Episode Re-somethings: Supernatural 4.01-4.04

[diurnal_lee]

The trouble with mainlining episodes like this is that they get jumbled together in my head. Especially those episodes that follow the tiresome formula familiar from--did it start in season 2?--in which the otherwise interesting story of the week is capped by a talking heads infodump of shocking expositoriness and angst.

But.

Awe. Some.

Stuff that freaked me out:

• Dean's flashbacks. I see them when I close my eyes. Feels like, "Eek!" every time.
  
• Dean's emergence and trip to the store. It was like the opening scene to a post-apocalyptic film, with the weird, overbright light, and the blasted trees, and the total lack of people. I wondered if he was in some new iteration of his person Hell, one in which humanity is gone and he is completely and utterly alone. Dean would--not do well in such a Hell.
  
• I couldn't tell whether the rugarru guy was going to eat or rape his wife.
  
• Burnt out eyes and bleeding ears.

Things that made me go, "Hmm.":

• How did Azazel guarantee that his chosen parents would have a child of exactly six months of age exactly ten years after sealing their deals?
  
• Do rugarru (sp?) become fertile just before they enter their metamorphosis stage? Or is the metamorphosis triggered by pregnancy of their mates?
  
• When Elkins came for the Colt, did he talk to John or Mary? Or did he just steal it back?
  
• Witnesses are insidiously scary, because something about them makes even the most knowledgeable victims fall under their spell. That hunter in the opening scene looked seriously badass, and we know what Bobby and the boys are like, yet they all let the things chat them up and get too close, even though they knew better. Oh, wait--Sam didn't, did he? Is he immune to insidious witness badassery because of its Lilith origins?
  
• If all roads lead to the same destination, how can "we" not know where Sam's dark road is headed? Angels are confusing.
  
• Does Ruby have to do everything Sam tells her to?
  
• Hunters, hunters everywhere.

Awesome!

• Is it possible that the acting coming from the Js is even better this season? How is that possible?
  
• Badass Hunter!Mary!
  
• Castiel. Just, yes. So not on Dean's side. And it's so cool that he comes across as alien, but still manages screen chemistry.
  
• Brother versus brother smackdown in the works. Damnit. Hurts my heart in such a good way.
  
• So does the whole family history of desperate demon dealing.
  
• So does Sam with the lying about who he is.
  
• And Dean with the crisis of faith in who he is.
  
• Azazel still being Azazel, even faced with a hunter who thinks he knows some'pn 'bout some'pn.
  
• Bobby's panic room.
  
• Sam and the amulet.
  
• Dean wearing Sam's clothes.
  
• The cool effect when the anti-witness spell swept out from Bobby.
  
• Meg. Hendrickson. Ron Resnick!

So, yeah. Not too dark. Can I work with these arcs with the fic idea I have in mind? That remains to be seen.