Review for 5x10 'Abandon All Hope'

[galathea]

I’m sorry that this review comes with a two months delay, I didn’t intend to put if off for so long, but unfortunately my massive disappointment with how the brothers' story was handled in the episodes between The End and Abandon All Hope completely drained my enthusiasm to write about the show during the hiatus. I’m kinda stuck in a headspace where I wonder why I bother to put so much effort into my reviews, when it seems that the writers stopped to make an effort with the characters that motivate me to write these reviews in the first place. Even the fact that we were sent into the hiatus with the excellent Abandon All Hope couldn’t raise my low spirits. Now, with the second half of S5 upon us, I forced myself to get on with it, so I don’t fall behind with my reviews. I mostly focus on some of the core emotional scenes that I found especially meaningful and don’t dwell much on the mytharc implications of the episode. I might work it over one day, when I found my motivation back.



Ben Edlund - who seems to have become the main writer for drama nowadays - strikes again, with an episode that very much lives up to its name: Abandon All Hope. This latest instalment in S5 finally focuses on moving the mytharc forward, and while it is in the nature of mytharc heavy episodes that the focus on Sam and Dean in particular is subordinated to the demands of the plot, it at least manages to highlight a variety of different relationships in the show. The dramatic and tragic events of the episode should have a lasting impact on the tone and direction of the story that follows from here, and I can only welcome that.

First off, I loved Abandon All Hope - it had a riveting plot and drew me in emotionally, despite the lack of Sam and Dean scenes - but the episode unfortunately also put a bright spotlight on the negligence of the episodes that preceded it. The complete lack of build-up to the episode not only resulted in yet another tonal whiplash, but it also undermined its impact to a degree. Instead of turning the episode into the climax of a storyline that was carefully built over time, it stands somewhat disconnected amidst these last five episodes before the hiatus. I felt that watching Abandon All Hope was like coming to a movie late and feeling disoriented, because I missed the exposition to the plot. That’s mostly owed to the fact that a lot of development had to take place off-screen to explain the events we see unfold at the beginning of the episode, especially in regard to the relationship between the Winchester brothers and the Harvelles.

Sam and Dean seemed surprisingly close to Ellen and Jo, and the show neglected to tell the story of that renewed familiarity between them. While Sam and Dean had a somewhat familial, but by no means unstrained, relationship with the Harvelles back in S2, their short reunion in Good God, Y’all after two years of radio silence left them no time to reconnect on a deeper personal level, or if they did, we weren’t privy to it. Although, given that Sam and Dean’s relationship was under an extreme strain at the time and that they were reluctant to share personal information with Ellen, I don’t think it's likely that the brothers hung around after War was defeated and chatted about the good old times with Ellen and Jo. The fact that apparently they parted without the loose promise to meet up again - either for strategic or personal reasons - insinuates that neither party planned on deepening their relationship in the immediate future. It may make sense that once the brothers somewhat resolved their interpersonal issues and agreed on the common goal to go against Lucifer, they would try to mobilise the few allies they might still have, but again, if they did, we weren’t privy to it. So the smooth teamwork and intimate interaction between the Winchesters and the Harvelles came somewhat out of the blue, because we didn’t get to see how they got there.

Furthermore, when Sam and Dean met Ellen and Jo in Good God, Y’all it was obvious that while Ellen rightly concluded from the dire events in River Pass, Colorado that the apocalypse is afoot, she unsurprisingly had no clue about the details. The Harvelles didn’t seem to know anything about Sam and Dean’s specific entanglement in the events that lead up to the apocalypse, about angels roaming the earth or Lucifer being set free, and yet, in Abandon All Hope they are apparently completely in the loop. So, when did Ellen and Jo learn about angels? When did they meet Castiel? Their relaxed manner - Castiel’s as well as Ellen and Jo’s – suggests that this was not the first time they spent time in each other’s company. How much exactly do they know about Sam and Dean’s specific roles in the apocalypse, and how did they react to that knowledge? I think we can safely assume that the hunter, who escaped his confrontation with Sam in Free To Be You And Me, spread his knowledge about Sam’s role in the apocalypse around in the hunter’s community, so the Harvelles most likely learned at least of parts of the story through the grapevine. I don’t think it is necessarily a given though that they reacted well to those news, and I would have really liked to see how their first meeting with the brothers, after acquiring that knowledge, went down or how Sam and Dean convinced them to work together.

