SPN - "The Man Who Knew Too Much"
Jun. 3rd, 2011 05:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
feliciakwWell, here we are. My final long and rambly of the season. It seems like forever since the ep aired. I hope I can get back in the swing and remember what I wanted to say.
It's been an interesting season, though I have the sense that a lot of the fandom didn't like it. I thought it tried to explore some interesting things, with varying degrees of success. There was much that they could have explored, but didn't, or could have developed more fully, but didn't. Otoh, the season had several episodes that I very much enjoyed, either for their humor or the "I can't believe they did that" factor or character development or whatever. Even ones I didn't like at all initially came to grow on me and become very well-liked.
Alas, when I go forum-seeking, there's so much negativity where I saw something positive and enjoyable, or at least watchable. (I won't go near the more volatile forums, but even in the milder ones, the negativity seems to outweigh the positivity. Yes, that's a word. I looked it up.)
Anyhoo . . .
The Road So Far . . .
Season nicely recapped to "Carry On, Wayward Son." And suddenly all those negative comments on the forums make no sense to me. Huh. It recaps (as always), Dean's journey over the season, Sam's journey over the season, and Cas's dubious actions.
Now . . .
Action!Cam! Sam running down the street, chased by cops. Oh, Sammy. What did you do? Are you in a town where you're a wanted murderer? Sam loses the cops when he races down an ally to hide.
Hey! Castle Storage. John's storage locker! Hm . . .
Sam goes into the delivery entrance of a bar. The bartender, a very pretty woman, tells him the bar is closed. Sam is out of breath and just wants a minute to think. He looks out the window, then hides when the cops drive by, which of course raises Barkeep's alarms. She reaches for a baseball bat. Sam does his pleading puppy thing, and she backs down. She asks him his name.
"I don't remember," Sam replies.
Oh. Oh, that's not good.
"I don't remember anything."
Oh, very, very not good. Something's wrong here.
Title smash.
Barkeep pops open a beer for Sam. How many fictitious beers do we have on this show now? There's an El Sol sign in the back, which is Dean's favorite (obviously a Mexican beer. See also one of my personal favorites, Corona). Then there's Schultz (which I forget the first place we saw that one). There's a sign for it behind the street preacher in "Point of No Return." I'm guessing that one is American (established by a German family). And the one that Adam was drinking in the fancy room that I seem to recall had a long German-looking name that started with an "M," I think. (Again, PoNR.) And now we have Stellar, which I'm guessing is probably Belgian.
Sam has no wallet or ID, last thing he remembers is clocking a couple of cops. Barkeep suggests they take him to the hospital, but Sam refuses, there's no time. He's got to stop something. He just doesn't know what.
He sees the books in a bookcase (and I find it kind of interesting there's a full bookcase in this bar. Hm . . .). He pulls out a Lovecraft book . . .
. . . and has flashbacks of leaving the hospital with Dean, of Bobby, of Balthazar, Ben?, and The Nite Owl Hotel.
Sam gets on-line, and discovers that The Night Owl does exist. Barkeep tries again to get Sam to go to a hospital, but he refuses. "Apparently, I'm stubborn."
So Barkeep insists on going with him.
They find the hotel, and Sam knows which room he'd pick and why. Though he doesn't know how he knows. He just does.
No one answers his knock, so he uses Barkeep's credit card to jimmy the lock.
"Dude, who are you?" Barkeep asks. In almost exactly the same way Ava asked the question lo those many years ago.
They enter the room, and the walls are covered with info for a hunt--news articles, photos, maps with string attaching pinpoint to pinpoint.
Barkeep finds Sam's fake IDs, and she's kinda well on her way to freaking out. As is Sam.
He spots a news article about the missing Dr. Vysiak, and has a flashback.
Bobby, Dean, and Sam are walking down an alley. Bobby said Dr. V. told him to meet her here. They find her slumped against a wooden pallet, bleeding and dying. She tells them that "they" took her, and they did "everything" to her. The demon she could have handled, but then the angel stepped in . . . Oh, this is not good. She did manage to get away.
They tortured her into telling them how to open Purgatory. Virgin blood, blood of a Purgatory native (hers), the ceremony to be performed that night during the eclipse. She dies, and Bobby gently closes her eyes.
Cas arrives and apologizes for the way things have turned out. Crowley got carried away. Bobby isn't buying that it was just Crowley, but Sam and Dean hold him back. Dean lands into Cas--Cas doesn't see how totally off the rails he is--but Cas is done talking. He asks Dean once more to back off and let him stop Raph. Dean, of course, refuses.
Cas promises to save Sam when it's all over. "Save Sam from what?" Dean demands. Cas appears beside Sam, touches his temple . . .
. . . and takes down the wall.
O.O
[/flashback]
Sam fills Barkeep (did we ever catch her name?) on his flashback.
Sam: I was with two guys? One was, like, a male model type
Mom & Me: Bwah!
Sam: and the other was an older guy named . . . Bobby.
Sam finds Bobby's address in an address book. Sioux Falls, SD, and Barkeep says this is where she has to get off. Sam totally understands, and when she asks how he'll get there, he spots some car keys and says, "I guess I'll take my car."
When he spots the Impala, he recognizes it immediately. "That's mine."
"You sure?" Barkeep asks.
"Oh, yeah." Sam seems very pleased and excited to see the Impala. It's home, and it's his.
(Interestingly, he has yet to remember Dean by name or relationship. Is this a machination of some sort?)
Barkeep doesn't feel right letting Sam go off like this. He totally understands, she's done more than enough already. No, no, no. He misunderstands. What she means is with the fake IDs and the shady motel room, she's got a bad feeling. "Whatever you're looking for, you might not like what you find."
"What other choice do I have?" he asks.
