The Best Written Episodes of SPN S4
It surprised me the other day to notice that I hadn't gone back and discussed what I felt were the strongest episodes of S4, the way I had with S1-S3. I'm not sure why that was but I think that, in part, I was often dissatisfied with episodes as a whole even while I was quite interested with them in part. It didn't take me but 30 seconds to figure out which three were the best though.
3) On the Head of a Pin (Ben Edlund) - Curiously, I realized after I'd chosen my three that each was written by one of the SPN veterans. Perhaps that's not a surprise, because my central criteria for my S4 selections was the issue of character development. I think this issue was inconsistently and sometimes poorly addressed over the course of the season, and I think that this contributed to what was a noticeable increase in the infighting seen in the fandom.
Pin stands out to me for several reasons on the writing front. The first is that it was pretty tightly written, something Edlund doesn't always achieve, but is the best at of all the writers when he does. A lot happened in this episode and almost all of it packed a punch, with very little producing unexplained or confusing issues. Like it or hate it, this episode had impact, and it was only partly because of the major reveals - Sam drinking demon blood, Uriel as the angel killer, and Dean as the first seal. Looking over SPN's seasons it's easy to pick out episodes with major developments or great concepts which just fell down on overall execution. But there was barely a moment of this episode where I wasn't gripped by what was happening on screen.
This episode was notable in the canon of SPN as being the first time another character besides Sam or Dean had their own motivations explored, and we were able to see an inner life being developed for them. Despite John Winchester's inescapable importance throughout the series, and Bobby's frequent presence since the climax of S1, no other character has achieved this sort of treatment. In my opinion it was past time for it to happen, which placed an even heavier burden on Edlund to make Castiel's turmoil meaningful to either the new viewer, or one who had become accustomed to having only Sam or Dean as a focus. I think both he (and MC) achieved this.
From the moment the episode opens with Castiel discovering his own female martyr in white, he is being inducted into the Winchester path of painful personal development through loss and betrayal. Anna's return as the voice of Castiel's conscience was effective and placed more meaning on the unnamed, and previously unseen, dead sister-in-arms who opened the show. Although unremarked, Anna was also a needle in Castiel's conscience in the same way that Alistair was to Dean. Castiel had unwillingly been party to her destruction while being the obedient good soldier. That label has also been applied to Dean yet its use painted over Dean's feelings on what he was compelled or coerced to do in his life - something much clearer when it came to his time in hell. Whether on Earth or in Hell though, and regardless of his feelings in the matter, sooner or later Dean did as he was told. As we saw in Dream, he has begun to hate this aspect of himself and must have found it a particularly bitter development to see it repeated after decades of abuse. We can also see the legacy of this issue in Dean's unwavering resolve not to be taken over by Michael even though it might prevent the devastation and slow destruction of the human race. Yet the angels' insistence that he torture Alistair is simultaneously a repetition of this use of Dean as a blunt instrument, and a way for him to restore the control he lost to Alistair by putting his darkest wishes into play. Nevertheless, from Anna's appearance and Castiel's eventual decisions later in the episode, it becomes clear that both Castiel and Dean must break away from doing what they're told and follow their own consciences.
At the same time, in the name of following his own path, Sam is actually ceding control to Ruby and it isn't until this episode that we realize just how far that's gone. Even while resisting Dean and Castiel (as the angelic mouthpiece), Sam is increasingly losing himself in the name of empowerment. Unlike Castiel and Dean, Sam is trying to take control but is playing into other people's plans in exactly the same way they are. In all their cases, they are losing their sense of who they are as a result of doing what they're being led to do. Sam wants power as a form of taking control, but while his power is real enough it won't be until the season finale that we (and he) will realize what an illusion his control has been. And each of them are internally aware that things aren't right, but the cost of listening seems too high.
This is a complex episode that weaves together the various characters' points of view, arc development, suspense, action, and angst with hardly a misstep. And I think in retrospect it is one of the best the series has to offer.
