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galatheaDamn, this season just doesn't stop to stomp on my poor little heart and just insists of breaking me into tiny little pieces without giving me a chance to put myself together again! This season is so incredibly intense and I couldn't say it wasn't kind of predictable that they navigated the finale to a breaking point for the characters, but it still hurts like hell!
While a lot of this episode felt like an exposition for the upcoming second part of he finale, I really enjoyed that they finally shed a bit more light on the mytharc. Kripke promised answers and he seems to deliver with this season finale and I have to say that I am rather impressed with how they managed to pull so many of the details that they scattered throughout two seasons together in this episode alone:
We learn, that Mary died just because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. So rather than killing the mothers or other close family members as part of the 'initiation ritual' for the special children, it is just a random event, which explains why only 4 of the children actually experienced that kind of loss. I like that, because it is so human to take a random circumstance and interpret it as a pattern, if you don’t have much information to go on. While this revelation was already hinted at in Simon Said it’s rather nice to have it confirmed here from the demon itself, because it was always possible that it was connected to a pattern, that the boys just don’t see yet. But no, it’s random coincidence, if the YED tells the truth that is.
The demon visits his chosen children at the night of their 6 month birthday to perform some kind of blood ritual on the children, presumably to either infuse them with demonic powers or mark them in any way. I was a bit reminded of the blood ritual of the vampires in Dead Man’s Blood, where they used drinking vampire blood as a means to turn people. Croatoan also used blood transfer to infect the people with the demonic virus, so I guess it’s a fair bet to guess that feeding Sam blood served as a kind of activating ritual. I was always afraid that they go the route of making Sam not John’s biological son, but this ritual seems to oppose that theory, 'cause if the children were already demonic in nature at their conception, there wouldn’t be a need to perform this kind of ritual. It’s not a completely ruled out possibility, but hey I take whatever soothes my worries. *g*
We also learn, that Mary knew the perpetrator in the nursery, either she knew the demon or the 'meatsuit' it was inhabiting, which opens up some interesting questions. It could either be speculated that Mary had sex with the man the demon was possessing and that she conceived Sam that way (see my theory above about John not being Sam’s father), but I don’t really see that happening, considering how loving and devoted the relationship between John and Mary was depicted so far, except of course if it was non-consensual sex a la Rosemary’s Baby. It could also be speculated that Mary herself was one of the 'special children' of her generation or has some other form of knowledge about or connection to demons that we don’t know of yet, hence she recognized who the demon was and what Sam’s destiny would be, which would also explain her apology to Sam in Home.
Talking of generations: It’s interesting to note that this kind of selection process for the special children obviously happens once in each generation. A generation usually comprises around 20-25 years, which would harden the theory that the demon really was dormant for the past 22 years and only resurfaced at the beginning of the series, in order to initiate the new children. Which also explains Rosie, the baby in Salvation, she always seemed to break pattern as well, since all other children were at Sam’s age.
The fact that the demon in the end only needs one 'soldier', one chosen one, a leader, explains why he never was really concerned about all those children that died over the course of the last year or why he lit up Rosie’s crib, after his attempt to initiate her was interrupted by Sam and Dean. Now the question is, did the demon try to initiate a demon vs humans war every 22 years and was just stopped every time or did he need to find the right ‘chosen one’ to start his war and just didn’t achieve that goal yet. Ahh, some questions are answered only to bring up new ones.
We also learn that Jessica was killed to prevent Sam from settling down and just become some tax lawyer, negating everything he was raised to be by John. Now this is interesting! That really was a long shot, theoretically there was no way to know how Sam would react to Jessica’s death. If it wasn’t for Dean, Sam would probably have died in that fire and even if not, given Sam’s rejection of the hunting lifestyle, he might just as well have decided to still follow through with his study plans. It’s a complex series of events that lead to Sam going back on the road, John’s vanishing, Dean coming to drag Sam back on the road, rescuing him from the fire and giving him an easy opportunity to return to hunting.
Ava was engaged and already set to marry soon, Andy and Tracy were serious at one point in time as well, Lily had a girlfriend, yet none of those were killed beforehand to prevent the respective special child to settle down into a normal life. Brady’s death was simply a side effect of Ava’s abduction, suffering the same fate as all those customers at the café during Sam’s abduction. So, while I do think that the demon had this little 'this is a competition' chat with all children, he indeed takes special interest in Sam. Given his extraordinary training and knowledge it does make sense to single him out. Plus, the fact that the Winchester’s were hunting him all those years, surely makes his connection to Sam more personal for the YED.
