Gotta love a man who drives a classic and even listens to the classic rock
THIS is cyberpob's Room 207 blog. Recognise it? It's the motel room that finally reunites Sam and Dean after three months apart and also begins Season 4 in earnest.
We've only just started the fourth series in the UK so are way behind with it than you guys over the pond - but what an exciting start to the new season! Padalecki and Ackles are pumped and looking fitter than ever and how about that angel of the Lord? I'd better say three hail Marys.
But ofcourse Supernatural is so much more than fit guys. It reveals Sam has honed some of his power to vanquish lower level demons, as we see in the diner and we have a new female body being taken over by Ruby.
Hot stuff in the first two eps: Sam and Dean, spotless Impala, Sam and Dean... and Sam and Dean.
Cold stuff in the first two eps: Sam's 'refurb' on the Impala's sound system, the loss of blonde Ruby (great actress with a demonic intensity) to a brunette bimbo (poor acting, better not be a Sam love interest).
Disagree? Tell me.....
4.11 Summary
Interior Farmhouse – Kitchen-Night.
Brian & Susan are sitting at the kitchen table and there are boxes all around them. Susan is looking through a book and Brian is just staring. Susan is reading from the book and asking Brian if he understands any of it. Brian smells something – like something crawled into the walls and died. She knows he’s not really paying any attention and asks him what they’re really doing there – their marriage is in trouble. He assures her they are going to be happy there. We hear Uncle Ted (off screen) call them over to look at something.
Exterior Farmhouse – Night.
Dean comes out of the house – he’s tired & angry with himself. Sam & others wait by the car. When Sam sees Dean he walks over to him and asks him what he found. Dean shakes his head & says he searched every inch. Sam didn’t find anything either. Susan comes over and asks them where her brother Ted is. Dean reacts & apologizes. Sam knows this isn’t good. Brian asks if Ted is dead. Susan starts to lose it. We can tell from the look on Dean’s face that Ted is dead.
Dean & Ted were in the walls & she attacked. He couldn’t get to Ted in time to save him. Susan falls apart. Kate comes up and asks if Uncle Ted is dead. Brian comforts the women. Dean watches for a minute and then walks away into the night. Sam is worried about him.
Exterior Farmhouse – Later that night.
Brian and Susan are leaning against the Impala – both wiped out and staring into the night. Susan thinks Danny is dead too. Susan thinks “she” killed her brother so “she” wouldn’t hesitate to kill her son too. Brian insists that Danny is alive – the girl in the wall told Danny she liked him & he could stay. Susan is about to totally lose it. Susan can’t understand why this is happening to them – they’re good people. She leans into Brian and cries. He assures her he’s going to find Danny.
Interior Farmhouse – dumbwaiter shaft – hidden room – same time.
Before Dean can react, another albino rushes up out of the hole & knocks Dean down. It's Billy, Lizzie’s twin brother. Dean is surprised; he didn’t know there were twins. He tells Danny to run. Billy lunges at Dean with a knife. Danny runs down the shaft – Sam is there and tells him to wrap the rope around him which Danny does. Meanwhile Billy is going crazy after Dean. The fight is serious – Billy is really trying to kill Dean.
Back in the shaft, Danny is getting claustrophobic then he sees Brian who helps him out & tries to calm him down. Danny is very frightened.
interior farmhouse – hidden room – same time.
Billy & Dean are still fighting. Billy is getting the better of Dean until Dean gets a hold of the knife. He stabs Billy who sinks to the ground dead. Just then Sam shows up & sees Dean standing over Billy’s body. Dean is bloody and upset – why?
exterior desolate trailer – day.
Sam & Dean are dressed as state cops & they interview Agatha Curry who is Bill Gibson’s former maid. Sam asks her what the room looked like when she found it. She tells them there was blood everywhere. Dean asks where Gibson was. Agatha says he was everywhere too. The boys share a look. Sam asks how long she’s been the maid and she tells him 15 years. She tells the boys that Gibson was a very private man and very bitter because his wife died giving birth to their daughter who hung herself in the attic 20 years later. She finds pictures and gives them to Sam and Dean. Dean asks if they can keep them.
Sam asks why the daughter killed herself. Agatha doesn’t know because it was before her time. Dean asks if she’s ever noticed anything odd – blinking lights, scratching noise. Nothing with the lights, but she did hear scratching in the walls. Sam asks where the wife and daughter are buried. They weren’t – they were cremated.
exterior farmhouse – moments later.
An SUV & moving van pull up in front of the farmhouse and the Carter family gets out. Danny (8) and Buster the dog go running into the field. 16 yr old Kate tries to get reception on her cell phone but there’s no service. Susan tries to get her daughter excited, but Kate is too busy being annoyed by the lack of reception. Kate is hoping Uncle Ted will back her up. Ted is Susan’s brother & agrees with Kate. Brian tells her to go start unpacking. Brian doesn’t like that Ted sided with Kate & tells him. Ted walks away and Susan tells Brian to be nice.
Brian and Susan are very excited about the house then they see Sam & Dean coming out of the house. Brian asks them why they’re there and the boys pull out badges & say they’re county code enforcement – there’s asbestos in the walls & a gas leak. They tell the family the house in uninhabitable. Brian, Ted & Susan are upset. Dean tells them to go stay in the motel just down the road. Brain starts to argue – Dean tells him to go or it’s a fine and or jail time. Brian is angry – but agrees to leave for one night.
exterior farmhouse – later that day.
Ted comes out of the house & walks up to Brian. He tells Brian Dean & Sam weren’t code enforcement – there isn’t any asbestos and no gas leak.
exterior farmhouse – later that day.
Ted is suddenly right next to Dean. Ted’s angry and says he doesn’t care who hung themselves where. Dean tells him it’s a spirit. Ted doesn’t believe him – says maybe it’s a backwoods hillbilly bitch & he’s not about to let her push them out. Dean tells him no one can leave the house. Ted tries to & tells Dean to try and stop him. Dean grabs him & twists his arm behind his back.
He tells Ted to get his ass back in the circle or Dean’s going to beat him up in front of his family & shoot him in the face. Ted agrees to go back so Dean lets him go. Sam points out Dean didn’t have a gun. Doesn’t matter – Dean isn’t going to let anyone else die that night. Sam looks at Dean and wonders if he should be worried. He asks Dean if he’s okay. Dean just tells him to go.
exterior farmhouse – moments later.
Brian & Ted come around the corner and stop. There’s a trial of blood from where they are to the barn. There is a message written on the barn in blood - “Too Late”. Sam & Dean come around the corner with Susan & Danny. Susan tries to hide Danny’s eyes – Buster is dead. Dean tells Brian they aren’t the bad guys & the family is in trouble. Ted asks what it is. Dean tells them they have to leave immediately. Brian & Ted look at all the blood and deicide they agree.
exterior farmhouse – moments later.
