More "Devil's Trap" ruminations
What, you thought just because the season is over I'm going to stop obsessing? Don't be silly.
Reading various discussion posts linked on spnnewsletter, I've noticed a few people wondering why Ceiling Demon beat a retreat from the cabin after dispossessing John, instead of trying to possess Sam or Dean. I'm pretty sure it's because it was weakened and injured after being shot with the Colt, and needed to slink off and recover for a while. It had lost control of John, and wasn't strong enough at that point to possess anyone else (the truck driver at the end had black eyes rather than gold, which means it wasn't Ceiling Demon possessing him but one of its minions or relatives or whatever). It's only other option was to stay in John and hope to regain control later, but that would've been pretty risky. There was always the possibility that Sam would change his mind and shoot, or that John would get the gun away from Sam and shoot himself. So the demon booked through the floor and will no doubt wreak all sorts of havoc in the season 2 opener and maybe beyond.
One of the things that really struck me about half-way through "Devil's Trap" and made the episode so powerful for me is that it marked a shift in the Winchesters' role from being hunters to being prey. We saw early hints of it at the end of "Shadows," when instead of destroying the MotW, they could only hold the daevas off long enough to make a getaway. The only other time this happened was in "Bugs," and that was a very different scenario: the curse in "Bugs" was tied to a particular time and place and wasn't actually targeted at te Winchesters.
It seems that for whatever reason, Ceiling Demon was inactive from the time of Max's mother's death until about a year ago, when John caught its trail again. In fact, demons in general were being relatively inactive, as evidenced by Bobby's comments and also by the fact that the plane crashing demon in "Phantom Traveler" was the first one the boys had ever encountered and they thought it was a really big deal. For the most part, it seems that supernatural activity in the US for the last 18 years or so has consisted mostly of angry ghosts, with the occasional Wendigo or Shtriga tossed in for variety. And as long as that status quo held, the Winchesters were the meanest sumbitches on the block, well able to kick the ass of anything they came up against. But now, suddenly, it's no longer true. Now their fighting skills are useless, the arsenal in the back of the Impala is useless -- everything's useless except this one last bullet, and there's a lot more than one demon coming after them, as well as many ways they can be attacked without the attacker coming withing shooting distance. The Colt gives them a way to take out the demon, but it also makes them instant targets.
The change is already there when they arrive at the cabin. John is beat up, Sam is beat up, Dean is all mentally off-balance after killing Demon Boy. Sam asks if they've been followed, and Dean says he doesn't know, but he figures the cabin is out of the way enough that they can hole up safely for a while. That's not the behavior of hunters; that's the behavior of fugitives. And the Winchesters have never been fugitives before, not from the supernatural.
I think this state of affairs is going to have to continue at least at the beginning of Season 2. Even if, by some miracle, all the Winchesters (and the Impala, dammit!) survive the crash alive and relatively healthy, they can't just go back to hunting down random ghosts in random midwestern towns, not until the demon is dealt with. Their place in the pecking order has changed, and they're going to have to deal. And I think that of all of them, Dean is the one who's going to find this most difficult. Because all the parts of Dean's identity that aren't tied up in his family are tied up in his image of himself as the guy who hunts the evil. He's the big damn hero with the sawed-off shotgun, the guy who kicks down the door and kills the monsters, the guy who doesn't need to be one of the normal people because he saves the normal people. Losing that would shake him almost as badly as losing his family. And if he loses that on top of losing, say, John, it'll be even more traumatic. At that point, I'd say it would be up to Sam to hold Dean together through the aftermath just as Dean helped hold Sam together early in the season, in the aftermath of Jess's death.
Exactly how long this will last, I don't know. A whole season of the boys running and hiding would probably be a bad idea. But the familiar evil-hunting format of this season really can't be restored until Ceiling Demon is either killed or somehow put out of action for a significant length of time again.
And finally, a vid rec: Desperado by wolfpup2000 is an achy and gorgeous John-centric vid. Great choice of song, great choice of clips, and an excellent portrayal of John's character, the good and the bad.