And as she start to suggest that he stick around and try to get his head on straight, he zones her out (wait. Am I in the right fandom?) and hears the workings of a gun getting ready to fire.
Someone shoots at them, hitting the Impala's passenger window when Sam pushes Barkeep to the ground out of the way.
He looks and sees that the shooter is . . .
. . . himself.
Yikes!
In the distance, we hear Barkeep trying to draw Sam's attention back. "Sammy," she calls him, and that just sounds odd.
Barkeep's voice blends and morphs into Deans, and we find that we're actually in the panic room, which has now been covered with warding sigils. A song, *looks up on the wiki* Rolling Stones' "Play With Fire" is on the radio.
Sam is stretched out on the cot, and Dean is keeping vigil, pleading with Sam to snap out of it.
Dean is pacing when Bobby joins him in the room, and Dean is chomping at the bit to do something. To figure out a way to help Sam. "Dreamscape his noggin! Something!" Dean exclaims. Hey, you got any dream root lying around?
Bobby points out that the wall is gone, Hell is spilling through, and they don't know what's going on in Sam's head. But to be fair, Bobby? Since when has that ever stopped Dean? He did the same thing for you back during the dream root case, remember?
Bobby assures Dean they will do something, but right now they have to stop the opening of Purgatory. He's already down one man, he can't afford to lose his other partner.
Dean, emotions running high, counters with the lack of leads.
"This is exactly what Cas wants. For you to fall to pieces," Bobby says as he pours Dean a belt of whiskey. Cas knows Dean's weakness and is totally willing to exploit it. Not a point in his favor.
"Think of what Sam would want," Bobby says. He hands Dean a glass.
"Find Cas, Bobby. Find him now." Dean is that combination of determination and desperation.
And they throw back their whiskey.
In the Impala, the radio is also playing "Play With Fire," and Sam smells whiskey. I don't know why, but I kinda sorta love that. That even in his addled brain, Sam is sensing the real world.
Barkeep is freaked out, wants to go to the cops, how does Sam know his friends are his friends, she's scared. But Sam refuses to turn around.
Dean checks Sam's pupils with a flashlight, and in his addled noggin, Sam is blinded by the bright light, comes to a skidding halt, and . . .
It's daylight.
Sam is incredulous, and gets out of the car.
Barkeep, very frustrated with the nutjob she's riding with, gets out, too.
Sam: It was night, and now it's day.
Me: Um, Sam? That's usually how it works.
I just find the wording of that line very amusing. Hee.
But Barkeep insists that it was always day. Sam knows there's something going on, that something isn't right.
Barkeep is filled up on crazy and starts to walk off, but Sam hears movement in the woods around them. He tells her to get back in the car, and indicates something suspicious.
She gets back in the car, and Sam goes to the trunk. He's very impressed with the weapons cache he finds there. He chooses a pistol (his? I think) and a shotgun. And does that single-handed cocking of the shotgun that I kinda sorta love. Closing the trunk, he heads into the woods.
He creeps through the woods, and past himself hiding behind a tree. *shudder* Ooooohhhh . . . I love the way that pan was shot and put together.
Self gets the drop on Sam, disarms him. "I'm a really that gawky?" Self asks.
Sam (our Sam) is totally confused, and tries to quickly put together what's happening.
Self explains what happened, that Cas brought the wall down, and Sam shattered into pieces. They are each a piece of the whole. And judging by the 'tude, I'm guessing this might be . . .
"I'm not handicapped. I'm not saddled with a soul."
Soulless!Sam! Um . . . Yikes!
And Soulless wants the body back. Wants to take charge, and so sets out to kill Our!Sam.
The chase is on.
"Come out, come out, wherever you are!" And someone has been watching Cape Fear.
Sam still has his pistol, and a hiding place. Soulless has no trouble tracking him. But Our!Sam also has his wits, and so sets a decoy for Soulless.
Soulless takes a shot at the decoy, and seems quite proud of himself. But Sam circles around and shoots Soulless in the back.
As Soulless is "dying," he tells Sam, "You think I'm bad, wait till you meet the other one." And as he dies, his piece of Sam's soul (?) rejoins Sam. (So it wasn't so much that this piece didn't have a soul, but more like didn't have a conscience.)
As these two pieces of Sam's psyche fuse back together, Sam in the real world starts convulsing on the cot, snapping Dean to attention, then goes still. And Dean looks so, so helpless.
Sam makes his way back to the car. Barkeep is leaning against the car, waiting for him. He remembers everything he did this past year without his soul. He remembers her.
She was an innocent victim, caught between a monster using her for leverage, and a hunter who easily killed the leverage before surrendering the hunt.
In front of him, she starts bleeding from the gut, where he shot her all those months ago.
"Didn't I tell you to turn back? That you wouldn't like what you found?"
"I'm sorry," Sam says. "I'm so sorry."
"Not as sorry as you're gonna be." And she vanishes.
Well, that's disconcerting.
Back in the panic room, Dean sits with a glass of whiskey, in deep thought. Bobby shows up with Balth in tow. They finally got the angel-proofing right, he tells them. Dean demands to know what took Balth so long. Balth, as it turns out, has been having second thoughts. They're all betraying a powerful friend. But he does give Dean and Bobby the address where Cas and Crowley are holed up. However, he refuses to take them there.
At the secret lair of Plan Purgatory, Crowley presents Cas with the blood elixir. "Purgatory power shake," he calls it. Cas thanks him, then informs him he's changing the deal. And I have flashbacks to Darth Vader altering the deal with Lando Calrissian. This . . . is not good.
Cas's new proposal is that he gets everything, Crowley gets nothing. "You think I'm handing all that power over to the King of Hell? I'm neither stupid nor wicked." Well, Cas, yes and no. You're clever, but it was a very stupid thing to go in with a demon. And as far as wicked, well your plans to set yourself up as the new almighty is . . . yeah. It ain't pure. But we're getting ahead of ourselves.
