1. That’s a very spoilery episode title.
2. The episode starts with a blurry close-up of Sam’s face, which comes into focus and we see he’s brooding and pensive. That’s because he’s still unsure if he’s doing the right thing or can do this thing at all, and this anxiety and lack of confidence will follow him all through the episode, sometimes mutating into anger. Like in the previous episode, he and Ruby discuss what will be when it is over, and Sam has clear premonitions that nothing good awaits him. He also – shock – begins to think his brother was right.
3. Then, in a mirroring fashion, we see a blurry close-up of Dean’s face that comes into focus as he’s staring out of the window with an expression that should be illustrating the “depression” entry in a dictionary.
4. He’s in his dramatic insult mode. Of course, he’s in doubt and his heart hurts, but he won’t admit it, and prefers to wear an I’ve-had-enough-of-my-bloody-brother attitude. He says, “I’m sick and tired of chasing him. Screw him” (cf. 4.21 – “I would die for him in a second”. Emotional roller coaster). Yeah, Dean, it’s a pretty miserable career with no promotion perspective: you’re 30, and you’ve spent a good portion of your life on your brother’s trail, like you were a kid in a fairy tale, but you won’t take it any longer, no, no, no… Wait, wait, are you... crying? This little twitching of his mouth after he says “And he walked out anyway. That was his choice” says it all. Honestly, the man openly cried, like, a dozen times this season, which, I guess, breaks his own record, whereas do you remember Sam cry this season? Maybe once.
5. It’s perversely enjoyable to realize it’s mostly this brother thing that can really reduce Dean to tears. Or maybe he’s all emotional because he knows he won’t stop chasing Sam, never, his instincts won’t let him leave the boy alone. Seriously, man, this guy is your drug.
6. I love how the boys get two queer references aimed at them in this episode: (a) Bobby calls Dean a “princess”, exasperated with his whining; (b) Ruby calls Sam a “12-year old girl” – when they’re driving in her car, Sam prefers to brood over Dean’s message he dares not open on his phone, rather than focus on their “job”.
7. Mr. Singer is uncharacteristically insistent when it comes to this brotherly confrontation. Again, it feels like the reversal of “When The Levee Breaks” conversation – when he’d call it a “domestic drama”, and Dean, on the other hand, took it very seriously, so now we learn that Bobby also takes this drama very seriously. He sees through Dean, Dean’s stupid stubbornness makes him literally sweep the contents of his desk on the floor and accuse the boys’ dad of cowardice – hey, probably it was the only way to get any strong, genuine reaction from Dean. Seriously, Mr. Singer, you deserve a hug.
8. Then voilà – Dean is transported into a trap – just like the one he’d locked Sam in in the previous episode. It’s a much more beautiful trap, though, with expensive furnishing, mirrors that look at each other and form infinite corridors, and baroque, Biblical-themed pictures on walls. If Sam’s prison was supposed to represent a makeshift Hell, Dean’s is an imitation of Heaven. Zachariah with a guilty-looking, shoegazing Castiel in tow appears and offers him consolation prizes, but nobody’s playing games with Dean, no. I think you should thank the angels, though, if only because placing Dean in this luxurious, claustrophobic prison kicked him back into gear and at once shook this angoisse off him.
9. Random thought: an angel’s deal does not require pleading them – in fact, they ask you to accept it – and sealing it with a kiss (to fan girls’ dismay).
10. Yeah, Dean, look how bad signing work contracts with Angelic Corporation turns out. It’s like Top Secret Super Special Forces job which you can’t leave if you had accepted it once. They’ll hunt you down and kill you unless you do their duty and keep their trade secrets. He made it all for love. And he did it because he more or less trusted these guys, but now he clearly sees they are just as unreliable as anyone, and realizes that maybe this deal would be even worse. After all, demons only took his promise to donate his soul in a year’s time and then didn’t bother him until the deadline came. But angels would demand his full time and loyalty.
Look, Dean, why don’t you declare your deal defunct? You didn’t sign anything, it was an oral agreement, arranged without witnesses. They promised to maybe free Sam from his demonic bounds, you promised to serve them in return. But did they fulfil their promise? So why don’t you just lie and say it was all a mistake?
