Supernatural

There are two dilemmas… that rattle the human skull. How do you hold onto someone who won’t stay? And how do you get rid of someone who won’t go? – War of the Roses (1989)

I got this flick into my queue and hope to give it a rewatch soon. It’s been so long that don’t remember enough of the details, but this quote (snagged from imdb) encapsulates Sam and Dean, I think.

This new episode, 7.05 Shut Up, Dr. Phil, has me twitching with Ronald Resnick-worthy speculations. The physical carry-over and structural similarity of the partitioning walls in the beauty shop and art show sets are like the neon clues I saw in 5.06 I Believe the Children Are Our Future which made me suspect we hadn’t gone anywhere concrete at all. There are oddities like a Whitefish, MT (the previous ep’s location) convenience store sign displayed in Prosperity, IN and typos in the online news reports. Boiling to death in a hot tub would not be “hypothalmia.” The closest to that I can google is hypothalamus - a brain gland that would interact with the pituitary which IS relevant to the story.  The recent motif with organs continues with heart-filled cupcakes. The show’s return to the horrific damaging of eyes feels nostalgic in a way and has me missing Pamela and Rev. Roy LeGrange, etc. It puts me in mind of the Dean who doesn’t eat apples (can’t/won’t see).

(I also must document my personal nonsense. There’s a LARSEN REALTY sign. It’s not quite as much fun as finding the young Winchesters living at Robin Tree Lane (Street? Road?), but against reason (It’s a common name.), I feel validated especially when I stick a gratuitous “i” into REALiTY.) (Apologies for the excess of parentheses.)

Sam, pushing for Dean to talk about and unload whatever he’s feeling burdened and guilty over: That’s kind of what I’m here for.

Jo, arguing for her suicidal plan to buy time against the hellhounds in 5.10 Abandon All Hope: This is why we’re here, right?

The lines, along with the accompanying significant exchanges of looks, make sense to me as indicating that the other characters are in Dean’s reality and he is their priority. Okay, I realize they make sense to everyone on their surface. But, if I’m right and we later find there’s another level to the story, I’ll point back to scenes like these as evidence that the show earned any major revelation. 7.04 Defending Your Life’s callbacks to Dean’s guilt and inability to talk in S4 fit with this interpretation as well.

Pre-hell Sam to Post-hell Dean in 4.08 Wishful Thinking: Dean, look, you can’t just shoulder this thing alone. You got to let me help.

I’m still hopeful we’ll revisit the concepts of grace and redemption before it’s all said and done.  I grinned like crazy at the boys’ nick-of-time arrival and successful save of the cupcake girl. It made me optimistic about where the Winchesters are headed.

Tags: 7.05 Shut Up Dr. Phil

Wow! I don’t want to let tonight’s new episode air without at least posting to put on the record how pleased I am at what’s been happening to Sam and Dean the past two weeks.  It makes all the difference that, more than ever, I see the monsters and victims as clear stand-ins for Sam and Dean. Dean takes matters into his own hands and has a guilty heart (witnessed by a kid in a hoody).

The messages are the same as they’ve always been. I didn’t want to be alone. It isn’t your fault. I didn’t have a choice. Forgive yourself.

I’m excited over a season seven mountain motif noticed by livejournalist galwithglasses over at spnematography. I didn’t bring it up there, but I raced to look up the dream interpretation for mountains. It makes sense that they are associated with obstacles and challenges, and it’s reassuring that generally they can be seen as achievable goals. There’s some symbolic overlap with the halls and bridges and stairs the show has made use of over its history. One site includes this:.

… mountains denote a higher realm of consciousness, knowledge, and spiritual truth.

Oh, and Dean doesn’t eat apples. The fruit of knowledge? Of course Dean doesn’t want to know if it means acknowledging that what’s wrong with himself and Sam is not fixable. Because we got another repetition of  opposed messages. You are what you are and a monster doesn’t have to be monstrous. (I can’t help also thinking back to the apples in 1.11 Scarecrow and 3.o5 Bedtime Stories. ed 10/22/11: There was apple-bobbing in 4.07 It’s the Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester.)

My goodness, a hopeful, managing-the-problem, determined-to-save-Dean Sam is exactly the Sam I love best!

Tags: 7.03 The Girl Next Door, 7.04 Defending Your Life, livejournal link, speculation

I’m not even trying to be complete here but want to record a couple thoughts that are rattling around my head.

I’m waiting for spnematography to post a new thread for the episode. It must have been a fairly prominent shot because during my single viewing of the episode a sign stood out to me. As Sheriff Mills is following the leviathan-doctor to the deserted part of the hospital, we get this:

It echoes the renovation signs we got mid season 5. This time it isn’t directly associated with Sam or Dean, but that would hardly slow me down. I’ve seen the other characters as direct manifestations of the boys’ issues for a long time now.  Note that she’s spying into the organ transplant unit. That reminds me of the 6.14 Mannequin sisters. [edit 10/04/11: and the immortal doctor from 3.15 Time is on My Side!] Jodie herself is in the hospital for an appendectomy, I believe. That’s one of those vestigial organ, right? No longer really necessary and essentially harmless until it decides to flare and become lethal. Oooh, what that might be saying about Sam and Dean is again heartbreaking.

That shot is followed by this one.