This, of course, doesn't sit well with Crowley. They had a pact. Even he doesn't break contracts like that. (No, you work your double-cross into the fine print, doncha, Crowley.)
Cas gives Crowley two choices: flee or die.
"Boy, you can't trust anyone these days," Crowley says before disappearing.
Bobby's house, it's dark, everything is covered in sheets, and there are white candles everywhere. Sam enters, gun drawn, and makes his way to the kitchen.
There is someone sitting at the table, head bowed, palms out flat. A knife lies nearby.
Sam demands the person's attention. The person lifts his head, still in the shadows, and in a rough, familiar voice, he says, "Oh. Hey, Sam."
"So, which one are you?" Sam asks.
"Don't you know?" the mysterious person asks. He stands, coming into the light. It's Sam, blood on his face, beaten, resigned. "I'm the one that remembers Hell."
Bobby packs up the angel blades and holy water and is ready to head out. Dean asks for a minute.
He shows the comatose Sam the address of where they'll be. "Alright, this is where we're gonna be, Sam. So get your lazy ass out of bed and come meet us. Sammy, please." One last plea to try to reach Sam, but it does no good. Dean places the address and Sam's pistol next to Sam's shoulder on the cot, then leaves.
Meanwhile, in Sam's noggin, Sam and Hell!Sam have a chat.
Hell!Sam wishes Sam hadn't come.
"I had to," says Sam. "I'm here, right? Out there in the real world, I'm at Bobby's, aren't I?"
"How do you know?" Hell!Sam cocks his head in genuine puzzlement.
"This whole time. Smellin' nothing but Old Spice and whiskey." Oh, Sam. *smishes* Smells of comfort. Smell being one of the strongest triggers of memory. Smells that instantly tell you you're in a certain place.
Bobby wears Old Spice. Note: I'm tempted to embed the commercial here, but somehow I think that might destroy the mood of the scene.
Anyway, I love that Sam recognizes where he is by the scents his comatose psyche has been smelling.
"I figured if I could get back here, get back to my body, I could . . . I dunno . . . I could snap out of it somehow."
"But first you have to go through me," Hell!Sam says. Why? "Because Humpty Dumpty has to put himself back together again before he can wake up. And I'm the last piece."
Oooh. Okay. Three in one. Tri-unity. There's meta in there someplace. But I don't know if I can express it clearly. Basically, we're all triune beings. This is one of the ways I believe that we are made in God's image. God is a triune being, and so are we. The Bible puts it as being body, soul, and spirit. (Thus indicating that there's technically a difference between soul and spirit, even though I tend to think of those words as interchangeable. I haven't really figured it out well enough to explain.) I tend to think of our triunity more as body, mind, and emotion. But any way you slice it, we're triune.
As Sam has been presented here. Fascinating.
"Which means," Sam says, "that I have to know what you know." And as the conversation progresses, it turns out that Hell!Sam is actually trying to protect Sam from the memories of Hell. Apparently, it would be easier to remain comatose and in this dream world than to remember. But you know, that doesn't work for Sam. "Find that bartender. Go find Jess. But don't do this. I know you. You're not strong enough."
And Sam nods possible agreement. "We'll just have to see."
"Why is this so important to you?"
"You know me," Sam says, and Hell!Sam nods. "You know why. I'm not leavin' my brother alone out there." Oh, Sam. *smishes again* Do you know how good it is to hear you say stuff like that, and know you mean it for Dean's sake? Very, very good.
Hell!Sam hands Sam the knife from the table and wishes him luck. "You're gonna need it," he says.
Sam stabs Hell!Sam in the gut, and the remaining piece of Sam's fractured psyche joins with the rest in a blinding flash.
At Plan Purgatory HQ, Cas has called Balthazar. He informs Balth that Dean is on the way, and that there's a traitor in their midst. For someone as scheming as Balth is, he doesn't really keep a poker face very well. Cas orders Balth to find out who the traitor is (though he surely already knows), and Balth readily agrees. Balth also asks about Dean. "I'll take care of him myself," Cas says. He goes on to say that first Sam and Dean, and now this. He's doing his best in impossible circumstances. His friends betray him and plot against him, it's difficult to understand.
"You always have little ol' me," Balth says. Suddenly, Cas is behind him, running him through with an angel blade. Zoinks!
"Yes," Cas says. "I'll always have you." Aaaaannnnndddd . . . Am I to understand that Cas has now absorbed Balth's bright white glowy powers? O.o (And is this a loophole?)
Dean and Bobby arrive outside PPHQ. Bobby counts a dozen mooks. Demons? No, angels. Great, Dean says. How are they supposed to take out that many? "We don't," Bobby says. "We'll ninja our way in." Until they here his knees squeak, Dean points out.
Bobby tells Dean to shut up and listen. They turn around slowly, hearing something pounding in the distance. A puddle ripples from the vibrations in the ground. Yikes! say I. *weeflail*
"T Rex, maybe?" Dean says. Then Bobby looks up and sees the moon going into eclipse, and an army of demons on the move.
"Get in the car!" says Dean. And they do. Just in time to be rolled and tossed like a Matchbox toy.
Inside, Cas is studying the incantation. He hears a commotion outside. Crowley appears, and has brought reinforcements. "Never underestimate the King of Hell."
Cas tries to smite him, but it works not at all. Crowley is safe and sounds with his new partner. Raphael(la).
Yikes.
Snark is exchanged (Crowley seems to be confused as to how he should refer to Raph(a) ). The upshot is that Raph has agreed to protect Crowley in exchange for the Purgatory Plot. Because, Raph says, if anyone is going to be the "new God," it's going to be him (her).