Then there are the children’s powers. Clearly it doesn’t really matter to the demon, which of the children actually wins this contest, in terms of preferring a specific power to have at his command. The fact that Ava went from having visions to being able to control a demon, which are two very different abilities in my opinion, makes me believe that all the special children have the potential to eventually unlock every possible power within themselves, or as Ava describes it, it’s just like consciously flipping switches in their brain. That would also very easily explain why Sam was able to use telekinesis in Nightmare.
It’s also very clear now that none of the children are inherently evil. The demon doesn’t have the ability to just ‘activate’ this children, turning them without them being able to control it. They need to want it, open themselves up to it, train their brain in order to activate more powers, it’s a process that needs at least some time, not an instant-switch. Not only do they need to train it, they also need to actively want to use it for evil purposes, as Andy was able to enhance his powers but still never was being tempted into using it for evil. So Sam’s worry to go 'dark side', to turn into something he doesn’t want to be, without being able to stop it was kind of gratuitous. Which pretty much makes the angst trip in the second part of this season, with Sam potentially turning evil and Dean needing to kill him, a red herring.
Now, while I am usually not fond of being manipulated into angst only for the sake of angsting, Supernatural actually uses this method very convincingly by grounding the viewer’s perspective in the characters themselves. The viewer rarely knows more than Sam and Dean, we experience everything through their eyes and their information base is pretty vague, so they come to wrong conclusions in the process of trying to figure out what’s going on and have to adjust every time they come across new evidence and so does the viewer. Sam freaking out about his destiny and Dean trying to prevent whatever there is to prevent, are reactions that root in their own lack of knowledge and hence are completely believable, so I am okay to have worried about nothing, because Sam and Dean just did the same. *g* Plus, the whole plot was an excellent set-up for BUABS, without it, that episode wouldn’t have had anywhere near that impact.
There obviously was a large number of special kids available, considering that Ava was staying at Cold Oak for 5 months now, fighting off the competition. Production-wise it was a clever move to set up this kind of limited stage, so they didn’t need to actually show all the children, plus they were able to make us care about what was happening by using Andy and Ava, that we already had a connection to, instead of just setting up a monumental but anonymous fight.
It was so great to see Andy again and of all the blood fest amongst the recurring characters for this episode his death hit me the most. I loved how eager he was to see Dean again, how he quietly freaked out but yet tried to raise the mood by being his usual quirky and optimistic self. I was relieved to see that killing Anson didn’t set him on the wrong path, but that he managed to stay true to his laid back and non-ambitious lifestyle, using his powers only for playing pranks. His playful attitude and innocence made his gruesome death so much harder on us, poor Andy.
I admit, I didn’t really see the twist on Ava coming and just like Sam I did completely buy into her 'amnesiac' story. I love this actress, she made the switch from innocent and overwhelmed young woman to evil pretty convincingly. As I see it, she didn’t actually kill her fiancée or was possessed in Hunted, Brady was just a casualty and she was one of the first to be abducted by the demon. That she managed to stay alive for that long, was pretty impressive, using the demon that was set up to keep the children within the confines of the town to kill her competitors is a pretty powerful ability and shows just how dangerous the children could be in the long run.
It also demonstrates how she was slowly corrupted into turning to the 'dark side' during those 5 months. I think that was why the demon toyed with Anson or Scott, trying to turn them through their dreams, seeing how long they would resist his influence, testing their strength, playing mind-games, evaluating some of his potential soldiers. It pretty well explains why there were so many differences between the children that didn’t really seem to add up to one consistent pattern.
While demons in SN are usually pretty strict, following patterns and rules, it is apparent that the YED has a mind of his own, employing different tactics and strategies, that’s why it is so much harder for the Winchesters to actually pin him down. Add to that his incredible abilities like possessing reapers or summon people effortlessly to wherever he wants them to be. He is a pretty worthy Big Bad for the show. But he is also very arrogant and deems himself completely in control, which may in the long run be his downfall. On a side-note: Although it doesn’t really make sense for the demon to appear in the form of the janitor from IMTOD I really loved that they used Fredric Lehne again, he just plays the demon so deliciously sarcastic.
