#sam: I understand (of course I would take a shot at lucifer) (I'm ready to die) (I want to die) (did I ever escape? will I ever escape?) | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

zmediaoutlet · 7 years

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You've mentioned it in a few tags, but if you have the chance/inclination, I would love to hear more of your thoughts about the final scene of 13x03 -- as someone who was, er, less than pleased with the ep, I'm trying to get a more positive angle on it, and I love your insights (and agree with them more often than not) so...help? ^^;

I don’t know what insights I have, but I can talk about my thoughts. This ended up being super long, so the thoughts are under the cut:

First of all, I think all analysis should start with a very close reading of the text. Let’s look at the dialogue in the episode in two key scenes.

First, a snippet from the third scene. We start off fine—Samtired, Dean neutral. (He’s clearly also tired, but he comes in more surprisedabout the Missouri thing than angry, depressed, etc.) Then, Sam says that he’ssending Jody to take care of Missouri’s case, so that they can stay to workwith Jack.

SAM: We need to help Jack learn how to control his powers.Jody can handle this.DEAN: Yeah, maybe she can. Or, maybe she ends up dead because you wanted to skipout on her to babysit the Antichrist.

As soon as Jack is mentioned, Dean immediately moves to anger. It’s quiet, but obviously accusatory,and obviously that’s aimed at Sam. He’s upset that Sam is putting Jack abovetheir friends. Sam responds with confusion, for a second—he’s staring at Dean,wrinkled forehead (so much forehead), wide eyes and parted mouth of shock. Theystare at each other, with Dean clearly fishing for a response. Then,

SAM: Dean, we need him.DEAN: No, don’t.SAM: Mom—DEAN: Don’t. You— If you want to stay here and Mr. Miyagi this kid, knockyourself out. I didn’t sign up for that, so I’m gonna go to work.

So, Dean leaves. Sam sighs, and groans, but he’s not angry.Dean wasn’t even particularly angry in that last line, but he reacted sharplyto we need him, and doesn’t even wantto hear Sam’s theory. Note how quickly he interrupts on Mom.

Okay, now we can skip over a lot of the boring Patiencebusiness (though, it is interesting that Dean tells a smiling Jody [?? What wasthat, as a directing choice?] that he’s fine, and then is CLEARLY NOT FINE ATALL). We come back to the bunker with Dean having seen yet another of theirfriends (or good acquaintances, at least) die, in a world which he is nowtelling people is crapsack and shitty. Now:

We enter the penultimate scene on Sam’s clearly upset face. He looks like a wife who’s been sitting in thedim kitchen waiting for her deadbeat husband to get home from the bar so shecan scold him. He won’t even turn around to face Dean when he greets him—thoughhe does greet him, asking about the case and acknowledging Missouri’s death.Dean is grim, and even more obviously exhausted than he was at the beginning.He immediately starts with a mean-spirited joke, and we watch Sam’s face whilehe says it:

DEAN: How’s the kid? He go dark side yet?

Sam squeezes his eyes closed in suppressed anger.

SAM: Nope.

He finally turns around, ready to confront Dean. He’sfidgeting with one of the target-markers on the war table, which is relativelyunusual body language for Sam. He also has an interesting slouch, and openposture. He’s not shamefaced, or apologetic—he’s ready to fight.

SAM: He is pretty messed up, though.

Dean responds neutrally. This isn’t a fight, he doesn’tthink, just a statement of fact.

DEAN: You’re telling me.

Sam looks down, and then responds in a tone which is—less antagonisticthan his posture had been, and after he speaks he meets Dean’s eyes directly.His expression isn’t angry, but rather… disappointed.

SAM: No, Dean, he’s messed up because of you.

When Dean looks back, and looks genuinely confused by this,Sam smiles (humorlessly) and his mood shifts closer to anger again. How couldDean not get it, he seems to be thinking, and he slaps the target-marker downon the war table in another slightly aggressive posture.

SAM: Dean… You said you’d kill him.

Dean looks away, understanding where Sam’s upset is comingfrom (perhaps) now. It’s not quite an eye-roll, but that wasn’t quite how thatmoment between him and Jack went. We can guess now that Dean didn’t tell Samthat Jack was stabbing himself and trying to die, because Sam would have askedhow that conversation went. (Of course, it’s possible that Dean did barereporting, but the tone of this next line implies that the conversation betweenDean and Sam about this moment didn’t happen.)

DEAN: It wasn’t exactly like that.

There’s a slight emphasis Dean puts on that, and he’s not angry yet either. He looks back to Sam, andmaybe he was going to explain more, but Sam jumps in with:

SAM: Then how exactly was it?

