#is this similar (but not exactly like) the winchesters? yes. but just different enough lol

[of-a-chaotic-mind]

Finding Out

Summary: Reader visits The Empty to retrieve Cas and finds out who her parents were, one of which was right there with her all along.

TW/CW: Sam Winchester x Daughter!Reader. Angst (towards the end). “Orphaned” Reader taken in by the Winchesters. Mentions of Sam Winchester x Ruby.

Requested?: Yes, a lovely Anon said, “Could you do a Sam x daughter!reader where they found her as a baby but she was half demon so they took her in to try and be good and she grows up with them and stuff and then I’m season 15 instead of Cas going to the empty it’s her going (bc she’s half demon) where they find Ruby and Ruby admits to the reader that she’s her mother and Sams her father”

Word Count: 1,423

A/N: I feel like I should warn that I haven’t watched season 15 yet but I can still write her going to the empty bc I know what it is. I’ll try my best 😊 I hope it’s okay considering I didn’t really know what I was doing lol. I tried to make it somewhat fit into the timeline but it’s a little funky. Anyway, love to all!

Your POV

    Hi, I’m (Y/n). I was adopted into a pretty cool family when I was just a kid. I don’t remember much about it because I was only about three years old. I have an older brother named Jack Kline. He’s what they call a Nephilim which is a half human, half angel. Biologically, he’s the son of Lucifer but he always insists that his real dad is Castiel. Castiel is an angel. Then there’s Sam and Dean Winchester. They’re brothers but they act a lot like I think a mom and dad would to me. Sam is like my mom, he’s always helping me out with my studying, training, and making sure that I remember to eat. When I get in trouble, he’s the one giving me the stern mom look that I’ve seen Grandma Jody give him and Dean. Dean on the other hand usually acts like he’s upset but as soon as Sam turns his back, Dean is high fiving me for being hilarious or smart or whatever but telling me not to do it again because Sam didn’t like it. He also taught me a lot about working on cars because I help him fix Baby all the time. If we ever decide to drop the hunting life, which I doubt we will, I’d love for me and him to open a garage together.

    Anyway, enough about them. You probably would like to know a little more about me. Like I said, I was adopted when I was about three years old because someone left me on the doorstep of the motel that Sam and Dean were staying in then. I don’t remember who it was but I remember them telling me to wait there because the people inside would take care of me until my mommy came back to get me. I never knew where she went and because of it I grew up pretty quickly thinking that she just didn’t want a little child and would come back for a teenager, she didn’t. I became what most people would say is about sixteen or seventeen. I remember Jack doing the same thing after he was born. It surprised Sam, Dean, and Cas when I did it but they assumed it was because of who I am.  You’re probably thinking, okay so you’re a Nephilim, who are your parents? That’s just it. I don’t know who my parents are but I do know that I’m not half angel. I’m half demon. Cas realized that almost immediately. For a while, there was some debate about whether they would keep me but they finally decided that they would, but the search for my parents didn’t stop there.

    They called up an old friend who happens to be the King of Hell and asked him if he could tell who my parents were or at least the demon half of the pair but no such luck. So, as my powers started manifesting themselves, we started training. It took some time but I eventually became able to control them and sometimes I use them on hunts but not often as it attracts a lot of attention.  

    I’m dragged away from my walk down memory lane as I sense something shift around me. I open my eyes and look around but see nothing. Literally, it’s a giant void. I remember now. I came to The Empty to get Cas back. “You’re so much older than I expected. I bet you still have your dad’s eyes huh? Not exactly something you can get rid of,” I hear someone say behind me. Turning around, I am faced with a woman who looks almost exactly like me. She’s a small bit taller and has brown eyes instead of green like mine. She’s also wearing an outfit similar to mine. If it weren’t for the small subtle differences, I’d think that I’m looking in a mirror.

    “Who are you? You’re not like me from the future, are you?” I inquire.

    “That sense of humor sounds a lot like Dean’s,” she says laughing, “No, I’m not you from the future. How would you change your eye color to make that happen?”

    I tilt my head and think for a moment, she has a point. Before I can say anything else, another voice joins the conversation, with a hint of bitterness in their tone, “She’s your mother.” I recognize that voice instantly as Cas appears at my side.

    The woman in front of me smiles and looks at Cas, “Come on, Castiel. I was trying to break it to her gently,” she looks back at me, “I’m your mom. My name is Ruby.”

    I’m quiet for a moment as I process this new information, “So, if you’re my mom then you should know who my dad is right?”  

    Ruby shares a certain look with Cas that I recognize as a, “Do you want to tell her or should I?” look. Cas nods so Ruby looks back at me, “Sam is your dad.”  

    Before I can ask any more questions, a loud noise erupts from somewhere in the darkness and Cas grabs my arm, “We need to go. That’s it.”

    Ruby looks to me with a sad smile, “I love you, kiddo. Always remember that.” With that, she waves her arm and Cas and I are thrown aside. Suddenly, it's hard to tell if my eyes are open and I’m still somewhere in The Empty or my eyes are closed and I’m not. I hear someone calling my name and realize I need to open my eyes. As I do, the light is almost unbearable but squatting beside me are Sam, Dean, and Jack. I sit up and rub my eyes as I try to make sense of the information, I just learned moments before.

    I look up as someone starts gently rubbing my back. Jack is now sitting cross legged beside me and Dean is squatting down to our level but Sam and Cas are nowhere to be found. “You okay?” Dean asks quietly. Before I can answer, Sam and Cas reenter the room. I stand, as do Dean and Jack, and watch Sam carefully, wondering if Cas told him. Sam takes a deep breath before racing forward and wrapping me in a hug. I quickly return it.

    When we pull apart, Dean and Jack look very confused as Sam looks down at me with a smile and moves my hair out of my face, “I’ve had a hunch for a while that you were her daughter. There’s no denying that you look almost exactly like her but I had no idea that you’re mine too.”

    “Hang on, did I just hear you right?” Dean questions.

    Sam and I both turn to look at Dean as Cas answers, “(Y/n) is the daughter of Sam and Ruby.”

    Dean’s shocked expression is almost cartoon like as he opens and closes his mouth looking for a response like a fish looking for water. We all sit down around one of the tables in the library as Cas explains everything that Ruby told him prior to my arrival in The Empty. Apparently, after she and Sam spent their time together, she found out that she was pregnant. When she died, Crowley found me and left me for Sam and Dean to take care of because if he couldn’t just get rid of me and he had his hands too full to take care of me himself. Everyone seemed kind of shocked but processed it rather quickly. I on the other hand felt like I now had a gaping hole in my chest, like something was missing. I just found out that she’s my mom but I can’t ever see her again. I silently get up from the table and make my way to my room. Behind me, I hear Sam tell the others, “She probably needs some time alone. One of us can check on her in a little bit.” As I close my door behind me and flop down onto my bed, the hole in my chest begins to ache and tears break through the dam. I snuggle up to one of my pillows and not for the first time in my life, I wish I had my mom there to comfort me but it hurts even worse now that I have a face to put to the title. Soon, I manage to cry myself to sleep and drift off into dreams that are sure to sting when I wake up.