2) When the Levee Breaks (Sera Gamble) - In many ways I find Pin to be a superior episode to Levee as its approach is much more epic whereas Levee is a very self-contained episode. Except for the final confrontation in the hotel, it could all have taken place in two rooms and the center point of the episode is Sam's internal dialogue. I'm listing it second though largely because I see this episode and the finale as a two-parter. Neither Sam nor Dean 's perspectives can be fully understood there without Levee, and as a whole there was a lack of insight into Sam's inner conflicts during the season compared to Dean's that really needed to be equalized here. So while bottle shows like this are common as seasons wind to a close (and budget shortfalls catch up to the production team), I think Gamble deserves recognition for making the episode seem rich instead of broke.
Given the priority I placed on character development, it's no surprise to find it front and center in Levee, primarily for Sam but also for Dean and Bobby. I don't have much to add about the writing that I didn't already say in my original analysis of the episode, but I happened to return to this entry in the past week and was surprised at how prophetic the parallels of Faith and Nightmares seem to be. I feel even more convinced now that they are the two seminal episodes of S1, setting up not only the fundamental character aspects, conflicts between the brothers, and general family issues, but also the larger series arcs. This is particularly remarkable given that Kripke said in his last interview with Maureen Ryan, that they didn't start thinking of character issues until a few episodes before Faith, and he supposedly hadn't pondered the whole angel arc until the S3 hiatus.
I'd started a post a while ago that began with Russell Davies' comment "“I recommend (Torchwood fans) go watch Supernatural, because those boys are beautiful. And don’t tell me they’re brothers. [Laughs] Not in my mind.” Aside from the fact that Davies seems to be neither blind nor misinformed, his comment led me to rethink Levee's exploration of Sam's inner psyche (if not Sam's arc in the series). Before going further though, I want to state two things.
1) This is just a "what if." I don't think anyone involved with SPN intends for Sam or Dean to be read as anything except 100% straight. I personally think that's rather unfortunate, but there it is.
2) It's a good thing they're not trying to make a deliberate gay=evil equation because that would be a thing of ick.
However, just for the sake of discussion, let's pretend that the series had actually been more ambiguous about the evilness of demons, and we had seen more examples that didn't suggest 99% of supernatural things are untrustworthy freaks that must be killed for the safety of all non-supernatural things.
Instead, let's assume we had more Lenores and Mollys, that Ruby hadn't turned out the way she did, and that Casey might have proved to be the exception to the rule that was implied in the short time we knew her. Let's also note that angels seem to be less "good" than "powerful." since the destruction of humanity as a whole with nary a care seems only slightly less evil than the demons' apparent wish to destroy humanity by torturing them to death one at a time.
Assuming all that, When the Levee Breaks' exploration of Sam's deepest fears could be read as having another meaning all along. Sam has always had a deep fear of exposure as being "too different" which has led to continual acts of deception on his part to everyone around him. The revelation in S2 that he has been "a freak" almost from birth doesn't seem to have come as much of a comfort (and certainly the implied rejection in John's order to Dean that Sam must be killed if he can't be "saved" wouldn't have helped). In Levee we see him being literally locked away by his brother and father-substitute, caged in a room designed as a sanctuary and now used as a jail, not to keep intruders out but to keep Sam - the evil - in. This seems sadly reminiscent of the historical treatment of many homosexuals who were either imprisoned or forcibly confined to mental hospitals, subjected to "treatments" designed to cure them.
Indeed Sam's first hallucination is of Alistair torturing him, recreating the origin of his "problem" as a helpless victim. Next we see him debating with his younger self, whose deepest wish was to lead a "normal" life. In exploring that lost normality, Young Sam brings up his relationship with Jessica, tying the two issues together. Indeed throughout canon, Jessica's death is the lynchpin to Sam's abrupt turn away from his new life to his old one. He forever afterwards blames himself for failing her, even though what he was actually guilty of was lying to her about who he was - something he would have certainly continued doing had she lived.
