Picspam Reaction: Supernatural 7.21
Two down, two to go, but given my work schedule etc during this week, it's certain I'm not going to be getting the last two episodes of Season 7 watched before Season 8 starts, so I'll have to postpone watching the premiere. Sigh. :-/
Warning: Contains R-rated profanity.
Spoiler and Theory Summary
Nothing I remember that I can link clearly to this episode, but maybe something involving Castiel?
Zoom!
Picspam Reaction, with speculation and randomness for Supernatural 7.21 - ??? "Reading is Fundamental"
-I think I'm good to skip the Then now. Then now, now then, then now. Now then! Sorry.
-Location card! Hi! The pre-credits messy death scene (probably) will be taking place in Neighbor, Michigan, and will involve a scholastic overachiever/cellist named Kevin Tran. Who had better still be in High School or the framed Honour Roll (his school had a Canadian or British person making up those certificates I see ;-D ) certificates and First Place Grade 4 Spelling Bee certificates framed on his wall would be quite sad. I don't think I've ever seen those framed; the ones I got were put in the junk drawer. Don't ask me where the chunk of paper I got for my B.A. is, I have no idea. *facepalm*
-Meanwhile, Sam and Dean set up to play with clay in an abandoned place with colorful windows in South Chicago. They are bouncing around with the times and locations lately, between this one and the last.
-In other news, half-lighting likes Sam and Dean, it really does.
-"No matter what, one day, college isn't going to matter anymore."/"You're out of your mind." Heeee. Yep, hyper-achiever. And it really isn't going to matter very soon I suspect. Poor kids.
-Oh, great, it dried out and solidified. No clay-sculpting today. It was fresh clay before, wasn't it? Also red? Or was I imagining that?
-Oh that's just messed up. Dean hit it and there was a flash of blackness. And thunder. Maybe it's the head of Mjölnir? O.o
-And now there's a lightning storm at Kevin Tran's house of exam panic. Mjölnir is looking like a definite candidate.
-"That sound like somebody saying 'No, wait, stop' to you?"/"Uhhh, yeah." Heheh. Since when have you guys listened to things like that?
-"Oh well." Hehe. DOOOM. Yay! Really though, they already managed to start the Apocalypse once, they can hardly do worse, right? Ha ha ha...
-Sorry Kevin. If it's any consolation, Bobby is probably hollering his head off at them. Possibly in the car if they left the flask there.
-Oh crap. Is it just me, or does that look a bit like Archangel wings??? Michael's in the cage with (or without?) Lucifer, Castiel splatted Raphael during his brief bout of quasi-suicidal hubris, Gabriel's dead, who else is there? The Metatron, maybe? But why would the Leviathans want to summon the voice of God.... unless they were planning some sort of negotiation, or takeover.... what happens when a Leviathan eats someone possessed by an angel or a demon...? Or... eek. Where is Chuck now anyway? I'm really wishing they still had Dean's pendant now. O.o
-Yeah, that whole floating in mid-air and sparkling with big glowy electrical hoody-hoo is looking a lot like an angelic possession of some sort.
-A tablet in probably-Enochian. Which means the likelihood of Castiel showing up just became a definite. Oh and boys? You'll want to destroy the rest of the clay it was in rather completely, since there's a reverse imprint of the writing that's on the tablet, and you probably don't want Dick to get that either.
-Yup. Angel possession. On the upside, the SATs (or whatever the exams were) are no longer an issue.
-Angel possession with a side of tablet flashing. That's different.
-Hi Cas! And kind of creepy nurse-person not quite watching him sleep... OH! Right. Hi Meg!! I am easily confused by scrubs it seems.
-And hello title. "Reading is Fundamental" Yep. Especially in Enochian it seems.
-'Planning your future with pride', ha ha indeed. Leviathans really enjoy rubbing it in. And I don't mean spices and seasonings, though maybe that too.
-Hey, it's Edgar! He survived the Borax raid on the turducken factory or wherever that was. Great...
-I meant to ponder last episode about Leviathans getting eaten by each other. I kind of wonder, considering Leviathan is really all one big bunch of black goo, if they get stronger when they eat each other, because that increases the amount of Leviathan goo in one place. Sort of like Highlander, but less needing to kill each other with swords and more strategic distribution of forces. It would explain why Dick (and now Edgar) is more able to shrug off a Borax attack, and why 'bibbing' is such a huge punishment, because that little clump of black goo is being permanently forced out of the collective into nothingness, or through some internal gateway like a Reaper. Permanent banishment. Anyway, just a thought.
-"Strange isn't it, that someone would choose to be named 'Dick'?" Leviathan sarcasm is uniformly passive-aggressive it seems, whether applied to their fodder-pacification marketing schemes or their sly pokes at the boss's sense of nomenclature.
-And Osric Chau (who has a fantastic name) is likely the one playing Kevin Tran/Whatever's Possessing Kevin Tran, considering this very deliberate-seeming credit placement, which also to me implies whatever's got him is going to have him for a significant while. (And in a stunning "Six Degrees of Supernatural" loop, a very cautious search on Osric Chau in IMDB lead to a click on a movie he'd been in called '2012', the storyline summary of which was written and posted by Jim Beaver, who along with wearing many awesome hats as an actor and writer has a super-nifty film-historian/fanboy hat, and among many many other things he's doing with that has written plot summaries for 1475 movies on IMDB. *flourish*)
-"I know you're at school already about to take the test." Ahahaha. Not really. I know for certain that "Sorry I'm late but I got possessed last night" will not work as an excuse. *grins at the appearance of 'funky guitar' on the soundtrack*
-Even when the possession story is true. I doubt whatever's got this kid is going to give a flying crap about the SATs. Have we seen that eye-colour before, or just on Pam before Castiel burned her eyes out?
-Voiceover: "...at a loss to explain the continent-wide storm system that appeared seemingly out of nowhere-" Oh great, the whole continent. This is why you should think about things before beating on them with a hammer. Bobby's probably 'idjit'-ed his spectral self hoarse and is sulking in whatever you're using as a car. Everything else aside, there is no hiding that from Dick Roman and the Leviathans. Who are really starting to sound like a band from the early sixties.
-A small note; While watching video playback (or an audio feed? Not seeing a radio), Sam seems to like tickling the laptop. (Not a euphemism. Yeesh!) His fingers are going nuts on that touchpad. Nervous habit or epic game of Angry Birds? Who can tell.