Masterlist

Taglist: @emiijemii​ @castiels-majestic-wings​

#sam winchester #sam winchester imagine #sam winchester imagines #sam winchester x daughter!reader #sam winchester oneshot #sam winchester oneshots #supernatural #supernatural imagine #supernatural imagines #supernatural oneshots #supernatural oneshot #spn ruby

[nicollekidman]

abby can you talk on how deancas and tenrose are the same?

okay so i need to preface this with the usual…. cannot believe i am enlightened enough to be seriously discussing this in the year 2020, but i’m happy for my teen self. also there is about to be a lot of unhinged earnestness to follow, so if you’re easily succebtable to cringe… don’t read on. ALSO RIP I WROTE 1800 WORDS about just the most general and nonspecific concepts…… brb k wording myself 

first off i think it’s so funny that i just went back and looked and i typed cas/ten as a one and dean/rose as a six completely independently so… that’s where my head is at. 

i think the meat of the issue is the way that tenrose and deancas function both in relation to the overall narrative and each other. there are many differences of course, but at the end of the day, both relationships are positioned as the ultimate working example of what their shows are trying to be About. 

i could write an entirely separate essay on the intersections between cas and the doctor, but essentially…… these are figures introduced to the audience as Beyond Human Understanding. they exist as celestial beings unconstrained by the rules of space and time, more closely connected to god than humanity. we meet the doctor farther along in his journey than castiel, but both of their character arcs are rooted in a Godlike Creature observing humanity and becoming enamored with it/driven to protect and care for it. by the time the doctor meets rose, it is well established that he has a soft spot for humanity, she’s not the one who teaches him that. but she is the one he reaches out to and leans on for support and healing post-time war, and she is the one who influences ten’s regeneration so deeply that he is made in her image/for her. castiel rebuilds dean atom by atom is hell, and upon rescuing him from the pit, finds himself similarly irrevocably altered. it is revealed to us that castiel also has had a long affection for humanity, but nothing swayed him from his ultimate duty before he met dean. and just as the doctor finds himself with a family for the first time after gallifrey with rose and her mother on the estate, castiel finds himself cut off from his family/realm, but with a new family, team free will. they lose everything, their attachment to the heavens, and find a new family and a new reason to continue, in these humans. 

dean and rose also are the ultimate Human Credentials. we all know this term to be indicative of someone who confers humanity onto the other, someone who, by mere accompaniment, allows their beloved to more safely/easily navigate life. and it’s true in this sense. rose is constantly reminding ten how to Be Human (”am i being rude?”) in both big and small ways, just as dean more or less badgers castiel in the same way ( “dude. we talked about this”). neither cas nor ten would be as intimately connected with their “human sides” with their partners. but dean and rose are also Human Credentials in a broader sense, in that….. they act as character references for the rest of humanity, and by virtue of their own selves/their partner’s attachment to them, guarantee investment in the rest of the human race. castiel is more-or-less content to watch from heaven and take orders until he rescues dean and becomes involved with his life (”the moment castiel laid a hand on you in hell he was lost”). his love and affection for dean and his willingness to bend everything to keep him safe means that castiel learns to defy heaven for the good of humanity. ten has always loved humans, but he loves rose a little differently. The Doctor Needs Someone, and we see rose’s power as his human credential most strongly when she’s gone. Without rose, ten is more willing to put himself/others in danger, to make choices that will result in death, to be callous and reckless and thoughtless. rose’s presence is a constant reminder that humanity is Worth the Trouble, that he’s never met anyone who wasn’t important. 

for rose and dean…. these are two, completely Normal, Average People. or so they think anyways. the burdens they carry and their inner lives are very different, but in very simple ways, they both would’ve continued their lives believing there was nothing special about them, getting up to Do Their Duty, never asking for anything special. both view themselves are caretakers, although this manifests differently bc rose is a bratty 19 year old and dean never got the opportunity to be a teenager. but both Feel Deeply in ways/levels that others don’t. each has an extremely open heart and a need to protect/provide for the little people. what ten and cas give them is an entirely new perspective, whereupon it starts to be possible to believe that even the smallest person can affect the world for better, and that they, specifically Deserve More. 

THEN we have the ideas of religion/free will/fate that intertwine both shows. rtd’s doctor who was explicitly and obviously written with the intent to show an atheist universe where the human spirit and mind are enough on their own to be holy, to determine right and wrong, and to decide the events of the universe. obviously ten is often situated in christ-like positions, but he learns from humanity as much as they teach him. supernatural is a little more complicated, with an alternate vision of accepted figures of christianity, but both shows heavily emphasize the power of human kindness, passion, empathy, and individual choice. ten may not live within the confines of space and time, but apocalypses in doctor who often hinge on one small person doing The Next Right Thing, just as supernatural’s base credo is We’re Writing a New Chapter. castiel bursts onto the scene and is literally taught the importance of free will by dean, and perhaps even the importance of his own desires/needs by dean. both core relationships exemplify what it means to make choices outside the realm of fate (even whilst allowing for the existence of soulmates). yes, castiel was ordered to raise dean from perdition, but their human connection is what allows the winchesters to subvert God and move outside the printed narrative - love for a human is what makes an angel CHOOSE to fall from heaven. and ten…. well ten knows that rose is going to die. ten understands from the moment he allows himself to care for her above all others, that he is dooming himself to pain and regret and loss. but he decides to do it anyways, because isn’t the best thing an otherwordly being in love with humanity can do is to eperience love and loss on a human level? both cas and ten understand that there is no love without pain, that they will be the ones to watch their beloveds leave them, but that the Choice to love out of free will is worth it. 

there’s also the element of Expression/Repression. here is where the underlying emotion remains similar but the freedom of how exactly to illustrate these feelings could not be more different. tenrose is a heterosexual relationship at the end of the day, and their storylines require them to be alone in each other’s presence nearly 100% of the time. thus, we get LOTS of familiar touching, lots of body language and casual intimacy and teasing. dean and cas…. lol. not so much. instead of physicality, we get looks, both because of dean’s own upbringing/sexuality and because they exist on the show that they do. deancas deals in the unspoken - the acts of service, the grace healings, the tense moments of battle, the lack of personal space. the expression is different, but the emotion is the same. ten and dean hold themselves back from the more Obvious open-book partners, for their own personal reasons. the end effect being that everyone on screen understands/insinuates what’s happening, and their relationship is so thick with subtext its a wonder no one suffocates. Words are seen as the ultimate step, once which cannot be overcome in normal life. both pairs use death/separation as the final step towards full transparency, but even then we are never granted the ultimate catharsis of an I Love You. castiel couches his confessions in generalizations towards groups, and dean swallows his truth even in prayer. rose says the words through a veil of uncrossable distance, but she doesn’t get to hear them back. they can Know, and we can Understand, but we cannot hear it. 

lastly (for now)…. and perhaps as an ultimate summation…….. death and parallel universes and fate cannot stop them, those who are drawn to each other through heaven and hell, through time and realities. it is to be understood that will all four individuals fight to ensure that each human being is safe, protected, and able to make their own choices they are soulmates. they are soulmates who are bound to each other to be sure, but they’re not Fated in a way that takes away their free will. they’re fated by the series of choices they make, over and over again, to prioritize each other, to traverse time and space and dimension and hell to get back to one another. god cannot see castiel in his plans for the world, and yet castiel has evaded death again and again, to give dean a win. nothing could tear rose away from her doctor, and even while trapped in another dimmension, she hears his voice, she runs to him, and she finds a way to get back to him. each and every choice they make brings them back to one another, regardless of the ultimate ending. we don’t know yet if we will ever hear castiel and dean get their doomsday moment, but we do know that in order for castiel to leave dean’s side, an entirely new dimmension (the empty) will have to be in play to keep them apart. 

ultimately, castiel and ten are both celestial beings with self-worth issues but a burning and true desire to see humanity thrive, directly and indirectly because of their attachment to dean and rose. dean and rose make castiel and ten more human, all while exemplifying why human is a good thing to be. dean and rose become more themselves under cas and ten’s influence, both are given more opportunity to bloom into who they are meant to be. all four become More in the presence of each other, and save the world while doing it. ultimately there is a heavy dose of tragedy in both - whether or not dean and cas get their moment is yet to be seen, but these are still Soulmates with differing relationships to mortality. but is there anything sweeter than defying god’s and fate and our own doubts to grab love with both hands, even when we know there will be pain? 