Sam & Dean walk Ted & Brian out to the cars. Susan, Danny & Kate walk along behind. They’re all hurrying – Dean tells them to go to the motel he told them about. Ted asks them what they’re going to do.
exterior farmhouse – moments later.
Brian walks off into the woods by himself; he needs some time to himself. Dean is there and surprises him when he asks if Andy was a son. Brian tells him that Andy was the oldest and was killed in a car accident last year. Brain says it almost tore him & Susan apart and still might. That’s why they moved to the country – they needed a fresh start. Dean swears he’s getting Danny back for them. Brian asks why Dean cares, but before Dean can answer Sam steps out of the shadows – he & Dean need to talk.
Bill Gibson sides:
Bill Gibson (60) is sleeping in front of the TV. The lights start flickering. He tries to open the door, but it won’t’ open. He hears scratching. The closet door – it has a distinctive pattern on it – starts to open. Bill turns and sees a ghost like woman. He seems to know her. She’s coming for him. We can’t see her eyes, but we see her teeth and they’re rotted. We hear him screaming off screen.
Kate sides
Kate is unloading the SUV when she turns toward the house and sees a ghost woman in the window. Susan asks her what’s wrong – but now the ghost is gone. Kate doesn’t want to be there, but tells her mom it’s all going to change & be better there.
interior farmhouse – Kate’s bedroom – later that night.
Kate is sleeping. She wakes up when she hears Buster whining. She reaches down to pet him and he licks her hand. She tells him she hates it there too. There’s a scratching on the outside of the bedroom door. THE door starts to open – Kate is freaked. Buster starts barking at whatever is on the other side of the door. Kate is scared and turns on the bedside lamp. Just then the closet door slams shut and Buster runs to it barking & growling.
interior farmhouse – Danny’s bedroom – night.
Danny is unpacking and tosses some item s into the closet. This closet door has the same pattern as the other closet door. Danny yells downstairs that he’s done unpacking. He starts playing video games and the closet door starts to open. Just then, a ball rolls out of the closet and lands at his feet.
inside closet POV – whatever is in the closet is watching Danny.
Danny walks over to the closet and sees what’s inside. He tries to make friends with it. He rolls the ball back in & then….
interior farmhouse – living room – moments later.
Ted is stating at the wall. “Go” is scrawled on the wall in red letters. Susan wonders who did it. Brian looks at it and decides it was written in crayon. He calls Danny downstairs – he’s sure Danny did this. Ted starts to offer advice, but Susan tells him to shut up. Susan reminds Brian that Danny’s teacher warned them that Danny might act out.
When Danny comes downstairs he sees the writing on the walls – literally- and knows he’s in trouble. Brain asks him if there is something he wants to tell his parents. Danny says he didn’t do it – the woman in the walls did it. Danny nods & tells his parents the woman in the walls wants Danny to stay and the others to leave. Brian demands that Danny tells him the truth. Danny is adamant that he is telling the truth. Brian tells him he’s going to be punished for not telling the truth. Danny is angry – he is telling the truth & knows that Andy would believe him. Brian & Susan are visibly shaken & Brian orders Danny upstairs. Just then there s a knock at the door.
Lizzie sides
interior farmhouse = hidden room – night. Dark, damp room. There are holes in the walls leading into who knows where. There are animal bones everywhere. Danny is sitting on the floor, his hands are tied and there is a gag in his mouth. A girl comes out of one of the holes and walks toward Danny. She takes his gag off, shows him a rat and smiles at him. Her mouth is full of rotting teeth. She breaks the rat’s neck and puts it in Danny’s mouth. He won’t eat it. She’s surprised, but since he won’t eat it, she takes it and eats it herself.
SUPERNATURAL
Episode 4.01
Lazarus Rising
Written by: Eric Kripke
Directed by: Kim Manners
Guest Starring: Genevieve Cortese, Misha Collins, Traci Dinwiddie
Plot Summary: Dean has fought his way out of the grave, but he looks awfully good for a man four months' dead. The question of who sprung him out of hell is just the beginning.
Review:
Supernatural, Season Four is here! But know this: when Kripke gives us something we want, he's as apt to give us something we don't.
First, though, Kripke's mad genius rocked the early minutes while barely making a sound. We get flashes of darkness and bloody light, rolling eyeballs and fragments of screams - until the click of a lighter reveals Dean, alive but trapped in claustrophobic gloom. His rasping screech for help is scarcely a voice, and there's only one way out. Dean finally claws his way up to daylight and a scorching blue sky, and oh yes, the lighting is harsh and vibrant, full of delicious contrast, the shadows stark and the colors snapping. I like, Eric, I like, I do!
Once aboveground, Jensen's performance shines as a man unfamiliar with a world he used to know. He peers warily about the gravesite, trees now blasted flat as Tunguska, before bowlegging his way down an empty, shimmering road, like a lone gunfighter appearing from a mirage. At isolated convenience store, he breaks in and helps himself to supplies: water, candy bars, and a skin magazine, proof positive that this is truly Dean. A newspaper tells the date: September 18th. We are watching his resurrection in "real time."
Now, I had wondered if Dean would bear hellhound scars, and he obliges us by consulting a mirror. There are none, just his anti-possession tattoo - yay, continuity! - but I was startled as Dean by the bright, angry burn scar on his left shoulder, shaped like a fiery hand. His silent explorations end with the buzzing of the TV and radio, and Dean remembers the signs.
Weaponless, he grabs salt and starts shaking out defensive lines, but an ear-splintering whine blows all the windows in. It bounces him off the walls in a hurricane of broken glass, before silence falls again. Alone is not something Dean does well, and his homing instincts are true. But Sam's number is disconnected, while Bobby hangs up with a death threat, so Dean hotwires a beat-up old 1962 Mercury Monterey and heads out.
The scene at Bobby's door is priceless: Dean standing there with a hopeful little smile, looking about ten years old, until a horrified Bobby attacks with a silver knife. But a little wrasslin', a little dodging around the furniture, and some holy water to the face leads to a rib-cracking, sniffle-inducing hug. Bobby's had it hard these four months past, as evidenced by the small army of liquor bottles populating his library.
Sam, however, is off the grid. He's presumed alive, but he went quiet, says Bobby, real quiet, and disappeared after burying Dean. Buried, rather than salted and burned, because Sam had said Dean would "need a body when he got you back home somehow." It's clear now that Sam has done something calamitously stupid. But how do you find a hunter who doesn't want to be found? Dean just smirks, "What don't I know about that kid?" Remember that question, folks.