So, there is a whole lot of story between the characters, who gather in Bobby’s living room at the beginning of the episode, that was never told on-screen, and the season is definitely poorer for it. If the writers knew that Abandon All Hope was coming further down the road – which I assume they did - it’s a mystery to me, why they thought it was a good idea to never mention Ellen and Jo again after Good God, Y’all. Or why they lead into the episode with one throwaway line at the end of a silly episode like The Real Ghostbusters, instead of making Abandon All Hope a two-parter and tell the story appropriately. I think the characters deserved better than to be brought in, just to be killed off again, without re-establishing them first. Not to mention that the emotional impact would have been so much greater, if we had been allowed to reconnect with these characters properly. Anyway, as I said before, the problem isn’t Abandon All Hope in itself, but the lack of build-up to the episode. It just emphasises the narrative weaknesses of the episodes that followed the strong mini-arc of the first four episodes of S5.

Dean: "You can’t come with. Look, I go get Satan and screw the pooch? Okay. We’ve lost a game piece. That, we can take. But if you’re there, then we are handing the devil’s vessel right over to him. That’s not smart."
Sam: "Since when have we ever done anything smart? Haven’t we learned a damn thing? If we’re gonna do this, we’re gonna do it together!"

The 'family gathering' at Bobby’s at the beginning of the episode was one of my favourite scenes, as we don’t get to see Sam and Dean - or the other characters for that matter - in a homelike setting like that very often. I loved it all, from Ellen and Jo’s drinking game with Castiel, to Jo confidently, but good-naturedly, turning down Dean's attempt to hook up, to Bobby taking the family photo. ♥ I thought it was incredibly poignant though that the brothers kept to themselves at first, isolated from the rest of the group, engrossed in their own, private conversation. That imagery appealed to me for different reasons. Firstly, it conveyed a distinct 'us' vibe, but not in a 'versus them' context, more as an emphasis of Sam and Dean as one unit within this little patchwork family. It works as a visual affirmation of their renewed togetherness. Secondly, the fact that - even when surrounded by those closest to them - Sam and Dean are on their own, not only drives the point home that they bear the brunt of responsibility in the dire situation the group is about to face, but also somewhat foreshadows that in the end they are always doomed to lose the people they love, leaving them only each other to turn to for support. It’s bittersweet and hurtful to watch this light-hearted scene with the knowledge that at the end of the episode two of them will be dead and those left behind will be deprived of any hope.

Anyway, the intimate conversation between the brothers was one of the most nuanced and layered Sam and Dean scenes we got in a long while, and I loved it. Dean’s little dig about Sam suddenly having trust issues with demons and Sam’s easy retort - thanking Dean for his continued support – was a wonderfully casual way to make clear where the brothers stand with each other at the moment. On the one hand that little exchange shows how far Sam and Dean have come in dealing with their hurtful past. The humorous tone, the easy smiles between them, the clink of their beer bottles - obviously the brothers are now comfortable enough around each other to bring up sensitive themes in a lighter context. At least some of the wounds started healing. On the other hand, the fact that Dean couldn't help himself and make that dig against his brother and Sam’s casual, but ultimately slightly defensive, reaction to the hidden accusation in Dean's remark, shows that the issues are still there, lingering just under the surface. It wouldn’t take much to set back the healing process. On a cursory glance it’s all easy smiles, but there's a deeper layer of insecurity here. I liked that.

I also loved the brothers’ exchange about how to best confront Lucifer. Of course Dean is right. For Sam to come out of hiding and openly march up to Lucifer is like hand-delivering himself to his worst enemy, especially with no back-up plan in case the Colt doesn’t work. Not that Sam would be in any danger to come to bodily harm - unlike Dean or Jo and Ellen – since he is Lucifer’s protégé and vessel, but it would provide Lucifer with an opportunity to capture Sam and then wear him down, bit by bit. I don’t think that Dean’s argument is a concealed expression of mistrust towards Sam’s promise to never give into Lucifer, instead the argument is geared towards not underestimating their opponent. If experience taught Dean anything then it’s that their enemies always found a way to manipulate either brother into doing their bidding, no matter their defences. However, Sam is also right. The brothers have always been at their utmost vulnerable, when they were not together, when they didn’t have each other’s backs. That's the lesson Sam took from the desaster of the past year. Additionally, Dean coming out of hiding and openly confronting Lucifer also gives their enemy a prime opportunity to try and destroy Michael’s vessel. They both risk a lot in a direct face-off with Lucifer, as getting his hands on either of them gives the devil the absolute tactical advantage at this point. Last but not least, I loved that Sam’s "If we’re gonna do this, we’re gonna do it together!" echoes his almost exact same words from Scarecrow, where he realised that they need to stick together, because they’re all they have. I loved the symbolism in that parallel. ♥