#JESUS MOTHERFUCKING CHRIST #the way i could write an additional 2k words on any one of these sections/elements #anyways happy high holy day #deancas #tenrose #dw #spn #meta #Anonymous #LMAOOOOOO

[mittensmorgul]

Faith on the tnt loop (which, full disclosure, I slept through oopsie, so I pulled out the blu ray because this is NOT one I can skip).

Post 14.20, this episode is... extra-amazing, honestly. I’ve always felt that this episode was unwittingly (possibly, at the time it was written) a window into what this story could potentially do. When I first binged this series, this was the first episode I finished where I had to stop and completely reevaluate what I was actually witnessing. This was the episode that took me from casually consuming a fun lil monster show to 100% invested in this grand narrative. Even without any knowledge of what the ensuing 6 1/2 season (that existed at the time), I felt like I had my first glimpse of a much bigger picture in store for me. This was the first episode that, after a break to absorb what I’d just witnessed, I went back and immediately watched it again. Turns out I wasn’t reading too much into it... in fact, I wasn’t reading nearly enough into it...

The episode begins with Sam and Dean hunting a monster that we’ve only ever seen once more in the entirety of canon-- a rawhead, which earned a mention in 14.01 after an off-screen hunt for one went wrong enough to have left a tooth behind in one of the AU hunters. As if the monster in this case has been rendered doubly irrelevant, by virtue of the fact it practically dies offscreen in 1.12 while Dean's defeat of it and his own actions and choices in defeating it are the actual inciting incident of all the relevant action to follow. And in 14.01, all that remains of the rawahead was a tooth that's extracted from a wound and likely a wild hunter's tale.

Dean explains the use of the tasers they're using to take down the rawhead (specifically that the electricity is deadly to it and each weapon is one use only, "so make it count"). Dean takes his shot, and misses, but they find the children the rawhead had been holding captive. Dean tells Sam to take them outside to safety, and Sam hands over his taser to Dean, leaving Dean alone to face the monster (who we learn in 14.01 moves a lot faster than expected, and fast enough that we never even really see it in 1.12). Dean is literally backed into a corner, on the ground in a puddle of water, with the monster looming over him when he chooses to take his shot. It's not like he had much choice, right? So he shoots, and thanks to the water he's lying in, he electrocutes himself as well, damaging his own heart to the point where the doctor gives him a month to live.

He could've made a different choice, could've rolled out of the water, could've tried to fight off the rawhead (probably ineffectively) but perhaps enough that it would've given up and escaped to hunt children another day, but Dean took his shot, in a circumstance where he felt it was the right thing to end this monster and prevent it from hurting anyone ever again, even when it hurt him in the process. Not that he knew it would necessarily kill him to do it, but he was fully aware of the power of the weapon in his hand and what it was capable of, and accepted that it would hurt him right along with the monster he'd aimed it at since they were “connected” through the puddle of water.

Can anyone else say Hammurabi? Equalizer?

All of this has happened before.

But that's just the beginning. Because Dean survived, even if mortally wounded. This was the first time, though, that they were motivated to defy death, and that brings us to the true Monster of the Week-- Sue Ann LeGrange. Yes, I know it's technically "a reaper," but operating under Sue Ann's control and on her orders. She was the one who chose who lived and who died, based on who SHE thought was worthy, or unworthy in the case of her chosen victims. She was "playing god," deceiving her husband after saving HIS life with this dark magic (which required at least TWO sacrifices on her part-- one to make the altar and talisman to bind the reaper in the first place, and one person to die to save Roy, unbeknownst to him), and letting him think that he was miraculously granted the gift of healing by God.

And Sam decides to look for a similar sort of miraculous cure for Dean, even when Dean had accepted his own apparent fate:

DEAN: Look, Sammy, what can I say, man, it's a dangerous gig. I drew the short straw. That's it, end of story. SAM: Don't talk like that, alright? We still have options. DEAN: What options? Yeah, burial or cremation. And I know it's not easy. But I'm gonna die. And you can't stop it. SAM: Watch me.

Sam isn't about to go committing human sacrifice like Sue Ann, but after a tearful phone call plea to John for help, which goes unreplied to, Sam takes matters into his own hands, just as Dean checks himself out of the hospital having accepted his fate:

SAM: You know, this whole I-laugh-in-the-face-of-death thing? It's crap. I can see right through it. DEAN: Yeah, whatever, dude. Have you even slept? You look worse than me. SAM: (Helping DEAN to a chair) I've been scouring the Internet for the last three days. Calling every contact in Dad's journal. DEAN: For what? SAM: For a way to help you. One of Dad's friends, Joshua, he called me back. Told me about a guy in Nebraska. A specialist. DEAN: You're not gonna let me die in peace, are you? SAM: I'm not gonna let you die, period. We're going.

(aside to lol at John’s friend being named “Joshua,” namesake of the one angel God continued to talk to after supposedly abandoning Heaven and Earth, the angel who told Sam and dean in 5.16 that God refused to step in to help stop the apocalypse, and the angel killed in 12.19 by Dagon before fetus!Jack hijacked Cas to kill Dagon in turn... and even after his death it was Joshua’s amulet in 14.17 that enabled him to summon Chuck back into the story... funny that this hunter we never hear about again was the one to point Sam in the direction of this healer...)

And I'm sorry to just keep pasting in chunks of transcript, but this all goes to Sam and Dean's respective outlooks on pretty much everything, and the Grand Manipulation of Chuck in the entire narrative as we now understand it post 14.20:

DEAN: I mean, come on, Sam, a faith healer? SAM: Maybe it's time to have a little faith, Dean. DEAN: You know what I've got faith in? Reality. Knowing what's really going on. SAM: How can you be a skeptic? With the things we see everyday? DEAN: Exactly. We see them, we know there real. SAM: But if you know evil's out there, how can you not believe good's out there, too? DEAN: Because I've seen what evil does to good people.