A line which, while ostensibly calm in tone, is said a) as abit of an interruption, and b) Sam’s sighing through it and giving Dean a look, putting himself on Jack’s siderather than Dean’s. Dean is having a rough… week, let’s put it that way, and hedoesn’t respond well to this. We see immediately that Dean is thinking aboutthat moment from earlier, and he hasn’t had the benefit (unlike the audience)of seeing the patient, slow way Sam is working with Jack, and learning abouthis feelings and personality.

DEAN: I told him the truth. See, you think you can use thisfreak, but I know how this ends, and it ends bad.

The camera here cuts to Jack, listening in, and we’reclearly immediately meant to feel bad for the poor sweetheart. (By the way,thank god they’ve complicated him with a touch of brattiness—if it were allsyrup all the time he’d be unbearable.) That being said—Dean has a long, long history of being right about this stuff, and as theaudience we know that, too. But then—we cut to a different locus of the argument.Sam moves from talking specifically about usinga supernatural power to bring a loved one back to life (something we’veseen them do multiple times and which they tend to agree is a bad idea… exceptwhere their brother is concerned), and changes the conversation to be about this:

SAM: I didn’t.DEAN: What?SAM: I didn’t end bad. When I was the “freak.” When I was drinking demon blood.

Sam says it aggressively, strongly, sharply. Puts obviouspauses between the phrases. Dean immediately discards this, and he’s doing ittruly—it’s not him making a point, he really honestly does not believe thatthese situations are remotely similar.

DEAN: Come on, man, that’s totally different.

Sam is keeping the argument here, though; he’s drawing avery close parallel between himself and Jack.

SAM: Was it? Because you could’ve put a bullet in me. Dad told you to put a bullet in me, but youdidn’t. You saved me. So help me savehim.

We see Dean rejecting this line of argument even as Sam’shalfway through it, though. He doesn’t like this parallel at all and disagreeswith it. Superficially, of course it’s true, but Dean doesn’t buy it, andclearly doesn’t like the implications.

DEAN: You deservedto be saved. He doesn’t.

We cut here to Jack again, looking sad, while Sam insists—

SAM: Yes, he does, Dean, of course he does.

But then we cut back to Dean, and the camerawork here isinteresting. Finally, Dean is making this into a real argument, moving close. Sam is gigantic in the foregroundhere, and Dean is small and looking up and bleeding hurt, and he’s absolutelyrejecting Sam’s parallel-drawing. He remembers where the argument started, andhe’s still having none of it:

DEAN: Look, I know you think that you can use him as somesort of an interdimensional can opener, and that’s fine.

Note: it’s clearly not fine. Sam doesn’t like theaccusation, either, though he did start the day with ‘use’ rather than ‘hugsand kisses’. Anyway—

DEAN: But don’t act like you care about him, because you onlycare about what he can do for you. So, if you want to pretend, that’s fine, butme? I can hardly look at the kid, ‘cause when I do, all I see is everybody we’velost.

Now Dean is raising his voice, reacting from strong hurt.This is still the core of the problem. It’s not hating Jack-as-a-person, it’shating Jack as a function. A subtledifference, but key, I think. Sam responds to the accusation of Jack as responsiblefor the various losses—

SAM: Mom chose totake that shot at Lucifer. That is not on Jack.

Dean doesn’t disagree, but moves directly to the issue ofactual (possible) culpability, as far as he understands it.

DEAN: And what about Cas? SAM: What about Cas?DEAN: He manipulated him. He made him promises. Said, “paradise on earth,” andCas bought it. And you know what that got him? It got him dead!

Dean’s voice is raised again and there’s a shiver of emotionrunning through it; when we cut to Sam’s coverage (and again, the camera is lowbehind Dean’s shoulder and Sam is massivelooming over him), Sam is grimacing and looking down, not exactly pushing backagainst Dean’s feelings or his point.

DEAN: Now, you might be able to forget about that, but I can’t!

And then we cut, quickly,between Dean’s wide-open pain, and Sam’s more shuttered expression. Then there’squiet, and we cut to Jack, who seems to be having real feelings about Castielper Kelly’s cheerful inculcation, earlier, and we cut there to the final scene.

…So. A lot is going on, there.You know that, for me, the Sam & Dean relationship is the actual main plotof the show. A lot of crap happens that they have to react against, but italways comes down to these two, for me. As we’ve also discussed, the latterseasons have this general shape: seasons six, seven, and eight are aboutfiguring out where they stand with each other, post-Apocalypse, whichculminates in the ‘marriage’ scene in Sacrifice (even platonically, that was areal promise of devotion); seasons nine and ten are about working through theconsequences of betrayal, and working out how devoted they truly are to this ‘marriage’;seasons eleven and twelve were about the close, mature, real work of making the‘marriage’ function. In seasons eleven and twelve they were honest with eachother, worked through their problems by talking; when there was a secret, theyapologized quickly and forgave quicker, and they had each other’s backs throughthick and thin. It’s remarkable, the level of maturity they’ve reached.