I have to say here that despite my deep dissatisfaction with how the brothers’ reconciliation was handled so far, there is at least one aspect that I think the writers managed to show as a steady positive development in Sam and Dean’s relationship and that’s their newly found maturity in communication ever since their agreement about equality in their partnership in Fallen Idols. Like in all their controversial interactions over the last couple of episodes, Sam and Dean both calmly lay out their point of views and both listen to the other and then decide together on a course of action that takes all arguments into account. They learned to approach controversial subjects matter-of-factly and, most importantly, without allowing their arguments to turn into personal offences, which has always been the main stumbling block in discussions where they were unable to reach a compromise. There is no 'I know best' argument from Dean’s side here and no 'You don’t trust me/treat me like a child' accusations from Sam’s side, they are past that and I like that.

Ellen: "No, I won’t let you!"
Jo: "This is why we’re here, right? If I could get us a shot at the devil, we have to take it."

I’ll be the first one to admit that I haven’t been the biggest fan of the Roadhouse and its characters back in S2. I’ve always enjoyed Ellen to an extent, because she not only presented an interesting maternal figure in Sam and Dean’s life, but also had a pleasantly down-to-earth, tough, yet warm, personality. Jo, on the other hand, had a tendency to annoy me, partly because of false preconceptions about her character, partly because of her initial immaturity. Over the years though, with a bit of emotional distance and the realisation that her personal arc in S2 had actually been quite decent, she grew on me, and I can honestly say that I was happy the see her back in Good God, Y’all. As I already mentioned at the beginning, I find it regrettable that the show didn’t give the characters more storyline after their first reunion with the brothers, not only to give the audience the chance to reconnect with them, but also to deepen their story and add more layers to the characters.

When we first met Ellen, she was a tough-as-nails owner of a bar in the middle of nowhere, that served as a hunter’s assembly point. The tragic death of her husband not only resulted in her general rejection of hunting as a 'profession', but also in her overly protective stance towards Jo, who she sheltered from the true nature of her father’s death. While Ellen had a sociable nature, with a warm and welcoming personality, she also displayed quite a temper and could be authoritative and forceful, when she felt the need to protect herself or her family. Jo’s first impression was that of an immature and overly self-confident young girl, who nurtured romantic notions about hunting and dreamt about following in the footsteps of the father she idolised. She naturally rebelled against her mother’s attempt to control her life and followed her own ambitions, but the harsh reality of a hunter’s life disillusioned her pretty quickly and forced her to grow up, thus facilitating her development into a more mature and reflective young woman. Nevertheless, she persevered in the lifestyle she had chosen for herself. She made peace with her mother, who lost everything when the Roadhouse went up in flames, and together they pursued the Harvelle 'family business'.

When Jo and Ellen join the brothers in Abandon All Hope, they are hunters in their own right, with enough experience under their belt to know exactly what they get themselves into, if they follow Sam and Dean into battle. They know that there is a good chance that they won’t survive the confrontation with Lucifer and yet they don’t hesitate, because it is the right thing to do. In the end Jo makes a deliberate choice to put herself into the line of fire to save Dean, and when she is given a chance to make her death count, she takes it. Her decision to sacrifice herself so her mother and Sam and Dean can live and finish the fight, is a soldier’s decision, and I loved that no matter how painful the situation, nobody tried to take that decision from her.