11. Meanwhile, Sam and Ruby locate the demon disguised as a nurse who’d lead them to the whereabouts of Lilith. On the way, Sam saves an infant baby from death in the demonic nurse’s paws – an obvious flashback to Sam’s own childhood, where there was nobody like him to chase the Yellow-Eyed Demon off his bed. And this is probably the only really good thing he does in this episode (okay, so the other two ones were freeing himself from Ruby’s charms and helping Dean to finish her off, and also saying sorry to Dean), and maybe it makes up for the sins he’s about to commit. It’s symbolic: his heart is very tough and roughened by now but it still has a capacity for mercy and doubt – in fact, a much bigger capacity than you’d suspect watching his actions through the season. Suddenly he’s starting to have doubts about everything – killing Lilith, torturing the demonic nurse, about whether Ruby’s telling him the whole truth, whether he wants it at all, whether his brother was right, whether he’s doing the good thing. He’s got his head in a mess. Or a mess in his head. Or both. He’s completely lost. He has these metaphorical voices in his head, one of them is Ruby’s, the other one belongs to Dean. But his own voice and reason is blurred due to his blood high, his own will is ruthlessly sedated and manipulated by Ruby who’s literally behind the wheel of their car. He acts almost like a zombie. And the only thing his sleepy consciousness can help him with is tell him to follow either of these voices. Sadly, the right voice is reduced to his memory and the brutally tweaked message on his phone.
12. The message Dean leaves Sam – would he, unless stuck in his trap? – is a mystery. First, did he manage to get the “I’m sorry” part in it before the click? Second, how did this message get warped so much in transition? Did Ruby or somebody else change it? Or maybe Sam’s hazy mind got it wrong, and he heard what he wanted to hear – an insult. He feels guilty, not vindicated.
13. His sheer need to hear from his brother (his advice? approval? prohibition?) and use his words as a blessing is fantastic. If only they were in real touch.
14. How symbolic these “you’re outside your coverage zone”, “you can’t reach him” phrases are. In the episode’s exposition it is revealed that dad would never “reach out for Sam”, so Dean can’t reach Sam either now. Literal and figurative meanings at work.
15. Dean’s pacing round his cosy prison, with a scary knowledge in his mind, and absolutely unable to pass it to the one who needs it. He deliberately crashes a statuette against the floor, and somehow it serves as a sign for Castiel to reappear.
The first of the two truly hilarious moments in the otherwise bleak episode (the second one being Chuck’s phone conversation and computer problem) is when Dean hits Castiel and then flinches in pain, as if his fist has landed on a concrete wall. Ha ha, the angel is not as fluffy as he seems, Dean.
If anything, we learn the new capacites within the character of Castiel this episode. Dean and Castiel have had quite a few conversations and confrontations so far, and there’s something hilarious about the way they talk and interact. I mean, the art of verbal battle has always been as essential a skill for the Winchester
That’s not the case with Castiel. The angel obviously lacks personal charisma of Dean (this is to be changed as soon as the next episode, though), so that while Dean argues with him, he must feel strange. Here, Dean was shouting, cursing, overreacting and even smacking him in the face, but Castiel would give him a poker face reaction and almost zero emotion. Even when he does show some feeling (e.g. “The Rapture”), it’s usually just a glimpse of emotion. The guy’s an angel and his “human skills” are imperfect. He probably doesn’t understand why humans need this dramatic behaviour, but stoically bears it anyway.
As a result, in all of his confrontations with Dean you get an impression of Castiel being somewhat inferior, passive or even weak, because he can’t even shout at Dean in return, and never gets dysfunctionally angry at him. Maybe even Dean is under such confusing impression, so he thinks he can do whatever he wants and tell the guy whatever he thinks. But at the back of his mind they both know the guy is much stronger than Dean, only he won’t show it unless absolutely necessary.
Also, Castiel’s somewhat cold and robotic demeanor may result from his position of a God’s soldier, trained to obey His orders and repress his own judgement. But even this is rapidly changing as the Season goes (cf. “Heaven and Hell”, “On The Head Of A Pin”), so that by now we have an angel who questions and doubts his own destiny and duties, too. He’s a quick learner. By this episode’s end, he’s able to finally take and fulfil his first independent decision.
