SPN 6x05 Sam Meta
So, I think I'm going to skip the ep reaction this week and move straight to the meta. This is part because I'm insanely busy this weekend, and partly because I think my reaction to this ep is a little hard to quantify, if you know what I mean.
Ok. So. Hello, headtrip, my old friend. Sam deliberately let Dean get turned into a vampire. I think we can officially put to bed any doubt that something is Seriously Wrong with our boy Sam. The possibility still exists that this is all the result of deep trauma, and at the end of the day we're still dealing with a profoundly damaged, but still 100% present and accounted for, Sam. But I kind of doubt it.
It's been noted, even by Sam!girls, that if this is just Sam, he may be moving into unforgivable, and frankly, unsalvageable territory. The entire redemption arc of the last season will have been undone, and we'll be right back in a S4 headspace, where Sam is a total fuckup, and completely untrustworthy, and that's just essential to his character. Clearly, if left to his own devices, Sam will always trust the wrong people, do the wrong thing, then lie about it, and hurt Dean in the process.
I don't believe that for a minute. I'm a little more ambivalent about the writers' ability to keep this in mind and convey it properly, but for what it's worth, I don't think that's where they're heading, even by implication.
At the moment, I still have my two theories cheerfully simmering on the fire, and I'd be willing to bet that the writers will go down one those roads. God knows they might not. I've had theories I would have put money on before, and yet the writers went in completely different directions; could be they'll do it again. That being said --
The first theory is the fandom favorite, and it's the one I'm more seriously expecting: Sam lost his soul in the Pit. (There's something deeply telling about the fact that I almost put an extra t on the end of that word... but enough about me.) Mostly when people are talking about this idea, they talk about Sam having sold his soul to get out. Given Balthazar's little exposition on the value of souls on the supernatural commodities market, that does seem somewhat likely, and really, who could blame him if he did? I imagine that almost anyone in Hell would sell their soul to get out if they could, but most of them are there because they no longer own their souls to sell. Sam would have been in a pretty unique situation, in that he was in Hell, not because his soul was damned in itself (although the canon on whether souls can damn themselves through their actions is still a little murky), and not because he'd sold his soul to a demon (for good reasons or bad), but because he'd jumped in bodily, with a soul that was not damned and was 100% his. This would have meant that, in Hellish terms, he had an unprecedented bargaining position. Who could blame him if he took advantage?
That being said, I don't think that's the case. For one thing, Sam remembers his time in the cage, and yet seems genuinely in the dark about how he got out. Maybe he's lying about that, but I'm not getting that vibe. If whoever he sold his soul to was going to wipe out that bit of his memory, wouldn't it have been better to wipe out the entire experience of being in the cage? For another, I'm not sure who Sam could have sold his soul to. He was in Lucifer's cage. We know from 4x22 that demons don't know where the cage is, and Azazel had to go to some trouble to figure out how to even talk to Lucifer. I sincerely doubt any crossroad demon was going to bother killing a convent full of nuns just to offer to buy Sam's soul (which was already in Hell). This is, in addition, assuming that the nun thing would let him get in touch with Sam, as opposed to Lucifer, Michael, or Adam. And that the demon would have the power to get Sam out of the cage, when even Azazel had to go through the whole Apocalypse process to get Lucifer out. And finally, in all previous examples we've seen of people selling their souls, they actually kept those souls. All that happened was that there was a contract stating that, when the contract was up or the victim's earthly use of the soul was over (ie, death), the soul went to hell, regardless of where it would otherwise have gone. While the people (Dean, Bella, Bobby, whats-his-face from Crossroad Blues) were still alive, they were still themselves, still had all their emotions. Sam, however, does not. If he'd sold his soul to get out of Hell, I can't see why his soul leaving with him wouldn't have been part of the bargain, and as part of an ordinary deal, he would still have access to his soul until death.
So, yeah, I don't think Sam sold his soul. However, I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Hell is not a physical place. Sam jumped physically into Hell, and we know that he popped right back out not long after. My thought is still that, whether someone helped him or not (and I'm sure someone, for some reason, did), getting Sam's body out of Hell would have been easy. It wasn't supposed to be there to begin with. Getting Sam's soul out, however, may well have been a much trickier proposition. After all: souls are what Hell is designed to trap. Getting Dean's soul out of Hell, we were told, was pretty well impossible once it was there, short of a troop of angels fighting their way in to retrieve it. We know that no troop of angels fought their way in for Sam, even if that would have helped, what with the nature of the cage. God could do whatever he damned well pleased, no doubt, but God seems to be out as the (kinda literal) deus ex machina for this particular mystery.
