Supernatural 10X4 Paper Moon
It could just be that I'm ill and was in a cold sweat through most of this episode, but did anything happen?
It's not that I mind filler episodes, I know some people have a big hate for them, but I don't mind a good filler episode. I think filler can be fun.
That being said, considering I still feel like Black, Reichenbach and Soul Survivor were probably, content wise, two episodes instead of one, a filler episode after this felt...awkward. Now I get why it was like this, since we have episode 200 next, and we really need Dean human for that, but it's not like this layout was a big surprise. Still, this was a dead space.
As much as I appreciated seeing a character return, and I did and do like Kate, I'm not exactly sure what they're doing with parallels here, as concerns siblings. I like seeing Kate return, because hers was one of the more interesting character cliffhangers on the show. I also like that she got to live through her second appearence.
Let's unpack it.
The opening with the great 'Werewolves of London' by Warren Zevon was quite fantastic. I enjoyed the hell out of it. Say what you like, SPN can still match music to scene gorgeously.
We cut to the boys waterside with sunglasses and beer. The sunglasses were pointed as we so rarely see Dean and Sam in them. In fact, the only other time I can remember is in Changing Channels, when they were CSI guys. They're clearly taking that vacation time. Dean ribs Sam about his busted elbow ( we still don't know how it happened) then their THIS IS A MANLY TYPE DRINKING OUTING WHICH IS MANLY AND FOR DRINKING is broken when Dean pitches a quickie case. Apparently Sam is as uncomfortable with their forced relaxation as the audience and Dean, because he agrees, on the understanding that if there is a shred of a sign that Dean isn't well enough to carry on, they are coming straight home. When they start talking honestly, the sunglasses come off, it is worth noting.
Dean is so desperate to distract himself, he agrees with whatever Sam says.
In the car, however, Sam tries to broach the whole issue again, but Dean turns it on him, inquiring about Lester. Fuck me, out of all the innocent characters that have been iced on this show in ways the boys are totally responsible for, are we really all hung up on Lester? Actually, Sam seems to follow my train of thought, and doesn't seem that fussed about it. Then the show does real time flashbacks again, and seriously? What the hell? STOP IT. They are not necessary!
Actually, Sam seems as unimpressed by this conversation as the rest of us, coming back with a great bitchy line “Oh, you were a demon?” and generally clearly knowing his brother is trying to deflect.
Anyway, they arrive, pretend to be Fish and Game dudes, talk to the Sheriff, the witness and then, following the witness' facts, go check out a barn. There we find Kate from 8X4 Bitten, on the phone. The boys tie her up. Dean is eady to shoot. Kate is ready to die, Sam is...wary. They get call from the Sheriff at just the right moment informing them of a new kill, one Kate couldn't possibly have committed, what with her being tied up in the barn. This allows Kate to escape because the boys are a little off their game...but Dean has already snagged her phone, and uses it to trace her to a motel. There he and Sam get her room number, and follow a departing figure to the single busiest jogging path on the western seaboard. They then pull guns on the girl on the busiest jogging path on the western seaboard and no one notices. Fuck, show. The girl isn't Kate, but Tasha, who snarls at them, but escapes when Kate arrives.
In a diner Kate reveals all. While she has not killed anyone and lived off the grid, when her sister was hurt in a car accident, Kate transformed her to save her life. Then they both ran away from their devastated parents, I imagine. However, Tasha is not the disciplined lady Kate is (read: kills joyously), and Kate feels responsible. She wants to help her sister, but also understands that it may be her duty to destroy her.
Dean lies his pretty tuckus off and says there's a cure. Kate is over the moon, and will lead the boys to Tasha, if this is the case.
Another car ride, with Sam in the back seat (I feel robbed they did not film Padalecki getting himself either in or out) and Sam is stark with the horror of seeing Dean die. Of carrying Dean's corpse out. Of putting Dean on his bed. You can see Dean sitting with that, and how he said he hoped his note (Let me go Sammy) would explain it. Sam disabuses him of the notion that four words are an explanation. Dean pulls back that 'It's embarrassing'. Then Dean realizes he hasn't thanked Sam, and Sam tells him he doesn't have to say it, which perhaps shows us that some of the bridges have been mended over last season's washouts.