16. Fandom should be happy – pie references occur twice in “Lucifer Rising”: first, in Bobby’s “make you an apple pie, maybe?” reproach to Dean, then when Dean gets trapped, Zachariah offers him a sandwich, but Dean refuses. Later, alone and totally exasperated (phone calls won’t come through, Angels forbid him exit, walls heal up immediately after he’s hit them), with this I-did-what-I-could expression, he grabs a sandwich and just as he’s about to take a bite, Castiel appears, unusually rushed, knocks it out of Dean’s hands as if it was some poisoned apple (who knows, maybe it was, like some sort of sedative), cuts open his angelic forearm with Dean’s knife in a very Rubyesque fasion (the look on Dean’s face – what are we supposed to do with it?) and draws a sigil on the wall in his own blood to block Zachariah off and let them both go. You’ve got to hug the angel, girls, if only for his emergent bravery and humanity. Dean wasn’t talking to a brick wall, his exasperation had an effect on Castiel.
17. Castiel is a very good angel, because he regards his job really seriously and “humans in his charge” are lucky, as he takes their troubles close to heart. He sees his superiors’ orders are unjust towards humans, so he decides to take his own risk and do what he feels is right. That definitely makes him a freak in his garrison, a black sheep. He’s making himself into an outlaw, just like the boys.
18. Dean asks Castiel to get him to Sam for just five minutes – it’ll be enough for him to do what he needs (I guess, he wants to say “I’m sorry” first, and “don’t kill her” second – even one minute would do), but Castiel won’t grant Dean these five minutes. Later, in 5.22 “Swan Song” the history repeats – Dean would ask for a 5-minute talk with Sam-in-Lucifer but neither Lucifer nor Michael would give him the time, then Castiel would appear, throw this fiery bottle at Michael, and tell Dean that whatever it is, but now he can have his five minutes. It feels like the angel was making up for the 4. 22 refusal.
19. Demons can locate Angels (cf. “On The Head Of A Pin”), but angels can’t locate demons, so they have to refer to their prophet writer. Obviously, now both Castiel and Dean are perceived as a threat to him, so that an archangel is being sent to destroy them.
When the house begins to shake, Chuck’s computer with “Lucifer Rising” chapter of his “Supernatural” book series – evidently, just completed – starts acting up, and the text goes all haywire. What is it but a great metaphor of how easily the destiny can be changed? Just unsave the text, destroy the hard drive – what’s written can be unwritten.
20. This instantly iconic gesture Castiel and Zachariah use to teleport people in space – index and middle fingers quickly pressed to the person’s forehead – should be celebrated, named and given an entry in SupernaturalWiki, just like Sam’s demon-exorcising hand. Castiel’s could be christened a Lightspeed (Godspeed?) Hand. Or Space Travel Hand.
21. It’s amazing how uncertain Sam is up until the very last moment. The extreme situation he finds himself in, obviously sharpens both his human and demonic sides, so he’s twice as able to sympathise with other people’s pain (when the demon either escapes the nurse’s body or hides in it, so that he’s not sure whether she’s the innocent woman or the demon, and if she’s the woman, then is it right to take her blood away, kidnap her, torture her?) and twice as cruel and evil when he gets going.
22. Maryland Washington Maryland USA Midwest US? Can’t they make a European-based one? Guess, no. Above all, Dean’s afraid of flying, so no matter how many people could be saved from things in Europe, this dizzying paper monster of his is far too strong, so America
22. The “door” symbolism is present at least thrice in the last couple of episodes: (a) “If you walk out that door, don’t you ever come back”; (b) “I’m leaving” – “Through which door?”; (c) locked doors of the convent that Ruby seals when she sees Dean so that he has to crash his way through them. It’s clearly a depiction of how walls and doors stood between him and Sam, how they were both locked in prisons of their own lunacy and fallacy, with wrong advisors by their sides, and how Dean’s now trying to break through these walls and doors to reach Sam.
23. What Dean does next could’ve easily earned him a slew of “Dean, you’re dumb” comments from fan girls worldwide. Seriously, while he’s tearing these convent doors down, he seems to have temporarily lost his vast linguistic ability, so that the only word he remembers is, predictably, Sam. I mean, Dean, after you called out for your brother, couldn’t you just have warned him anyway – these doors couldn’t block your voice off. Like, not just “Sam!” but “Sam! Don’t kill Lilith! She’s the last seal herself!”
I have one explanation for his behaviour, though. He didn’t want to put lil brother in danger. He tells him, Sam hears it, tucks his skillful hands firmly in his pockets, Ruby and Lilith go after him. No, I’d better sneak in and whisper my secret in his ear.
