Rewatch S7: The Slice Girls (7x13)
The last resurgence of the Amy storyline...
Teaser death... those are some nice boots, Killer Amazon Chick.
Aww, Dean sleeping in the car while Sam drives... and snoring. Adorable.
Sam: "Morning."
*Dean drinks*
Sam: "Is that Bobby's? I didn't know you kept that."
Dean: "Yeah, mine sprung a leak."
Sam: "You know, most people would just carry a photo-"
Dean: "Shut-up man, I'm honouring the guy. It's grief-therapy. Like you and your wild goose chase."
Sam: "Wild goose chase? Four guys murdered in two weeks, hands and feet cut off...."
- So this led me to some interesting thoughts.
1) I remembered that Sam's reaction to John's death was to throw himself into hunting, in a weird attempt to please his father posthumously. In 7x11, we got Sam trying to save someone else to possibly make up for the fact that he couldn't save Bobby. Sam's whole character centers around a constant desire for redemption and atonement - so throwing himself back into hunting would make sense even after Bobby's death IF he were going after cases that in some way reminded him of Bobby...like, for instance, if he caught wind of this case not because some single-guy got offed, but because two fathers had been killed (and Sam just didn't realize yet that they had been having affairs). I think that would nicely tie in SAM'S grieving process with the need for MOTW episodes.
2) I remembered back in Death Takes a Holiday (4x15), when Dean and Sam explained to that dead kid that as long as he was hanging around his mother as a ghost, SHE couldn't be happy - she couldn't get over his death. He wasn't helping her by staying, he was prolonging her misery and making things worse, even though she didn't know he was there or WHY she couldn't work past his death. So, if Bobby is hanging around that flask, and that flask is always with Dean... then what if that was what was causing Dean to drop off the deep end of his depression? I think they should have toyed with that idea more, if they insisted on bringing Bobby back.
So, the coroner looks like the guy from...Bones? Numbers? You know the guy I mean though, right?
Coroner: "You guys always work this late?"
Dean: "Ugh, the hours suck, but great benefits package."
Coroner: "Oh yeah?"
Dean: "10% co-pay on all drugs."
Coroner: "Seriously? But just generic right?"
Dean: "No, no, brands are cool."
- I love this way of lying - like, Dean doesn't just go for the "we are FBI" he makes it even more believable by talking about the mundane aspects of the job, like the benefits package. :P
Dean: "I'll admit, it could be in the general vicinity of the ballpark of our kind of thing."
Sam: "Yeah, 'didn't match anything human' usually seals the deal for me."
- Hehehe. I love Sam.
Dean: "You do that, I'll go undercover, go mingle amongst the locals and see what clues bubble to the service."
Sam: "You're going to a bar"
Dean: "Wow. If you want to oversimplify it."
- I just like this exchange.
Lydia: "What? Are you ready for the big commit?"
Dean: "Me? Not exactly."
- But only because you can't, not because you don't want to.
Dean: "Arigato"
Lydia: "You speak Japanese?"
Dean: "Enough to get by."
Lydia: "Wow, look at you."
Dean: "Yeah, look at me."
- Bobby spoke Japanese, and I think trying to be clever here is actually depressing the hell out of Dean. :(
SEX SCENE. We get so few of these. Oh yeah, and it's interspersed with some guy getting slaughtered. I really do love some ACDC. Dean loves smart dominating women, Lydia is basically his kryptonite.
Dean: "Did you figure out that symbol?"
Sam: "No, we're going to need an expert."
Dean: "Expert? Our expert's dead."
- I like the look Sam gives Dean here, like "please don't be so blunt about it. It breaks my heart."
A whole bunch of west coast native art on those walls in the hallway... I guess to anyone else it probably just looks like "art", but to me it's like a neon sign saying "You are in BC."
*Lydia hangs up on Dean*
Dean: "She's real busy"
*Sam makes a false sympathetic face and then smiles and walks off*
- Hehehe, oh Sam, you are loving joking around with your brother. I think Sam's partially doing it to try to cheer Dean up somehow. It's that old tease-someone mercilessly in the hopes of making them laugh strategy.