-Voiceover: "Frankly I'm offended. This is not how weather behaves." And this time it really isn't attributable to climate change.
-Morning, Bobby. After the completely idiotic 'let's keep hammering when it seems to be generating a lightning storm' thing you guys pulled last night, you're lucky you aren't getting that tin cup in the head, Dean.
-"That whole adventure with Roman seems to have drained his batteries." And this is why you don't go after the big bad too early, so you can reserve some strength to yell at Sam and Dean a whole heck of a lot for pushing the shiny, candy-like button on an ancient mysterious artifact. With a hammer.
-"Looks like every woman in the last month of her pregnancy went into labour." Yeaaaah, I can hear Bobby yelling from here. You guys have a lot to answer for on this one.
-"Never seen anything like it, ever." Hm, so not Enochian then. Hm. *ponders*
-"So Big Daddy Chomper lands here, he grabs himself some Dick-" *splorf* Augh! Dean! I second Sam's imminent eyeroll *facepalm*
-Written and Directed by Ben Edlund. King of Crack, epic world-shaking plot developments and unexpectedly hard painful emotionally-scarring whumpage of all kinds. And of course, spurious innuendo. Hang on to your butts.
-"Pouring money into digs, all for this. Why?"/"No clue." Well, considering waking it up started a lightning storm that spanned a continent, summoned a something you guys don't know about yet, and gave a crapload of new babies the same birthdate and a greater chance of weather-related first names, I'd say he probably doesn't want it as a really big stone coaster.
-I just love how the whole time, the EMF is sitting on the table going insane as Bobby no doubt howls invisibly around the room, freaking out at them. They either turned the speaker off, or Bobby burned it out.
-"Just a little FYI call, your boy's awake." Oh right, Cas was... in a coma? Was he? He was sitting and staring blankly with a head full of Lucifer, but I do that every weekday morning. Except for the Lucifer, though on Mondays that's debatable.
-"He's just a tad different than when he dozed off, 'kay?" Oh dear. Well, unconscious, no distractions from head-Lucifer going on and on and on... eeep.
-Yeah, when you're behind the wheel in a car, you want to make sure you can stay behind the wheel in your head.
-Oh dear. Kevin's friend is about to have a very weird conversation.
-"I've been Chosen, it's my birthright." Yep. If I had a dollar for every time a someone said that to me in high school, I'd have... about $3.50.
-Hey! The mental hospital washed the trenchcoat for him! \o/
-Hee. Hi Cas. This should be interesting, considering the over the top angst piano in a Ben Edlund episode, I'm suddenly expecting something completely other than a broken angst-filled dog-pile here. But I could be wrong.
-"Pull my finger." Ahahah. Yeah.
-*dies* And that's what angel farts do. Add that to the, um. Arsenal. Hee.
-"It's all there, there's nothing to add."/"Might wanna add a little thorazine." Just a tipple.
-'Spiky pain'/'Put up or shut up' Oh there has to be a million missing scenes for Cas and Meg there.
-"Yes, I heard a 'ping'." Heeee.
-"You wouldn't have heard it unless you were an angel at the time." So, did all the remaining angels everywhere hear it, or just the ones currently in the North American continent? Eeeep.
-"You were the ones, I guess that makes sense." Considering what we know about Sam and Dean and the whole angels and demons and Armageddon thing, this is not reassuring.
-"If some one was going to end up freeing The Word from the vault of the Earth, it would wind up being you two." Oh. Shit. Okay, so, The Word being 'In the beginning was the Word' that Word. Fantastic. Just peachy. THIS DOES NOT BODE WELL. And Sam's face agrees.
-"Love you guys." Aw, and hee.
-"Did you know that a cat's-" Ack. Whelp, looks like Castiel's set on random. This should make information really fun to acquire.
-"This is the handwriting of Metatron." Oh shit. Also CALLED IT. Also, oh shit.
-You know, much as Sam's face here is probably going 'oh crap Metatron' and 'oh crap, Castiel's broken', knowing Sam's epic-level need to feel all the guilts, his face is most likely going 'oh crap, I broke Castiel' on some level. Some level that's really close to the surface in this shot. He hasn't seen the consequences of Castiel taking on his head-Lucifer up close until now, so, Sammy-guilt-tsunami.
-"Metatron? Are you saying a Transformer wrote that?" *facepalm* And in turn, Sam's ginormous brain breaks a little and he channels Dean on a bad day. Or maaaaybe finds a way to get Castiel to download some exposition by playing dumb? Because seriously, Metatron? He was played by Alan Rickman in Dogma, dude. Come on.
-"I can't read it, it wasn't meant for angels." Great. SO. Metatron, scribe of God. Just in case anyone thought the epic-level players were all off the board. Given the mythology base then, what the tablet is is... the source code of creation? Or something? Eeeeep. O.O
-"Lemmee see that thing." Um. Probably not a healthy thing for a demon to touch there, Meg...
-"Don't like conflict." *flutter-bye* Ahahahaha. And now he's roving randomly somewhere with a head full of Lucifer and drunken butterflies. Aw, poor wubbie.
-Oh! I'm really surprised it broke that easily, and without any major blowback as a result...
-"Sam will you please pick up the... Word of God." Heeeeeeeeee.
-Dude, don't go chasing after the demon and leave the damn thing on the floor! Grab it and take it with you, it's all in the bag! Sigh. This is the last time they'll see it, until probably the finale, right? Aaaaaarg. *facepalm*
-"I'm the saint who stayed with him, he owes me." She's got a point, but I dunno. In his current state, Cas might be just as likely to follow dandelion fluff as any of them.
-Sam's face: 'Hey, where that tablet thing go?' Sam is not doing well in the brain function department so far this episode. Blaming the Leviathan chow. And also the raging guilt. And also perhaps Meg distracting him away from it so Crowley can snag it and get her back in Hell's good books? Or whatever Hell has in lieu of 'good' books. Or who knows, maybe she's got an in with Dick Roman too. So far she's been entirely self-serving, and if Dick's the biggest game in town, she'll likely be trying to stay on his good side. Or at least off his plate.
-Yep. DO NOT LEAVE YOUR IMPORTANT PLOT-RELATED CRAP LAYING AROUND, SAM. Don't suppose it's too much to hope Bobby's flask was in the bag too so he can keep an eye on it? Or maybe Bobby just got tired of yelling and disappeared the bag into the ghost layer of reality or something?