Sam has faith, Dean's a skeptic. Throughout s14 we saw what it would take to break Dean to the point where he would accept the word of God without question. It literally took the entire season, more than half of it revolving around his possession and complete loss of free will and self, building him up when Michael left him again and giving him a false sense of security to begin to feel comfortable building emotional bridges to his entire family (including Jack), only to tear it all down and lose himself to Michael again on a whim, losing Mary again, losing Jack to soullessness because of his own failed choices (in his estimation, at least). This process of showing Dean how little power and control he has over his own existence was furthered by Billie presenting him with the supposed singular solution to save the world, which Dean interpreted to mean the most horrifying iteration of self-sacrifice the show has ever presented to us-- an eternity spent at the bottom of the ocean, locked with Michael in the Ma'lak box. Ironically, just as he was beginning to think of himself as something more than just a weapon, the parallel can't help but be drawn to the First Blade, which Cain had thrown to the bottom of the ocean in a similar fashion. Which should only serve to remind us that even that's not a permanent solution to any problem. And I think THAT was the lesson Billie truly wished Dean to understand. Jack is the one who ends up making the true sacrifice (his own human soul) to kill Michael once and for all, and Dean is left with the guilt of that.

But several other important incidents in s14 tie directly back to this, too. 14.08, playing with life and death, learning about what truly matters in someone's destiny after death, and what the Winchesters are willing to do to save a loved one. Ironically, in the process, Cas is backed into a corner, making a deal with the Empty Entity for his own happiness in exchange for Jack's soul.

Nothing ever comes for free. The Winchesters have been juggling these horrific choices and sacrifices their entire lives, and nothing is ever just as simple as an uncomplicated win.

Which is a key element of 1.12. Dean's skepticism, his feeling of "wrongness" after being healed by Roy, uncovers the larger truth. Sam desperately wants Dean to just let it go, accept it as a miracle, and move on:

SAM: Look, Dean, do we really have to look this one in the mouth? Why can't we just be thankful that the guy saved your life and move on? DEAN: Because I can't shake this feeling, that's why.

A miracle isn't enough for Dean, and the truth is darker and more horrifying than Sam can accept. As he uncovers more and more of the facts of just how Roy is supposedly healing people, he tearfully apologizes to Dean, and they work together to find a way to stop it from happening again. Someone is controlling a reaper, literally trading one life for another. Chuck must've LOVED this episode of his favorite show. It nails all his favorite themes:

DEAN: You never should've brought me here. SAM: Dean, I was just trying to save your life. DEAN: But, Sam, some guy is dead now because of me. SAM: I didn't know.

Ignorance of the truth didn't stop them from becoming entangled in this mess, though. Just like it hasn't stopped them from becoming entangled in every other cosmic mess they've stumbled across over the succeeding 14 seasons. Sam believed it was a miracle, and his faith had blinded him to the truth-- or at least made him want to believe, motivated by the results at Dean's miraculous healing. It's the same faith that led him in early s11 to want to believe his visions were coming from God, that maybe his visions that had plagued him in early seasons were being used for good now-- and with the intervention of Billie in 11.02 when those visions began, it's interesting how the solution that actually saved his life in that circumstance technically came from what she said to him about being "unclean in the biblical sense."

Reapers and their powers and limitations (clean hands!), and their knowledge of the Bigger Picture that Billie herself won't be able to see until she dies and is resurrected with the mantle of Death, have their beginnings in the mythology right here, enslaved to the will of a mortal woman who believed she could make choices about who deserved to live and who deserved to die based on her own corrupted sense of morality.

Even when the concept of Death is introduced in 5.10, he's presented as "lesser" than what he truly is by virtue of Lucifer having bound him to his will for the purposes of the apocalypse, and as merely one of the Four Horsemen equal to War, Famine, and Pestilence. In 5.21, we learn what he's "supposed to be." Practically an equal to God, with the power over all life and death. It's not really until 13.05 that we learn the truth about just how powerful Billie has become, and yet what her limitations still are. We begin to see one side of this massive cosmic chess match, all leading up to the biggest revelation of them all in 14.20.

Back to 1.12 again... (sorry it's impossible not to be continually distracted by the theme spiral here). Dean also is uncomfortable for the first time over the potential for The Lord to be eyeballing him specifically, which is a feeling he's gonna truly grow into throughout s4 "I don't like being singled out at birthday parties, let alone by God," right up through the showdown at the end of 14.20.

DEAN: Why? Why me? Out of all the sick people, why save me? ROY: Well, like I said before, the Lord guides me. I looked into your heart, and you just stood out from all the rest. DEAN: What did you see in my heart? ROY: A young man with an important purpose. A job to do. And it isn't finished.

Throughout the episode, they believe it's Roy controlling the reaper and making the choices about who lives and dies, but he was literally blind to the fact it was Sue Ann. He was as much a victim in all of this as the people he believed he was healing, that he believed he had been touched by God to impart new life to. But knowing the full truth, Dean has to stop someone from being healed that even HE believes deserves to be saved, to be spared the suffering of a life cut short by an inoperable brain tumor, after learning an innocent man would die in her place. No matter how much he might feel that Layla didn't deserve that fate, he also doesn't believe the man who'd been protesting Roy's healing ministry deserves to die just for that fact, either.

SUE ANN: I just don't understand. After everything we've done for you. After Roy healed you. I'm just very very disappointed Dean DEAN stares at her, saying nothing. SUE ANN: You can let him go. I'm not gonna press charges. The Lord will deal with him as he sees fit. SUE ANN leaves. The cops turn to DEAN. COP 1: We catch you round here again son, we'll put the fear of God in you, understand?

Once again, in text, Sue Ann is unwittingly labeled "God." It's not God's wrath Dean fears, but Sue Ann's, knowing his defiance has likely turned him from worthy of healing to unworthy of living. Now this has moved beyond idealistically wanting to stop someone from playing god with people's lives right back to the immediate need to stop them before someone else becomes the next victim. And all of their choices-- Dean not being able to walk away, not being able to look the other way, discovering the full horrific truth of how he himself had been brought back from the brink of death, led them to this juncture where it truly felt like they had no other choice but to stop the monster. It literally became a life and death matter for Dean.

I still find it fascinating that as a result of their actions and choices in this episode, the reaper who'd been enslaved to Sue Ann's will was freed when Sam crushed the talisman that kept him bound. I find that highly amusing in retrospect, that while Dean was literally touched by an incarnation of Death several times in this episode, Sam effectively committed services rendered to the Cosmic Order.

We've learned so much about all of this over the years, as well-- the need for balance, order in the universe, and so many of those lessons have come from Death directly. Dean learns some of this firsthand in 6.11, for example, when he takes on Death's job for a day (or at least the life-and-death side of his job, now that we know so much more about his knowledge and understanding of creation as a whole). We learn even more through Billie, and her constant reminders that what's dead should stay dead, and through Billie's reapers once she becomes Death. 13.19 reminds us, through a story about the consequences of killing reapers, just how tenuous the course of cosmic events can be, and what the universe does to self-correct when the balance tilts too far in one direction. It's a lesson Tessa began to teach way back in 4.15, in an episode where Dean once again saves the life of a reaper (not only unwittingly protecting the cosmic balance, but literally stopping the breaking of a seal and staving off the apocalypse for at least another day, and that entire episode, that entire case, only happened through the unwitting guidance of them to the case by Cas-- still operating under Heaven’s orders and pretending to be Bobby sending them to that town to investigate...).