Then the episode remembers itself and we arrive at the cabin. Dean handcuffs Kate to the steering wheel and she realizes they've tricked her. They go into the cabin, but Tasha gets the drop on them; she's made two boy wolves, and wants her sister to join her pack. There's a long speech wherein Tasha claims that Kate's understanding of her gentle personality is false; Tasha was scared, and now she doesn't have to be.
At the end of the day, the boys kill the boy wolves, Kate kills Tasha and Sam and Dean end up in the car, talking. Dean says that he's so tired of doing the wrong thing.
Hm. So.
For my money, this is a conversation that needed to be had,considering the absence of brotherly resolution in Soul Survivor, but something must have been holding it back, because this was so...pointless. They circled around, three different non-talks and none of them really seemed to land anywhere. I mean, there is so much stuff I wanna know. What was it like being a demon? Is the Mark of Cain still active? How does Sam feel about his brother hunting him down to kill him? Like, if you don't want to talk about their icky feeeeelings could we maybe try the facts we don't know? Like, where'z the First Blade now? Aren't we worried about Cole? Did Castiel tell them he met with Crowley? Do they think Crowley is going to try some shit because Dean broke up with him? All the episode does is repeat back stuffs, rather than introdcuing any new information as fallout from the events of the previous three episodes. It's like one giant flashback informing new viewers of what went down in the PREVIOUS THREE FUCKING EPISODES. I mean, is it shocking to anyone that Sam and Dean would do ANYthing for one another? Is it a shock that Dean is tired of having a crap life? Hell, I knew that in season 2, Croatoan, when Dean confesses how tired he is to Sam. With the last eight years they've had, does Sam think that has changed?
So, is Tasha supposed to be paralleling Dean, here? Frankly, on this show we've echoed sibling relationships before. Hell, that was kind of the point of the Lucifer/Michael arc. Then we had Gordon and his sister, the Brazilian Fat Sucker, hell, all the angels, technically. There's a lot of that on SPN, that When Siblings Go Bad. But, they've done it so much, you have to step up your game for it to continue to matter. I'm not sure how this sibling relationship commented on the Winchester one, at current. If anything, it resembles a strange hybrid of he Sam/Dean issues of Season 9.
Comatose Tasha is changed by Kate.
Comatose Sam is changed by Dean.
Dean gets Mark of Cain as a result of doing what he did to Comatose Sam.
Tasha embraces her wolfiness beyond Kate's control.
Gadreel embraces his Samness beyond Dean's control.
Dean embraces the Mark of Cain despite Sam's cautions.
Kate tries to trade herself for Tasha's life.
Gadreel has Dean keep secrets and send away Cas to save Sam's life.
Sam tries to stop Dean using the blade.
Kate protects Tasha, but ultimately trades Tasha's safety for help.
Dean protects Gadreel, but ultimately trades Sam's bodly privacy and safety so Crowley and Gadreel can duke it out inside Sam
....Uh....Dean tries to kill Metatron, damn the consequences?
Tasha has made new allies. Kate may either join them or die.
Sam is hella pissed at Dean. He can work with him, but Dean doesn't have is trust.
Dean has new allies. Sam can either leave him alone or die.
Kate kills Tasha, stopping the monster she made out of love.
Sam arrives in time to see his brother die, a monster made out of his completely justified anger?
Sam traps Dean, stopping the monster that he may be vaguely a part of making.
See? It doesn't really track, or echo back specifically to the recent Winchester stories. Therefore, as commentary, I don't think it works as well as maybe they think? Unless it's supposed to be this mutant merging of all the Sam/Dean issues. Kate has more of a responsibility for Tasha than I would claim Sam and Dean do. The similaritires lie in one sibling being able to take out the other when all hope is lost. Sam and Dean have never been able to do that. Tasha was a hollow Evil Just Cuz character, and the tale between the sisters painfully obvious that it exists to be a parralle without it knowing exactly what it is echoing. The impact that Kate could do what needed doing when Sam specifically failed to kill his brother (Did he see Cas creeping up behind him? Will we ever know? For my money, Sam would never have been able to do it. Cas would.) in the previous episode feels wholly dismissed by the boys, which is odd considering they were just in this quandry. I wanted to see that touch them a little more, but it didn't. It was just a monster of the week.