I hate birth scenes...and the sound of babies crying...but mostly birth scenes. If I wanted to see a women giving birth, I'd be a doctor...or a woman giving birth.
Prof. Morrison: "Oh, this will require some research."
Sam: "Okay, well, I guess we'll be seeing you tomorrow."
Prof. Morrison: "Tomorrow? I've spent entire sabbaticals on something like this."
- Oh academia... also, we really were spoiled with the existence of Bobby for all these years.
Sam: "So what are we supposed to do, Dean. Spin our wheels?"
Dean: "Sam, this IS us spinning our wheels!"
Sam: "Dean, you know what, I want to call him too, believe me - but Bobby's not here, so we're settling."
- BECOME EXPERTS YOURSELVES! LEARN NOT TO RELY ON OTHER PEOPLE! YOU DON'T HAVE TO SETTLE! Ugh... I need MY older brother to go in there and smack them and say, "If you want something done right, do it yourself," because, seriously, that is the best advice my brother has ever given me. (The best advice my mum has ever given me is "if you are having a bad day, go back to sleep, then wake up and try again.")
Dean: "You didn't tell me you had a little girl!"
...
Dean: "What's her name?"
Lydia: "Emma"
Dean: "Hi Emma!"
- I love how much Dean loves kids.
Sam on the other end of the phone is funny..."Hellooooooo"
And Sam once again realizing that Dean is in mortal peril.... it actually is a theme, it seems, in a lot of S7...or well, 3 episodes - but it's an important plot-point in Repo Man when it comes to Sam's sanity, so I think they should have emphasized that in these episodes as well. They should have made us see that Dean being in mortal peril stressed Sam out even more than it should - that it makes him rub his hand more...something!
Dean is not good at unsuspiciously following people.
Oh, Oregon plates - maybe the west coast art is justified. I don't know if it goes down that far.
It's also weird how Sam is dismissive of the danger, even though he was SUPER worried about Dean as soon as he heard about the Cobalt Room. It's like Sam freaked out that Dean was in the same bar, and then promptly decided that it was just a coincidence that Dean got laid at that bar too and that it was all well and good...even though Dean was complaining about weird stuff.
Dean: "Are you deliberately messing with me?"
- I'm wondering that too. Though, this does come back to my theory that Sam is being more sassy in an attempt to cheer Dean up.
And then the scene where it's sole purpose is to make us hope that somehow Emma is different. It would be cool if she were difference, JUST because of Dean's generic information - but that'd probably be too silly, since that would make Dean something superhuman somehow, and the whole point of this show is humanism.
Dean: "...would it kill him to have a system!"
Bobby: "He has a system. The files are set up like his brain."
- This is how I organize things too... um, in related news: I am not very good at organizing things.
Sam: "Well, basically, they became more than human - Harmonia turned them into monsters."
- I actually like this mythology about the Amazon, and how Supernatural changes them from a human tribe into monsters. I'm sure there's some feminist argument that points out this is misogynistic or something, but *shrug*, I think it was clever.
Sam: "So maybe you're- you're ah-"
Dean: "Don't say it!"
Sam: "But Dean, if that kid's yours-"
Dean: "I said don't say it!"
Sam: "Fine, I won't, but Dean, dude, seriously - one night stand, you're just going to roll the dice-"
Dean: "Of course not, Sam, what do you think I'm brain dead? Accidents happen! If one even did, which I don't even think-"
*Dean goes through a serious of facial expressions*
- Heheheh, I love Jensen's ability to show tell us a story with his face. :P
- Also, I love how Sam isn't upset that Dean knocked up a monster, he's upset at the idea that Dean didn't wear a condom. It's all about the "you're going to get yourself killed" worry of Sam's.
Sam: "So, it makes sense that the Amazons would want to hook up with decent looking successful guys..."
Dean: "They're picky about the gene pool."
Sam: "Right, so what was Lydia doing with you?"
Dean: "Well, she may or may not have thought I was a rich investment banker."
*Sam is exasperated.*
- I really do love Sam. I guess I watched a lot of How I Met Your Mother, and other such comedy shows, that joke around and basically imply that lying in order to get laid is A)common practice, B)acceptable, and C)probably the only way someone could get laid. And I kind of forget that it is a)hopefully not actually that common, b)not acceptable, and c)not needed unless you are a douchebag.