It has always felt to me that the show has subtly revealed more about the truth of the cosmos through death and Death than anything else. And that's on full display now in 1.12. Sue Ann's lies of omission about Roy's "powers," her manipulation of circumstance and her ensnarement of a reaper to do her will, choosing who lives and dies and literally "playing God," is it really any wonder to find out that Chuck has attempted to do the same on the highest cosmic scale from the start? He is a writer, after all, writing the entire story of the universe even as the universe fights to tell its own story. It's only by looking to the center and seeing the truth of the entire picture that they can free themselves from that fate, break the spell that's held them captive to Chuck's narrative and this endless cycle of sacrifice.

Heck I still love this episode. So much that I’ve let the next three episodes play out in the background... This is the entire spiral of the story played out in miniature, wrapped into a single episode.

#spn 1.12 #spn 14.20 #s14 hellatus rewatch #it's spirals all the way down #if you say 'mysterious ways' so help me i will kick your ass #billie the reaper #spn monsters #death and his backup dancers doin the old razzle dazzle #spn 14.01 #spn 5.16 #spn 12.19 #spn 14.17 #spn 14.08 #spn 11.02 #spn 5.10 #spn 5.21 #spn 6.11 #spn 13.05 #spn 13.19 #spn 4.15 #god this episode is everything

[dotthings]

Well this wasn’t nearly as finely emotionally wrought as 14.18 but still there’s a lot to talk about for 14.19, including Team Free Will grieving, Jack as a Godstiel parallel, Cas’s big love for both Dean and Jack, Dean and Cas doing being done with each other wrong, and the box continues to be a really bad plan.

So some AU hunters survived, and Team Free Will, with Dean as the voice, serve as leaders for Mary’s wake. Dean’s speech about Mary as the whole person, her strengths and flaws, as more than their mom, was a good note to follow up last week’s on. And Cas’s face is so so sad. He’s lost someone who was a friend and he doesn’t have many friends. With last week’s ep I talked about how important it was to show Cas grieving, he was present at the funeral pyre, he’s present at the wake. 

Dean and Cas drama doesn’t seem to be the end of Dean and Cas. Wot??? I am shocked! Oh wait no I’m not. They aren’t in a wonderful place right now but they aren’t done with each other. There’s quite a lot of Sam, Dean, and Cas in this ep.

“You need anything?” Cas asks, and Dean says, not angry, almost kind of wryly, he could use a drink. Boys, you’re doing breaking up wrong.

This scene where Bobby talks about why Jack has to be put down and Cas’s reaction is a full flip on the scene where Jack tells Cas Dean might have to be taken out to stop Michael. In that scene and here, Cas reacts with horror at the idea, and rejects it. Bobby keeps pressing the point, as Jack pressed his, about the cost. Cas continues to be horrified and against the idea. So, y’know, anybody who thought Dean doesn’t care about Cas and only cares about Jack, and his silence at the end of the Cas and Jack scene earlier this season meant he totally agreed with Jack about Dean, I’ve been saying this all season, but no. Cas isn’t agreeing with Bobby here either. And if all Cas cares about Jack, allegedly, according to some parties, and is against killing Jack, and he reacts the same way in a similar scene about Dean, let’s add 1+1 and get 2 and I have been saying all long, Cas wasn’t okay with the idea of Dean of expendable, with the suggestion of killing Dean to stop Michael, and he’s not okay with this option for Jack either. Cas’s silence at the end of both these scenes doesn’t mean tacit agreement. I wish people would let Cas be Cas instead of deciding he doesn’t care because of the way he doesn’t express as openly as Sam and Dean. The silence is just silence, because the other person’s vehemence isn’t something he knows how to argue with. Not because he agrees.

Jack’s subconscious manifestation (or is it? It is Lucifer? I don’t know what’s happening) continues to be an asshole, playing on his attachment for Team Free Will and fears that they’re done with him which right now, aren’t that unfounded, sort of. Not completely. But, the asshole subconscious isn’t exactly wrong either is it. Jack has gone too far over the edge, crossed a line he can’t cross back from.

Dean crying alone in the rain the woods. :(((((((((((((((((((( Well, Dean’s putting up walls with everyone, not just Cas, but with Sam, with anyone who wants to talk about Mary, and not even in a brittle angry way, he really doesn’t want to have to dwell on it because it hurts. But he’ll go the woods alone to cry. 

At least he’s letting himself grieve fully. We don’t see him hitting the alcohol hard to numb the pain, although yes he is doing some drinking, he’s not lashing out, after that breakdown in 14.18. He’s quietly hurting and he needs to be alone to cry it out. He also does grieve with others--he does the speech for the wake, he takes in the AU hunter’s affection for Mary, mourns with them although he’s not close to them. He hides from Sam and from Cas and he cries alone in the woods. It’s not necessarily bad to do some grieving alone. Sometimes people need to do that. I’m actually taking this as a healthy sign. Heartwrenching, but processing his grief in a more functional way than we’ve seen on this show.

“So he lost his capacity for goodness through an act of goodness.” Thanks, Dumah, for stating the extremely obvious irony here in such an obvious way. I totally would have missed that otherwise! LOL. 

Sam and Dean seem to be going for some kind of acceptance in this scene. They know Heaven is real and that Mary’s soul is at peace, and that some people never get to know that for sure. But they do, because their lives are so extremely weird, they know Heaven and angels are real, they know exactly where their mom’s soul is. And, Dean adds “there wasn’t even enough left of her to bring her back.”

So Dean letting himself all out cry, even if alone, not raging, not desperate, just giving himself the time to do that, and Sam and Dean finding some semblance of acceptance with Mary’s death. Whereas TFW had a hard time accepting Jack’s death earlier this season, and Sam initiated the idea of finding a loophole to bring him back. I don’t think it’s that they love some more than others, some of this is circumstantial, whether the situation seems like there’s any way to fix it or not. They don’t have her real body. There’s nothing they could do. And back to S13, Dean’s utter, abject despair at Cas’s death, and even then Dean still tried. He prayed to God to bring Cas back. It didn’t work. While Dean knelt by Cas’s side all night he probably ran through some options of what to try and maybe dismissed them because it seemed like it wouldn’t work. That grief wasn’t acceptance, it was despair.

This doesn’t seem despairing. They are, however, still hurting and Dean especially is angry at Jack.

“You have a glorious destiny” is so similar to what Kelly told Cas about Jack. Which worried me then, because great destinies isn’t really where it’s at on this show. You roll up your sleeves and do the job, you try to do the right thing, and you do the best you can. Chosen Ones and Righteous Men...that can be an interesting story but it isn’t where these characters live. Jack and a glorious destiny is a really bad combination. Oh look, he turned someone into salt and attack someone else with worms. Yeah this glorious destiny is going so well so far!

I was glad Cas briefed Sam and Dean right away on what was going on with Heaven. (Cas isn’t the one who’s going to be cutting part of his family out of the loop in this ep...although he still hasn’t told anyone about his deal. Tick. Tick. Tick). Huh, Dean and Cas are standing unnecessarily close together for a moment there, that’s a big room. Okay. You guys really suck at actually being done with each other.

Human souls can be turned into angels? Is this another piece of new mythology ala Bucklemming? Okay fine *waves hand*

Jack positioned to take over as the new leader of Heaven and being a God substitute is shades of Godstiel. Jack, who has been the Team Free Will mirror all season, is going through some late S6/early S7 Cas echoes here.