On the other hand, Sam's hallucination of Mary is the only one who tells Sam that he can turn his "curse," something he received from her, into something positive. Significantly, I think, she appears to him wounded or "damaged" even though in Sam's only sight of her (Home) she was, if anything, radiant. But Sam's focus is on what's been passed on to him:
Sam: What's in me, Mom....
Mary: It's evil and you know it.
Mary is not there to give him absolution. As he tells Young Sam "We were never going to be normal." Attempting to reject a part of himself is hopeless, he can only hope to control it.
Finally, he imagines Dean rejecting him as he had always feared Dean would, should he ever understand how deeply Sam's "freakishness" runs. Dean's hatred of demons and the supernatural has been repeatedly referred to by those he opposes as "bigotry" and when Dean tells Bobby that he would prefer to see Sam dead than to see him morph into something alien to him, one could certainly understand that interpretation. Sam would likely be, if not actually dead, at least dead to Dean.
Just as interesting as the correlation of Jess and "normality" in canon, Dean has focused on Sam's choice of sexual partners as a sign of his moral corruption. He gives voice to this literally in SaV and at the end of the Levee sets himself up in clear opposition to Sam's current partner Ruby (who we see in bed together with Sam earlier), suggesting that Sam must choose between them.
Sam's primal terror seems all along to have been less about who he is than of his likely rejection by those closest to him should the "real" Sam ever be seen. If he had actually been focused on being "marked" by evil through the demon blood he would hardly have willingly consumed more. Instead, Sam feels he can compartmentalize this aspect of himself, and if only given support by his family, could turn his innate nature to their advantage.
Whether Gamble intended it or not, Sam's inner dialogue with himself in this episode is curiously reminiscent of past horror tropes that tie together issues of sexual identity with alienation and monstrosity, and thus provides an interesting recasting of the true divide between the brothers.
1) Lucifer Rising (Eric Kripke)
Compared to the rather crammed together S5 opener, the concluding episode to S4 made the most of the shattering conclusion in Levee. From the opening segment in which both Sam and Dean are disturbed and uncertain of where they should go next, we are being primed for the countdown as the clock begins to tick and we wait to discover how the final moments will be reached.
We have considerable backstory provided in this episode, but except for the opening segment none of it seems to drag. There is a constant tension in wondering whether or not Dean and Sam will be reunited, and if so, what will come of it. Given the episode's title, the likelihood of Lucifer being freed never seemed in doubt. The real questions that are eventually resolved are why, and how. For example, what were Lilith, Ruby and Zachariah's plans all along? Would Castiel help Dean or not? Would Dean help Sam, fight him, or reject him? Would Sam go through with killing Lilith, and would he be as irretrievably turned as Dean feared? Would Lucifer possess Sam?
There are numerous questions that have been raised throughout the season and which are toyed with in this episode. Many of them are answered or at least put into further play for the following season. This is also true for the various characters, with Lilith and Ruby meeting their end, Castiel, Chuck, Sam and Dean's fates' hanging in the balance, and Zachariah's and Azazel's plans largely explained. We also see some pivotal character moments - Sam killing an innocent human being for his own ends, Dean realizing his work will never be done, Bobby coming out squarely in the "togetherness until the end" camp, and Castiel rejecting everything he has ever known to follow his own instincts.
All of this is woven together in a way that builds tension until the conclusion where the column of light spews forth and Sam and Dean disappear in its reflection. In addition to what is a well-paced episode, weaving together various elements, there is even a continued metaphor of Dean and Sam being unable to hear one another. The chilling tampered phone call provided both an unexpected twist, and also demonstrated that regardless of what each was saying to the other, the only thing they were hearing were their own voices.
As an episode, LR is good, and as a season finale, it ties together the season in a way that improves all the episodes that led into it.