Dean: "Sam, these papers just moved."
Sam: "What?"
Dean: "I didn't touch them."
*Sam gets EMF meter*
...
Sam: "Doesn't matter Dean, the reading are useless."
Dean: "Hey, maybe uh..."
Sam: "We burned him, Dean."
Dean: "So what?"
Sam: "So what are you suggesting."
Dean: "I don't know, what are you?"
Sam: "Concentrate on something else."
Dean: "Why?"
Sam: "Because it's not Bobby!"
Dean: "Could be?"
Sam: "No, it couldn't be."
Dean: "Why not?"
Sam: "Because we want it to be!"
- I like Sam's argument - that they are wishful-thinking themselves into more pain and misery if they start expecting Bobby to come back as a ghost. Though, it also speaks to a sad truth in their lives, wherein Sam might be saying that it can't possibly be Bobby because the Winchesters never get what they want.
Dean: "Maybe it's useful."
Sam: "It's in a pile of Maybe It's Useful!"
- I see they sort their files the same way I do...
Sam: "Besides it's in Greek. Nobody reads Greek."
Dean: "Except Greeks. Oh, and Bobby!"
- Really, I do think they have a very compelling case here for Bobby being back.
Sam: "I'm going, Dean. You stay here. Keep the door locked, and don't go anywhere. I mean it!"
- Again, we have Sam's kind of quiet desperation that Dean stay safe. It would have been really cool if that were more obviously linked to his sanity.
Prof. Morrison: "The FBI isn't paying me enough for this."
Sam: "Alright, I'll sweeten the deal. We'll remove your wire tap."
- Again, I think shades of Soulless!Sam here, just in the way he immediately jumps to "everyone has something to hide" and manipulates that aspect of Prof. Morrison rather than appealing to his sense of doing a good deed for someone else or his country.
Emma attacks! It's a good ploy, going with the "help me" line and therefore playing to a hunter's weakspot.
I do like the actress who plays Emma, she also played Missy Bender, and she was in a Canadian movie called Repeaters that I really enjoyed.
Emma: "You're a good man. My mother told me that."
Dean: "Ha, I seriously doubt she told me that."
- I think this is where Dean knows for sure that she's feeding him bullshit and then after this he only pretends to be duped...to a degree.
Emma: "My mother threw me into that place, and my father... you get that this is my last chance to have anything normal ever right?"
- Also a good ploy, without even knowing that Dean has a thing for kids having a normal life...as we see with how he treated Sam when they were younger, and how he tries to persuade Hunters' kids out of the life (Jo, Crissy.)
I love Sam's disappointed "ugh, why does this ALWAYS HAPPEN" when he realizes the detective is a monster.
I also love his fake unconciousness and then quick flip with the gunshot. But, it was also useful because he learns that a simple gunshot will take them down.
Dean: "We've got cheese and a leftover burrito"
- It's not even real cheese. Oh Winchesters....
Dean: "I figured you'd chat me up try to catch me off guard. It almost worked. I was expecting your mother."
...
Dean: "I should just kill you right now."
Emma: "Sure, but you could have done that 30 seconds ago...it's weirdly hard, isn't it? It is for me."
Dean: "Knock it off."
Emma: "How could it not be? You're my father."
Dean: "Hey, we're not going to do that."
Emma: "But it's true."
...
Dean: "You haven't killed anybody yet Emma, walk away, right now, I won't go after you."
It must be a very different experience being a father then being a mother. Mothers (with biological children) have a really long time for the reality of motherhood to sink in. I read an article in a neuroscience magazine that was really interesting, because it talked about the changes that occur in brain chemistry. For mothers, the brain changes during the nine months of pregnancy (I am not sure if/when changes occur in adoptive mothers, the article didn't cover that), but for fathers, the research found that their brains only start changing once they are handed a child and told that it is theirs (therefore true of both biological and adoptive fathers). The longer they hold or spend time with the child, the more the brain changes... so a not-involved father would have more in common (brain chemistry-wise) with a childless man than he would have with a more involved father.
