All Episodes Talk: Saving People, Hunting Things

[DittyDotDot]

Are you saying that  Bobby didn't care if Sammy actually became a monster as long as he killed Lilith before dying?  That Sam was just a weapon at that point?

 

I'm not sure I agree that him drinking the demon blood hurt only him. He was harsher and more cruel.  He was trying to keep it in check but I think he was ready to blow at any time. I thought he killed the nurse because he needed her blood too. I don't think Sam before the demon blood thing would have done that.

 

I do think that Bobby was advocating that they use Sam as a weapon. But I don't think he was too concerned about the monster thing since I think he believed he was dying either way--might as well take out Lilith in the process.

 

He did kill the nurse for more demon blood, but it wasn't because he was jonesing for it, he needed it to get strong enough to kill Lilith. My point more was, I think Bobby was suggesting they use Sam, but they would keep him in check to make sure that he didn't hurt other people. Neither Dean or Bobby would have been on-board with killing the nurse, IMO. Actually, maybe they would be since they drained some demons at the end of S5 so Sam could power up for Lucifer. I don't know, but in general my feeling about addiction is it mostly hurts the person addicted. Yes, it's heartbreaking for the family and such, but in reality the people they are hurting most are themselves.

 

Say what you will about Carver, but I'm glad he deemphasized the whole Bobby = father thing, and wrote Bobby closer to his early characterization.

 

Uh, do you mean when Bobby traipsed across Purgatory with Sam--"Not my Dean" Bobby? Or do you mean Bobby-in-Sam's-dying-head advocating that Sam die? These don't particularly scream early-characterization Bobby to me. I'm not sure I agree that Carver has done anything else with Bobby than anyone else did.

Edited June 10, 2014 by DittyDotDot

[amazinglybored]

 

I don't think so, these would be very different scenarios, IMO. Sam drinking more demon blood really only hurts Sam, but could potentially help them bring down a few demons in the process. Dean killing to stay alive would mean that Dean would be killing--which may help Dean, but would end up with a lot of folks dead. And I never got the sense that Bobby was saying they should use the demon blood as a form of detox, I think he was saying they should use Sam before he died anyway. I don't know, probably just my interpretation.

 

But Sam did end up killing for the blood and before that they still had to take blood from a host. You also have a demon blood hopped up guy running around, that's not good.

 

 

 

The problem I have always had with "Bobby was their true father!" is that if that is the case, then it means in some ways he is as bad as John, because he was there from very early on, per retcons, so he saw what John did to them psychologically (and possibly physically). Yet he continued this behavior with Dean, repeatedly giving him the same harmful "who cares about you? Suck it up," speeches John had given him.

 

And then adding that Bobby had also been an abused child made the whole thing bother me even more, because this meant he had huge unaddressed issues that he likely took out on Dean and possibly Sam.

 

Yep. It also retconned their childhoods. So John would abandon them in motel rooms to hunt... except when they were with Bobby!!!! Right. And why were they not always with Bobby if he was like their father? Why did he let that keep happening? Okay, show.

 

Bobby was perpetuating the cycle of abuse. This show is horrible about father son relationships and family in general.

[catrox14]

But Sam did end up killing for the blood and before that they still had to take blood from a host. You also have a demon blood hopped up guy running around, that's not good.

 

 

 

Yep. It also retconned their childhoods. So John would abandon them in motel rooms to hunt... except when they were with Bobby!!!! Right. And why were they not always with Bobby if he was like their father? Why did he let that keep happening? Okay, show.

 

Bobby was perpetuating the cycle of abuse. This show is horrible about father son relationships and family in general.

 

This is one of big issues for me in Bobby being 'notDad'.   My biggest one would be, why didn't John take them to Bobby's for Christmas if he was so looking after them?  Way to make "A Very Supernatural Christmas" lose a lot of it's power:(.

 

I think they wanted to make John not look like the shitty Dad by leaving the boys with Bobby and give Bobby more reason to be on the show, but all that did was make me wonder "Hey but what about Dean's being Sam's de facto father and mother for their entire childhoods into young adulthood?  How can you explain Dean's compulsion to keep Sam alive was so great that he would make a deal with Devil and an Angel to keep Sam alive if he hadn't acted as his parent for lo those many years?  Fuck it's just a mess.

[DittyDotDot]

Not to mention Bobby's insistence that they bury Sam and move on to the bigger worldly issues at the end of S2. And Dean's kicking him to the curb. It really messes up those early seasons--when I actually loved Bobby and his presence made sense.

