SPN 10.02: i've met my share of monsters.
SPN 10.02
There are not enough exclamation marks in the WORLD for this episode.
(SPOILERS follow)
1. you don’t know what i’ve done. i might have it coming.
This is Dean, with no attachment and infinite power. This is Dean, with the sudden ability to do whatever the fuck he wants with nobody to answer to but himself, and he uses this to sing karaoke, drink the kind of quantity of alcohol that would have a human poop out his liver in a matter of days, murder according to the code that he makes up on the spot, claim entitlement over women’s bodies and their loyalties, and keep friends as long as they do what he wants. He’s enamoured of this concept of ‘evil’-I’m a demon, he says, over and over again, flicking his eyes black like it’s a cool party trick-he’s seen enough of that in his lifetime to hit all the regular notes: I’m going to rip out your throat, he says, then adds, with my teeth, just in case the gore wasn’t enough. I didn’t show him mercy and we’re howling at the moon and you have no idea how dark and the snarling.
Except-you’re not that kind of ‘monster’ monster, Dean, as much as you’d like to think you are, as much as you pretend to be. Demons are souls that ferment over time in Hell, and when they come out, they’re evil, sure, but they have structure, loyalties, a commitment to a higher cause. They have ambition, they have power, they have a plan. Demons are cultivated, not born. The Mark of Cain sustains your corpse via demonic energy and speaks to the basest parts of your undead brain. That’s it. That’s why you’d rather run away than commit to Crowley’s cause, that’s why you do your own thing on a mission and then come back proud of what you’ve done (Dean assaulting a stripper one scene and still feeling ‘righteous’ over having punched out and killed ultra-sleazy Lester in the next-typical Dean). You are a monster, Dean, the kind of monster you’ve always been, just unfiltered and uninhibited.
(This probably explains why all that smirking was grating-it was literally his sole expression throughout the episode. Dean, you care so much about not caring, about letting the world slide off your shoulders and roll into a sewer grate. Here’s the trick: even demons care about something. You, sir, are not one.)
2. the ‘monster’ monsters!
Breaking news: it continues to be painful to watch Sam destroy himself for his brother. Especially knowing that nothing he does will ever be ‘right’, will ever be enough. He’s trying to make the best of a bad situation-he’s just found out that Dean’s a demon, Cole’s come out of nowhere with a vendetta against Dean, and the only friend Sam has at this stage that he can confide in is dying and has his own plate full. He pushes all of this aside, and, as Sam does, single-mindedly pursues Dean. He’ll deal with the other stuff later. He tortures and gets tortured; he escapes, staggers in and out of battlefields one-handed, bruised and battered, armed with holy water and faith and whatever deep, deep reserves of energy he has in his husked-out body. He does everything that he thinks Dean has done for him and everything he thinks he has to do for Dean in return; he has been punished for daring to seek refuge in the outside world and punished further for seeking that refuge in the afterlife, and knows now that only in death does the Winchester family live. He will kill the best parts of himself to get to Dean and still nod his head in resigned acceptance when Dean dismisses it.
It’s so telling that his first expression of genuine surprise is when he sees how filthy the Impala is.
3. see, that’s exactly what a psycho-liar would say.
First off, COLE HAS ALL MY LOVE.
Secondly, is that Trent or Trenton? Two episodes in, and we’re still not 100% sure of his last name-it leaves me antsy.
Thirdly, yes. Here’s one of the hundreds of people caught in the messes left behind by hunters, and why hunters only succeed in creating monsters in the name of destroying them. Cole doesn’t know or care about why Dean Winchester gutted his father in his home-he only cares that he pays. That conversation he has with Sam is fantastic for a lot of reasons, but the striking part for me was when Cole was going on about all the real world horror and trauma that he’s been through, and Sam comes back with, ‘but ‘monster’ monsters: vampires, werewolves-!’ and it sounds weak even to his own ears, although he knows it to be true. Cole can only look on with disgusted derision.
And I love that the moment Cole finds out that the stuff Sam was blathering on about is real, he goes straight back to the drawing board, in a way that would give even Sam a run for his money.
I JUST WANT HIM AND SAM TO BE FRIENDS
(And Cole’s 24, apparently, which startled me because he doesn’t look or carry himself like he’s 24 and calls 31 year old Sam ‘kid’, but okay emmram, I thought to myself, just because you don’t act like a responsible adult at 24 doesn’t mean nobody else does. But then I remembered that he has a wife and a kid who looks at least seven years old, so either he became a father at age 17 and then joined the military the very next year, or he married a single mom and is not biologically related to that boy. Either way: Cole’s had an interesting life and I WANT TO KNOW MORE)
4. i don’t want to get… boned.
Bahaha! The funny thing with Crowley is that you never quite know if what happened was according to his Grand Plan, but he’s more than willing to take credit for all the good bits. He invested quite a lot in Dean-more than a strictly professional King of Hell would do-and he can’t even get Dean to do a simple crossroads job. He’s been mucking around with the guy, ‘doing things to triplets’, so much so that his aide gets excited over a o.o3% increase in demon conversion rate (IN MY DAY-). LOL.
Ultimately though, Sam comes along, and there Crowley’s on far more familiar territory. He gets the First Blade back, and with it, his leverage over Dean.
(Do you think, though, as part of the Finder’s Fee (lol), Sam killed Mindy? Man, I hope not, but I am not putting this past Show).
5. that sounds like some very special snot.
HOW ADORABLE IS CASTIEL, THOUGH
I sometimes wonder if stealing the grace is analogous to a kind of reverse-possession-pulling someone else’s essence to power your body instead of the other way round. Castiel is in a weird position-because that still is Jimmy Novak’s body that’s now his. If Jimmy’s soul has been eliminated/sent to heaven, then Castiel’s grace powered that walking corpse, much like Ruby in s4. So for Castiel to have survived in Jimmy’s body on s9, even as a human, there must’ve been some remnants of his grace still stuck inside. Now that Theo’s grace is leaking out, Jimmy’s body is revisiting all the years of extreme wear and tear that Castiel put it through (much like Sam in 9.11). I wonder if Castiel just needs the right stimulus to tap into that residual grace of his, so that he can at least live at the level of ‘human’?
(Also, what if Jimmy’s soul’s still in there, though? If Castiel ‘dies’ then do we get Jimmy back? Is that what eventually leads us to Claire?)
Oh, and! Sam and Dean may be a little rough around the edges, but they are the best men I’ve ever known. God I can’t wait for this to change.
6. Padalecki just keeps hitting it out of the park, damn.