Picspam Reaction: Supernatural 8.23
(I got done the season before the new one starts! \o/)
(Oh, right, there's a character limit on Livejournal. *tweaks image code until it squeaks* Here's hoping!)
Warning: Contains serious actual profanity.
Spoiler and Theory Summary
Wellllll, I have heard something about the angels falling. I had thought it was a consequence of cutting off Hell (that whole yin yang balancey sort of Neitschean thing, where without the infernal there was no need for the celestial, so when Hell gets blocked off Heaven does a general purge and shuts down too *handwave*) but now it looks like it's probably going to be Castiel's doing with Metatron and the Heaven trials, since Castiel is an easily manipulated dumbass with a guilt complex visible from Saturn.
It's finale time! \o/
Picspam Reaction, with speculation and meta and randomness for Supernatural 8.23 - "???" "Sacrifice"
-BUT FIRST, THE MONTAGE. Which I am watching, because montage. Door-kicking! Shooting entities in the head! This!
And this!
(HEE!)
-*PAUSES MID-MONTAGE* BECAUSE THE LYRICS WENT "LAY YOUR WEARY HEAD TO REST", AND THEY DID THIS:
EPIC SUB-MONTAGE OF HEAD CHOPPING, BASHING, SEVERING, ETC, AND I COULD NOT STOP LAUGHING FOR LIKE 5 WHOLE MINUTES. XD
-(However, with the beginning of woven-in lines from the season entering the montage, I realize my audio is yet again out of sync. Poo. *kludges workaround* BWAHAHA. RIGHT. Onward!)
-"I was soaring ever higher-" aaaaand...
WINGS! Show is being really cute with this season's montage. XD
-"Are you with me?"/Song:"Don't you cry no more." Oh I somehow doubt that combo bodes well.
-(Seriously, whenever this show has its very last season finale, whenever that may be, and the montage comes up, I am going to be a complete frigging wreck.)
-OMG HI JODIE! *WAVES AT SCREEN LIKE A DOOF* HI! HI! ITS SHERIFF JODIE! HI! *FLAILS EVERYWHERE* OH GOD THIS MEANS CROWLEY'S AFTER YOU OH CRAP RUN NOW!!!!
-GET AWAY FROM HER, CROWLEY! And tie report: Red with blue shiny squarish checker pattern that sort of forms stripes. Not the usual subtle obfuscatory tie. Blatant, down to business, playing games and in your face.
-"Roderick?" Wait, Roderick? Does Jodie know the person Crowley is wearing?? O.o
-"Words cannot describe the injustice that that picture does to you." Oh, it's a dating website date sort of thing. Okay. Not a good idea to have one of those in the pre-credits, and generally not a good idea to meet with unknown people at all if you're in a Supernatural episode, but Jodie WILL BE FINE BECAUSE SHE'S TOO AWESOME TO DIE. AT LEAST NOT IN THE PRE-TITLE PART. I mean look at that crinkly nose. Those adorable nose-crinkles will fend off all evil!! Or something.
Eeeek...
-"I've lost someone too." Pfffft. With those big old shiny eyes.
-RUN. RUN NOW. RUN AWAY. And what do you want to bet that that's a "devils food" cake on that plate? XD
-"I'm crazy." Well, if the face fits...
-All the classiest restaurants don't mind if you do a little spellwork at the table. That's why they provide the candles, after all.
-Aw, Jodie psyching herself up in the washroom is making me giggle.
-YOU FOUND THE HEX BAG! NOW BURN IT OR FLUSH IT would flushing work? IT'S WORTH A TRY!
-Crowley's ringtone. XD
-"Because it's over, you son of a bitch, we want a deal." Oh good, Jodie'll be okay then, but wait YOU'RE OFFERING CROWLEY A DEAL?? Oh. Well. Shit. But Jodie's going to be okay. And trying to call up everyone they've ever saved and tell them to be on the lookout for little mysterious bags of crap showing up in unexpected places would be impractical since you didn't exactly swap phone numbers with most of them and some were nearly a decade ago.
-"On the grounds that you're a douchebag and no douchebag should have that much power." Heeee!
-"First I need to hear two little words: I surrender."/ Dean *glares*
-And title splat! Last time for this one. I like the kind of Matrix tablet code it has going on, quite appropriate I think for a season heavily involving the base coding of various parts of reality.
-Hello episode title! "Sacrifice". Oh dear. What dumbass thing is Dean going to do to keep Sam safe this year? (Of course he is. It's been on the wall since Sam started the Trials. My guess at this point is he's somehow going to end up on the wrong side of the wall when Hell gets locked off.) Pretty car is pretty but not capping well behind the foliage.
-Hi Kevin! Metatron didn't do anything too nasty to you I see! And he's digging! Aw, he's learning the basics of being a Hunter. Digging up evil and/or weird crap, fighting against the forces of evil and/or weird crap, and getting beat half to death by evil and/or weird crap. He's already got a good start on the last two. And layering! I see a jacket, a hoodie and a t-shirt. Throw a plaid shirt in the mix and he's set.
-Hi car!! *waves*
-*sneeeeerk* Subtle.
-Something about Sam's hair flowing in the wind is making me laugh so hard I can't see straight.
-Oh, nice little hint of hesitation on rejoining there, like he was trying to hold apart two magnets. Nicely subtle. Unlike the billboard.
-Really, though, they know what's on the tablet now, what good is having the tablet going to do Crowley (who can't read it) anyway? ...Hm. Unless he's planning to steal Kevin again. Lock up your Prophet, boys. And may I suggest doing so IN YOUR SECRET WELL-DEFENDED LAIR instead of in some random hunter's rusted out house barge?
-Hee. I'm covering up the guest cast, but this one snuck through while I was typing and was apt. Mr. Osric Chau, labeled for your convenience.
-"Okay, listen. This is a secret lair-" YEEESSSS!!!! \o/ AND DEAN'S GIVING HIM THE KEY FROM THE PUZZLE BOX! \o/ EEEEEEEE! A bit later than by all reason it should have been, but EEEEEEEEEEEEE!!! \o/ But also, I really hope you two are going to escort him there, because if Crowley decides to nab him while he's got the key, y'all are screwed.
-"No keggers." Dude, have you even met Kevin?
-"I don't have any friends." Owwwww. True, because before the whole Prophet business he was head down in academics and only had his girlfriend, whose neck has been snapped. Ow. Aw. No drinking the entire contents of the liquor cabinet while sitting in the Batcave all alone then. :-/
-"Hey guys. You're doing the right thing." Awwwwwwwww. Their faces.
-"What was He like?" Yep. Poor Castiel, getting dragged around for someone else's agenda by his Daddy issues.
-"The second Trial is retrieving Cupid's Bow." Hm. Okay then... there wasn't really a visible one when they met a cupid that time... are we talking an object some nice cupid might be convinced to lend you, or are we talking internal psychic brain structures or glands, because the last Trial involved ripping a Nephilim's heart out (which was thankfully off-screen).
-"No killing?" Aw, Castiel. I really doubt it's going to be easy, and will end up with some kind of major consequence (like, is there only one Bow that's shared around among the cupids, and will all the Cupid-pairings stop happening so there's no more vessel bloodlines a few generations down the road and if Heaven hasn't been sequestered, no angel will be able to find a host capable of holding them anyway?) but the resigned hope that this isn't going to be something evil is kind of heartbreaking. The Trials involved in closing off Heaven are more likely to be the opposite of sweetness and light.
-"No killing." Suuuuuure, I believe you, Metatron. *side-eyes*
-*gaaaaaaaaaaaaasp* What? WHAT? *flail* IS IT WHAT'S LEFT OF BOBBY'S PLACE??? OR DID JODIE BUY IT AND REBUILD STUFF?? Oh hey, she probably phoned the guys after the choking up blood incident since she's smart and could tell it wasn't some kind of extreme allergy or ebola or something and Crowley might have left his witch kit in place and left, so she'd figure this was a weird thing, not a 'go see a doctor' thing, and the boys would tell her to burn the hex bag she found and they'd explain stuff and she'd mention Bobby's place was still abandoned if they needed a place to have a showdown, or whatever and just OMG YOU GUYS IT'S BOBBY'S PLAAAAAAAAACE!!!! *FLAILFLAILFLAIL*
-Admittedly, even if no one's rebuilt the house, Bobby had to have a lot of interesting crap squirreled away on that property. (Hey. I forget. How likely is it that the Apocalypse Bunker survived the fire? Because, I mean really, it's supposed to survive the Apocalypse, how's a fire supposed to take it out?)
-Baby at Bobby's. Aw. *sniffle*
-Oh my god. It's Bobby's car, you guys. I just- I can't even describe the noise I just made. Like, like... *gets up, walks over to shelf where the Hot Wheels Bobbymobile I made sits next to the mini-Impala from the Season 3 DVDs, takes it off the shelf, dusts it off, and puts it next to the computer* Just... aw. It's battered and broken and rusted out and grown over with weeds, but it's still there. *wistful smile*
-"Hello, boys." Oh get the hell out, Crowley! We're having a moment with Bobby's car. *makes shooing motions*
-Written by Jeremy Carver, half of Chuck's pen-name, directed by Phil Sgriccia who's been here pretty much since the start. *nods*
-Everything is innuendo for Crowley, and Dean beating him to the innuendo gets him to make this face, pretty much straight out the fourth wall. Hee!
-*sudden burst of envy for the display of capacious pockets* I used to have a jacket with pockets like that. I went to my school's grad party carrying a two pound hardcover omnibus novel in one of them.
-You know, sometimes I wonder if Crowley's contract length isn't compensating for something.
-"We swap tablet, you stand down from the Trials forever."/"And you stop killing everyone we've ever saved."/"Agreed." Something about just the terms as stated sound like they're full of easily exploitable loopholes, but I find myself distracted by shoulders for some reason.
-*giggles all over everything at Crowley's Rocky and Bullwinkle references*
-Fighting in front of Crowley, eh? Hm. They seemed to be on the same page earlier... Why do I think this is a delaying tactic? Hm. *ponders* Oh, and Second Tie Report for Crowley, back to the obfuscatory paisley. Up to his old tricks again.
-Ah, Naomi's got herself a new chew toy. Chew Toy Tie report: Shades of grey, in a sort of blended stripe. He's on the job but not quite sure what he's doing. Appropriate for working with Naomi. Or I assume it's Naomi based on the decor. Are the lens flares new?