Cas is appalled (or as appalled as Cas gets). "He's going to bring the Apocalypse." But Crowley is merely taking the best offer on the table. (Yeah, until Raph, like Luci, decides to get rid of demons.)
Crowley offers Cas the same offer made vice versa a little while ago: flee or die. Cas tosses Crowley a jar of blood and disappears.
The moon goes into full eclipse, and Crowley recites the incantation, with Raph looking on.
Outside, the Impala is on it's crushed roof, with Dean and Bobby stuck inside.
Both Geo and my mom on their respective viewings: They killed the Impala!
Me: Don't worry. Dean will fix it. They killed it worse when the T-boned it with the semi.
Dean wakes Bobby. "We gotta go," he says.
They sneak into the secret lair, onto a landing overlooking the room. Dean sends an angel blade Raph's way, but he (she) catches it easily. Oops.
With a flick of his wrist, Crowley sends Bobby tumbling down the stairs, and Dean over the railing to the floor below, breaking a table with his back along the way.
Outside, Sam stumbles across the Impala. It's somewhat slow going, as Hell flashbacks threaten to incapacitate him.
Crowley completes the ritual, and . . .
. . . nothing happens. "Maybe I said it wrong," he says.
"You said it perfectly," says Cas, who has appeared behind them.
Dean painfully works his way to his feet.
"What you needed," Cas says, "was this." He produces an empty blood jar.
A look passes between Dean and Cas, Dean surprised, and Cas . . . smug? An expression of, "I told you I knew what I was doing." Or maybe, "You doubted me. Foolish mortal." Confident, definitely.
Crowley and Raph have been working with dog blood. Cas pulled a bait and switch! If I weren't so distressed about Cas's turn in character, I'd be a bit squeeful right now.
Dean continues to look incredulous. Cas, serenely confident.
Raph doesn't get it, and demands the proper blood. But Crowley knows what's happened. That Cas has already performed the ritual properly. Cas demonstrates his new power with glowy brightness.
Dean, though shocked, knows that this--this can't be good. Horror takes the place of puzzlement and surprise.
When Cas speaks . . . he's different. Supremely calm, in a drunk-with-power kind of way.
"Exit stage Crowley." And Crowley disappears, to return and wreck havoc another day.
Cas has plans for Crowley, but he explodes Raph.
Then turns to Dean and Bobby, disturbingly unreadable. (Moreso than when he was the Cas I loved, even.)
"So, you see? I saved you," Cas says with that disturbingly calm, confident smile.
"Sure did," Dean says (or maybe he says "Sure thing"). "Thank you." There is no small amount of trepidation in Dean's expression. He knows this is going to be like talking down a crazy person.
"You doubted me. Fought against me. But I was right all along."
"Okay, Cas. You were." Oh, yeah, Dean is humoring the crazy angel. "We're sorry. Let's just defuse you, okay?"
"What do you mean?" Cas asks.
"You're full of nuke. It's not safe. So before the eclipse ends, let's get them souls back to where they belong." (And does anyone else notice that Dean is holding his left arm as if it or his ribs are broken?)
"They belong with me." And Cas is starting to sound uncomfortably like a cult leader.
"No, Cas. It's scrambling your brain." Oh, joy.
But Cas isn't finished. He has enemies to punish. Oh, this is so not good.
Dean tries to appeal to their one-time friendship. "Listen. I know there's a lotta bad water under the bridge. But we were family once. I'd'a died for you. I almost did a few times. So if that means anything to you, please. I've lost Lisa, I've lost Ben, and now I've lost Sam. Don't make me lose you, too."
And Cas just watches him, calmly, serenely, allowing the simple human to have his say, knowing it won't do any good.
"You don't need this kind of juice anymore, Cas. Get rid of it before it kills us all."
Cas looks away, appearing to consider, but no. "You're just saying that because I won. Because you're afraid." Well, on that last part, he's not wrong.
A hand picks up Raph's discarded angel blade.
"You're not my family, Dean," Cas continues. "I have no family."
Sam plunges the angel blade into Cas's back.
Nothing happens, much to everyone's surprise.
Cas calmly removes the blade and lays it on a table. "I'm glad you made it, Sam," he says. "But the angel blade won't work. Because I'm not an angel anymore."
What?
"I'm your new God." WHAT? "A better one." Oh, he did NOT just say that!
Sam, Dean, and Bobby all look at each other, eyes wide with surprise, and that "We are screwed" look that comes with many season finales.
"So you will bow down and profess your love unto me, your lord, or I shall destroy you."
Now, I don't think it's any secret how irked I've been with the way Show has depicted and treated God during parts of S4 & S5. And this turn of events? Makes me uncomfy with the message it will no doubt send.
Yes, yes, I know. Show does not set out to "send a message." However, most, if not all, forms of media and communication send a message. And this will be no different. I'll reserve judgment and stay away from spoilers, but it makes me uncomfy.
Otoh, from a strictly storytelling POV, Cas is not the Cas I loved back in early S4. I'm hoping that it's just a matter of his brains being scrambled. And I can't help thinking of Daniel Jackson of SG-1, when he had . . . was it a total download of Ancient info downloaded to his brain? Yeah.
This is not good. So very not good.
Side note: Of our three heroes (since Cas can't be considered a hero at the moment), I thought the order of final wide!eyed!surprise!shots was interesting. Bobby, then Sam, then Dean. Does this imply that Dean is "the" hero of the show right now? This season has certainly been primarily from his POV. It just struck me as interesting.
So there you have it. Our current predicament until next fall. I'm hoping for some good fic, like we got between S3 and S4.
In the meantime, Bobby, the boys, and I are heading back to his house (Yikes! Does this mean there's nowhere to hide, and angel sigils won't work? It must) for chocolate chip cookies. Or a stiff drink. Whichever. Maybe both.
