spn 4x8 - 4x16: Sam post
SPN meta-fantastica this weekend, because I'm up to 4x16 and I have to say EVERYTHING ABOUT EVERYONE. I was going to start writing some kind of thoughts after every three episodes. And then every four. And then there wasn't too much going on in a couple of episodes there, so I figured it would be fine. Then it kicked the hell into gear and I HAD TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS RFN until I got to Head of a Pin and EXPLODED IN GLEE. So I'm going to try to split this up into topic-posts instead of episodes. I'm hoping to have one for Dean and another one for the angels up soon.
STRAP THE HELL IN, YOU CRAZY FRIGGIN' SONS'A BITCHES.
Sam. SAMMAY!
I thought last season was the Sam season. I did! I was so wrong, I see that now!
Episodes 9/10 are so excellent for him. I LOVE when Sam gets these big emotional storylines. I mean, I always like him, JP is always good, but when he gets to go for it, damn, he GOES for it. 9/10 should've been too over the top for me. The flashbacks should have been pushing too hard for raw emotion; Sam's desperation and Dean's reaction to what Sam's become weren't news to me in any way. But I was still aching for him the whole way through.
The thing with RUBY. (I am so, so curious to know more about her and her motivations. Even if it's just I HATE LILITH AND WANT HER TO DIE, I want to know.) I love how that scene was Sam's POV - it was a little rougher, a little angstier, a little more dramatic - but not by much, and I don't doubt the sequence of events he was describing were any different than what we saw. He clings to her body, mind, and soul in one minute and throws her out the next because he's Sam who kills everything he touches and he's a freak and she's a demon. And she doesn't care. She's making him and she's accepting him in a way nobody ever has, not even Dean, especially not Dean, who won't see what's right in front of him. Sam/Ruby is THE SHIP. (Also, he is HUGE. Obviously I'd noticed that he was tall, but I didn't realize until this scene that he was built like a tank up top. SHIT, SON.)
I love it especially because - fuck it, he's so righteous. I am totally Team Him, even though I know he's right up on the edge and probably about to spiral out of control on this. I'm just really going to need a better reason for why Sam doing his thing is bad, or at any rate, isn't the least bad option. Because after episode upon episode of "you shouldn't give people life-saving care because it makes me feel icky ALSO THE BIBLE," I found myself too irritated to have much patience for even legitimate arguments. Can you imagine living in some dystopian shithole where that was acceptable decision-making? ORITE.
But he's playing with fire, and when he does, he'll burn down the world. It's not just about the demon blood; not even that he's an abomination twice over, made into a demonic psychic and then lifted out of the grave. It's about how he's always been the smartest, most confident guy in the room, and about how he's ambitious enough that that's never been good enough for him, about how he just wants it all to stop, about how he's tired of fighting and tired of knowing there's all that pain out there
But he also just likes the power. He wants to have it, he wants to use it. He was waiting for half a reason to throw down with it (and even having had it in his pocket all this time and not using it shows some serious fucking arrogance, given all the scrapes they've been in this season so far) - but once he got it, he couldn't wait to play with his shiny new toy. He did believe Alastair, and he kept on torturing him. That cold fucking smile he gives, the way he bounces up on his toes in anticipation.
Now I can kill.
Children shouldn't play with matches. That's true even when it comes from the angels, who are even less emotionally and intellectually developed than Sam. But Sam knows, too, it's better to light a candle that to curse the fucking darkness. And he has to choose. Dean's fatalism gives him a peace Sam will never have, because Sam has to choose. And now that he has something he can do to make a difference, he'll choose action over caution every time.
He's the most dangerous kind of adversary, because all of his justifications are true. He really is helping people, even people who are beyond help. There's no reason Cas and Uriah should be all-powerful and he should just suck it up like a good little soldier and put a stopper on his power. If someone can take out Lilith, they should. And it's brilliant - and cannot possibly be an accident - that the episode where Sam's darkness comes out to play is the episode where his biggest critics are discredited. He might be a threat not to some omnipotent force of good, but to the four made men. And they might be the bigger villains, they might be a bigger danger than he could ever be - but that doesn't make him not terrifying.