My money, then, is that, regardless of the hows and whys of Sam's body and mind returning to earth, his soul is still hanging out with Lucifer. I imagine, then, that the mid-season plot will be about trying to get his soul back. Once again, given Balthazar's little speech, I'd guess that the soul trade will have something to do with it.
As a solution to current issues, this is really the simplest and most elegant possibility. With Sam's soul missing, he's reduced to nothing but his mind. I'm sure his mind remembers emotions and what they should feel like, which could explain the occasional, muted emotions that we see on him, but there would be nothing actually there. Just an echo. All that's really there is Sam's own native practicality and ruthlessness. And let's face it: I love the guy, but he is naturally both practical and ruthless, either when the situation calls for it, or when his emotions are stunted or damaged (Mystery Spot Sam, I'm looking at you). When everything is working properly, Sam's emotions tend to counterbalance these qualities. Without emotions, they're all he is. He lacks a moral compass. It doesn't necessarily excuse the things he's done, but it certainly provides a valid basis for reconciliation, and a framework within which to understand why Sam is acting the way he is and why, once he's fixed, it wouldn't happen again. And furthermore, it offers something to be fixed. Irreparable emotional devastation is the more realistic route to take, but it doesn't really work for a tv show (and remind to write up that meta -- it's been swirling around in my head for ages). By getting Sam's soul back, the boys can jump straight into the healing process, and we can get the old Sam back, all pretty quickly. Hopefully not without some trauma, mind you. Otherwise, it's just too easy. But yeah. That would fix things nicely. As I say: simple, elegant.
My second theory, as I've mentioned before, is a little more out there, but it makes sense to me, and I think this latest ep offers some additional evidence for it. It's pretty simple, really, it's best articulated with this very short review:
1. A big point of this season is that there are a bunch of monsters running around acting wildly out of character.
2. Sam is running around acting wildly out of character.
3. The flickering streetlamp in the final scene of 5x22 all but told us flat out that Sam isn't human anymore.
So, then, what if Sam is being affected by whatever is messing with the creepy crawlies?
Clearly, there's some sort of connection. The monsters have started acting strangely. The mysterious "Alphas" of the various species abruptly show up, and seem to be influencing this strange behavior. At the same time, Sam and Samuel come back to life. The Campbells, led by Samuel, and working for some mysterious voice on the phone, are actively trying to capture the Alphas -- and apparently, any other monster they can get their hands on. Sam may or may not be in the dark about this -- both times that Samuel seemed to be trying to hide it from him, Dean was there; he might just have been trying to hide it from Dean.
Whether Sam knows about the capturing thing or not, though, he knows about the Alphas, and he's clearly very interested in them. I'm still not sure whether Sam was deliberately using the baby shapeshifter as bait: while they definitely implied that Sam was lying about not using the baby, if you look back, Sam really wasn't there when the cop!shifter talked about the Alpha. On the other hand, his motivation for letting Dean get turned into a vampire was absolutely an attempt to find out about the vampire Alpha. What's really interesting, though, is Samuel's reaction to Sam letting Dean get turned, and not just the the fact that Sam lied, but also the way he lied about it.
While Samuel is definitely working for someone to capture Alphas, he seemed honestly shocked that Sam would prioritize getting info on the vamp Alpha over his brother's safety. When he says, "What's wrong with you?," Samuel implies that he's actually upset that Sam might think that finding the Alpha is more important than taking care of family, and by extension, that the Alphas aren't as important to Samuel as family. The fact that Sam felt obliged to lie about it, then, means that he knows Samuel wouldn't approve of what he's done in pursuit of their shared goal. It also means that Sam and Samuel are definitely not on the same page in terms of their interest in the Alphas. Indeed, it seems like Sam might be more interested than the Campbells. Let's think about this: if Sam and Samuel were even remotely on the same page, Sam would not have lied. If he were not actively hiding something, this cold version of Sam would have argued that, since he knew about the cure, then, yes, he let Dean get turned, and why are you so upset, we can fix this, and it'll get us what we both want, right?