Sam and Dean deciding between the two of them what they’re going to do about Jack without looping in Cas. Well, well, who’s going off with their plans not communicating and keeping someone out of the loop now. Is it worse if Cas does it or worse when Sam and Dean does it? It’s bad when any of them do it. I think I’ll pass it off as Bucklemmingitis that neither of them even said “we should talk to Cas” and the other one saying “no he’ll never agree” -- I think that’s why they don’t go to Cas with it. They know how attached Cas is to Jack and we just had an ep that was heavily about how much Cas believed in Jack and they all believed in Jack. So I get why. But I’m not for them not looping Cas in. Oh and Dean wants to trick Jack. This plan of Sam and Dean’s is pretty cold but honestly, I don’t know what else they could do at this point. Jack is dangerous. Even if it’s not him being himself, and I think Sam and Dean know that, but they want to contain him before things get worse. They have no plan to save him and they’re going to just shut him in the box. Which, actually, Sam would have agreed to do with Dean if Michael was on the loose and possessing Dean again. Sam was the one who initiated finding a way to bring Jack back when he died earlier in the season. Here I think they have both kind of run out of hope on what to do about Jack. They don’t know how to fix this (not yet). And Jack is incredibly dangerous.

Sam using the “we’re family” line on Jack to trick him into the box hurts. It’s because they take that seriously, and Sam felt it would work on Jack, and them using this now to trick someone who they once considered family--he wields that line because he knows how powerful it is. It’s also paralleling Sam reaching out to Cas in 7.01, with some differences. Sam’s goal wasn’t to trick and trap Cas, he wanted to get through to the Cas he believed was still in there. But here I think Sam feels, as Dean does, that the Jack they know is fully gone, at least for the moment. It’s also true that with Godstiel, Cas was still himself buried in there somewhere, amongst all the monster souls. Cas wasn’t gone, he was possessed by a million monster souls, and therefore, more reachable. A lot of Jack’s soul is burned away (presumably). Jack really just isn’t Jack, Jack’s not in there, buried and confused. He’s just...not himself any longer. Remember how hard and cold Dean went about Godstiel? He thought his friend was completely gone, just as Dean thinks Jack can’t be saved now. Although I’m noticing Sam and Dean don’t really plot too hard about how to kill Jack. Maybe they think they can’t kill him, but they focus on containment not killing and that’s interesting.

Dumah threatening “Ma and Pa Winchester” that is it for Cas he has had it and that’s the end of Dumah and her manipulations. Cas really has committed to the entire Winchester family and by now feels very protective of Mary.

Dean is so angry at Jack. Oh my heart. It’s the kind of anger that’s just so very extra done because it hurts. Jensen played that beautifully. No matter who killed Mary, Dean would be angry, but that it was someone he cared about adds layers and layers. He even says to Sam, after what Jack did to Mary, Dean would lose it. None of this is about how little Dean cares for Jack. It’s very much about Dean’s heart being ripped out by someone he cares for harming someone he cares for and we have been there before, only this is so much worse. 

This box is such a bad idea. I thought it was a bad idea for Dean and wouldn’t be able to contain Michael if he got loose anyway, and I think it’s a bad idea for Jack and it’s not going to work.

Dean and Cas are still not acting particularly done with each other although they’re arguing because Sam and Dean stuck Jack in the box and Cas is not happy but at least they’re talking and arguing not stomping off done with each other forever. Is anyone surprised Cas isn’t okay with this plan? And does anyone really think Jack is all Cas cares about? Cas reacted even more badly to the concept of Dean going into the box. It just won’t do. For any of them. Sam and Mary are really important to Cas too, but Cas is closest to Dean, and Cas also strongly takes being Jack’s father seriously and it’s so incredibly interesting that this ep is mirroring Dean and Jack for Cas. Kill Dean to stop Michael, Cas resists. Kill Jack to stop Jack, Cas resists. Put Dean in the the box oh hell no. Put Jack in the box oh hell no. It’s not the canon saying the relationships are identical, that isn’t how paralleling works. It is underlining how important these two relationships both are to Cas. 

“We knew from the beginning it was a long shot with him.” “Long shots are kind of my thing.”

That sound was the sound of my heart cracking for Sam.

Oh look I was right. Such surprise lol nope that box isn’t going to hold Jack.

#Sam Winchester #Dean Winchester #Castiel #Jack Kline #spn #supernatural #supernatural spoilers #meta

[eisforeidolon]

Episode: Nihilism

Then: Michael gloats about how no one spent any time questioning why he previously vamoosed for no reason. It's such a clever gotcha … for the writers to lampshade their own incompetence of making the characters somehow ignore a giant plot hole anyone who isn't permanently concussed questioned endlessly. One I still question, because Michael's “plan” to leave and then arbitrarily come back to break Dean's will … somehow … makes no sense and screws around with angel lore yet again.  

Anyway.

Now: I did actually mostly enjoy this episode, aside from a few not-entirely-minor quibbles.  

First, I have to say:  Wow, the actress who plays Pamela looks almost exactly the same.  Also, this is the kind of cameo I actually really love when the show does!  It doesn't make death meaningless or have the characters accept a replacement goldfish substitute from an alternate universe as the same person (as creepy as that is).  Yet it still allows us to revisit old favorite characters.  

I liked the smug – almost gleefully so – way that Jensen played Michael.  It actually largely mitigated how easy it was for the rest of the team to capture him for me, which I kind of expected to be annoyed by.  He's exactly the kind of villain to monologue instead of just getting on with killing everybody.  It also mostly fits that he doesn't take them terribly seriously and so isn't prepared for their alternate holy oil molotov plan.  As well as how he's more vaguely interested in examining the cuffs than actually concerned when they do bind him – and not only in light of how he has his own backup plan.  There's still the slight hitch that having been in Dean's head, he should realize just how many other villains have gone belly up from not taking the Winchesters seriously?  But then, he is exactly the kind of villain that would think he's so far above all of them that he's obviously different – even when them includes an alternate version of himself.

That said, I was not impressed that inexplicably Castiel can no longer see reapers.  I swear, he gains and loses more powers on an episode by episode basis ... ffs.  Nor did I appreciate that said reaper suddenly was willing to act as a get-out-of-monster-hell free card.  Billie and the reapers wouldn't even step in to save their own from being killed in Funeralia (13.19) but now, LOL NON-INTERFERENCE?  NEVERMIND!  I mean, it just feels so lazy.  I give Yockey more credit than a lot of the current lot, and in the end it's partially a season-size pacing problem, but?  Imagine if instead they'd stretched this out to another episode and given Sam and the others the time to find a legitimate, clever way out of being trapped, with Michael taunting them all the while.  (I could happily watch a couple episodes' worth of just Michael mocking them all, tbh.)  Instead, they're cheat-teleported back to the bunker.  Heck, Yockey could have just gone with Michael being too smug to have bothered to have sufficient backup monsters!  That would work perfectly well, too.  I get maybe it was partially meant to bring reapers back to the audience's attention to prime us for the reveal at the end with Billie?  And maybe we’re meant to forgive it because the threat from the monsters is still on in the background?  But it just doesn't work for me.

