SPN 11.12 Don't You Forget About Me
RL has been very ... interesting, and time-consuming, but I am finally getting to work on some SPN catch-up reviews. Whee!
SPN 11.12 Don't You Forget About Me
Men do not live only by fighting evils. They live by positive goals, individual and collective, a vast variety of them, seldom predictable, at times incompatible.
-- Isaiah Berlin
This week we take a look at the Survivor's Club. Jody, Alex, Claire. Sharing a roof but not finding compatible ground with each other. And of course the Sam and Dean mirror, showing what can be, how the individual and collective goals can find an understanding with each other. Eventually. After all, Sam and Dean have a lot more years of working out their differences, discovering ways to bridge the seeming incompatible. To find their own goals. To accept their differences. To be brothers, with all the teasing, sniping, and ultimately love and loyalty that comes with the package.
To not be alone in the world, to have family.
Jody: I'm not Alex's mom. I'm not Claire's mom. I didn't raise them, I don't have that kind of history with them.
Jody is trying to provide a home to help give Alex and Claire something back from what they lost to the monsters. She herself is part of that club, having lost her own family to the monsters too. She is trying to provide a safe haven that gives all of them a second chance to rebuild something that had been taken from them all. Family.
Claire is demonstrating quite a bit in common with Dean's personality -- that gung-ho, full steam ahead for hunting intensity. Not interested in school. Not interested in developing outside friendships. Reminds me quite a bit of Dean's Season 1 persona. He didn't see school or friends as practical. He was brash and impetuous. He was snarky with law enforcement officals. The years have tempered his approach quite a bit. He's gained friends in law enforcement these days -- Jody being case in point. He's matured, and become more settled and certain about who he is and what he wants. He still sees certain things as not being for him, but family isn't one of them. In fact, his definition of family has expanded light years beyond how he once defined it: himself, Sam and John.
Jody: [Claire] doesn't have any friends, spends all her time trolling for cases, reading the lore. I've got nothing against hunting. But if she's hiding in it, like she doesn't have anything else... I'm just worried about her being so alone.
Yeah, no wonder Dean winced at Jody's description of Claire's behavior. As much as he has himself grown over the years, it's a reminder of how much he's still cut off from a normal life.
Still, the Survivor's Club -- including Dean and Sam -- has more in common with all of each other than they might see at first.
Claire: Sometimes I feel like I'm a little late to the Jody and Alex show.
Sounds like something Sam likely felt as a child, watching his brother and father bonded over the hunting life, feeling the outsider in his own home. They all share pieces of commonality with each other.
Sam: The monsters are always going to be there, on and on forever. But a chance at a family, home, school? That won't be.
Taking a chance on a bigger goal than hunting alone, opening the door to more... that's a door none of the adults want Claire closing on herself yet. They would rather her learn from some of the hard-earned lessons they've lived and find a path to a more balanced life.
Not a perfectly safe life -- that's back to the incompatible with the hunting goal issue. But she can approach it in a way that gives her the best chance of living a life, not just getting by from hunt to hunt.
And then there is Alex.
Dean: I thought it was going to be Alex with the adjustment issues.
Alex is looking good these days. Submerged in the "normal life". Wanting nothing to do with talk about monsters and all the memories that come with it. She'd rather focus on what's "real".
Oh dear. She reminds me quite a bit of Season 1 Sam, with her focus on school and normal and her trigger word of "freak" -- a past she's trying to put in her rear-view mirror. Then comes Claire stirring up the home nest, injecting a reminder of everything she's trying to put away. No wonder she's told her that she hates her.
It's not that. Just because people have some things in common doesn't mean they have a common response.
Jody: You don't have to explain. I know. Whatever you want from me, I'll give it. If you want, I'm here. But what you've been through the last 48 alone, losing your entire family, everything you've ever known or loved -- no one can understand that.
Alex: You can. (SPN 9.19)
While she's part of the I Survived the Monsters club, part of the damage she suffered in the process was unique to herself and she can hardly bear the reminder of this period of her life.
Alex: I wasn't always this girl. There are awful things out there. Sometimes I look at myself in the mirror, and I'm like, that's me? You should know I've done some really bad things. Hurt people.