 

I remember hoping he was dead in Hello, Cruel World only to actually be alive and then killed later to just be a stupid ghost. Imagine how much more powerful S7 would have been if they had lost Cas in the first episode, Bobby in the second and then slowly everything else. Rather than them keep losing things only to find them again later. Plus, I think it would have been far more powerful if Bobby wasn't a ghost, but Dean thought he was being haunted by him all season. Sigh, this line of thinking only makes me sad.

[catrox14]

Oh wow. Great point about Bobby in AHBLpt2!

 

Gah, I hate notDad!Bobby.  GRRR.

[PeteMartell]

 

Uh, do you mean when Bobby traipsed across Purgatory with Sam--"Not my Dean" Bobby? Or do you mean Bobby-in-Sam's-dying-head advocating that Sam die? These don't particularly scream early-characterization Bobby to me. I'm not sure I agree that Carver has done anything else with Bobby than anyone else did.

 

Bobby pointing out the whole "not looking for each other" being a bad idea reminded me of early seasons Bobby. 

 

The Bobby in Sam's head was a hallucination, so I didn't really pay attention to him.

[AwesomO4000]

The retconning of Bobby's relationship with the boys is one of the things that bugs me.  I liked when he was just one of the assortment of people their father knew, like Pastor Jim or Caleb or Daniel.

 

This never really changed all that much for me. I always thought that Pastor Jim for one was someone the boys did go to stay with sometimes. Otherwise it wouldn't make any sense to me that they were really upset when Meg killed him or that Meg targeted Pastor Jim in the first place.

 

As much as I thought Death's Door was a well-written episode, idea-wise, I never bought that Bobby ever once threw a ball around with Dean.

 

I actually did buy that... with the emphasis on once or twice, or that maybe that was actually the last time. I think the clues were there either in that episode or later - whenever it was that John called Bobby and complained about Dean taking the afternoon off with Bobby to throw the ball around and Bobby arguing that Dean needed to be a kid sometimes. My interpretation of that and the tidbit from Bobby's introduction that Bobby and John had had a tiff/ falling out for good about a dozen years or so earlier... which would add up to Dean being about 14 or so. So my interpretation was that part of that argument that lead to the falling out meant no more Dean and Sam going to Bobby's unless absolutely necessary (like when they dropped Sam off there in "Bad Boys").

 

So my interpretation was that Bobby and Dean threw the ball around a time or two, but it didn't last, because it was against stubborn John's plans, so no more visiting Bobby that much because John forbid it. And eventually John and Bobby fought over that and likely other things and then the rift became even more permanent.That was my interpretation at least.

 

Like did he really think just a drop or two of demon blood was going to be like Methadone or whatever people use to kick opiates?

 

I actually interpreted it just about this way. Bobby thought that the cold turkey was killing Sam, and it sounded to me like he was advocating Sam "getting what he needed" to prevent that. The earlier discussion had been about using Sam as a weapon, but once Sam was zooming around the room it turned to this (From the transcript):

 

Bobby: I'm gonna ask one more time. Are we absolutely sure we're doing the right thing?

Dean: Bobby, you saw what was happening to him down there. The demon blood is killing him.

Bobby: No, it isn't. We are.

Dean: What?

Bobby: I'm sorry. I can't bite my tongue any longer. We're killing him. Keeping him locked up down there. This cold-turkey thing isn't working. If-if he doesn't get what he needs, soon, Sam's not gonna last much longer.

Dean: No. I'm not giving him demon blood. I won't do it.

Bobby: And if he dies?

Dean: Then at least he dies human!

 

That sounded to me like Bobby was suggesting either letting Sam go to get his own blood or maybe even getting him some so that the detox wouldn't kill him.

 

 

and before that they still had to take blood from a host

 

That sort of confused me when Ruby hinted in the finale that they had been getting blood from other hosts before, because that didn't make much sense to me based on what we saw. If Sam would get blood from innocent hosts, why was having to get in touch with Ruby such a big deal with him having withdrawal? That only made sense to me if Sam only got his blood directly from Ruby herself. Otherwise why wouldn't he just go find a demon and get his blood that way and avoid any withdrawal and power fritzes altogether?

 

Ruby herself said that the reason they needed the nurse was because Sam was going to need more blood this time than she could give him. I interpreted from that that the nurse was the first demon in a host Sam allowed to be killed specifically for him to get blood.

 

 

Not to mention Bobby's insistence that they bury Sam and move on to the bigger worldly issues at the end of S2.