I have no idea what that's like. I can't imagine what it would feel like for some kid to show up on my doorstep and tell me that they're mine - because that's not a biological possibility for me. It IS, however, a biological possibility for men, and it has been since the dawn of human history - which means that there very well might be an immediate and uncontrollable biological response to it.
That's all to say that I can't really judge Dean for telling Emma to walk away here. I don't know what is going on in his brain. I don't know if "rational" is a possibility for him at the moment. It might be why Dean was trying so hard not to acknowledge the fatherhood in the first place, to avoid the biological response.
That all might be a stretch, but, I'm just saying that this is one area where I'm not about to claim that I know what goes on inside someone's head. I haven't read enough neuroscience magazines to do that yet. :P
*Sam barges in*
Emma *to Dean*: "Please don't let him hurt me!"
*Sam shoots her*
- Emma, I'd like to introduce you to your uncle, Sam. Sam, your niece- oh.
Dean: "Alright fine, just sit there and be pissed."
Sam: "What did you say to me? When I was the one who choked, what did you say to me about Amy? You kill the monster!"
Dean: "I was going to!"
Sam: "Oh the hell you were! You think I'm an idiot?"
Dean: "You think I am!"
- I do like this dialogue, because it re-iterates the fact that leaving Amy alive was a "choke" on Sam's part. It says it better than they said it in the actual "Amy episodes."
Sam: "Look man, she was not yours, not really."
Dean: "Actually, she was, really. She just also happened to be a crazy man-killing monster, but hey..."
- It's interesting that Dean does acknowledge her as his, as well as being a monster. He's come a long way from S1-S4 when there was even some question as to whether he would acknowledge Sam as his brother if Sam turned out to be too much of a freak. I think this also says something about Dean's relationship to Cas... which, I think, is what a large part of the Amy storyline was really about. Dean killed Amy because Cas proved that you can't trust monsters. Yet, he wanted to let Emma go, because she was part of Dean...and for a split second Dean considered that maybe that trumped the monster part of her. And again, I might be stretching things here, but maybe that signals a change in Dean's opinion about Cas...now that he's got some distance, he might be in the stage where he's thinking that the friendship MIGHT be able to trump the monster part, for the sole reason that it might just justify how much he misses Cas.
Sam: "You know what, Bobby was right. Your head's not in it, man. When Cas died you were wobbly, but now-"
Dean: "Now what? Oh you're dealing with this so perfect? Newsflash, pal, you're just as screwed up as I am. You're just...bigger."
Sam: "What?"
Dean: "I don't know."
- But we don't get to SEE how screwed up Sam is! Ugh...sorry, I know I keep harping on this, but it drives me nuts.
- I also love how Dean's horrible comeback calms them both down... it signals that Dean doesn't have the energy to fight, that he knows Sam is right...and that's exactly what Sam hears.
Sam: "Look. Dean, the thing is, tonight - it almost got you killed. Now I don't care how you deal, I really really don't, but just don't... don't get killed."
Dean: "I'll do what I can."
Sam: "What's that supposed to mean?"
Dean: "It means I'll do what I can, and you can shut up about it."
- And this is the thing, because Sam's not giving Dean a hard time about the drinking...if that's what Dean needs to do, then that's what Dean needs to do. The most important thing to Sam is that Dean is THERE. Dean needs to be there and safe and that's all Sam cares about. Now, I know the base reason is "because Sam loves Dean", but it would be nice if we got another reason too...such as Sam NEEDS Dean. And I think Jared TRIES to give us that in that last look - that sort of desperate/worried look that Jared's so good at. If we were told better through implication that Sam needs Dean in order to stay sane, then Dean being distracted by grief over Bobby (which might be negatively impacting Sam's ability to be sane as well) would worry us even more...and it look less like Sam is being insensitive to Dean's emotional problems and more like Dean has way too many emotional balls to juggle and he might be dropping the very important Sam one without even realizing it, which would up our amount of worry for BOTH characters and not just Dean.
- Also, speaking of Sam being fine with the drinking. I think it's kind of telling that Sam's doing all the driving this episode.