For all that she has a lot in common with Sam's young adult viewpoint and goals, her self-loathing and struggle to see that there is goodness in herself that is far greater than the damage done in her past when she was under the control of monsters... that's vintage Dean.
Dean: There’s some stuff you just got to let go. Okay? The people you let down, the ones you can’t save … You got to forget about them. For your own good.
Castiel: Is that what you do?
Dean: That’s the opposite of what I do. But I ain’t exactly a role model.
Castiel: That’s not true. (SPN 10.09)
And like everyone who's been touched by the supernatural, the past cannot be outrun or buried into oblivion.
Vampire: I was just going to kill you outright, but you were so miserable and alone it would have been a mercy killing, right? I wanted you to be happy first. I wanted you to have something precious so I could take it from you.
You have to have something to lose to actually be hurt by another. This vampire, in his quest to exact his twisted revenge for the part Alex had played in destroying his human life, developed a plan to build Alex up first, so the fall would be that much more painful. It was a pretty smart plan, so far as it went. But it underestimated one thing -- her support system was bigger than this vamp and his protege could handle. And Alex was stronger than he gave her credit for.
Jody: You were ready to give up your life for us. That's goodness. And that's what's so scary about family. Gives you so much to lose.
Alex's willingness to sacrifice her own life, to turn herself back into the very thing she loathed, was the ultimate offer of self.
It created a new bridge of understanding among herself, Claire and Jody that, damaged survivors that they all are, they've become family. Words of hate turned to dust in the face of a plea to give herself over an existence that would be a living hell to protect the people she cares for.
Alex: When I get my life together, I might be moving on.... I can't be around what you all are doing, the things you're fighting.
My gosh, it's like watching Sam and Dean's story all over again. Maybe Alex will successfully get away from the monsters and forge a normal life for herself. Maybe Claire will find herself enjoying school and making friends more than she ever anticipated while she learns the best ways to conduct a hunt with the help of some professional guidance. Maybe they are very different people with very different personalities and goals leading them different directions in life. Maybe their story will find a different ending than Sam and Dean's.
They aren't alone, whatever they choose. Whether leaving monsters or normal behind, they are family now. Understanding sealed in a steady look, and answering nod. They've got each other's back.
That's family. The best club of all to belong to.
SPN 11.12 Don't You Forget About Me
Men do not live only by fighting evils. They live by positive goals, individual and collective, a vast variety of them, seldom predictable, at times incompatible.
-- Isaiah Berlin
This week we take a look at the Survivor's Club. Jody, Alex, Claire. Sharing a roof but not finding compatible ground with each other. And of course the Sam and Dean mirror, showing what can be, how the individual and collective goals can find an understanding with each other. Eventually. After all, Sam and Dean have a lot more years of working out their differences, discovering ways to bridge the seeming incompatible. To find their own goals. To accept their differences. To be brothers, with all the teasing, sniping, and ultimately love and loyalty that comes with the package.
To not be alone in the world, to have family.
Jody: I'm not Alex's mom. I'm not Claire's mom. I didn't raise them, I don't have that kind of history with them.
Jody is trying to provide a home to help give Alex and Claire something back from what they lost to the monsters. She herself is part of that club, having lost her own family to the monsters too. She is trying to provide a safe haven that gives all of them a second chance to rebuild something that had been taken from them all. Family.
Claire is demonstrating quite a bit in common with Dean's personality -- that gung-ho, full steam ahead for hunting intensity. Not interested in school. Not interested in developing outside friendships. Reminds me quite a bit of Dean's Season 1 persona. He didn't see school or friends as practical. He was brash and impetuous. He was snarky with law enforcement officals. The years have tempered his approach quite a bit. He's gained friends in law enforcement these days -- Jody being case in point. He's matured, and become more settled and certain about who he is and what he wants. He still sees certain things as not being for him, but family isn't one of them. In fact, his definition of family has expanded light years beyond how he once defined it: himself, Sam and John.
Jody: [Claire] doesn't have any friends, spends all her time trolling for cases, reading the lore. I've got nothing against hunting. But if she's hiding in it, like she doesn't have anything else... I'm just worried about her being so alone.
Yeah, no wonder Dean winced at Jody's description of Claire's behavior. As much as he has himself grown over the years, it's a reminder of how much he's still cut off from a normal life.
