(no subject)

[oselle]

Let me be perfectly clear. I feel used. I feel used and cheap and manipulated.

And I LIKE it.

Last night, we were presented with the crackiest gift that we fangirls could have gotten. That episode was like awesome fanfic only better because IT WAS CANON, BABY.

Let's just cut to the chase and talk about Dean's dreamworld confrontation with himself. It was, of course awesome. Jensen Ackles knocked this scene so far out of the park that it must be a satellite of Earth by now. Yes, this scene will forever be circling our planet in the void of space. Millions of years from now, after we're all gone, this scene will be spinning in our orbit. Alien life forms will come upon it and say, what a people these "humans" must have been! So pretty! So angsty! So...so...OH DEAN!!!

One of the little criticisms I've read of this scene was that it didn't really tell us anything we don't know. But I think there is, and should be, a divide between what we as the viewers know and what the characters know, especially what they know about themselves. Maybe we know what awful things Dean suspects about himself, but he doesn't, or at least he's never really said or maybe even thought them in so many words. What made my hair stand on end during that scene was hearing all this brought out in the open.

But you know what? It's not really out in the open, is it? After all, this happened in a dream. And I think that's pretty telling. I've been waiting since the first episode of this season for Dean to crack and I figured it would happen right about now, at the season's midpoint. What I'd wondered was, how is it going to happen? And who's going to see it? Sam? Bobby? Oh-God-no-Bela?

Turns out...no one sees it. Just Dean. He cracks up in his own head and he doesn't tell anyone about it. And that, to me, is pretty perfect. I can't imagine another way I would have wanted to see this played out. I'm sure there are viewers who would have loved to see him fall to pieces all over Sam but that would have felt wrong. It's just not who Dean is and in a way, that makes the scene all the more heartbreaking. Only in his sleep, and only in front of himself does he let himself go.

And does he ever. We're almost three years into this show and we've all seen Dean get angsty and emotional and angry but we've never, ever seen him just lose it like this. Emotionally and physically. I was telling baylorsr that for all the ass-kicking Dean does, he's never gone after anyone or anything the way he beat up on "himself." I mean, Christ, that was just brutal.

The best part of this scene though, was Dean bellowing that he doesn't deserve to go to Hell. And you know, strangely, that's the one thing that I think Dean doesn't recall (or deliberately ignores) after he wakes up. That word "deserve." What he remembers (and what we remember from that unexpected and utterly chilling final shot) is the reality of what he's going to become: a demon. But what he should remember is that he should try to find a way out of The Deal because HE DOESN'T DESERVE TO GO TO HELL.

Oh DEAN. No you don't, baby.

Then again, DemonDean was awfully, awfully hot. If there are demons who look like THAT in Hell, book me a one-way ticket. And I hope it's like those Hieronymous Bosch paintings. All sweaty naked people roiling around fornicating by firelight. Fornicating. Yes. Fornicating.

Anyhoo.

Other things to love: Dean telling Bobby that he's like a father to him. Bobby's house, all cute and tidy (so sad!). Bobby looking so distressingly vulnerable without his hat. Sam calling up that crazy kid's father to do him in. Somehow, I really, really enjoyed getting such a good view of Dean's sawed-off shotgun. I mean that in a completely non-Freudian way!! I loved that it looked so...used. And though I've already mentioned it, it bears repeating: that final shot just blew my mind. I'm not sure what we're supposed to glean from that, but what a way to fade to black. My God, show. Kill us all dead, why don't you?

Things not to love? Bela's pointless Victoria's Secret moment. Bela's useless Talking Board. Bela's come-and-go accent. Bela's once again conning the boys. Basically everything about Bela. I thought that Dean promised he'd kill her if he ever saw her again and then he...invites her over? And for some reason, she thinks she's going to what? Shack up with them for a little while? Miss Sleeps-Naked-On-Silk-Sheets-And-Money suddenly needs a place to stay? Shouldn't she be over at The Four Seasons? And Sam's all cute and flustered and...no. Just, no. Yeah, you can have a sex dream about anyone. You can't really control that and in fact, it's considered common to have sex dreams about people who repel you in real life. But that doesn't mean you suddenly get all gushy about this person when you wake up, especially not when they shot you, robbed you, stole your car, left you for dead and ratted you out to a psychotic vampire hunter. Dreams are powerful. They ain't THAT powerful.

But let's not dwell on that bit of nastiness. Let's just clasp hands and come together and say in unison what we're all thinking and that's...

OH! DEAN!!!!!!!!!