SPN 4:03

[oselle]

Maybe it's because I'm not feeling so hot, but I was kind of...disconnected from that episode. I'd think that anything that had Dean crying and Dean sleeping and revelations about the Winchester family tree would have had me in hysterics but...I don't know. Something didn't click.

Maybe it was the abundant visual callbacks to Back to the Future that had me waiting for "Power of Love" to burst onto the soundtrack any minute. Back to the Future is one of my favorite movies of all time but I don't necessarily need to see a virtual shot-by-shot recreation.

The YED sniffing Dean was way hotter than it should have been. And I did enjoy seeing good old Skinner Mitch Pileggi. But finding out that Mary was a hunter from a family of them didn't stun me the way I think it was supposed to (maybe I've just read too much fandom speculation about this). And did you also get the impression that Sam would have been psychic anyway? YED knew that Dean wasn't "one of my psychic kids" from the get-go. So Sam would have been "chosen" whether Mary was a hunter or not...yes?

I did get a kick out of Gramps Campbell blowing a hole in the kindly old doctor and then nonchalantly declaring, "Libby's tough, she'll be all right." All right!? How's poor Libby gonna explain the dead doc in her living room?!

I certainly enjoyed finding out that Dean is named after his grandmother...heee! And any time Dean cries, an angel gets its wings...and I mean a NICE angel, not like that douchebag Castiel. Yeah, just what poor Dean needs, a dour, cryptic angel subjecting him to mindfuck pop-ins. I'm waiting for Castiel to pop in on Dean in the shower. Yes. I'm waiting for that.

Oh and FIRST HELL FLASHBACK! Well, sort of. But hey, we're getting there!

So overall...I don't know. I wasn't really blown away. We all knew Mary must have made some deal with YED at some point, and we all know that Sam's destined to go darkside or at least get really close to it. But I guess I expected a little more. And Christ, the Samgirls must be disappointed. I mean there was what...30 seconds of Sam in this ep? If that? And I sure hope that next week we find out where he was going with Ruby. He really needs to stop leaving Dean all by himself like that.

Comments

[mews1945.livejournal.com]

I dislike Castiel. I haven't liked him from the beginning, but I hoped he would grow on me, as everybody else seems to find him irresistible. But I get the creeps just looking at him. He's handsome, I guess, but he's got a nasty vibe, sort of like a snake in a box.

[oselle.livejournal.com]

I think that's how we're supposed to feel about Castiel. The hotness comes (IMO) just from that very creepiness.

[mews1945.livejournal.com]

Hot. That's what I don't get. How can anybody get turned on by him? He makes my skin crawl.

[agentotter.livejournal.com]

If it helps any, I just find the actor hot. Castiel I mostly want to punch in the face, though they seem to be backing off on making him a total dick now...

[oxer12.livejournal.com]

I posted in my own LJ before I came here. And while I did like the ep., I was struggling to write what it was I DID like. So, yeah, I know what you're talking about.

I did enjoy Dean's comment that we was "going to Hell. Again." Hee!

Is Sam even on this show anymore? I loves me some Jensen, but throw Padalecki a few scenes, would ya?

[oselle.livejournal.com]

I heard a rumor that Jared had some commitment that sent him out of town and so they had to script an episode around Dean. Not that I'm complaining :) And I actually thought this episode really highlighted how separate Sam and Dean have grown -- they used to be practically joined at the hip and now neither one tends to know where the other is or what he's doing.

Re: what a mindfuck...

[oselle.livejournal.com]

I think the angels and the demons have their own agenda and humanity is just so much collateral damage stuck in the middle.

[morganslady.livejournal.com]

I was glued to the TV!! I loved Mitch Pileggi as Grandpa, he's has such a presents on the screen. The Mary and Dean moments blew me away. When she told him she wanted a normal life,that she didn't want her kids to be raised as hunters, I totally sobbed.
I missed the 'Dean being named for grandma' thing,thanks for point that out.
Mary making the deal for John's life, and if she hadn't tried to stop the YED in the nursery,she might have lived,what a turn of events.

