6.06: You Can't Handle the Truth
Bad things always happen there. (MBV, anyone?) If it was a real place you could not pay me to eat there. *shudders* This poor girl!
Most of the time when I’ve seen the Truth Spell thing done on tv shows, it is either reversed so that the cursed person always has to tell the truth, or else the cursed person can aim it at certain people and they just answer the questions asked.
Having people just walk up to you and tell the truth about things they have been repressing is more like reading minds than what I think of when I think ‘truth spell’. Reading minds without any way to control the inflow would be traumatizing in ways I’d rather not think of. And it's not just the truth, it's the buried truth. Things people have been lying about or pushed so far down they have almost forgotten it existed. Things they don't want other people to know.
Basically, Show gets an A+ for creepy on that one, because yikes. (Much like MBV, actually, where I had to re-think how I thought Famine should operate. Show is good at putting new spins on things. I like.)
Dean and Bobby
I personally think the titles this season are kind of heavy-handed and extremely long and hard to remember, but this one made me smile. There are so many other meanings to it.
We, as the audience, often cannot handle the truth. (In fact we are kind of famous for it, LOL.) The guys are going to have a hard time handling the truth. It's from one of my favorite Tom Cruise movies. (Top Gun and The Last Samurai, duh.) AND it's a shout-out to Jensen. Very nice, Show. Go figure Show can pat Jensen on the back and make fun of us at the same time, LOLOL.
This scene is a continuation of Dean’s statement in 604 where we see that he feels like Bobby is the only one he can talk to about Sam. Clearly he has talked to Lisa a lot about Sam, but not since Sam came back. Lisa’s role re: Sam was more the role of a grievance councilor, whereas Bobby is more like Giles and can do research and answer questions of a resource that can help him find actual answers.
Dean is freaking out, and I don’t blame him. Only Bobby isn’t freaking out. Maybe it’s because of all the times Bobby has taken the ‘There’s something wrong with Sam’ call. Maybe it’s because he’s certain he ran every test.
And he says WE tested him. That doesn’t mean Bobby and Grandpa, or Bobby and Rufus, or Bobby and Hunter X. It means Bobby and Sam. Sam pushed for all the tests, even the really weird ones, like fanning his fingers through holy fire just to see what would happen; because he knows he’s not right, he’s been saying it from the start. He would want to make sure.
He probably had a flow chart and everything.
“What you know ain’t the same as proof.”
Meaning, guts must be followed up by facts. This is a tough area for Dean. I mean, this is the guy who looked twice at his father and was SURE it wasn’t John and was dead on. Now he’s SURE this man beside him isn’t his brother. Thing is, he’s a little bit right - but in the end, that’s all wrong. Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. Bobby is right, they can’t afford to screw this up. Because if it isn’t Sam, it’s probably planning to kill them.
And if it is Sam, well. That will kill them a whole different way.
I’m not the only one waiting for Dean to pull himself up by his bootstraps here. Bobby knows he has it in him - even when it comes to Sam. It’s not being out for a year or going soft or feeling betrayed that is keeping Dean from being the Dean we know and standing up and fighting.
It’s fear. Fear of backsliding into the broken man he was before Lisa helped him start to heal. Fear of acknowledging that that man never really left. Fear of having to accept and maybe even embrace those ugly truths about who he really is and what he was born for. Dean is the man who vowed never to fight again, because he didn’t like who he became while he was fighting. He did it anyway, before, because they had a world to save. Now, if Sam is truly still gone, Dean has no one left to save but himself. And that’s not a good enough reason to fight. Not when it means giving in to the monster inside.
“Get in the car - he’s your case!”
The Mid-Episode Check-in Call
Dean is so paranoid, it's completely wrenching. Hiding his calls, ducking behind the door, checking out the window. Paranoia is like a prison. More bars in more places.
“You got anything else to go on?”
“Yeah, my skin crawls bein’ in the same room with him, why don’t you look that up.”