-Chew Toy's name is Nathaniel. It's a good name.
-"One of our freelancers has reached out to us. He has found Castiel." ...OH FOR PETE'S SAKE. That's why the guy with the 'God loves you' sign was so conspicuous. I forgot about that time in a previous season when they had random human informers. I knew there was something odd about him. *facepalm*
-Ooo, Naomi looks pissed about Castiel hanging around with Metatron. Is that just because she knows he knows what's on the tablets, or is it because she knows he's got a plot running in opposition to hers?
-Hey, wait... If Dean's reading from the top of the contract to the bottom... shouldn't he have started close up to Crowley and been getting further away? I DETECT HIJINX IN PROGRESS!!! CROWLEY'S A DEMON, THEY KNOW HIS HISTORY TO TRY TO REACH HIS HUMANITY WITH, THEY COULD TRY AND CURE HIM, WON'T THAT BE FUN!
-AHAHAHAH! YEAH, GOTCHA. Keep all your demons away so they won't have the final part needed for the last Trial, but forgot about yourself. This should be very loud, very soon.
-"All I have to do is *click*" Don't think so.
-The problem with having your current arch-enemy chained to you with handcuffs he can't escape is that you're also chained to your current arch-enemy, and he can still try to pound the snot out of you. Uncappably.
-"I can do this all day, 'cause you know what? Damn, it feels good." Just in case we forgot that Dean did a stint torturing souls in Hell.
-"You're the third Trial, Crowley." Not specifically, he's just the only demon that's handy (except for the two idiots trapped in a storage locker somewhere that you could ask Kevin about). Also, it's kind of fitting to close the gates of Hell by taking out its current King. And hey, bonus chance to shock Crowley silent. Win all around! \o/
(Hee! Sam's hair wants to flyyyy! It's getting a bit "Everybody Loves a Clown" up there.)
-"The faster that man finds love, the faster that cupid will come." The logic does flow, but cupids tend to be more intent on generating genetically vessel-optimal progeny whether there is dating and love beforehand or not. How about find who in town is also from a strong vessel bloodline?
-"Trust me, I'm friends with friends who do this for a living." Awwwww. *smishes Castiel* Now go talk to those friends about what Metatron's telling you is the right thing to do. ...provided Dean's not still pissed off... sigh. SO MANY OF YOUR PROBLEMS AND APOCALYPSES WOULD BE PREVENTED IF YOU ALL JUST FRIGGING TALKED TO EACH OTHER!!! AAAAAAAAAH!
-"Would you say that you're looking for a partner in crime? Or someone who's into nurse role-play and light domination?" Oh there are going to be so many wrong impressions had here today. *facepalm*
(Metatron's face! Hee!)
-"You're not the most subtle tool in the shed are ya?" Heh heh heh. No, no he's not. Also, interesting use of the word 'tool' there, hm?
-"Kill him." Oh, right, wandering around out in the open means PEOPLE YOU DON'T WANT TO TALK TO CAN FIND YOU. (Though the angel on Naomi's left is looking at Metatron with some strange intensity there...)
-Our soon to be cupided barkeep's a feisty one.
-"Don't make this any worse. Please?" Great, now I'm wondering if Metatron's in cahoots with Naomi and this is just an elaborate way not to blow his 'I have pure and innocent reasons for wanting to do a hard reset on Heaven' cover. He's got a face for dissembling though. Just look at that face, with those puppy-dog eyes.
-They drove Crowley to an abandoned church in the back seat of the Impala. That must've been a fun road trip.
-"For the first time in a long time it feels like we're gonna win." Oh crap, Sam, seriously, don't say things like that. Fate doesn't need any more temptation than it's already got to mess up you guys' lives.
-"I have no clue what to say now."/"I could give you suggestions if you want." *snerk* Something about the Winchester boys improvising their own confessional out of the trunk of the Impala is making me laugh. Also the idea of Dean possibly suggesting sins Sam should confess. And Sam's face.
-"Just for starters." Heeeee. It's supposed to be Sam confessing his sins to get his blood holy or something, not 'Dean runs down the top five things Sam's done in the last few seasons that pissed Dean off.'
-"Why don't you lead with what you did to Penny deMarco in the sixth grade?"/"That was you."/"mouth-waffles* ...carry on." Heeee!
-And he's doing it in an empty confessional, with a busted screen, in the same room as Crowley. This should get... interesting.
-I suppose popping in from nowhere makes it difficult to knock, but landing a waiting a half-second while shuffling or clearing one's throat might tend to make the person one is popping in on less likely to either bash his head in on the trunk of the car or shoot one in the face with rock salt.
-"I've been working with him on the Angel Trials."/"The what??" This is another reason why you talk to your friends when you're doing something like trying to close off your home dimension from the plane of Earth. Friends like to be kept in the loop about such things.
-Oh crap. Metatron's in Naomi's mind-control Dremel chair. THIS DOESN'T BODE WELL. Even if he was probably running an agenda of his own that's about as good for humanity as Naomi's is. NOT WELL-BODING, THIS.
-"Debrief me." Ah. Naomi is the Archangels' chosen interrogator? It suits her.
-"Of the blessings set before you, make your choice and be content." Oooohooo hooo. That's nervy. (It's a quote from a book called Rasselas, by Samuel Johnson, by the way.) I do hope Metatron is on humanity's side, or at least not out to totally screw humanity over with this lockdown of Heaven, but he's ringing little plotty alarms in my head. I do like him, and the 'make your choice out of the options you have and walk the path it leads to' attitude he has at times. Especially when he's giving it to an Inquisitor-type angel, because choice, free will, etc. Would telling an angel like Naomi to use free will be like saying "shove it"? *ponders*
-Naomi does not approve. It's Dremel time.
-Talking to your friends about what you're up to also saves having to go through a long period of exposition and explaining yourself to them later on when time may perhaps be of the essence.
-"If anyone needs a chaperone while doing the heavy lifting, it's Sam."/"You should go." Ah hah hah. Yes. Of course Sam wants Dean to go. That way the inevitable 'Dean does something heroic and/or idiotic at the last second to take the last hit from the Trials for Sam' issue becomes Castiel's lookout. Hard to sacrifice yourself for your brother while you're ... what does Castiel think they can do anyway? Break in and bust Metatron out? Oi vey.
-"If I'm not back in 8 hours, finish it." Dean does have a heck of a lot more faith in Sam than he used to if he thinks he can heal Crowley solo in under 8 hours. And not have him go chestburster. Which would also be an interesting result. But not terribly helpful.
-Dean has this face. It's a very intense face that says a great many things, even when it's not making a sound. Castiel too.
-Dear location scouts. All the cookies are yours. Damn.
-A more practical option would have been to snag some empty blood donor kits from a blood bank, do the whole confess-pray-fast-meditate-purify dealie a day before, possibly with an actual priest (although it's be hard to find one who wouldn't freak out when you stated confessing about sleeping with demons and drinking their blood), do up a couple bags of purified blood, get some sleep, iron and fluids, and then go kidnap the King of Hell and set him up on a transfusion drip or something. Ah well. Hope Sam's got a good stock of juice and cookies to counteract the blood loss.
-That's another thing. If the Trials haven't purged all of old Yellow Eyes from Sam's blood, what's a shot of that demonic residue going to do when it mixes with Crowley?
-Hm. It would seem more logical to inject it into a blood vessel than in under his jaw (and possibly into a salivary gland?) but hey, who knows how demons redistribute their hosts' circulatory systems, right? *HANDWAVE*
-I'd just like to stop at this point and mention that Sam's hair is unreasonably pretty right now. But not evil or soulless type pretty. I don't know why.
-Well, crap! Okay, so the Trial radiation is burning out more demon stuff or what? If Sam gets a blood draw while he's flaring, what happens? *ponders*
-"Is this a joke?"/"No it's the Word of God." Pffft! *pats Castiel*
Also KEVIN IN THE BATCAVE! \o/ I wonder if he went around pushing all the buttons and getting lost in all the many rooms, after of course first staggering in and falling down on the closest soft object and sleeping for about 36 hours.
-What was I saying earlier about drinking the entire contents of the liquor cabinet, Kevin? He does have a very valid point about the time it takes to translate a tablet. Thought really he'd only need to get the final trial, and knowing what the first two were would act as a sort of Rosetta Stone... Hm...
-Castiel's a bit cranky, eh?
-"You are a Prophet of the Lord, always, and forever. ...until the day you cease to exist and then another Prophet takes your place." Oh ho. Is that what happened to Chuck? He wasn't God, he was just ceasing to exist? *ponders*
-Castiel's human resource management skills are shitty. Just saying.
-Also, seriously, if you want this to go fast, tell him what the 2/3 of the tablet you know about says before you go. *facepalm*
-See Sam (and Dean in absentia)? This is why you need to get some lessons in effective restraint methods. Chaining his hands together is all well and good, but not much use if you don't also restrain his arms to the chair in some way, so he can't do things like this, which are probably aimed at causing blood-loss, so the hourly blood draws are an even bigger challenge to withstand on Sam's end. Sigh. Idjits. *headshake*
-I miss Bobby. :-/
-Or Crowley's after a handful of sanctified blood. OH!!! HE'S AFTER ENOUGH BLOOD TO MAKE A BLOOD PHONE CALL, ISN'T HE!!! HE CAN MAKE IT WHILE SAM'S RUNNING OUT TO GET THE FIRST AID KIT WHICH HE STUPIDLY HADN'T BROUGHT INTO THE CHURCH EVEN THOUGH SAM KNEW HE'D BE BLEEDING AND DOING MEDICAL STUFF!! I LIKE CROWLEY, HE'S SMART!
-"This is your king. Send help immediately." WHEE! \o/ ...Heh hehehe. Um, the thing is, if the King of Hell is helpless, most demons are going to be inclined to drop by to finish him off and usurp his place, or just stop in to get some payback before attaching to the next big thing in Hell, which will likely be Abaddon. That's the trouble with ruling through fear and intimidation. When fear and intimidation aren't available to use as leadership tools, your underlings will turn round and rise up against you as soon as they know you're helpless, if they have any brains and gumption. Which many demons don't, but some do. Crowley's about to have an even badder day. Also Sam, because either way, he's kind of screwed.