-Or Kevin took it! That's probably a good thing, right? Kevin seems cool for a possessed hyper-achiever.
-I like the composition of this shot, although entering into rooms and seeing Castiel's back is starting to make me nervous about what's going on with his face...
-HEEE!!! RUN KEVIN! THERE'S A SASQUATCH AFTER YOU! You know, getting caught outside a mental hospital (or is it a hospital with a well-developed mental facility?) chasing a kid around in the dark over a carved rock is really not going to make security too happy.
-"I'm Kevin Tran, I'm in Advanced Placement! Please don't kill me!" Heeeee, Kevin's really not having a good day.
-"You remember what you did?" AHAHAHAHAH.
Need to remember to make an icon from that. (ETA: Done!)
-Okay, that was kind of cool. Good thing he was comatose though because pulling tricks like that in the day room of a mental facility would not help the general sanity levels.
-"Open it." Poor overworked and overwhelmed Kevin Tran, caught in the middle of an epic crapstorm, and possessed by an intermittent primordial archangel. He's making me want to feed him cookies and cocoa.
-Yeah, being able to heal rocks is unnerving.
-*giggles all through the loopy philosophical game of Sorry* Castiel's either getting more coherent or does better at communicating through a metaphorical construct. Provided Dean's really listening. ....Aaand he's not, as board game bits go flying. Dean. Pay. Attention.
-The sad thing is, it's not just Sam's head-Lucifer business breaking Castiel. It's also the things he's done that he can't face or accept, and he's more than likely mentally dissociating himself from it to cope. And Dean is really not helping with that at all. Oh Cas.
-"What's... Leviathan?"/"What?" Ooooo, nice when the brand new character knows more about the plot-significant rock you found than you do.
-Uuuummmm.... unexpected demon-eyes-go-black-for-no-reason is not a good sign. We are just loaded to the gunnels with not a good signs here, guys.
-And yes, let's freak out the new guy. Well done.
-"Demon." Woo! Hi! It's a really pissed off unfamiliar angel! Who is probably just as likely to be after Castiel's head as any demon in the same room as the Metatron-vessel or whatever Kevin is.
-And another one! Angel Tie Report: Spotted. So probably not working towards the same ends as the Winchesters at all, but no surprise there.
-"Sam. He's talking to angels." Considering a lot of them consider him tainted with demon blood, and Castiel hasn't seen any since he mass-smited Raphael's inner circle and gave a general 'I'm in charge, deal with it or else' address to everyone else on the plane of heaven before spectacularly flaming out.... you know, Sam talking to angels is seeming like less of a good thing then Castiel's face implies. Which is also making me nervous because is he happy there's still angels, or is he happy there's angels here because on some level he feels that he needs to be judged for his actions against heaven and...uh. Eeep.
-"A demon whore and a Winchester. Again." Oh well, meeeeow. Yeah, not a good thing for Sam to be talking to angels. Who's driving the bus up there now anyway, I wonder? Castiel's monster-soul toxic rampage didn't leave a whole lot of angels at the command level.
-"Step away from the Prophet!" Oh crap, Kevin's the new Chuck? O.O
-"Kill the demon and her lover."/"That's not how it-we're not-" Um, priorities, Meg? Nice gesture of trying to clear Sam, even if that wasn't the intent. Or was it? And why?
-Oh, she's got Castiel's angel sword. Definitely not an alignment-biased weapon then. *nods*
-"Where did you get that?"/*flutter-hi* Oh crap. Bad timing Cas, Meg might just have implied you gave her your angel-sword. Not that they don't have enough reason to not like you already, but that's really not going to help.
-"You smote thousands in Heaven, gave a big scary speech then you were gone. What the Hell was that?"/"Rude for one thing." Pfffft. Oh dear.
-"Oanias, Hester?" or "Oh, Anias, Hester?" Sound is muddy.
-*facepalm* Really not helping. Incidentally, Dean should be running in from the common room any second now, yeah?
-Wheee! Oh crap! No! That'll nail Cas too! Unless he's too damaged or cast out or something? O.O
-Guess not. Poor Castiel, wandering wherever with all his screws loose and a side of head-Lucifer. :-(
-*random chit-chat post angels go boom* "WHAT'S HAPPENING!!" Poor Kevin. He is good at getting to the point though. And not currently effected by Angel Banishing Sigils.
-"So Kevin, you can read the chicken-scratch on the God rock, hunh?" Dean has a way with words sometimes.
-"What do they mean by Prophet?"/"Oh no, really?"/"Yeah." Heeeeeeeee.
-I'm assuming that's an angel cloaking symbol on the hood of the heap of the week (aka Kevin's Mom's, what? Jeep Wagoneer?), and if it is then IT'S ABOUT TIME. If you know effective protective crap to paint on things that will keep things that want to kill you from finding you or getting at you, why the hell wouldn't you? Yeesh.
-Radio: "It's like a salad bar, but with pie!" Oh no! And the Leviathans have corn syrup *handwave* stuff going on! It's like a perfect trap set for Dean! D-:
-"A cult may be behind the abduction." Yeaaaah. Suddenly the visible sigils on the vehicle you're transporting the kid in seem like less of a good idea. Darn it!
-Demons! Hell let's just bring in everybody! Why not, they've all been lurking around doing who knows what all season, finale's coming up, time to dog-pile on the Winchesters! Especially since they very handily set off a continent wide flare gun! \o/
-"Nothing, just my life, my future, my girlfriend, my mom's car..." Sounds like a standard 16 year old complaints still, so that's good, right?
-"Perth, as in Australia?" ...AUSTRALIA! AAAAAH!!! THAT'S WHERE JESSE THE JUNIOR ANTI-CHRIST WENT! ARE WE GETTING HIM BACK IN THE MIX TOO? *FLAIL* No. Darn. Was hoping to tie off another dangling plotline.
-*flutter-hi*/"AAAH!" Poor Kevin. He's going to have to learn to cope with the sudden weird pretty soon or his heart's going to explode.
-"You're one of the angels?"/"Boop." *sneeeeeeerk*
-"Cas, don't make me pull this car over." Heeeee!
-"If the Word of God is revealed, a Keeper of the Word will awaken. Like this hot potato right here." Ah, so he's not actually possessed by Metatron then? Hm.
