2. When Dean claims he may go and accept Michael’s offer, he doesn’t even notice he, basically, tells his brother he’s dead.
3. Dean’s being unbelievably touchy-feely in this as well as the previous episodes.
4. I expect a real BIG fight between Sam and Dean in the next episode. Maybe even hand-to-hand. Long time no see.
5. Oh, it must be a miracle for Dean to discover a town full of hunters. Paradise on Earth?
6. Since when are they so eager to work with others?
7. It’s a very crowded episode. And you know that when it’s a crowd, nothing good comes out of it. Especially if it’s the crowd where everybody can use a shotgun.
8. Marriages in the face of collapse? Apocalypse or not, they are not gonna die virgins.
9. Fake!prophette Leah is short of a local Joan of Arc.
10. Doesn’t it seem a tiny bit too easy when these demons spew their darkness away at a mere Enochian incantation?
11. “I guess that’s what it’s like, huh?... Having backup!” Sam, careful here. Dean may take offense the way he’s been all easily affronted recently. He’s your backup, period.
12. Woosh, Sam’s great at darting knives. The weapon pierces a demon’s back, just in time for Dean to pick it up, and – don’t give this gory blade back to Sam now, man – he’s an ex-blood junkie, after all. Dean even shoots Sam this knowing look.
13. This Dylan guy saves Dean’s life twice in this fight, and when it’s all over, he comes up to Sam and Dean asking if he can join them in the Impala on the way back to Huntersville, and Dean eagerly agrees and even suggests he might let the boy drive, and the three share their manly beers, and how it’s all yet another “little brother who’d look up to you” coming Dean’s way. But, just like the women Sam sleeps with, all Dean’s “little brothers” like these are also cursed – remember “Jump the Shark”. Dylan even dies in the manner that ghoul tried to off Sam with back in Season 4: a demon girl who’d sneaked beneath the Impala pulls Dylan down by his ankles and when Sam and Dean have killed her, the guy’s bleeding to death in Dean’s arms, and – sure it hurts Dean especially bad when pretty young boys he feels fraternal instincts for die within his reach.
14. Naturally, the boy’s mother accuses Dean and Sam. Wonder why after that they were not exiled from this righteous town.
15. Why, in fact, did they even linger there for so long? Must be more than just omens?
16. Leah babbling nonsense about Dylan coming back soon to his dolorous parents – the prophette is an expert hysterically demonstrative manipulative personality.
17. Slowly but resolutely the town is cutting itself off from the civilized but sinner and therefore destined-to-die world. No federal police, no premarital sex, no drinking, no Internet, no cell phones, a curfew – all because “angels” forbade that via the pastor’s daughter’s premonitions.
20. Dean’s kinda interested in the prophette. He finds her pretty (the further she goes the creepier she becomes, though) and believes she can pour some light on the works of Heaven and his own destiny. Why is she keeping this mask of amiability, being nice to them to cover her evilness? She surely knows Sam and Dean are hunters and will be after her if she makes a mistake. Does she hope to proclaim them sinners, eventually, and set the townsfolk against them? And, guys, you were getting pretty close to it.
21. Dean seems to like the town (“I don’t know whether to run screaming or buy a condo”). What? It’s some sort of safe haven where you don’t have to chase your work, it’s already here. Dean probably wouldn’t mind living here for a while. And no sex-drinks rules – Dean, at 30 plus, is not allowed to have sex – Dean’s okay with it. What the hell? The man must’ve lost a good few pounds by now, because his lack of hunger that started in “My Bloody Valentine” seems to go on.
22. Dean, you know one angel and his habits pretty well, now tell us, do angels normally behave like this, prohibiting humans all these things? Dean, do you hear us? Oh no, the man is busy drinking his tea and silently figuring out his fate.
23. Sam’s very much the boss in this episode: it’s him who sees something’s wrong with the prophette’s premonitions and the town going all “fundamentalist”, it’s him who calls Castiel and conducts the basic research. Dean, are you with us? Is it you here? Dude, you, like, full-on has had your brother’s broody personality in you for a month, no less.