Season thirteen has opened on avery dark time for the Winchester boys, and they’re starting from verydifferent places in dealing with it. Dean is heartbroken; Sam has hope. Sam’shope is pinned to Jack’s power. He wasn’t positive that Castiel was ultimatelydead, as we saw with him questioning Dean twice about that in 13.01; he hasalso mentioned repeatedly that he doesn’t think their mother is dead, thatLucifer might have kept her alive for some reason. (Which he’s right about—really,if anyone knows what Lucifer might do, it’s Sam Winchester.) Dean, in contrast,refuses to believe that Mary is alive and he’s certain that there’s no comingback for Cas. He has clung to that defeat almost as a comfort, a way to keepwalking—getting his hopes up, just to have them dashed, would be even morepainful. He gave up, and we saw it, the second God didn’t answer his prayer.

Sam and Dean disagree a lot, butit’s rare that we get to see a profound disagreement like this which isn’tlocated in a personal place. We sawreal anger between them in season four and season nine. We saw personalbetrayal, dismissal—we’ve even seen them try not to be family, though of coursethat never lasts long. (Might be impossible, considering the soulmate aspect.)This disagreement about Jack is bad, and that was a real fight they had, thereat the end. But the disagreement is still located on Jack, and I think that’s a very important distinction. Sam ismad at Dean for causing Jack pain, but he clearly understands why it’shappening and where it’s coming from. Dean is mad at Sam for trying to keep(what he thinks is) false hope alive and trying to use the supernatural forces,when that always ends bad. But thisisn’t fury. This isn’t personal betrayal. Dean lashed out in a cruel way withthe ‘oh, I guess you just forgot about Cas’ line, but that’s… frankly, veryDean. He lashes out when he’s upset. Sam knows that, and he doesn’t lash back,he’s just… frustrated. A punch isn’t going to be thrown, here.

Put it a different way. In aphysicalized incest world, where they might share a bedroom in the bunker? Noone would be getting any tonight, and there probably wouldn’t even be cuddles.(The horror.) But after this argument, I can still see them going to bedtogether. Sam’s shoulders might be held high and tight, and Dean might have tohave a few beers after his shower before he slips quietly into bed, but they’restill on the same team. They still love each other, and there’s no doubt aboutthat. They’re just mad. They’ll get better. This argument doesn’t make me doubtthat’s true, for a second, and the Winchesters don’t doubt it either—not in theAU where their love is more obvious, and not canonically.

There is an argument to be madethat Dean is coming off poorly, here, specifically because they keep focusingon the woobified aspects of Jack. “Jack is such a sweetie, and Dean is just abig meanie-head.” I can see why people are thinking that. However, I don’tthink it’s true. This episode particularly, with Jack acting a tiny bit bratty,we’re starting to get a more complex view of him. A lot of the work with Jackin the episode focused on choice. Kelly’s little video insists that Jack can bewhatever he chooses to be; that’s contrasted against Sam’s insistence to Jackthat he can be both powerful and good, and Dean’s insistence that the situationwill go wrong and that Jack was always going to be evil. That duality was a strongtheme throughout. Jack threw a tiny bratty tantrum; Jack was surpassingly sweetwhen Sam offered him a helping hand. He doesn’t know what side he’ll fall on,and neither do we, and neither do the Winchesters. They have their opinions,and the fans are developing their own, but it is being left ambiguous which wayit will go—and I love that. The turn comes when Jack thinks about Cas, who maytheoretically be a neutral party—and then the episode’s focus immediately flipsto Cas waking up in the Empty, upon Jack literallyonly vocalizing his name. What kind of fucking power is that, holy cow.

Anyway. Dean’s anger and hurtare real, and we’re shown repeatedly how deeply it’s felt. Is it pretty? No. Isit heroic? No. But it feels real, and it’s why this show is worth watching. Meanwhile,Sam is truly, really trying to help Jack… and he’s also not pretending like hedoesn’t want to use him, which is so deeply in character for Sam that it makesme want to do a little dance. These complexities are why I still come back, andI’m so glad we’re getting them. It’s looking right now like 13.04 will continuethis argument, and this complexity, and I can’t wait. I love that I can loveDean Winchester, and see every tiny bit of where he’s coming from, and stillthink he’s wrong, and still be interested in how the story is unfolding. In alot of ways, this is reminding me of mid-season nine—when we knew that Dean haddone wrong, and we knew exactly whyhe had. I was completely neutral, there, and I’m neutral now. I just want tosee how the story unfolds.

#spn #spn meta #13.03 #in defense of nuance #(only sorta)#(but i do fuckin' love the nuance)#xparrot

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