Although I am sad that we didn’t get a goodbye scene between Jo and Sam, especially since they never got a chance to talk about their traumatising encounter in Born Under A Bad Sign, I think it was appropriate that Dean and Jo got a last moment together. She harboured a crush on the older man for a long time, and while Dean didn’t reciprocate her romantic feelings, he respected her as a kindred spirit. I think the kiss on the forehead expresses Dean’s affection for the little sister he saw in her, when they first met, while he acknowledges the equal woman she had become with a kiss on the lips. It’s a beautiful gesture and a very touching goodbye. ♥ It was never a question that Ellen wouldn’t walk away from her daughter, both to not let Jo die alone and to not be forced to live on without her. I think both Sam and Dean understand that sentiment only too well. The fact that Jo doesn’t even survive long enough to pull the trigger on the bomb and that Ellen is forced to do it for her, while holding her dead daughter in her arms, was absolutely devastating. Kudos to Samantha Ferris and Alona Tal, who certainly made the heartbreaking farewell of their characters into one of the most memorable guest performances on the show.

It’s really tragic to think about the Winchester & Harvelle story: William Harvelle died, posing as bait on a hunt with John, and Ellen and Jo sacrificed themselves to give Sam and Dean a chance to succeed in killing Lucifer. A whole family extinguished, in the line of duty. Dean stated in The Curious Case Of Dean Winchester that he and Sam only have very few people left that they would consider family and that they can’t afford to lose any of them. Bobby paid his price for helping the brothers, and now Ellen and Jo did, too. That Ellen and Jo have fallen hits Sam and Dean right at the core, their family, and they not only bear the responsibility of setting Lucifer free in the first place, they also failed to make good on their promise to Ellen that their sacrifice will not be in vain. In the end there aren’t even corpses left of Jo and Ellen, depriving Sam, Dean and Bobby of the opportunity to honour their friends in a proper hunter’s funeral pyre. The symbolic gesture of burning the family picture taken earlier instead, is a poor substitute, but it just has to do. It's a truly bleak moment in the show.

As a side note: I know that there is a lot of controversy about the fact that the show yet again killed off two of the few recurring female characters, but personally, I love that they weren't given special treatment just because they were women. Ellen and Jo were soldiers in a war, who stood equal at the side of their comrades, and they made the choices of soldiers, pragmatic and heroic choices, that gave their deaths meaning. To make their deaths about their gender, would disrespect and diminish these characters. Additionally, if we look at it from a purely narrative point of view: Supernatural is the tragedy of Sam and Dean, and the recurring characters in the show - not only the female characters, but all the characters - have always been instrumental to their story. They are devices to move the story of the brothers forward and to serve Sam and Dean’s emotional growth. Ellen and Jo haven’t been the first characters, who were sacrificed to impact the brothers’ development, and they won’t be the last. Personally, I have no qualms with that, I just wished that their story had been told more consistently over these last couple of seasons.

Lucifer: "I was a son, a brother, like you. A younger brother. And I had an older brother, who I loved, idolised, in fact. And one day I went to him, and I begged him to stand with me. And Michael? Michael turned on me. Called me a freak, a monster. Tell me something, Sam, any of this sound familiar?"

The Lucifer scene at the graveyard was wonderfully creepy, especially his chilling demonstration of how very little he values either human or demonic life. The slaughter of a whole town in his effort to rise the horseman Death, and the final sacrifice of his demonic minions was horrid. I think I said it before, but it bears repeating: I find myself surprised at how much I actually enjoy Lucifer as a character this season, something I definitely didn’t expect when the season started. The way his casual cruelty belies his silver-tongued self-justification and outward gentle demeanour keeps to fascinate me and makes him one of the more effective villains on the show. I regret it even more now that he vanished from the plot for the last five episodes. Anyway, I was kind of disappointed that Dean was knocked out when Lucifer tried to play his mind-game on Sam – although of course the h/c addict in me was very happy when Sam worriedly checked up on Dean, repeatedly – because I would have liked to see his reaction to Lucifer’s twisted 'analysis' of Sam and Dean’s relationship via parallels to himself and Michael. It would also have provided the perfect opportunity for Sam and Dean to finally talk about the issues between them that Lucifer tries to exploit here.

