InsaneJournal

Current mood:

thinky thinky

3x10, or There's a Reason I don't Meta!
I don't normally do meta; I read it. However, this most recent episode of SPN left me feeling terribly thinky, so I thought I'd try my hand at making the thinky at least a little coherent.

Horny!Sam

I'm still undecided about whether Sam's dirty dream about Bela was gratuitous or not. Still leaning towards "gratuitous," but I think it does have its merits aside from the general LOLworthiness of it all.

First, it was a little out of left field, but if Sam's going to have dirty dreams, they might as well be about someone he's met. He's a healthy twenty-something, hasn't been laid in a while (and we won't go too far into how having to kill her right after probably defeated the purpose of releasing the tension), and there's some hot woman with a sexy accent who was probably the last female spoken of before Sam's nap. I don't think we should expect any kind of relationship to develop; I doubt it's any more than putting a face on his typical fantasy girl.

Second, okay, he's objectifying her, blah blah, females as sex objects viewed on TV. Got it, and I'm not trying to belittle the issue, but I'm sure someone else can say it more eloquently. Maybe it made some of us a little uncomfortable, but I don't think that was the point. I think it was more so we could get a good laugh at Sam's expense than so we could ogle Bela.

Third, and this is kind of far-fetched, I'm wondering if there is actually a point to the dream. When Bela enters the room almost immediately after the dream, she's wearing similar clothing and says and does very similar things as in Sam's dream. Despite the fact that she's actually fully clothed this time, the circumstances are initially very much the same. On top of that, Sam's dream came before they knew she was going to show up. I'll repeat: far-fetched, but is this seemingly gratuitous scene supposed to be a veiled hint that Sam's abilities are returning?

Father Figures

There was a hell of a lot about family in this episode, enough that I'd suggest it was a central theme. Dean tells Bobby, "You're like a father to me"; Bobby's worst nightmare is reliving the trauma of destroying his own family; we see Dean's desire for, if not a wife and kid, then at least something close; we get a glimpse of Jeremy's abusive father; and of course, we see Dean confront his feelings about his role in the Winchester family.

Before I get into the father figure bidness, I think it's important to note Sam's reaction to seeing Lisa in Dean's dreamworld. I wonder if this will change his mind about trying to be "like Dean," as he sees it, now that he has pretty hard evidence of Dean's softer side and desire for something more.

Onto this stuff: The role of the father figure especially seemed important in this; the mother/wife was there but secondary, except in the looming knowledge that this entire story would be impossible if Mary Winchester had lived. Something most of us suspected anyway was finally explicitly confirmed in this episode: Dean, and very probably Sam, views Bobby as a surrogate father. This, coupled with the business with Bobby's wife, sets up John and Bobby as foils even more so than before.

When John's wife is killed, he becomes obsessed and single-minded in his determination to hunt the thing down, arguably at the expense of his sons' emotional welfare; when Bobby's wife is killed, he becomes determined to learn and not let it happen again, but he seems unopposed to (even eager? I suppose it depends on how you view Bobby's character) embracing a new family in other hunters, including "adopting" Sam and Dean as surrogate sons upon John's death.

It may be that where John had a family and took it for granted, Bobby wanted a family to replace the one he'd lost.

As another foil, we see Jeremy's father vs. Dean's perception of John. I know that, with Dean's outburst, it's easy to vilify John and especially his parenting. But I think that setting up the figure of John against the figure of Jeremy's truly abusive father puts into perspective that whatever John's failings as a parent, as Dean said in Nightmare, it could have been much, much worse. In John's case, Dean's outburst accuses his father of emotional negligence; in Jeremy's father's case, we see a man beat his son to death. I think John wins this round.

Oh, and was the name Jeremy intentional? You know, like the Pearl Jam song: "King Jeremy the Wicked ruled his world." I'm going to assume yes, and I'm also going to assume that that's glaringly obvious and everyone else is saying, "Duh," right now.

Dean vs. Dean

First I need to gush over how freakin' amazing an actor Jensen Ackles is, and how incredible this scene was. OMG I LOVE YOU LETS HAVE A ZILLION BABIES PLZKTHX.

Er, right. Anyway, we obviously get to see Dean face some of his biggest insecurities. Again, the show confirms for us that there are some really sad things going on inside of Dean. This scene made me feel like an intruder, like I shouldn't be privy to this kind of insight, and further kudos to the show for making it work so well. What it comes down to, though, is that Dean has confronted these insecurities.

He's made it clear how much he resents John, not only for twenty-something years of obedience and not only for John's choice to sacrifice himself for Dean, but because John's last words were another order, and one that went against everything Dean had previously been taught. "Protect your family" and "kill your brother if it comes to it" are not things Dean would ever be able to reconcile.

I think this is a huge, huge part of his resentment. There's the typical sibling rivalry, which has only been enforced by Sam's super-speshul-ness and everyone else telling Dean he's worthless, but I don't think Dean's resentment is for Sam in this, so much as for Dean screwing himself over for Sam's sake, again and again.

When it comes down to it, though, hopefully this confrontation he has had will help him to finally accept and adjust to a lot of his issues with both his father and his own self-esteem. Admitting it is the first step and all that. We've already seen how it helped him to admit to Sam how afraid he was and that he does want to live (and that took long enough), so let's hope it keeps him going.

The Crucifixion

Saved my favorite for last! Oh, Sam messiah. How I love thee.

In this scene, we see Sam staked to the ground with giant metal nails. His arms are spread wide and his legs are together, knees slightly bent. As if this didn't drive home the point well enough, the Romans often broke the legs of the crucified, usually at the shins and knees. I'm not sure what other purpose there was for Jeremy to beat Sam's legs when he could have bashed in his ribs or head just as easily.

IMO, it appears obvious then that we're supposed to be thinking about Sam's identity as the Boy King when he takes control of the dream and has Jeremy killed. Not only does he display some kind of power here, he takes one step closer to being that which he's tried so hard to fight: this time, he killed a person. This was not a demon-possessed person, who would be "rode hard and put away wet" anyway. This was not a vampire who was very recently human. This was totally, unquestionably a human.

Sam didn't get his hands dirty yet; he let Jeremy's father do it, but Sam was the driving force behind it, while still crucified. If that's not foreboding, I'm not sure what is. On top of this, we have Sam's earlier dream about Bela, and even if the theory is far-fetched, I don't think it's that far-fetched after this scene.

Bobby does directly confront Sam about whether it was psychic abilities or just the knowledge that he had control of the dream, but I don't think Sam's denial negates the giant, flashing neon sign that we're supposed to have his Antichrist-ness in mind.

The Random and Shallow

Quicky-style, because this shit is getting long:

• I think Dean was extra pretty in this episode, and not just because he was hurty.
  
• The Bela sex scene should have showed more Sam!skin, damn it.
  
• So we saw Bela writhing, but no Sam hovering over her? ORAL! \o/
  
• Bobby sans trucker hat = WTF?
  
• Lulz @ the Brad Pitt moment. Further lulz go to Sam trying to hide his wood from Dean. Awkward!Sam FTW! Oh, show, giving us slashers fun ideas even while trying to show us het.
  
• Even more lulz at the strangely disappointed/relieved look on Sam's face when real!Bela was fully-clothed under her trench.
  
• Totally canon that Dean's done drugs.
  
• Of course Bela stole the Colt. When are the boys going to learn, man?
  
• So I'm assuming Ruby will be pissed. Does this mean we get a cat fight? Pretty please?
  
• Antichrist!Sam/demon!Dean = OTP! \o/