive spin on the situation. "You're a superhero," he tells him, to be trained at a secret base on South Dakota. "Like the X-Men." (Bwaha! Bobby=Charles Xavier). "You'll save lives, you'll get the girl..."
This sounds a little too much like Zachariah's speech to Dean at the end of IATL -- "You get to change things, save people. Maybe even the world. All the while, you drive a classic car and fornicate with women." Dean is pretty much doing the same thing to Jesse, trying to nudge Jesse to where Dean needs him to go. Dean's end goals are purer, but that Dean would use the tools of one of his tormentors makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
Demons lie -- but it's the demon who shows up and tells Jesse Dean's lying and the truth about what he is. The demon tells him his parents are liars for the childhood stories they've told him.
"You're not a superhero. You're powerful. You can have anything you want. You can do anything you want."
A sense of powerlessness is what helped draw Sam into making the decisions he made in S4 -- so he could avenge Dean, so no demon could mess with his family ever again. So he could stop feeling helpless.
"They treated you like a child. Nobody trusted you. Everybody's lied to you."
In A Very Supernatural Christmas, we find out John hid the hunting from Sam for as long as he could. In S2, Sam finds out what John's last words to Dean were, save Sam or kill him, and that Dean had kept that secret from Sam. Sam lost Dean's trust in S4, and even after he proved he'd beaten his addiction to his demon powers, and proved he'd changed, it wasn't enough, not yet, and he didn't have Dean's trust back. He told Dean one reason he went off with Ruby is using his powers made him feel strong, not just Dean's kid brother. "You're going to have to let me grow up."
The demon's playing to all of Jesse's worst fears and resentments and frustrations to goad him into using his powers. It's a microcosm of the long, slow manipulation Azazel and then Ruby aimed at Sam.
But Jesse's willing to listen to Sam. The demon's version of the truth played on emotions -- Sam gives Jesse a calm summation of the facts.
"You can go with her if you want. I can't stop you. No one can. But if you do, millions of people will die."
"You're half human, too. You can do the right thing. You've got choices, Jesse, but if you make the wrong ones, it'll haunt you for the rest of your life."
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Because I have to believe someone could make the right choice, even if I couldn't."
Oh, the sweet, sweet sound of SPN-shaped anvils thudding down. But they're good anvils.
"What should I do?"
"We can't tell you. It's your choice."
That makes me think of Castiel asking Anna what he should do.
Sam tells Jesse the truth, and Jesse makes a choice to disappear, and go off alone (*waves to the Aussies on my flist* Take good care of the cute wee little anti-Christ, guys!) -- his life is pretty much ruined.
The episode caps things off with Sam and Dean both coming to the conclusion that they might've been better off if John had kept the truth from them about what was really out there.
("How do you say to your child in the night?/Nothing's all black, but then nothing's all white/How do you say it will all be all right/When you know that it might not be true?"--Stephen Sondheim)
Sam thought telling Jesse the truth was the only option, a callback to his views in Jump the Shark and The Rapture, where Sam thinks it's better people know than stay ignorant, and there's no escape. Sam here agreeing with Dean about the comfort of childhood lies, though...that's a callback to S1 Sam, in Something Wicked when he expresses his regret about the loss of innocence for the kids they saved, and Dean expresses his for Sam's. Which is in keeping with what we've seen seeing lately -- not Sam going backwards, but Sam regaining more of the essence of himself, losing some of the single-minded hardness and tunnel-vision he picked up after Dean died and went to hell.