Rewatch S6: Unforgiven (6.13)
I don't have many notes, but again, that's no reflection of my enjoyment of the episode.
I was actually able to recognize the clothes in black&white! Woo! You know you spend too much time looking at the Winchester's clothes when...
Ok, let's dive right in...
Soulless!Sam being a badass unethical dude. I DO feel sorry for Samuel in this episode - I'm pretty sure spending the year with Soulless!Sam didn't help his attitude any. This is about the ONLY episode where I feel sorry for Samuel though.
Also, poor deputy.
Also - SUPERHERO HOODIE! NO!!! YOU HAVE BEEN DAMAGED AND BLED UPON, not to mention had your reputation besmirched by soullessness!
"So, Mel Gibson really took a turn this year."
"Or he's possessed. Seriously, think about it."
-It DOES make a lot of sense. I wonder if there are hunters who specialize in celebrities. :P
"You got mysterious coordinates, from a mysterious Mr. X, leading to a mysterious town and that doesn't throw up red flags to you?"
"Maybe, but that doesn't mean we can just ignore a bunch of missing girls."
-Oh Dean, look, Sam has his soul back and it just makes your life difficult in a different way.
I like the way they did the memories in this one. Black and white makes it hard for me to tell clothes, but it's an aesthetic that I enjoy. Also, I like the weird angles and close-up shots that they used in a lot of the memories. I don't know about you, but that's how my memories actually look. Like, I remember having a very important conversation with my best friend once, and the visual is his bookcase. (This might also be because I have an aversion to eye-contact).
"What was that? She just cougar-eyed you."
-Oh come on, she's not that old. And who wouldn't cougar-eye Sam? I would, and he's deliciously in my age-range.
"Hey, hop to, would you!"
"We can't go, Dean."
"Uh, yeah we can."
-I love brothers.
"Ok, but why the genderbend? First it's dudes than it's chicks - that's a totally different MO."
-This is how I feel about genderbend fics, but that's off topic.
"One of Dad's rules: You never use the same crapper twice."
"Everyone uses the same crapper twice."
"Not us."
*Sam looks at him*
"You know what I mean."
-Oh man, I really do love this conversation. I love how serious Dean is, and Sam is giving him the "you be crazy" look.
"Dad ALSO said, you finish what you start."
-Let's have an argument consisting solely of Dad quotes!
"Ok, I get it."
"Do you?"
"Yes, you're afraid I'll stroll down memory lane, and I'll kick this wall inside my head so hard that hell comes flooding in, and then all of a sudden I'm some drooling mess on the floor..."
"It's not a joke."
-I like the way they play this, because well, not to compare Sam's hell wall with my piddly medical problems, but I always do this - you know, walk around town in the middle of the night when I have a fever, because the cold air feels good, even though it might not be the best thing to do health-wise; decide I'm fine to walk around downtown on a sprained ankle and then get surprised when my foot feels like it's on fire and I want to burst into tears....my poor friends.
"What's happening here is because I messed up...so every person that dies, that's on me. I have to stop it, and you would do the same thing."
-Winchester guilt - everything in the world is their fault, especially the things that are their fault.
"And how would you characterize their relationship?"
"Relationship? No they weren't having-"
"Just, how would you describe the tone of their conversation."
"Well - loud...and...athletic."
-Mmm....I love loud and athletic conversations.
"Man, you are dumb as a sack of hair."
-Oh, the hair-jokes.
Cinematography in the prison scene with Brenna Dobbs is AWESOME. (<----click to read me rave about it in a post I've already done). I will also touch on these issues later.
"What? The boxed stuff doesn't get better with age, Don!"
-Love this line.
No, lady, that's when you open the box and squeeze the bag of wine - you don't need to go to the cellar and get attacked by a giant spider. Oh man, obviously, I need to teach you how the proper way to be a classless wino.
"I gotta say man, you really got around - I mean soulless or not, I'm impressed."
-Poor Sam. I wonder how it feels to not have any memory of sleeping with more chicks than you've previously banged in your entire life.
"You stay here, Sam"
"Fine, go!"
*Sam leaves*
-*shakes head* Like I said, souled-Sam just gives Dean different, more familiar, headaches.
"...I found the connection between all the chicks - they all banged the same dude. It's YOU, Sam..."
-I wonder if this is the writers purposefully making fun of the whole "everyone Sam has sex with dies" theme.
"Deanna got pregnant, we didn't know what we were going to do, but Mary was - a blessing."
...
"He misses her. It's nice you have each other."