If this was how they wanted to handle all these underlying issues, it lacked the effectiveness of say, the Ghostfacers in #Thinman. In that episode Harry and Ed were given an issue that echoed the one Dean and Sam were going through, and though Dean and Sam were unable to have a dialogue about their problem, Harry and Ed had awhole exchange about it, with one clearly standing in for each brother. In this way, we reach a kind of catharsis regarding the issues Sam and Dean face without them ever opening their mouths. I think this episode aimed to do the same thing, but it didn't track in a direct comparison, and the script was lazy just making Tasha evil Cuz. As Tasha is the one playing Dean it blatantly trivializes his issue. Wouldn't it be more interesting, say, if Tasha had been an abuse victim and Kate never knew? If being a werewolf, for her, meant never having to be weak and vulnerable again? Meant that she could stop being scared? But echoing is not what this episode did.
I know I'm just supposed to be glad the boys are in the Impala again, but here's the thing; the guys never reall deal with their problems. That's why they are SUCH fucking messes. If anything, the scene with Deanmon hurling that stuff about John Winchester and Sam proves that even that isn't totally put to bed. On the other hand, the show's lowgrade terror regarding emotional honesty and talking (Effemephobia, if you will) makes my desire for them to heal as if I want to cut their balls off put them in matching onesies. Not the case. I feel like I should rejoice they had their stilted man-talk, when really, all I feel like is that these dudes are over thirty years old. They need to grow the fuck up.
Dean's closing line feels like the punch of the episode. That no matter what he choses, it's 'wrong' and the Mark of Cain is only the most recent in a stream of best choices in bad situations. Dean needs an It's a Wonderful Life episode, like stat. Maybe we'll get lucky and Fan Fiction, number 200, will show the utter understanding and love and concern the fandom has for Dean. That he's loved because his choices have never been easy, but he always makes them, he cleans up his messes and he tries. He always tries. Hell, he's the subject of endless metas and fics, and I think it could be good for Dean to see his life from the outside.
But, come on! This is Supernatural! Why acknowledge the fans have brains when you can kick them in the crotch?
So, at the end of the day? All I can think is 'Huh. So. That happened'. It wasn't bad, but it sort of wandered around, trying not to touch any of the landmines while still acknowledging that there were landmines EVERYWHERE.
It's not that I mind filler episodes, I know some people have a big hate for them, but I don't mind a good filler episode. I think filler can be fun.
That being said, considering I still feel like Black, Reichenbach and Soul Survivor were probably, content wise, two episodes instead of one, a filler episode after this felt...awkward. Now I get why it was like this, since we have episode 200 next, and we really need Dean human for that, but it's not like this layout was a big surprise. Still, this was a dead space.
As much as I appreciated seeing a character return, and I did and do like Kate, I'm not exactly sure what they're doing with parallels here, as concerns siblings. I like seeing Kate return, because hers was one of the more interesting character cliffhangers on the show. I also like that she got to live through her second appearence.
Let's unpack it.
The opening with the great 'Werewolves of London' by Warren Zevon was quite fantastic. I enjoyed the hell out of it. Say what you like, SPN can still match music to scene gorgeously.
We cut to the boys waterside with sunglasses and beer. The sunglasses were pointed as we so rarely see Dean and Sam in them. In fact, the only other time I can remember is in Changing Channels, when they were CSI guys. They're clearly taking that vacation time. Dean ribs Sam about his busted elbow ( we still don't know how it happened) then their THIS IS A MANLY TYPE DRINKING OUTING WHICH IS MANLY AND FOR DRINKING is broken when Dean pitches a quickie case. Apparently Sam is as uncomfortable with their forced relaxation as the audience and Dean, because he agrees, on the understanding that if there is a shred of a sign that Dean isn't well enough to carry on, they are coming straight home. When they start talking honestly, the sunglasses come off, it is worth noting.