Reading various discussion posts linked on spnnewsletter, I've noticed a few people wondering why Ceiling Demon beat a retreat from the cabin after dispossessing John, instead of trying to possess Sam or Dean. I'm pretty sure it's because it was weakened and injured after being shot with the Colt, and needed to slink off and recover for a while. It had lost control of John, and wasn't strong enough at that point to possess anyone else (the truck driver at the end had black eyes rather than gold, which means it wasn't Ceiling Demon possessing him but one of its minions or relatives or whatever). It's only other option was to stay in John and hope to regain control later, but that would've been pretty risky. There was always the possibility that Sam would change his mind and shoot, or that John would get the gun away from Sam and shoot himself. So the demon booked through the floor and will no doubt wreak all sorts of havoc in the season 2 opener and maybe beyond.
One of the things that really struck me about half-way through "Devil's Trap" and made the episode so powerful for me is that it marked a shift in the Winchesters' role from being hunters to being prey. We saw early hints of it at the end of "Shadows," when instead of destroying the MotW, they could only hold the daevas off long enough to make a getaway. The only other time this happened was in "Bugs," and that was a very different scenario: the curse in "Bugs" was tied to a particular time and place and wasn't actually targeted at te Winchesters.
It seems that for whatever reason, Ceiling Demon was inactive from the time of Max's mother's death until about a year ago, when John caught its trail again. In fact, demons in general were being relatively inactive, as evidenced by Bobby's comments and also by the fact that the plane crashing demon in "Phantom Traveler" was the first one the boys had ever encountered and they thought it was a really big deal. For the most part, it seems that supernatural activity in the US for the last 18 years or so has consisted mostly of angry ghosts, with the occasional Wendigo or Shtriga tossed in for variety. And as long as that status quo held, the Winchesters were the meanest sumbitches on the block, well able to kick the ass of anything they came up against. But now, suddenly, it's no longer true. Now their fighting skills are useless, the arsenal in the back of the Impala is useless -- everything's useless except this one last bullet, and there's a lot more than one demon coming after them, as well as many ways they can be attacked without the attacker coming withing shooting distance. The Colt gives them a way to take out the demon, but it also makes them instant targets.
The change is already there when they arrive at the cabin. John is beat up, Sam is beat up, Dean is all mentally off-balance after killing Demon Boy. Sam asks if they've been followed, and Dean says he doesn't know, but he figures the cabin is out of the way enough that they can hole up safely for a while. That's not the behavior of hunters; that's the behavior of fugitives. And the Winchesters have never been fugitives before, not from the supernatural.
I think this state of affairs is going to have to continue at least at the beginning of Season 2. Even if, by some miracle, all the Winchesters (and the Impala, dammit!) survive the crash alive and relatively healthy, they can't just go back to hunting down random ghosts in random midwestern towns, not until the demon is dealt with. Their place in the pecking order has changed, and they're going to have to deal. And I think that of all of them, Dean is the one who's going to find this most difficult. Because all the parts of Dean's identity that aren't tied up in his family are tied up in his image of himself as the guy who hunts the evil. He's the big damn hero with the sawed-off shotgun, the guy who kicks down the door and kills the monsters, the guy who doesn't need to be one of the normal people because he saves the normal people. Losing that would shake him almost as badly as losing his family. And if he loses that on top of losing, say, John, it'll be even more traumatic. At that point, I'd say it would be up to Sam to hold Dean together through the aftermath just as Dean helped hold Sam together early in the season, in the aftermath of Jess's death.
Exactly how long this will last, I don't know. A whole season of the boys running and hiding would probably be a bad idea. But the familiar evil-hunting format of this season really can't be restored until Ceiling Demon is either killed or somehow put out of action for a significant length of time again.
And finally, a vid rec: Desperado by wolfpup2000 is an achy and gorgeous John-centric vid. Great choice of song, great choice of clips, and an excellent portrayal of John's character, the good and the bad.