In moments, Dean pinpoints Sam through the GPS on his cell phone in Pontiac Illinois, just miles from where Dean popped back to life. He and Bobby hit the road, but we get our first clue how different things are, when a scantily clad Random Girl opens Sam's hotel room door. She's looking for pizza delivery, but Sam, (freshly damp from the shower and awesomely buff) looks like he's seeing a ghost - or worse. His reaction turns explosive and blessed be Bobby's hunter's skills, that he ears Sam down before Dean ends up right back dead.
But finally, finally, fans are treated to the full-body, grappling hug of which we've so long dreamed, the brothers clinging tight as if absorbing the reality through their bones. There's a grin or two, as well, when Sam stammers around Random Girl's inquiry whether Dean and Sam are, you know, "together," and he forgets her name when she volunteers to leave.
However ... something is missing. Sam's simply too quiet, too contained, the only crack in his façade when Dean accuses him of making a demon's deal. For a moment, we glimpse the bone-deep anguish Sam has borne, for it wasn't Sam who freed Dean from Hell. But it wasn't for lack of trying, even to attempting the Devil's Gate, and Sam is sorry, so sorry.
There's hope for the old brotherly rapport when Sam returns a special talisman: Dean's amulet, which Sam has worn since his brother's death. Hope again, in the comedic moment when Sam hands over the keys to the Impala and Dean discovers Sam installed an iPod jack. But when Dean asks how Sam survived Lilith's attack, Sam says he was somehow immune. (Shades of his resistance to the demonic virus in "Croatoan.") Sam swears he's done nothing else, however, and Dean slams the door on Sam's freaky powers, saying grimly, "Let's keep it that way."
Pamela Barnes is, IMHO, one of the most refreshing female characters SPN has introduced in a while. An old friend of Bobby's, she is a gutsy, gorgeous, plainspoken psychic - and an outrageous flirt. Pamela's task is a séance designed to reveal what pulled Dean out of Hell, for which she needs to touch something Dean's monster touched. Sam is visibly freaked at the sight of Dean's livid scar, and it's a sweet, subtle thing how he tightens his clasp on his brother's hand.
Pamela meanwhile proceeds with the séance, commanding the creature to show itself to her. Castiel is the name she hears whispered, and she forges on despite its warnings, demanding its compliance. Instead, the candles whoosh into flame, Pamela's eyes blaze white, and she screams as blood pours down her face. She collapses, and while Sam scrambles to dial 911, she opens the blackened pits that used to be her eyes, now burned out and rendering her blind.
Later in a diner, the boys order pie and discuss their next move. Dean wants to try again while Sam adamantly refuses, saying he followed some demons here, so they should find and interrogate them, instead. Before they can agree on a course of action, though, the waitress sits at their table and reveals demon-black eyes. Two other men in the place are also demons.
The demonic waitress talks a good talk, threatening Dean while Sam restrains himself from diving over the table at her. But the demons don't know any more than Sam or Dean, and Dean realizes they are terrified of whatever broke him out. We see a brittle, seething temper in him when she threatens him again, and he slaps her twice before he and Sam walk out, unhindered.
Outside, Dean heaves a sigh of relief, but Sam almost jitters with anxiety over leaving three demons there, declaring that he's been killing a lot more demons than that, lately. "Not any more," Dean quips, "the smarter brother is back," and they'll handle just one job at a time. But Sam's look of simmering impatience says he's been alone too long to start taking orders, now.
Later that night, Dean conks out on the hotel sofa bed amidst a tumble of books, evidence of their search for answers, while Sam sneaks out and drives off in the Impala. He doesn't hear me shriek, "Nooo, you know what happens when you split up!" Sure enough, Dean awakens to supernatural static on the TV and clock radio. He rolls out of bed with shotgun in hand, (ooh, let me replay that again) but another explosion of glass and a piercing whine crushes him to the floor. He screams, clutching his ears, until Bobby bursts in and there the screen goes dark.
The boys' separation is far more than physical, when Dean calls to locate Sam. Sam says he couldn't sleep and has just gone for a burger, while Dean replies he and Bobby have gone for a beer. It's a total disconnect between the boys that sits in my guts like a bowling ball, and only the fact Sam and Dean are both hip deep in subterfuge allows such blithely absurd lies to work.
Granted, it's a tossup whose plan is worse. Dean wants to summon the thing that pulled him from Hell and burned out Pamela's eyes, and he doesn't want Sam to interfere. Sam wants to take on a diner full of demons alone. It's big-brother instinct compelling Dean to keep Sam away from the Power he intends to face, but Sam? Well, Sam evidently regard demons anywhere in the same zip code as Dean as a clear and present danger.
Sam picks the lock on the darkened diner only to find the cook dead, his eyes burned out. Something leaps from the darkness and he's on the short end of an ass kicking until he shoves his assailant off and it's the demon waitress - alive, but with her eyes also gone. Sam demands to know what she saw, but she only sobs that, "We're dead. We're all dead." She refuses to give any further answers, snarling, "Go to Hell," and oops, was that a mistake.
Sam raises one hand, closes his eyes, and holy freaking cats! It *looked* a bit corny, but Sam's powers are back, boy howdy! Black stuff pours from the waitress' mouth as if she were vomiting smoke, boiling and roiling until she collapses and falls. He stands an instant, dark and grim, but a flicker of the old Sam remains in his muted "damn it" when he finds the girl is dead.
My mouth is still open when a voice speaks from the shadows, and voila! The Random Girl at the hotel was not so random. It's Ruby, which begs an interesting question. Did Ruby find her own way back from wherever Lilith sent her, or did Sam summon her for his own ends? Whatever the case, it's evident they have an established association and Ruby can't ID the power that burned out these people's eyes and pulled Dean out of Hell.
"No demon can swing that," she says. "Not Lilith, not anybody."
Their conversation concludes with a double dose of creepy. The first is when Ruby says she doesn't want to come between Sam and his brother. (Since when?) Second is when Sam reflects on his actions, and in almost one breath swings from, "I don't know if what I'm doing is right," to "I'm saving people ... and that feels good. I want to keep going." It's a weird sort of eagerness that makes my neck hairs prickle, because just what *has* Sam been doing?
Meanwhile, Dean and Bobby have created a tagger's wet dream by spray-painting sigils and symbols from a hundred religions all over the inside of an old barn. Now, they literally swing their heels waiting to see if Bobby's ritual will summon anything. When the roof starts rattling and the door bursts in, I do not expect this: a mild-faced man in a tie and overcoat who walks amidst exploding light bulbs, and continues forward through a hail of ineffective gunfire.
"Who are you?" Dean demands, now clutching the demon-killing knife.
The stranger coolly replies, "I'm the one who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition."
He is Castiel, he who burned the eyes out of Pamela Barnes and flattened Dean's gravesite like a bomb. Dean stabs him with the magick knife, Bobby attacks from behind, but Castiel shrugs them off, and puts Bobby down with a mere touch between the eyes.