Dean is so desperate to distract himself, he agrees with whatever Sam says.
In the car, however, Sam tries to broach the whole issue again, but Dean turns it on him, inquiring about Lester. Fuck me, out of all the innocent characters that have been iced on this show in ways the boys are totally responsible for, are we really all hung up on Lester? Actually, Sam seems to follow my train of thought, and doesn't seem that fussed about it. Then the show does real time flashbacks again, and seriously? What the hell? STOP IT. They are not necessary!
Actually, Sam seems as unimpressed by this conversation as the rest of us, coming back with a great bitchy line “Oh, you were a demon?” and generally clearly knowing his brother is trying to deflect.
Anyway, they arrive, pretend to be Fish and Game dudes, talk to the Sheriff, the witness and then, following the witness' facts, go check out a barn. There we find Kate from 8X4 Bitten, on the phone. The boys tie her up. Dean is eady to shoot. Kate is ready to die, Sam is...wary. They get call from the Sheriff at just the right moment informing them of a new kill, one Kate couldn't possibly have committed, what with her being tied up in the barn. This allows Kate to escape because the boys are a little off their game...but Dean has already snagged her phone, and uses it to trace her to a motel. There he and Sam get her room number, and follow a departing figure to the single busiest jogging path on the western seaboard. They then pull guns on the girl on the busiest jogging path on the western seaboard and no one notices. Fuck, show. The girl isn't Kate, but Tasha, who snarls at them, but escapes when Kate arrives.
In a diner Kate reveals all. While she has not killed anyone and lived off the grid, when her sister was hurt in a car accident, Kate transformed her to save her life. Then they both ran away from their devastated parents, I imagine. However, Tasha is not the disciplined lady Kate is (read: kills joyously), and Kate feels responsible. She wants to help her sister, but also understands that it may be her duty to destroy her.
Dean lies his pretty tuckus off and says there's a cure. Kate is over the moon, and will lead the boys to Tasha, if this is the case.
Another car ride, with Sam in the back seat (I feel robbed they did not film Padalecki getting himself either in or out) and Sam is stark with the horror of seeing Dean die. Of carrying Dean's corpse out. Of putting Dean on his bed. You can see Dean sitting with that, and how he said he hoped his note (Let me go Sammy) would explain it. Sam disabuses him of the notion that four words are an explanation. Dean pulls back that 'It's embarrassing'. Then Dean realizes he hasn't thanked Sam, and Sam tells him he doesn't have to say it, which perhaps shows us that some of the bridges have been mended over last season's washouts.
Then the episode remembers itself and we arrive at the cabin. Dean handcuffs Kate to the steering wheel and she realizes they've tricked her. They go into the cabin, but Tasha gets the drop on them; she's made two boy wolves, and wants her sister to join her pack. There's a long speech wherein Tasha claims that Kate's understanding of her gentle personality is false; Tasha was scared, and now she doesn't have to be.
At the end of the day, the boys kill the boy wolves, Kate kills Tasha and Sam and Dean end up in the car, talking. Dean says that he's so tired of doing the wrong thing.
Hm. So.
- Is it weird to me that no one mentioned Garth? Last I remember, the boys left Garth and his werewolf commune in peace. A mention somewhere might have been good, that werwolves could live in peace. Why not point Kate at them? A community helps. We don't even need to see Garth, but just hear about him. After all, Garth and most of his community WERE controlling themselves. It's not like it isn't something the boys haven't heard of before.
- I'm in the middle of an SPN rewatch with Kes and Stray, and Dean's behavior here loudly mimics his season 2 concerns, where he is getting used to the idea that not all the things that go bump in the night are evil. We've seen him go back and forth on this point so much, but rather than for character reasons, it's just BECAUSE. Like, if the Mark of Cain had been a factor (it was mentioned twice, but didn't seem to be impacting Dean's choices) I could understand it, instead, he's just back on the Hunt Everything agenda.
- The episode was much lighter on humor we usually see in fillers. Which is fine, neither of these guys are, well, fine. There's a thick layer of tension over much of the proceedings between the two brothers. I see alot of people find the Paul Bunyan life hysteeeerical for reasons.