-On the other hand, if Abaddon shows up in response to the call just to taunt Crowley (since he is in a Devil's Trap after all so she can't do much to him unless she wants to let him loose or be trapped too) about how she's taking over now and he'll be getting some "special treatment" when he goes home to Hell and then leaves, Crowley might turn around and co-operate with being healed, just to close Hell off and spite Abaddon. That'd be handy, and probably the only way Sam's going to manage to turn Crowley in under 8 hours. Or, since Abaddon knows why they'd have Crowley, she'll just kill him while he's trussed up in demon chains to take over Hell and prevent the Sam from completing the final trial in one fell swoop.. *nods*
-"Free drinks. Buddy over there thinks you saved his life." Yeah, I suppose it could look that way. Shoot someone, get grabbed from behind and your head smashed into your cooler, knocked out, wake up and the place is empty except for the intense weird and possibly flirty guy in a trenchcoat standing over you making sure you aren't dead so you'll still attract a cupid he can steal a bow from. Free drinks is reasonable.
-"You don't think it's wise to be drinking on the job?" Heh. Have you met Dean? Wisdom is not his strong suit when it comes to alcohol.
-"What show you been watching?" *CACKLES LOUDLY* HI THERE FOURTH WALL, HOW YOU DOIN'?
-Castiel having guilt and mission angst and maybe some nihilism is oddly enthralling.
-"So this is it. E.T. goes home." Aww. Castiel has no idea what you're talking about, Dean, but awwwwwww.
-"Holy crud, this is like the first five minutes of every porno I've ever seen." Sneeeeeerk.
-Oh, well hello! I guess the cupid brigade isn't as focused on bloodline extending genetic progeny producing matches only anymore? I had a feeling it might be that, since Castiel and Dean are intensely barking up the female tree and getting nowhere. Non-eugenics-focused cupid matching, just giving people a little nudge here and there. Cool.
-And they're adorable. Big furry love. Aww.
-*headshake* Ah Dean. Welcome to the 21st century. *pats*
-Sam is looking rough. This does not bode well, considering something is inbound, whatever way it's going to go for Crowley, it's not going to go well for Sam.
-Ooooo.... that's um. Alarming. Possibly helpful? If it's clearing the taint out of Sam's blood, and gets transferred to Crowley.... ooooo. Possibly extremely helpful.
-INCOMING!
-Cracking the floor of the building. Well, there's that as an option too.
-"Did you really think you could kidnap the King of Hell and no one was gonna notice, numbnuts?" Heee! Oh wait for it Crowley.
-HI ABADDON! Ooo, it's gonna get loud in here!
-SAM WHUMPAGE! \o/
-"Say your prayers, Moose!" Wait for it, Crowley. Juuuuust wait....
-Ooo, it's been a while since we had a good Winchester defenestration. Dark and uncappable, but oh well. Result: Sam out of the building, so Abaddon can get Crowley alone... Also more Sam whumpage. \o/
-"Undo these!" Um. How exactly? Demon-proof is demon-proof. Unless you go through Sam's pockets for the key, which I'm pretty sure Sam wouldn't have since it would be tactically silly to have it in the room with Crowley and Sam alone. But the boys have been tactically stupid before. And I'm pretty certain Abaddon doesn't give a crap about the key or cutting Crowley loose.
-Incidentally, judging by the injection marks, Sam's been at this with Crowley for 5 hours. 3 hours left on Dean's timetable. Point of trivia. In case anyone's keeping track. Didn't seem to be doing too much talking to Crowley though, and that was a major part of the whole process as we've seen it previously.
-"That was an order, was it?" Heh heh heh. Yep. Here we go. Told you to wait for it, Crowley.
-"I am your King." Yep. In chains. You used to be their head soul procurer. Ranks change, political structures change, allies change.
-"Talk first, stab later." HA! Things you never thought you'd hear Dean Winchester say.
-See, Crowley? You should've listened to me. Over-confidence is great, but don't extend it to your assessment of your minions' loyalty. You've been doing great, but you could use a refresher read of the Evil Overlords' Handbook. *headshake*
-"I AM YOUR KI-!"/*boot to the head* Yep. Silly Crowley.
-And Abaddon, since you're looking to become Queen of Hell, you may want to invest some time in acquiring minions, and until then, being aware of the mortal sneaking up behind you with a bucket of Holy Water. Tends to make you look like a doof in front of the masses when a whumped Winchester gets the drop on you. Hee!
-Or flammable stuff. Of some kind. Drawing a blank here. It's not Holy Oil, is it? That's for angels. Hm. Regardless, it's gonna be harder to Frankenstein her back together after that.
-Demon smokeout! Haven't had one of those in a while, and this leaves Abaddon available to pick a new host somewhere for later, or next season. The host... was seriously screwed before she was set on fire having been hacked to bits and brought forward in time, but WOULD IT NOT BE TERRIBLY HANDY IF SHE WAS OKAY AFTER THAT SINCE SHE WAS ONE OF THE MEN OF LETTERS INVOLVED IN DEVELOPING THIS DEMON HEALING RITUAL SAM IS RATHER SUCKING AT RIGHT NOW??? WOULD IT NOT JUST BE SO VERY VERY HANDY? HO BOY YES IT WOULD INDEEDY YOU BETCHA. If Sam can put her out and she survives long enough to say anything. O.O
-Hey! First hand intel about what's going on upstairs! Excellent! So, in summary, things actually have gone nuts and the Earthside agents have no idea what's up and are left to their own devices. And Castiel thinks what he's doing is going to help fix that, possibly by him locking himself into Heaven and playing Sheriff. Oh dear.
-Nifty! ...wait, are they going to have to chop her hand off? D-:
-Apparently so. Eep. Lets hope she can grow a new one. She was kind of pragmatically awesome.
-Meanwhile, Naomi is still Dremelling Metatron's brains out. Oh dear.
-"Did you really think you could do all that to me and there's be no payback?" Ahaha. Motivated by personal vengeance and Daddy issues. On this show? Really? What a shock! XD
-"You did good back there, Moose." Hee. A Winchester just saved your ass, Crowley. Even if Abaddon doesn't usurp you, you probably will have difficulty getting your underlings to take you seriously as the King of Hell again if they ever find out.
-Also apparently Abaddon's host is, um. Toast. Ah well. Missed opportunity there.
-Sam really must be suffering the blood loss if he thinks he can spray-paint a crack in the floor closed. *facepalm*
-Crowley *burbles about warzones and foxholes* Either that boot to the head messed him up or the demon-healing treatment is having an effect of some kind. Or Crowley's messing with Sam, but it doesn't seem like it this time. Orrrr, Crowley's stopped fighting the conversion process and is deliberately giving in so as to spike Abaddon's plans. If they heal Crowley, can we still keep Mark Sheppard? Please?
-"In all those hotels, you never once watched HBO? Not once?" Heeeeeee!
-"I DESERVE TO BE LOVED! I just want to be loved." Aw. Something's flipped a switch for Crowley, and it's kind of... awww. *smishes the King of Hell*
-Sam on the other hand is moderately disturbed by this.
-And when he thinks about it, so is Crowley. Scratch deliberate collusion then.
-"I'd like to ask you a favour... Sam." Aw. Is that the first time he's actually addressed Sam by name?
-"You were confessing, back there... what did you say?" Crowley is determined to make me go awwww at him for the rest of this episode, isn't he? Aw, wubbie. *pats*
-A tear! There's a tear! It's not capping, dammit but Crowley's crying single manly tears you guys, oh my god. *flail*
-Seriously, Sam, what are you even aiming for there. His spine?
-"I don't see anything about a Nephilim or a Cupid's Bow or anything like that." Oh reeeeeeeeally? What the heck is Metatron up to then?
-"The sports metaphors? You wanna motivate me? Magic cards, Skyrim, Aziz Ansari." Not sure who Ansari is, but HEE on the geek motivational metaphor template.
-OHSHITWINGFLAPPYNOISE, RUN!
-Crap.
-AHAHAHAAHAHAH, Dean's little body-bobble double-take thing as he realizes Castiel's fallen behind and the entity that spent half the season literally screwing around in Castiel's brain with power tools has shown up for a casual chat.
-"He told you he was going to fix heaven didn't he? Murdering a Nephilim, cutting off a cupid's bow." Cackling now, give me a minute. Oh Metatron, what exactly are you trying to do after all if it's not lock down Heaven, hmm? I'm now thinking he's de-authorizing all the current angels and taking over an empty Heaven with a clean template. Maybe, hehe, MAYBE, if that's what happens, maybe he'll take a look around the human souls up there and convert a few of them to new angels. Like, say Bobby. Heh heh heh. Bobbiel. Heheh. He'd be so pissed.
-Oh good, Kevin's in the loop.
-"Expel all angels from Heaven, just as God cast out Lucifer." WOO! Ahahahahahahah! Yeah, that's sounding like a sensible solution, because really, the whole lot of them aren't doing too well on the following God's plan stuff, although it would have helped if God had left some notes or a Power Point or something.
-Castiel by this point is pretty sick of being jerked around and manipulated and lied to by, well, all the entities in his home command structure, really. Except Samandiriel, who they forced him to kill. I totally understand him feeling stabbity.
-"If Sam completes those Trials he is going to die." No shit, Sherlock. Wouldn't be much of a Trial if it ended in ice cream and puppies.
-"Metatron has been neutralized." Not really... You kind of left him in your interrogation chair in your office in Heaven (I assume) staring significantly at your angel-brain-Dremel. Didn't look particularly neutralized to me. There'd be less significant staring and more vacant drool.
-"Is she lying?"/"I don't know."/"Well find out!" Intel from an unreliable source, gotta love it. Can't ignore it in case it's true, can't assume it's true in case it's a trap. Lovely, mayhem everywhere! *twirls*
-"Take me to him now!" Because whether Naomi's lying or not, Dean can't take the chance, because he's Dean, and 'protect Sammy' is the base code of his universe.
-"Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus" YAY, LATINATION! I DON'T KNOW HOW SAM CAN READ THAT IN THE DARK (maybe by Trial radiation light?), BUT YAY ANYWAY! \o/
-Bloody facepalm time! With glow! Oh this could be... uh... I don't know. Messy? Bright? Interrupted by Dean? Oh that's the one.