-"I don't fight anymore, I watch the bees." Not in a cottage in Sussex though. Sorry, Sherlock Holmes reference. He's really got some serious repression going on though.
-"This looks like a sex torture dungeon." Thaaaat's usually the kind of comment that really doesn't need a long empty silence after it, Dean.
-"You seem troubled. Of course that's a primary aspect of your personality so I sometimes ignore it." Heeeeee. Even nuts, Castiel has Sam's number. XD
-"That was a projection of yours, more of an aftertaste." Damn, there goes a fine theory. Sigh.
-"Now I see, well. Everything." Oh. Meeeep. O.o
-"I was lost until I took on your pain." Oh owwwwwww. And something like the family theme in the background. Owwwww.
-"We're gonna help you get better, no matter what it takes."/"What do you mean better?" Owwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. Ow.
-Poor poor Kevin. This seems to be enough of a frequent occurrence that Dean's operating the breathe-into-a-bag remedy on autopilot.
-"You've been Chosen. And it sucks, believe me." Yeah, Dean and Sam have gone several hundred thousand miles down that road.
-Angels and caring. "It seems like when they try, it just breaks them apart." Oh OW. Owwwwww. Owowowow. Ow.
-OPTIMUS! No wait. It's just meg having secret meeting with her fellow demons. How many freaking sides is she on? I'm guessing just one: hers. However her side seems to be a hell of a lot more complicated than most.
-And she's going to sell out Castiel to Crowley. Or that's what she's telling these guys. Really, who the heck knows. She's the queen of unreliable narrators.
-"You think we're stupid? We didn't tell anybody!" *facepalm* And that's proof that you're stupid.
-Ahahaha. You'd think after getting stuck in them so often Meg would know to look for Devil's traps, but no.
-You are out after your curfew, young lady. Sorry, just the set-up made me think it.
-"I'm simpler than you think." Suuuuuuuure, Meg.
-"Crowley ain't the problem this year." No, but he's been awfully quiet lately and that's not a good sign. Again some more.
-"When you killed the demon, you put out a pretty clear beacon." *facepalm* Craaaaaap.
-Ooops, too late for better angel-proofing. Wow, that rip the door away thing was cool. And hard to cap effectively.
-"You took the Prophet from us?"/"I'm sorry?" Quick, get out the board game!
-"An angel brought the Leviathan back into this world and they begged him and begged him not to do it." 'AN' angel. Masterful use of the indefinite article there, Castiel.
-"The very touch of you corrupts. When Castiel first laid a hand on you in Hell he was lost!" Owwwwwwww. Owwwwwwww.
-And in the meantime Kevin is hyperventilating and Castiel is going into a confrontation avoidance tailspin. Eeeek.
-I did not see that belt in the face coming, and I don't think Castiel or the boys did either. Just going to sit here and wince for a while. This is like the Uriel beat-down all over again. And Castiel isn't popping away to avoid confrontation. And he stepped between her and Dean and redirected her to himself. And he's still not popping away. Oh Cas. (Hey, Meg's been conspicuously absent during this bit hasn't she? >.>)
-UM. NO. NONONONONONONO! NO STABBING CAS WITH AN ANGEL BLADE! NO! BAD HESTER! O.O
-Go Oanias! Even though you're probably going to die now, you and your spotty tie.
-"You wanted free will? Now I'm making the choices." Her philosophy centers have had a bit of a meltdown somewhere along the line, haven't they?
-And that would be Meg, yes? Yep.
-"What?" The look on Castiel's face you guys. Oh my god.
-HEY! OANIAS OR WHATEVER HIS NAME IS IS COOPERATING WITH THEM OR SOMETHING!! And those tie spots are kind of in sort of stripes maybe? \o/
-Bye Kevin. Hope you enjoy deserts. Or wherever they put you. Also, Angel Garrison Group Tie report: They're all very similar dark navy/silvery grey colors and variations on spotty (though guy at the end with antler might have plaid, hard to say), but Oanias's tie is the one that seems to be the closest to stripes, because the spots kind of line up in one direction or another. Sort of. Kind of an optical illusion, but close enough.
-This marks two tie-free episodes in a row for the Winchesters. This is not a good sign. Maybe.
-"Bone of a righteous mortal washed in the three bloods of the fallen." So... does Dean still count as righteous? Craaap. He needs all his bones. And who's the fallen? Is it fallen or Fallen? It is too close to the finale for you to be engaging in deep research guys, so you better have more of a clue than I do. [ETA: AFTER I LOOK AT THE ACTUAL SCREENCAP CLOSELY. "Leviathan cannot be slain but by a bone of a righteous mortal (as) light and good as the Leviathan are angry and dark-" Probably lets Dean and Sam off then. "-washed in the three bloods (of) the fallen:" I love that the Metatron language uses full colons. "A fallen angel." Check, I guess? I thought there was more of a thing to falling for an angel, a grace-extraction ceremony or something, but Castiel's shooting of angel-powered whizbangs in every direction still. "(blocked by Sam's paw) of fallen humanity." Not sure what that would entail. Serial killer? Politician? "And (blocked by Sam's paw) of fallen beasts." ...Monsters? Probably? Okay, good enough to run with. Heck, they might have all that in the trunk of the IMPALA which they should GET OUT OF STORAGE NOW.]
-"Always happy to bleed for the Winchesters." Awwwwwwwww. Owwwwwww.
-"What are you gonna do, Cas?"/"I dunno. Isn't that amazing?" Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww, Cas. Aw.
-"What if he has a brain injury!" I don't really have any words to respond to that. I suspect Mom Tran is about to get killed or obliviated here anyway, so I'll leave examination of her priorities to others. Regardless, she came home to find her son missing and his room trashed, and is not thinking clearly right now.
-"You need to trust us, okay?" No. Hell no. Run, now. He's a Leviathan. His stripy tie is lying to you. Just run. Won't do you any good, but run.
-Or maybe the angels will pop Kevin around for a convenient visit and some site clean-up. If the other guy is a Leviathan though, they are screwed.
-"Leviathan beats angel." Aaaaaack. Yeah. Completely, totally, epically screwed.
-"Hello, Kevin." Hi Edgar! Eeeeek...