Bobby isn't finding anything because there is nothing there to find. Which is the answer. But it's one of those answers you can't find without already knowing it, which they don't. Grrr.
Dean is still trying to trust his instincts. The problem is that going by ‘Sam would never do that’ is no longer reliable. Bobby gets that as an option: That it might just actually be Sam. So does Dean, but denial is strong with this one.
Dean is looking for help, but he only really wants help that will tell him what he longs the most to hear - that this isn't his brother, or if it is, whatever is going on with him isn't permanent. He's spiraling hard, lapsing back into the same grieving kind of behavior he showed while Sam was dead.
Whether it's Sam or not doesn't really matter - neither answer is acceptable because if it's not Sam it will mean that Sam is still dead, only Dean already reopened that door. He saw Sam and spoke with him and hunted with what he thought was Sam, and this time the loss of that would be even more devastating than the first time. And if it IS Sam, and it's just going to BE Sam, then Dean has already sacrificed his new family to be with Sam. Only being with him is killing Dean because Sam isn't there.
It's accurate to say that after Dean lost Sam (not just in Swan Song, but the first time as well) he was suicidal. Given the context of this episode and the rising relapse of Dean's previous behavior, I'd say he needs to be on watch.
Testing the Truth Spell
First, I must concede a point to alwaysenduphere ; this poster does indeed say 2010 on it. I did however obsessively check for dates on all manufactured materiel for the episode; newspaper, cell phone screen, laptop - and there are none. I think we continue to both be right half the time. Lol. I'm sure this 2010 is because it was already on location, but it does say 2010. So, for now I guess we are even? Lol, at least you made money off of it!
(I never bet money. I only bet fic.)
There is one line in this scene that really pops.
How is it that half the time you clean a mess, you end up dirty?
First, this amuses me because this season Dean has been infected by what they are hunting 3/6 hunts, which of course is exactly half. Oh, Bobby, you are so wise with your maths.
Second, this is not new by any stretch of the imagination. It has been since the dawn of Show, and will continue on until Show ends. Monsters love coming after Dean. They love coming after him, cursing him, using him - when they go after Sam half the time it’s because they want to get to Dean.
Sam is the touch-me-not, the obstacle standing in between Dean and monsters. (Which is why the only way that vampire would have had a snowball’s chance of ever turning Dean is if Sam sat by and did nothing.) I maintain that there is a reason for this. I’ve talked about it ad nauseum for the last 2 seasons, so I won’t here, but you guys get it, right? By now?
I love the balance of the play between serious and silly in this scene.
Re: Mass fandom angryfestiness, Bobby is totally allowed to have favorites. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t love Sam. He’s closer with Dean, and it’s pretty obvious that has always been the case. Sam is my favorite but I still love Dean a whole hell of a lot. Just because you identify more with one person doesn’t negate the value of all of your relationships with other people. There is no need to flipshit over it, fer Pete.
blacklid : Then he said Sam was the better hunter... so it's not like he was preening Dean's feathers any.
Plus it makes Dean make this face, lol.
I think Dean resonates extremely badly any time anyone insinuates that Sam may be the better hunter because of how hard he took everything Sam said while they were both infected by the siren. It's one of those things that he equates with being called weak, or lesser, but that isn't always the case. Sam IS the better hunter right now - but look what he had to become to get there.
This scene made me laugh like no other scene in recent memory. Perfect comedic timing on both sides, and the way Dean hangs up the phone, with his ‘Woah, NO. Mm-m. Mm-m.’ just … *rewinds multiple times*
Dean and Castiel
Really the biggest thing I have to say about this scene is that Dean needs to quit drinking, like, YESTERDAY.
If Dean wasn't 10 shots in and completely distracted worrying himself to death, he would have known that Sam wasn't Lucifer. All he'd have had to do to know that was watch the news.
Oh wait.
And I miss Gabriel. I bet he could use the horn for all kinds of shenanigans.
(Was it made out of a bunch of cans of some kind of diet soda?)