Tune in next time for a slightly lighter episode...when Sam is attacked by homocidal maniac clowns....
Teaser death... those are some nice boots, Killer Amazon Chick.
Aww, Dean sleeping in the car while Sam drives... and snoring. Adorable.
Sam: "Morning."
*Dean drinks*
Sam: "Is that Bobby's? I didn't know you kept that."
Dean: "Yeah, mine sprung a leak."
Sam: "You know, most people would just carry a photo-"
Dean: "Shut-up man, I'm honouring the guy. It's grief-therapy. Like you and your wild goose chase."
Sam: "Wild goose chase? Four guys murdered in two weeks, hands and feet cut off...."
- So this led me to some interesting thoughts.
1) I remembered that Sam's reaction to John's death was to throw himself into hunting, in a weird attempt to please his father posthumously. In 7x11, we got Sam trying to save someone else to possibly make up for the fact that he couldn't save Bobby. Sam's whole character centers around a constant desire for redemption and atonement - so throwing himself back into hunting would make sense even after Bobby's death IF he were going after cases that in some way reminded him of Bobby...like, for instance, if he caught wind of this case not because some single-guy got offed, but because two fathers had been killed (and Sam just didn't realize yet that they had been having affairs). I think that would nicely tie in SAM'S grieving process with the need for MOTW episodes.
2) I remembered back in Death Takes a Holiday (4x15), when Dean and Sam explained to that dead kid that as long as he was hanging around his mother as a ghost, SHE couldn't be happy - she couldn't get over his death. He wasn't helping her by staying, he was prolonging her misery and making things worse, even though she didn't know he was there or WHY she couldn't work past his death. So, if Bobby is hanging around that flask, and that flask is always with Dean... then what if that was what was causing Dean to drop off the deep end of his depression? I think they should have toyed with that idea more, if they insisted on bringing Bobby back.
So, the coroner looks like the guy from...Bones? Numbers? You know the guy I mean though, right?
Coroner: "You guys always work this late?"
Dean: "Ugh, the hours suck, but great benefits package."
Coroner: "Oh yeah?"
Dean: "10% co-pay on all drugs."
Coroner: "Seriously? But just generic right?"
Dean: "No, no, brands are cool."
- I love this way of lying - like, Dean doesn't just go for the "we are FBI" he makes it even more believable by talking about the mundane aspects of the job, like the benefits package. :P
Dean: "I'll admit, it could be in the general vicinity of the ballpark of our kind of thing."
Sam: "Yeah, 'didn't match anything human' usually seals the deal for me."
- Hehehe. I love Sam.
Dean: "You do that, I'll go undercover, go mingle amongst the locals and see what clues bubble to the service."
Sam: "You're going to a bar"
Dean: "Wow. If you want to oversimplify it."
- I just like this exchange.
Lydia: "What? Are you ready for the big commit?"
Dean: "Me? Not exactly."
- But only because you can't, not because you don't want to.
Dean: "Arigato"
Lydia: "You speak Japanese?"
Dean: "Enough to get by."
Lydia: "Wow, look at you."
Dean: "Yeah, look at me."
- Bobby spoke Japanese, and I think trying to be clever here is actually depressing the hell out of Dean. :(
SEX SCENE. We get so few of these. Oh yeah, and it's interspersed with some guy getting slaughtered. I really do love some ACDC. Dean loves smart dominating women, Lydia is basically his kryptonite.
Dean: "Did you figure out that symbol?"
Sam: "No, we're going to need an expert."
Dean: "Expert? Our expert's dead."
- I like the look Sam gives Dean here, like "please don't be so blunt about it. It breaks my heart."
A whole bunch of west coast native art on those walls in the hallway... I guess to anyone else it probably just looks like "art", but to me it's like a neon sign saying "You are in BC."
*Lydia hangs up on Dean*
Dean: "She's real busy"
*Sam makes a false sympathetic face and then smiles and walks off*
- Hehehe, oh Sam, you are loving joking around with your brother. I think Sam's partially doing it to try to cheer Dean up somehow. It's that old tease-someone mercilessly in the hopes of making them laugh strategy.
I hate birth scenes...and the sound of babies crying...but mostly birth scenes. If I wanted to see a women giving birth, I'd be a doctor...or a woman giving birth.