WELL. Roll on the season finale! As soon as I can... O.O
(PLEASE, NO REFERENCES TO EPISODES PAST 7.21 IN COMMENTS! I'm catching up as fast as I can D-:.)
Warning: Contains R-rated profanity.
Spoiler and Theory Summary
Nothing I remember that I can link clearly to this episode, but maybe something involving Castiel?
Zoom!
Picspam Reaction, with speculation and randomness for Supernatural 7.21 - ??? "Reading is Fundamental"
-I think I'm good to skip the Then now. Then now, now then, then now. Now then! Sorry.
-Location card! Hi! The pre-credits messy death scene (probably) will be taking place in Neighbor, Michigan, and will involve a scholastic overachiever/cellist named Kevin Tran. Who had better still be in High School or the framed Honour Roll (his school had a Canadian or British person making up those certificates I see ;-D ) certificates and First Place Grade 4 Spelling Bee certificates framed on his wall would be quite sad. I don't think I've ever seen those framed; the ones I got were put in the junk drawer. Don't ask me where the chunk of paper I got for my B.A. is, I have no idea. *facepalm*
-Meanwhile, Sam and Dean set up to play with clay in an abandoned place with colorful windows in South Chicago. They are bouncing around with the times and locations lately, between this one and the last.
-In other news, half-lighting likes Sam and Dean, it really does.
-"No matter what, one day, college isn't going to matter anymore."/"You're out of your mind." Heeee. Yep, hyper-achiever. And it really isn't going to matter very soon I suspect. Poor kids.
-Oh, great, it dried out and solidified. No clay-sculpting today. It was fresh clay before, wasn't it? Also red? Or was I imagining that?
-Oh that's just messed up. Dean hit it and there was a flash of blackness. And thunder. Maybe it's the head of Mjölnir? O.o
-And now there's a lightning storm at Kevin Tran's house of exam panic. Mjölnir is looking like a definite candidate.
-"That sound like somebody saying 'No, wait, stop' to you?"/"Uhhh, yeah." Heheh. Since when have you guys listened to things like that?
-"Oh well." Hehe. DOOOM. Yay! Really though, they already managed to start the Apocalypse once, they can hardly do worse, right? Ha ha ha...
-Sorry Kevin. If it's any consolation, Bobby is probably hollering his head off at them. Possibly in the car if they left the flask there.
-Oh crap. Is it just me, or does that look a bit like Archangel wings??? Michael's in the cage with (or without?) Lucifer, Castiel splatted Raphael during his brief bout of quasi-suicidal hubris, Gabriel's dead, who else is there? The Metatron, maybe? But why would the Leviathans want to summon the voice of God.... unless they were planning some sort of negotiation, or takeover.... what happens when a Leviathan eats someone possessed by an angel or a demon...? Or... eek. Where is Chuck now anyway? I'm really wishing they still had Dean's pendant now. O.o
-Yeah, that whole floating in mid-air and sparkling with big glowy electrical hoody-hoo is looking a lot like an angelic possession of some sort.
-A tablet in probably-Enochian. Which means the likelihood of Castiel showing up just became a definite. Oh and boys? You'll want to destroy the rest of the clay it was in rather completely, since there's a reverse imprint of the writing that's on the tablet, and you probably don't want Dick to get that either.
-Yup. Angel possession. On the upside, the SATs (or whatever the exams were) are no longer an issue.
-Angel possession with a side of tablet flashing. That's different.
-Hi Cas! And kind of creepy nurse-person not quite watching him sleep... OH! Right. Hi Meg!! I am easily confused by scrubs it seems.
-And hello title. "Reading is Fundamental" Yep. Especially in Enochian it seems.
-'Planning your future with pride', ha ha indeed. Leviathans really enjoy rubbing it in. And I don't mean spices and seasonings, though maybe that too.
-Hey, it's Edgar! He survived the Borax raid on the turducken factory or wherever that was. Great...
-I meant to ponder last episode about Leviathans getting eaten by each other. I kind of wonder, considering Leviathan is really all one big bunch of black goo, if they get stronger when they eat each other, because that increases the amount of Leviathan goo in one place. Sort of like Highlander, but less needing to kill each other with swords and more strategic distribution of forces. It would explain why Dick (and now Edgar) is more able to shrug off a Borax attack, and why 'bibbing' is such a huge punishment, because that little clump of black goo is being permanently forced out of the collective into nothingness, or through some internal gateway like a Reaper. Permanent banishment. Anyway, just a thought.
-"Strange isn't it, that someone would choose to be named 'Dick'?" Leviathan sarcasm is uniformly passive-aggressive it seems, whether applied to their fodder-pacification marketing schemes or their sly pokes at the boss's sense of nomenclature.
-And Osric Chau (who has a fantastic name) is likely the one playing Kevin Tran/Whatever's Possessing Kevin Tran, considering this very deliberate-seeming credit placement, which also to me implies whatever's got him is going to have him for a significant while. (And in a stunning "Six Degrees of Supernatural" loop, a very cautious search on Osric Chau in IMDB lead to a click on a movie he'd been in called '2012', the storyline summary of which was written and posted by Jim Beaver, who along with wearing many awesome hats as an actor and writer has a super-nifty film-historian/fanboy hat, and among many many other things he's doing with that has written plot summaries for 1475 movies on IMDB. *flourish*)
-"I know you're at school already about to take the test." Ahahaha. Not really. I know for certain that "Sorry I'm late but I got possessed last night" will not work as an excuse. *grins at the appearance of 'funky guitar' on the soundtrack*
-Even when the possession story is true. I doubt whatever's got this kid is going to give a flying crap about the SATs. Have we seen that eye-colour before, or just on Pam before Castiel burned her eyes out?
-Voiceover: "...at a loss to explain the continent-wide storm system that appeared seemingly out of nowhere-" Oh great, the whole continent. This is why you should think about things before beating on them with a hammer. Bobby's probably 'idjit'-ed his spectral self hoarse and is sulking in whatever you're using as a car. Everything else aside, there is no hiding that from Dick Roman and the Leviathans. Who are really starting to sound like a band from the early sixties.
-A small note; While watching video playback (or an audio feed? Not seeing a radio), Sam seems to like tickling the laptop. (Not a euphemism. Yeesh!) His fingers are going nuts on that touchpad. Nervous habit or epic game of Angry Birds? Who can tell.