It's been an interesting season, though I have the sense that a lot of the fandom didn't like it. I thought it tried to explore some interesting things, with varying degrees of success. There was much that they could have explored, but didn't, or could have developed more fully, but didn't. Otoh, the season had several episodes that I very much enjoyed, either for their humor or the "I can't believe they did that" factor or character development or whatever. Even ones I didn't like at all initially came to grow on me and become very well-liked.
Alas, when I go forum-seeking, there's so much negativity where I saw something positive and enjoyable, or at least watchable. (I won't go near the more volatile forums, but even in the milder ones, the negativity seems to outweigh the positivity. Yes, that's a word. I looked it up.)
Anyhoo . . .
The Road So Far . . .
Season nicely recapped to "Carry On, Wayward Son." And suddenly all those negative comments on the forums make no sense to me. Huh. It recaps (as always), Dean's journey over the season, Sam's journey over the season, and Cas's dubious actions.
Now . . .
Action!Cam! Sam running down the street, chased by cops. Oh, Sammy. What did you do? Are you in a town where you're a wanted murderer? Sam loses the cops when he races down an ally to hide.
Hey! Castle Storage. John's storage locker! Hm . . .
Sam goes into the delivery entrance of a bar. The bartender, a very pretty woman, tells him the bar is closed. Sam is out of breath and just wants a minute to think. He looks out the window, then hides when the cops drive by, which of course raises Barkeep's alarms. She reaches for a baseball bat. Sam does his pleading puppy thing, and she backs down. She asks him his name.
"I don't remember," Sam replies.
Oh. Oh, that's not good.
"I don't remember anything."
Oh, very, very not good. Something's wrong here.
Title smash.
Barkeep pops open a beer for Sam. How many fictitious beers do we have on this show now? There's an El Sol sign in the back, which is Dean's favorite (obviously a Mexican beer. See also one of my personal favorites, Corona). Then there's Schultz (which I forget the first place we saw that one). There's a sign for it behind the street preacher in "Point of No Return." I'm guessing that one is American (established by a German family). And the one that Adam was drinking in the fancy room that I seem to recall had a long German-looking name that started with an "M," I think. (Again, PoNR.) And now we have Stellar, which I'm guessing is probably Belgian.
Sam has no wallet or ID, last thing he remembers is clocking a couple of cops. Barkeep suggests they take him to the hospital, but Sam refuses, there's no time. He's got to stop something. He just doesn't know what.
He sees the books in a bookcase (and I find it kind of interesting there's a full bookcase in this bar. Hm . . .). He pulls out a Lovecraft book . . .
. . . and has flashbacks of leaving the hospital with Dean, of Bobby, of Balthazar, Ben?, and The Nite Owl Hotel.
Sam gets on-line, and discovers that The Night Owl does exist. Barkeep tries again to get Sam to go to a hospital, but he refuses. "Apparently, I'm stubborn."
So Barkeep insists on going with him.
They find the hotel, and Sam knows which room he'd pick and why. Though he doesn't know how he knows. He just does.
No one answers his knock, so he uses Barkeep's credit card to jimmy the lock.
"Dude, who are you?" Barkeep asks. In almost exactly the same way Ava asked the question lo those many years ago.
They enter the room, and the walls are covered with info for a hunt--news articles, photos, maps with string attaching pinpoint to pinpoint.
Barkeep finds Sam's fake IDs, and she's kinda well on her way to freaking out. As is Sam.
He spots a news article about the missing Dr. Vysiak, and has a flashback.
Bobby, Dean, and Sam are walking down an alley. Bobby said Dr. V. told him to meet her here. They find her slumped against a wooden pallet, bleeding and dying. She tells them that "they" took her, and they did "everything" to her. The demon she could have handled, but then the angel stepped in . . . Oh, this is not good. She did manage to get away.
They tortured her into telling them how to open Purgatory. Virgin blood, blood of a Purgatory native (hers), the ceremony to be performed that night during the eclipse. She dies, and Bobby gently closes her eyes.
Cas arrives and apologizes for the way things have turned out. Crowley got carried away. Bobby isn't buying that it was just Crowley, but Sam and Dean hold him back. Dean lands into Cas--Cas doesn't see how totally off the rails he is--but Cas is done talking. He asks Dean once more to back off and let him stop Raph. Dean, of course, refuses.
Cas promises to save Sam when it's all over. "Save Sam from what?" Dean demands. Cas appears beside Sam, touches his temple . . .
. . . and takes down the wall.
O.O
[/flashback]
Sam fills Barkeep (did we ever catch her name?) on his flashback.
Sam: I was with two guys? One was, like, a male model type
Mom & Me: Bwah!
Sam: and the other was an older guy named . . . Bobby.
Sam finds Bobby's address in an address book. Sioux Falls, SD, and Barkeep says this is where she has to get off. Sam totally understands, and when she asks how he'll get there, he spots some car keys and says, "I guess I'll take my car."
When he spots the Impala, he recognizes it immediately. "That's mine."
"You sure?" Barkeep asks.
"Oh, yeah." Sam seems very pleased and excited to see the Impala. It's home, and it's his.
(Interestingly, he has yet to remember Dean by name or relationship. Is this a machination of some sort?)
Barkeep doesn't feel right letting Sam go off like this. He totally understands, she's done more than enough already. No, no, no. He misunderstands. What she means is with the fake IDs and the shady motel room, she's got a bad feeling. "Whatever you're looking for, you might not like what you find."
"What other choice do I have?" he asks.
And as she start to suggest that he stick around and try to get his head on straight, he zones her out (wait. Am I in the right fandom?) and hears the workings of a gun getting ready to fire.
Someone shoots at them, hitting the Impala's passenger window when Sam pushes Barkeep to the ground out of the way.
He looks and sees that the shooter is . . .
. . . himself.
Yikes!