- There are at least three Serious Talks In the Impala, and none of them really had gravity in terms of content. For all I felt this is where the weight of the episode needed to rest, and did in terms of time spent, it did not leave me satisfied. Now, I suppose the nature of this show means we should be celebrating the fact that neither of the boys outright lied to each other, but then to examine actual content what we see are the boys trying to foist the topic of wose fuckery they're actually going to be addressing back and forth. When they couldn't obfuscate, they basically repeated facts. We heard Dean was a demon at least twice. THey repeated that Dean still had the Mark of Cain, not what theyw ere going to do about that, but just that he had it. Sam talked about going darkside in the hunt for Dean, and that besides Lester he did some bad stuff to some bad guys. Most of it was stuff we knew, but there's not much emotional connection besides for the silted Winchester Reluctance To Communicate. Dean handwaves some of it saying that it was Demon Him that did that bad stuff. Sam has a great bit when he talks about handling Dean's body, and Dean has his closing words on wanting to do right, but this is all stuff we knew. It was stuff the brothers already knew about each other, and carried no more emotional weight that previous recitations. The most honest emotional point was when Dean admitted that he might be hunting too soon, but he has to do something.
For my money, this is a conversation that needed to be had,considering the absence of brotherly resolution in Soul Survivor, but something must have been holding it back, because this was so...pointless. They circled around, three different non-talks and none of them really seemed to land anywhere. I mean, there is so much stuff I wanna know. What was it like being a demon? Is the Mark of Cain still active? How does Sam feel about his brother hunting him down to kill him? Like, if you don't want to talk about their icky feeeeelings could we maybe try the facts we don't know? Like, where'z the First Blade now? Aren't we worried about Cole? Did Castiel tell them he met with Crowley? Do they think Crowley is going to try some shit because Dean broke up with him? All the episode does is repeat back stuffs, rather than introdcuing any new information as fallout from the events of the previous three episodes. It's like one giant flashback informing new viewers of what went down in the PREVIOUS THREE FUCKING EPISODES. I mean, is it shocking to anyone that Sam and Dean would do ANYthing for one another? Is it a shock that Dean is tired of having a crap life? Hell, I knew that in season 2, Croatoan, when Dean confesses how tired he is to Sam. With the last eight years they've had, does Sam think that has changed?
- The talks do look like Winchester heart-to-hearts, and while there is something to be applaued that neither is trying to put off the conversation,and yes, they're familiar to others, how many horrible, fucked up wretched things have to happen to these boys before they have a deep conversation with each other? Before the episode doesn't cut out on some impactful line? I'm not asking for sap, but crap, something? I don't want to give you credit for just not lying to each other!
- I don't love Adam Glass, but we know he can look at the Winchester dynamic (He wrote Bad Boys)and he's written three of the Garth episodes, including the one with Garth as a werewolf Sharp Teeth. It seems to me he should be intimately familiar with enough previous content that this episode should not feel as disconnected as it did. Maybe this was rushed?
- So, not a sign of Crowley or Castiel. Oookay, then. Cas seriously just...left them? I kind of find that hard to believe. I'm completely fine with them not being there, as I said, the previousl three episodes they almost felt a little shoehorned in where they weren't needed and they weren't needed here, but I dunno, one line about where Castiel was, considering Sam fucked out of Soul Survivor like he needed to get out of the bunker for Cas and Dean to have noisy sex?
So, is Tasha supposed to be paralleling Dean, here? Frankly, on this show we've echoed sibling relationships before. Hell, that was kind of the point of the Lucifer/Michael arc. Then we had Gordon and his sister, the Brazilian Fat Sucker, hell, all the angels, technically. There's a lot of that on SPN, that When Siblings Go Bad. But, they've done it so much, you have to step up your game for it to continue to matter. I'm not sure how this sibling relationship commented on the Winchester one, at current. If anything, it resembles a strange hybrid of he Sam/Dean issues of Season 9.
Comatose Tasha is changed by Kate.
Comatose Sam is changed by Dean.
Dean gets Mark of Cain as a result of doing what he did to Comatose Sam.
Tasha embraces her wolfiness beyond Kate's control.
