#its clear whos who. the couple with history and a good run of miscommunication vs 1 party stuck in an engagement w/ someone they dont love

[mittensmorgul]

The Right Thing vs The Greater Good

I’ve been rewatching the middle bits of s11 on the TNT loop today (11.14-17), and throwing in 11.10 for Dabb putting his fingerprints all over the mytharc for s11, it really feels like this chunk of episodes is really when Dabb started exerting his influence all over the major themes of the series. And this group of episodes really clearly shows the sorts of themes that s12 is addressing in another way, especially since it seems like Dabb had been in cahoots with Bobo, and still is… :D

(pffft another way)

I included some of my chattybubble thoughts to Lizbob for both clarification and some just for funsies because I think I’m hilarious. :D

There’s the extremely surface level stuff about the MoL involvement in Europe in the past, and bringing that plot to the surface (heh because those events culminated in the sinking of a submarine, I crack myself up).

I’d like to point out that 11.14 and 11.16 BOTH deal with time travel, or stories that play with time in interesting ways, THIS is how you do time travel episodes. And the consequences of 11.14 are similar to the consequences of traveling to the past in the entire history of this show (4.03, 5.13, 6.18, 7.12…) WITH THE EXCEPTION OF THE DREADED BUCKLEMMING TIME TRAVEL FIASCOES. Ugh. Okay. Sorry. Just had to say that.

Most of my thoughts on 11.15 and 11.16 ended up tidily summarized in our chats, so here, have a transcript of those, followed by my runthrough of the MAJOR INPORTINT THEMES in 11.17 that are still playing out mid s12. Under a cut, because I still haven’t learned the meaning of the word “brevity.” At least I’m still funny:

(edited for readability, and focus in on the main points. Y’all don’t need to hear such bits of this as me musing over the dozens of robins roosting in my birch tree or that Lizbob went out for a walk at one point...I bolded some key things if you’d prefer to just sorta skim this...)

Mittensmorgul: oh gosh mel's texting me, and I had to tell her that I'd rewound the "travel back in time" episode, she's like "ooh wrestling ep in 4 minutes!" and I had to tell her I'm "not caught up to real time yet." I hate time travel :P

Elizabethrobertajones: hahaha you're in a time loop. amazing :P are you up to the wrestling yet? Does it look any different from a Dabb vs performing Dean hindsight?

Mittensmorgul: It's a bit like an early "ghost of john winchester" preview to s12

Mittensmorgul: Heck I feel really bad for Harley, He believed in himself, turned down a demon deal, and ended up tortured and dead because of it :(

Elizabethrobertajones: yeah :< he was a Dean mirror at the time, right? I can't remember why

Mittensmorgul: He'd spent the first half grumpy at the "old guys." He was almost killed accidentally by the hangman's noose in the ring. the one whose funeral started everything. he was a suspect at first, they thought he was the demon for a bit. he was accusing gunner of being on drugs (he saw his dealer... er. demon). He was a hothead supposedly starting trouble, but really he was standing up for the "honor" (not the right word but whatever) of what they do, working for next to nothing night after night on the road. Ends up having his soul stolen by a demon against his will anyway

Elizabethrobertajones: right, he was a worst case scenario about souls being snatched, which we were worried about at the time

Mittensmorgul: and then in the end, after all Harley's yelling at Gunner about being dirty (via drugs, or via whatever...) Dean finally breaks through to Gunner with reason, with words\ Like Dean was an older and wiser version of Harley. Harley could never have guessed that GUnner's problem wasn't "drugs" but a demon... But Dean not only understood, he empathized, and talked Gunner into choosing another way

Elizabethrobertajones: heeey that sounds familiar :P

Mittensmorgul: honesty, accepting your responsibility, "It's never too late to do the right thing." ack gunner "I look in the mirror and I hate the face looking back at me. I got this coming." That hasn't been Dean in a while now

HELLHOUNDS

and oh my... Dean's "It's never too late to do the right thing" which he believes because "I have to." Because at the beginning his SOLE mission was finding a way to save Cas from having said YEs to Luci

And Sam's like, "If he even wants to be saved"

Dean says "He does, even if he doesn't know it yet"

RUFUS! I've been wanting to see this episode again since reading something about the parallel between Dean and Rufus via Ketch's arrival at the bunker

It's like Bobo, Dabb, and Robbie had all conspired to this theme of "fixing the past" via actions taken in the present by finding another better way

It’s literally it's the entire point of this episode

Where Dean's "better" spell doesn't just trap the soul eater, it KILLS it and frees everyone who's stuck "outside of time and space" in its nest

[we had a rambling discussion of just how much this foreshadowed everything that happened in 11.23]