[oselle.livejournal.com]

I don't think Mary would have lived no matter what. The YED didn't want Sam growing up in a nice white-picket-fence world so he'd probably have found a way to get rid of her, like he supposedly eliminated all of her family and friends (I'm assuming they're eventually going to explain that!).

[pensive]

quote from Blazing Saddles: "Destiny! Destiny! No escaping that for me!"

I was having a few BTtF flashes too-- glad Dean shouted out about the Delorians.

I liked this ep a lot but I hate time travel/what if's/reset buttons SO SO SO MUCH. At least this avoided that for the most part. Even if it did cause some weird temporal things.

VERDICT: Castiel=still hot, still good(that LOOK he gives Dean when he finds out Mom made a deal w YED), but also not some fat cherub. He knows how to get through to Dean, and he managed to break the news of psychicSam to Dean in a way that avoided confrontation (so far). Dean saw the puzzle pieces and put it all together himself.

[oselle.livejournal.com]

Castiel was never a fat cherub but I don't know if I'd call him "good." Good's kind of relative. Just because he's not a demon doesn't necessarily mean he'll be good, at least not for Dean.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Speaking of Castiel being a jerk, why did he tell Dean he "had to stop it" when apparently this was really supposed to be a fact-finding mission for Dean? When he told him he couldn't have stopped it I stupidly thought Castiel was going to say something like that's what he needed Dean to see so that he wouldn't feel like things were his fault when somebody died or something, but no, apparently Castiel was just being a dick. He could totally have just said there were things Dean needed to know. It's not like Dean wasn't going to follow his parents once he saw them.

I did like the set up that it seemed like Dean's real job is to put Sam on the right path and so take him out as a force of evil the human way.

mostly agree (though I loved the episode) but

[klingoncat.livejournal.com]

I disagree with the thought that he could have just said it was a fact-finding mission - I really think that if Dean HADN"T tried to stop it he would have always wondered if he could have and he wouldn't have gotten that he COULDN"T - so even if Castiel seemed to be a bastard, I think he knew that this was the only way that Dean would truly get it. Just MHO anyhow...

Re: mostly agree (though I loved the episode) but

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I'd like to think that. To me that seemed like the best reason for Castiel wanting Dean to try. Though elsewhere on my flist someone said they thought Dean was always the one to set events in motion, so Castiel was actually "creating" Sam himself and wanted him created that way. But I don't know...that seems far too circulatory for Castiel. And also I hate stories where somebody would never have been born unless they'd already been born. (Except Terminator--I can deal with it there.

[oselle.livejournal.com]

I think we're supposed to realize that the "it" Dean is supposed to stop is Sam's submission to his demonic inheritance. The purpose of sending Dean back in time to witness his mother's original deal with Azazel was, I suppose, to give Dean an understanding of exactly what had happened. Nevertheless, I agree with you that Castiel is a dick. Why the fuck was he asking Dean all that nonsense about choosing between saving his family and saving all the people he's helped as a hunter if saving his family was never even on the table. Douchebag.

[layne67.livejournal.com]

I love that ep, actually, well, except for the Sam-leaves-Dean part, again. I think you're right, what you said before, about Sam going nuts after Dean died.

Now I have two Sams to think about, what's in their head and all, this Sam and your Sam in Lazarus.

Am still in love with Castiel. Give me a bad-ass, creepy angel over one with fluffy white wings and halo on their heads any time.

[layne67.livejournal.com]

And I want Castiel to appear in the shower-room, yes please, thank you.

[oselle.livejournal.com]

Poor Dean seems at the end of his rope. I think that would really send him over the edge!

[akankshaa.livejournal.com]

Ok - while this probably was not one of my favorite episodes...I still loved the Dean-Mary interaction. The revelation that she wanted to get away from the life, "be safe" and did not want the hunter's life for her children was heartbreaking. And while I am a little mad at Castiel for putting Dean through that, he did seem sympathethic when Dean realized that he did not stop Mary from making the deal.

I did miss the brother interaction in this episode though...can't wait to see Dean's reaction in the next epi to finding out what Sam has been up to.

[oselle.livejournal.com]

I don't think Dean's going to find out all that much, I think they're just teasing us. The little preview of next week's ep looks very standard MoTW to me, although that's all I know about it.