SPN 10.02
SPN 10.02 Reichenbach
Once in a while it really hits people that they don't have to experience the world in the way they have been told to.
-- Alan Keightley
Picking up right where we left off last week, we revisit the question 'Who are you?' as pertains to Dean Winchester.
Sam: Dean isn't Dean right now.
Of course, to properly explore this question, we need to look at the past in order to understand the present and try predicting the future.
Dream!Dean: You are nothing. You're as mindless and obedient as an attack dog.... What are the things that you want? What are the things that you dream? I mean, your car? That's Dad's. Your favorite leather jacket? Dad's. Your music? Dad's. Do you even have an original thought? No. No, all there is is, "Watch out for Sammy. Look out for your little brother, boy!" You can still hear your Dad's voice in your head, can't you? ... Dad knew who you really were. A good soldier and nothing else. Daddy's blunt little instrument. (3.10)
A harsh assessment, but this has been a nugget in Dean's psyche from Mary's death onward. I could have gone back even further to the very beginning of the show to gather quotes about Dean's good little soldier mentality, gibes and frustated comments from Sam. But this is an unfiltered look directly from Dean's perspective. It's not the full story, not even close. But doing the job (saving people, hunting things, the family business) and "take care of Sammy" are a predominent part of what makes Dean the Dean Winchester we know. He took on John Winchester's orders in large part without question. He became a killer of monsters because it's what Dad asked of him. Sure, he takes this mission in life as his own, too, but the origins... Daddy's attack dog. Good soldier.
But now he doesn't have to be Dean Winchester. He's changed, thanks to the Mark of Cain. He has a chance to step out of the shadow of his family's legacy and do or be whatever he wants. And thanks to the influence of the Mark, he's not feeling the normal Dean Winchester need to save anyone, from anything. He's got other urges on his plate to focus on.
Dean: You want me to kill for you.
Crowley: I want you to kill for us. You're going to snap eventually. The anger. The bloodlust. It's going to build up in you until you can't take it anymore, and... so the question is, do you want to spike a civilian, or someone who has it coming?
Crowley: ... Mindy's going to die, one way or another. Why not take the job, feed the beast?
Crowley is busy trying to fix his interest in Dean's Mark-fueled bloodlust. And at first he does an okay job of it. Couching it in terms of Dean's choices. He might not be able to overcome the need to kill, thanks to the Mark, but he can choose who he kills. In the early days he sent left-over demon followers of Abaddon Dean's way to take care of two problems in one strike. Dean Winchester plus demons equals fight night, after all. But now he's angling to move Dean along to the next step. Accepting that he himself is a demon, and to start acting like it. And proper demons take orders from the King of Hell, that's the natural order of it, right?
One slight miscalculation. Crowley got complacent in thinking he could control the awakened dragon that is Demon Dean. Because Dean is riding high on the feeling of power from the Mark, and has figured out he doesn't have to be a demon the way Crowley is telling him to be. He's changed, got the black eyes to show for it, but he's not interested in trading in one soldiership for a Knighthood.
Crowley: Hey! Don't turn your back on me. What do you think you're doing?
Dean: Oh, whatever I want.
Crowley: Really? Because I think you don't know what you want. Tell me, Dean. What are you? A demon? If so, why isn't Lester's wife dead? Did you feel sorry for her? So maybe you're human. Except you have those pretty black peepers and you're working alongside me. Why don't you do us all a great big favor and pick a bloody side!
Dean: Or what? Hmm? Go ahead, make a move. See how it ends. I ain't your freaking bestie and I ain't taking orders from you. When I need to kill, I'll call. Until then stay out of my way.
Dean's still trying to figure out what kind of person or demon he is, but in the meantime, he does know one thing. He can do whatever he wants. Crowley can't stop him. He's avoiding Sammy so Sam can't try stopping him. The Mark plus the Blade doesn't just mean he has to kill, it means he's powerful enough he doesn't have to take anyone's orders.
Dean: Like I said, loser with a capital L rhymes with you suck.
Lester: Yeah well, you're a punk ass demon, you work for me now. So get in there and do your job, you freak.
Dean: And what are you gonna do, you gonna watch? Is that what you like to do Lester, watch? Well watch this.