The Horn of Truth may be the lemming of the episode but it was also a very important reminder that there is a major war going on in Heaven. I'd fall over dead from shock if the war up there and the monsters acting weird down here aren't connected in a big way.
Also I want to know what ‘regrettable things’ Castiel is doing for the sake of his war. And whether or not they have to do with why he is avoiding Sam and Dean (and especially Sam) so much. And if he knows the angelic-looking black dude from Dean’s Alpha Vamp vision. And how come he keeps enabling Dean's drinking. And why Dean never ever gets drunk. And why I suddenly don’t trust him. Again.
Drinking on The Job
*gratuitous cool overhead shot of the bar scene*
If Dean wasn't 10 shots in and completely distracted worrying himself to death, he would have picked up on the newswoman being the force behind the curse. This isn't the Dean from the end of 602 that grinned like the devil when he pulled the tarp off of the Impala, ready to hit the road. This isn't the Dean that wanted his brother back in the car with him. This Dean isn't a hunter at all. He's lost his motivation for paying any kind of attention to anything except what might be wrong with Sam. He's too close to it to research it objectively, and so he distracts himself as much as possible (Why did he need to be in a bar in the middle of the day in the first place?) even while 'wishing' he had the truth.
HEY I LIKE YER BOOOOOOBS.
LOL ok. So I have to tell this story. We were at a comedy club a few months back and the comedian said he never got how Wonder Woman's power worked. It went like this.
"So, I mean she's a freaking Amazon Princess, right, she's about 8 ft tall and smoking hot, and her power is the LARIAT OF TRUTH. The part I can't figure out is how she ever gets good information from the bad guys. Picture it. WONDER WOMAN ropes the dimwitted thug with the LARIAT OF TRUTH. She hauls him in and grabs him by the shirt collar, lifts him up off the floor to chest level and says, 'TELL THE TRUTH!' and the guy just goes, 'You got really great boobs...' "
Lol, anyway, I thought of that. And I laughed a lot.
Dentist Scene
Supernatural, promoting gum disease in all ages since October 2010. Although I guess this balances out that Halloween they made people never ever want candy again ... so, no candy, don't need dentist?
Anyway, we shall not speak of this. Ever. *cancels all appointments*
Dean and Lisa
Lisa, I’m sorry but this is actually the worst time in the universe to talk, can we do this later?
He doesn’t want to hear the truth, not from her. The thing is everything she said? It’s what she would have said anyway. She would have used different terms, (That came out so much harsher than I meant) but the truth spell doesn’t change anything because she was already calling to tell him the truth.
You’ve got so much buried in there. And you just push it down and push it down - do you honestly think you can go through life like that and not freak out? Just, what, drink half a fifth a night and you’re good?
HEY DEAN. KNOCK IT OFF WITH THE DRINKING. Seriously, I was trying to count shots this whole episode and I LOST COUNT. TWICE. It is starting to really seriously bother me. Make it go away. You are reminding me of the Dean that wanted to say yes to Michael, and that is not okay. Avoidance does not equal dealing. DEAL, already. *hands*
Yeah. But I didn’t expect Sam to come back. And I’m glad he’s okay, I am. But the minute he walked through that door I knew it was over.
She knows about Sam and Dean’s deal and the apocalypse and the whole 9. Knowing what she knows, it’s not surprising that Sam’s return would kill her hopes for keeping Dean around, but it makes me love her even more for fighting for it - for fighting for Dean. Also you can see how much she absorbed him into her life, even his little patterns when he talks. (I’m glad he’s okay, I am.)
As long as he’s in your life, you’re never going to be happy.
Dean told her once that when he pictures himself happy, it’s with her. That turned out to be only half true in the execution: Dean and Sam may have MASSIVE issues, but as much grief as they cause each other, they can’t really exist outside the bond they have. I think to ever have true and complete happiness, Dean would have to safely somehow have both, and as it’s been pounded into our skulls over and over the last 5 years, that just ain’t in a hunter’s cards. The best you can hope for is periods of peace, and treasure them when they come.
