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SPN, 4x18? 19? I've lost count...
I got to watch live last night, for the first time since...well, I don't remember how long. Possibly the S3 finale.
See, this is why I don't do spoilers. I know there was all this churn about how they were introducing the younger brother just to set up a new hunter/brother so that they could keep going when one of the Js left and oh, man, that's just going to suck and it just goes to show how bad this show's gotten, etc, etc, etc, ad nauseum, and well, um, no?
I cracked up at "Cousin Oliver's" (and had to wait to the commercial to explain it to the boys) and then got a little choked up at "Kim Manor" (and again, had to wait to explain it, so maybe the commercials came in handy after all?)
Randomly...
So, the timing looks to be that John finds out he has a son right about the time it's sinking in that Sam's not only left, but isn't going to call, that he's gone and not planning on coming back. And Dean can't have been too happy with that, or with John (not saying that Dean was letting Sam off the hook, just that he was more or less with John. Or, maybe less rather than more, if they were working separate jobs by then...)
Anyway. I really, seriously love how we *still* don't know John, except as filtered through his sons' memories (or in this last case, by a ghoul accessing those memories and playing with his dinner, so to speak.)
Rock-Paper-Scissors -- I have this whole scenario worked out in my head of Dean getting Sammy to do whatever needs to be done playing that ("look, Sammy, winner gets to pick whether they wash or dry") and deliberately always throwing scissors so there'd be less fussing because Sam "won", and now he just can't break the habit. Yes, I'm a sap. You already knew that, right?
Oh, and you probably already know this, too, but the shoe I'm watching? Is the one where Sam and Dean really can't function without each other, and then they had to, and it fucked them up bad, and now, every time they so much as think about having to do it again, they can't breathe for how terrified it makes them and they are *determined* to do whatever it takes to make it not happen again.
I love that Dean snapped into to protective mode, even while he was trying to figure out how to breathe through the gut punch of John showing up for this son's birthday--I go back to Dean sitting over Sam's body, remembering how he'd begged Sam not to ask the questions Sam always asked, and to Something Wicked, when he tells Sam he'd do anything to give Sam back that innocence.
I love that hint of I-didn't-get-safe/normal-why-should-he? in Sam, layered under the practical, harsh truth that something's already hunting the kid because he is who he is. I like that Sam's ultra-powers don't work on everything, that he's only prince of the demons, not all supernatural stuff.
Also, thank goodness for the info dump--I was not up on ghoul lore and thus needed the Cliffs Notes from bleeding-out-yet-still-geek!boy Sam.
For one brief second, I was hoping for a happy ending, but not only did they not get that, they got a brother who died screaming before they even knew he existed, and holy crap, Kripke, twist the knife a little bit more, I don't think you've quite hollowed them out yet.
And then, speaking of twisting the knife, a question: Alastair taunted Dean with how John lasted a century and never broke, but Castiel told him that when they heard Dean had been taken, they stormed Hell. Not John, Dean. So...did Alastair *really* offer John the same deal as Dean? Breaking the seals has always been Lilith's deal, not Azazel's, so was Alastair just having a little (more) fun with gutting Dean?
See, this is why I don't do spoilers. I know there was all this churn about how they were introducing the younger brother just to set up a new hunter/brother so that they could keep going when one of the Js left and oh, man, that's just going to suck and it just goes to show how bad this show's gotten, etc, etc, etc, ad nauseum, and well, um, no?
I cracked up at "Cousin Oliver's" (and had to wait to the commercial to explain it to the boys) and then got a little choked up at "Kim Manor" (and again, had to wait to explain it, so maybe the commercials came in handy after all?)
Randomly...
So, the timing looks to be that John finds out he has a son right about the time it's sinking in that Sam's not only left, but isn't going to call, that he's gone and not planning on coming back. And Dean can't have been too happy with that, or with John (not saying that Dean was letting Sam off the hook, just that he was more or less with John. Or, maybe less rather than more, if they were working separate jobs by then...)
Anyway. I really, seriously love how we *still* don't know John, except as filtered through his sons' memories (or in this last case, by a ghoul accessing those memories and playing with his dinner, so to speak.)
Rock-Paper-Scissors -- I have this whole scenario worked out in my head of Dean getting Sammy to do whatever needs to be done playing that ("look, Sammy, winner gets to pick whether they wash or dry") and deliberately always throwing scissors so there'd be less fussing because Sam "won", and now he just can't break the habit. Yes, I'm a sap. You already knew that, right?
Oh, and you probably already know this, too, but the shoe I'm watching? Is the one where Sam and Dean really can't function without each other, and then they had to, and it fucked them up bad, and now, every time they so much as think about having to do it again, they can't breathe for how terrified it makes them and they are *determined* to do whatever it takes to make it not happen again.
I love that Dean snapped into to protective mode, even while he was trying to figure out how to breathe through the gut punch of John showing up for this son's birthday--I go back to Dean sitting over Sam's body, remembering how he'd begged Sam not to ask the questions Sam always asked, and to Something Wicked, when he tells Sam he'd do anything to give Sam back that innocence.
I love that hint of I-didn't-get-safe/normal-why-should-he? in Sam, layered under the practical, harsh truth that something's already hunting the kid because he is who he is. I like that Sam's ultra-powers don't work on everything, that he's only prince of the demons, not all supernatural stuff.
Also, thank goodness for the info dump--I was not up on ghoul lore and thus needed the Cliffs Notes from bleeding-out-yet-still-geek!boy Sam.
For one brief second, I was hoping for a happy ending, but not only did they not get that, they got a brother who died screaming before they even knew he existed, and holy crap, Kripke, twist the knife a little bit more, I don't think you've quite hollowed them out yet.
And then, speaking of twisting the knife, a question: Alastair taunted Dean with how John lasted a century and never broke, but Castiel told him that when they heard Dean had been taken, they stormed Hell. Not John, Dean. So...did Alastair *really* offer John the same deal as Dean? Breaking the seals has always been Lilith's deal, not Azazel's, so was Alastair just having a little (more) fun with gutting Dean?