Anyone trying to tell him what to do is going to get pretty much the opposite reaction from Dean right now. It's the first time in his life he's been able to fully indulge himself in a total rebellion from everything he knows and has done before. He's still trying to figure out who he really is, what he really wants for himself. But anyone trying to control him or direct his path is going to run into the free reign of Dean's worst responses right now. He is riding the freedom train of doing whatever he wants.
One small hitch. Crowley is cutting his losses, and figures there is still one person with a shot at getting Dean back under some semblence of control. So he dumps the problem of Demon Dean into Sam's lap.
Dean: I told you to let me go.
Sam: You know I can't do that.
This is why Dean's been avoiding Sam. He's not ready to face this aspect of his choices. He doesn't want to be cured, but doesn't want to kill Sam. Hence his determined disappearance from the Bunker and subsequent road-tripping.
Dean: I'm giving you a chance, Sam. You should take it.
Sam: I'm gonna have to pass.
Just as Dean gave Crowley a "pass" on his earlier plea to "accept what we are and get back to work (10.01)", Sam gives Dean's request to just let him go a pass. And Dean is quick to challenge the mission. Their family business, after all, is about stopping the monster. Which he currently is.
Dean: Well, I'm not walking out that door with you. I'm just not. So what are you gonna do, you gonna kill me?
Sam: No.
Dean: Why? You don't know what I've done, I might have it coming.
Sam: I don't care. Because you are my brother and I'm here to take you home.
Dean: You're my brother and I'm here to take you home. Ah, what is this a Lifetime movie, with your puppy dog eyes? Thanks Sammy, I needed that.
This exchange is heartbreaking on so many levels. Dean doesn't just challenge Sam's committment as a hunter, but mocks his committment as a brother. Because they've experienced various disagreements about what "home" and family means to each other.
Sam: I just don’t look at family the way you do.
Dean: Yeah, but I’m your family.
Sam: I know…
Dean: I mean, we’re supposed to be a team. It’s supposed to be you and me against the world, right?
Sam: Dean, it is!
Dean: Is it? (5.16)
Dean: Why haven't you moved in [the Bunker]?
Sam: Is now really the time for this, Dean?
Dean: Well, just asking.
Sam: Look, I never had what you had with mom and dad, okay?
Dean: What are you talking about?
Sam: I don't have any memories of home. And whenever I've tried to make a home of my own, it really hasn't ended well.
Dean: Yeah, but a lifetime of abandoned buildings and crappy motel rooms. I mean, this is about as close to home as we're gonna get, and it's ours. (9.04)
Of course Demon Dean would laugh at a statement from Sam about coming home, about being brothers. He's carried insecurities about Sam because they don't view the expression of loyalty and home the same exact way. But what he is deliberately ignoring now is where their viewpoints and committment do overlap. Sam may not see family or home through the exact prism as Dean, but he's been listening to Dean, been influenced by Dean's example in how he's developed his own code of brotherhood and loyalty. Save your brother first, worry about the monster side of things after. Deal with one problem at a time, and top priority is getting his brother back. Sounds like an echo of Big Brother's mantra to me.
Dean, our Dean, is rapidly being subsumed by his demon side, so Sam's task to save him is not going to be easy by any means. We see how far Dean is slipping by the choices he makes in how he stops Cole's attempt to kill him.
Cole is a man whose story is very similar to the Winchesters. He's spent his lifetime training and searching for the monster who killed his father. Vengeance has been his motivation for years now. The old Dean Winchester could and would have felt pity for this man. He might have tried to explain the facts of what really happened back in 2003, or he could have even let Cole "kill" him and think he accomplished his vengeance. His Mark-linked healing ability would have kept him alive without having to give away the "demon" game. But no. That's no fun. Because Demon Dean would rather make it a game of a far crueler nature.
Dean: Well hey, I'm not saying I didn't slice and dice your old man. I'm just saying he wasn't the first and he certainly wasn't the last and they all just kinda get blended up.
Cole: I saw you, that night after. You let me live. That was dumb, real dumb. I've spent half my life training for this moment, I've played out this fight a thousand times in my mind. And I know about you Dean-O, and you're good, you're real good. But you see, I'm better.
