SueB

I can see why it seems that way but I don't think this was actually the case this time. I struggled with that whole subplot but I think the anvil parallel they were going for was Claire as another mirror of Dean. And Claire decided to step back from becoming a full-on monster by warning Dean at the last minute. So, even though he didn't say a word to her, the sequence of events turned her around. Now Cas' rationale was thin thin thin ... two messed up people. But actually, between Dean and Sam, I'd have picked Dean to talk to her. He relates well to troubled kids and provides "been there" advice. Of course sending Dean to meet with her without Sam or Cas? WTF people. Maybe they rationalized that she wouldn't talk with more than one person there. Maybe they figured Dean could handle himself. Regardless, it smelt contrive-y to me. The Mark was active (flaring when Dean had run the blade down Marvatron's chest): I think Sam is enough to pull Dean back from murderous moments. He's relying on Sam more at this point. I watched that scene again and here's what I can tell you: 1. When Dean gets the phone call and walks into the dungeon, he's pretty calm. 2. It's not until Marvatron says "the next one is going to cost you" that the background ominous music starts to come in. 3. There IS a "tone" sound (not tea kettle whistle but same concept) but that doesn't show up until after Marv's face is beat-up and he tells Dean that the Mark is making him "twitchy". The tone stays for the rest of the scene. 4. Action breaks to Cas/Sam and no tone. 5. Back in the Dean/Marv conflict the tone kicks in when Marv says "who was the one who let him (Gadreel) in". it seems to come and go as background noise during the rest of the scene, amping up and subsiding. The tone completely drops out the moment Sam grabs Dean. Interestingly enough, the "tone" seems similar in clarity as the noise when the angel blade cuts Marvatron but on a lower octave. 6. Also, when they show the burning mark, there's a slight sizzle sound. Conclusions I draw, it seems like the Mark responded AFTER Dean got physical. And since it was glowy-happy when he was about to kill Marvatron, I'm thinking it's amping up as Dean does violence and cutting the Angel really juiced it. Which is why Dean thought he was going to kill him. I don't think Dean walked into the jail intending that, but he certainly "went there" by the end. ETA: Using the steroid analogy...it's like it's there but is activated by Dean's adrenaline. As he amps up, it feeds him more juice and a cycle starts where feeding the Mark is making the Mark's influence more.

ITA that Dean, while still able to have rational thought, is letting himself get into situations that he shouldn't. As Aeryn said: and as rue721 said: BUT....that's kinda the fascinating part for BOTH characters. Sam is going to HAVE to take a firmer hand and Dean is going to HAVE to let him do so. No one gets thru AA or any other major complex behavioral issue by just 'toughing it out'. You usually need someone there to keep you in check. And in the past, the boys have done that. But this is different. This is recognizing that Dean has an itch to scratch that maybe subconscious. I do like meretensia's idea of a parasite, because as Metatron stated, it's getting worse. I think last week's episode is the first time I recall (maybe Abbadon??) where the Mark actively glowed while Dean was hitting him. But at the end...Sam actually DID kinda deal with the issue in a Sam-way. He asked Dean if maybe he WANTS to do the hurting and that he has to fight it. He's not doing a John/Dean which would be to put Dean's ass on lockdown. He's making Dean come to the realization that he's letting himself get into bad situations and that he's going to have to fight this. This is the second episode where Sam had the "Oh Shit!" moment when he realized Dean was off the deep end. I personally think a little closer watching and little more of his "make Dean work thru this" approach is in the right direction. Regarding how far to push the moral code. I'm 100% convinced that a major theme of this season is for the boys to hammer out right and wrong in the complex world they live in. It was simple for Dean when John was in charge. Monster=evil. Sam clearly was not so sure (based on his own inner sense of taintedness) and Amy. Lenore blew the theory of all monster=evil out of the water. (Side note: Yay for Amber Bensen playing the character that was a moral game changer!). Now...now it's even more complicated. Sam was "my death is no bigger than any random schmoe" and Dean was "Sam lives". I must admit, I kinda love Dean and his "Sam lives" mindset. It's because as a parent, I get that instinct. But when Dean got turned a demon... he went for "Dean lives-ish" (ish because he didn't know if Dean was a zombie, revenant, possessed meatsuit, etc...). He just knew his brother was not going to be in whatever state he was, he was going to get him back or properly put to rest. So this season, I think "how far should we go" is the issue. Each human life is important but if Dean's death turns him into a demon, would Sam kill a human rather than let Dean die? It's not an equivalency anymore. Anyway... enough rambling. I'm finding this a fascinating season with the role reversal and anxious to see how it turns out.