Elizabethrobertajones: so Dean walked in and walked out And clapped eyes on a long-lost parental figure on the way out :P

Mittensmorgul: BUT in doing so he ALSO frees Bobby's soul, and the trapped kids from the past

Elizabethrobertajones: freeing the things from the past. yikes :P Like Mary was freed from the past

Mittensmorgul: This is literally the theme of s12… Having better tools, better info, a more complete plan for saving everything, healing the past so everyone can move forward

I remember seeing something about how 12.15 paralleled Dean to Rufus... and some of 11.16 does... literally putting Dean into Rufus's exact position as they switch back and forth between past and present. BUT THEN IT'S BOBBY WHO GOES INTO THE SOUL EATER'S NEST WITH DEAN Like Sam and Dean have flipped roles here. Or that they're interchangeably both bobby and rufus...

ACK the soul eater telling Sam "Your brother wants to go to the Darkness, NEEDS to go, but I can keep him here safe, forever." but... they ended up finding a better way through words and balance

Elizabethrobertajones: it's the only time they've seen each other since Bobby died, and Bobby's still technically alive on HIS end, so Dean STILL has never interacted with him, unlike Sam who has twice plus a dream

Mittensmorgul: We're picking at the ghost of John this season, but Bobby's a big part of "father figures" for Dean, and he's been there subtly all season too

ACK the bottle Sam and Jody found in 7.12. And the first call Bobby gets when he's free is from Dean... in the past... They're talking about Bobby maybe having been there "outside of space and time" and that Bobby had never written up his notes about that case... when Dean says "Let's get drunk and never think about this again.” Which is probably what bobby did.

AND THEN THE SAME SONG IS PLAYING ON THEIR RADIO THAT PLAYED ON BOBBY'S AS THEY LEFT

Okay, that was the end of our chat because we had to run off and do other things for a bit, but I did go on to watch 11.17 again as well. And that just neatly tied everything back together again, and there were some things there I believe are KEY to what s12 is focusing on. Back in s11 all of these topics were being dealt with “externally,” applied to situations beyond just Sam, Dean, Cas, etc. Yeah, Dean was central to the Chuck and Amara stuff (pffft as the firewall between light and dark), but now all these big themes are being applied to the Winchester family directly in a sort of  “As above, so below” sort of way.

A LOT has changed since 11.15 when Dean needed to take a break from research to clear his mind, because he’d been “spinning his wheels” trying to find a way to save Cas from Lucifer. But now in 11.17 it’s Sam who’s brought him this new case. Dean’s no longer spinning his wheels even if he hasn’t gotten any traction on solving the Casifer problem yet, but his drive to succeed has taken on the KEEP GRINDING motto. He doesn’t want or need to distract himself with this werewolf case, but Sam thinks it’s time for another “clear our heads” break.

Dean drags his heels, but relents.

Like many of the other “civilians” they encounter in s11, Michelle readily accepts the supernatural. Corbin had originally “rejected” the idea that these could be “monsters”-- specifically werewolves, and in the end he’d become the monster himself.

One of the big themes of 11.17 is miscommunication. Everything from Corbin questioning why they needed a landline phone (Don’t you have a cell phone?) because there was no signal service way out there in the woods, to Corbin lying about the extent of his own injuries and making Michelle doubt the evidence of her own eyes.

Michelle: Are you okay? I thought yesterday... Corbin: Just a couple scratches.

She’d seen him bitten, but he dismissed her concerns over and over again, even dismissing her “outlandish” claims when she’s finally at the hospital being interviewed by the sheriff.

Here’s another lovely pair of themes from s12 illustrated very concisely:

Corbin: I... look. Hey, Michelle's real sick, but she's got a chance. Him... he's slowing us down. And if they find us... Dean: We saved you, okay? We saved both of you. Corbin: It's three lives versus one.

Both the “you vs ALL of you” and the theme of “the greater good.” Compare that to I love you, I love all of you, and >.>. But also that last line, “three lives versus one.” That’s The Greater Good reduced to a simple math problem, which Corbin had rigged in his favor by “killing” Sam. 

(also bizarre aside, are trees out to get Dean? Here he has a fight with a tree, and in 12.11 the spell that made him lose his memories was carved into a tree and Rowena described the spell as written in “the Language of Trees.” Not to mention the bloody handprint on the tree that spurred him to giddily remember that their best friend’s an angel… okay, end random tree-related digression)

(no I’m reopening the random tree-related digression to postulate that ALL of this is down to the Vanir’s apple tree Dean burned way back in 1.11. I swear, that apple pie was probably freaking worth it... between scarecrows,pie, apples and orchards-- thinking of 7.05 here too-- and just trees in general, I think it wasn’t the broken mirrors from 1.05 that have haunted them all these years, but that dumbass scarecrow... okay, moving on for realsies now)

First it’s Sam’s turn to try and convince Corbin and Michelle to go, to run, to save themselves and leave him behind. Corbin sees the truth of it, though. He knows Dean won’t leave Sam there to die alone. So he makes the executive (possibly influenced by his loss of humanity, that he’s already becoming a “monster”) to suffocate Sam so that Dean will have a reason to leave.