I'm not sure if Sam is hiding how damaged he is, or the depth of his interest in the Alphas, but if it's the latter, that probably means he has an interest that's separate from Samuel's. Could be it's a personal connection. Could be that Sam realizes that whatever's up with the monsters is up with him, and by finding out as much as possible (and maybe capturing?) any Alpha that he can, he'd be able to understand what's wrong with him, and maybe how he got out of Hell. If so, that's a plausible reason for him to be lying to Dean, I think. We know that, as fucked up as Sam might get, he doesn't want his brother to think of him as a monster. Unless the writers let the flickering streetlamp fall into the same void as Ruby's comments about Dumbo's feather, we can pretty safely assume that Sam is, if not entirely a monster, then at least not entirely human. And, when you get right down to it, if Sam were... something else, that would play very nicely into the series-long theme of "what makes a monster and what makes a man? (sing the bells of Notre Dame)."
I like this theory. I hope it's right, because I'd like to see it done. However, a hallmark of the show is drawing parallels between the boys and the monsters. Particularly Sam. Typically, Dean learns something about his situation or himself from the monsters, where as Sam reflects them (or they reflect Sam, whatever), and is just more closely associated with them. But just because Sam parallels a rugarou, it doesn't mean the show is trying to tell us he is a rugarou. Sam and the monsters might be reflecting one another this season, but it doesn't necessarily mean that Sam is a monster. Although the superhuman fence-jump from the promo for next week does seem to indicate that Sam might not actually be entirely human, although he's apparently human enough to smell like food to a vampire.
Oh well. Next week, I do believe we start getting some answers, which will be nice. And I have some interesting ideas of how this is going to work. From what I've read, the whole thing is how Veritas is causing people to tell others the brutal truth, causing those receiving the truth to commit suicide because they can't cope. Again, from what I've read (versus what I've seen in the promo clips, which is a different thing altogether), Dean will be telling Sam the brutal truth. If the suicide thing is part of Veritas' deal, rather than just the response of some of the victims, that would mean that Dean's honesty should result in Sam's suicide. Except, obviously it won't. If the soulless theory is right, how much you want to bet Sam will be saved from his fate because he's incapable of feeling the pain of whatever Dean says to him? That would be sort of awesome.
Um, this got kinda long. Oops? I have to say, my emotional engagement this season is a little hit or miss, but my intellectual engagement is still right up there.
Ok. So. Hello, headtrip, my old friend. Sam deliberately let Dean get turned into a vampire. I think we can officially put to bed any doubt that something is Seriously Wrong with our boy Sam. The possibility still exists that this is all the result of deep trauma, and at the end of the day we're still dealing with a profoundly damaged, but still 100% present and accounted for, Sam. But I kind of doubt it.
It's been noted, even by Sam!girls, that if this is just Sam, he may be moving into unforgivable, and frankly, unsalvageable territory. The entire redemption arc of the last season will have been undone, and we'll be right back in a S4 headspace, where Sam is a total fuckup, and completely untrustworthy, and that's just essential to his character. Clearly, if left to his own devices, Sam will always trust the wrong people, do the wrong thing, then lie about it, and hurt Dean in the process.
I don't believe that for a minute. I'm a little more ambivalent about the writers' ability to keep this in mind and convey it properly, but for what it's worth, I don't think that's where they're heading, even by implication.
At the moment, I still have my two theories cheerfully simmering on the fire, and I'd be willing to bet that the writers will go down one those roads. God knows they might not. I've had theories I would have put money on before, and yet the writers went in completely different directions; could be they'll do it again. That being said --
The first theory is the fandom favorite, and it's the one I'm more seriously expecting: Sam lost his soul in the Pit. (There's something deeply telling about the fact that I almost put an extra t on the end of that word... but enough about me.) Mostly when people are talking about this idea, they talk about Sam having sold his soul to get out. Given Balthazar's little exposition on the value of souls on the supernatural commodities market, that does seem somewhat likely, and really, who could blame him if he did? I imagine that almost anyone in Hell would sell their soul to get out if they could, but most of them are there because they no longer own their souls to sell. Sam would have been in a pretty unique situation, in that he was in Hell, not because his soul was damned in itself (although the canon on whether souls can damn themselves through their actions is still a little murky), and not because he'd sold his soul to a demon (for good reasons or bad), but because he'd jumped in bodily, with a soul that was not damned and was 100% his. This would have meant that, in Hellish terms, he had an unprecedented bargaining position. Who could blame him if he took advantage?