I think it’s no coincidence that in order to gain Sam’s sympathy Lucifer chose to evoke the painful memory of Sam’s ultimate fight with Dean in When The Levee Breaks, where Dean denied Sam’s plea to trust him, called his brother a monster and told him to never come back. Now, Dean never actually turned on Sam, but the fact that the real roots of that particular fight have yet to be openly addressed between the brothers, allows Lucifer to take the bitter words that were spoken between them out of context and twist them to strike at the core of Sam’s most deep-seated fear, namely that Dean’s love for him is outweighed by Dean’s hate for the supernatural, that on some level Dean rejects him for what he is. Sam’s inability to trust Dean’s love for him – at least where the supernatural aspects of his existence are concerned – is a pattern in their relationship that emerged right at the beginning of the series. From Sam’s initial hesitance to tell Dean about his visions, to his silence about the revelation that he was fed demon blood, to the secret use of his powers and addiction to demon blood - Sam’s fear of Dean’s reaction and possible rejection always resulted in the building of walls between them.

I think Sam’s (completely misplaced) fear has two main roots: Firstly, the inherent conflict that arises from being raised to hate all things supernatural, while at the same time perceiving himself as one of those supernatural things and secondly, Sam’s tendency to project his own worst fears about himself onto his brother. I don’t think this issue in their relationship is the fault of one of the brothers in particular, it’s simply an unfortunate combination of paranoia on Sam’s side and helplessness in the face of Sam’s insecurities on Dean’s side, amplified by a lack of communication. Obviously Dean never even remotely showed any signs of rejecting Sam for any reason whatsoever, and yet, it’s not difficult to imagine that statements like Dean’s "The way dad raised us, to hate those things. And, man, I hate them, I do," in Bloodlust would easily feed into Sam’s worry to exhaust his brother’s acceptance at some point. While the situation was kept at bay as long as Sam was just as afraid of his powers as Dean was, it spun completely out of control the moment Sam himself started to embrace his demonic 'gift'. Ultimately Sam’s fear of rejection was one of the main reasons why his relationship with Dean deteriorated to such an enormous degree, and it clearly shows the destructive power of this particular problem between the brothers.

And Lucifer now tries again to utilise this very fear for his own purposes and the fact that Sam doesn't voice any protest to Lucifer’s assessment, shows that on some level he still believes that there is a grain of truth in his words. I think it’s truly important for the brothers - and Sam in particular - to finally work past these fears and misperceptions in their relationship or the trust between can never be complete. If the writers would at least give the characters a resolution to this particular issue, which negatively affects the brothers’ relationship for almost five seasons now, I would happily reconcile with the weaknesses of the current season.

What else was noteworthy:

(1) I loved the phone conversation between Bobby and Dean! ♥ It gave both men what they desperately needed in that moment, i.e. Bobby a sense of being part of the fight, of being needed, and Dean a shoulder to lean on, when the dire situation threatened to overwhelm him. While Bobby’s function as the provider of information always made him a valuable ally, it’s in the end his steady fatherly support for the brothers - and for Dean in particular - that makes him such an wonderful character. I don’t think I’ll ever grow tired to emphasise that.

(2) I also really loved Crowley, whose persona is clearly an homage to the popular character of the same name from the Good Omens novel by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. Of course it’s a treat to have Mark Sheppard in the show, but story-wise it was interesting to meet a demon, who isn’t a 'true believer' in Lucifer as their salvation, which leaves him clear-headed enough to realise that once Lucifer is restored to his former glory, the demons are expendable to him, and consequentially he fights to maintain the status quo. It mixes the involved parties up a bit, and I hope we’ll get to see Crowley again. It’s also worth noticing in this context that over the course of the last five episodes Sam and Dean made three potential supernatural allies from three different factions – the antichrist, Gabriel and Crowley - and I wonder if these characters will all come into play in the endgame of the season.

(3) I am incredibly relieved that the Colt didn’t work in the end. I always found the idea way too convenient, especially since we’ve seen other demons render the threat of the Colt useless already. It does make me wonder though, who Lucifer alluded to when he mentioned that there are four other supernatural creatures apart from himself that are not affected by the weapon.

In conclusion: Although Abandon All Hope unfairly suffered from a lack of support from the episodes that preceded it, the episode was a fascinating and emotional ride that managed to grip me. However, I need a satisfying brother focused episode ASAP, as the continued lack of explicit development for Sam’s redemption arc and for the reconciliation between Sam and Dean impedes my enjoyment of the season considerably.