Dean would rather play out the challenge of "who's better". He may or may not remember killing Cole's dad once prompted by the details provided, but he doesn't care.
Cole: Do it! You said on the phone you would kill me.
Dean: I guess I changed my mind.
You let me live. That was dumb. Do it! Kill me. Oops. That's the wrong sort of challenge to give Dean right now. He's busy doing the opposite of what anyone tries telling him to do.
Sam: You know what Dean. I saw what happened back there, you could have killed that guy and you didn't, you took mercy on him.
Dean: You call that mercy? Imagine you spend your whole life hunting down the guy that knifed your father. When you finally find him, he whips you like a dog -- how do you think that feels? That kid is going to spend his whole life knowing that he had his shot and that he could't beat me, that ain't mercy. That's the worst thing I could have done to him. And what I'm gonna do to you Sammy, well that ain't gonna be mercy either.
Dean makes it crystal clear he spared Cole's life not from a sense of compassion or mercy, but because he knew just how painful living to see the man who killed his father slip right though his fingers would feel. Imagine if that bullet that finally killed Yellow Eyes has missed. How would Dean have felt?
So back to the question, who are you?
Dean: You have no idea what you walked into here do you? None.
Cole: What are you?
Dean: I'm a demon.
Dean's alluded to it, played around with it by flashing his black eyes, but this is the first time he's said the words. I'm a demon.
Is this his choice, then? Are you a monster or a man, and he's going with the monster?
Well, I submit that that remains to be seen. Taking everything into consideration, Dean's refusal to conform to anyone's expectations of him, as either man or demon, he has not had the chance to finish thinking it through and deciding on his own. He's reacting to pressure to be what Crowley wanted of him, what Sam wants of him, heck the injustice of Cole's belief that he was a monster when he killed Cole's father. Don't back a violence-fueled demon with a powerful urge to kill into any corners. He will strike back in every way possible. With or without that Blade, Dean still carries the Mark, and our Dean is not himself.
He is, for the moment, a demon. So does a demon make a monster? Or can the demon be salvaged as a man?
Sam's got his work cut out for him. Next week promises to be a nail-biter, and it can't get here soon enough.
Once in a while it really hits people that they don't have to experience the world in the way they have been told to.
-- Alan Keightley
Picking up right where we left off last week, we revisit the question 'Who are you?' as pertains to Dean Winchester.
Sam: Dean isn't Dean right now.
Of course, to properly explore this question, we need to look at the past in order to understand the present and try predicting the future.
Dream!Dean: You are nothing. You're as mindless and obedient as an attack dog.... What are the things that you want? What are the things that you dream? I mean, your car? That's Dad's. Your favorite leather jacket? Dad's. Your music? Dad's. Do you even have an original thought? No. No, all there is is, "Watch out for Sammy. Look out for your little brother, boy!" You can still hear your Dad's voice in your head, can't you? ... Dad knew who you really were. A good soldier and nothing else. Daddy's blunt little instrument. (3.10)
A harsh assessment, but this has been a nugget in Dean's psyche from Mary's death onward. I could have gone back even further to the very beginning of the show to gather quotes about Dean's good little soldier mentality, gibes and frustated comments from Sam. But this is an unfiltered look directly from Dean's perspective. It's not the full story, not even close. But doing the job (saving people, hunting things, the family business) and "take care of Sammy" are a predominent part of what makes Dean the Dean Winchester we know. He took on John Winchester's orders in large part without question. He became a killer of monsters because it's what Dad asked of him. Sure, he takes this mission in life as his own, too, but the origins... Daddy's attack dog. Good soldier.
But now he doesn't have to be Dean Winchester. He's changed, thanks to the Mark of Cain. He has a chance to step out of the shadow of his family's legacy and do or be whatever he wants. And thanks to the influence of the Mark, he's not feeling the normal Dean Winchester need to save anyone, from anything. He's got other urges on his plate to focus on.
Dean: You want me to kill for you.
Crowley: I want you to kill for us. You're going to snap eventually. The anger. The bloodlust. It's going to build up in you until you can't take it anymore, and... so the question is, do you want to spike a civilian, or someone who has it coming?
Crowley: ... Mindy's going to die, one way or another. Why not take the job, feed the beast?