-"I'm not wrong. I'm going to fix my home." Oh dear. Castiel, you're a well-meaning guilt-raddled fool. Also, do you even know what the third thing of whatever Trial it is you're doing is? I mean, you probably know it's not rainbows and unicorns, but if you have no idea what the last thing is, how are you supposed to accomplish it?
-"SAMMY, STOP!" DEAN SAID SAMMY! *FLAAAAAAAAAILS*
-Sam's face! XD
-Oh, well crap. Yeah. I really don't think you had him neutralized, there, Naomi.
-"She told you I lied, didn't she." The angel blade to the throat is really not helping your case, Metatron.
-"You should have listened to the bitch." Hooo! Well, nice to come all the way out of the evil Machiavellian plotting closet I suppose.
-So dark, probably can't see it, but more cookies for the location scouts. Prettyyyyyyy.
-"You finish this trial, you're dead, Sam."/"...so?" *cackles madly and slow claps* Yep. Someone was aware of what he was getting into, and isn't too bothered by having to end his life to close the world off from Hell. Considering he's already technically done it once by doing the Hell-dive at the end of season five to end the Apocalypse, although that didn't last. Dean however, is having a moment of 'Sam's not allowed to sacrifice himself for the good of the party humanity, I have to stop him or do it for him or both' denial, and so the last *glances at counter* 10 minutes or so of Season 8 are going to be a wrassling match over who gets to throw themselves on the unexploded Crowley. Who really, might just get tired of waiting, grab Sam's hand with both his handcuffed ones and smack himself in the face with the glowing demon healing blood of doom. Which Dean doesn't have at all so how does he even think he can do this for Sam anyway? Yeah, I know. Because he's Dean goddamn Winchester and he has to try. Of course. Carry on.
-Back in the brain Dremel chair. Hm. I wonder what the third Trial for expelling angels from Heaven might be? Could it possibly involve, say, nasty things happening to the angel undergoing the Trials? Maaaaaaaybe.
-Hey, hang on, back up a second... There was no wing burn for Naomi. Tools and stuff on the floor, but no wing burn. We know angels do show a wing burn when they die in the plane of Heaven because all the ones Castiel zapped at the start of Season 7 had it. What if Naomi's not dead? What if she Dremelled Metatron into thinking he's been plotting to throw the angels out of Heaven all along and is evil and... no, no, wait. He started the Trial business before Naomi got him, so the Trials are doing whatever he's intended them to. Hm. Still. No wing burn for Naomi. Hmmmmmm. *ponders* Anyway, back to Castiel.
-Metatron sure can bring the creepy when he lets his dark side out.
-OH FUCKOHFUCKOHFUCK AAAAH!!! O.O
-"These were never Trials Castiel. This is a spell." WELL CRAP. OF COURSE IT IS. *headdesk* Heart of a Nephilim, Cupid's Bow, it's spell components, and now Metatron's collecting the essence of gelfling angel who did bad things or whatever to make up the somatic components.
-"Your essence, your Grace, it's the last piece." Shit. ALL OF IT??? O.O
-"Find a wife, make babies. When you die and your soul comes to Heaven, Find me. Tell me your story." GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH WHY IS THAT THE CREEPIEST THING EVER? Oh wait, because of this face.
-"Other people will die if I don't finish this." Sam, talking logically to Dean isn't going to work right now. He's in 'save Sammy' mode and no amount of logic will get through if it ends in 'Sammy has to die'.
-Dean *proposes using what they've learned doing the Trials to keep fighting Hell and leaving it open* "But I can't do it without you." HI THERE, DEAN'S ABANDONMENT ISSUES. Dean, you dumbass wounded codependent twit, the only reason any of that sounds like a good idea to you now is you can't cope with the alternative of Sam dying, again, and any excuse to not let that happen sounds like a good idea in your beautifully broken brain. And yet if it was Dean in that position instead of Sam, right after he said "So?" Dean would have smacked Crowley in the face and completed the Trials. Eight years, and after the various 'we are both equals and Sam is a grown up and can make his own choices' steps that have happened. It probably doesn't help that Sam's Trial radiation poisoning has put Dean into mother-hen mode and probably nudged his protective instincts towards the surface of his motivations either. Dean still reverts to base coding under stress. Let the world burn, save Sammy. Oh Dean. Look at that face. Just look at it.
-"You think I screw up everything I try." Oh Sam. Oh boys.
-"You wanna know what I confessed in there? What my greatest sin was? Was how many times I let you down." OH SAAAAAAAAAAAM *flail*
-"What happens when you've decided I can't be trusted again? I mean, who you gonna turn to next time instead of me? Another angel? Another vampire?" AAAAAH! TRUST ISSUES! It's great that this is finally being talked about, but now it's all just- *sad flailing everywhere*
-"You seriously think that? Because none of it, none of it, is true." AND THIS IS WHY YOU NEED TO TALK TO EACH OTHER INSTEAD OF BUILDING THICKER WALLS DAMMIT!!! AAAAAAAA!!! WINCHESTERS!!!
-"But Sammy. Come on." *flaaaaaail*
-Yeah, I'm just going to flail incoherently for a while here while Dean says things, don't mind me. (Dean's voice when he says 'mom', oh god. And, just, everything else, I can't even. Just *flail*)
-"How do I stop?" An excellent point. The Trial radiation won't be going away until it's served its purpose, so pain and choking up blood and feeling like shit until the end, whenever that comes.... yeah. Moving on.
-"We'll figure it out, just like we always do. Come on. *hug* Let it go." OH DEAN YOU SNEAKY BASTARD I SEE WHAT YOU'RE DOING. Let it go, energy transfer or something. Dean picks up the Trial radiation, heals Crowley (who really is ready to stop being a demon if he's been sitting there quietly while all this is going on in the room with him.) Damn you Dean for subverting a hug into a way to sacrifice yourself for your brother. Sorry, wrong blame. *scrolls back up* DAMN YOU JEREMY CARVER FOR SUBVERTING A WINCHESTER HUG!!!
-And then I get a sudden highly inappropriate attack of the giggles because this is probably the same method that wee!Dean used when burping baby!Sammy after a bottle. Hee!
-Ah, okay, so it didn't pass over, it's still in Sam. But it's got to go somewhere...
-...liiiike launching an all-out assault on some internal organs or something. Eeep.
-"Cas! Castiel!" If Metatron's used Castiel's Grace as a spell component, Castiel's never going to flutter in to save their butts again. Awwww. Admittedly, it's a sensible move from a GameMaster perspective. If an NPC or PC and has an overabundance powers and abilities compared to the rest of the party, so as to make handling most problems a matter of calling that character in to do something about it, that character has to be impaired or de-powered in some way to rebalance the party. *nods* That said, AW CASTIEL!!
-OH. RED LIGHT IN THE BATCAVE. THAT'S NEW. NOT ALARMING AT ALL, THAT. BUT THEN IT'S AN ALARM. IT'S RAISON D'ETRE IS TO BE ALARMING. IS IT THE MEN OF LETTERS' CLOISTER BELL THAT GOES OFF WHEN THERE'S AN INBOUND APOCALYPSE????
-AND THINGS START TURNING ON BY THEMSELVES OH HOLY CRAP.
-I wonder now though if all that stuff has been quietly going off in the Batcave even though no one was there for the big stuff that's gone down over the past few seasons. Aw, poor Batcave.
-Meanwhile, Castiel is unpowered and wandering in the woods. Looking up. Waaaay up.
-Now things are lighting up in an organized fashion. What the hell. Like a system startup check? Why am I suddenly thinking of giant robots... Also, Kevin, I know you're planning to jam out of there for some reason ("Hate Winchesters, hate tablets, hate demons, hate Kansas. Bye."), but maybe calling someone to let them know their secret base is doing weird crap would be a nice parting gesture. Even just a quick "Hey guys, all the lights are flashing, uh, gotta go. Bye now!"
-"Sammy!" Dean's using up the last several seasons allotments of 'Sammy's in the last ten minutes of this episode. Yay! \o/
-Strange whooshy-animal noises do not bode well! A flight of demons? O.o
-Right, Crowley's still sitting there all depowered and feeling human and vulnerable and contemplating all his sins. It wouldn't be a good time for some usurpers to try and take him out before the Winchesters convert him completely, would it? Naaaaaaaah.
-RIFT OPENING RED ALERT!!! \o/ Hm. Might it be for a major demonic incursion?
-Oh, hey, Torchwood watchers? Think the batcave could be Torchwood Four? It's been missing since before 1941... *ponders*
-One of the first things Castiel's going to learn about being an unpowered human (again) is that when you run (uncappably) through the woods without looking where you're putting your feet, you trip over roots and shrubbery and fall flat on your face.
-Oh. Well shit. They're all coming. Except in Russia, Iceland, Japan, Greenland, Alaska, parts of Norway, Sweden Finland, Africa.... I wonder if that's due to lower populations or if they just have better anti-all-Hell-breaking-loose defenses. Though there's quite a few in the Canadian Territories and Northern BC, Alberta and Saskatchewan and the population density there averages in the low decimals, so... hm. Also, AWESOME to see things happen globally rather than just in the lower 48, although too bad it's probably a massive influx of demons and the end of the world, etcetera. O.O
-And decision time for Kevin. Run away, or stay and help? Running away is looking like a really bad idea right now to be honest.
-OH! It's just the Angels falling. ...oh. I think I'll just cap for a while because... Wow. O.O
(they really like using that clearing location, it's the one from the fireworks flashback I think, which adds an extra boggle element)
(AAAAAAAAH!!! WINGS TEARING OFF ON FIRE! THAT CAN'T FEEL GOOD!)
(That either.)
-"What's happening?" Something you guys didn't do, for a change.
-One thing I have to say, I like that they have distinct origin points, where they've popped in from the plane of Heaven, so that Heaven isn't necessarily literally 'up there', that's just where the planar interface is. *nods like that makes sense*
-"Angels. They're falling." And for a reason that wasn't one I'd theorized. Hooray for unexpected turns!
Well! That's going to be an interesting set of challenges to face when the new season starts... THIS TUESDAY!! \o/
(PLEASE NO REFERENCES TO SEASON 9 IN COMMENTS! WHICH BEGINS AIRING ON THE CW ON TUESDAY OCTOBER 8TH. THAT'S THIS TUESDAY!! CHECK YOUR LOCAL LISTINGS/USUAL SOURCES.)
