#imo the vibe these people had was very interesting and became more apparent during the fight

[neven-ebrez]

15x01, a look at the future through the past

Back home! I watched the episode last night and rewatched it just now. I’m sorry to say that I was baseline bored on most levels but the second time through things felt better (yay!) even if the bland factor was still there for me personally (I’m bored with most ghost stuff from SPN these days). Imo the characters basically served the plot of 15x01 instead of the other way around which is very Game of Thrones-y and 1000% not what I’m here for but I won’t talk about the details of that because I’m sure no one wants to hear that and I’m also sure things won’t stay that way long so I’ll talk about some other things instead. There are some things I can tell are a thing but I don’t know exactly what the shows means in depicting them, and others where I’m more confident in my interpretation so here we go.

I’m like 99% sure the demon in Jack is actually Chuck and that he’s basically trying to maintain his torture (I mean... the guy admitted to being a torturer ffs) of the Winchesters with the best viewing seat possible as it were (he even tells Dean point blank he’s a “fan”). For some reason only Dean and Cas got the focus for this (torture) tho and not Sam. With Dean it was the demon reminding him of how dark and brutal Dean can be himself (via his time with Alastair). Dean blows that off pretty quick and isn’t too visibly effected, commenting that it was a long time ago. With Cas the torture came in the demon’s possession of Jack himself, Cas saying bluntly that he can’t even look at Jack and that demonic possession is basically defilement. Cas is clearly more effected and Dean’s harsh “Jack is DEAD!” tonally recalled S13 in many ways. Also oddly the demon admits Dean is gorgeous but not the same is said of Cas, with the demon insulting him instead. Two interactions. Two wildly different responses. It’s the demon putting Dean and Cas at odds without any interaction needed from them themselves, though the latter comes in spades and is the only focused on “true” conflict of the episode, set against soft Sam/Dean exchanges.

The blend of Cas’ angelic nature along with his human nature was also heavily, heavily highlighted in the episode. It was probably the most highlighted thing in fact. Cas smiting and healing. Cas shooting a gun and throwing rocks. Cas tells Dean he wouldn’t starve to death in the crypt (which, on a side note, has huge Buffy vibes for me, along with Belphogor (sp?) calling the Hell rip or whatever the “Hellmouth”). Cas can see the demon’s demonic face easily despite episodes like 14x01 (also written by Dabb) where he can’t see a room full of them (I think I argued back then that Cas was willingfully trying to ignore and was annoyed with his angelic nature). Cas’ angelic side gets another highlight when Sam accidentally shoots Cas and he doesn’t get truly injured. This particular scene seemingly serves no other purpose other than to highlight Cas’ difference (as non-human) in general. Emotionally tho, Cas’ human side is on full display. He’s worried about the town’s people. He’s annoyed with both Sam and Dean for different reasons at different points. Cas bodily removes the demon from sharing the same space as him because the demon upsets him. Cas can not even LOOK at “Jack” but Dean (and Sam) can. As I said, it’s similar structurally to how S13 handled Dean dealing with Cas’ death in comparison to Sam moving on from it. It functions to show that for Cas his relationship with Jack is different from Sam and Dean’s, however otherwise similar in the fact that TFW all see Jack as their child, their family. It’s exactly like how Cas is different to Dean as compared to Sam.

Back onto demon “B” whatever tho. Interestingly, we never see the demon smoke into Jack. Then he just “”happens”” to know every spell needed to help the Winchesters but for Dean and Cas two things are required for sacrifice/gathering. In each, one component is dead-like and protecting (salt, goofer dust) and the other channels life/creation (a heart and angel blood). Each time there’s a duality in play. Curiously Sam is not involved in any of this with the demon for whatever reason, making the demon (within the season’s structure as presented so far) a primary component of Dean and Cas’ differences. They are tests of free will for them specifically in a way. What will each person “freely” give/obtain for the demon? To me, it just all screams this thing/demon is really just God fucking with them in every way he can but while maintaining some ally aligned position physically. It’s Chuck’s literal MO.

Also. The show is back to Dean blanketly treating Cas like shit. Which we know happens in waves constantly but as a Cas fan it’s still annoying to watch for the umpteenth fucking time. And they haven’t even pinpointed the *exact* reason here for all the snapping (yeah, pacing, I know). The audience has to do some connecting the dots here I feel. They have to have a certain understanding of how Dean needs Cas. I *think* the takeaway is that Dean uses Cas as an emotional punching bag when he’s actually mad at himself and that instead of getting so angry with himself these days that Dean’s decided yelling at Cas is a better/healthier way for him to deal with himself. Which is absolutely unfair and devastating to Cas, but it’s what Cas (unfortunately) has become to Dean. It’s like when he told Cas he was dead to him at the end of S14 because of Jack killing Mary. Dean’s really mad at he, himself, for ignoring the warning that was always there. Not really Cas. But Dean has yet to apologize and/or rectify this. This is the (ongoing) problem for Dean and Cas. Point blank.