Crowley is busy trying to fix his interest in Dean's Mark-fueled bloodlust. And at first he does an okay job of it. Couching it in terms of Dean's choices. He might not be able to overcome the need to kill, thanks to the Mark, but he can choose who he kills. In the early days he sent left-over demon followers of Abaddon Dean's way to take care of two problems in one strike. Dean Winchester plus demons equals fight night, after all. But now he's angling to move Dean along to the next step. Accepting that he himself is a demon, and to start acting like it. And proper demons take orders from the King of Hell, that's the natural order of it, right?
One slight miscalculation. Crowley got complacent in thinking he could control the awakened dragon that is Demon Dean. Because Dean is riding high on the feeling of power from the Mark, and has figured out he doesn't have to be a demon the way Crowley is telling him to be. He's changed, got the black eyes to show for it, but he's not interested in trading in one soldiership for a Knighthood.
Crowley: Hey! Don't turn your back on me. What do you think you're doing?
Dean: Oh, whatever I want.
Crowley: Really? Because I think you don't know what you want. Tell me, Dean. What are you? A demon? If so, why isn't Lester's wife dead? Did you feel sorry for her? So maybe you're human. Except you have those pretty black peepers and you're working alongside me. Why don't you do us all a great big favor and pick a bloody side!
Dean: Or what? Hmm? Go ahead, make a move. See how it ends. I ain't your freaking bestie and I ain't taking orders from you. When I need to kill, I'll call. Until then stay out of my way.
Dean's still trying to figure out what kind of person or demon he is, but in the meantime, he does know one thing. He can do whatever he wants. Crowley can't stop him. He's avoiding Sammy so Sam can't try stopping him. The Mark plus the Blade doesn't just mean he has to kill, it means he's powerful enough he doesn't have to take anyone's orders.
Dean: Like I said, loser with a capital L rhymes with you suck.
Lester: Yeah well, you're a punk ass demon, you work for me now. So get in there and do your job, you freak.
Dean: And what are you gonna do, you gonna watch? Is that what you like to do Lester, watch? Well watch this.
Anyone trying to tell him what to do is going to get pretty much the opposite reaction from Dean right now. It's the first time in his life he's been able to fully indulge himself in a total rebellion from everything he knows and has done before. He's still trying to figure out who he really is, what he really wants for himself. But anyone trying to control him or direct his path is going to run into the free reign of Dean's worst responses right now. He is riding the freedom train of doing whatever he wants.
One small hitch. Crowley is cutting his losses, and figures there is still one person with a shot at getting Dean back under some semblence of control. So he dumps the problem of Demon Dean into Sam's lap.
Dean: I told you to let me go.
Sam: You know I can't do that.
This is why Dean's been avoiding Sam. He's not ready to face this aspect of his choices. He doesn't want to be cured, but doesn't want to kill Sam. Hence his determined disappearance from the Bunker and subsequent road-tripping.
Dean: I'm giving you a chance, Sam. You should take it.
Sam: I'm gonna have to pass.
Just as Dean gave Crowley a "pass" on his earlier plea to "accept what we are and get back to work (10.01)", Sam gives Dean's request to just let him go a pass. And Dean is quick to challenge the mission. Their family business, after all, is about stopping the monster. Which he currently is.
Dean: Well, I'm not walking out that door with you. I'm just not. So what are you gonna do, you gonna kill me?
Sam: No.
Dean: Why? You don't know what I've done, I might have it coming.
Sam: I don't care. Because you are my brother and I'm here to take you home.
Dean: You're my brother and I'm here to take you home. Ah, what is this a Lifetime movie, with your puppy dog eyes? Thanks Sammy, I needed that.
This exchange is heartbreaking on so many levels. Dean doesn't just challenge Sam's committment as a hunter, but mocks his committment as a brother. Because they've experienced various disagreements about what "home" and family means to each other.
Sam: I just don’t look at family the way you do.
Dean: Yeah, but I’m your family.
Sam: I know…
Dean: I mean, we’re supposed to be a team. It’s supposed to be you and me against the world, right?
Sam: Dean, it is!
Dean: Is it? (5.16)
Dean: Why haven't you moved in [the Bunker]?