 

For me, that just goes along with the season 4 pre-finale suggestion of using Sam as weapon even though Bobby felt bad about it, and Dean being Bobby's favorite. I interpreted the season 2 thing as Bobby trying to get Dean to not do something stupid over Sam's death. Of course it didn't work.

 

Plus, I think it would have been far more powerful if Bobby wasn't a ghost, but Dean thought he was being haunted by him all season.

 

I agree that that might have been interesting, but in some ways it would've been too easy for Dean to test is Bobby was around and disprove it if he wasn't there. Also Dean isn't generally shown to be wrong about such things. The show just doesn't usually go with Dean being wrong about supernatural stuff. Also Ghost Bobby being around Dean also explains some of Dean's depression in season 7, and his not being able to let Bobby's memory go, and maybe even some of his need for revenge. This first two things are just what happened to the mother of the boy who died but couldn't leave in "Death Takes a Holiday." His ghost staying around made her depressed and unable to let go, because she could feel him there. Since Bobby was following Dean around due to the flask, he would've been much more affected by ghost Bobby's presence than Sam.

[mertensia]

Yeah, I thought Bobby was someone Sam dropped the kids off with now and then- like Pastor Jim and others- and then had a big fight and John stopped dropping by. After all, it's mentioned in the rakshasa episode that John had had a falling out with nearly everyone sooner or later. 

[DittyDotDot]

I think the clues were there either in that episode or later - whenever it was that John called Bobby and complained about Dean taking the afternoon off with Bobby to throw the ball around and Bobby arguing that Dean needed to be a kid sometimes.

 

That's my entire point, the clues were seeded in S6 and S7, but previous to that I didn't see those things. I felt like they added some of that in to make At Death's Door work retroactively, but never felt organic to the narrative to me.

 

Of course this is all up to interpretation, and I'm not saying that they didn't build Bobby's role in their childhood up in later seasons, but in S1 it feels like to me that Bobby was more of a colleague that Dean and John knew, but not so much Sam. When they first show up at his house Sam is looking over that demon book and asking questions about the seal of Solomon and Dean's says something like "didn't I tell you this guy knows his stuff." It just doesn't feel like Sam knows Bobby. I always felt like Bobby was a fairly recent acquaintance of John's, within the last say 5-10 years, and the falling out was while Sam was away at Stanford. Sam didn't seem to have any idea what they were talking about when Dean said that the last time he saw Bobby, he pulled a gun on John and told him not to come back.

 

In S2, it still feels like he's just a friend and ally, but they never talk about how he was a surrogate father to them or that they spent all this time with him as kids.  In S3, we learn about Bobby's wife--Sam and Dean didn't know anything about that or that he was even married. I would think if they had spent all this time with him, they probably would have known that he was once married (I could buy that they didn't know how she had been possessed or that Bobby stabbed her, though.) Even in S4, I didn't get the sense that he was a big presence in their life until after John died.

 

This is the reason why I don't buy that Bobby and Dean ever threw a ball around together. Not because the show didn't retroactively tell me he did, but because I never believed he had that much contact with them until we meet him in S1. I always bought that Dean tried to use Bobby to fill that gap once John died, but if you change the narrative to make him a foster daddy then Dean's whole obedience and reliance on John is called into question and takes a lot of the punch out of John's death and what it means to Dean. It makes far more sense to me that Bobby tried to step into that role of mentor/father after John died, not that he had always been a presence in their lives and it makes it more powerful, to me anyway. The whole reason their screwed-up upbringing works for me is the notion that they were isolated and on their own. They had acquaintances here and there, but no one they ever could rely on but each other.

[juppschmitz]

...that's not an addiction storyline. It's more look at how wrong people were for doubting him and how their ignorance and failure almost destroyed him, and then everyone learns their mistake in doubting him.

 

I think they always wanted Sam to have powers, they've just never been able to make it work.

 

It did turn out that Sam's power really only was good for being able to contain Lucifer. As Ruby said in 4.22, Sam didn't really need to drink all the demon blood to kill Lilith, he "had it in" him all the time. So draining the nurse was completely unnecessary after all.

 

Sam was able to contain Lucifer only after drinking gallons (!) of demon blood (and if you re-watch that scene you can see that Dean at least is clearly very uncomfortable by this whole scenario), but this did not mean he was able to overcome Lucifer - he needed Dean (and the Impala) to actually come to his senses. So yeah, the whole powers!Sam storyline really was a mess.

 

Sam drinking more demon blood really only hurts Sam...

 

Well, I think the demon hosts whose blood was taken might have been inclined to disagree. I'm not sure they - with the exception of Ruby, whose case was apparently okay, because coma!girl - ever gave their consent to Sam drinking their blood.