-Voiceover: "Frankly I'm offended. This is not how weather behaves." And this time it really isn't attributable to climate change.
-Morning, Bobby. After the completely idiotic 'let's keep hammering when it seems to be generating a lightning storm' thing you guys pulled last night, you're lucky you aren't getting that tin cup in the head, Dean.
-"That whole adventure with Roman seems to have drained his batteries." And this is why you don't go after the big bad too early, so you can reserve some strength to yell at Sam and Dean a whole heck of a lot for pushing the shiny, candy-like button on an ancient mysterious artifact. With a hammer.
-"Looks like every woman in the last month of her pregnancy went into labour." Yeaaaah, I can hear Bobby yelling from here. You guys have a lot to answer for on this one.
-"Never seen anything like it, ever." Hm, so not Enochian then. Hm. *ponders*
-"So Big Daddy Chomper lands here, he grabs himself some Dick-" *splorf* Augh! Dean! I second Sam's imminent eyeroll *facepalm*
-Written and Directed by Ben Edlund. King of Crack, epic world-shaking plot developments and unexpectedly hard painful emotionally-scarring whumpage of all kinds. And of course, spurious innuendo. Hang on to your butts.
-"Pouring money into digs, all for this. Why?"/"No clue." Well, considering waking it up started a lightning storm that spanned a continent, summoned a something you guys don't know about yet, and gave a crapload of new babies the same birthdate and a greater chance of weather-related first names, I'd say he probably doesn't want it as a really big stone coaster.
-I just love how the whole time, the EMF is sitting on the table going insane as Bobby no doubt howls invisibly around the room, freaking out at them. They either turned the speaker off, or Bobby burned it out.
-"Just a little FYI call, your boy's awake." Oh right, Cas was... in a coma? Was he? He was sitting and staring blankly with a head full of Lucifer, but I do that every weekday morning. Except for the Lucifer, though on Mondays that's debatable.
-"He's just a tad different than when he dozed off, 'kay?" Oh dear. Well, unconscious, no distractions from head-Lucifer going on and on and on... eeep.
-Yeah, when you're behind the wheel in a car, you want to make sure you can stay behind the wheel in your head.
-Oh dear. Kevin's friend is about to have a very weird conversation.
-"I've been Chosen, it's my birthright." Yep. If I had a dollar for every time a someone said that to me in high school, I'd have... about $3.50.
-Hey! The mental hospital washed the trenchcoat for him! \o/
-Hee. Hi Cas. This should be interesting, considering the over the top angst piano in a Ben Edlund episode, I'm suddenly expecting something completely other than a broken angst-filled dog-pile here. But I could be wrong.
-"Pull my finger." Ahahah. Yeah.
-*dies* And that's what angel farts do. Add that to the, um. Arsenal. Hee.
-"It's all there, there's nothing to add."/"Might wanna add a little thorazine." Just a tipple.
-'Spiky pain'/'Put up or shut up' Oh there has to be a million missing scenes for Cas and Meg there.
-"Yes, I heard a 'ping'." Heeee.
-"You wouldn't have heard it unless you were an angel at the time." So, did all the remaining angels everywhere hear it, or just the ones currently in the North American continent? Eeeep.
-"You were the ones, I guess that makes sense." Considering what we know about Sam and Dean and the whole angels and demons and Armageddon thing, this is not reassuring.
-"If some one was going to end up freeing The Word from the vault of the Earth, it would wind up being you two." Oh. Shit. Okay, so, The Word being 'In the beginning was the Word' that Word. Fantastic. Just peachy. THIS DOES NOT BODE WELL. And Sam's face agrees.
-"Love you guys." Aw, and hee.
-"Did you know that a cat's-" Ack. Whelp, looks like Castiel's set on random. This should make information really fun to acquire.
-"This is the handwriting of Metatron." Oh shit. Also CALLED IT. Also, oh shit.
-You know, much as Sam's face here is probably going 'oh crap Metatron' and 'oh crap, Castiel's broken', knowing Sam's epic-level need to feel all the guilts, his face is most likely going 'oh crap, I broke Castiel' on some level. Some level that's really close to the surface in this shot. He hasn't seen the consequences of Castiel taking on his head-Lucifer up close until now, so, Sammy-guilt-tsunami.
-"Metatron? Are you saying a Transformer wrote that?" *facepalm* And in turn, Sam's ginormous brain breaks a little and he channels Dean on a bad day. Or maaaaybe finds a way to get Castiel to download some exposition by playing dumb? Because seriously, Metatron? He was played by Alan Rickman in Dogma, dude. Come on.
-"I can't read it, it wasn't meant for angels." Great. SO. Metatron, scribe of God. Just in case anyone thought the epic-level players were all off the board. Given the mythology base then, what the tablet is is... the source code of creation? Or something? Eeeeep. O.O
-"Lemmee see that thing." Um. Probably not a healthy thing for a demon to touch there, Meg...
-"Don't like conflict." *flutter-bye* Ahahahaha. And now he's roving randomly somewhere with a head full of Lucifer and drunken butterflies. Aw, poor wubbie.
-Oh! I'm really surprised it broke that easily, and without any major blowback as a result...
-"Sam will you please pick up the... Word of God." Heeeeeeeeee.
-Dude, don't go chasing after the demon and leave the damn thing on the floor! Grab it and take it with you, it's all in the bag! Sigh. This is the last time they'll see it, until probably the finale, right? Aaaaaarg. *facepalm*
-"I'm the saint who stayed with him, he owes me." She's got a point, but I dunno. In his current state, Cas might be just as likely to follow dandelion fluff as any of them.
-Sam's face: 'Hey, where that tablet thing go?' Sam is not doing well in the brain function department so far this episode. Blaming the Leviathan chow. And also the raging guilt. And also perhaps Meg distracting him away from it so Crowley can snag it and get her back in Hell's good books? Or whatever Hell has in lieu of 'good' books. Or who knows, maybe she's got an in with Dick Roman too. So far she's been entirely self-serving, and if Dick's the biggest game in town, she'll likely be trying to stay on his good side. Or at least off his plate.
-Yep. DO NOT LEAVE YOUR IMPORTANT PLOT-RELATED CRAP LAYING AROUND, SAM. Don't suppose it's too much to hope Bobby's flask was in the bag too so he can keep an eye on it? Or maybe Bobby just got tired of yelling and disappeared the bag into the ghost layer of reality or something?