Seconds later, Castiel answers Dean's question, and Kripke did promise this episode would blow the fandom wide open: "I am an angel of the Lord," Castiel says, and God commanded Dean's resurrection. The reason, he says, "Because we have work for you."
And there it is. All Kripke's declarations that we would never see angels, that humans were the power of Good, and here is a walking, talking, glass-shattering seraph, complete with shadowy wings. Now Sam has a self-appointed mission to snuff demons, using powers some fear are Evil. Dean is being handed a job whose nature we do not yet know, by forces we are taught are Good. We can guess that Sam will justify his means by the end that he pursues: hunting evil. We can expect Dean to rage and shout, and point up the fact that Sam's advisor is a demon. Their fears for each other, instead of bringing them together, are already driving them apart.
Yet I don't think the struggle will be between evil!Sam and good!Dean. Nor am I convinced that Dean was brought back to stop Sam. Sam's far more into killing demons than leading them, so what, exactly, would God want to stop him doing? It may be that Kripke's idea of Angels is anything but heavenly choirs and beams of light. Clearly, Castiel does not comprehend Dean, neither his lack of faith nor his basic humanity. He seems genuinely bewildered that Dean could not perceive Castiel's true visage or bear his real voice. The angel has a mission, and the mission might be all he knows.
The question may actually be, given our suspicions of Ruby's intentions for Sam ... how can we trust Castiel's intentions for Dean? The conflict may be the boys fighting for the same goal by conflicting means, while un-human Powers push and pull them towards ends that serve the Winchesters' best interests not at all. I think the boys will find their way back to each other, sometime, somewhere, but it's going to be a long and rocky road.
As for the Angel thing? Relax, fellow fans. Kripke has never gone Southern Baptist on us yet. I sincerely doubt he's about to start now. :-)
The Consequences of Playing With Death
In a small apartment building, noises could be heard through the walls and doors, three male voices shouting.
"Tell
Us!", demanded one of the officers. He was an average sized man wearing
a leather jacket and some kind of amulet around his neck.
"I didn't do it I swear!, I wouldn't do such a horrible thing!", the young man sitting in a chair pleaded.
"Just tell us what you did!", the other officer, a very tall man, jumped in.
"please!, I didn't do it... it wasn't.... my idea...."
"So, you knew it was going to happen?!"
"Tell us or I swear-!"
Both
officers, who introduced themselves as Sam and Dean Winchester, were
waiting impatiently for the young man to begin his story.
"ok.... ok... I'll tell you, but I want this on record-"
"I had nothing to do with what happened".....
"I
was walking home from the movies, when my friend Danny came running up
to me with excitement in his eyes, he was out of breath and sweating".
.... ... ... ... ... ...
"Hey Jonah! Wait up dude!"
"What's up Danny, you look like you just ran the marathon", I teased.
"You will not believe what I just saw!, I was at the cemetery -"
.... ... ... ... ... ... ...
Back in the apartment - "Who's Miranda?", asked Sam.
"Miranda was Danny's and my best friend, we knew eachother since we were 5 years old".
"Oh, so why Miranda's grave?", Dean stared.
"One
night we all went to the amusement park to ride one of the scariest
roller coasters in town. Danny was scared shitless, but Miranda and I
were up for the challenge, we even dared one another not to scream on
the way down!- and the one who does has to buy the other dinner. So, we
rode the coaster and the dip down was coming, Miranda and I looked at
one another with determined silence, all I can remember was telling my
self 'don't scream, don't scream' - well I didn't and neither did
Miranda- I figured we both won this challenge, but something was wrong
because when the ride was over - Miranda was DEAD!"
Sam and Dean gave eachother a quick glance, "That still doesn't explain why-"
Jonah cut them off, "I'm getting there!"....
.... ... ... ... ... ...
" You did what!", I wailed at Danny
"You stood on her grave!?, what the hell's wrong with you!", I couldn't believe Danny would do such a heathenistic thing.
"Would you let me finish what I was trying to tell you!?- I know this all sounds weird-"
"Weird!
that's a bit of an understatement, what the hell possessed you to stand
on Miranda's grave?!" I couldn't believe I was waiting for an answer.
"I'm
getting to that, I read some-where that if you stand on someone's grave
and chant this weird Latin phrase 3 times, you would be able to see
what happened to that person at their last moments of life", Danny
seemed very pleased with himself- 'what an idiot!', I thought.
"So,
you chant this Latin phrase 3 times and you can see how someone died?",
I couldn't believe my ears. I just walked away. "You're insane you know
that!"
"Jonah wait! - don't you wanna know how Miranda died?"
" I already know, she died of a heart attack!"
"She was a healthy 16 year old girl"
"What's your point?", I shouted as I was trying my best to get away.
"My
point is she was a healthy 16 year old and the coroner found no
problems with her heart", Danny finally caught up with me and grabbed
my arm.
"She didn't die of a heart attack..."
I stared at him, tears welling up in my eyes, "Then how did Miranda die?"
"The Reaper got her", Danny had this half crazed look in his eyes, like he just found the missing link.
"The Rea-per?", now I knew he was off his wagon.
"Yes Jonah, the Reaper took Miranda's soul"
"You know there are no such things as Reapers"
"Yes, there are and I'll prove it to you, all you have to do is come to the graveyard with me and-"
"and what?! stand on Miranda's grave and chant!!!"
"Look, what do you have to lose? if nothing happens you can go home and if something does, then-"
That 'then' is what happened when I foolishly listened to Danny!
..... ... ... ... ... ...
Jonah glanced up at Sam and Dean, "I know what you're thinking, what an idiot"
"ummm, yeh something along those lines", mocked Dean
"Go on, then what?", Sam gave Dean a disapproving glare.
"So there we were in the grave yard staring down at Miranda's head stone..."
' BELOVED DAUGHTER AND A FRIEND TO ALL', it read.
"It felt eerie being there, like we were committing a mortal sin or something, goosebumps ran up and down my spine"...
..... ... ... ... ... ...
"Ok- lets do this so we can get the hell out of here", I pointed out to Danny.
"Yeh, ok, just stand there and say these phrases 3 times", Danny was a little too eager for my liking.
"Here goes nothing", I thought.
" causa mortis - Veritas vos liberos faciet, causa mortis - Veritas vos liberos faciet, causa mortis - Veritas vos liberos faciet ", my hands started shaking and I almost dropped the paper I was reading from.
..... ... ... ... ... ...
Jonah could see that Sam and Dean were pissed. It's understandable, he summoned a Reaper!
"I
was waiting for the winds to start blowing and the wolves to start
howling, but nothing happened, it was as silent as a tomb. Then
suddenly I saw it! The REAPER! it was standing right behind Danny",
Jonah was shaking like a leaf. ...