*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#**#
BTW, did anyone else notice in Terrible Life how supposedly art-challenged Sam was actually drawing some pretty good pictures of monsters while on the phone? Was that an unexpected upgrade to compensate for the memory wipe?
3) On the Head of a Pin (Ben Edlund) - Curiously, I realized after I'd chosen my three that each was written by one of the SPN veterans. Perhaps that's not a surprise, because my central criteria for my S4 selections was the issue of character development. I think this issue was inconsistently and sometimes poorly addressed over the course of the season, and I think that this contributed to what was a noticeable increase in the infighting seen in the fandom.
Pin stands out to me for several reasons on the writing front. The first is that it was pretty tightly written, something Edlund doesn't always achieve, but is the best at of all the writers when he does. A lot happened in this episode and almost all of it packed a punch, with very little producing unexplained or confusing issues. Like it or hate it, this episode had impact, and it was only partly because of the major reveals - Sam drinking demon blood, Uriel as the angel killer, and Dean as the first seal. Looking over SPN's seasons it's easy to pick out episodes with major developments or great concepts which just fell down on overall execution. But there was barely a moment of this episode where I wasn't gripped by what was happening on screen.
This episode was notable in the canon of SPN as being the first time another character besides Sam or Dean had their own motivations explored, and we were able to see an inner life being developed for them. Despite John Winchester's inescapable importance throughout the series, and Bobby's frequent presence since the climax of S1, no other character has achieved this sort of treatment. In my opinion it was past time for it to happen, which placed an even heavier burden on Edlund to make Castiel's turmoil meaningful to either the new viewer, or one who had become accustomed to having only Sam or Dean as a focus. I think both he (and MC) achieved this.
From the moment the episode opens with Castiel discovering his own female martyr in white, he is being inducted into the Winchester path of painful personal development through loss and betrayal. Anna's return as the voice of Castiel's conscience was effective and placed more meaning on the unnamed, and previously unseen, dead sister-in-arms who opened the show. Although unremarked, Anna was also a needle in Castiel's conscience in the same way that Alistair was to Dean. Castiel had unwillingly been party to her destruction while being the obedient good soldier. That label has also been applied to Dean yet its use painted over Dean's feelings on what he was compelled or coerced to do in his life - something much clearer when it came to his time in hell. Whether on Earth or in Hell though, and regardless of his feelings in the matter, sooner or later Dean did as he was told. As we saw in Dream, he has begun to hate this aspect of himself and must have found it a particularly bitter development to see it repeated after decades of abuse. We can also see the legacy of this issue in Dean's unwavering resolve not to be taken over by Michael even though it might prevent the devastation and slow destruction of the human race. Yet the angels' insistence that he torture Alistair is simultaneously a repetition of this use of Dean as a blunt instrument, and a way for him to restore the control he lost to Alistair by putting his darkest wishes into play. Nevertheless, from Anna's appearance and Castiel's eventual decisions later in the episode, it becomes clear that both Castiel and Dean must break away from doing what they're told and follow their own consciences.
At the same time, in the name of following his own path, Sam is actually ceding control to Ruby and it isn't until this episode that we realize just how far that's gone. Even while resisting Dean and Castiel (as the angelic mouthpiece), Sam is increasingly losing himself in the name of empowerment. Unlike Castiel and Dean, Sam is trying to take control but is playing into other people's plans in exactly the same way they are. In all their cases, they are losing their sense of who they are as a result of doing what they're being led to do. Sam wants power as a form of taking control, but while his power is real enough it won't be until the season finale that we (and he) will realize what an illusion his control has been. And each of them are internally aware that things aren't right, but the cost of listening seems too high.
This is a complex episode that weaves together the various characters' points of view, arc development, suspense, action, and angst with hardly a misstep. And I think in retrospect it is one of the best the series has to offer.