 

So IMO Dean was right from the very beginning about Sam using his powers and later about the demon blood.

 

And the way this show works, has been working practically from the Pilot, is that if Dean has an opinion about something it will turn out to be the right opinion in the end. (Ruby, Sam's powers, trusting angels, Cas and the souls, something's wrong with Sam/soulless!Sam, Sam NEEDS his soul back, no matter the cost...)

 

Which is the reason why I KNEW Gadreel would not turn out to be an irredeemable bastard from the moment he stepped off the bus.  Boy was I not surprised that Dean was right in trusting him all along. The whole Kevin thing was really a big red herring - Kevin HAD to die because Metatron needed him gone. He would have found a way, but using Gadreel!Sam probably made it all the more enjoyable for Metatron.

 

(So, great big YAY! for character continuity for Dean :D)

[DittyDotDot]

Well, I think the demon hosts whose blood was taken might have been inclined to disagree. I'm not sure they - with the exception of Ruby, whose case was apparently okay, because coma!girl - ever gave their consent to Sam drinking their blood.

 

So IMO Dean was right from the very beginning about Sam using his powers and later about the demon blood.

 

I wasn't suggesting that I didn't agree with Dean and, personally, I think he was right. I was just saying that if you compare the two scenarios--Sam's "need" for demon blood and Dean's "need" to kill for survival, I don't really think they're the same thing. Drinking demon blood doesn't necessarily mean that Sam needed to kill the host to appease his need whereas Dean would have to actually kill people for his need to be satisfied--granted he could have tried to only kill "evil" things, I guess, but I doubt it would be contained to only that. The discussion was more about whether we thought Bobby would have been just as onboard with Dean feeding his need just to keep him alive as he seemed to be suggesting they do with Sam's need to drink demon blood back when they had him locked in the panic room.

 

ETA: I guess what I was trying to say with the demon blood drinking only hurting Sam was that, yes, he did need a supply of that demon blood. But he didn't need that much--it appeared to be less than what most folks give at a blood bank--to power up and pull those demons out and then kill those demons. So, even though it requires taking blood from someone, it actually would end up saving that person and anyone else that would have been possessed by that demon. Basically, in the end it would probably kill Sam, but until then he could actually help a lot of folks. I'm in no way advocating that this is what Dean should have done, I think he did the right thing, but there is a certain logic to what Bobby was suggesting.

 

As Ruby said in 4.22, Sam didn't really need to drink all the demon blood to kill Lilith, he "had it in" him all the time. So draining the nurse was completely unnecessary after all.

 

I always thought she was eluding to Sam always having the "darkness" inside of him, not necessarily the demon blood itself. I thought she was saying that he didn't need her to get to this point--it wasn't her that made him make these decisions, he chose his path. I always thought that he needed the demon blood to be powerful enough to kill Lilith, but he really didn't need to kill Lilith, he chose to.

Edited June 11, 2014 by DittyDotDot

[catrox14]

 

 

Which is the reason why I KNEW Gadreel would not turn out to be an irredeemable bastard from the moment he stepped off the bus.  Boy was I not surprised that Dean was right in trusting him all along. The whole Kevin thing was really a big red herring - Kevin HAD to die because Metatron needed him gone. He would have found a way, but using Gadreel!Sam probably made it all the more enjoyable for Metatron.

 

I don't think I agree with Dean being right about everything or that the show positions him to be right about everything. Nor does it position Sam to be wrong about everything. I think it's been fairly evenly split throughout the show. 

 

Dean wasn't actually right about the most important choice he ever made though.  He made the deal to go to Hell so Sammy could live, which OF COURSE he's going to make that deal.  Sammy is Dean's raison d'etre.  Does that mean he was right? I would argue, he wasn't because he ended up jump starting the apocalypse by being the Righteous Man that tortured after 30 years of being tortured.  So if one wants to take the long view over the entire show, Dean was about as wrong as he could have been to do that. ( But then we wouldn't have the great and fun show we have now). 

 

And now in s9, Dean took on the Mark of Cain which has turned him into a demon.  I'm not sure you get much more wrong than jump starting the apocalypse and turning yourself into a demon (FUCK THAT btw). :(

Edited June 11, 2014 by catrox14

[Demented Daisy]

Dean would have to actually kill people for his need to be satisfied--granted he could have tried to only kill "evil" things

 

 

I swear, if they try to turn him into Demon Edward Cullen (instead of vampire), I just might be done with this show....