So this is a turning point less because he actually kills and more because it's Sam abandoning one of his good rationalizations. Alastair's human host dies, and Sam doesn't care. They had him contained, they didn't have to kill him. But Sam wanted to kill it. They don't kill things often, do they? I mean, they do, but generally it's more about laying someone already dead to rest, or about releasing the person from the possessing body. But no, the body's collateral damage, that person was worth less than Sammy taking his shiny new toy out for a spin. (Less importantly, on a scale of "jalapenos to Shane," how fucking hot was he there?)
Oh, he really does mean all of those good things. He does, and he's right to. But it's terrifying, that he's playing God - which even God doesn't seem to be doing particularly well, and might not even be there to do. He can see the big picture better than most hunters, moment-dwelling thrill-seekers they tend to be, but he's still human, he still has flaws. And indeed, I think he's clinging to those flaws on purpose to show that he's still human. He thinks making a big show of his totally real hatred for Lilith is a way to show his love for Dean, and distance himself from his own demonic power. He cuts himself off from Dean's advice because he's used to being the smartest guy in the room, because it's his turn to be the big brother and take care of Dean, because he's right, Dean is weak in some ways Sam will never be. Sam, so far, has only done what needed to be done, but it says a lot about him that he's the person who's willing and able to do it.
And ah, yes, Dean. Sam, unlike Dean, never pretends this whole thing is entirely about his brother. But it is in large part about Dean. It's about how having Dean means he has just enough investment in the world to want to protect it and how having lost Dean made him hurt like he never thought he could hurt and how having thrown a year and a half of his young life into trying and failing to save Dean means he's got something to make up for and something to prove. Dean saved him, he couldn't save Dean, and he's going to wear himself out trying to make up for it. And it's a little bit getting back at Dean. He never asked for Dean to save his life, and it fucking sucked living without Dean, and if he gets himself killed then Dean will have to see how he likes them apples.
His whole self-image and Dean's image of him and his reaction to Dean's impression of him, too. Sam did get harder and sharper during that summer he was on his own, but Ruby was only working with what was already there. He was strong, she made him stronger. He was angry and bitter and isolated, and Ruby is too. He's such a liar. He's such a fucking good liar. Dean can spin out their cracktastic bullshit, but he's much more likely to bluster and threaten and flirt his way to answers. Sam will just lie, even to a DEAD KID.
Before last summer, Sam might or might not have still had the moderately healthy perspective that he can't wish his life away. He'd have been unlikely to add (at least, out loud) that his fondest wish is "Lilith's head on a plate. Bloody.":Dean looks ever so sad when Sam says that, and Sam doesn't look like he much cares. This is the fighter John and Dean told themselves they wanted, were simultaneously proud and grateful that he wouldn't be. Sam is a better hunter than either of them ever were.
I'm not sure Sam is the antichrist. I think Sam simply disrupts the natural order. Nobody is supposed to be able to kill demons; certainly not without risk to themselves. It's difficult even for an angel. For this human to be able to do that, this human the subordinate angels talk about all the time, if he happens to be as powerful as an angel, then he's definitely a challenger to the archangels; maybe to God Itself. And is that good or bad? If someone kills Sam Winchester, there's an excellent chance it'll be a political hit, not a save-the-wold kind of deal.
It's not lost on me, either, that the question he repeats - the thing he really wants to know - isn't who is murdering the angels, but how are they doing it. (It's not lost on Cas either, dude looked freaked.) He defies the angels too; what he's really asking is how can I kill an angel? And maybe he can, maybe he can't, but the fact that he wants that knowledge is huge. Even if he never uses it, even if he never kills another demon, he'll always know that he can and that changes him irrevocably. And knowledge - knowledge is the thing the angels fear most of all, even more than something that can kill them. For Sam to torture someone, badly enough to hurt Alastair, because he's curious about what it feels like and how he can do more - that rocks the foundations of all creation.