..... ... ... ... ... ...
"Danny, I see it!", I whispered afraid it might here me.
"Really! where?", Danny looked around excitedly.
"Right behind you!"
"I don't see it Jonah, are you sure it's there?"
"Danny look out!!", I shouted as I noticed the Reaper getting closer to Danny.
It
all happened so fast, the Reaper crept up to Danny and placed his hand
on Danny's head- Danny just stared at me with terror in his eyes, then
he dropped to the ground - no life left in him!
..... ... ... ... ... ... ...
"And that's how it happened, I swear!"
"I didn't know it was gonna happen like that, it wasn't my fault!"... "It couldn't have been..."
"I'm sorry to have to tell you this but you did kill your friend", said Sam Winchester, with heartened sympathy in his voice.
"By chanting the phrase, you summoned the Reaper and got your friend killed", Dean Winchester chimed in.
"But I didn't know, Danny said I would just see what really happened to Miranda", Jonah shook his head in disbelief.
"Yes, what happened to Danny happened to Miranda", Dean pointed out.
"So your saying that someone summoned the Reaper and got Miranda killed?", Jonah didn't quite understand.
"Yes.
Who ever summons the Reaper has control over it whether they're aware
of it or not, and the one summoning it is safe from it's DEATH TOUCH",
Sam tried explaining it to the distraught boy.
"We are sorry for your loss, but next time think twice before doing something so stupid and foolish", Dean scolded.
"Dean, come on", Sam cut in, "We are sorry, we'll be leaving you now, if you need anything just call this number"
..... ... ... ... ... ... ...
Sam and Dean left Jonah's apartment and hopped in the Impala, "Well so much for hunting", Dean sounded disappointed.
"I
think we helped that kid out today, sure we didn't shoot or stab
anything, but we helped a kid understand...", Sam said, though not
convinced of his own words.
Dean breathed a sigh (Sam was always the one in touch with his emotional side).
"I guess...", Dean didn't sound convinced either.
They both looked at one another - "There better be some killing needed somewhere", Dean threatened.
And they drove off.......
..... ... ... ... ... ...
Back at the apartment - Jonah was staring out the window as the officers, Sam and Dean left, dust in the wind.
"Why
would anyone want to kill Miranda?", Jonah felt that the officers, if
that's what they really were, were not telling him the whole truth.
"Who would want to harm Miranda?", tears began flowing down Jonah's cheeks......
..... ... ... ... ... ...
Foolish kids, when will they get that you can't mess with the Supernatural and get away with it!
..... ... ... ... ... ...
THE END
I has seen Supernatural's season finale. All I can say is holy c**p.
I've been running on raw emotion since 9:00pm, and given Real Life events of late, I just don't have a lot of reserves left. :-s Which means my heart rate shot through the roof from the first frames of Dean's nightmare, and pretty much didn't come down.
Yeah. That dream. Everybody's dream of running, running, but getting nowhere, only Dean's dream WILL come true, and he wakes up to just Sam's sweet face, and Sam's earnest, emphatic promise that Dean' won't go to hell. But *that* morphs into something horrific in a salute back to S2's "Crossroads Blues." To me, it artfully underscored the fact that this is really going to happen .
This is it, kids. Dean has 30 hours left. He tries to mask his fear by babbling about going to TJ, and donkey shows (wtf?), and Sam, bless his heart wryly comes back with, "Let's never do that." But this is really happening. The stark immediacy of it just stared at me from every frame.
And BOBBY! Oh, my dog, I love that man- BOBBY FTW!!! With his demon-locating gadget (I should know what that thing is - help me?) and his Latin. Then there's the boys arguing, Sam so damn panicked-desperate-scared it just oozes out of him like a smell, and they're shoving each other while Dean adamantly declares no Ruby, they won't make the same mistakes. And yeah, Bobby's frustrated with them both.
Naturally, though, Sam goes down into the basement and summon's Ruby - in what looks like the same ritual Dad used to summon Azazel, only with a different sigil. And Sam does it all from memory. The boy's been stuffing that big brain of his for months, hasn't he, poor lamb. Ruby appears, snarking that phones work, but Sam has no time for niceties. He wants Ruby's demon-killing knife, and he wants it now.
The tension in all this is excrusiating. We still don't know Ruby's game, only that Sam had not been ready, but now he is because, as he supplies, he's desperate. Lilith she claims is on shore leave, and we don't want to know what demons do for fun. Further, Ruby says Sam's powers are merely dormant, "and not just visions", which we have long suspected. But poor Sam has no clue how to tap into them, and he's seething at Ruby's lies. Yet she claims she lied only to Dean - she's never lied to Sam.
Annnd the tension cranks another turn when Dean appears. Unlike Sam, he sneers at her offers of help, jibing how yeah, it's because she was human once, and "you like kittens and long walks on the beach." "You stupid, spineless d**k," Ruby fumes - and Dean replies with crack to the jaw. The Ruby/Winchester smackdown is on! Given the drubbing she hands Dean, it's clear her drive to save Dean has nothing to do with his wellbeing, and everything to do with Sam.
But Dean had known Sam would not leave well enough alone, and set his own tripwires. They leave Ruby caught in a devil's trap, and take Ruby's knife.
After which we come to an awesome brother moment, and Dean? Is simply amazing. Even now, he clings to his sense of self, who he truly is, as much as he clings to life. Sam resents that Dean won't let Ruby help, doesn't understand Dean's earlier reference to not making the same mistakes, and Dean explains. Dad's deal, his own deal for Sam, and now Sam is willing to expend himself for Dean? Dean won't have it. What he wants is to go down swingin', no more Winchesters spreading the pain for the demons.
Then ... we find out what demons do for fun. Lilith, the queen of hell, has possessed the charming little daughter of a nice middle-American family, and turned their lives to terror. The babysitter lies dead with flies walking on her waxen skin. The child is *wearing* the blood of the family pet, and all the while she smiles and sparkles like Shirley freaking Temple. Yeah. Lilith is playing for a while.
Elsewhere, the boys have manned-up and loaded the car, ready to hit the road and meet fate/luck/Lilith head on. Sort of. 'Cuz the car won't start. Because? Bobby has stolen the distributor cap, and he chews the boys a new one for trying to ditch him like a prom date. This isn't your fight, Dean insists, to which Bobby blasts back, "Family don't end with blood!"
And that's all he's gotta say about that. I never imagined I could love Bobby more, but I do.
On to the boys driving at night, while Dean's hours slip inexorably away. Sam tries to speak, stammering for words, saying if things don't go right - and Dean cuts him short, grinning. If it's his last day on earth, he says, he doesn't want any awkward moments. Besides ... he already knows what Sammy means to say. Thus, he responds with perhaps the BEST BROTHER MOMENT of the entire freaking Supernatural series. What Dean wants, what he really wants, is this .