In the distance, we hear Barkeep trying to draw Sam's attention back. "Sammy," she calls him, and that just sounds odd.
Barkeep's voice blends and morphs into Deans, and we find that we're actually in the panic room, which has now been covered with warding sigils. A song, *looks up on the wiki* Rolling Stones' "Play With Fire" is on the radio.
Sam is stretched out on the cot, and Dean is keeping vigil, pleading with Sam to snap out of it.
Dean is pacing when Bobby joins him in the room, and Dean is chomping at the bit to do something. To figure out a way to help Sam. "Dreamscape his noggin! Something!" Dean exclaims. Hey, you got any dream root lying around?
Bobby points out that the wall is gone, Hell is spilling through, and they don't know what's going on in Sam's head. But to be fair, Bobby? Since when has that ever stopped Dean? He did the same thing for you back during the dream root case, remember?
Bobby assures Dean they will do something, but right now they have to stop the opening of Purgatory. He's already down one man, he can't afford to lose his other partner.
Dean, emotions running high, counters with the lack of leads.
"This is exactly what Cas wants. For you to fall to pieces," Bobby says as he pours Dean a belt of whiskey. Cas knows Dean's weakness and is totally willing to exploit it. Not a point in his favor.
"Think of what Sam would want," Bobby says. He hands Dean a glass.
"Find Cas, Bobby. Find him now." Dean is that combination of determination and desperation.
And they throw back their whiskey.
In the Impala, the radio is also playing "Play With Fire," and Sam smells whiskey. I don't know why, but I kinda sorta love that. That even in his addled brain, Sam is sensing the real world.
Barkeep is freaked out, wants to go to the cops, how does Sam know his friends are his friends, she's scared. But Sam refuses to turn around.
Dean checks Sam's pupils with a flashlight, and in his addled noggin, Sam is blinded by the bright light, comes to a skidding halt, and . . .
It's daylight.
Sam is incredulous, and gets out of the car.
Barkeep, very frustrated with the nutjob she's riding with, gets out, too.
Sam: It was night, and now it's day.
Me: Um, Sam? That's usually how it works.
I just find the wording of that line very amusing. Hee.
But Barkeep insists that it was always day. Sam knows there's something going on, that something isn't right.
Barkeep is filled up on crazy and starts to walk off, but Sam hears movement in the woods around them. He tells her to get back in the car, and indicates something suspicious.
She gets back in the car, and Sam goes to the trunk. He's very impressed with the weapons cache he finds there. He chooses a pistol (his? I think) and a shotgun. And does that single-handed cocking of the shotgun that I kinda sorta love. Closing the trunk, he heads into the woods.
He creeps through the woods, and past himself hiding behind a tree. *shudder* Ooooohhhh . . . I love the way that pan was shot and put together.
Self gets the drop on Sam, disarms him. "I'm a really that gawky?" Self asks.
Sam (our Sam) is totally confused, and tries to quickly put together what's happening.
Self explains what happened, that Cas brought the wall down, and Sam shattered into pieces. They are each a piece of the whole. And judging by the 'tude, I'm guessing this might be . . .
"I'm not handicapped. I'm not saddled with a soul."
Soulless!Sam! Um . . . Yikes!
And Soulless wants the body back. Wants to take charge, and so sets out to kill Our!Sam.
The chase is on.
"Come out, come out, wherever you are!" And someone has been watching Cape Fear.
Sam still has his pistol, and a hiding place. Soulless has no trouble tracking him. But Our!Sam also has his wits, and so sets a decoy for Soulless.
Soulless takes a shot at the decoy, and seems quite proud of himself. But Sam circles around and shoots Soulless in the back.
As Soulless is "dying," he tells Sam, "You think I'm bad, wait till you meet the other one." And as he dies, his piece of Sam's soul (?) rejoins Sam. (So it wasn't so much that this piece didn't have a soul, but more like didn't have a conscience.)
As these two pieces of Sam's psyche fuse back together, Sam in the real world starts convulsing on the cot, snapping Dean to attention, then goes still. And Dean looks so, so helpless.
Sam makes his way back to the car. Barkeep is leaning against the car, waiting for him. He remembers everything he did this past year without his soul. He remembers her.
She was an innocent victim, caught between a monster using her for leverage, and a hunter who easily killed the leverage before surrendering the hunt.
In front of him, she starts bleeding from the gut, where he shot her all those months ago.
"Didn't I tell you to turn back? That you wouldn't like what you found?"
"I'm sorry," Sam says. "I'm so sorry."
"Not as sorry as you're gonna be." And she vanishes.
Well, that's disconcerting.
Back in the panic room, Dean sits with a glass of whiskey, in deep thought. Bobby shows up with Balth in tow. They finally got the angel-proofing right, he tells them. Dean demands to know what took Balth so long. Balth, as it turns out, has been having second thoughts. They're all betraying a powerful friend. But he does give Dean and Bobby the address where Cas and Crowley are holed up. However, he refuses to take them there.
At the secret lair of Plan Purgatory, Crowley presents Cas with the blood elixir. "Purgatory power shake," he calls it. Cas thanks him, then informs him he's changing the deal. And I have flashbacks to Darth Vader altering the deal with Lando Calrissian. This . . . is not good.
Cas's new proposal is that he gets everything, Crowley gets nothing. "You think I'm handing all that power over to the King of Hell? I'm neither stupid nor wicked." Well, Cas, yes and no. You're clever, but it was a very stupid thing to go in with a demon. And as far as wicked, well your plans to set yourself up as the new almighty is . . . yeah. It ain't pure. But we're getting ahead of ourselves.
This, of course, doesn't sit well with Crowley. They had a pact. Even he doesn't break contracts like that. (No, you work your double-cross into the fine print, doncha, Crowley.)
Cas gives Crowley two choices: flee or die.
"Boy, you can't trust anyone these days," Crowley says before disappearing.