ALSO HE CAN KILL YOU WITH HIS BRAIN.
Sometimes it's just right there.
STRAP THE HELL IN, YOU CRAZY FRIGGIN' SONS'A BITCHES.
Sam. SAMMAY!
I thought last season was the Sam season. I did! I was so wrong, I see that now!
Episodes 9/10 are so excellent for him. I LOVE when Sam gets these big emotional storylines. I mean, I always like him, JP is always good, but when he gets to go for it, damn, he GOES for it. 9/10 should've been too over the top for me. The flashbacks should have been pushing too hard for raw emotion; Sam's desperation and Dean's reaction to what Sam's become weren't news to me in any way. But I was still aching for him the whole way through.
The thing with RUBY. (I am so, so curious to know more about her and her motivations. Even if it's just I HATE LILITH AND WANT HER TO DIE, I want to know.) I love how that scene was Sam's POV - it was a little rougher, a little angstier, a little more dramatic - but not by much, and I don't doubt the sequence of events he was describing were any different than what we saw. He clings to her body, mind, and soul in one minute and throws her out the next because he's Sam who kills everything he touches and he's a freak and she's a demon. And she doesn't care. She's making him and she's accepting him in a way nobody ever has, not even Dean, especially not Dean, who won't see what's right in front of him. Sam/Ruby is THE SHIP. (Also, he is HUGE. Obviously I'd noticed that he was tall, but I didn't realize until this scene that he was built like a tank up top. SHIT, SON.)
I love it especially because - fuck it, he's so righteous. I am totally Team Him, even though I know he's right up on the edge and probably about to spiral out of control on this. I'm just really going to need a better reason for why Sam doing his thing is bad, or at any rate, isn't the least bad option. Because after episode upon episode of "you shouldn't give people life-saving care because it makes me feel icky ALSO THE BIBLE," I found myself too irritated to have much patience for even legitimate arguments. Can you imagine living in some dystopian shithole where that was acceptable decision-making? ORITE.
But he's playing with fire, and when he does, he'll burn down the world. It's not just about the demon blood; not even that he's an abomination twice over, made into a demonic psychic and then lifted out of the grave. It's about how he's always been the smartest, most confident guy in the room, and about how he's ambitious enough that that's never been good enough for him, about how he just wants it all to stop, about how he's tired of fighting and tired of knowing there's all that pain out there
But he also just likes the power. He wants to have it, he wants to use it. He was waiting for half a reason to throw down with it (and even having had it in his pocket all this time and not using it shows some serious fucking arrogance, given all the scrapes they've been in this season so far) - but once he got it, he couldn't wait to play with his shiny new toy. He did believe Alastair, and he kept on torturing him. That cold fucking smile he gives, the way he bounces up on his toes in anticipation.
Now I can kill.
Children shouldn't play with matches. That's true even when it comes from the angels, who are even less emotionally and intellectually developed than Sam. But Sam knows, too, it's better to light a candle that to curse the fucking darkness. And he has to choose. Dean's fatalism gives him a peace Sam will never have, because Sam has to choose. And now that he has something he can do to make a difference, he'll choose action over caution every time.
He's the most dangerous kind of adversary, because all of his justifications are true. He really is helping people, even people who are beyond help. There's no reason Cas and Uriah should be all-powerful and he should just suck it up like a good little soldier and put a stopper on his power. If someone can take out Lilith, they should. And it's brilliant - and cannot possibly be an accident - that the episode where Sam's darkness comes out to play is the episode where his biggest critics are discredited. He might be a threat not to some omnipotent force of good, but to the four made men. And they might be the bigger villains, they might be a bigger danger than he could ever be - but that doesn't make him not terrifying.