Well...in S9 the veil was in pretty bad shape. I'm still not sure it's really okay tbh. I was exhausted beyond reason last night so I didn't get to eulogize anything. I'll make it short: Rock and a Hard Place - Yay Jodi! That's about it Do You Believe in Miracles - I'm not sure why the rapid disposal. Dean becoming a Demon was the obvious move and although I would have rather kept Dean human and not requiring supernatural powers, given how I think they are progressing the story in S10, I'm okay with it. I did like the "Can't Find My Way Back Home". I thought J2 did a fabulous job with Dean's death. I loved Crowley's speech at the end, it gave me some insight I wanted. And I loved the Crowley/Dean interactions. I Think I'm Gonna Like it Here - Loved Jensen's performance in the chapel and the hospital room. I was glad to see Dean tell Cas to get his butt to the bunker. Not thrilled about Sam willing to pull the plug. Thought Tahmoh did a great job. -- #THINMAN ++ First Born ++ Blade Runners 27- First Born 23 - Blade Runners 15 - Road Trip 15- Alex Annie Alexis Ann 15 - Dog Dean Afternoon 15 - Devil May Care 15 - Heaven Can't Wait 15 - Bad Boys 15 - Holy Terror 15 - The Purge 15 - Captives 15 - Mother's Little Helper 15 - Meta Fiction 15 - King of the Damned 13 - Stairway to Heaven 13 - Slumber Party 11 - Sharp Teeth 09 - I'm No Angel 07 - #THINMAN Off in the Veil with Kevin Bloodlines Rock and a Hard Place Do You Believe in Miracles? I Think I'm Gonna Like it Here

Doh! I forgot about Marvatron....which started this whole discussion. So that's 5 times. But Marvatron is part of MoC influence topic.

