Supernatural

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

* spoilers through 6.22 The Man Who Knew Too Much

3.12 Jus in Bello:  Sam and Dean are chained and caged together. Their wanted posters hang on the wall. Dean is shot in the shoulder.

The boys are pushed by Ruby toward sacrificing an innocent. This brings out that Dean is deemed not “virtuous” and therefore unsuitable. That certainly doesn’t go away even if the language becomes “righteous man” in S4 and “brave knight” in S6. I have to think we’re talking about Dean still in need of Grace and Redemption.(?) Nancy’s willingness to play her role is a character stretch similar to Madison’s in 2.17 Heart and I believe must be there to illustrate a Lesson such as the Trickster was explicit about so recently in 3.11 Mystery Spot.

They’re out there and they’re coming in here. This is a siege. So this might be a good time for you to lock the doors and the window, take a breath, and maybe deal with this like trained professionals with some sense in their heads.  ~ Henriksen

Could this be an interpretation of the fight for Dean’s soul? Like I believe the S6 fairies were?

Open the doors, let them all in and fight. ~ Dean

I love this!

It doesn’t mean that we throw away the rule book and stop acting like humans. I’m not gonna let you that demon kill some nice, sweet, innocent girl, who hasn’t even been laid. I mean, look, if that’s how you win wars, then I don’t want to win. ~ Dean

This last quote makes clear the huge shift there’s been in the story. 5.22 Swan Song was all about throwing out the script and making up the rules as they go. Season six goes on to look at the consequences of that shift. There’s a way yet to go before the boys take control of that possibility, but I believe it’s what will get them free in the end. Unless the ultimate point will be to realize the impossibility of a world without rules and the need to accept the natural order. I’m amazed that I can be so satisfied with the show still having room to go either way on that question.

3.13 Ghostfacers:  Morton House command center is the Eagle’s Nest and Spruce’s heritage is 1.16 Cherokee Bird Clan and somewhere there’s the name Raven in his backstory. (That may have come from the dvd special feature?)

This is the first viewing where it sunk in with me that Corbett was dressed in camouflage – another soldier! Here he is the innocent killed when he ventures off alone but who is the hero saving the day in the end. An analogy that seems perfect to me: Corbett is to Harry and Ed as Castiel is to Sam and Dean! The bridge is being ‘in love with’ and invested in one while understanding the other as important and necessary to that stronger attraction.

The episode’s monster was motivated by loneliness, not unlike many others (indeed, most?) we’ve seen over the course of the series.

The research wall used by the Ghostfacers is revealed as makeshift when the garage door opens unexpectedly. That wall is a door! Dean and Spruce are cut off from the rest when a door shuts. Dean moved a cupboard/storage locker/something to get to a wall to break through to the other side where Sam is captive.

The whole conceit of the episode is another in the storytelling theme. Here we have reality television Sam and Dean wannabes as surely as we got in 5.09 The Real Ghostbusters convention episode. The Ghostfacers van has copier maintenance schedules hanging inside.  It can’t be coincidence that Demian fixed copy machines in his ‘real life.’ Both sets of fake Sam&Deans are role-playing and editing to create a story. Again, I think our Sam and Dean must take charge of writing their own story more and more.

Tags: 3.12 Jus in Bello, 3.13 Ghostfacers, doors, shoulders