Sam: Is now really the time for this, Dean?
Dean: Well, just asking.
Sam: Look, I never had what you had with mom and dad, okay?
Dean: What are you talking about?
Sam: I don't have any memories of home. And whenever I've tried to make a home of my own, it really hasn't ended well.
Dean: Yeah, but a lifetime of abandoned buildings and crappy motel rooms. I mean, this is about as close to home as we're gonna get, and it's ours. (9.04)
Of course Demon Dean would laugh at a statement from Sam about coming home, about being brothers. He's carried insecurities about Sam because they don't view the expression of loyalty and home the same exact way. But what he is deliberately ignoring now is where their viewpoints and committment do overlap. Sam may not see family or home through the exact prism as Dean, but he's been listening to Dean, been influenced by Dean's example in how he's developed his own code of brotherhood and loyalty. Save your brother first, worry about the monster side of things after. Deal with one problem at a time, and top priority is getting his brother back. Sounds like an echo of Big Brother's mantra to me.
Dean, our Dean, is rapidly being subsumed by his demon side, so Sam's task to save him is not going to be easy by any means. We see how far Dean is slipping by the choices he makes in how he stops Cole's attempt to kill him.
Cole is a man whose story is very similar to the Winchesters. He's spent his lifetime training and searching for the monster who killed his father. Vengeance has been his motivation for years now. The old Dean Winchester could and would have felt pity for this man. He might have tried to explain the facts of what really happened back in 2003, or he could have even let Cole "kill" him and think he accomplished his vengeance. His Mark-linked healing ability would have kept him alive without having to give away the "demon" game. But no. That's no fun. Because Demon Dean would rather make it a game of a far crueler nature.
Dean: Well hey, I'm not saying I didn't slice and dice your old man. I'm just saying he wasn't the first and he certainly wasn't the last and they all just kinda get blended up.
Cole: I saw you, that night after. You let me live. That was dumb, real dumb. I've spent half my life training for this moment, I've played out this fight a thousand times in my mind. And I know about you Dean-O, and you're good, you're real good. But you see, I'm better.
Dean would rather play out the challenge of "who's better". He may or may not remember killing Cole's dad once prompted by the details provided, but he doesn't care.
Cole: Do it! You said on the phone you would kill me.
Dean: I guess I changed my mind.
You let me live. That was dumb. Do it! Kill me. Oops. That's the wrong sort of challenge to give Dean right now. He's busy doing the opposite of what anyone tries telling him to do.
Sam: You know what Dean. I saw what happened back there, you could have killed that guy and you didn't, you took mercy on him.
Dean: You call that mercy? Imagine you spend your whole life hunting down the guy that knifed your father. When you finally find him, he whips you like a dog -- how do you think that feels? That kid is going to spend his whole life knowing that he had his shot and that he could't beat me, that ain't mercy. That's the worst thing I could have done to him. And what I'm gonna do to you Sammy, well that ain't gonna be mercy either.
Dean makes it crystal clear he spared Cole's life not from a sense of compassion or mercy, but because he knew just how painful living to see the man who killed his father slip right though his fingers would feel. Imagine if that bullet that finally killed Yellow Eyes has missed. How would Dean have felt?
So back to the question, who are you?
Dean: You have no idea what you walked into here do you? None.
Cole: What are you?
Dean: I'm a demon.
Dean's alluded to it, played around with it by flashing his black eyes, but this is the first time he's said the words. I'm a demon.
Is this his choice, then? Are you a monster or a man, and he's going with the monster?
Well, I submit that that remains to be seen. Taking everything into consideration, Dean's refusal to conform to anyone's expectations of him, as either man or demon, he has not had the chance to finish thinking it through and deciding on his own. He's reacting to pressure to be what Crowley wanted of him, what Sam wants of him, heck the injustice of Cole's belief that he was a monster when he killed Cole's father. Don't back a violence-fueled demon with a powerful urge to kill into any corners. He will strike back in every way possible. With or without that Blade, Dean still carries the Mark, and our Dean is not himself.
He is, for the moment, a demon. So does a demon make a monster? Or can the demon be salvaged as a man?
Sam's got his work cut out for him. Next week promises to be a nail-biter, and it can't get here soon enough.