24. It’s heartbreaking seeing Sam making his decision before he enters the convent to kill Lilith. Somewhere in his mind, however crazy it’s being, he’s figured out that back then Dean was more right than wrong about him becoming a monster, so now he makes his own choice depending on what he hears in Dean’s message (that he cares about Dean’s opinion at all proves he’s not a monster). Maybe he really wanted to let this message decide between the two options he had, as he was still on the fence. Like, if he hears Dean curse him and cut all ties with him, he’s got no more reason to live his life, so he doesn’t care about himself anymore, and doesn’t give a damn if he loses his mind, body or soul in this murder – if Dean doesn’t need him, then he doesn’t need himself either and doesn’t care if he turns into a monster completely. I have no doubt he really hoped to have heard the “good” message. But had he heard Dean’s real “I’m sorry” message, would it have stopped him? Epic, hurting moment.
25. Back to dramatic face muscle twitches: when Dean sees Ruby slamming the doors shut in front of him, his mouth twitches in this evil smirk, just like the one that appears on Sam’s face when he’s about to exorcise some nasty demon. How brotherly.
26. Sam hears Dean call out for him from behind these doors, and it literally lightens up his face and makes his hand weak (he’s already started killing Lilith). He literally goes dizzy. Seriously, if he had fainted at that point, it would have been so much better for everyone. Then again, he has two women screaming at him, and a terrible collision in his head (how. come. he’s here. if. he. left. such. message. does. he. still. God. care. for. ME?). Sadly, his mind’s already made up, so he does the irreparable.
27. One of the strongest motivations behind Ruby’s scheme was pure competitive zeal. She wanted to be the best. And, Sam, it’s a brilliant idea to try and destroy her, only now the strength magically returned back to her, and why didn’t this idea cross your mind earlier? And, Ruby, no, he didn’t have a choice you say you were leaving him all this time – you made his choices pretty obvious.
She tells him that he doesn’t need blood anymore, because what he needs is already inside him. This is surely going to be a haunting, scary nightmare for him ever since.
28. Sam may have made all the wrong choices but the last choice he’s got he’s going to make right. They kill the demon girl. Together. In an implicitly sexual manner. With a knife. Fan girls worldwide have been waiting for this, boys. They applaud your common sense finally winning.
So you think you’ve had them, baby, but don’t you joke with the tough guys – they’ll have you back anyway.
29. Am I right that after such a bad romance, we’re pretty much secured from any women connections in Season 5? The boys wouldn’t want to have any truck with females, demonic or not, after such disaster. Slash girls, watch out for hot man-to-man innuendos galore.
30. This murder feels deeply symbolic to Dean. He wasn’t only killing an annoying “girlfriend” that stood between his brother and him, he was really killing most of the disagreement between them. They stood face to face, with the demon girl’s body literally between them, and then Dean had to tear this one last wall between them down. So he did.
31. It feels like a small victory, too, that the first thing Sam says to Dean after their reconnection is “I’m sorry” (he gets no reply, though) – for all he knows, these may be his last words to Dean if they’re gonna die now. It’s a reflection of Dean’s “real” message, and it clearly shows Sam has been thinking about his behaviour and realized he was wrong.
32. Then again, it feels very OTP that Dean’s first words to Sam are “Sammy, let’s go”. Sammy?! Back in protective mode, no matter what, Dean? No, we ain’t gonna die, baby, we’ll pull through. It’s honestly adorable that even in this situation he never loses his cool, remains caring and cares for the man, not the mess he’s made. He doesn’t (though he’d be fully justified to do that) smack Sam in the face, just grabs him by the side of his jacket and urges him towards the exit.
33. The Tough Boys have magnificently failed their epic mission, but an upside to it was the resolution of their “domestic drama”. They won each other back, and that’s what counts. So, sure, it’s the end of the world, but there’s faith and hope with them. To me, it’s a positive episode. They couldn’t stop the Apocalypse, but they definitely stopped (if for a while) a personal apocalypse that nearly happened and crushed their relationship. And maybe there’s a deeper meaning to it: it’s not humanly possible to fight the global Armageddon, but you can and should fight your personal one, and if you do, may that will be the way to stop the global one?
No comments:
Post a Comment