Prof. Morrison: "Oh, this will require some research."
Sam: "Okay, well, I guess we'll be seeing you tomorrow."
Prof. Morrison: "Tomorrow? I've spent entire sabbaticals on something like this."
- Oh academia... also, we really were spoiled with the existence of Bobby for all these years.
Sam: "So what are we supposed to do, Dean. Spin our wheels?"
Dean: "Sam, this IS us spinning our wheels!"
Sam: "Dean, you know what, I want to call him too, believe me - but Bobby's not here, so we're settling."
- BECOME EXPERTS YOURSELVES! LEARN NOT TO RELY ON OTHER PEOPLE! YOU DON'T HAVE TO SETTLE! Ugh... I need MY older brother to go in there and smack them and say, "If you want something done right, do it yourself," because, seriously, that is the best advice my brother has ever given me. (The best advice my mum has ever given me is "if you are having a bad day, go back to sleep, then wake up and try again.")
Dean: "You didn't tell me you had a little girl!"
...
Dean: "What's her name?"
Lydia: "Emma"
Dean: "Hi Emma!"
- I love how much Dean loves kids.
Sam on the other end of the phone is funny..."Hellooooooo"
And Sam once again realizing that Dean is in mortal peril.... it actually is a theme, it seems, in a lot of S7...or well, 3 episodes - but it's an important plot-point in Repo Man when it comes to Sam's sanity, so I think they should have emphasized that in these episodes as well. They should have made us see that Dean being in mortal peril stressed Sam out even more than it should - that it makes him rub his hand more...something!
Dean is not good at unsuspiciously following people.
Oh, Oregon plates - maybe the west coast art is justified. I don't know if it goes down that far.
It's also weird how Sam is dismissive of the danger, even though he was SUPER worried about Dean as soon as he heard about the Cobalt Room. It's like Sam freaked out that Dean was in the same bar, and then promptly decided that it was just a coincidence that Dean got laid at that bar too and that it was all well and good...even though Dean was complaining about weird stuff.
Dean: "Are you deliberately messing with me?"
- I'm wondering that too. Though, this does come back to my theory that Sam is being more sassy in an attempt to cheer Dean up.
And then the scene where it's sole purpose is to make us hope that somehow Emma is different. It would be cool if she were difference, JUST because of Dean's generic information - but that'd probably be too silly, since that would make Dean something superhuman somehow, and the whole point of this show is humanism.
Dean: "...would it kill him to have a system!"
Bobby: "He has a system. The files are set up like his brain."
- This is how I organize things too... um, in related news: I am not very good at organizing things.
Sam: "Well, basically, they became more than human - Harmonia turned them into monsters."
- I actually like this mythology about the Amazon, and how Supernatural changes them from a human tribe into monsters. I'm sure there's some feminist argument that points out this is misogynistic or something, but *shrug*, I think it was clever.
Sam: "So maybe you're- you're ah-"
Dean: "Don't say it!"
Sam: "But Dean, if that kid's yours-"
Dean: "I said don't say it!"
Sam: "Fine, I won't, but Dean, dude, seriously - one night stand, you're just going to roll the dice-"
Dean: "Of course not, Sam, what do you think I'm brain dead? Accidents happen! If one even did, which I don't even think-"
*Dean goes through a serious of facial expressions*
- Heheheh, I love Jensen's ability to show tell us a story with his face. :P
- Also, I love how Sam isn't upset that Dean knocked up a monster, he's upset at the idea that Dean didn't wear a condom. It's all about the "you're going to get yourself killed" worry of Sam's.
Sam: "So, it makes sense that the Amazons would want to hook up with decent looking successful guys..."
Dean: "They're picky about the gene pool."
Sam: "Right, so what was Lydia doing with you?"
Dean: "Well, she may or may not have thought I was a rich investment banker."
*Sam is exasperated.*
- I really do love Sam. I guess I watched a lot of How I Met Your Mother, and other such comedy shows, that joke around and basically imply that lying in order to get laid is A)common practice, B)acceptable, and C)probably the only way someone could get laid. And I kind of forget that it is a)hopefully not actually that common, b)not acceptable, and c)not needed unless you are a douchebag.
