oselle | SPN 5:13 Part Deux (Reply)

It delights me to put up this post because I hate for people to think I'm one of those nitpicking malcontents who has to disparage the show all the time. NOR am I a Pollyanna who's willing to excuse the show for its frequent and glaring missteps just because it throws me a good episode now and then. If an episode sucks, I'll say so. If an episode's great, I'll own up to that too. And last night was GREAT. To break it down...

1. Sam
What a pleasure to see Sam acting like a decent human being. It's been a long time since I've felt so sympathetically towards him, and I thought Jared had some really wonderful moments last night. His handshake with John was one, as was his very well-written and acted private conversation with John, where he told John all the things he wished he'd said to "his father" before he died. The poignancy of Sam actually saying these things to his real father -- without his father even knowing it -- was exquisite. I also loved Sam blurting out to Mary, "You are so beautiful," since unlike Dean, he's never actually seen his mother in the flesh -- at least not since he was far too young to remember.

2. Dean
Jensen was absolutely glorious last night, especially in his scenes with Mary. When he went through all the details of his long-ago childhood to convince Mary that he really was her son -- memories of tomato-and-rice soup and "Hey Jude" lullabies -- dear God, there sure wasn't a dry eye in this house. More than anything I was so moved by Dean telling Mary to leave John to save her own life, knowing full well that it would mean that he and Sam would never be born. If that isn't the definition of self-sacrifice, I don't know what is. God help anyone who ever calls Dean "selfish" in my presence. And his devastated expression when Mary confessed that she was already pregnant -- with him -- just made me catch my breath. It's been more than a few episodes since I've seen Jensen have material that allows him to go full-throttle on his considerable talent and what a pleasure it was.

3. John
Matthew Cohen did an exceptional job as John, so much so that I can overlook the fact that, unlike Jeffrey Dean Morgan, he's shorter than both Jared and Jensen :) He made it so easy to believe that this very ordinary man would eventually turn into the John Winchester that we knew from early in the show. Even better was his depiction of Michael -- just the right amount of menace but with a deft undercurrent of compassion that made it far more than an "I'm possessed!" performance. His scene, as Michael, with Dean was pitch-perfect. Beautifully written and acted by both of them, and his monologue on the irrelevance of free will and how every moment of history has brought them all to this place -- oh, that's the sort of thing that just gets the waterworks going. A lesser actor would have botched this scene horribly and made Michael into a sneering villain, but I really believed him as an archangel. So much so, that I wondered why he's been letting incompetents like Zachariah, Uriel and Gabriel do his job for him up until now, when he's clearly so much better at it.

4. Mary and Anna
Loved Amy Gumenick, especially in the aforementioned scene with Dean. I thought Julie McNiven, as dainty as she looks, was convincingly ass-kicking (Pete Campbell, you might want to be a little more polite with Hildy next year!). It was nice to see a fight between two women on this show staged as something serious, rather than something that looks like it should be taking place in a boxing ring full of wet mud. Mary's knifework was particularly skilled, and wouldn't it have been nice to see Katie Cassidy bring some of that nimble-fingered confidence to Ruby 1.0? Mary's last scene in the nursery absolutely broke my heart.

The only thing that confused me was whether Anna really "broke out" of heavenly prison, as she said, or was she sent as an assasin and if so, who sent her? Because it clearly wasn't Michael, or he wouldn't have punished her so severely. Her incineration was visually well done, but I have to say that I'm kind of sorry to know she's gone for good. And I also want to say how happy I am that the show resisted any temptation to indulge in double-entendre cheesiness between her and Dean. The impact of her presence and purpose in the episode would have been very much lessened if Dean had been leering at her and making suggestive comments the whole time. Dream-strippers aside, I really liked the chemistry between her and Dean in the opening scene, especially when he asked her if she needed his help -- that's the Dean I know and love, not the oversexed dim bulb they sometimes make him out to be.

5. That's The Way You Do It
The comic relief moments in this episode were just right: my favorite lines were, "What? That their sons are back from the future to save them from an angel that’s gone terminator? Come on those movies haven’t even been made yet!" and Sam and Dean in the back of the car, "Oooh, awkward family moment." I also did enjoy "Six Degrees of Heaven Bacon." There's a right way to use humor in an episode and a wrong way, and the show too often lurches in the "wrong way" direction. Last night, they got it right.

6. Free Will and Foreshadowing
As I've mentioned, the scene between Michael and Dean was specacular, but it also paved the way for how this season will probably end. I don't think Michael is lying when he tells Dean that he can take over his body, and then leave it, without harming him. I had a feeling the show was going to have to abandon the idea that archangel possession turns the vessel into a drooling vegetable -- and now that they've cleaned up that inconvenient concept, I'm sure that Dean will be saying yes to Michael by episode 22. The whole speech about fate, and Sam reminding Dean that John readily said yes to Michael to save Mary, pretty much makes this outcome inevitable. Not sure how they'll get Sam to give in to Lucifer, and not sure how they'll deal with the implications of Dean saying yes to Michael (i.e. Armageddon) but I do know one thing...Archangel Dean? Will be so hot that not just the knickers I'm wearing, but every pair of knickers I own -- including those in the hamper, in the drawer, and unfolded in the washbasket -- will instantly go up in flames. In fact, I expect knickers to be immolating across the globe when Dean becomes Michael. We'll have to declare it a holiday. Like Guy Fawkes Day. With underpants.

7. Final Thought
If the show is capable of being this good, why is it often so bad? If I could ask Eric Kripke one question, this would be it.

I've jokingly compared the show to a bad boyfriend, but it's also like a really underachieving kid. You've got this kid, and maybe you're his mother or his teacher, but you know how bright he is and how much he's capable of -- and yet he's constantly producing a bunch of Ds on his report card. He sits there day after day in class, not doing shit except making fart noises and talking back and making fun of other kids -- and then one day he just stuns you with a brilliant paper or an incredible project. In a kid's case, he's probably under-challenged or has home problems or whatever. What's Show's problem? How do we convince them that it's worth their time and effort to do work like this all the time?