That being said, I don't think that's the case. For one thing, Sam remembers his time in the cage, and yet seems genuinely in the dark about how he got out. Maybe he's lying about that, but I'm not getting that vibe. If whoever he sold his soul to was going to wipe out that bit of his memory, wouldn't it have been better to wipe out the entire experience of being in the cage? For another, I'm not sure who Sam could have sold his soul to. He was in Lucifer's cage. We know from 4x22 that demons don't know where the cage is, and Azazel had to go to some trouble to figure out how to even talk to Lucifer. I sincerely doubt any crossroad demon was going to bother killing a convent full of nuns just to offer to buy Sam's soul (which was already in Hell). This is, in addition, assuming that the nun thing would let him get in touch with Sam, as opposed to Lucifer, Michael, or Adam. And that the demon would have the power to get Sam out of the cage, when even Azazel had to go through the whole Apocalypse process to get Lucifer out. And finally, in all previous examples we've seen of people selling their souls, they actually kept those souls. All that happened was that there was a contract stating that, when the contract was up or the victim's earthly use of the soul was over (ie, death), the soul went to hell, regardless of where it would otherwise have gone. While the people (Dean, Bella, Bobby, whats-his-face from Crossroad Blues) were still alive, they were still themselves, still had all their emotions. Sam, however, does not. If he'd sold his soul to get out of Hell, I can't see why his soul leaving with him wouldn't have been part of the bargain, and as part of an ordinary deal, he would still have access to his soul until death.
So, yeah, I don't think Sam sold his soul. However, I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Hell is not a physical place. Sam jumped physically into Hell, and we know that he popped right back out not long after. My thought is still that, whether someone helped him or not (and I'm sure someone, for some reason, did), getting Sam's body out of Hell would have been easy. It wasn't supposed to be there to begin with. Getting Sam's soul out, however, may well have been a much trickier proposition. After all: souls are what Hell is designed to trap. Getting Dean's soul out of Hell, we were told, was pretty well impossible once it was there, short of a troop of angels fighting their way in to retrieve it. We know that no troop of angels fought their way in for Sam, even if that would have helped, what with the nature of the cage. God could do whatever he damned well pleased, no doubt, but God seems to be out as the (kinda literal) deus ex machina for this particular mystery.
My money, then, is that, regardless of the hows and whys of Sam's body and mind returning to earth, his soul is still hanging out with Lucifer. I imagine, then, that the mid-season plot will be about trying to get his soul back. Once again, given Balthazar's little speech, I'd guess that the soul trade will have something to do with it.
As a solution to current issues, this is really the simplest and most elegant possibility. With Sam's soul missing, he's reduced to nothing but his mind. I'm sure his mind remembers emotions and what they should feel like, which could explain the occasional, muted emotions that we see on him, but there would be nothing actually there. Just an echo. All that's really there is Sam's own native practicality and ruthlessness. And let's face it: I love the guy, but he is naturally both practical and ruthless, either when the situation calls for it, or when his emotions are stunted or damaged (Mystery Spot Sam, I'm looking at you). When everything is working properly, Sam's emotions tend to counterbalance these qualities. Without emotions, they're all he is. He lacks a moral compass. It doesn't necessarily excuse the things he's done, but it certainly provides a valid basis for reconciliation, and a framework within which to understand why Sam is acting the way he is and why, once he's fixed, it wouldn't happen again. And furthermore, it offers something to be fixed. Irreparable emotional devastation is the more realistic route to take, but it doesn't really work for a tv show (and remind to write up that meta -- it's been swirling around in my head for ages). By getting Sam's soul back, the boys can jump straight into the healing process, and we can get the old Sam back, all pretty quickly. Hopefully not without some trauma, mind you. Otherwise, it's just too easy. But yeah. That would fix things nicely. As I say: simple, elegant.
My second theory, as I've mentioned before, is a little more out there, but it makes sense to me, and I think this latest ep offers some additional evidence for it. It's pretty simple, really, it's best articulated with this very short review:
1. A big point of this season is that there are a bunch of monsters running around acting wildly out of character.
2. Sam is running around acting wildly out of character.
3. The flickering streetlamp in the final scene of 5x22 all but told us flat out that Sam isn't human anymore.
So, then, what if Sam is being affected by whatever is messing with the creepy crawlies?