At this point if I was Cas I’d just leave and not come back. He doesn’t deserve the way Dean constantly treats him. Dean doesn’t “need” Cas like this but he’s become comfortable using him like this. This is so jarring from the understanding Dean shows Cas in late S12. And from the grief arc he has in S13, followed by the relief he shows when Cas returns. Dean never learns how to properly “claim” Cas, however. Looks like this time instead of killing Cas the show (like in S8) is gonna have Cas choose to stay away (after 15x03?) I guess, prompting Dean to do some reflecting or whatever following this (What is Cas to me? Why do I actually need him? How should I treat him?). But honestly I’m not thinking of the reflecting right now. Or the “after” or whatever. I’m just thinking about how shitty Cas is being treated RIGHT NOW and it 1000% makes me wanna just drop the show and not watch anymore until it’s over. I’m just not interested in torturing myself for months watching this slowly drag out but apparently I’m so masochistic and love Cas so fucking much that I will. GODDAMMIT

Onto “pipes” I guess. This is where I point out that I don’t know what the show is going for here but I’ll throw around some ideas. Pipes had a lot to do with the episode. Sam thinks he hears water flowing in a pipe in the crypt and they think they can escape through the sewers. Wrong. Later, Sam tells the sheriff that a pipeline burst near the town. Lies. And lastly there’s a plumbing truck outside the home where the clown ghost slaughtered the birthday party (uh... where’s the bodies btw?). So everywhere we have the imagery of pipes bursting and needing to be fixed. Which, water has nothing to do with Hell, not really. I guess the Hell “rip” is kinda acting like a burst pipe?? Water is usually associated with angels/Cas/change tho. My best guess is that it’s repurposed Michael imagery since good ol’ Bel-whatever let us know Michael’s cage door is busted open and he’s just sitting there for now apparently. I’m not confident in my interpretation here at all though. All I can tell is that busted pipes as imagery (something likely associated with lying/wrong) for something is a thing.

In general I’m going to say 15x01 didn’t even feel like a Dabb episode to me. I honestly wouldn’t have guessed he wrote it. Since I didn’t care about the random people under attack (women running and scared and not tougher is always a hard sell for me personally) I found myself frequently saying “why aren’t they doing _______?” a lot during the episode. Ghosts needing to run? Why? I mean, I get the show wanted to show how the magical border worked but this could have been done in many other more effective ways utilizing tension more. It almost felt like the show didn’t know what to do with its S1 self and so visually everything ended up looking so very incredibly cheesy and not just in the way the colors are no longer desaturated. It literally looks like the show can’t go back into what it was. We saw this visually with a sign that cropped up in several shots as Sam and Cas tried to get the girl and her mom to safety. It was a cul de sac sign.

Here’s a video on why cul de sacs as a design became popular. In short, following the rise in popularity of the automobile neighborhoods are designed for safe car use, above all else. They don’t want outsiders passing through and they want things to be slower. When cars got popular streets were redesigned away from the traditional city “grid” (where accidents happened at intersections most commonly) with features that instead had safety in mind. I choose to interpret this as a visual comment on the show’s design. The Sam n Dean show is like a city grid, dangerous, while the Sam, Dean, Cas, Rowena, and Jack show offers more “safety”. That’s why we get it framed like this imo, between Sam and Cas. Things looked one way before Cas, and another after. Things have changed from the grid and they aren’t going back, for a variety of reasons.

Since the episode title recalls the movie Back to the Future I thought we’d have more of a visual/dialogue tie in tbh. I’ll try to talk about what we thematically did tho. BTTF is a movie about a boy overcoming his impulsiveness to be an alpha male who isn’t scared. This wasn’t a goal of the boy himself necessarily but it was an effect had upon him just the same by the story and his experiences. The movie bookends on this character development. In between the movie is about the disconnect of generations, how kids don’t see their parents in the way they see themselves and vice versa. It’s also about trying to set right familial relationships into proper categories. Marty’s mom, Lorene, accidentally falls in love with her own son instead of Marty’s father, George. Marty’s existence is then threatened and he must spend the movie trying to understand his parents and help them fall properly in love, thus saving and changing himself and them. We only get shades of these themes in the episode, like when the demon (in Jack’s body) calls Dean gorgeous and it makes him uncomfortable. Divorce (unhappy marriage) is also touched upon with the sleepover/makeover girls. In BTTF Lorene and George do not have a great marriage as George lacks confidence but Marty’s interactions with George in the past help change this in the future and their family is much better for it.

We are told in PR that Dean’s “conditioning” and him changing from that is a big part of what SPN is and has always been about. This is similar to how Marty must learn to properly deal with bullies (as he sees his father as weak and overcompensates to distinguish himself from him) and not letting them have power over you. Chuck is like Biff in this structural comparison. Biff is someone we watch become depowered over the course of the movie and I feel this is similar to what the show will likely do regarding Chuck. I could go further in depth here but these are the general thematic points this episode alone addresses. Only with Marty’s character development does he stand to have a happy life with his girlfriend, Jennifer. Back to the Future ends with another call to adventure and its script is widely regarded as “perfect” by many. Quite the structural comparison for SPN to be making. We’ll see. We’re currently stuck in the past for now. Onward, to the future...

#spn speculation #15x01 #zerbe discusses things #final themes #duality #alchemy #narrative structure #back to the future #pop culture references #destiel for ts #if you squint #cul de sac storytelling #the spiraling narrative of supernatural #spn criticism