He hits the tape player and out blasts the anthem of the boys' lives, Bon Jovi's "Wanted Dead or Alive."
This. was. so. freaking. perfect!!!!!!! Dean cranks the volume up, announces that Bon Jovi rocks - on occasion - and begins singing along. Badly, but loudly, and full of the kind of joi de vie that only Dean Winchester can do. Sam looks at him like he's grown another head, but seriously, could you resist that stupid, gleeful grin? Sam can't, and he sort of hums and then kind of sings, and next thing, he and Dean are belting out the song, together, at the top of their lungs, and they're ROCKING the house down , and smiling like this is everything they've ever wanted.
Even when Dean goes silent and lets the music and Sam's rowdy singing carry the moment, it's all about the love. Their whole world is right there with them, snug inside 3,000 pounds of Detroit's finest steel. Yeah. There might have been tears in my eyes.
That quick the mood changes, there's a tail light out on the Impala and a cop pulling them over, and Dean is all smooth, "yessir, no sir". Right up until he SLAMS the door into the cop, swarms out onto the road, and slices the policeman's throat with Ruby's knife!
Because Dean can see the demonic face behind the human mask.
Afterwards, Bobby has caught up and helps them camoflage the policecar in the woods. He explains to an understandably freaked-out Dean that Dean is piercing the veil, getting a glimpse to the B side, becoming Hell's [...]. That's how close Dean is now to his fate.
Bobby having located Lilith's location, they spy and discover the possessed little girl and her family. Dean still clings to fighting a just fight, but he can see in the child Lilith's true face. While they watch, the terrified mother rereads a children's story to the girl, a tale of a dragon that demands a child sacrifice: a chilling echo of one of Lilith's legends in myth.
Ruby has escaped, I missed just how, but she's back and she wants her knife. Sam is coldly furious, refuses to return the knife, but demons are all around, Lilith's minions closing in, only Bobby saves the day. Holy water in the lawn sprinklers, FTW!!! The boys are all business, taking out a couple hench-demons in the way, Sam coldly wiping the blood off Ruby's knife on his sleeve.
Then they sweep into the house, where Dean has to coldcock the dad to bundle him down to safety in the basement. As Sam notes, it's more than saving Dean, it's saving other people. Ruby and Sam head upstairs seeking Lilith, and split up to search the rooms. There, Sam finds the Lilith-child still nestled with the mother, the girl seemingly asleep.
He looks like Death when he parts the bed curtains with Ruby's knife in hand. Yet the mother looks up at him, looks him in the eyes, and mouths the words, "Do it". Several times. While Sam stands paralysed at the realisation that he's about to kill a little girl. The tension again yanks our nerve endings to the breaking point -.
- And Dean BURSTS in just as Sam clenches his teeth, and Dean catches and turns Sam's arm. "It's not in her!" he cries. The little girl wakes up with a shriek of terror, and the boys have come this [_] close to killing an innocent child. Then where IS Lilith? And more, where is Bobby? By this point, I'm positively trembling in dread, my stomach almost ill.
The family is safe, but now what? Again, Sam insists, "I'm not going to let you go to hell!" "Yes, you are," Dean commands.
And the mantle clock starts tolling the strokes of midnight. Dean can hear - and see - the hounds.
Ruby joins them and in a burst of motion, the trio flies to a defensable room. Sam frantically shakes goofer dust at the doors and windows, while the hounds bay and snarl and growl. The brothers face each other, and this is it, all they've got, the end of every road and the realisation of every fear.
"What do I do?" Sam pleads, stripped of everything but his helpless love for the brother. With tears in his own eyes, Dean responds as Dean always does, by trying to help Sammy. Take care of my wheels. Keep fighting. Remember what Dad taught you. Remember what I taught you.
Then ... Ruby again demands the knife. And Dean sees as only he can.
It's not Ruby. It's not Ruby!
The last coherent thing I'll say here is, KUDOS to Katie Cassidy for her performance here. She is not Ruby, she's something younger and older and ever so much more terrible: "I feel grown up and pretty." And then? She opens the door.
"Sic 'em, boys."
I'm still hearing and seeing the horror of it, Dean bucking and writhing beneath an unseen attack, torn and howling in agony, while Sam screams until his cries of "NO!" climb an octave and a half. NO! NO! And Lilith snarls, "Yes."
A white flash, howls and chaos and pain - and silence. Dean lies still. Sam is down. But Sam uncurls and lowers his hands, and looks up as if he's just survived a barrage of snowballs, not the full force of an arch-demon who once leveled an entire precinct with a thought.
He gets up. He has Ruby's knife. And Ruby/Lilith sounds and looks like a terrified girl when she backs from his approach, bleating, "Stay away." He does not. But he's too late. Lilith howls out of Ruby's body in a column of black smoke rather than face Sam Winchester one-on-one. And Sam?
Is left in a room of corpses. How can there possibly be enough of Dean left to save in Season 4, in a body so horribly torn? I have no idea. None of us do. I wept along with Sam, wept to see Sam, crying until the snot ran yet making barely a sound, because some wounds are too deep to permit the breath for a scream.
So, it's now past midnight here. Dean is forty-seven minutes in hell. He's screaming for Sam as he hangs from the torn chunks of his own flesh, and his hell is what I feared it would be. Dean is hurting. Dean is helpless. Dean is terrified and tormented and lost.
Dean ... is utterly, completely, entirely alone
I'm not sure how I'm gonna make it until September. :-s
I'm probably not going to be the only fan to write this, but I actually liked last nights episode.
The script was well written, and we had the best of everything. Dean was at his snarkiest (but maybe that had something to do with his 30 hours until a hell hound was on his tail?) but he wan't afraid to let a chick flick moment in ("You're my biggest weakness, and I'm yours.") at the same time.
Too bad Dean didn't give Sam a chance to follow what Ruby had to say, maybe if he had he'd still be breathing earth air and not being tortured in Hell.
I was laughing so hard when Jensen and Jared were singing Wanted (CLOSET JOVI FAN!! I KNEW IT!), it was sweet and kind of ominous, if I do say so myself.
Bobby's as slick as ever. I couldn't have been the only one laughing when the Impala wouldn't start and Sam and Dean were giving each other baffled looks until Bobby showed up with the cap (to the carburetor? I don't know, I'm not the best when it comes to the ins and outs of cars) and they finally realized they've been had. Bobby's lines were awesome in this scene too, "Do I look like a ditchable prom date?" and "Family doesn't end with blood, boy." It really drove home the point that Bobby views the boys not just as hunters, or John's kids, but as his own boys too.
Honestly, I'm glad that Kripke and the other writer's didn't take the easy way out and save Dean from his deal. The only thing that worries me is how are they going to get him back? Will he be demon? Will he loose all of his humanity and not WANT to come back? I guess we will see Fall of '08.