(Oh, right, there's a character limit on Livejournal. *tweaks image code until it squeaks* Here's hoping!)
Warning: Contains serious actual profanity.
Spoiler and Theory Summary
Wellllll, I have heard something about the angels falling. I had thought it was a consequence of cutting off Hell (that whole yin yang balancey sort of Neitschean thing, where without the infernal there was no need for the celestial, so when Hell gets blocked off Heaven does a general purge and shuts down too *handwave*) but now it looks like it's probably going to be Castiel's doing with Metatron and the Heaven trials, since Castiel is an easily manipulated dumbass with a guilt complex visible from Saturn.
It's finale time! \o/
Picspam Reaction, with speculation and meta and randomness for Supernatural 8.23 - "???" "Sacrifice"
-BUT FIRST, THE MONTAGE. Which I am watching, because montage. Door-kicking! Shooting entities in the head! This!
And this!
(HEE!)
-*PAUSES MID-MONTAGE* BECAUSE THE LYRICS WENT "LAY YOUR WEARY HEAD TO REST", AND THEY DID THIS:
EPIC SUB-MONTAGE OF HEAD CHOPPING, BASHING, SEVERING, ETC, AND I COULD NOT STOP LAUGHING FOR LIKE 5 WHOLE MINUTES. XD
-(However, with the beginning of woven-in lines from the season entering the montage, I realize my audio is yet again out of sync. Poo. *kludges workaround* BWAHAHA. RIGHT. Onward!)
-"I was soaring ever higher-" aaaaand...
WINGS! Show is being really cute with this season's montage. XD
-"Are you with me?"/Song:"Don't you cry no more." Oh I somehow doubt that combo bodes well.
-(Seriously, whenever this show has its very last season finale, whenever that may be, and the montage comes up, I am going to be a complete frigging wreck.)
-OMG HI JODIE! *WAVES AT SCREEN LIKE A DOOF* HI! HI! ITS SHERIFF JODIE! HI! *FLAILS EVERYWHERE* OH GOD THIS MEANS CROWLEY'S AFTER YOU OH CRAP RUN NOW!!!!
-GET AWAY FROM HER, CROWLEY! And tie report: Red with blue shiny squarish checker pattern that sort of forms stripes. Not the usual subtle obfuscatory tie. Blatant, down to business, playing games and in your face.
-"Roderick?" Wait, Roderick? Does Jodie know the person Crowley is wearing?? O.o
-"Words cannot describe the injustice that that picture does to you." Oh, it's a dating website date sort of thing. Okay. Not a good idea to have one of those in the pre-credits, and generally not a good idea to meet with unknown people at all if you're in a Supernatural episode, but Jodie WILL BE FINE BECAUSE SHE'S TOO AWESOME TO DIE. AT LEAST NOT IN THE PRE-TITLE PART. I mean look at that crinkly nose. Those adorable nose-crinkles will fend off all evil!! Or something.
Eeeek...
-"I've lost someone too." Pfffft. With those big old shiny eyes.
-RUN. RUN NOW. RUN AWAY. And what do you want to bet that that's a "devils food" cake on that plate? XD
-"I'm crazy." Well, if the face fits...
-All the classiest restaurants don't mind if you do a little spellwork at the table. That's why they provide the candles, after all.
-Aw, Jodie psyching herself up in the washroom is making me giggle.
-YOU FOUND THE HEX BAG! NOW BURN IT OR FLUSH IT would flushing work? IT'S WORTH A TRY!
-Crowley's ringtone. XD
-"Because it's over, you son of a bitch, we want a deal." Oh good, Jodie'll be okay then, but wait YOU'RE OFFERING CROWLEY A DEAL?? Oh. Well. Shit. But Jodie's going to be okay. And trying to call up everyone they've ever saved and tell them to be on the lookout for little mysterious bags of crap showing up in unexpected places would be impractical since you didn't exactly swap phone numbers with most of them and some were nearly a decade ago.
-"On the grounds that you're a douchebag and no douchebag should have that much power." Heeee!
-"First I need to hear two little words: I surrender."/ Dean *glares*
-And title splat! Last time for this one. I like the kind of Matrix tablet code it has going on, quite appropriate I think for a season heavily involving the base coding of various parts of reality.
-Hello episode title! "Sacrifice". Oh dear. What dumbass thing is Dean going to do to keep Sam safe this year? (Of course he is. It's been on the wall since Sam started the Trials. My guess at this point is he's somehow going to end up on the wrong side of the wall when Hell gets locked off.) Pretty car is pretty but not capping well behind the foliage.
-Hi Kevin! Metatron didn't do anything too nasty to you I see! And he's digging! Aw, he's learning the basics of being a Hunter. Digging up evil and/or weird crap, fighting against the forces of evil and/or weird crap, and getting beat half to death by evil and/or weird crap. He's already got a good start on the last two. And layering! I see a jacket, a hoodie and a t-shirt. Throw a plaid shirt in the mix and he's set.
-Hi car!! *waves*
-*sneeeeerk* Subtle.
-Something about Sam's hair flowing in the wind is making me laugh so hard I can't see straight.
-Oh, nice little hint of hesitation on rejoining there, like he was trying to hold apart two magnets. Nicely subtle. Unlike the billboard.
-Really, though, they know what's on the tablet now, what good is having the tablet going to do Crowley (who can't read it) anyway? ...Hm. Unless he's planning to steal Kevin again. Lock up your Prophet, boys. And may I suggest doing so IN YOUR SECRET WELL-DEFENDED LAIR instead of in some random hunter's rusted out house barge?
-Hee. I'm covering up the guest cast, but this one snuck through while I was typing and was apt. Mr. Osric Chau, labeled for your convenience.
-"Okay, listen. This is a secret lair-" YEEESSSS!!!! \o/ AND DEAN'S GIVING HIM THE KEY FROM THE PUZZLE BOX! \o/ EEEEEEEE! A bit later than by all reason it should have been, but EEEEEEEEEEEEE!!! \o/ But also, I really hope you two are going to escort him there, because if Crowley decides to nab him while he's got the key, y'all are screwed.
-"No keggers." Dude, have you even met Kevin?
-"I don't have any friends." Owwwww. True, because before the whole Prophet business he was head down in academics and only had his girlfriend, whose neck has been snapped. Ow. Aw. No drinking the entire contents of the liquor cabinet while sitting in the Batcave all alone then. :-/
-"Hey guys. You're doing the right thing." Awwwwwwwww. Their faces.
-"What was He like?" Yep. Poor Castiel, getting dragged around for someone else's agenda by his Daddy issues.
-"The second Trial is retrieving Cupid's Bow." Hm. Okay then... there wasn't really a visible one when they met a cupid that time... are we talking an object some nice cupid might be convinced to lend you, or are we talking internal psychic brain structures or glands, because the last Trial involved ripping a Nephilim's heart out (which was thankfully off-screen).
-"No killing?" Aw, Castiel. I really doubt it's going to be easy, and will end up with some kind of major consequence (like, is there only one Bow that's shared around among the cupids, and will all the Cupid-pairings stop happening so there's no more vessel bloodlines a few generations down the road and if Heaven hasn't been sequestered, no angel will be able to find a host capable of holding them anyway?) but the resigned hope that this isn't going to be something evil is kind of heartbreaking. The Trials involved in closing off Heaven are more likely to be the opposite of sweetness and light.
-"No killing." Suuuuuure, I believe you, Metatron. *side-eyes*
-*gaaaaaaaaaaaaasp* What? WHAT? *flail* IS IT WHAT'S LEFT OF BOBBY'S PLACE??? OR DID JODIE BUY IT AND REBUILD STUFF?? Oh hey, she probably phoned the guys after the choking up blood incident since she's smart and could tell it wasn't some kind of extreme allergy or ebola or something and Crowley might have left his witch kit in place and left, so she'd figure this was a weird thing, not a 'go see a doctor' thing, and the boys would tell her to burn the hex bag she found and they'd explain stuff and she'd mention Bobby's place was still abandoned if they needed a place to have a showdown, or whatever and just OMG YOU GUYS IT'S BOBBY'S PLAAAAAAAAACE!!!! *FLAILFLAILFLAIL*
-Admittedly, even if no one's rebuilt the house, Bobby had to have a lot of interesting crap squirreled away on that property. (Hey. I forget. How likely is it that the Apocalypse Bunker survived the fire? Because, I mean really, it's supposed to survive the Apocalypse, how's a fire supposed to take it out?)
-Baby at Bobby's. Aw. *sniffle*
-Oh my god. It's Bobby's car, you guys. I just- I can't even describe the noise I just made. Like, like... *gets up, walks over to shelf where the Hot Wheels Bobbymobile I made sits next to the mini-Impala from the Season 3 DVDs, takes it off the shelf, dusts it off, and puts it next to the computer* Just... aw. It's battered and broken and rusted out and grown over with weeds, but it's still there. *wistful smile*
-"Hello, boys." Oh get the hell out, Crowley! We're having a moment with Bobby's car. *makes shooing motions*
-Written by Jeremy Carver, half of Chuck's pen-name, directed by Phil Sgriccia who's been here pretty much since the start. *nods*
-Everything is innuendo for Crowley, and Dean beating him to the innuendo gets him to make this face, pretty much straight out the fourth wall. Hee!
-*sudden burst of envy for the display of capacious pockets* I used to have a jacket with pockets like that. I went to my school's grad party carrying a two pound hardcover omnibus novel in one of them.
-You know, sometimes I wonder if Crowley's contract length isn't compensating for something.
-"We swap tablet, you stand down from the Trials forever."/"And you stop killing everyone we've ever saved."/"Agreed." Something about just the terms as stated sound like they're full of easily exploitable loopholes, but I find myself distracted by shoulders for some reason.
-*giggles all over everything at Crowley's Rocky and Bullwinkle references*
-Fighting in front of Crowley, eh? Hm. They seemed to be on the same page earlier... Why do I think this is a delaying tactic? Hm. *ponders* Oh, and Second Tie Report for Crowley, back to the obfuscatory paisley. Up to his old tricks again.
-Ah, Naomi's got herself a new chew toy. Chew Toy Tie report: Shades of grey, in a sort of blended stripe. He's on the job but not quite sure what he's doing. Appropriate for working with Naomi. Or I assume it's Naomi based on the decor. Are the lens flares new?