(Like say, driving 1000 miles for an Ozzy show or 2 days for a Jayhawks game or just sitting and watching the stars for hours and omg excuse me, I need to go cry now.)
Ok, I’m back. Don’t laugh but I got distracted and watched Swan Song. LOL. *wipes tears* And you guys wonder why it takes me so long to do these reviews.
Anyway the fact is, there have been large periods of time when Sam’s companionship did bring Dean fulfillment and happiness, (In fact it’s whenever Sam is gone that Dean crashes and burns) but at the particular moment she says this, it couldn’t feel more true. Not only is Dean really unsure if Sam is even Sam, but if he IS Sam then Dean will have to face the reality that actually, that’s even worse, because it means his Sam is gone for good. *sobs*
Me and Ben can’t be in this with you. I’m sorry.
What was he going to say to her? You and Ben … what? I have a feeling the next five words would have been something along the lines of are the only thing that, and uh. *looks for more Kleenex*It hurts that he lost her, really badly, but I’m just glad her and the kid LIVED. Take it where you can get it, fandom - this show ain’t usually so kind.
And hey - keep your fingers crossed on that one. Because nothing is ever over around here.
Random Observations
Whoever picks the newspaper headlines for this show is either a sadist or is addicted to the SPN crew culture meta. (Remember Ghostfacers, how they made fun of the writer’s strike? Balls, Show. )
"Inquiry to focus on weakest link."
"Travel Adventure with Sun Pass" <-- nice big picture of a plane flying the friendly skies.
" Study links budget cuts related to illness, death." <-- LOLOL.
"Springfield Daily Reader - Final Edition". *dies*
Dean has Gwen and Christian on his speed dial.
When Dean was researching Sam, he pulled up the same picture that Zachariah showed him, the one I call the Dean and Cas picture. The article is talking about signs of angelic possession. I can't hammer home enough that Dean is still operating from the base of his own experiences with Hell to judge how Sam should be acting. It's important because it shades every choice he makes and dictates a large portion of what he thinks about things.
He also pulled up doppelgangers, which was a good thought, but I think Sam is more like a golem.
Sam and Dean
The opening scene with Dean calling Bobby for help is shot really smartly - usually they angle things so that they are more or less on the same plane, but here Sam is practically looming over Dean. It puts us down below and lets us feel Dean’s intimidation. As someone who has been loomed over by Jared before (like many of you), I can attest to the fact that if I were a shred afraid of him, the looming would be very intimidating indeed.
It really, REALLY hurts to hear Dean call Sam ‘it’ while he's on the phone with Bobby. Because I know he’s Sam. And I get that Dean doesn’t know he’s Sam, but OUCH, show. After everything, after all the work involved with converting Dean over to realizing that Sam is not and has never been a monster, this? You kind of suck sometimes, you know that?
Most of episode Dean is uncomfortable touching him and he doesn't look him in the eyes unless he has to. Even in season 4 when Dean knew Sam was keeping secrets it wasn't like this - then Dean was suspicious, but now Dean's afraid.
Do You Know What a Tell is?
I like that in this scene, while Sam is reading the girl, Dean is reading Sam. Dean used to know all of Sam's tells, but now they're wrong. It's because even when Sam is acting sincere, even though the huff of breath and downcast gaze is there, his eyes stay the same - fixed. Intense.
Sam making the girl tell the truth gave me chills. It’s not like we’ve never seen him do that before, (Pilot: Joseph Welch. Even then he could be downright harsh when he wanted something.) but the cadence is off, the notes are all wrong - the laser focus is too intense … It’s such a perfect parody of Sam. It’s how Sam remembers he should look, how his voice should sound. Underneath it all is this undertone of expression that reminds me of the way Lucifer would look, shift, move.