 

For clarification, if Demon Dean kills monsters and other demons because it's who he is, it's what he does, that's okay.  But if he does it because he "needs" to kill, IMO, that strays a little too close to "I need blood to survive, but I only drink from bad guys."

 

ETA  Still not sure I made myself clear.  What I'm concerned about is the possibility that Demon Dean doesn't care about hunting monsters or evil.  But he "needs" to kill, so Sam and Castiel convince him to kill monsters and demons to satiate his desire.  It's a fine distinction, I know, but an important one to me because it speaks to Dean's characterization.

 

IOW, I want Dean to stay Dean, demon or not.

Edited June 11, 2014 by Demented Daisy

[catrox14]

Gods, I read the saddest thing ever about demon!Dean on tumblr. I'll take it to the speculation thread assuming I don't slit my wrists before getting there because that is just how sad it is.

[Tippi Blevins]

I remember thinking that drinking demon blood to contain Lucifer was kind of weird. Did Adam have to do that to contain Michael? Would Dean have had to do it? Lucifer and Michael were supposed to be about equivalent in power, yes? 

[DittyDotDot]

Yeah, I had the same question when it popped up. A lot of nonsense when on at the end of S5.

[juppschmitz]

I remember thinking that drinking demon blood to contain Lucifer was kind of weird. Did Adam have to do that to contain Michael? Would Dean have had to do it? Lucifer and Michael were supposed to be about equivalent in power, yes? 

 

I reckon that was just because of Lucifer's EVILNESS dun Dun DUNNNNN...

[mertensia]

I think it's because of Lucifer's demoninity, being the fallen angel.

 

What I still want to know is how did Sam ever think drinking demon blood was a good thing? Or even something he wanted to try. Unless he bit Ruby during sex or something and drank some blood and discovered he felt powerful after that. 

[amazinglybored]

I still think the demon blood would have made Lucifer stronger.

[Zanne]

What I still want to know is how did Sam ever think drinking demon blood was a good thing?

 

 

That's what I've always wondered and have to assume that the truncated season 3 would have explained it in more depth. Forget drinking demon blood, just the fact that Sam was drinking blood seems like it should have been a huge hurdle for Sam to overcome. He's not a vampire and it doesn't taste like Bud Light, I'm sure. It's not a societal taboo for nothing. It can spread disease, it tastes disgusting, and it's freaking blood. He wasn't taking tiny sips, he was guzzling that stuff down like it came on tap. Yuck. I never understood how he got past the idea of it to the point he became dependent on it.

[Tippi Blevins]

It can spread disease, it tastes disgusting, and it's freaking blood.

 

 

Plus it probably makes your poop black from all the iron. So it's got that going against it, too.

 

On another matter... I wondered why, if so many angels hated humans, why didn't they just go hang out on Mars or something? It's not like they need air. 

[trxr4kids]

 I wondered why, if so many angels hated humans, why didn't they just go hang out on Mars or something? It's not like they need air.

 

I wondered why they wanted vessels since their goal was the apocalypse that would wipe out half the planet and being vesseless would at least blind and deafen most of the population making them easier to smite. Also why did they need an apocalypse to get paradise, was heaven not to their liking?

[amazinglybored]

 

Plus it probably makes your poop black from all the iron.

 

So what you're saying is that the black smoke from the demons has a new meaning? Ba dum tss.

 

Blood is toxic through ingestion, we can't handle a lot of it. Enough of it can really mess you up, because we can't handle the excess iron and we can't digest it properly. So, you know, Sam is working towards organ damage, is shitting black and picked up a few diseases. Take that, Lucifer!

,

It's like Sam dying after not sleeping for a few days, zero thought went into it.

[7kstar]

I don't remember what ep, but Dean point blank say "You're not my father."

 

I think the problem became when they were trying to figure out how to keep Jim on the show.  He wasn't even suppose to be in that first show in season 1, they couldn't get the actress, so they had to create a new character.  They seem to forget their own cannon.

 

I can see Bobby as occasionally having contact with the boys, maybe even playing a little ball but not really in the picture that much.  Sam forgets things anyway, so I could see him being so young that he really doesn't remember Bobby that well and Dean's relationship really coming from after his Dad's death.  I think sometimes, rarely they stayed with someone but most of the time Dean was left to care for Sam.  That's how I spend it regardless of what cannon says, so I can still enjoy Bobby.

 

What ep is this picture from, I don't remember and it's bugging me.  Anyone know?

Edited June 14, 2014 by 7kstar

[AwesomO4000]

This is a guess, but it should be easy to check... it looks to me like it might be from the end of "My Bloody Valentine?" when Sam is detoxing again and Dean goes outside and asks for help?