2) When the Levee Breaks (Sera Gamble) - In many ways I find Pin to be a superior episode to Levee as its approach is much more epic whereas Levee is a very self-contained episode. Except for the final confrontation in the hotel, it could all have taken place in two rooms and the center point of the episode is Sam's internal dialogue. I'm listing it second though largely because I see this episode and the finale as a two-parter. Neither Sam nor Dean 's perspectives can be fully understood there without Levee, and as a whole there was a lack of insight into Sam's inner conflicts during the season compared to Dean's that really needed to be equalized here. So while bottle shows like this are common as seasons wind to a close (and budget shortfalls catch up to the production team), I think Gamble deserves recognition for making the episode seem rich instead of broke.
Given the priority I placed on character development, it's no surprise to find it front and center in Levee, primarily for Sam but also for Dean and Bobby. I don't have much to add about the writing that I didn't already say in my original analysis of the episode, but I happened to return to this entry in the past week and was surprised at how prophetic the parallels of Faith and Nightmares seem to be. I feel even more convinced now that they are the two seminal episodes of S1, setting up not only the fundamental character aspects, conflicts between the brothers, and general family issues, but also the larger series arcs. This is particularly remarkable given that Kripke said in his last interview with Maureen Ryan, that they didn't start thinking of character issues until a few episodes before Faith, and he supposedly hadn't pondered the whole angel arc until the S3 hiatus.
I'd started a post a while ago that began with Russell Davies' comment "“I recommend (Torchwood fans) go watch Supernatural, because those boys are beautiful. And don’t tell me they’re brothers. [Laughs] Not in my mind.” Aside from the fact that Davies seems to be neither blind nor misinformed, his comment led me to rethink Levee's exploration of Sam's inner psyche (if not Sam's arc in the series). Before going further though, I want to state two things.
1) This is just a "what if." I don't think anyone involved with SPN intends for Sam or Dean to be read as anything except 100% straight. I personally think that's rather unfortunate, but there it is.
2) It's a good thing they're not trying to make a deliberate gay=evil equation because that would be a thing of ick.
However, just for the sake of discussion, let's pretend that the series had actually been more ambiguous about the evilness of demons, and we had seen more examples that didn't suggest 99% of supernatural things are untrustworthy freaks that must be killed for the safety of all non-supernatural things.
Instead, let's assume we had more Lenores and Mollys, that Ruby hadn't turned out the way she did, and that Casey might have proved to be the exception to the rule that was implied in the short time we knew her. Let's also note that angels seem to be less "good" than "powerful." since the destruction of humanity as a whole with nary a care seems only slightly less evil than the demons' apparent wish to destroy humanity by torturing them to death one at a time.
Assuming all that, When the Levee Breaks' exploration of Sam's deepest fears could be read as having another meaning all along. Sam has always had a deep fear of exposure as being "too different" which has led to continual acts of deception on his part to everyone around him. The revelation in S2 that he has been "a freak" almost from birth doesn't seem to have come as much of a comfort (and certainly the implied rejection in John's order to Dean that Sam must be killed if he can't be "saved" wouldn't have helped). In Levee we see him being literally locked away by his brother and father-substitute, caged in a room designed as a sanctuary and now used as a jail, not to keep intruders out but to keep Sam - the evil - in. This seems sadly reminiscent of the historical treatment of many homosexuals who were either imprisoned or forcibly confined to mental hospitals, subjected to "treatments" designed to cure them.
Indeed Sam's first hallucination is of Alistair torturing him, recreating the origin of his "problem" as a helpless victim. Next we see him debating with his younger self, whose deepest wish was to lead a "normal" life. In exploring that lost normality, Young Sam brings up his relationship with Jessica, tying the two issues together. Indeed throughout canon, Jessica's death is the lynchpin to Sam's abrupt turn away from his new life to his old one. He forever afterwards blames himself for failing her, even though what he was actually guilty of was lying to her about who he was - something he would have certainly continued doing had she lived.