Once again, it’s familiar. It’s a door, of course. But it also has that window framing a helpless player of the week. Off-hand, I remember that in 5.11 Sam, Interrupted and 5.19 Hammer of the Gods. It also takes me right to Dean in 6.01 Exile on Main Street.

Bobby wears two different bird t-shirts. One is (I think) a bald eagle in flight and the other (when Lucifer stabs him) is the Mt. Rose shirt we’ve seen many times.

I saw a bit of speculation around that 7.01 Meet the New Boss hints at Dean as God. I decided back in season four that Dean is the most likely Monster at the End of This Book. One and the same, baby.  Lucifer’s claim in 7.02 that Sam is his bitch in every sense has me remembering that “bitch” is Dean-code for saying “I love you” to Sam.  Other memorable uses? Just last week Dean declared Death is their bitch. There was also the awkward use when Castiel labelled Raphael his ‘bitch’ in 5.03 Free to Be You and Me. Oh! what about after Ruby saves Dean’s life in 3.09 Malleus Maleficarum and insists that Dean stop calling her ‘bitch.’ Anything like Sam insisting Dean stop calling him ‘Sammy?’

The most satisfying way the show could convince me the boys are out of hell and safely with each other would be for Sam and Dean to exchange a classic fond bitch-jerk.  That and the amulet are the two things I have to see the Winchesters get back eventually. It might necessarily wait for the series finale, but they can’t be gone forever. I imagine since we saw Dean take custody of Castiel’s raincoat that we will see it (and Castiel!) return at some point. I don’t even want to speculate about Bobby. Dean’s despairing phone call at the end has me holding my breath for the guys. (And remembering my thinking of a pier as an incomplete bridge.)

Tags: 7.02 Hello Cruel World, bridges, doors, visuals

I’m still enamored with the episode and happily flipping through screencaps. Spnematography has its episode thread up and is noticing the walls and halls and doors I’ve come to think of as meaningful. The poster hugemind also points out the colors used in the episode. Lots of red, white, and blue as well as red and white, and the alarming green.

I’m continuing to look for details in the shirts. It’s like the history they’ve earned by now sends a message. Almost everything is recognizable, but when Dean waits for Sam to wake up, he’s wearing my favorite flannel of his. (It’s the one he wore for his vigil when Sam was killed at the end of season two AND it is reminiscent of four year old Dean’s pajamas the night of the fire.)

When Dean and Sam work together on the Impala, Dean is recycling a shirt he wore in the season six premiere while working on the truck with Ben. That sort of makes my heart ache. I believe it is a racing shirt and the logo is a stylized wing.

Speaking of wings… Crowley’s RV plate has a bird – perhaps picking up a motif from the end of season six?

That ties in with the patriotic theme in the campaign headquarters that Castiel decimates. And I get to wonder if the show is deliberately associating Castiel with flags and balloons again.

Bobby has the WIND on his t-shirt while coming to Sam hallucinating in the basement. And Sam is backed by a sailboat in the home with the crystalized act of God.

I’d love to explore that room! I know I recognize several pieces like the suit of armor.  I take the reuse as more than a concern of the production budget. It makes sense to me in the way that elements recur across dreams. But, I’ve built speculation that this is much more than a dream. It is real creation (like tulpas or tricksters?) that requires raw energy making reuse an efficient way to operate.

Tags: 7.01 Meet the New Boss, visuals

Season Seven!  Welcome back, Winchesters!

Dean is first shown working on the Impala laying on the front seat with a camera view that spins. He’s got his feet on the roof trying unsuccessfully to get it back in its rightful position. Bobby describes the noise accompanying Dean’s effort as a “primal scream.”

It was such an unusual scene that I spent time noticing it when I rewatched and while looking through screencaps. My first thought was trying to decide if we were witnessing a birth of sorts – Dean being in a tight place once again. Dean could be seen as the mother or newborn in the setup. eta: He even reaches for his back after exiting the car as if in labor. Then I thought the scene might be evoking a constipated straining. Since there’s been no shortage of bathroom references in the show’s history, I suppose that’s legitimate if difficult to talk gracefully about.

But the screencaps gave me yet another potential interpretation to make of that scene.
<– click for the big version
Look at Dean’s shirt! I believe that’s “Eye of the Tiger” written above the design. Of course! Dean, while affected by ghost sickness, was in that same laying down in the Impala’s front seat position air drumming to “Eye of the Tiger.” You can see the in-episode scene from 2:55-3:15 in this youtube vid of 4.06 Yellow Fever highlights. For fun, starting at 8:30, the vid concludes with the extended outtake of Jensen Ackles playing along with a missed cue.

Why might the show be teasing us to remember Yellow Fever – a time when Dean was acknowledged as scared shitless after his own return from hell? Yellow Fever had Dean hallucinating Sam with yellow eyes. So, maybe it’s not just hopelessness causing Dean to shut down and insist that booze and porn is his best response to Castiel’s smiting tour. We, and Sam, know Dean is wanting (praying!) to accept that Sam is okay for as long as possible. That instinct to “bury it” is recognizably Dean and was made explicit in 5.11 Sam Interrupted. This season’s first episode has Sam aware again of a real or hallucinated Lucifer which is nothing short of terrifying.

Tags: 4.06 Yellow Fever, 5.11 Sam Interrupted, 7.01 Meet the New Boss, vid link