-Chew Toy's name is Nathaniel. It's a good name.
-"One of our freelancers has reached out to us. He has found Castiel." ...OH FOR PETE'S SAKE. That's why the guy with the 'God loves you' sign was so conspicuous. I forgot about that time in a previous season when they had random human informers. I knew there was something odd about him. *facepalm*
-Ooo, Naomi looks pissed about Castiel hanging around with Metatron. Is that just because she knows he knows what's on the tablets, or is it because she knows he's got a plot running in opposition to hers?
-Hey, wait... If Dean's reading from the top of the contract to the bottom... shouldn't he have started close up to Crowley and been getting further away? I DETECT HIJINX IN PROGRESS!!! CROWLEY'S A DEMON, THEY KNOW HIS HISTORY TO TRY TO REACH HIS HUMANITY WITH, THEY COULD TRY AND CURE HIM, WON'T THAT BE FUN!
-AHAHAHAH! YEAH, GOTCHA. Keep all your demons away so they won't have the final part needed for the last Trial, but forgot about yourself. This should be very loud, very soon.
-"All I have to do is *click*" Don't think so.
-The problem with having your current arch-enemy chained to you with handcuffs he can't escape is that you're also chained to your current arch-enemy, and he can still try to pound the snot out of you. Uncappably.
-"I can do this all day, 'cause you know what? Damn, it feels good." Just in case we forgot that Dean did a stint torturing souls in Hell.
-"You're the third Trial, Crowley." Not specifically, he's just the only demon that's handy (except for the two idiots trapped in a storage locker somewhere that you could ask Kevin about). Also, it's kind of fitting to close the gates of Hell by taking out its current King. And hey, bonus chance to shock Crowley silent. Win all around! \o/
(Hee! Sam's hair wants to flyyyy! It's getting a bit "Everybody Loves a Clown" up there.)
-"The faster that man finds love, the faster that cupid will come." The logic does flow, but cupids tend to be more intent on generating genetically vessel-optimal progeny whether there is dating and love beforehand or not. How about find who in town is also from a strong vessel bloodline?
-"Trust me, I'm friends with friends who do this for a living." Awwwww. *smishes Castiel* Now go talk to those friends about what Metatron's telling you is the right thing to do. ...provided Dean's not still pissed off... sigh. SO MANY OF YOUR PROBLEMS AND APOCALYPSES WOULD BE PREVENTED IF YOU ALL JUST FRIGGING TALKED TO EACH OTHER!!! AAAAAAAAAH!
-"Would you say that you're looking for a partner in crime? Or someone who's into nurse role-play and light domination?" Oh there are going to be so many wrong impressions had here today. *facepalm*
(Metatron's face! Hee!)
-"You're not the most subtle tool in the shed are ya?" Heh heh heh. No, no he's not. Also, interesting use of the word 'tool' there, hm?
-"Kill him." Oh, right, wandering around out in the open means PEOPLE YOU DON'T WANT TO TALK TO CAN FIND YOU. (Though the angel on Naomi's left is looking at Metatron with some strange intensity there...)
-Our soon to be cupided barkeep's a feisty one.
-"Don't make this any worse. Please?" Great, now I'm wondering if Metatron's in cahoots with Naomi and this is just an elaborate way not to blow his 'I have pure and innocent reasons for wanting to do a hard reset on Heaven' cover. He's got a face for dissembling though. Just look at that face, with those puppy-dog eyes.
-They drove Crowley to an abandoned church in the back seat of the Impala. That must've been a fun road trip.
-"For the first time in a long time it feels like we're gonna win." Oh crap, Sam, seriously, don't say things like that. Fate doesn't need any more temptation than it's already got to mess up you guys' lives.
-"I have no clue what to say now."/"I could give you suggestions if you want." *snerk* Something about the Winchester boys improvising their own confessional out of the trunk of the Impala is making me laugh. Also the idea of Dean possibly suggesting sins Sam should confess. And Sam's face.
-"Just for starters." Heeeee. It's supposed to be Sam confessing his sins to get his blood holy or something, not 'Dean runs down the top five things Sam's done in the last few seasons that pissed Dean off.'
-"Why don't you lead with what you did to Penny deMarco in the sixth grade?"/"That was you."/"mouth-waffles* ...carry on." Heeee!
-And he's doing it in an empty confessional, with a busted screen, in the same room as Crowley. This should get... interesting.
-I suppose popping in from nowhere makes it difficult to knock, but landing a waiting a half-second while shuffling or clearing one's throat might tend to make the person one is popping in on less likely to either bash his head in on the trunk of the car or shoot one in the face with rock salt.
-"I've been working with him on the Angel Trials."/"The what??" This is another reason why you talk to your friends when you're doing something like trying to close off your home dimension from the plane of Earth. Friends like to be kept in the loop about such things.
-Oh crap. Metatron's in Naomi's mind-control Dremel chair. THIS DOESN'T BODE WELL. Even if he was probably running an agenda of his own that's about as good for humanity as Naomi's is. NOT WELL-BODING, THIS.
-"Debrief me." Ah. Naomi is the Archangels' chosen interrogator? It suits her.
-"Of the blessings set before you, make your choice and be content." Oooohooo hooo. That's nervy. (It's a quote from a book called Rasselas, by Samuel Johnson, by the way.) I do hope Metatron is on humanity's side, or at least not out to totally screw humanity over with this lockdown of Heaven, but he's ringing little plotty alarms in my head. I do like him, and the 'make your choice out of the options you have and walk the path it leads to' attitude he has at times. Especially when he's giving it to an Inquisitor-type angel, because choice, free will, etc. Would telling an angel like Naomi to use free will be like saying "shove it"? *ponders*
-Naomi does not approve. It's Dremel time.
-Talking to your friends about what you're up to also saves having to go through a long period of exposition and explaining yourself to them later on when time may perhaps be of the essence.
-"If anyone needs a chaperone while doing the heavy lifting, it's Sam."/"You should go." Ah hah hah. Yes. Of course Sam wants Dean to go. That way the inevitable 'Dean does something heroic and/or idiotic at the last second to take the last hit from the Trials for Sam' issue becomes Castiel's lookout. Hard to sacrifice yourself for your brother while you're ... what does Castiel think they can do anyway? Break in and bust Metatron out? Oi vey.
-"If I'm not back in 8 hours, finish it." Dean does have a heck of a lot more faith in Sam than he used to if he thinks he can heal Crowley solo in under 8 hours. And not have him go chestburster. Which would also be an interesting result. But not terribly helpful.
-Dean has this face. It's a very intense face that says a great many things, even when it's not making a sound. Castiel too.
-Dear location scouts. All the cookies are yours. Damn.
-A more practical option would have been to snag some empty blood donor kits from a blood bank, do the whole confess-pray-fast-meditate-purify dealie a day before, possibly with an actual priest (although it's be hard to find one who wouldn't freak out when you stated confessing about sleeping with demons and drinking their blood), do up a couple bags of purified blood, get some sleep, iron and fluids, and then go kidnap the King of Hell and set him up on a transfusion drip or something. Ah well. Hope Sam's got a good stock of juice and cookies to counteract the blood loss.
-That's another thing. If the Trials haven't purged all of old Yellow Eyes from Sam's blood, what's a shot of that demonic residue going to do when it mixes with Crowley?
-Hm. It would seem more logical to inject it into a blood vessel than in under his jaw (and possibly into a salivary gland?) but hey, who knows how demons redistribute their hosts' circulatory systems, right? *HANDWAVE*
-I'd just like to stop at this point and mention that Sam's hair is unreasonably pretty right now. But not evil or soulless type pretty. I don't know why.
-Well, crap! Okay, so the Trial radiation is burning out more demon stuff or what? If Sam gets a blood draw while he's flaring, what happens? *ponders*
-"Is this a joke?"/"No it's the Word of God." Pffft! *pats Castiel*
Also KEVIN IN THE BATCAVE! \o/ I wonder if he went around pushing all the buttons and getting lost in all the many rooms, after of course first staggering in and falling down on the closest soft object and sleeping for about 36 hours.
-What was I saying earlier about drinking the entire contents of the liquor cabinet, Kevin? He does have a very valid point about the time it takes to translate a tablet. Thought really he'd only need to get the final trial, and knowing what the first two were would act as a sort of Rosetta Stone... Hm...
-Castiel's a bit cranky, eh?
-"You are a Prophet of the Lord, always, and forever. ...until the day you cease to exist and then another Prophet takes your place." Oh ho. Is that what happened to Chuck? He wasn't God, he was just ceasing to exist? *ponders*
-Castiel's human resource management skills are shitty. Just saying.
-Also, seriously, if you want this to go fast, tell him what the 2/3 of the tablet you know about says before you go. *facepalm*
-See Sam (and Dean in absentia)? This is why you need to get some lessons in effective restraint methods. Chaining his hands together is all well and good, but not much use if you don't also restrain his arms to the chair in some way, so he can't do things like this, which are probably aimed at causing blood-loss, so the hourly blood draws are an even bigger challenge to withstand on Sam's end. Sigh. Idjits. *headshake*
-I miss Bobby. :-/
-Or Crowley's after a handful of sanctified blood. OH!!! HE'S AFTER ENOUGH BLOOD TO MAKE A BLOOD PHONE CALL, ISN'T HE!!! HE CAN MAKE IT WHILE SAM'S RUNNING OUT TO GET THE FIRST AID KIT WHICH HE STUPIDLY HADN'T BROUGHT INTO THE CHURCH EVEN THOUGH SAM KNEW HE'D BE BLEEDING AND DOING MEDICAL STUFF!! I LIKE CROWLEY, HE'S SMART!
-"This is your king. Send help immediately." WHEE! \o/ ...Heh hehehe. Um, the thing is, if the King of Hell is helpless, most demons are going to be inclined to drop by to finish him off and usurp his place, or just stop in to get some payback before attaching to the next big thing in Hell, which will likely be Abaddon. That's the trouble with ruling through fear and intimidation. When fear and intimidation aren't available to use as leadership tools, your underlings will turn round and rise up against you as soon as they know you're helpless, if they have any brains and gumption. Which many demons don't, but some do. Crowley's about to have an even badder day. Also Sam, because either way, he's kind of screwed.
