Supernatural

Before anything else, I’ll link to the icine WINGS banner-making round we finished up this week. There were Supernatural banners in both the start and results threads.

Next, I am unspoiled for where the story will head and want to stay that way. I believe I’m starting to see links to news about casting for S5 and want to stay away from knowing anything more than that Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki will be back.

Watching 4.05 Monster Movie with S4 hindsight this week had me pinging over a new set of big questions.

How many times did we see Sam open doors in season four? How did he do it and more importantly, WHY?

The question becomes important, obviously, given where the season ends. In 4.22 Lucifer Rising, during Ruby’s celebration over Lilith’s death, Ruby tells Sam he “did it,” and Sam then needs to be told that what he’d done was open a door. The light pouring through is part of the last image we have going into the summer break.

In Monster Movie, we get Sam dealing with a couple of doors. Sam is shown entering Dracula’s house. I know this was surreptitious, but since I wasn’t paying attention to the idea yet, I can’t be certain if he picked the lock or what.

It was a pure delight when Sam got the wordless ‘YOU do it‘ nod from Dean to kick open the stronghold door after rescuing his lederhosen-clad brother. It resulted in knocking down the entire door – now revealed as prop scenery.

One other quick door image from the ep is the gate Dracula escapes over. In the past, we’ve seen Dean go over barriers more troublesome than this one. (This could also be categorized as another of S4′s obstructed views, couldn’t it?)

It is enough visually to have me linking it back to Lucifer Rising and being shown Dean restless and pacing the prison created by the harpstring viewpoint – in the green room of disappearing doors and magically self-repairing drywall.

Last week we had the repeat of 4.04 Metamorphosis and in that Sam is shut away from Dean. He’s in the closet and spends a long time talking to monster Jack while trying to work the lock open with a coat hanger. As I remember it, the conversation is Sam trying to convince Jack to resist the monster inside him and Jack almost seeming to decide to give in to it once Sam releases himself. Sam’s skills and compassion weren’t enough to save both Dean and Jack.

A bit earlier in Metamorphosis, the boys together burst through a door with the intent of saving the damsel in supposed distress.

What I find interesting is that they go on to show us the (admittedly funny) follow-up of Dean reaching back to sheepishly shut that door again.

A crazy speculating type of person might take this as an early illustration of Dean resisting Sam’s attempts to get through. A crazier speculating type person might wonder if there’s a pattern of increasing darkness and violence needed to open the various doors. If some part of Dean is still in hell, did Sam need to become a monster to get in and reach his brother?

Lucifer Rising also had the chapel door in the convent. Lilith shuts it to keep Sam out.

And Ruby shuts it to keep out Dean on his way to reunite with Sam.

It’s through this door Sam hears Dean calling to him -

- with an eerily hell-chained intonation, “SA-AMM!”

Which returns to the idea that much of season four has been designed around outside forces working to separate the brothers. Are there others working to unite Sam and Dean? Bobby, for one, urges Dean to stay connected to Sam. Castiel seemingly disobeys orders to take Dean to Chuck and send Dean on to find Sam at the convent. I take a great deal of comfort in this season’s final shot compared to that of season three – particularly since it is the result of Dean opening the door and going to Sam.

What other doors are there to remember from the season? In 4.08 Wishful Thinking, Dean opens a door to find Audrey’s suicidal teddy and then closes it again for a strategy session with Sam. Could there be anything to the idea that originally Dean was expected to be able to open a door, face what was there, and come through? Later, after the failure of the offer of grace approach, it becomes clear through the roadside confessions that Dean really doesn’t feel he deserves to be saved (as Castiel surmised in 4.01 In the Beginning). The guilt of what he’d become in hell still had its own grip on Dean. It makes sense to me that Sam would decide he must take more control and force his way to Dean, and Dean would resist how very dangerous that is for Sam.

4.21 When the Levee Breaks shows the boys talking through the door of Bobby’s panic room and Demon Blood Detox Center. Dean watches Sam through the window. While outside the room, Dean is seen lit and filtered to remind us of the demon image he had of himself in 3.10 Dream a Little Dream of Me.

INSIDE the room, in Sam’s hallucination, Dean is even re-dressed and seen in the clothes he wore in that S3 ep! How would Sam know what jacket to put on his vision of Dean? I’d suspect we are supposed to be remembering Dream a Little Dream. Perhaps Sam’s puzzling line, “No one can save you because you don’t wanna be saved,” has an explanation beyond the writers making Sam get drunk and shrug off blame and responsibility.  (In that episode we also see Bobby’s remorse over not knowing how to save his rabid wife and Bela spinning lies about having had her life saved by Bobby.)

Finally, it is Castiel who quietly opens the door to release Sam while Dean and Bobby sleep – allowing Sam to do what he must to destroy Lilith. If I’m still thinking about Dream a Little Dream, I am remembering the power and control Sam seized over Jeremy’s dream. I’m remembering the supine, arms spread crucifixion images we have of Sam in both Dream and Levee.

What else? In 4.14 Sex and Violence, siren-influenced Dean charges Sam and bowls the both of them through the door into the hallway. [edit 6/25/09: This is after the episode opens with Dean pretending to sleep and listening to Sam on the phone because Sam left the door open.] I recall noticing Sam being the one to kick down a door in 4.17 It’s a Terrible Life. I used that as ‘evidence’ of the boys switching roles (Dean went to Stanford in that alternate reality, etc.) But, now I’m thinking the DOOR OPENING BY SAM is at least as significant. Without having rewatched, I’m also remembering the elevator door taking out the security guard and bathing Sam in the guy’s blood. (Not doorway connected, but Terrible Life also had Dean shouting, “Somebody help me!” when he finds the guy (with remarkable Dean-like qualities) in the bathroom – also a line from when he’s chained in hell at the end of S3.)

I know there have been other doorways. Jimmy Novak spends much time in the doorway of his family home in 4.20 The Rapture. He talks to his wife through the door before she lets him in. He is framed to cover the door of his home when opening himself to Castiel’s possession. His daughter stands at the doorway as Castiel tells her he’s not her father.

Playing with the idea has me curious to know more about Huxley’s Doors of Perception and Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell which I came across while quickly googling the origin of the name for The Doors. Also, it has become a habit for me, given the heavy emphasis S4 has had on sleep, to google dream interpretations for recurring motifs. Dreaming of doors can symbolize opportunities and changes in life stages or consciousness.

I’d appreciate help coming up with other – less crazy speculation based – explanations and interpretations for the doors leading up to Ruby’s choice of description for Sam’s accomplishment in the finale. Right now I’m seeing Sam’s goal of destroying Lilith as more rescue oriented than revenge driven. I presume I’m deluding myself to feel any hope (this is Supernatural, after all) about the qualitative difference between the black demon smoke that poured through the “damn doorway to hell” opened in All Hell Breaks Loose Part 2 and the white light consuming the S4 final image of the brothers clutching at each other with Lilith and Ruby destroyed.

edit 8/23/09 to give credit to oxoniensis for the screencaps and to link to the doors I found when I thought about the series Pilot episode.

Tags: 3.10 Dream a Little Dream of Me, 4.04 Metamorphosis, 4.05 Monster Movie, 4.08 Wishful Thinking, 4.14 Sex and Violence, 4.17 Its a Terrible Life, 4.20 The Rapture, 4.21 When the Levee Breaks, 4.22 Lucifer Rising, doors, dreams, icine forums, visuals, wild speculation