feliciakw | S3 or S4 (Now with ETA) (Reply)

I've seen a lot of discussion about how the flashback in last night's ep was post-Hell S4 Dean. Interestingly, that's not really what I got from the clues, and I was really trying to figure out when this took place.

1. They didn't use Ruby's knife. Tracking the chain of custody on the knife is like playing a shell game sometimes, but in S4, I thought it was in Sam and Dean's possession for most, if not all, of the season. Surely if it were S4, they'd have been using Ruby's knife to question the demon?

2. They were looking for Lilith. Together. In S4, Sam did his Lilith-hunting with Ruby. In fact, iirc, that was on if the points of conflict between the brothers--how Sam was very gung-ho on facing Lilith, and Dean wanted to go in smart and have a plan first.

3. Dean didn't want to revisit what he'd done in Hell. He hated himself for turning torturer. When told by Cas and Uriel that he had to torture Alistair, Dean told Cas, "If I go in there, you are not gonna like what comes back out."

4. While the things Dean was doing were brutal and horrific and very "torture master," we've never really gotten any indication that physical hurt to the host causes any true or lasting pain to the demon. Holy water, salt, Ruby's knife, exorcisms--those cause pain to the demon. Physical abuse, not so much. Meg threatened to bite off Sam's tongue in BUaBS. All of the physical torture Dean inflicted on Alistair did nothing to the demon, because things are "too concrete" topside. In fact, with all the terrible ways Dean was beating the guy up, I kept wondering what else they could do to the demon, and where was the salt, because the physical abuse wasn't going to do anything to the demon (unless it was done with Ruby's knife, which they didn't have).

Otoh, Dean was being pretty ruthless--though I thought Dean explaining to the host what he was going to have to do was interesting--and I can see how we would be inclined to peg it as post-Hell Dean.

It just . . . I don't know . . . I think it could go either way. I wonder if this was discussed between the actors and the director or the actors and the writer.

Taking into account that missing year is also dicy. I can see where Edlund would factor it in, but in S6, they were rather inconsistent in acknowledging it (a calendar that read 2010, which should technically have read 2011).

All in all, a really disturbing scene, but hard to peg timeline-wise. Pre-Hell Dean might not be that brutal, but post-Hell Dean was not that eager or comfortable with himself in that regard.

Hm . . .

ETA: Jim Michaels has confirmed via Twitter that the flashback took place during S3, as Baby has her searchlights. *wistful sigh* The last time we saw the searchlights was, apparently, "Malleus Maleficarum."

I'm delighted to know my observations were correct. Several people had me thinking I was losing it.