It’s creepy on multiple levels. Bravo, Jared. Stellar job. *applause*
Dean isn’t sure whether he should be more disturbed by the way Sam wrung the truth out of the girl, or by the fact that Sam was right. Two cold hard facts: 1, Not!Sam Sam is an excellent hunter. 2, the perfect machine that feels no remorse, knows no boundaries and has no fear is always bested in the end by someone else who has a driving cause to fight for. A Human cause.
This is why no matter how many monsters Sam can take out, he won’t ever get ahead of Dean, because he’s Dean’s cause. Dean needs him to be right before Dean can be alright. So it’s only just a matter of time.
Declining Interviewing the Witness
Dean really throws Sam for a loop here. He knows he should be getting that sense that something is wrong, but it’s like he’s reaching for it and it’s just on the edges of his brain, he can’t grab it so he shrugs and says ok, sure, good idea, like maybe it’s not so weird after all. So it’s not that he can’t tell Dean is sort of coming apart, it’s more like he just can’t place why, so he lets it go.
It’s even a little more than that, though - Sam misses Dean. He’s said from the start that things are better when Dean is around, and I don’t think all the crestfallen faces that happen whenever Dean ducks him are fakes.
The old Sam would have sat Dean down and demanded to know what he was so freaked about, but if he was the old Sam Dean wouldn’t be freaked in the first place. Ahh, the circle of Winchester life.
Testing the Truth Spell
Now, here I knew Sam was lying right away and I think Dean did too. Only Dean, not being nearly as certain as I am that Sam isn’t (nor has he ever been) human, was trusting in the power of the spell to force the truth. GAH. And Dean looks so relieved when Sam insists that he would never, and Sam looks so hurt that Dean would ask that and then in 0.5 seconds flat it’s straight back to zero and just - aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh. *hands* SO. AWESOME. I admit it. I flailed and had shivers down my spine.
I do have to give massive, massive props though to Dean for just asking about the one relevant thing and not trying to go digging for more information about Sam’s missing year or his time in the cage. Days were I would have never thought Dean would do something like that, but he’s so desperate lately I was starting to get nervous. I’m glad that’s still a line he knows better than to cross. (To be fair, I also never thought Sam would feed Dean to a vampire, so Show is doing a great job of undermining my faith. Dammit, Show, how did I let you get away with that? Grrr.)
*Hugs Dean, because he gets it, he does.*
Brothers Again
The second Dean believes that Sam really does have his back, he turns a 180. He's back to looking at him and being in close physical proximity to him. More than that, he's back to hunting with him, which means researching the case together.
(Oh hai Sam's purple shirt! You are very soft!)
Even more telling than that is the fact that he STOPS DRINKING. He gets FOOD. He pulls down the sheets on his bed. He switches to coffee. He lets his guard down because no matter how weird Sam may be acting, as long as Sam has Dean's back, Dean doesn't have to be 10 shots in and worrying himself to death. If that's not proof that Dean needs Sam just as much now as he ever did, I don't know what is.
Sam, on the other hand, never moves. He's a machine, analyzing and weighing every detail and looking really hot while he does it.
It's Sam that picks up a vibe from the video segment, but it's Dean who spots the Freak. They still work best as a team.
Sadly, all sufficiently operating practices must come to an end. Or at least they must if you are a Supernatural character.
The Truth is Out There
DUDE I WANT THIS HOUSE FOR CHRISTMAS.
I thought Veritas was a really interesting villain, and the tongue being the center of lies is so awesome and also creepy and her whole basement is just disgusting that I really kind of sort of love it a lot.
A lying tongue hates its victims, and a flattering mouth works ruin. ~Proverbs 26:28
Dean's Truth
Sam seems surprised at Dean's statement about wanting to kill him in his sleep. This is the follow up to earlier when Sam was sort of attempting to figure out why Dean was acting strangely but couldn't put his finger on it. He doesn't seem surprised at all about the rest of what Dean says, though. Why should he? It's what he told Dean in 601. They both wanted Dean to get to have a family, but they both realized that it just wasn't in the cards. I still wish he could have both, and I'm sure they do, too. It doesn't change the fact that it's not in the cards. At least not until the world is safe. Hunting is who he was born to be, it's what he's good at.