-Or Kevin took it! That's probably a good thing, right? Kevin seems cool for a possessed hyper-achiever.
-I like the composition of this shot, although entering into rooms and seeing Castiel's back is starting to make me nervous about what's going on with his face...
-HEEE!!! RUN KEVIN! THERE'S A SASQUATCH AFTER YOU! You know, getting caught outside a mental hospital (or is it a hospital with a well-developed mental facility?) chasing a kid around in the dark over a carved rock is really not going to make security too happy.
-"I'm Kevin Tran, I'm in Advanced Placement! Please don't kill me!" Heeeee, Kevin's really not having a good day.
-"You remember what you did?" AHAHAHAHAH.
Need to remember to make an icon from that. (ETA: Done!)
-Okay, that was kind of cool. Good thing he was comatose though because pulling tricks like that in the day room of a mental facility would not help the general sanity levels.
-"Open it." Poor overworked and overwhelmed Kevin Tran, caught in the middle of an epic crapstorm, and possessed by an intermittent primordial archangel. He's making me want to feed him cookies and cocoa.
-Yeah, being able to heal rocks is unnerving.
-*giggles all through the loopy philosophical game of Sorry* Castiel's either getting more coherent or does better at communicating through a metaphorical construct. Provided Dean's really listening. ....Aaand he's not, as board game bits go flying. Dean. Pay. Attention.
-The sad thing is, it's not just Sam's head-Lucifer business breaking Castiel. It's also the things he's done that he can't face or accept, and he's more than likely mentally dissociating himself from it to cope. And Dean is really not helping with that at all. Oh Cas.
-"What's... Leviathan?"/"What?" Ooooo, nice when the brand new character knows more about the plot-significant rock you found than you do.
-Uuuummmm.... unexpected demon-eyes-go-black-for-no-reason is not a good sign. We are just loaded to the gunnels with not a good signs here, guys.
-And yes, let's freak out the new guy. Well done.
-"Demon." Woo! Hi! It's a really pissed off unfamiliar angel! Who is probably just as likely to be after Castiel's head as any demon in the same room as the Metatron-vessel or whatever Kevin is.
-And another one! Angel Tie Report: Spotted. So probably not working towards the same ends as the Winchesters at all, but no surprise there.
-"Sam. He's talking to angels." Considering a lot of them consider him tainted with demon blood, and Castiel hasn't seen any since he mass-smited Raphael's inner circle and gave a general 'I'm in charge, deal with it or else' address to everyone else on the plane of heaven before spectacularly flaming out.... you know, Sam talking to angels is seeming like less of a good thing then Castiel's face implies. Which is also making me nervous because is he happy there's still angels, or is he happy there's angels here because on some level he feels that he needs to be judged for his actions against heaven and...uh. Eeep.
-"A demon whore and a Winchester. Again." Oh well, meeeeow. Yeah, not a good thing for Sam to be talking to angels. Who's driving the bus up there now anyway, I wonder? Castiel's monster-soul toxic rampage didn't leave a whole lot of angels at the command level.
-"Step away from the Prophet!" Oh crap, Kevin's the new Chuck? O.O
-"Kill the demon and her lover."/"That's not how it-we're not-" Um, priorities, Meg? Nice gesture of trying to clear Sam, even if that wasn't the intent. Or was it? And why?
-Oh, she's got Castiel's angel sword. Definitely not an alignment-biased weapon then. *nods*
-"Where did you get that?"/*flutter-hi* Oh crap. Bad timing Cas, Meg might just have implied you gave her your angel-sword. Not that they don't have enough reason to not like you already, but that's really not going to help.
-"You smote thousands in Heaven, gave a big scary speech then you were gone. What the Hell was that?"/"Rude for one thing." Pfffft. Oh dear.
-"Oanias, Hester?" or "Oh, Anias, Hester?" Sound is muddy.
-*facepalm* Really not helping. Incidentally, Dean should be running in from the common room any second now, yeah?
-Wheee! Oh crap! No! That'll nail Cas too! Unless he's too damaged or cast out or something? O.O
-Guess not. Poor Castiel, wandering wherever with all his screws loose and a side of head-Lucifer. :-(
-*random chit-chat post angels go boom* "WHAT'S HAPPENING!!" Poor Kevin. He is good at getting to the point though. And not currently effected by Angel Banishing Sigils.
-"So Kevin, you can read the chicken-scratch on the God rock, hunh?" Dean has a way with words sometimes.
-"What do they mean by Prophet?"/"Oh no, really?"/"Yeah." Heeeeeeeee.
-I'm assuming that's an angel cloaking symbol on the hood of the heap of the week (aka Kevin's Mom's, what? Jeep Wagoneer?), and if it is then IT'S ABOUT TIME. If you know effective protective crap to paint on things that will keep things that want to kill you from finding you or getting at you, why the hell wouldn't you? Yeesh.
-Radio: "It's like a salad bar, but with pie!" Oh no! And the Leviathans have corn syrup *handwave* stuff going on! It's like a perfect trap set for Dean! D-:
-"A cult may be behind the abduction." Yeaaaah. Suddenly the visible sigils on the vehicle you're transporting the kid in seem like less of a good idea. Darn it!
-Demons! Hell let's just bring in everybody! Why not, they've all been lurking around doing who knows what all season, finale's coming up, time to dog-pile on the Winchesters! Especially since they very handily set off a continent wide flare gun! \o/
-"Nothing, just my life, my future, my girlfriend, my mom's car..." Sounds like a standard 16 year old complaints still, so that's good, right?
-"Perth, as in Australia?" ...AUSTRALIA! AAAAAH!!! THAT'S WHERE JESSE THE JUNIOR ANTI-CHRIST WENT! ARE WE GETTING HIM BACK IN THE MIX TOO? *FLAIL* No. Darn. Was hoping to tie off another dangling plotline.
-*flutter-hi*/"AAAH!" Poor Kevin. He's going to have to learn to cope with the sudden weird pretty soon or his heart's going to explode.
-"You're one of the angels?"/"Boop." *sneeeeeeerk*
-"Cas, don't make me pull this car over." Heeeee!
-"If the Word of God is revealed, a Keeper of the Word will awaken. Like this hot potato right here." Ah, so he's not actually possessed by Metatron then? Hm.