..from the All Episodes Thread. My bias: torture is wrong. Hollywood shows it as an effective form of getting intel because it shows darkness in their heroes or anti-heroes. In my personal opinion, the likes of Jack Bauer are what caused us as a culture to accept torture as a "necessary evil". Which brings us to an issue: Supernatural the show is from that Hollywood culture of "torture is a necessary evil". So just because the show has had Dean using torture in the past with demons and monsters does not mean to suggest they they are portraying Dean as evil. OTOH, Dean himself has from S1's Devil Trap onward, acknowledged that he's afraid of what he will do to others to protect the family. More importantly, is the role torture played in his time in Hell. Now my entire discussion here doesn't rest on this idea but I'll posit it for the purposes of my thoughts: What if Hell is actually a different experience for everyone. Not exactly like Heaven, but that an individual's torment feeds off their own soul. So for Dean, he was tortured and Alastair broke him by forcing him to torture. That was the right "demon" trigger for Dean. For Bobby (in that lame-ass Hell from S8), it was seeing Sam and Dean in Hell and undoubtedly they were at least emotionally ripping him up 100 times a day. So using the notion that Alastair broke Dean by forcing him to torture, I think it's likely Alastair KNEW Dean would like it. That makes the pain that much sweeter. So what the hell is remotely likeable about torture?? It's the power. It's "dishing out the pain for once". And this, of course, COMPLETELY matches Dean's emotional issues of abandonment, and being raised by an 'obsessed bastard who brainwashed' him. Add in a violent monster-killing profession, bake for 30 years and voila: torture addiction. (Note: this is obviously a behavior addiction like gambling addiction vice a substance addition. As portrayed there's anticipation, ritual, use, and regret before the cycle continues. Apologies for simplistic description). But at the end of the day, Dean relieves some of his own pain by causing others pain. It's not a good thing. In the real world there'd be a padded room for him. But in the Supernatural world, Sam and Dean are probably the biggest serial killers (according to the monsters) that the monsters have ever experienced. And not to get too philosophical, but the entire series plays with the concept: So, it's pretty much a given that Sam and Dean (especially in a 10 year series) are going to grapple with not becoming the monster. As Carver said, "who's the real monster" was part of this year's theme. But back to Dean & torture: I think the show has indicated that Dean knows torture is bad but is tempted by the feeling he gets. As others have mentioned, he warned Cas about it before torturing Alastair. And yet as time went by, he took it on himself to be the torturer almost like a burden. I think in Dean's mind his soul was already tainted so he'll do the torturing. Sam has done some but when the two are together, Dean's the one doing it. In Purgatory he got to kill monsters without any "regret", partly because it was kill-or-be-killed. And he clearly (from the werewolf and vampire scenes), he felt it was open season on torture while inside Purgatory to find the angel. So why is Dean still a hero and a good person? Here's my rationale - Many people are susceptible to addition. Dean's a functioning alcoholic, cross-addiction is probable. The power high that comes from torture, even if he feels bad about it, is a guilty pleasure. - Torturing to get information from monsters is probably something John did, so he was likely taught it was part of a hunter's skill set right from the get-go. Lenore rocked his world when he realized that he just can't presume all monsters were evil. And they made a point of that. But before that time, Dean was desensitized his entire life to the suffering of monsters. They were evil, they could be hurt without it being wrong. - Dean didn't really fall under the spell of torturing and it's attraction until Hell. One of the main reasons I think he's still a hero is that he held out for 30 years before succumbing to it. He did not choose this addiction, he may have been susceptible to it, but he broke under torture. - He didn't want to torture once he came back ("On the Head of A Pin" and the way he chastises himself for torturing in the future in "The End") and considered it a personal failing. I think this was a changed position from prior to going to Hell. He now knew what it did to HIM when he tortured. - Since returning back from Hell, I think he's actually only tortured four times outside of Purgatory. Repo Man doesn't count because that was a flashback to a pre-Hell scene. Then we have: 1) About half a dozen demons, trying to find out where Ben and Lisa were in "Let It Bleed". Technically it was Bobby doing the torturing in "The Man Who Would Be King" 2) The Reaper on his way to find Cas in "I'm No Angel" 3) Authorizing Crowley to torture Gadreel to get to Sam in "Road Trip" -- technically he didn't torture and he certainly got no pleasure out of it 4) The Vampire in "Alex Annie Alexis Ann" - which was post Mark Dean DOES play "the heavy", taking the lead on interrogations and smashing people up against the wall, punching out the dude in 1945, etc... but those are not torture scenes IMO. And I think the combination of him threatening with actual torture moments may give the impression that he's doing it more than he is. Looking back at this list, I'd say that what was happening to Ben and Lisa was probably enough for him to not give a shit about what torture does to/for him. Same with the Reaper/Cas. He didn't enjoy Gadreel and the vampire was after he had the Mark. 5) The Mark IMO has egged him on toward not only torture but murder of humans. Killing the guy in #THINMAN was murder IMO. Killing Lester was murder. The massacre of the rapists in "The Thing We Left Behind" was murder (6 guys, 30 seconds: If he was that much more powerful that them, a non-lethal option would have been viable.) All three of these were over the line and I think Dean would agree. I think what really freaked out Dean was he was completely out of control with the rapist dudes. But WHY he's not completely sullied as a hero is he gets the "it wasn't really me" card. He's in an altered state. Sure, it's a state of his own making but if he can look back and say "that was wrong", then the actions he took under the influence of the Mark that he couldn't control. Further, Dean knows he has to get out of this condition because it turns him into "a stone cold killer". Thus indicating that Dean still knows the difference between right and wrong. Sorry for the long post, but I hope my perspective on "Why Dean Winchester Is Still A Hero" is at least understandable if not persuasive.

Also answering in the Dean thread

First Born ++ Blade Runners ++ #THINMAN -- 25 - First Born 23 - Blade Runners 17 - Road Trip 17 - Dog Dean Afternoon 15 - Devil May Care 15 - Heaven Can't Wait 15 - Bad Boys 15 - Holy Terror 15 - The Purge 15 - Captives 15 - Mother's Little Helper 15 - Meta Fiction 15 - Alex Annie Alexis Ann 15 - King of the Damned 13 - Stairway to Heaven 13 - Slumber Party 11 - Sharp Teeth 09 - #THINMAN 09 - I'm No Angel 03 - I Think I'm Gonna Like It Here Off in the Veil with Kevin Bloodlines Rock and a Hard Place Do You Believe in Miracles?

I CANNOT get that ELO "Long Black Road" song out of my mind.

My thoughts on the current topic http://forums.previously.tv/topic/15558-mod-announcements/#entry655741

I'm pretty sure she's cured by the end of the episode. And it looks like the fight is EARLY, which is good.

https://twitter.com/cw_spn/status/558696224656613376 Sneak peek for "There's No Place Like Home." Rocket & Groot!!! Apparently they have movies in Oz.

++First Born ++Blade Runners -- Rock and a Hard Place 23 - First Born 21 - Blade Runners 17 - Road Trip 17 - Dog Dean Afternoon 15 - Devil May Care 15 - Heaven Can't Wait 15 - Bad Boys 15 - Holy Terror 15 - The Purge 15 - Captives 15 - Mother's Little Helper 15 - Meta Fiction 15 - Alex Annie Alexis Ann 15 - King of the Damned 13 - Stairway to Heaven 13 - Slumber Party 11 - Sharp Teeth 11 - THINMAN 09 - I'm No Angel 09 - I Think I'm Gonna Like It Here 05 - Do You Believe in Miracles? 03 - Rock and a Hard Place Off in the Veil with Kevin Bloodlines

Yeah...so...love the boys...love their stories. Bitter they haven't printed the books yet.