Gadreel embraces his Samness beyond Dean's control.
Dean embraces the Mark of Cain despite Sam's cautions.
Kate tries to trade herself for Tasha's life.
Gadreel has Dean keep secrets and send away Cas to save Sam's life.
Sam tries to stop Dean using the blade.
Kate protects Tasha, but ultimately trades Tasha's safety for help.
Dean protects Gadreel, but ultimately trades Sam's bodly privacy and safety so Crowley and Gadreel can duke it out inside Sam
....Uh....Dean tries to kill Metatron, damn the consequences?
Tasha has made new allies. Kate may either join them or die.
Sam is hella pissed at Dean. He can work with him, but Dean doesn't have is trust.
Dean has new allies. Sam can either leave him alone or die.
Kate kills Tasha, stopping the monster she made out of love.
Sam arrives in time to see his brother die, a monster made out of his completely justified anger?
Sam traps Dean, stopping the monster that he may be vaguely a part of making.
See? It doesn't really track, or echo back specifically to the recent Winchester stories. Therefore, as commentary, I don't think it works as well as maybe they think? Unless it's supposed to be this mutant merging of all the Sam/Dean issues. Kate has more of a responsibility for Tasha than I would claim Sam and Dean do. The similaritires lie in one sibling being able to take out the other when all hope is lost. Sam and Dean have never been able to do that. Tasha was a hollow Evil Just Cuz character, and the tale between the sisters painfully obvious that it exists to be a parralle without it knowing exactly what it is echoing. The impact that Kate could do what needed doing when Sam specifically failed to kill his brother (Did he see Cas creeping up behind him? Will we ever know? For my money, Sam would never have been able to do it. Cas would.) in the previous episode feels wholly dismissed by the boys, which is odd considering they were just in this quandry. I wanted to see that touch them a little more, but it didn't. It was just a monster of the week.
If this was how they wanted to handle all these underlying issues, it lacked the effectiveness of say, the Ghostfacers in #Thinman. In that episode Harry and Ed were given an issue that echoed the one Dean and Sam were going through, and though Dean and Sam were unable to have a dialogue about their problem, Harry and Ed had awhole exchange about it, with one clearly standing in for each brother. In this way, we reach a kind of catharsis regarding the issues Sam and Dean face without them ever opening their mouths. I think this episode aimed to do the same thing, but it didn't track in a direct comparison, and the script was lazy just making Tasha evil Cuz. As Tasha is the one playing Dean it blatantly trivializes his issue. Wouldn't it be more interesting, say, if Tasha had been an abuse victim and Kate never knew? If being a werewolf, for her, meant never having to be weak and vulnerable again? Meant that she could stop being scared? But echoing is not what this episode did.
I know I'm just supposed to be glad the boys are in the Impala again, but here's the thing; the guys never reall deal with their problems. That's why they are SUCH fucking messes. If anything, the scene with Deanmon hurling that stuff about John Winchester and Sam proves that even that isn't totally put to bed. On the other hand, the show's lowgrade terror regarding emotional honesty and talking (Effemephobia, if you will) makes my desire for them to heal as if I want to cut their balls off put them in matching onesies. Not the case. I feel like I should rejoice they had their stilted man-talk, when really, all I feel like is that these dudes are over thirty years old. They need to grow the fuck up.
Dean's closing line feels like the punch of the episode. That no matter what he choses, it's 'wrong' and the Mark of Cain is only the most recent in a stream of best choices in bad situations. Dean needs an It's a Wonderful Life episode, like stat. Maybe we'll get lucky and Fan Fiction, number 200, will show the utter understanding and love and concern the fandom has for Dean. That he's loved because his choices have never been easy, but he always makes them, he cleans up his messes and he tries. He always tries. Hell, he's the subject of endless metas and fics, and I think it could be good for Dean to see his life from the outside.
But, come on! This is Supernatural! Why acknowledge the fans have brains when you can kick them in the crotch?
So, at the end of the day? All I can think is 'Huh. So. That happened'. It wasn't bad, but it sort of wandered around, trying not to touch any of the landmines while still acknowledging that there were landmines EVERYWHERE.