Bobby's house, it's dark, everything is covered in sheets, and there are white candles everywhere. Sam enters, gun drawn, and makes his way to the kitchen.
There is someone sitting at the table, head bowed, palms out flat. A knife lies nearby.
Sam demands the person's attention. The person lifts his head, still in the shadows, and in a rough, familiar voice, he says, "Oh. Hey, Sam."
"So, which one are you?" Sam asks.
"Don't you know?" the mysterious person asks. He stands, coming into the light. It's Sam, blood on his face, beaten, resigned. "I'm the one that remembers Hell."
Bobby packs up the angel blades and holy water and is ready to head out. Dean asks for a minute.
He shows the comatose Sam the address of where they'll be. "Alright, this is where we're gonna be, Sam. So get your lazy ass out of bed and come meet us. Sammy, please." One last plea to try to reach Sam, but it does no good. Dean places the address and Sam's pistol next to Sam's shoulder on the cot, then leaves.
Meanwhile, in Sam's noggin, Sam and Hell!Sam have a chat.
Hell!Sam wishes Sam hadn't come.
"I had to," says Sam. "I'm here, right? Out there in the real world, I'm at Bobby's, aren't I?"
"How do you know?" Hell!Sam cocks his head in genuine puzzlement.
"This whole time. Smellin' nothing but Old Spice and whiskey." Oh, Sam. *smishes* Smells of comfort. Smell being one of the strongest triggers of memory. Smells that instantly tell you you're in a certain place.
Bobby wears Old Spice. Note: I'm tempted to embed the commercial here, but somehow I think that might destroy the mood of the scene.
Anyway, I love that Sam recognizes where he is by the scents his comatose psyche has been smelling.
"I figured if I could get back here, get back to my body, I could . . . I dunno . . . I could snap out of it somehow."
"But first you have to go through me," Hell!Sam says. Why? "Because Humpty Dumpty has to put himself back together again before he can wake up. And I'm the last piece."
Oooh. Okay. Three in one. Tri-unity. There's meta in there someplace. But I don't know if I can express it clearly. Basically, we're all triune beings. This is one of the ways I believe that we are made in God's image. God is a triune being, and so are we. The Bible puts it as being body, soul, and spirit. (Thus indicating that there's technically a difference between soul and spirit, even though I tend to think of those words as interchangeable. I haven't really figured it out well enough to explain.) I tend to think of our triunity more as body, mind, and emotion. But any way you slice it, we're triune.
As Sam has been presented here. Fascinating.
"Which means," Sam says, "that I have to know what you know." And as the conversation progresses, it turns out that Hell!Sam is actually trying to protect Sam from the memories of Hell. Apparently, it would be easier to remain comatose and in this dream world than to remember. But you know, that doesn't work for Sam. "Find that bartender. Go find Jess. But don't do this. I know you. You're not strong enough."
And Sam nods possible agreement. "We'll just have to see."
"Why is this so important to you?"
"You know me," Sam says, and Hell!Sam nods. "You know why. I'm not leavin' my brother alone out there." Oh, Sam. *smishes again* Do you know how good it is to hear you say stuff like that, and know you mean it for Dean's sake? Very, very good.
Hell!Sam hands Sam the knife from the table and wishes him luck. "You're gonna need it," he says.
Sam stabs Hell!Sam in the gut, and the remaining piece of Sam's fractured psyche joins with the rest in a blinding flash.
At Plan Purgatory HQ, Cas has called Balthazar. He informs Balth that Dean is on the way, and that there's a traitor in their midst. For someone as scheming as Balth is, he doesn't really keep a poker face very well. Cas orders Balth to find out who the traitor is (though he surely already knows), and Balth readily agrees. Balth also asks about Dean. "I'll take care of him myself," Cas says. He goes on to say that first Sam and Dean, and now this. He's doing his best in impossible circumstances. His friends betray him and plot against him, it's difficult to understand.
"You always have little ol' me," Balth says. Suddenly, Cas is behind him, running him through with an angel blade. Zoinks!
"Yes," Cas says. "I'll always have you." Aaaaannnnndddd . . . Am I to understand that Cas has now absorbed Balth's bright white glowy powers? O.o (And is this a loophole?)
Dean and Bobby arrive outside PPHQ. Bobby counts a dozen mooks. Demons? No, angels. Great, Dean says. How are they supposed to take out that many? "We don't," Bobby says. "We'll ninja our way in." Until they here his knees squeak, Dean points out.
Bobby tells Dean to shut up and listen. They turn around slowly, hearing something pounding in the distance. A puddle ripples from the vibrations in the ground. Yikes! say I. *weeflail*
"T Rex, maybe?" Dean says. Then Bobby looks up and sees the moon going into eclipse, and an army of demons on the move.
"Get in the car!" says Dean. And they do. Just in time to be rolled and tossed like a Matchbox toy.
Inside, Cas is studying the incantation. He hears a commotion outside. Crowley appears, and has brought reinforcements. "Never underestimate the King of Hell."
Cas tries to smite him, but it works not at all. Crowley is safe and sounds with his new partner. Raphael(la).
Yikes.
Snark is exchanged (Crowley seems to be confused as to how he should refer to Raph(a) ). The upshot is that Raph has agreed to protect Crowley in exchange for the Purgatory Plot. Because, Raph says, if anyone is going to be the "new God," it's going to be him (her).
Cas is appalled (or as appalled as Cas gets). "He's going to bring the Apocalypse." But Crowley is merely taking the best offer on the table. (Yeah, until Raph, like Luci, decides to get rid of demons.)
Crowley offers Cas the same offer made vice versa a little while ago: flee or die. Cas tosses Crowley a jar of blood and disappears.
The moon goes into full eclipse, and Crowley recites the incantation, with Raph looking on.