So this is a turning point less because he actually kills and more because it's Sam abandoning one of his good rationalizations. Alastair's human host dies, and Sam doesn't care. They had him contained, they didn't have to kill him. But Sam wanted to kill it. They don't kill things often, do they? I mean, they do, but generally it's more about laying someone already dead to rest, or about releasing the person from the possessing body. But no, the body's collateral damage, that person was worth less than Sammy taking his shiny new toy out for a spin. (Less importantly, on a scale of "jalapenos to Shane," how fucking hot was he there?)
Oh, he really does mean all of those good things. He does, and he's right to. But it's terrifying, that he's playing God - which even God doesn't seem to be doing particularly well, and might not even be there to do. He can see the big picture better than most hunters, moment-dwelling thrill-seekers they tend to be, but he's still human, he still has flaws. And indeed, I think he's clinging to those flaws on purpose to show that he's still human. He thinks making a big show of his totally real hatred for Lilith is a way to show his love for Dean, and distance himself from his own demonic power. He cuts himself off from Dean's advice because he's used to being the smartest guy in the room, because it's his turn to be the big brother and take care of Dean, because he's right, Dean is weak in some ways Sam will never be. Sam, so far, has only done what needed to be done, but it says a lot about him that he's the person who's willing and able to do it.
And ah, yes, Dean. Sam, unlike Dean, never pretends this whole thing is entirely about his brother. But it is in large part about Dean. It's about how having Dean means he has just enough investment in the world to want to protect it and how having lost Dean made him hurt like he never thought he could hurt and how having thrown a year and a half of his young life into trying and failing to save Dean means he's got something to make up for and something to prove. Dean saved him, he couldn't save Dean, and he's going to wear himself out trying to make up for it. And it's a little bit getting back at Dean. He never asked for Dean to save his life, and it fucking sucked living without Dean, and if he gets himself killed then Dean will have to see how he likes them apples.
His whole self-image and Dean's image of him and his reaction to Dean's impression of him, too. Sam did get harder and sharper during that summer he was on his own, but Ruby was only working with what was already there. He was strong, she made him stronger. He was angry and bitter and isolated, and Ruby is too. He's such a liar. He's such a fucking good liar. Dean can spin out their cracktastic bullshit, but he's much more likely to bluster and threaten and flirt his way to answers. Sam will just lie, even to a DEAD KID.
Before last summer, Sam might or might not have still had the moderately healthy perspective that he can't wish his life away. He'd have been unlikely to add (at least, out loud) that his fondest wish is "Lilith's head on a plate. Bloody.":Dean looks ever so sad when Sam says that, and Sam doesn't look like he much cares. This is the fighter John and Dean told themselves they wanted, were simultaneously proud and grateful that he wouldn't be. Sam is a better hunter than either of them ever were.
I'm not sure Sam is the antichrist. I think Sam simply disrupts the natural order. Nobody is supposed to be able to kill demons; certainly not without risk to themselves. It's difficult even for an angel. For this human to be able to do that, this human the subordinate angels talk about all the time, if he happens to be as powerful as an angel, then he's definitely a challenger to the archangels; maybe to God Itself. And is that good or bad? If someone kills Sam Winchester, there's an excellent chance it'll be a political hit, not a save-the-wold kind of deal.
It's not lost on me, either, that the question he repeats - the thing he really wants to know - isn't who is murdering the angels, but how are they doing it. (It's not lost on Cas either, dude looked freaked.) He defies the angels too; what he's really asking is how can I kill an angel? And maybe he can, maybe he can't, but the fact that he wants that knowledge is huge. Even if he never uses it, even if he never kills another demon, he'll always know that he can and that changes him irrevocably. And knowledge - knowledge is the thing the angels fear most of all, even more than something that can kill them. For Sam to torture someone, badly enough to hurt Alastair, because he's curious about what it feels like and how he can do more - that rocks the foundations of all creation.
ALSO HE CAN KILL YOU WITH HIS BRAIN.
Sometimes it's just right there.