Another thing that I actually can forgive because I think it fits with Michael's ego is not having enough imagination to give Dean more than one night at his fantasy bar that repeats over and over again.  Even if Cas and Sam hadn't broken in during this episode, Dean had already noticed having deja vu.  So on the one hand, it fits how smugly overconfident Michael is, on the other, it really is a stupid plan.  I did actually like that Dean's fantasy did still involve killing monsters – since I've always felt like his desire to be out of hunting was more tied to all of the issues with destiny and the apocalypse and all of that manipulation from cosmic forces and weight of the world stuff than the old-school routine of just saving individual people from individual monsters.

Ugh, Maggie.  Her being in charge for reasons here really is one of the dumbest things they've sprung on us yet.  The only good thing about the whole side meander with the AU!hunters is that I had been cringing at how, once again, I expected the mystically warded bunker to suddenly be just that easy for monsters to waltz into?  Yet instead, they actually weren't able to break in without having a turned hunter on the inside.  I really did appreciate that!

I'd seen several complaints about saying Dean “thrives” on trauma was annoying and insulting.  I kind of get that, especially in light of Ross-Leming's obtuse comment about Dean having antibodies against evil so they never have to deal with him being traumatized?  However, while I think perhaps there might have been better ways to phrase it, I think the meaning – that given something he actually knows to fight against, Dean is irrepressible – is clear enough from the context.  I did appreciate Sam figured out that's why Dean wouldn't be fighting, because he’d been put in a comfortable fake memory, as well as how he was able to identify which memory was the false one so quickly.  I thought it was a nice touch that the music went wonky in the background as Dean remembered what they were saying about Pamela was true.  As well as that it was Sam saying their code word that was the final clue slotting into place rather than Castiel's overblown speech.   While I can see where it might come off as a rip-off of the Ezekiel thing, I think the situations are sufficiently similar that it only makes sense for them to sort out in a similar way.  

Michael's imitation of Castiel was just as funny in context.  From what he said to Jack to what he said in Dean's head to Sam and Castiel, I think Michael was telling the truth, or more accurately, a version of the truth.  We all have certain nasty thoughts that linger in the back of our heads – resentments, annoyances, uncharitable thoughts – the ugliest version of ourselves.  I think Michael was picking and choosing out of that part of Dean to find the things it would hurt the most to say; not thoughts Dean never had, but thoughts that clearly didn't encompass what Dean felt overall.  Carefully chosen partial truths without context, specially tailored to hurt those they were aimed at as much as possible that would therefore also make Dean feel guilty, too.  If Michael had felt like this much of a character from the beginning...  Also, regular world Michael acted like allowing Dean to survive the experience of being possessed intact was some special boon, so this one making a point to say he's going to rip Dean apart on the way out being an additional consideration fits well enough.

While I like a good fight scene as much as anybody, if they're on equal footing because they're all just projections in Dean's head?  I actually think it should have been easier for them to take down Michael.  Sam, Dean, even Cas?  They all have plenty of experience getting their hands dirty in physical fights, whereas we've seen this Michael spend a lot more time actively avoiding them.  That, and I did actually find myself kind of mildly annoyed it was Sam and not Dean that was the one to physically shove Michael into the freezer.  Yes, the fight was a joint effort, and yes, Dean is the one actually keeping him contained in his mind when it comes down to it. However, with all that we got in the previous episode of Dean really wanting to personally strike back at Michael and how Sam had already played such a major part by figuring out how to get into Dean's head and drag him back to reality?  I felt like perhaps it would have been a more powerful moment if Dean had actually done the physical shoving as well.  I don’t think it was a big deal or anything, but ... meh.

Likewise pretty ambivalent about all of Michael's monsters just wandering off rather than continuing their attack at the end.  I get that they were all supposed to be under some kind of control, but it's just so very convenient.  When it's put on top of the teleport home earlier in the episode (and how they're such crappy monsters they couldn't even kill Maggie, dammit) …  Again, it didn’t ruin the episode for me, but after Michael was previously shown negotiating with certain monsters or offering them boons, but actually here it’s that he’s controlling them?  Michael’s plans and motivations have generally being fairly nebulous and vague all along, so this is just so par for the course I can’t even get that annoyed about it.

Similarly, while I appreciate them trying to tie the invasion of AU!Michael in as the consequences Billie warned Dean would come from universe-hopping?  It also seems like a fairly flimsy hand wave.  It's better than no attempt at all, leaving it as a hanging thread that was just dropped, but “this whole multi-versal quantum construct we live in, it's like  a house of cards and the last thing I need is some big dumb Winchester knocking it all down” seems like it should refer to the potentiality of something a little more colossal than yet another archangel with daddy issues.  Maybe that's just me.

As to the end where all the books about Dean's death have changed to have the same ending bar one?  Well, by the very concept, all the books can be changed.  So, when that one alternative to Michael destroying everything is clearly also awful, it seems the more prudent route to go would be to figure out how to make all the books change again as Plan A rather than going directly for Plan Horrorshow.  Not only have the Winchesters made a long-term habit of changing fate, but they've already done it in this specific way once – granted for the worse, but still, it's clearly possible.  

I feel like there was something else I meant to address about this one, but I didn’t make a note of it and I actually watched this a couple of days ago and I’m coming up completely blank. 

In the end, i feel like what really made me like this episode despite some obvious flaws was Jensen’s portrayal of Michael and the other characters’ reactions to him.  Which, honestly, just makes the fact that the season took so long to actually get here and give us something meaty from this storyline feel even less like any kind of reasonable choice. 

#spn season 14 #spn 14x10 #negativity for ts

[shirtlesssammy]

The Song Remains the Same: A Well Timed Recap

Then:

Dean’s mom is a babe. He apparently (but not really) still feels this way: @tinkdw awesome analysis of 12x18.

Now:

Dean’s enjoying a nice dream with a dark haired, blued eyed fantasy when Anna busts up the fun times. Awkward. Anna rats out Cas ratting her out, and tells Dean to meet her at an abandoned warehouse.

Instead of meeting the Winchesters, Anna finds Cas.

Cas doesn’t trust Anna’s release from Heaven’s prison, and regrets his previous actions. He questions her actions. She cuts right to the chase: “Sam Winchester has to die.” Okay then.

Cas will not help Anna. He will not kill a friend. Anna vanishes. Cut to two kids lighting up and making out in a Trans Am, and Anna suddenly appearing and falling on the hood.

They rush to her aid, carrying her away to the hospital. Also, we’re supposed to be in intrigued by the Grease poster on the side of the building. Very mysterioso.

Meanwhile, Cas fills Dean in on Anna’s actions. Dean fills Cas in on who Glenn Close is. These two. So many hearts. Sam is concerned about his imminent death.

Cas casts a location spell and finds that Anna went back in time to 1978. He surmises that Sam will never be born if she kills his parents first. The brothers’ Winchester insist on going back with Cas. Cas lets them know it’s more difficult than they think.

Classic dialog Alert:

Dean: So like you’re a Delorean without enough plutonium?

Cas: I don’t understand that reference.

The boys insist again. Cas acquiesces, packs the holy oil, and they’re on their way!

They all make it, but Cas is seriously incapacitated. They shuffle him off to plot contrivance hotel and start their quest. They locate where their parents live, and Sam is ready to burst in to save them, but Dean voices his hesitancy. They need a plan.