Naturally I didn’t care that much about Lily and Jake, though the latter grew on me during the episode. He pretty fast respected Sam’s authority and supported him, even though he could see that Sam’s calmness was nothing but a mask for the sake of the others. They build up the bonding between Jake and Sam nicely, to make their final confrontation a bit more personal and investing for the viewer, although I would have preferred the final fight taking place between Ava and Sam, considering how much he cared about her and fretted about her fate after Hunted, I thought it would have been a nice note. But whatever …
So, they blew up the Roadhouse, wow, who did see that coming? While I wasn’t always happy about the introduction of the Roadhouse, I have to say that in retrospective they used it pretty well over the course of the season. Seemingly providing a new trusty backup base for Sam and Dean in the beginning of the season, then slowly turning it more and more into an ambiguous and ambivalent light, by uncovering Ellen’s past with John and her resentments against the Winchesters, by revealing it as the source of information for Gordon’s hunt on Sam and generally showing that the hunter’s network isn’t really a fallback safety net for them but instead an additional danger. Talk about a full on turn of perspective.
Ash’s ominous last words about his huge discovery are a nice foreshadowing for S3 I guess. I liked Ash and was sad to see him go, but at the same time I was happy that he probably wasn’t the mole that I expected him to be, although of course that could be totally unrelated. On the other hand I am now very suspicious about Ellen’s lucky absence from the Roadhouse when it went down, but I guess we have to wait for AHBL Pt II to find out more about that.
Phew, much speculating again, now, let’s finally turn to the character stuff in this episode: This is the 3rd time this season that Dean just turns around, figuratively, and Sam vanishes on him. Trying to keep him safe by staying close seems to be a pretty futile endeavour, it looks like Dean never had a chance to begin with. I love that he enlists Bobby’s help, 'cause let’s face it, Bobby is just made of awesome! ♥ I don’t think I am more attached to any other character on the show apart from Sam and Dean themselves, than I am to Bobby. Who else, except for Sammy himself, would recognize that Sam is held at Cold Oak simply by Dean’s unspecific description of a 'big bell'?
Dean receiving a 'vision' from Andy about Sam’s whereabouts was a nice plot point. I can’t help to think that Jensen just sells vision pain and distress so much more intensely and convincingly than Jared does sometimes. Anyways, the way the vision was sent here makes me wonder again about the source of Sam’s visions. Visually the sequences were the same, so this seems to support my theory that the visions are dependent on an outside source, that Sam is simply a receptacle for the visions and not the cause himself.
This was very much Sam’s episode and I again noticed how much I missed Sam over the last couple of episodes. Ever since Heart Sam was very much forced into the background and while I am a devoted Dean-girl, I don’t like that very much. Not only do we miss out on Sam character development this way, it also reduces the Sam'n'Dean brother time, the banter, the easy connection between the two of them, which I love so much. So my request is: Kripke&Co, please balance that out more!
This episode showed us how easily Sam slips into a leadership role if he doesn’t have the back-up of his older brother, with whom he is used to just fall back into an established role pattern and division of work between the two of them. His superior knowledge and experience naturally predestined him to take the lead here, but also his calm and reassuring exterior, his air of authority and quiet strength make him the ideal leader in this situation. Still, every now and then in more quiet moments his urgent want to have Dean at his side comes through, usually feeling safer only by knowing that Dean is there.
I love how Sam admits that he learned a lot of how to lead from Dean, from Dean’s big brother routine to reassure even if he himself is just as clueless and scared as Sam is and that Sam always believes him, because he wants to and needs to. ♥ For all that Sam knows, Dean just met the same fate as Ava’s fiancée and yet he doesn’t allow himself to give into that fear, pulling himself together for the sake of the others, very much like Dean. Sam just learned from the best!
The confrontation between Sam and the other children and Sam and the YED also shows, that what Dean always knew about his brother is true, that Sam is just inherently good and very well capable of resisting the pull of evil. His morals may have been questionable in the past from time to time, but he can’t just be forced into becoming a murderer, not even for self-defence, especially when he can clearly see that his opponent is an innocent victim of the circumstance as well and just doesn’t have the strength to resist. In the end Sam got what he always wanted: a choice! A choice to decide over his own fate and he uses it well, preserving the integrity of his character and sparing Jake's life. Sam's decision was the crucial moment of this episode for me, even if it played out in a very understated fashion! ♥
I was rather impressed that our Sammy was able to defeat Jake, who after all had super-strength and was a trained soldier as well, but then we saw him take out 2 fully armed SWAT-guys and most of the Bender clan, so yeah, never underestimate his abilities. But then he lets his guard down, turning his back to his opponent, when he hears Dean calling for him, rushing towards his brother, overjoyed and the relief and happiness on both their faces as they spot each other is so overwhelmingly heartbreaking in the light of what is about to happen next.