Dean: "Sam, these papers just moved."
Sam: "What?"
Dean: "I didn't touch them."
*Sam gets EMF meter*
...
Sam: "Doesn't matter Dean, the reading are useless."
Dean: "Hey, maybe uh..."
Sam: "We burned him, Dean."
Dean: "So what?"
Sam: "So what are you suggesting."
Dean: "I don't know, what are you?"
Sam: "Concentrate on something else."
Dean: "Why?"
Sam: "Because it's not Bobby!"
Dean: "Could be?"
Sam: "No, it couldn't be."
Dean: "Why not?"
Sam: "Because we want it to be!"
- I like Sam's argument - that they are wishful-thinking themselves into more pain and misery if they start expecting Bobby to come back as a ghost. Though, it also speaks to a sad truth in their lives, wherein Sam might be saying that it can't possibly be Bobby because the Winchesters never get what they want.
Dean: "Maybe it's useful."
Sam: "It's in a pile of Maybe It's Useful!"
- I see they sort their files the same way I do...
Sam: "Besides it's in Greek. Nobody reads Greek."
Dean: "Except Greeks. Oh, and Bobby!"
- Really, I do think they have a very compelling case here for Bobby being back.
Sam: "I'm going, Dean. You stay here. Keep the door locked, and don't go anywhere. I mean it!"
- Again, we have Sam's kind of quiet desperation that Dean stay safe. It would have been really cool if that were more obviously linked to his sanity.
Prof. Morrison: "The FBI isn't paying me enough for this."
Sam: "Alright, I'll sweeten the deal. We'll remove your wire tap."
- Again, I think shades of Soulless!Sam here, just in the way he immediately jumps to "everyone has something to hide" and manipulates that aspect of Prof. Morrison rather than appealing to his sense of doing a good deed for someone else or his country.
Emma attacks! It's a good ploy, going with the "help me" line and therefore playing to a hunter's weakspot.
I do like the actress who plays Emma, she also played Missy Bender, and she was in a Canadian movie called Repeaters that I really enjoyed.
Emma: "You're a good man. My mother told me that."
Dean: "Ha, I seriously doubt she told me that."
- I think this is where Dean knows for sure that she's feeding him bullshit and then after this he only pretends to be duped...to a degree.
Emma: "My mother threw me into that place, and my father... you get that this is my last chance to have anything normal ever right?"
- Also a good ploy, without even knowing that Dean has a thing for kids having a normal life...as we see with how he treated Sam when they were younger, and how he tries to persuade Hunters' kids out of the life (Jo, Crissy.)
I love Sam's disappointed "ugh, why does this ALWAYS HAPPEN" when he realizes the detective is a monster.
I also love his fake unconciousness and then quick flip with the gunshot. But, it was also useful because he learns that a simple gunshot will take them down.
Dean: "We've got cheese and a leftover burrito"
- It's not even real cheese. Oh Winchesters....
Dean: "I figured you'd chat me up try to catch me off guard. It almost worked. I was expecting your mother."
...
Dean: "I should just kill you right now."
Emma: "Sure, but you could have done that 30 seconds ago...it's weirdly hard, isn't it? It is for me."
Dean: "Knock it off."
Emma: "How could it not be? You're my father."
Dean: "Hey, we're not going to do that."
Emma: "But it's true."
...
Dean: "You haven't killed anybody yet Emma, walk away, right now, I won't go after you."
It must be a very different experience being a father then being a mother. Mothers (with biological children) have a really long time for the reality of motherhood to sink in. I read an article in a neuroscience magazine that was really interesting, because it talked about the changes that occur in brain chemistry. For mothers, the brain changes during the nine months of pregnancy (I am not sure if/when changes occur in adoptive mothers, the article didn't cover that), but for fathers, the research found that their brains only start changing once they are handed a child and told that it is theirs (therefore true of both biological and adoptive fathers). The longer they hold or spend time with the child, the more the brain changes... so a not-involved father would have more in common (brain chemistry-wise) with a childless man than he would have with a more involved father.