Outside, the Impala is on it's crushed roof, with Dean and Bobby stuck inside.
Both Geo and my mom on their respective viewings: They killed the Impala!
Me: Don't worry. Dean will fix it. They killed it worse when the T-boned it with the semi.
Dean wakes Bobby. "We gotta go," he says.
They sneak into the secret lair, onto a landing overlooking the room. Dean sends an angel blade Raph's way, but he (she) catches it easily. Oops.
With a flick of his wrist, Crowley sends Bobby tumbling down the stairs, and Dean over the railing to the floor below, breaking a table with his back along the way.
Outside, Sam stumbles across the Impala. It's somewhat slow going, as Hell flashbacks threaten to incapacitate him.
Crowley completes the ritual, and . . .
. . . nothing happens. "Maybe I said it wrong," he says.
"You said it perfectly," says Cas, who has appeared behind them.
Dean painfully works his way to his feet.
"What you needed," Cas says, "was this." He produces an empty blood jar.
A look passes between Dean and Cas, Dean surprised, and Cas . . . smug? An expression of, "I told you I knew what I was doing." Or maybe, "You doubted me. Foolish mortal." Confident, definitely.
Crowley and Raph have been working with dog blood. Cas pulled a bait and switch! If I weren't so distressed about Cas's turn in character, I'd be a bit squeeful right now.
Dean continues to look incredulous. Cas, serenely confident.
Raph doesn't get it, and demands the proper blood. But Crowley knows what's happened. That Cas has already performed the ritual properly. Cas demonstrates his new power with glowy brightness.
Dean, though shocked, knows that this--this can't be good. Horror takes the place of puzzlement and surprise.
When Cas speaks . . . he's different. Supremely calm, in a drunk-with-power kind of way.
"Exit stage Crowley." And Crowley disappears, to return and wreck havoc another day.
Cas has plans for Crowley, but he explodes Raph.
Then turns to Dean and Bobby, disturbingly unreadable. (Moreso than when he was the Cas I loved, even.)
"So, you see? I saved you," Cas says with that disturbingly calm, confident smile.
"Sure did," Dean says (or maybe he says "Sure thing"). "Thank you." There is no small amount of trepidation in Dean's expression. He knows this is going to be like talking down a crazy person.
"You doubted me. Fought against me. But I was right all along."
"Okay, Cas. You were." Oh, yeah, Dean is humoring the crazy angel. "We're sorry. Let's just defuse you, okay?"
"What do you mean?" Cas asks.
"You're full of nuke. It's not safe. So before the eclipse ends, let's get them souls back to where they belong." (And does anyone else notice that Dean is holding his left arm as if it or his ribs are broken?)
"They belong with me." And Cas is starting to sound uncomfortably like a cult leader.
"No, Cas. It's scrambling your brain." Oh, joy.
But Cas isn't finished. He has enemies to punish. Oh, this is so not good.
Dean tries to appeal to their one-time friendship. "Listen. I know there's a lotta bad water under the bridge. But we were family once. I'd'a died for you. I almost did a few times. So if that means anything to you, please. I've lost Lisa, I've lost Ben, and now I've lost Sam. Don't make me lose you, too."
And Cas just watches him, calmly, serenely, allowing the simple human to have his say, knowing it won't do any good.
"You don't need this kind of juice anymore, Cas. Get rid of it before it kills us all."
Cas looks away, appearing to consider, but no. "You're just saying that because I won. Because you're afraid." Well, on that last part, he's not wrong.
A hand picks up Raph's discarded angel blade.
"You're not my family, Dean," Cas continues. "I have no family."
Sam plunges the angel blade into Cas's back.
Nothing happens, much to everyone's surprise.
Cas calmly removes the blade and lays it on a table. "I'm glad you made it, Sam," he says. "But the angel blade won't work. Because I'm not an angel anymore."
What?
"I'm your new God." WHAT? "A better one." Oh, he did NOT just say that!
Sam, Dean, and Bobby all look at each other, eyes wide with surprise, and that "We are screwed" look that comes with many season finales.
"So you will bow down and profess your love unto me, your lord, or I shall destroy you."
Now, I don't think it's any secret how irked I've been with the way Show has depicted and treated God during parts of S4 & S5. And this turn of events? Makes me uncomfy with the message it will no doubt send.
Yes, yes, I know. Show does not set out to "send a message." However, most, if not all, forms of media and communication send a message. And this will be no different. I'll reserve judgment and stay away from spoilers, but it makes me uncomfy.
Otoh, from a strictly storytelling POV, Cas is not the Cas I loved back in early S4. I'm hoping that it's just a matter of his brains being scrambled. And I can't help thinking of Daniel Jackson of SG-1, when he had . . . was it a total download of Ancient info downloaded to his brain? Yeah.
This is not good. So very not good.
Side note: Of our three heroes (since Cas can't be considered a hero at the moment), I thought the order of final wide!eyed!surprise!shots was interesting. Bobby, then Sam, then Dean. Does this imply that Dean is "the" hero of the show right now? This season has certainly been primarily from his POV. It just struck me as interesting.
So there you have it. Our current predicament until next fall. I'm hoping for some good fic, like we got between S3 and S4.
In the meantime, Bobby, the boys, and I are heading back to his house (Yikes! Does this mean there's nowhere to hide, and angel sigils won't work? It must) for chocolate chip cookies. Or a stiff drink. Whichever. Maybe both.
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no subject
Date: 2011-06-04 08:47 pm (UTC)Schlutz beer turned up in one of the Michagan episodes (parody of Schlitz: the brew that made Milwakee famous)
I am just so disappointed.
no subject
Date: 2011-06-05 08:53 pm (UTC)Yep, Schultz beer has turned up in several eps.
I'm sort of non-plussed about the finale. We'll have to wait and see what they do with it next season.