SPN 9x10 - Road Trip

[pocochina]

Metatron’s mind games with Gadreel were pitch-perfect. He rides Gadreel about you’re a screw-up, nobody’ll have you but me, you have to fight more and harder and maybe just maybe I’ll give you a way out of this shame spiral which you’re only in because you’re such a failure, have we talked lately about how I’m a saint for not reminding you of that

Comments

[cuddyclothes]

Another amazing post as always. You can read my review over at my LJ. It's not nearly as complex, but you are the queen of complex moral issues. The take on Cas and how he responds is enlightening. At the time I wanted to smack him.

[pocochina]

This episode was everything I wanted!

The take on Cas and how he responds is enlightening. At the time I wanted to smack him.

I don't even think that's an unfair response, lol. Like, he is being chickenshit about this and I think on some level he knows it. I just think it's happening for reasons that are very true to the character, and more importantly, the reasons we shouldn't take what he says about Dean as objectively true were emphasized and reiterated to a point where if Cas does tell Sam to just get over it, there are enough signals that he's wrong to do that.

[jo1027]

I loved that last scene between Sam and Dean. Sam handled it perfectly. Could it be he's finally seen the true Dean? Fingers crossed that is the case. I would love for him to call Dean on his BS every time but don't think that will happen.
I certainly hope that Sam is allowed by the writers to actually express his feelings to Cas and for Cas to understand and accept that he has a right to feel how he feels. Something Dean never allows him to do.

It's such a relief to come here and read your posts after reading at some of the other "Poor Dean" sites. Although I am reading more posts that get on Dean for what he did to Sam. However, not enough of them to suit me.

[pocochina]

I loved that last scene between Sam and Dean. Sam handled it perfectly.

YES HE DID. Up until now he's always responded to Dean as if Dean is totally sincere in his outbursts of violence and his bullshit guilt trips, and so when he's really up against the wall he tries to CONVINCE Dean of whatever right/reasonable line of thought or action, and therefore always ends up giving himself away enough that Dean can dance his way around it. But you can't do that with someone who loves trampling on your personal boundaries, you just have to shut them out completely, and that is what Sam did.

Could it be he's finally seen the true Dean? Fingers crossed that is the case. I would love for him to call Dean on his BS every time but don't think that will happen.

Yeah, I don't think he's going to be able to swing right into radical clarity about his brother or anything, but I do think that the big hurdle was him needing to see through Dean once.

I certainly hope that Sam is allowed by the writers to actually express his feelings to Cas and for

[duckondebut]

There was this awesome little piece of spec I saw floating around on tumblr that theorised that Gadreel had actually released Abner's grace from Alexander's body--thereby fulfilling his end of the deal with Metatron (after all, the napkin only said "Alexander Sarver") and saving his friend. I don't know if Gadreel is capable of this, considering how well Metatron has been playing with his insecurities, but the part of me that's been wailing for Gadreel kind of wants it to be true.

But taking Gadreel as the subject of his own story, things look different. Even after all these millennia as Heaven’s scapegoat, he still manages to be adverse to violence against humans, he still values the good will of other angels, he still has those raw emotional nerves for Metatron to play on. All of that speaks to extraordinary resilience, even among angels.Yes! There is... a slipperiness to how he works (I'm still puzzled over whether Gadreel answering Dean's prayers was entirely a coincidence), but not more than any other angel, and initially, at

[pocochina]

THIS SEASON <33333

Gadreel had actually released Abner's grace from Alexander's body--thereby fulfilling his end of the deal with Metatron (after all, the napkin only said "Alexander Sarver") and saving his friend

!!!!

Yes! There is... a slipperiness to how he works (I'm still puzzled over whether Gadreel answering Dean's prayers was entirely a coincidence), but not more than any other angel, and initially, at least, geared towards self-preservation.I AM SO CURIOUS. I mean, he did know enough to go with it when Dean dropped Castiel's name, but if he knew much about the Winchesters he would've been at least as likely to steer clear. Right now my best guess is that he was pretty far out of the loop when he first fell, but he rushed to Dean at least in part because Dean asked for "any angel" and Gadreel was so desperate to feel like any old angel - and also to get a vessel and cover story ASAP - that he went running. And then while Sam was passed out after the hospital, he tuned into angel radio and flipped through Sam's brain to get

[pocochina]

I was struck by that too, how we didn't hear him actually spit it out to Cas but we did hear a fair amount of the conversation.

Cas's response does ring true: because without Dean's code, what else does Cas have to believe in? He can't in heaven/hell/ or least of all himself.

OH CAS. And this was set up so well earlier in the season, too, when Cas told Sam and Dean that "you guys are so good at being humans, I'm going to learn everything from you!" It's laughable, firstly, and then easy to forget because he's about to get dumped, but it also leads directly to his uncertainty in this episode. He can't learn how to be human from them, any more than he can be the same angel he was with another angel's grace. And even if he were to try, there's no such thing as Being A Person The SamnDean Way. Sam and Dean are very different people in some important ways. The Importance of Being Castiel, Act 6.

This episode was so great. I'm going to watch it again this weekend and be so embarrassed I missed all kinds of neat stuff.