24. Sam and the atheist bartender Paul. Just how calmly Sam accepts the fact that God may be up there somewhere, but he doesn’t care. This same fact is a reason for suicidal thoughts for Dean.
25. Transgressive, fuck-the-curfew Sam is loveable.
26. Ooh, that’s Sam’s first ever call to Castiel, right?
27. This scene of drunk Sam come staggering through the boys’ motel room door – Sam’s being all Dean, and we haven’t seen him drunk in a long while (demon blood doesn’t count), and how this initially funny scene unfurls into a dramatic argument is priceless. The angels and the prophette “outlawed 90%” of Dean’s personality, but he doesn’t care.
28. “Where have you been?” – at least Dean still cares about Sam.
29. This white tea cup on his table instead of a usual beer bottle – something is really wrong with Dean. All these details are enough for the intuitive Sam to figure out his brother is planning to surrender to Michael. This “you can’t do this” – “Actually I can” – “No, you can’t. You can’t do this to me” exchange gives us a heart-wrenching insight into Sam’s soul at the moment. He’s only holding on because Dean is, he won’t be able to do this alone; in short, Dean is the only reason he still keeps on fighting. And, in a jest even uglier than throwing away that amulet, Dean again turns his back on Sam and silently goes out to get some fresh air – this time he’s not going to pray and cry, he’d rather drink himself out. Oh well. At least his normal instincts are back.
30. Yeah, Dean, you can do it to yourself, no one can stop your determined self, but really, you do that, it’ll kill your brother. You will. Literally.
Castiel: *in front of Heaven’s door* Knock-knock.
Voice: Who’s there?
Castiel: Me, Angel of the Lord.
Voice: Password?
Castiel: *thinks, scratches head* Damn. Shouldn’t have drunk so much.
33. The “Whore of Babylon” talk is hilarious. The “Where the hell have you been?” – “On a bender!” exchange alone.
34. This wooden stake is a bit more beautiful than the ones they normally use. It doesn’t even look like a weapon.
35. How dangerous a blind, unquestioning faith can be. The scene in the church where Leah declares some of the townsfolk are breaking angels-proclaimed laws and are, therefore, sinners, and should be disposed of, and people looking around, suddenly everyone suspicious of everybody, is pure Medieval inquisition-themed painting. Or is it mid-XXth century? Leah’s methods are War-like: making people see evil in each other. They are looking for an inside foe and that results in a mass hysteria.
36. Pastor: “Who are you?” Castiel (still drunk): “I’m an angel of the Lord”. The Ha. How responsible this Angel is that even when he’s hungover and depressed he still does his duty, if reluctantly.
37. This episode relies on the typical Supernatural device of family tragedy, parents facing the difficulty of destroying their kids-come-monsters.
38. So, Dean, Castiel and Sam Mr. Abomination are not righteous enough. But maybe if only a righteous man can kill the Whore of Babylon
39. Castiel is susceptible to this evil Enochian spell. Maybe because he’s drunk?
41. Sam’s supremely suspicious of Dean’s intentions. “Are you gonna do something stipid?... Like Michael stupid?”. And Dean’s being a liar. “Gimme a break”. You wish.
42. Dean just runs away – cf. Sam in Season 4’s last two episodes – meanly leaving his brother no clues whatsoever. He even skips the goodbyes, selfish one.
43. Oh Sam. Dean never forgave you for those two weeks you spent away from him when you were a teen (as revealed in the previous episode). Catch him if you can.
44. Dean better have gone straight to Michael: to me, this soppy scene with Lisa felt irritatingly redundant – maybe because I have issues with Dean’s “when I do picture myself happy… it’s with you. And the kid”. No way it’s gonna be with her, man. For one thing, she ain’t got Sam’s Puppy Dog Eyes.