SUPERNATURAL
Episode 3.11
Mystery Spot
Written by : Jeremy Carver
Directed by : Kim Manners
Guest Starring : Jim Beaver, Richard Speight Jr.
Plot Summary : Sam and Dean go to investigate a missing tourist when Dean is accidentally killed. If the first jolt of horror isn't enough, Sam gets to revisit Dean's death again and again and again...
Review :
Once again, Kripke & Co. prove they can throw a curve ball like major league pitchers. We knew this week's episode would bring laughs and angst, but oh, not like this.
We start with the boys at their morning routine, including brushing teeth together while Dean acts as annoying as possible, just for Sam. It's a cute look at the domestic side of their lives - as well as proof the boys have virtually no concept of personal space. Then off they go to breakfast.
From the local mom-n-pop diner with its collection of locals to casual scenes on the street, everything looks like an ordinary day for Sam and Dean. Amazingly ordinary, in fact. The case is a missing professor who disappeared at a local Mystery Spot. Sam argues that sometimes such places are legit, while Dean maintains a skeptic's stance, but they agree to slip out that night and check out the tourist attraction.
They do so, finding only the usual faux-strangeness such as tables nailed upside-down to the ceiling. But then the owner shows up with a shotgun. In his panic over finding intruders, the man pulls the trigger - and shoots Dean, who drops without a sound. Sam scoops Dean up his arms and shouts frantically for 911. But Dean clutches Sam's coat, his bewildered gaze slips off Sam's face - and he's dead.
And then Sam wakes up. To the same song on the radio, the same morning routine, the same breakfast scene at the diner. It's like Bill Murray's "Groundhog Day". Confused, Sam tries to tell Dean what happened and suggests another visit to the Mystery Spot, only this time in daylight. Which seems a good idea until a speeding car slams Dean twenty feet in the air, and there he dies again.
After which it just keeps happening. Sam pleads with a cracking voice that he can't watch Dean die again, he can't. Dean of course stays cheerfully and exactly the same. He thinks Sam is nuts, but he nonetheless agrees to go along with Sam, because hello, hunters of the supernatural?
Yet still Dean dies countless increasingly absurd deaths: by electrocution, falling desk, slip in the shower, bad tacos, mauled by Golden Retriever. Each time, Sam awakens to the exact same Tuesday morning, with the same song on the radio, the same street scenes, the same bottle of hot sauce falling off the waitress' tray. (Who'd have thought Sam catching table condiments could get so butch?) And we watch him become progressively more frazzled and uncombed.
By the hundredth round, Sam has picked up on all the diner's customers' dirty little secrets, and he's moved from emotional wreck to borderline psycho to just plain done with it all. He can even stereo-mimic everything Dean's going to say, in one of the funniest Jared-and-Jensen moments ever. But the boys finally make the connection and catch the culprit: the Trickster that eluded them in Season 2's "Tall Tales".
This puts us at the story's halfway point and I'm thinking okay, Kripke, we've milked dead-Dean for all it's worth: what've you got left? Well, the Trickster lectures that it's not about killing Dean, it's about the fact that no matter what Sam does, he can't save Dean. But if Sam can't take a joke, fine, it'll be Wednesday. A snap of the Trickster's fingers and -.
No more Tuesday. Finally, Sam and Dean wake up to a whole new day. The pattern is broken and they waste no time packing up to hit the road. Dean goes out to load the trunk of the car - and turns to face a twitchy punk with a gun. Sam hears the shot, bolts out the door, but Dean is already down. He scoops Dean off the pavement and screws his eyes shut, trying to wake up just like he has before. But this time, Dean stays dead.
Sam's descent into shadows and obsession is stunning. Without Dean, Sam becomes the embodiment of obsession. He hunts and drives and kills and hunts, and we watch him pull a bullet out and stitch himself up, because nobody is there to care for him any more. He is a grim figure with a single bed in a silent motel room, where he faces the mirror as if reporting for duty. His movements, his behaviors, the trunk of the Impala, even his research notes are governed by spare, rigid military necessity. Sam is, perhaps, what Dad would have been, without two sons to anchor him.
Haunting this bleak montage of his days is a voice-over from Bobby, who keeps calling Sam's answering service. You're doing good work, son, nice job with the demons/vampires/etc., but where are you, it's been three months, I'm worried about you. Sam never picks up. He just keeps driving and hunting, his only true goal to find the Trickster, and there is no sun or daylight in his world.
The relentless pace finally stutters to a halt with a final message from Bobby: "I've found him". Sam meets Bobby in an empty funhouse where Bobby is laying out arcane symbols on the floor. He says this is the last place the Trickster appeared and he's found a way to summon the thing and reverse Dean's death. The trick is, however, the ritual requires a gallon of fresh human blood, which means a human death.
Fixated, ruthless hunter-Sam doesn't even blink. He'll get the blood. To which Bobby erupts in outraged concern over Sam's state of mind, but Sam is implacable in his grief. Finally, Bobby offers himself as the sacrifice, saying he would rather it be him than a civilian, because the boys are the closest thing to family he's got.
At last, there's a crack of humanity in Sam's frigid mask, but even then, he agrees. This is not our sweet Sam who once championed a nest of peaceful vampires. Yet rather than use the ceremonial knife Bobby offers, Sam produces a stake: the one weapon known to kill a trickster. He'll do it, he says, as he plunges the stake home, because this is not Bobby. There is a hideous moment when Bobby falls and lies dead. We hear the dawning horror in Sam's voice when he finds sanity enough to ask, "Bobby?" But then the illusion vanishes and the Trickster appears, unharmed and very much alive.
Yet the fire in Sam has burnt out. He just stands there and listens to the Trickster talk.
“There’s a lesson here,” the Trickster says. “This obsession with saving Dean? The way you two keep sacrificing yourselves for each other? Nothing good comes out of it. Just blood and pain. Dean’s your weakness. Bad guys know it, too. It’s gonna be the death of you, Sam. Sometimes, you just gotta let people go.”
Yet under the Trickster's harangue, Sam the icy hunter devolves to just Sammy, a desperately heartbroken young man who wants his family back. The only reason he can give is, "He's my brother." Which to the Winchesters is everything.
And maybe that's what the Trickster cannot get: he fails to grasp the need and power of love. Sam cannot let go, even if he destroys himself, because he loves his brother, and Dean is all he has to keep the shadows at bay.
Was the Trickster's intent that Sam should stop trying to save Dean, or is it that Sam cannot do the saving? Or was his lesson that Sam's need to save Dean must not render him crueler than the things he hunts? Nonetheless, the Trickster appears to wash his hands of the situation, when he gives in to Sam's pleading and returns him to Wednesday at last. We just know that when Sam wakes up, Dean is alive, and Sam hugs him until his bones know the truth.