For the greater good…

And at that point, Dean still needed to be convinced to leave Sam behind, but he promised to come back. He went along with the “greater good” of saving the “innocent people” since he didn’t know that one of them was literally and figuratively a monster.

This also neatly captures all the duality subtext in s12, as well. Nephilim, MoL vs hunters, people as monsters, monsters as people, angels as humans, angels living in harmony with a human soul, angels trapped in human bodies… there’s just a lot of this in s12. There’s also the lengths someone will go to in the name of “love,” however monstrous or misguided or even unwanted by the object of that love. More on that later.

Again, like 12.12 that told the story in a non-linear fashion, 11.17 employs a similar “messing with time” storytelling device, only revealing the past through the events of the present. We only understand how the story got to this point via small glimpses of “revisiting the past” through the events of the present. This was a HUGE theme of s11 (most clearly demonstrated in 11.14 and 11.16, as described above), considering the end result of s11 was a resolution of the original “problem” that resulted from the creation of the universe. S12 is doing almost the exact same thing, but instead of being framed around the Darkness being released and eventually reuniting with God, Mary has been released, bringing that universal conflict down to a human scale.

Back to the miscommunication…

Rather than explaining that there was another injured member of their party he needed to get back to attend to, Dean fights against the sheriff and ends up tasered and arrested. If he’d just used his words, the sheriff probably would’ve let him run back to help Sam, but then Corbin would’ve likely killed/turned Michelle without Dean there to intervene at the hospital, and he may have killed many others, as well.

Over and over, cell phones either don’t work in this episode, or they’re only working well enough to get a word or two through.

MISCOMMUNICATION IS THE EVOLEST VILLAIN.

Or maybe it’s actually this:

Corbin: I saved us. Look, you're hurt bad and... and I love you, Michelle. I can't lose you. I did what I had to do.

Seriously, if you hear I DID WHAT I HAD TO DO and don’t simultaneously hear Kill Bill sirens… you should be hearing Kill Bill sirens...

Meanwhile, Corbin knows exactly what bit him, and when asked directly by the doctor, he only tells her “I’m good.” He lies, he refuses to answer, he downplays the truth when someone else speaks it, even to the point of dismissing Michelle’s point of view entirely.

In the worst rendition of “unsuccessful communication,” the sheriff is unable to contact Charlie the Ranger for assistance because he’s already been killed by the monsters.

In another example of miscommunication, even between two people who are actively trying to help one another, Dean refers to Billie as a “Scary, crazy death machine,” and Michelle repeats back “Crazy, evil death machine.” She reinterpreted Dean’s words, and replaced “scary” with “evil,” and those words just aren’t synonyms, you know? Just because something’s scary doesn’t mean it’s evil. Proof that even when two people are essentially on the same page, they might very well have VASTLY DIFFERENT UNDERSTANDINGS AND INTERPRETATIONS of the situation at hand.

*coughRashomonEffectcough*

And… poor Michelle:

Michelle: Corbin? Corbin: Hey, baby. Please, don't be scared of me. I didn't want this. Okay, any of this, but... it's happened and it feels so... you'll see. [Michelle whimpers.] We'll be together. Michelle: No. Please. Corbin: Forever. Michelle: No! 

Forced love, or forced life, overriding someone else’s will, and yet Michelle decides what she wants for herself.

And then, a theme that’s been sort of haunting the narrative since the pilot episode, and has now been resurrected right along with Mary:

Michelle: They said I could leave... [she sighs] an hour ago. But... where am I even supposed to go? After everything we survived together... [turning back to Dean] I watched the man I love die. There's no normal after that.

This is what happened to John Winchester. He watched the woman he loved die, and there was never any normal after that. Now Mary is back, without John, and there’s never going to be any normal for her either. But that doesn’t mean there can never be anything worth living for again.

#spn 11.14 #spn 11.15 #spn 11.16 #spn 11.17 #spn s12 speculation #this is an andrew dabb appreciation blog (except when it comes to car stuff) #this is a bobo berens appreciation blog #i tag this with rewatch notes but really this is mainly for my own record keeping purposes #and is likely just an arrangement of words in the shape of a pile to anyone else but i swear it's all relevant to s12! #breaking the codependency #using your words #men of letters vs hunters #spn monsters #here have my belated thoughts on the whole love... and love #winchester family dynamics #dabb vs cars