Clearly, there's some sort of connection. The monsters have started acting strangely. The mysterious "Alphas" of the various species abruptly show up, and seem to be influencing this strange behavior. At the same time, Sam and Samuel come back to life. The Campbells, led by Samuel, and working for some mysterious voice on the phone, are actively trying to capture the Alphas -- and apparently, any other monster they can get their hands on. Sam may or may not be in the dark about this -- both times that Samuel seemed to be trying to hide it from him, Dean was there; he might just have been trying to hide it from Dean.
Whether Sam knows about the capturing thing or not, though, he knows about the Alphas, and he's clearly very interested in them. I'm still not sure whether Sam was deliberately using the baby shapeshifter as bait: while they definitely implied that Sam was lying about not using the baby, if you look back, Sam really wasn't there when the cop!shifter talked about the Alpha. On the other hand, his motivation for letting Dean get turned into a vampire was absolutely an attempt to find out about the vampire Alpha. What's really interesting, though, is Samuel's reaction to Sam letting Dean get turned, and not just the the fact that Sam lied, but also the way he lied about it.
While Samuel is definitely working for someone to capture Alphas, he seemed honestly shocked that Sam would prioritize getting info on the vamp Alpha over his brother's safety. When he says, "What's wrong with you?," Samuel implies that he's actually upset that Sam might think that finding the Alpha is more important than taking care of family, and by extension, that the Alphas aren't as important to Samuel as family. The fact that Sam felt obliged to lie about it, then, means that he knows Samuel wouldn't approve of what he's done in pursuit of their shared goal. It also means that Sam and Samuel are definitely not on the same page in terms of their interest in the Alphas. Indeed, it seems like Sam might be more interested than the Campbells. Let's think about this: if Sam and Samuel were even remotely on the same page, Sam would not have lied. If he were not actively hiding something, this cold version of Sam would have argued that, since he knew about the cure, then, yes, he let Dean get turned, and why are you so upset, we can fix this, and it'll get us what we both want, right?
I'm not sure if Sam is hiding how damaged he is, or the depth of his interest in the Alphas, but if it's the latter, that probably means he has an interest that's separate from Samuel's. Could be it's a personal connection. Could be that Sam realizes that whatever's up with the monsters is up with him, and by finding out as much as possible (and maybe capturing?) any Alpha that he can, he'd be able to understand what's wrong with him, and maybe how he got out of Hell. If so, that's a plausible reason for him to be lying to Dean, I think. We know that, as fucked up as Sam might get, he doesn't want his brother to think of him as a monster. Unless the writers let the flickering streetlamp fall into the same void as Ruby's comments about Dumbo's feather, we can pretty safely assume that Sam is, if not entirely a monster, then at least not entirely human. And, when you get right down to it, if Sam were... something else, that would play very nicely into the series-long theme of "what makes a monster and what makes a man? (sing the bells of Notre Dame)."
I like this theory. I hope it's right, because I'd like to see it done. However, a hallmark of the show is drawing parallels between the boys and the monsters. Particularly Sam. Typically, Dean learns something about his situation or himself from the monsters, where as Sam reflects them (or they reflect Sam, whatever), and is just more closely associated with them. But just because Sam parallels a rugarou, it doesn't mean the show is trying to tell us he is a rugarou. Sam and the monsters might be reflecting one another this season, but it doesn't necessarily mean that Sam is a monster. Although the superhuman fence-jump from the promo for next week does seem to indicate that Sam might not actually be entirely human, although he's apparently human enough to smell like food to a vampire.
Oh well. Next week, I do believe we start getting some answers, which will be nice. And I have some interesting ideas of how this is going to work. From what I've read, the whole thing is how Veritas is causing people to tell others the brutal truth, causing those receiving the truth to commit suicide because they can't cope. Again, from what I've read (versus what I've seen in the promo clips, which is a different thing altogether), Dean will be telling Sam the brutal truth. If the suicide thing is part of Veritas' deal, rather than just the response of some of the victims, that would mean that Dean's honesty should result in Sam's suicide. Except, obviously it won't. If the soulless theory is right, how much you want to bet Sam will be saved from his fate because he's incapable of feeling the pain of whatever Dean says to him? That would be sort of awesome.
Um, this got kinda long. Oops? I have to say, my emotional engagement this season is a little hit or miss, but my intellectual engagement is still right up there.