 

Edit: Nope... sorry about that. Just checked and it's similar, but there's only Jensen's face in the scene at the end of "My Bloody Valentine" I think. And the collar of the jacket isn't the same. But that shiny jacket in your photo above might help? I think Dean only had that for a short time - maybe around the end of season 7?

Edited June 14, 2014 by AwesomO4000

[7kstar]

 

But that shiny jacket in your photo above might help? I think Dean only had that for a short time - maybe around the end of season 7?

 

Thanks, I don't own season 7 so for now I'll just have to wonder.  Just seeing it in a lot of vids so it made me wonder.  Usually I can guess a season but this one has me wondering.  Thanks again.

[catrox14]

7kstar, that scene is from Swan Song when Sam and Dean are in Detroit.  Lucifer/Sam disappear and Dean is left alone.

Edited June 14, 2014 by catrox14

[DittyDotDot]

I'm pretty sure it's from Swan Song after Lucifer disappears wearing Sam. That moment always gets me, even though I don't really care for the episode itself, Jensen really sold me on that moment.

 

ETA: or what catrox said...jinx, you owe me a Coke catrox! ;)

Edited June 14, 2014 by DittyDotDot

[catrox14]

DittyDot, I'll make sure it's a refreshing Coke!

[DittyDotDot]

But not a bloody one, I hope. Or at least not a demonically bloody one, anyway.

[7kstar]

Thanks, now I can focus on something else.  lol

[catrox14]

I was going for the "Was it a refreshing Coke?' bit from The Rapture ;)

[DittyDotDot]

Right, but Sam was actually downing demonically enhanced blood...sorry, probably not a humorous as I was going for.

[catrox14]

I have my DVR set to capture Supernatural and yesterday they had a marathon of s1 on TNT.

 

I was just watching Phantom Traveler and watching Dean be so miserable with that monkey suit, and so proud of his walkman EMF detector that it  fills me with life and I thought 'Awww, Baby Dean". And then I remember our Baby Dean is now demon!Dean :(:( and I am simultaneously angry and overwhelmingly sad.

 

Fuck. I'm now filtering everything about Dean through this stupid new lens and it upsets me even more! :(

Edited June 15, 2014 by catrox14

[juppschmitz]

And then I remember our Baby Dean is now demon!Dean :(:( and I am simultaneously angry and overwhelmingly sad.

 

Fuck. I'm now filtering everything about Dean through this stupid new lens and it upsets me even more! :(

 

Ooohhh, same here!

 

Every time I come across a happy!Dean post on tumblr my throat constricts...

Edited June 15, 2014 by juppschmitz

[catrox14]

 

Every time I come across a happy!Dean post on tumblr my throat constricts...

 

Right?! I'm looking at him "Saving people, hunting things" and he's either smiling or being sarcastic or being worried about Sam or  his post Hell PTSD tear filled scenes he was still talking about how awful he felt about everything...and then out of nowhere, I'm like "Shit. DEAN> NOOOOOOOOOO! Your future is the saddest fucking thing ever right now".  And I really do get that lump in my throat. UGH.

 

Fuck you Carver.

[Splash]

I'm in the middle of a marathon rewatch and have just started the episode Changing Channels.  I've watched this episode many times and I cannot believe it didn't click with me before that "Dr. Sexy, MD" references the book series that Chuck's publisher said people wanted to read instead of the Supernatural books in The Monster at the End of This Book.

 

It's amusing me to think that Dean might have started reading the books, then became a closet fan of the tv show because of that.

[DittyDotDot]

From the Hunted thread...

 

         @mstaken, on 15 Jul 2014 - 07:29 AM, said:

And you know what irks me even more?

 

        DittyDotDot said:

the whole Earth-shattering-secret-that-was-neither-Earth-shattering-nor-secret-at-this-point speech really is marred by how they drug it out too long and I really didn't care about it any longer.

...ARGH! I really couldn't stand this aspect of S2.

 

Sorry to quote my own damn self (seems like a sort of douchey thing to do) but...this re-watch has me really thinking about how so many of the individual episodes are by far my favorite and most re-watched of the series, but I really think as an overall season it's a bit lackluster. Maybe it's that they drug certain things out too long (like the ::gasp:: Earth shattering SECRET!, but I've been thinking more and more that they really should have re-ordered some of their episodes to pay off their storylines better.