-On the other hand, if Abaddon shows up in response to the call just to taunt Crowley (since he is in a Devil's Trap after all so she can't do much to him unless she wants to let him loose or be trapped too) about how she's taking over now and he'll be getting some "special treatment" when he goes home to Hell and then leaves, Crowley might turn around and co-operate with being healed, just to close Hell off and spite Abaddon. That'd be handy, and probably the only way Sam's going to manage to turn Crowley in under 8 hours. Or, since Abaddon knows why they'd have Crowley, she'll just kill him while he's trussed up in demon chains to take over Hell and prevent the Sam from completing the final trial in one fell swoop.. *nods*
-"Free drinks. Buddy over there thinks you saved his life." Yeah, I suppose it could look that way. Shoot someone, get grabbed from behind and your head smashed into your cooler, knocked out, wake up and the place is empty except for the intense weird and possibly flirty guy in a trenchcoat standing over you making sure you aren't dead so you'll still attract a cupid he can steal a bow from. Free drinks is reasonable.
-"You don't think it's wise to be drinking on the job?" Heh. Have you met Dean? Wisdom is not his strong suit when it comes to alcohol.
-"What show you been watching?" *CACKLES LOUDLY* HI THERE FOURTH WALL, HOW YOU DOIN'?
-Castiel having guilt and mission angst and maybe some nihilism is oddly enthralling.
-"So this is it. E.T. goes home." Aww. Castiel has no idea what you're talking about, Dean, but awwwwwww.
-"Holy crud, this is like the first five minutes of every porno I've ever seen." Sneeeeeerk.
-Oh, well hello! I guess the cupid brigade isn't as focused on bloodline extending genetic progeny producing matches only anymore? I had a feeling it might be that, since Castiel and Dean are intensely barking up the female tree and getting nowhere. Non-eugenics-focused cupid matching, just giving people a little nudge here and there. Cool.
-And they're adorable. Big furry love. Aww.
-*headshake* Ah Dean. Welcome to the 21st century. *pats*
-Sam is looking rough. This does not bode well, considering something is inbound, whatever way it's going to go for Crowley, it's not going to go well for Sam.
-Ooooo.... that's um. Alarming. Possibly helpful? If it's clearing the taint out of Sam's blood, and gets transferred to Crowley.... ooooo. Possibly extremely helpful.
-INCOMING!
-Cracking the floor of the building. Well, there's that as an option too.
-"Did you really think you could kidnap the King of Hell and no one was gonna notice, numbnuts?" Heee! Oh wait for it Crowley.
-HI ABADDON! Ooo, it's gonna get loud in here!
-SAM WHUMPAGE! \o/
-"Say your prayers, Moose!" Wait for it, Crowley. Juuuuust wait....
-Ooo, it's been a while since we had a good Winchester defenestration. Dark and uncappable, but oh well. Result: Sam out of the building, so Abaddon can get Crowley alone... Also more Sam whumpage. \o/
-"Undo these!" Um. How exactly? Demon-proof is demon-proof. Unless you go through Sam's pockets for the key, which I'm pretty sure Sam wouldn't have since it would be tactically silly to have it in the room with Crowley and Sam alone. But the boys have been tactically stupid before. And I'm pretty certain Abaddon doesn't give a crap about the key or cutting Crowley loose.
-Incidentally, judging by the injection marks, Sam's been at this with Crowley for 5 hours. 3 hours left on Dean's timetable. Point of trivia. In case anyone's keeping track. Didn't seem to be doing too much talking to Crowley though, and that was a major part of the whole process as we've seen it previously.
-"That was an order, was it?" Heh heh heh. Yep. Here we go. Told you to wait for it, Crowley.
-"I am your King." Yep. In chains. You used to be their head soul procurer. Ranks change, political structures change, allies change.
-"Talk first, stab later." HA! Things you never thought you'd hear Dean Winchester say.
-See, Crowley? You should've listened to me. Over-confidence is great, but don't extend it to your assessment of your minions' loyalty. You've been doing great, but you could use a refresher read of the Evil Overlords' Handbook. *headshake*
-"I AM YOUR KI-!"/*boot to the head* Yep. Silly Crowley.
-And Abaddon, since you're looking to become Queen of Hell, you may want to invest some time in acquiring minions, and until then, being aware of the mortal sneaking up behind you with a bucket of Holy Water. Tends to make you look like a doof in front of the masses when a whumped Winchester gets the drop on you. Hee!
-Or flammable stuff. Of some kind. Drawing a blank here. It's not Holy Oil, is it? That's for angels. Hm. Regardless, it's gonna be harder to Frankenstein her back together after that.
-Demon smokeout! Haven't had one of those in a while, and this leaves Abaddon available to pick a new host somewhere for later, or next season. The host... was seriously screwed before she was set on fire having been hacked to bits and brought forward in time, but WOULD IT NOT BE TERRIBLY HANDY IF SHE WAS OKAY AFTER THAT SINCE SHE WAS ONE OF THE MEN OF LETTERS INVOLVED IN DEVELOPING THIS DEMON HEALING RITUAL SAM IS RATHER SUCKING AT RIGHT NOW??? WOULD IT NOT JUST BE SO VERY VERY HANDY? HO BOY YES IT WOULD INDEEDY YOU BETCHA. If Sam can put her out and she survives long enough to say anything. O.O
-Hey! First hand intel about what's going on upstairs! Excellent! So, in summary, things actually have gone nuts and the Earthside agents have no idea what's up and are left to their own devices. And Castiel thinks what he's doing is going to help fix that, possibly by him locking himself into Heaven and playing Sheriff. Oh dear.
-Nifty! ...wait, are they going to have to chop her hand off? D-:
-Apparently so. Eep. Lets hope she can grow a new one. She was kind of pragmatically awesome.
-Meanwhile, Naomi is still Dremelling Metatron's brains out. Oh dear.
-"Did you really think you could do all that to me and there's be no payback?" Ahaha. Motivated by personal vengeance and Daddy issues. On this show? Really? What a shock! XD
-"You did good back there, Moose." Hee. A Winchester just saved your ass, Crowley. Even if Abaddon doesn't usurp you, you probably will have difficulty getting your underlings to take you seriously as the King of Hell again if they ever find out.
-Also apparently Abaddon's host is, um. Toast. Ah well. Missed opportunity there.
-Sam really must be suffering the blood loss if he thinks he can spray-paint a crack in the floor closed. *facepalm*
-Crowley *burbles about warzones and foxholes* Either that boot to the head messed him up or the demon-healing treatment is having an effect of some kind. Or Crowley's messing with Sam, but it doesn't seem like it this time. Orrrr, Crowley's stopped fighting the conversion process and is deliberately giving in so as to spike Abaddon's plans. If they heal Crowley, can we still keep Mark Sheppard? Please?
-"In all those hotels, you never once watched HBO? Not once?" Heeeeeee!
-"I DESERVE TO BE LOVED! I just want to be loved." Aw. Something's flipped a switch for Crowley, and it's kind of... awww. *smishes the King of Hell*
-Sam on the other hand is moderately disturbed by this.
-And when he thinks about it, so is Crowley. Scratch deliberate collusion then.
-"I'd like to ask you a favour... Sam." Aw. Is that the first time he's actually addressed Sam by name?
-"You were confessing, back there... what did you say?" Crowley is determined to make me go awwww at him for the rest of this episode, isn't he? Aw, wubbie. *pats*
-A tear! There's a tear! It's not capping, dammit but Crowley's crying single manly tears you guys, oh my god. *flail*
-Seriously, Sam, what are you even aiming for there. His spine?
-"I don't see anything about a Nephilim or a Cupid's Bow or anything like that." Oh reeeeeeeeally? What the heck is Metatron up to then?
-"The sports metaphors? You wanna motivate me? Magic cards, Skyrim, Aziz Ansari." Not sure who Ansari is, but HEE on the geek motivational metaphor template.
-OHSHITWINGFLAPPYNOISE, RUN!
-Crap.
-AHAHAHAAHAHAH, Dean's little body-bobble double-take thing as he realizes Castiel's fallen behind and the entity that spent half the season literally screwing around in Castiel's brain with power tools has shown up for a casual chat.
-"He told you he was going to fix heaven didn't he? Murdering a Nephilim, cutting off a cupid's bow." Cackling now, give me a minute. Oh Metatron, what exactly are you trying to do after all if it's not lock down Heaven, hmm? I'm now thinking he's de-authorizing all the current angels and taking over an empty Heaven with a clean template. Maybe, hehe, MAYBE, if that's what happens, maybe he'll take a look around the human souls up there and convert a few of them to new angels. Like, say Bobby. Heh heh heh. Bobbiel. Heheh. He'd be so pissed.
-Oh good, Kevin's in the loop.
-"Expel all angels from Heaven, just as God cast out Lucifer." WOO! Ahahahahahahah! Yeah, that's sounding like a sensible solution, because really, the whole lot of them aren't doing too well on the following God's plan stuff, although it would have helped if God had left some notes or a Power Point or something.
-Castiel by this point is pretty sick of being jerked around and manipulated and lied to by, well, all the entities in his home command structure, really. Except Samandiriel, who they forced him to kill. I totally understand him feeling stabbity.
-"If Sam completes those Trials he is going to die." No shit, Sherlock. Wouldn't be much of a Trial if it ended in ice cream and puppies.
-"Metatron has been neutralized." Not really... You kind of left him in your interrogation chair in your office in Heaven (I assume) staring significantly at your angel-brain-Dremel. Didn't look particularly neutralized to me. There'd be less significant staring and more vacant drool.
-"Is she lying?"/"I don't know."/"Well find out!" Intel from an unreliable source, gotta love it. Can't ignore it in case it's true, can't assume it's true in case it's a trap. Lovely, mayhem everywhere! *twirls*
-"Take me to him now!" Because whether Naomi's lying or not, Dean can't take the chance, because he's Dean, and 'protect Sammy' is the base code of his universe.
-"Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus" YAY, LATINATION! I DON'T KNOW HOW SAM CAN READ THAT IN THE DARK (maybe by Trial radiation light?), BUT YAY ANYWAY! \o/
-Bloody facepalm time! With glow! Oh this could be... uh... I don't know. Messy? Bright? Interrupted by Dean? Oh that's the one.