Which brings us to the last scene and I don’t know how to even find any words for this scene, heartbreaking doesn’t quite seem to cover it and I used that term over and over in my reviews in this season, but this was a new level of devastating. Dean gathering the mortally wounded Sam up in his arms, trying to reassure him, just as much for Sam’s sake as for his own, teasing him but gradually slipping into desperation as it becomes apparent that Sam won’t just recover from this, clutching his dead brother to his chest and crying out in anguish. Damn, Ackles ripped my heart out again. *sobs*
I am so immensely worried about next week. Dean is done! The fight against evil ripped every single person from him that he ever loved and if we learned one thing from What Is and What Should Never Be then it was that the next sacrifice demanded from Dean will be the one pushing him over the edge. They beat Dean down in this season again and again and again and he always got up, bone weary but determined to keep Sam safe and now he even lost him. From his perspective he failed Sam’s trust in him to watch over him, failed John’s trust in him to save his brother, failed his own expectations in himself as the ever protecting big brother. That’s the last blow and I fear he will do something immensely desperate, regardless of any costs, in the finale to correct that.
If I was to speculate, I would bet on Dean making a deal with a demon, may it be at a crossroads or with the YED, exchanging his own lifespan or soul for the sake of his brother’s life. He would come full circle in understanding his father’s sacrifice for him and restore the natural order of things, as he thinks he should be dead anyways. While he would naturally be in a moral and psychological conflict about such a decision, as he is the first one to know how burdening a sacrifice like that is for the person on the receiving end of that sacrifice, I can see him act in that way regardless. The alternative is just too painful to live through.
Maybe though Kripke and Co have some twist up their sleeves that will surprise me. I wished it would be next week already.
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Date: 2007-05-12 02:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-12 02:44 pm (UTC)Uhm, no, I only saw worry in Bobby's look when Dean has the vision. Bobby is a more quiet and reserved person and he was obviously deeply worried about Dean's headache but also pretty fast (earlier than Dean himself) suspected that is wasn't just a simple headache. He is just too experienced to not take incidents like that serious and question them, he has good instincts. I don't feel him as off at all actually. :)
no subject
Date: 2007-05-12 03:17 pm (UTC)There is that. At the end of the episode, though, once Jake stabbed Sam in the back, I would have immediately shot Jake, because he hurt my brother. Bobby was chasing after him; he had a gun, but why didn't he fire? That's one of my main questions.
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Date: 2007-05-12 03:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-12 03:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-12 04:32 pm (UTC)i'm still trying to get over it... i really liked andy - it's a shame he had to go..and how *gulp*
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Date: 2007-05-12 04:53 pm (UTC)Yeah I am still pretty much in denial myself but it's next week that I am even more afraid of, we all know there will be no S3 without Sammy and the consequences of his death might be more severe than his death itself. :(
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Date: 2007-05-12 09:35 pm (UTC)You so completely nail a lot of my thoughts on this episode and I am just reeling from it still, I have so many theories and thoughts and opinions on this. I may think once I've watch the finale I shall post my review of the season and thoughts of what to come. I've held back off reviewing episodes only as my thoughts on each change from one episode to the next.
So maybe I'll share soon on what I think??
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Date: 2007-05-12 10:19 pm (UTC)Well, I like to write episode reviews just to capture what I feel and think at my first viewings and how it ties into the characters as we know them at a specific point in the storyline. I love doing this so I can go back later and see how things changed over the course of a season and I am always delighted to see if I was able to figure out things beforehand just by watching closely and analysing attentively.
Supernatural is especially rewarding in that regard since it uses *retroactive* storytelling, showing us effects and reactions to something we don't know the cause of, only being able to see the full picture once we are told what lies behind. So on a second viewing we can take all we know into consideration and watch the episodes in a new light. It's awesome and makes multiple viewings such a joy for a show like this.
With SN being so incredibly coherent and consistent in character development and the attention to details and the layered and very telling acting, analysing episodes is much more fun than it should be LOL. Additionally it's practical to have a full episode guide at hands. *g* Not that I wouldn't know the episodes by heart anyways lol, but who cares.
Sorry lol, got a bit ranty. This show just makes me chatty. :) Definitely go and take down what you think, I'd surely like to read your thoughts. And thanks for reading through my lengthy rambling .. again! :)
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Date: 2007-05-13 08:19 am (UTC)boy do i rant sometimes myself so I always love to see what you say about the show and yeh it makes me talk so much as well :D
*hugs*
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Date: 2007-05-13 02:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-13 02:42 pm (UTC)