45. Wait, so Dean’s really gonna go and be Michael’s bitch? Really? That was hasty.
46. Why would Dean pull such a quirk at the end without even telling a word to anybody? What led him to such decision? How numb must he have gone if he did that to Sam? His twist seemed a little illogical. It seemed like the crucial factor in his step was that he, uncharacteristically touchy-feely, took grand offence at his brother’s “selfish” memories, then God refusing them audience doubled his bitterness, and the fact that he, ironically, turned out to be a “true servant Of Heaven” has done it. Suppose Dean is used to sacrifice his own life, but does he hope Michael, as soon as he takes him, would be eager to fight Lucifer in the shape and form he is now? What choice does Dean leave Sam with, huh? In short: Dean, you’re being a riddle wrapped up in a mystery… you get the drift.
47. Why are both Castiel and Dean so awfully crushed by the news of God telling them to sod off, while Sam is not? It’s understandable that Castiel should be woebegone – it’s got to hurt that his Father he’s never seen but worshipped anyway refused to meet him. Dean seemed to have shared Castiel’s passionate belief that God would help them when they found him. Dean and Castiel both put their last hope in God, but were unceremoniously turned down. At the end of “Dark Side Of the Moon”, Castiel mutters a dark curse at God and stares up at the sky, but then recollects that there’s no one there, and averts his eyes. It’s a mirror image of Dean at the end of “My Bloody Valentine”. Dean is not the man to pray or ask for help, but he was pleading God for help – a sign of how desperate and at the end of his tether he was. With his last hope now gone down the drain, Dean is as much crushed as Castiel.
48. Ironically, Sam has always been the more religious one (even in this episode he admits that he believes) but Joshua’s news doesn’t particularly impress or depress him. Sam’s got the evilness inside, and he’s done evil things himself, and obviously he prayed Heaven to stop him – but Heaven won’t listen. Maybe Sam’s been disillusioned for a long time now. Maybe he didn’t think of God as their last option. He probably believes they can make it on their own, like they always do.
49. Sam’s suddenly got a depressed Angel and a depressed brother on his hands. To think he used to be the grief of the world incarnate. And Sam’s behavior through “Dark Side Of The Moon” and “99 Problems” is simply stellar, and I think it’s gonna be like this until the end of the season. Fan girls can finally fully “heart” Sam again. The show has been painting the guy black a lot through the last two seasons and a half. But now the writers are making up for it, reminding the audience how Sam’s always been, essentially, a hero, so it’s an almost religious feeling that after all the abomination he’s been through, he’s going overall good again. His brother and their angelic friend may whine until the end of the world but he’s not about to give up.
50. I guess, as the season (and the series’ initially intended 5-year-long myth arc) is running to the end, every character is coming to terms with his biggest issue. Sam’s going to solve his good vs. evil drama that’s been haunting him for all these years. Dean seems to have deeper and harder sibling issues, so he’s got to put to an ultimate test his family/brotherhood drama.
51. Remember how in the final scene of “Sam, Interrupted”, Dean told Sam to take his anger and other useless emotion that were torturing him and bury them good if he wanted to keep going? Sam seems to have taken this advice seriously. He probably realized he couldn’t rely on anyone – even Dean – in managing his emotional issues (especially that by now Dean suffers though grave psychological dramas of his own). In Season 4 Sam was expecting Dean to take part of his pain (think of him constantly checking his cell phone for messages from Dean in “Lucifer Rising”) – in vain – so now Sam relies on himself. Sam’s always been the “let’s talk about it” guy, while Dean’s been a “boys don’t cry” guy, and look who’s crumbling now? Sam did offer Dean his help (“Are we gonna talk about it”, he asked him a couple of episodes ago), but Dean refused it. In Season 4 Sam wanted to talk to Dean ‘cause he needed help, but Dean wouldn’t listen, now Sam wants to talk to him ‘cause Dean now needs help, but Dean won’t listen still. Guys, that may be the death of you. It’s so sad that for such “soul mates” a communication breakdown is what breaks them.
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