It seems the one certainty out of the whole nightmare is that if ever Sam took Dean for granted, those days are ashes and gone. For both our boys, letting go will never be an option. What's frightening to imagine is how dark Sam's world may still become, and whether he can avoid becoming the darkness, himself.
Peace, out.
ErinRua
SUPERNATURAL
Episode 3.9
Malleus Maleficarum
Written by : Ben Edlund
Directed by : Robert Singer
Guest Starring : Katie Cassidy, Marisa Ramirez, Robinne Fanfair, Erin Cahill, Kristin Booth
Plot Summary : Sam and Dean come to a Massachusetts town and uncover a coven of witches, but Ruby the demon warns them away, hinting of even greater peril.
Review : This episode seems to have excited more feeling than Kripke and crew may have expected. If only because many fans reached the end credits wondering ... what exactly are we supposed to take away from this?
A group of suburban housewives has taken up witchcraft as a means to get those nifty perks in life like fancy vacations. Their hobby takes a turn, however, when one of them uses the darker arts to commit murder. Kripke's Creep Quotient splashes all over the screen, as the first victim's teeth slide bloodily down the drain, before she collapses of a presumed massive internal hemorrhage. But Sam and Dean are on the case, and find a hex bag hidden in the victim's house. Black magic is afoot.
That night, the victim's husband is eating when Sam and Dean burst on the scene in a blast of sound and headlights. (Hey, look, we almost had classic rock!) They're just in time to save the man from a particularly gruesome end - death by maggoty hamburger. Asked who might want him and his wife dead, he admits he'd had an affair, but broke it off because the woman was unbalanced. Understatement, since the viewers see her chanting and stabbing a roast chicken in her kitchen. But Sam burns the hex bag and her spell work bursts into flames. Thereupon her wrists spontaneously slit and the boys later find her splayed, boobs-first, on a glass table in a coagulating smear of blood.
Their investigation leads them to the woman's circle of friends, who call themselves "the book club". Another hex bag, a garden of occult herbs, and the creepily Stepford-like appearance of the 'book club' members clue the boys in that they are dealing with a coven of witches. Discussing what to do, Sam says they need to be stopped, to which Dean replies, "Stopped as in stopped? They're humans!" Sam's response is simply, "They're murderers," and the viewer is left to ponder exactly what Sam meant, and how our gentle hunter has changed.
Then Ruby appears on the road, flexing a little demonic oomph to make the Impala die so she can talk to Sam. They need to get out of town, she says: there is evil here they are not equipped to face. Fans do well to remember Dean's abiding hatred of evil, demonstrated when he shoves the magick Colt in Ruby's face. Yet at the last instant, Sam grabs Dean's arm, the shot goes wild, and we can now expect flying pigs in a world where Sam wrestles Dean to save a demon's life.
Back at the motel, Dean rails about Ruby and Sam fires back that they're at war, and they need to look at the bigger picture, think of strategies. Dean retorts by asking if Sam felt okay, because his angsty little brother is supposed to be arguing about the sanctity of life, not getting comfy with killing. But Sam's halting reply is that, if he's to survive alone in a world at demonic war, he has to change. "Into what?" Dean demands. "Into you," Sam replies. He has to become more like Dean.
Which suggests the deliberate ruin of so many wonderful Sam qualities, but before viewers or Dean can anguish further, Dean collapses into Sam's arms, spitting blood. The witches have struck again. When a frantic search does not turn up a hex bag, Sam makes a soldier's choice. He abandons his brother, grabs the Colt, and charges out the door to stop the thing that's killing Dean.
He's six-foot-four of raw fury, when he kicks in the women's front door and points that Colt in their startled faces. Stop the spell or die, he says, and viewers hold their breaths for fear of what Sam will do. The witches protest they were only trying to get one of the ladies a lower mortgage rate, close to tears in the face of Sam's implacable intent.
Back at the motel, Ruby does a little door kicking of her own, and pounces on Dean to force-feed some ghastly looking elixir, that nonetheless halts the would-be-fatal spell.
Meanwhile, even in rage, Sam's Stanford brain is working, as he deduces that one of the women has gained nothing from the coven's self-serving activities. The muzzle of the Colt fixes on her tearful face, but Sam is unyielding, and to no one's surprise, the woman's eyes flash black. Sam pulls the trigger - but the unthinkable happens. The demonic witch raises one hand and stops the magick bullet in mid-flight.
She then slams Sam to the wall, inching him ever higher, shades of how the Yellow-Eyed Demon killed Jess and Mom. But this is mainly so Sam is helpless for some story exposition, as the demon gloats how the stupid coven has sold their souls to her, and how Sam the anti-Christ is now old news, because a new power is rising that doesn't like competition. Dean bursts in with a shotgun, but also gets the wall plaster treatment.
Enter Ruby for a curious sort of semi-lesbian, demon-on-demon smackdown that includes more exposition. Evidently Ruby had been a human witch, centuries ago, who sold her soul to this demon but subsequently escaped through the Devil's Gate in Wyoming. A little spellwork by the surviving (but not for long) witch saves Sam and Dean and the viewers from complete plot-lag, whereupon Dean grabs Ruby's magickal knife and stabs the demon witch until she is several times over dead.
Later at the motel, Ruby confronts Dean one more time, but this time the chat takes on different tones. To Dean's quiet questions, Ruby replies with seeming frankness that yes, she was once human, that all the demons she knows were, and that sooner or later, Hell will burn away even Dean's humanity, turning him into the very thing he hates. Hearts break at the brittle honesty in Dean's voice, when he asks if there's really no way he can avoid going to Hell. Ruby replies no, there's not, and says she lied to Sam so he would talk to her and let her help. Now she needs Dean to help her, as well, getting Sam ready to fight in the war that's coming, even after Dean is gone.
And why does she want Dean's kind to win? Because, she says, she remembers what it is to be human.
Thus, we are left with more questions. Is Ruby lying? So far, she's told Sam and Dean different stories, both designed to get them on her team. It seems probable she really can't help Dean, but what is her true interest in Sam? For that matter, is Sam's need to become the tough, unsentimental soldier he imagines Dean to be a natural evolution of war? Or is something darker working inside him that followed him back from death?
And what on earth is Kripke saying about women who do evil, when not one of the coven, even the witch whose last act provided the distraction Dean needed to kill the demon, are counted worthy of saving or survival? The body count in this episode was impressive, and every one was female. Only two of the lot committed actual evil: the rest were either victims or willfully ignorant fools.
Perhaps the most troubling thing about this episode is that, without Sam's empathetic reminders to keep our humanity even in the face of horror, we have no yardstick by which to measure tragedy for what it is.
Peace, out.
ErinRua