"Oh well, Samuel wasn't really around when I was a kid. We have more of a business relationship."
-Because you are incapable of love.
"He was a good man. I've made peace that he's dead - I have. I just want to know what happened."
"I'm sure he died a hero."
-Uh, yeah....he kind of died a poor schmuck.
"Whoa whoa"
"I almost shot you! Again!"
- Sam has really gotten into the habit of almost shooting Dean. But seriously, Dean should know better then to not announce himself from a safe distance away.
"So, we know that this is a monster with opposable thumbs and unlimited text-messaging, and we know that it wants to kill you specifically - does that about cover it?"
-Monsters of the modern age...
"I remembered"
"You remembered. I'm sorry, what else did you remember?"
...
"We're leaving."
"No, we can't."
"We are not the only hunters on the planet. We could call Bobby, he and Rufus could come and wrap this up."
"How? Like you said, it could be anybody and we've got jake for leads!"
"We know it hates you!"
"I know who did this, I just can't remember."
"I don't think you get the risk here, Sam."
-I love this feeling that Jared brings across so well - and that's the frustration of not being able to remember something you KNOW, and not being able to let it go. "What year was the french revolution?" and I can NEVER REMEMBER, and each time it drives me nuts until I eventually just have to look it up AGAIN, but like...imagine if trying to remember the date could possibly kill me, I'd still probably sit there for five minutes going 1792? I think? Is that right? Goddamn it, I'm going to have to double check. (And see, I was wrong, it was 1789! WHY CAN I NEVER REMEMBER THAT?!") My mum does the same thing when something goes missing. If she can't find something, she WILL NOT REST until she finds it. It's...kind of annoying at times, but kind of useful too. Sometimes when I don't want to both looking, I just ask my mum to find it and then sit back and let her go insane with frustration instead.
"I'm staying here, and I need you to back me up."
"Alright, well, let's Momento this thing shall we."
- I love the silent exchange that goes on with these lines. Sam's pleading look, and Dean's regretful smile and defeat.
"...we need bait that fits the demo, not to young and not too old."
"89 and counting."
-Samuel looks good for an 89 year-old, I guess being dead for over 30 years helps.
"It's just, not the way I'm used to doing things."
"Got it. Welcome to the future, let's go."
...
"My god son, you're about as cold as they come..."
-Again, this is the ONLY episode where I feel sympathy for Samuel. And again, I do wish he had been given the opportunity to know the real Sam (and Dean) and see how wrong he was about his decisions....but, I guess that would have taken way too long.
"I don't know about Arachne, but I do know spiders - one brown recluse can kill you..."
-Uh, lots of spiders that don't kill you...but yeah, I mean, technically Sam was right here. He just should have gone a bit further and decapitated them as well.
"You saved a lot of lives. You're a hero."
-He'd really only be a hero if he AGREED to be bait.
Ah Vancouver snowstorms - always so goddamn wet.
Make-up really did a great job on Sheriff Dobb's face.
"You killed one monster, you made so many more, congratulations"
-Ouch.
"Brenna - look, I am so sorry. Brenna, I mean, I-"
*slam*
-Hint: There is no way you can make up for that, or anything that you did while soulless.
"Sammy, you gotta understand that all that crap last year, all of it - none of it was you."
"Let's be crystal clear, ok? It was me."
-This is the thing, and I mention it in my post about the cinematography that I linked to above. In the question of whether Soulless!Sam was Sam or not: I believe that Sam, as we know him - and as we later find out this season - is comprised of BOTH parts. He's the soul and he's the body/mind. Just the soul is not Sam, and just the body/mind is not Sam, you need them both together. So, although Sam inevitably ends up with both sets of memories - I personally don't really think he can say that Soulless!Sam was him, that those were Sam's actions. Of course, that being said, I think the soul is more fundamentally Sam than the body/mind is, so I don't know where that leaves my theory.
"Can I get you anything?"
"What are you now, my waitress?"
"I'm just trying to make you feel better, don't be a bitch."
"Yeah, I'm fine."
"Yeah, you look fine. All I'm saying is that everything is going to be okay."
"I don't know Dean, if I did this here, then who knows how many other-*thump*"
-There should be a rule, don't ever say "everything is going to be okay." :P
-So, the Great Wall of Sam lasts approximately 1 episode before cracks start to show.
-I do love how they do this mirror of when Dean was in hell - with the shot through the eye in the hellscape. Very nice. Also a horrible cliffhanger between episodes.
So, short one today! Which means I have plenty of time to do other stuff! I've got a demented'verse fic written, but I might wait until next week to post it.