-"I don't fight anymore, I watch the bees." Not in a cottage in Sussex though. Sorry, Sherlock Holmes reference. He's really got some serious repression going on though.
-"This looks like a sex torture dungeon." Thaaaat's usually the kind of comment that really doesn't need a long empty silence after it, Dean.
-"You seem troubled. Of course that's a primary aspect of your personality so I sometimes ignore it." Heeeeee. Even nuts, Castiel has Sam's number. XD
-"That was a projection of yours, more of an aftertaste." Damn, there goes a fine theory. Sigh.
-"Now I see, well. Everything." Oh. Meeeep. O.o
-"I was lost until I took on your pain." Oh owwwwwww. And something like the family theme in the background. Owwwww.
-"We're gonna help you get better, no matter what it takes."/"What do you mean better?" Owwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. Ow.
-Poor poor Kevin. This seems to be enough of a frequent occurrence that Dean's operating the breathe-into-a-bag remedy on autopilot.
-"You've been Chosen. And it sucks, believe me." Yeah, Dean and Sam have gone several hundred thousand miles down that road.
-Angels and caring. "It seems like when they try, it just breaks them apart." Oh OW. Owwwwww. Owowowow. Ow.
-OPTIMUS! No wait. It's just meg having secret meeting with her fellow demons. How many freaking sides is she on? I'm guessing just one: hers. However her side seems to be a hell of a lot more complicated than most.
-And she's going to sell out Castiel to Crowley. Or that's what she's telling these guys. Really, who the heck knows. She's the queen of unreliable narrators.
-"You think we're stupid? We didn't tell anybody!" *facepalm* And that's proof that you're stupid.
-Ahahaha. You'd think after getting stuck in them so often Meg would know to look for Devil's traps, but no.
-You are out after your curfew, young lady. Sorry, just the set-up made me think it.
-"I'm simpler than you think." Suuuuuuuure, Meg.
-"Crowley ain't the problem this year." No, but he's been awfully quiet lately and that's not a good sign. Again some more.
-"When you killed the demon, you put out a pretty clear beacon." *facepalm* Craaaaaap.
-Ooops, too late for better angel-proofing. Wow, that rip the door away thing was cool. And hard to cap effectively.
-"You took the Prophet from us?"/"I'm sorry?" Quick, get out the board game!
-"An angel brought the Leviathan back into this world and they begged him and begged him not to do it." 'AN' angel. Masterful use of the indefinite article there, Castiel.
-"The very touch of you corrupts. When Castiel first laid a hand on you in Hell he was lost!" Owwwwwwww. Owwwwwwww.
-And in the meantime Kevin is hyperventilating and Castiel is going into a confrontation avoidance tailspin. Eeeek.
-I did not see that belt in the face coming, and I don't think Castiel or the boys did either. Just going to sit here and wince for a while. This is like the Uriel beat-down all over again. And Castiel isn't popping away to avoid confrontation. And he stepped between her and Dean and redirected her to himself. And he's still not popping away. Oh Cas. (Hey, Meg's been conspicuously absent during this bit hasn't she? >.>)
-UM. NO. NONONONONONONO! NO STABBING CAS WITH AN ANGEL BLADE! NO! BAD HESTER! O.O
-Go Oanias! Even though you're probably going to die now, you and your spotty tie.
-"You wanted free will? Now I'm making the choices." Her philosophy centers have had a bit of a meltdown somewhere along the line, haven't they?
-And that would be Meg, yes? Yep.
-"What?" The look on Castiel's face you guys. Oh my god.
-HEY! OANIAS OR WHATEVER HIS NAME IS IS COOPERATING WITH THEM OR SOMETHING!! And those tie spots are kind of in sort of stripes maybe? \o/
-Bye Kevin. Hope you enjoy deserts. Or wherever they put you. Also, Angel Garrison Group Tie report: They're all very similar dark navy/silvery grey colors and variations on spotty (though guy at the end with antler might have plaid, hard to say), but Oanias's tie is the one that seems to be the closest to stripes, because the spots kind of line up in one direction or another. Sort of. Kind of an optical illusion, but close enough.
-This marks two tie-free episodes in a row for the Winchesters. This is not a good sign. Maybe.
-"Bone of a righteous mortal washed in the three bloods of the fallen." So... does Dean still count as righteous? Craaap. He needs all his bones. And who's the fallen? Is it fallen or Fallen? It is too close to the finale for you to be engaging in deep research guys, so you better have more of a clue than I do. [ETA: AFTER I LOOK AT THE ACTUAL SCREENCAP CLOSELY. "Leviathan cannot be slain but by a bone of a righteous mortal (as) light and good as the Leviathan are angry and dark-" Probably lets Dean and Sam off then. "-washed in the three bloods (of) the fallen:" I love that the Metatron language uses full colons. "A fallen angel." Check, I guess? I thought there was more of a thing to falling for an angel, a grace-extraction ceremony or something, but Castiel's shooting of angel-powered whizbangs in every direction still. "(blocked by Sam's paw) of fallen humanity." Not sure what that would entail. Serial killer? Politician? "And (blocked by Sam's paw) of fallen beasts." ...Monsters? Probably? Okay, good enough to run with. Heck, they might have all that in the trunk of the IMPALA which they should GET OUT OF STORAGE NOW.]
-"Always happy to bleed for the Winchesters." Awwwwwwwww. Owwwwwww.
-"What are you gonna do, Cas?"/"I dunno. Isn't that amazing?" Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww, Cas. Aw.
-"What if he has a brain injury!" I don't really have any words to respond to that. I suspect Mom Tran is about to get killed or obliviated here anyway, so I'll leave examination of her priorities to others. Regardless, she came home to find her son missing and his room trashed, and is not thinking clearly right now.
-"You need to trust us, okay?" No. Hell no. Run, now. He's a Leviathan. His stripy tie is lying to you. Just run. Won't do you any good, but run.
-Or maybe the angels will pop Kevin around for a convenient visit and some site clean-up. If the other guy is a Leviathan though, they are screwed.
-"Leviathan beats angel." Aaaaaack. Yeah. Completely, totally, epically screwed.
-"Hello, Kevin." Hi Edgar! Eeeeek...
WELL. Roll on the season finale! As soon as I can... O.O
(PLEASE, NO REFERENCES TO EPISODES PAST 7.21 IN COMMENTS! I'm catching up as fast as I can D-:.)