Inside, cute as can be Mary and John canoodle and prepare for dinner. The doorbell rings, and Mary is surprised to find her one time hunting buddy, Dean, outside. Before she can get them to leave, John shows up at the door. And guys, just watch Dean when John arrives. It kinda breaks my heart to watch him recoil and draw up straight and stand tall around his dad —even a younger version. *Do not think about Dean’s abusive childhood. Do not think about Dean’s abusive childhood* Dean introduces them as cousins of Mary’s, and John invites them to dinner. Sam is silent and in awe of meeting his parents. Sam Bean!

While enjoying pre-dinner beers, they awkwardly converse before John gets a call from his boss—or Anna pretending to be his boss! Agh, don’t go into work, John! Too late, he takes off without telling anyone.

Mary insists the boys leave again, but they warn her that she’s in danger. An angel is after her. She’s shocked but believes them. They then discover John is AWOL.

At the garage where John works, it’s dark and he finds his boss with burned out eyes. Anna!! She throws him across the room, but starts to see double. She’s still powerful ass angel though. Dean shows up and they share a nanosecond of -remember when we had sex in the back of the Impala? I was thinking of Cas the whole time- then Anna tosses Dean across the room as well.

BAMF!Mary picks up the angel blade and does what any good Campbell does —kicks ass. John is more than a little shocked to watch his little house wife work.  Sam sends Anna to places unknown before she can do any real damage.

Later in the Impala, Mom and Dad in the front, kids in the back, John gets the lowdown on what the rest of his family is already well versed in. It’s all lolz because the parents are younger than the kids. Lolz. But also kinda sad because they never had this as a family.

Mary brings them to an old Campbell family safehouse complete with devil’s trap, iron fixtures, and a well-stocked pantry of salt and holy water. Yum! That won’t help against angels, though, so Sam and Dean teach them about sigils and holy oil. John offers to paint the banishing sigils but Dean warns him it needs to be painted with human blood. John doesn’t hesitate, cuts his hand, and he gets to work arts and craftsing up the joint. Dean laughs humorlessly as young!John shows the seeds of the unrelenting fighter he will become.

Later, Sam compliments John on his handiwork and they talk a little about Sam’s childhood. John expresses horror that Sam was raised in the hunting life. Sam finds himself, surprisingly, defending John. “I used to hate the guy but now I get it. He was just doing the best he could. I understand why he did what he did and I forgive him for what it did to us. I love him.”

brb weeping

Uriel flaps in to see Anna who has called him down to Earth. He recognizes her as being out of his timestream but since current Anna is his superior, he’s okay following orders. He’s doubly okay about following her order to kill a few humans.

Dean checks in with Mary, who demands an explanation for why angels are trying to kill them. She threatens to walk out unless he spills so he blurts out that she’s their mom.

At first she doesn’t believe him but he lays out the facts: their names, so similar to her parents’; the soup she made him when he was sick; singing Hey Jude to him to get him to sleep. She’s horrified to learn that she raised her kids to become hunters and Dean, in a spectacularly horrible mollification attempt, tells her that “you didn’t because you’re dead.” He warns her about the Yellow Eyed Demon. “Listen to me. A demon comes into Sam’s nursery exactly 6 months after he’s born, November 2nd 1983. Remember that date. And whatever you do, do not go in there.”

Sam interrupts them with a different suggestion. He tells her to leave John. That way they won’t ever be born. “There’s a big difference between dying and never being born,” they tell her. (Which is SUCH a horrible thing to argue and really shows the depth of their fear and despair.) Never having children means that her children won’t ever be cursed.

brb more weeping

But Mary Winchester has a secret. She’s pregnant with a little Dean Bean! John interrupts that revelation in a panic. The sigils are disappearing! 

Suddenly an angel speaks and windows burst. Enter Uriel and Anna.

Sam and Dean throw themselves into fistfighting the angels with about as much success as you’d imagine for Season 5 when angels were still the biggest and baddest. Anna stabs Sam in the gut and he slumps to the floor, blood dripping from his mouth. Uriel has Dean pinned by the throat to the wall, affording Dean a great view for his worst nightmare.

John gets knocked clear out of the house and lands in the yard where a bright line shines on him. Possessed!John re-enters the house and Anna, who was about to kill Mary, names him: Michael. Michael lays a gentle hand to Anna and she flames out into ash. 

(I remember thinking wait WHAT? They killed off Dean’s love interest? Little did I know, friends.)

Michael shoos Uriel back to Heaven then touches his fingers to Mary. She slumps, unconscious, then Michael and Dean enjoy a meet and greet. (Or, in Michael’s case, a meatsuit and greet?)

Dean’s astonished that Michael is on Earth. Isn’t he supposed to be his vessel? “You’re my true vessel,” corrects Michael, “Not my only one.” Dean belongs to a long bloodline of archangel-suitable vessels stretching all the way back to Cain and Abel.

Yuck, says Dean’s face. Also, regarding his beef with Lucifer, Michael needs to “get some therapy, pal. Don’t take it out on my planet.” (LOLs for years thinking about Lucifer getting some therapy in Season 11. I guess it actually was just following through from Season 5.)

Michael proceeds to attempt to cultivate empathy in Dean. Michael cared for his brother just like Dean cares for Sam. He doesn’t want him dead. But an archangel’s gotta do what an archangel’s gotta do. His father commanded he kill Lucifer, so he’ll kill Lucifer. “You think you know better than my father? One unimportant little man?”

Dean still believes in free will. Michael attempts to debunk Dean’s staunch belief in the Free Will doctrine by saying every choice he’s made, everything getting his parents together, it’s all working according to God’s plan. ”Free will’s an illusion, Dean. That’s why you’re going to say yes.”

Before he goes, Michael wipes Mary and John’s memories, then brings Sam back to life and sends him forward to 2010. He possessively straightens Dean’s jacket, tells him ominously that he’ll see him soon, and zaps Dean away as well.

Back in their crappy motel Dean contemplates a fresh bottle of whiskey when Castiel appears in the mirror, looking a little loopy. They rush to his side and hold him up as he wobbles. Cas barely gets out that he’s astonished he made it back to 2010 safely when he passes out and the boys drag him to the bed to sleep it off.  

Sam and Dean share a stiff drink. “This is it. Team Free Will. One ex blood junkie, one dropout with six bucks to his name, and Mister Comatose over there,” Dean says.

Sam worries that they’ll say yes to the archangels and while Dean plays confident, we know he’s deeply rattled.

Back in the past Mary and John bond over their decorated nursery. Mary found a statute of an angel at a garage sale and, while John thinks it’s hokey, she likes it. “It’s okay, baby,” she says as she rubs where the baby just kicked. “It’s all okay. Angels are watching over you.”

I Thought this Quote was My One True Vessel:

All these centuries and you're underestimating me now?


I mean, the moustaches alone.

What do I look like? Dr. Angel Medicine Woman?

He’s tough for a little nerdy dude with wings.

Always happy to do some smiting.

Awesome. Six degrees of heaven bacon.

#spn recap #spn 5x13 #the song remains the same #dean winchester #sam winchester #castiel #cas #mary winchester #john winchester #uriel #michael #anna #supernatural season 5