 

I was thinking that they should have pushed Croatoan up after Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things so that they could have paid off how Dean was getting more and more reckless with the secret that John told him weighing on him, plus trying to deal with the grief of losing his Dad. And then maybe What Is And What Should Never Be after that for a bit of resolution. Then they could have had the secret come out and pay off the end of What Is..better and then maybe do Playthings, Nightshifter and Houses Of The Holy as their way of laying low, but then Sam's needing answers starting to make him impatient so then Hunted would have fit better (although I doubt Sam running off the way he did would ever sit right with me). Then maybe Heart to really start ramping up Sam's story and Dean's growing concern. Then maybe Roadkill and Folsom Prison Blues followed by Tall Tales to show how it was getting claustrophobic in that car and pay it off with Born Under A Bad Sign. Then maybe Hollywood Babylon for a vacation before the two-part All Hell Breaks Loose.

 

Wow, would've been probably easier to list them out rather than that long winded paragraph...oh well, I already typed it once, not typing it again. What do you guys think? I know I'm missing a few, but I think they could work into that "laying low" period.

[mstaken]

Agreed, Ditty---as usual! I think I was actually rambling on another thread that S2 is lucky it has some great standalone episodes, because there's a surprising amount that irks me about the overall season: the aforementioned least-surprising-secret-ever-and-ugh-stop-dragging-it-out!, the John grief and some of the horribly clunky conversations that come with it, the horribly paced and anticlimactic 'psychic kids' storyline, the awkward insertion of the Road House, etc. In retrospect, it even annoys me slightly how Bobby is sloppily fanwanked as having been ever-so-important to the boys throughout their lives, when in S1 the only non-John adult the boys seemed to have much contact with was Pastor Jim. (I don't know why, but Pastor Jim seemed like a potentially interesting, likable character to me, and I wish he'd stuck around a little longer!)  I still love S2 and think it has tons of the show's most classic episodes, but much to my own surprise, I'm realizing while rewatching that I actually think S1 and S3 are better paced and plotted overall and have (slightly!) fewer things that annoy me. 

Edited July 15, 2014 by mstaken

[DittyDotDot]

 In retrospect, it even annoys me slightly how Bobby is sloppily fanwanked as having been ever-so-important to the boys throughout their lives, when in S1 the only non-John adult the boys seemed to have much contact with was Pastor Jim. (I don't know why, but Pastor Jim seemed like a potentially interesting, likable character to me, and I wish he'd stuck around a little longer!) 

 

I have been lamenting about Pastor Jim for years. I can't believe they haven't had one of their flashback episodes include him in some fashion--even though he's dead now, doesn't mean he has to be in the past. I could see so much potential with this character--a man of God and hunter, plus a caretaker and mentor to Sam and Dean--sounds like pure gold to me. I'd rant on about Bobby and his increased importance to their young lived being annoying, but I think I've flogged that poor dead horse enough. Although, it didn't start to really irk me until S3 or S4--but it's irksome none the less.

 

Agreed on the pacing on both S1 and S3--In fact, I sometimes think the writer's strike was maybe the best thing that could have happened to S3. I wouldn't have minded a few more episodes on dealing with trying to get Dean out of his deal, but really the shortened season kept the whole arc a bit tighter and less drawn out, which made the pay-off of actually sending Dean to Hell so much better. In general though, I'd say S1 is probably their best pacing. Yeah the hunt for John kinda became moot, but the sheer fact that Yellow Eyes wasn't even introduced until the back half and even then we really didn't see much of him until the end is probably the best way for them to handle their so-called villains. Sometimes they have them so up and monologue over and over and then they whine and monologue some more, by the end of the season I rarely see them as worthy of so much attention much less as villains. I'm just not sure that any of their season-long arcs really have enough to them to last a whole season, I think it would be smarter of them to split the main myth arc to keep the pacing a bit tighter.

[catrox14]

I'm thinking maybe Pastor Jim was just a little too on the religious end of the spectrum and would have pushed the biblical elements sooner than they wanted. Just a guess. But yeah I am forever annoyed with Bobby is the super foster Dad crap. Especially since IMO he was always pretty shitty to Dean.  Bobby would say Dean was his favorite,but I never believed Dean was his favorite. Bobby was great until they made him far more important than he should have ever been.

Edited July 15, 2014 by catrox14

[DittyDotDot]

I'm thinking maybe Pastor Jim was just a little too on the religious end of the spectrum and would have pushed the biblical elements sooner than they wanted. Just a guess.