I have no idea what that's like. I can't imagine what it would feel like for some kid to show up on my doorstep and tell me that they're mine - because that's not a biological possibility for me. It IS, however, a biological possibility for men, and it has been since the dawn of human history - which means that there very well might be an immediate and uncontrollable biological response to it.
That's all to say that I can't really judge Dean for telling Emma to walk away here. I don't know what is going on in his brain. I don't know if "rational" is a possibility for him at the moment. It might be why Dean was trying so hard not to acknowledge the fatherhood in the first place, to avoid the biological response.
That all might be a stretch, but, I'm just saying that this is one area where I'm not about to claim that I know what goes on inside someone's head. I haven't read enough neuroscience magazines to do that yet. :P
*Sam barges in*
Emma *to Dean*: "Please don't let him hurt me!"
*Sam shoots her*
- Emma, I'd like to introduce you to your uncle, Sam. Sam, your niece- oh.
Dean: "Alright fine, just sit there and be pissed."
Sam: "What did you say to me? When I was the one who choked, what did you say to me about Amy? You kill the monster!"
Dean: "I was going to!"
Sam: "Oh the hell you were! You think I'm an idiot?"
Dean: "You think I am!"
- I do like this dialogue, because it re-iterates the fact that leaving Amy alive was a "choke" on Sam's part. It says it better than they said it in the actual "Amy episodes."
Sam: "Look man, she was not yours, not really."
Dean: "Actually, she was, really. She just also happened to be a crazy man-killing monster, but hey..."
- It's interesting that Dean does acknowledge her as his, as well as being a monster. He's come a long way from S1-S4 when there was even some question as to whether he would acknowledge Sam as his brother if Sam turned out to be too much of a freak. I think this also says something about Dean's relationship to Cas... which, I think, is what a large part of the Amy storyline was really about. Dean killed Amy because Cas proved that you can't trust monsters. Yet, he wanted to let Emma go, because she was part of Dean...and for a split second Dean considered that maybe that trumped the monster part of her. And again, I might be stretching things here, but maybe that signals a change in Dean's opinion about Cas...now that he's got some distance, he might be in the stage where he's thinking that the friendship MIGHT be able to trump the monster part, for the sole reason that it might just justify how much he misses Cas.
Sam: "You know what, Bobby was right. Your head's not in it, man. When Cas died you were wobbly, but now-"
Dean: "Now what? Oh you're dealing with this so perfect? Newsflash, pal, you're just as screwed up as I am. You're just...bigger."
Sam: "What?"
Dean: "I don't know."
- But we don't get to SEE how screwed up Sam is! Ugh...sorry, I know I keep harping on this, but it drives me nuts.
- I also love how Dean's horrible comeback calms them both down... it signals that Dean doesn't have the energy to fight, that he knows Sam is right...and that's exactly what Sam hears.
Sam: "Look. Dean, the thing is, tonight - it almost got you killed. Now I don't care how you deal, I really really don't, but just don't... don't get killed."
Dean: "I'll do what I can."
Sam: "What's that supposed to mean?"
Dean: "It means I'll do what I can, and you can shut up about it."
- And this is the thing, because Sam's not giving Dean a hard time about the drinking...if that's what Dean needs to do, then that's what Dean needs to do. The most important thing to Sam is that Dean is THERE. Dean needs to be there and safe and that's all Sam cares about. Now, I know the base reason is "because Sam loves Dean", but it would be nice if we got another reason too...such as Sam NEEDS Dean. And I think Jared TRIES to give us that in that last look - that sort of desperate/worried look that Jared's so good at. If we were told better through implication that Sam needs Dean in order to stay sane, then Dean being distracted by grief over Bobby (which might be negatively impacting Sam's ability to be sane as well) would worry us even more...and it look less like Sam is being insensitive to Dean's emotional problems and more like Dean has way too many emotional balls to juggle and he might be dropping the very important Sam one without even realizing it, which would up our amount of worry for BOTH characters and not just Dean.
- Also, speaking of Sam being fine with the drinking. I think it's kind of telling that Sam's doing all the driving this episode.
Tune in next time for a slightly lighter episode...when Sam is attacked by homocidal maniac clowns....