Still, the Survivor's Club -- including Dean and Sam -- has more in common with all of each other than they might see at first.
Claire: Sometimes I feel like I'm a little late to the Jody and Alex show.
Sounds like something Sam likely felt as a child, watching his brother and father bonded over the hunting life, feeling the outsider in his own home. They all share pieces of commonality with each other.
Sam: The monsters are always going to be there, on and on forever. But a chance at a family, home, school? That won't be.
Taking a chance on a bigger goal than hunting alone, opening the door to more... that's a door none of the adults want Claire closing on herself yet. They would rather her learn from some of the hard-earned lessons they've lived and find a path to a more balanced life.
Not a perfectly safe life -- that's back to the incompatible with the hunting goal issue. But she can approach it in a way that gives her the best chance of living a life, not just getting by from hunt to hunt.
And then there is Alex.
Dean: I thought it was going to be Alex with the adjustment issues.
Alex is looking good these days. Submerged in the "normal life". Wanting nothing to do with talk about monsters and all the memories that come with it. She'd rather focus on what's "real".
Oh dear. She reminds me quite a bit of Season 1 Sam, with her focus on school and normal and her trigger word of "freak" -- a past she's trying to put in her rear-view mirror. Then comes Claire stirring up the home nest, injecting a reminder of everything she's trying to put away. No wonder she's told her that she hates her.
It's not that. Just because people have some things in common doesn't mean they have a common response.
Jody: You don't have to explain. I know. Whatever you want from me, I'll give it. If you want, I'm here. But what you've been through the last 48 alone, losing your entire family, everything you've ever known or loved -- no one can understand that.
Alex: You can. (SPN 9.19)
While she's part of the I Survived the Monsters club, part of the damage she suffered in the process was unique to herself and she can hardly bear the reminder of this period of her life.
Alex: I wasn't always this girl. There are awful things out there. Sometimes I look at myself in the mirror, and I'm like, that's me? You should know I've done some really bad things. Hurt people.
For all that she has a lot in common with Sam's young adult viewpoint and goals, her self-loathing and struggle to see that there is goodness in herself that is far greater than the damage done in her past when she was under the control of monsters... that's vintage Dean.
Dean: There’s some stuff you just got to let go. Okay? The people you let down, the ones you can’t save … You got to forget about them. For your own good.
Castiel: Is that what you do?
Dean: That’s the opposite of what I do. But I ain’t exactly a role model.
Castiel: That’s not true. (SPN 10.09)
And like everyone who's been touched by the supernatural, the past cannot be outrun or buried into oblivion.
Vampire: I was just going to kill you outright, but you were so miserable and alone it would have been a mercy killing, right? I wanted you to be happy first. I wanted you to have something precious so I could take it from you.
You have to have something to lose to actually be hurt by another. This vampire, in his quest to exact his twisted revenge for the part Alex had played in destroying his human life, developed a plan to build Alex up first, so the fall would be that much more painful. It was a pretty smart plan, so far as it went. But it underestimated one thing -- her support system was bigger than this vamp and his protege could handle. And Alex was stronger than he gave her credit for.
Jody: You were ready to give up your life for us. That's goodness. And that's what's so scary about family. Gives you so much to lose.
Alex's willingness to sacrifice her own life, to turn herself back into the very thing she loathed, was the ultimate offer of self.
It created a new bridge of understanding among herself, Claire and Jody that, damaged survivors that they all are, they've become family. Words of hate turned to dust in the face of a plea to give herself over an existence that would be a living hell to protect the people she cares for.
Alex: When I get my life together, I might be moving on.... I can't be around what you all are doing, the things you're fighting.
My gosh, it's like watching Sam and Dean's story all over again. Maybe Alex will successfully get away from the monsters and forge a normal life for herself. Maybe Claire will find herself enjoying school and making friends more than she ever anticipated while she learns the best ways to conduct a hunt with the help of some professional guidance. Maybe they are very different people with very different personalities and goals leading them different directions in life. Maybe their story will find a different ending than Sam and Dean's.
They aren't alone, whatever they choose. Whether leaving monsters or normal behind, they are family now. Understanding sealed in a steady look, and answering nod. They've got each other's back.
That's family. The best club of all to belong to.