 

I'm not sure they really had planned to have any actual biblical elements in the show. I think the idea was that Sam was supposed to be a "vessel" for the devil--I always think of something like the movie Frailty was Kripke's original intent--but they had no intention of ever introducing angels until they started planning S4. Kripke says in many S4 interviews and commentaries that if someone had told him a year earlier that there would be angels on Supernatural he would have laughed at them. They only introduced the angels as a way of getting Dean out of Hell, they never intended them to be what they became. Also, on the commentary for one of the S4 episodes (I think it's In The Beginning) he states that they didn't know that the angel storyline would even work and they would have scrapped it quickly if it hadn't been so well received.

 

Anyway, I think the biblical elements that ended up in the show developed out of the inclusion of angels, which they only included on a lark, so I don't think they planned to do a full on biblical end times from the beginning. But now that you mention it, Pastor Jim would have fit in marvelously with the direction the show eventually took.

[Demented Daisy]

Disclaimer:  I'm in the "Chuck is God" camp.  The following is a slightly tongue-in-cheek analysis.  Feel free to skip this post.  :-)

 

So, anyway, I was watching The Monster at the End of This Book on TNT this morning.  According to Sam's research, Chuck has been writing the books since 2005.  Sam and Dean meet him in early 2009.  

 

Two years previously, Agent Henricksen was chasing Sam and Dean all over the US.  It's an awfully big coincidence (ahem) that Henricksen, in his investigation of Sam and Dean, never found the books that, in great detail, described their crimes.

 

But, I hear you saying, Sam and Dean's last name was never mentioned in the books.  Indeed, that is true.  Again, how coincidental that two "characters" named Sam and Dean are described committing the same crimes that Sam and Dean Winchester are suspected of.

 

I suppose it's possible that Henricksen never ran a plain ol' Google search on Sam and Dean.  After all, as we discovered in the "Guess That Episode" game, you can find pretty much anything on the internet.  ;-)

 

Of course, Sam and Dean don't even discover "Carver Edlund" until they happen to catch a case that starts in a comic book shop that happens to sell the "obscure" books.  I guess they never Googled themselves, either.  ;-)

 

Perhaps Chuck was keeping himself and the books obscured until he felt he was needed.  Seals are breaking, Sam is on a course to kill Lilith and free Lucifer, Dean is mired in self-doubt....

 

Of course, this is all speculation.  Just having a bit of fun.  :-)

[AwesomO4000]

It's an awfully big coincidence (ahem) that Henricksen, in his investigation of Sam and Dean, never found the books that, in great detail, described their crimes.

 

This is true, but the "crimes" in Chuck's books would have included what actually happened, not what the authorities thought had happened. And at that time, I think the first incidence of the supernatural that Henricksen came across in any books or online stuff and he'd have snorted and moved on. We also don't know how much detail that Chuck included concerning the names of the towns or the people involved. I'm guessing that no last names were given to the victims either.

[Demented Daisy]

You know, I've never given it much thought before.  But when it comes to torture, everybody breaks.  Sooner or later.  And it doesn't take years, either.

 

So now that I'm really thinking about it, John must have endured 120 years of torture in Hell.  Hmmm.  Yeah, not sure I can get behind that.

[catrox14]

I had no problem believing that Dean's time in Hell fucked him up badly. He did start drinking much more heavily than before. He was more violent post Hell and IMO he was depressed all the time. Alas the show didn't give his Hell experience any real examination because they had flipped the focus to Sam's demon blood addiction. At least with his post Purgatory time, he did have some PTSD behavior, which IMO they should have have also shown for Dean post Hell. 

John did endure 100 years of torture, assuming Alastair wasn't lying.  I've often wondered if everyone has a different Hell experience like everyone has a different Heaven.

 

 

I don't see how you can rewrite it though. That completely undermines how much torture he endured before breaking. If you limit it to 4 months then it makes Dean seem far less strong than he really was.

Edited July 25, 2014 by catrox14

[Demented Daisy]

Wasn't John supposed to break the first seal?  Wasn't that Azazel's plan for John's deal?

 

I'm not sure that I can accept that John held out that long without breaking.  

 

ETA  To clarify -- yeah, the show said that he didn't.  But that implies that he was somehow stronger than Dean.  And I'm not happy with that implication.

Edited July 25, 2014 by Demented Daisy

[catrox14]

Alastair claimed that was Azazel's plan but I don't know if that was actually true or if it was just Alastair trying to torment Dean and humiliate him for not being as strong as John. 

[Demented Daisy]

Regardless, the implication is still there -- and I still don't like it.  

[catrox14]

John was never the Righteous Man, that was always Dean, which is another reason I never believed Alastair. I thought it was always a mind screw and I don't believe that John is stronger than Dean at all. 

Edited July 25, 2014 by catrox14