Comment taken to the bitterness thread.

Halt and Catch Fire description: http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1sk6vsc Looks like a MOTW.

I did feel judgement off either Sam or Cas. Concern. They know it's over the line but they know its the Mark IMO. Upon reflection, I've decided that how they left Claire was irresponsible. And I dont think the writers know that.

-- Bloodlines ++ Bladerunners ++ Road Trip Bloodlines... you poor red-headed stepchild. With your CW central casting cardboard villains and retconning of shapeshifterness. We really didn't warm up to you. Probably best if you just go ahead an move along. 19 - First Born 17 - Blade Runners 17 - Road Trip 15 - Devil May Care 15 - Heaven Can't Wait 15 - Bad Boys 15 - Holy Terror 15 - The Purge 15 - Captives 15 - Mother's Little Helper 15 - Meta Fiction 15 - Alex Annie Alexis Ann 15 - King of the Damned 15 - Dog Dean Afternoon 13 - Stairway to Heaven 13 - I'm No Angel 13 - Slumber Party 13 - I Think I'm Gonna Like It Here 13 - Sharp Teeth 13 - THINMAN 09 - Rock and a Hard Place 09 - Do You Believe in Miracles? Off in the veil with Kevin Bloodlines

They've never been explicit about it but they've shown Angel sigils trapping Angels and they've used these handcuffs on Angels before (Gadreel). So... we are left to speculate that Angel sigils in the cuffs (like the demon cuffs) are what they use.

Well, at the end he gave up: "Behold, the river will end at the source." And I think that bit was true. And probably the Blade. So... is the "source" Cain or is the "source" Lucifer? This is a river of murderous bloodlust I presume. It COULD be that the "source" is inside Dean's human heart and that this is the source of everyone's desire to kill. I think we'll see him say this again in a "THEN" segment. Such an EXCELLENT insight. I have much to say on Crowley from this and other episodes, so I'll pop 'round the Crowley thread. But for this thread I WILL say that why Crowley shows his Scottish roots by being called King and having a throne, I think Rowena shows her charlatan roots with the airs she puts on. A solid gold tea service -- if that doesn't scream nouveau riche I don't know what would. Between her faux dainty-ness and her language choices, she's definitely all about getting power and money and looking like she deserves it. Plus "I will not apologize for being a career woman!" Nearly spit my tea out with that one. She may be exceptionally transparent but she's also VERY quick on her feet. The way she pulled that story out of her ass about ..what's his name...Santa Demon... pretty quick thinker. So yes, Rowena's presence is an excellent insight into the character of Crowley on many many levels. I see you understand cats well Aeryn! OR, it could explain why Cas put up with Dean's sense of entitlement in S6. Maybe he understood Dean's longing for Cas' companionship even if he didn't verbalize it. I don't mind the retcon at all. Other bits noticed/was delighted about on rewatch: - Delighted: "But I'm YOUR dickwad". Hee. Curstis Armstrong is a treasure. He is the single most pathetic evil weasel the show has had. He's like the definition of the guy you love to hate. Well acted Mr Armstrong. - Delighted: I saw it the first time but didn't mention -- I love how Dean was having zero of Booger's bullshit. It was like he was HOPING Metatron would start to hold out just so he could get his payback. Metatron was pretty stupid to think that he had any leverage over Dean at this time. - Noticed: The opening montage gets much better on re-watch. First time I was sort of stumped about what the song was so I was distracted. Listening to it on youtube to really hear the lyrics, the second viewing was really enjoyable. They are really good at making those montages. Kudos to whomever did that.

I thought Sam was complimentary, showing faith in Dean's strength to fight the Mark.

Judging by Twitter squee, I'd say membership is growing. I think the consensus is that alpha male Dean is eliciting a primal response from many in the audience.

Promo monkeys. Went for the wrestle mania shot.

I think that Death said to not call again. Dean probably thinks he'll just verbally eviscerate him and not help. He's probably right.

I meant that if killing a Knight of Hell triggered Dean's yakking up, then killing the Scribe of God might also have an adverse reaction. Like the bigger the fish, the bigger the impact.

They left Dean alone in the kitchen. Dean was the one who snuck back into the dungeon. I was glad Dean got a little payback on Metatron. I think killing the scribe of God MIGHT actually be a bad idea for Dean. But a little torture? Yeah, that's okay.