On the other hand, Sam's hallucination of Mary is the only one who tells Sam that he can turn his "curse," something he received from her, into something positive. Significantly, I think, she appears to him wounded or "damaged" even though in Sam's only sight of her (Home) she was, if anything, radiant. But Sam's focus is on what's been passed on to him:
Sam: What's in me, Mom....
Mary: It's evil and you know it.
Mary is not there to give him absolution. As he tells Young Sam "We were never going to be normal." Attempting to reject a part of himself is hopeless, he can only hope to control it.
Finally, he imagines Dean rejecting him as he had always feared Dean would, should he ever understand how deeply Sam's "freakishness" runs. Dean's hatred of demons and the supernatural has been repeatedly referred to by those he opposes as "bigotry" and when Dean tells Bobby that he would prefer to see Sam dead than to see him morph into something alien to him, one could certainly understand that interpretation. Sam would likely be, if not actually dead, at least dead to Dean.
Just as interesting as the correlation of Jess and "normality" in canon, Dean has focused on Sam's choice of sexual partners as a sign of his moral corruption. He gives voice to this literally in SaV and at the end of the Levee sets himself up in clear opposition to Sam's current partner Ruby (who we see in bed together with Sam earlier), suggesting that Sam must choose between them.
Sam's primal terror seems all along to have been less about who he is than of his likely rejection by those closest to him should the "real" Sam ever be seen. If he had actually been focused on being "marked" by evil through the demon blood he would hardly have willingly consumed more. Instead, Sam feels he can compartmentalize this aspect of himself, and if only given support by his family, could turn his innate nature to their advantage.
Whether Gamble intended it or not, Sam's inner dialogue with himself in this episode is curiously reminiscent of past horror tropes that tie together issues of sexual identity with alienation and monstrosity, and thus provides an interesting recasting of the true divide between the brothers.
1) Lucifer Rising (Eric Kripke)
Compared to the rather crammed together S5 opener, the concluding episode to S4 made the most of the shattering conclusion in Levee. From the opening segment in which both Sam and Dean are disturbed and uncertain of where they should go next, we are being primed for the countdown as the clock begins to tick and we wait to discover how the final moments will be reached.
We have considerable backstory provided in this episode, but except for the opening segment none of it seems to drag. There is a constant tension in wondering whether or not Dean and Sam will be reunited, and if so, what will come of it. Given the episode's title, the likelihood of Lucifer being freed never seemed in doubt. The real questions that are eventually resolved are why, and how. For example, what were Lilith, Ruby and Zachariah's plans all along? Would Castiel help Dean or not? Would Dean help Sam, fight him, or reject him? Would Sam go through with killing Lilith, and would he be as irretrievably turned as Dean feared? Would Lucifer possess Sam?
There are numerous questions that have been raised throughout the season and which are toyed with in this episode. Many of them are answered or at least put into further play for the following season. This is also true for the various characters, with Lilith and Ruby meeting their end, Castiel, Chuck, Sam and Dean's fates' hanging in the balance, and Zachariah's and Azazel's plans largely explained. We also see some pivotal character moments - Sam killing an innocent human being for his own ends, Dean realizing his work will never be done, Bobby coming out squarely in the "togetherness until the end" camp, and Castiel rejecting everything he has ever known to follow his own instincts.
All of this is woven together in a way that builds tension until the conclusion where the column of light spews forth and Sam and Dean disappear in its reflection. In addition to what is a well-paced episode, weaving together various elements, there is even a continued metaphor of Dean and Sam being unable to hear one another. The chilling tampered phone call provided both an unexpected twist, and also demonstrated that regardless of what each was saying to the other, the only thing they were hearing were their own voices.
As an episode, LR is good, and as a season finale, it ties together the season in a way that improves all the episodes that led into it.
*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#**#
BTW, did anyone else notice in Terrible Life how supposedly art-challenged Sam was actually drawing some pretty good pictures of monsters while on the phone? Was that an unexpected upgrade to compensate for the memory wipe?