-"I'm not wrong. I'm going to fix my home." Oh dear. Castiel, you're a well-meaning guilt-raddled fool. Also, do you even know what the third thing of whatever Trial it is you're doing is? I mean, you probably know it's not rainbows and unicorns, but if you have no idea what the last thing is, how are you supposed to accomplish it?
-"SAMMY, STOP!" DEAN SAID SAMMY! *FLAAAAAAAAAILS*
-Sam's face! XD
-Oh, well crap. Yeah. I really don't think you had him neutralized, there, Naomi.
-"She told you I lied, didn't she." The angel blade to the throat is really not helping your case, Metatron.
-"You should have listened to the bitch." Hooo! Well, nice to come all the way out of the evil Machiavellian plotting closet I suppose.
-So dark, probably can't see it, but more cookies for the location scouts. Prettyyyyyyy.
-"You finish this trial, you're dead, Sam."/"...so?" *cackles madly and slow claps* Yep. Someone was aware of what he was getting into, and isn't too bothered by having to end his life to close the world off from Hell. Considering he's already technically done it once by doing the Hell-dive at the end of season five to end the Apocalypse, although that didn't last. Dean however, is having a moment of 'Sam's not allowed to sacrifice himself for the good of the party humanity, I have to stop him or do it for him or both' denial, and so the last *glances at counter* 10 minutes or so of Season 8 are going to be a wrassling match over who gets to throw themselves on the unexploded Crowley. Who really, might just get tired of waiting, grab Sam's hand with both his handcuffed ones and smack himself in the face with the glowing demon healing blood of doom. Which Dean doesn't have at all so how does he even think he can do this for Sam anyway? Yeah, I know. Because he's Dean goddamn Winchester and he has to try. Of course. Carry on.
-Back in the brain Dremel chair. Hm. I wonder what the third Trial for expelling angels from Heaven might be? Could it possibly involve, say, nasty things happening to the angel undergoing the Trials? Maaaaaaaybe.
-Hey, hang on, back up a second... There was no wing burn for Naomi. Tools and stuff on the floor, but no wing burn. We know angels do show a wing burn when they die in the plane of Heaven because all the ones Castiel zapped at the start of Season 7 had it. What if Naomi's not dead? What if she Dremelled Metatron into thinking he's been plotting to throw the angels out of Heaven all along and is evil and... no, no, wait. He started the Trial business before Naomi got him, so the Trials are doing whatever he's intended them to. Hm. Still. No wing burn for Naomi. Hmmmmmm. *ponders* Anyway, back to Castiel.
-Metatron sure can bring the creepy when he lets his dark side out.
-OH FUCKOHFUCKOHFUCK AAAAH!!! O.O
-"These were never Trials Castiel. This is a spell." WELL CRAP. OF COURSE IT IS. *headdesk* Heart of a Nephilim, Cupid's Bow, it's spell components, and now Metatron's collecting the essence of gelfling angel who did bad things or whatever to make up the somatic components.
-"Your essence, your Grace, it's the last piece." Shit. ALL OF IT??? O.O
-"Find a wife, make babies. When you die and your soul comes to Heaven, Find me. Tell me your story." GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH WHY IS THAT THE CREEPIEST THING EVER? Oh wait, because of this face.
-"Other people will die if I don't finish this." Sam, talking logically to Dean isn't going to work right now. He's in 'save Sammy' mode and no amount of logic will get through if it ends in 'Sammy has to die'.
-Dean *proposes using what they've learned doing the Trials to keep fighting Hell and leaving it open* "But I can't do it without you." HI THERE, DEAN'S ABANDONMENT ISSUES. Dean, you dumbass wounded codependent twit, the only reason any of that sounds like a good idea to you now is you can't cope with the alternative of Sam dying, again, and any excuse to not let that happen sounds like a good idea in your beautifully broken brain. And yet if it was Dean in that position instead of Sam, right after he said "So?" Dean would have smacked Crowley in the face and completed the Trials. Eight years, and after the various 'we are both equals and Sam is a grown up and can make his own choices' steps that have happened. It probably doesn't help that Sam's Trial radiation poisoning has put Dean into mother-hen mode and probably nudged his protective instincts towards the surface of his motivations either. Dean still reverts to base coding under stress. Let the world burn, save Sammy. Oh Dean. Look at that face. Just look at it.
-"You think I screw up everything I try." Oh Sam. Oh boys.
-"You wanna know what I confessed in there? What my greatest sin was? Was how many times I let you down." OH SAAAAAAAAAAAM *flail*
-"What happens when you've decided I can't be trusted again? I mean, who you gonna turn to next time instead of me? Another angel? Another vampire?" AAAAAH! TRUST ISSUES! It's great that this is finally being talked about, but now it's all just- *sad flailing everywhere*
-"You seriously think that? Because none of it, none of it, is true." AND THIS IS WHY YOU NEED TO TALK TO EACH OTHER INSTEAD OF BUILDING THICKER WALLS DAMMIT!!! AAAAAAAA!!! WINCHESTERS!!!
-"But Sammy. Come on." *flaaaaaail*
-Yeah, I'm just going to flail incoherently for a while here while Dean says things, don't mind me. (Dean's voice when he says 'mom', oh god. And, just, everything else, I can't even. Just *flail*)
-"How do I stop?" An excellent point. The Trial radiation won't be going away until it's served its purpose, so pain and choking up blood and feeling like shit until the end, whenever that comes.... yeah. Moving on.
-"We'll figure it out, just like we always do. Come on. *hug* Let it go." OH DEAN YOU SNEAKY BASTARD I SEE WHAT YOU'RE DOING. Let it go, energy transfer or something. Dean picks up the Trial radiation, heals Crowley (who really is ready to stop being a demon if he's been sitting there quietly while all this is going on in the room with him.) Damn you Dean for subverting a hug into a way to sacrifice yourself for your brother. Sorry, wrong blame. *scrolls back up* DAMN YOU JEREMY CARVER FOR SUBVERTING A WINCHESTER HUG!!!
-And then I get a sudden highly inappropriate attack of the giggles because this is probably the same method that wee!Dean used when burping baby!Sammy after a bottle. Hee!
-Ah, okay, so it didn't pass over, it's still in Sam. But it's got to go somewhere...
-...liiiike launching an all-out assault on some internal organs or something. Eeep.
-"Cas! Castiel!" If Metatron's used Castiel's Grace as a spell component, Castiel's never going to flutter in to save their butts again. Awwww. Admittedly, it's a sensible move from a GameMaster perspective. If an NPC or PC and has an overabundance powers and abilities compared to the rest of the party, so as to make handling most problems a matter of calling that character in to do something about it, that character has to be impaired or de-powered in some way to rebalance the party. *nods* That said, AW CASTIEL!!
-OH. RED LIGHT IN THE BATCAVE. THAT'S NEW. NOT ALARMING AT ALL, THAT. BUT THEN IT'S AN ALARM. IT'S RAISON D'ETRE IS TO BE ALARMING. IS IT THE MEN OF LETTERS' CLOISTER BELL THAT GOES OFF WHEN THERE'S AN INBOUND APOCALYPSE????
-AND THINGS START TURNING ON BY THEMSELVES OH HOLY CRAP.
-I wonder now though if all that stuff has been quietly going off in the Batcave even though no one was there for the big stuff that's gone down over the past few seasons. Aw, poor Batcave.
-Meanwhile, Castiel is unpowered and wandering in the woods. Looking up. Waaaay up.
-Now things are lighting up in an organized fashion. What the hell. Like a system startup check? Why am I suddenly thinking of giant robots... Also, Kevin, I know you're planning to jam out of there for some reason ("Hate Winchesters, hate tablets, hate demons, hate Kansas. Bye."), but maybe calling someone to let them know their secret base is doing weird crap would be a nice parting gesture. Even just a quick "Hey guys, all the lights are flashing, uh, gotta go. Bye now!"
-"Sammy!" Dean's using up the last several seasons allotments of 'Sammy's in the last ten minutes of this episode. Yay! \o/
-Strange whooshy-animal noises do not bode well! A flight of demons? O.o
-Right, Crowley's still sitting there all depowered and feeling human and vulnerable and contemplating all his sins. It wouldn't be a good time for some usurpers to try and take him out before the Winchesters convert him completely, would it? Naaaaaaaah.
-RIFT OPENING RED ALERT!!! \o/ Hm. Might it be for a major demonic incursion?
-Oh, hey, Torchwood watchers? Think the batcave could be Torchwood Four? It's been missing since before 1941... *ponders*
-One of the first things Castiel's going to learn about being an unpowered human (again) is that when you run (uncappably) through the woods without looking where you're putting your feet, you trip over roots and shrubbery and fall flat on your face.
-Oh. Well shit. They're all coming. Except in Russia, Iceland, Japan, Greenland, Alaska, parts of Norway, Sweden Finland, Africa.... I wonder if that's due to lower populations or if they just have better anti-all-Hell-breaking-loose defenses. Though there's quite a few in the Canadian Territories and Northern BC, Alberta and Saskatchewan and the population density there averages in the low decimals, so... hm. Also, AWESOME to see things happen globally rather than just in the lower 48, although too bad it's probably a massive influx of demons and the end of the world, etcetera. O.O
-And decision time for Kevin. Run away, or stay and help? Running away is looking like a really bad idea right now to be honest.
-OH! It's just the Angels falling. ...oh. I think I'll just cap for a while because... Wow. O.O
(they really like using that clearing location, it's the one from the fireworks flashback I think, which adds an extra boggle element)
(AAAAAAAAH!!! WINGS TEARING OFF ON FIRE! THAT CAN'T FEEL GOOD!)
(That either.)
-"What's happening?" Something you guys didn't do, for a change.
-One thing I have to say, I like that they have distinct origin points, where they've popped in from the plane of Heaven, so that Heaven isn't necessarily literally 'up there', that's just where the planar interface is. *nods like that makes sense*
-"Angels. They're falling." And for a reason that wasn't one I'd theorized. Hooray for unexpected turns!
Well! That's going to be an interesting set of challenges to face when the new season starts... THIS TUESDAY!! \o/
(PLEASE NO REFERENCES TO SEASON 9 IN COMMENTS! WHICH BEGINS AIRING ON THE CW ON TUESDAY OCTOBER 8TH. THAT'S THIS TUESDAY!! CHECK YOUR LOCAL LISTINGS/USUAL SOURCES.)