How he views himself as a killer, though, that's something we've suspected for a long time but he's never said out loud. I did a research paper on Ender's Game in college once, and my partner's part of the paper was to focus on the difference between a killer and a soldier. Dean used to view himself as a soldier and he never let the job get to him, never 'took it home like that', as he told Sam back in s1. After Hell, he began to view himself as a killer with a job to do. Now he views himself as just a killer, and he sees hunting as the only place he can hide and still fit in.
Oh, Dean. Just because someone comes back from Hell wrong doesn't mean they are evil.
When confronted with the choice to lie again, Sam is asked the question 'How do you feel about getting the band back together.' Sam already said what he thinks about it - that it's better with Dean around. He could have said that again, and Dean would have seen it as a consistent truth since he's heard him say it before. Instead, he says that what they do is hard, and that they look out for each other. It's what Dean needed to hear before, and it seemed to make Dean relax the first time, so it's a good reiteration. The truth would have been to say that he doesn't really feel anything about it at all, but that would upset Dean, so he lies.
He wasn't counting on her outing him for not being human.
It's not really news that Sam isn't human. Dean knows some of that, but he's always sort of been in denial about just how deep it goes. I still hold that Sam is half angel, but there is also certainly a demonic element as well, and then there is this, from page 113 of John's journal.
Definition of Wendigo - "Perfect hunter. Heightened senses, speed, power. Enhanced vision, smell. Cunning and Insane. Not bound by moral convictions or conventional restraints."
And this.
"Consuming the amount of blood it would take to kill Lilith would change your brother forever. Most likely, he would become the next creature you would feel compelled to kill." ~Castiel, 4.21
Suffice it to say, the possibilities are endless.
I literally jumped when Veritas turned around and looked all catty. SO COOL.
Some of the angles of some of these shots are just too cool not to include the caps. *loves all over show*
This is fear, coming from Sam. He just heard his brother say he thought he was a monster. He may be detached from his conscience, but he remembers what happened right after the last time Dean thought that, and he remembers the cage, and he knows that Dean WILL kill him if he can’t convince Dean he’s telling the truth. He’s got good reason to beg.
The big reveal: Sam is a supermassive black hole.
He doesn't feel it. I don't think this was much of a surprise to viewers, but it certainly rang Dean's bell a little. It's just too bad that it was right about the worst time to ask for help.
First, Veritas just outed him for not being human, and second, remember how I talked about Dean using his own experience to judge how Sam should be acting? When Dean came back from Hell, his only wish was to be able to STOP feeling. For Sam to be feeling nothing doesn't make any sense to him. Hell still tortures him, a lot, and he can't fathom not being able to feel, or feeling but not having to care, which in this case is more accurate.
Remember how earlier I said that Dean's 2 viable answers were unacceptable? And how either of them being the truth could lead him to be suicidal? Well, what he didn't bet on in all that being 10 shots in and worrying himself to death was that there was an option number three.
It really is Sam, there really is something wrong with him, and he's willing to offer his cooperation for Dean to help him fix it.
But it's too late for that. If Sam had told the truth when Dean first asked, if he had confessed to letting Dean get turned then, maybe this conversation could have ended differently. But now Dean has seen Sam lie to a goddess whose superpower is getting humans to spill the beans. She flat out said that Sam wasn't human. The ONLY course of action left to Dean is to take Sam down. When he's sure he has him contained, when he can verify the information - basically when he's sure Sam isn't actually a monster that is lying to his face even now - THEN he can start to believe.
My question now becomes, WHEN (notifnotif) Sam finds himself again, after being so comfortably numb for a year, how will he handle dealing with the memories of not just the cage, but of what he's done? Will he be able to let himself move on knowing that it wasn't his fault, or will he let the trauma of Hell and the guilt from his actions since consume him?
In conclusion ...
IS IT FRIDAY YET!?!?!
*dies*