Rewatch S8: 8x18 Freaks and Geeks
Feb. 1st, 2014 02:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hells_half_acreOkay! Sorry it's been so long... I got busy with other stuff, and then a little bit procastinate-y.
It's Krissy's episode....
I do like Krissy. Kind of pissed that they ruined her happy ending though, I gotta say. It was like the ONE hopeful thing about S7 and they robbed us of it.
But on the other hand, I like Krissy as a bad-ass hunter too.
I like this whole ploy with pretending to be bait... or rather, being bait, and pretending they are just innocent necking teenagers.
Dean: "...I just want to make sure you're okay."
Sam: "I'm fine. Are you okay?"
Dean: "Me?"
Sam: "Yeah, Cas dinged you up pretty good."
Dean: "And?"
Sam: "And I just want to make sure you're okay."
Dean: "What like my feelings?"
Sam: "If that's what you want to talk about, sure."
Dean: "'kay. Well, I'll tell you what. Why don't I go find some herbal tea..."
Sam: "Okay." *leaves*
Dean: "...you find some cowboy junkies on the dial, and we'll just talk it out... good talk. Nay, great talk!"
- Okay, I'm going to skip over the comedy and the destiel-ity of these lines to talk about why they're a good example of the communication problems between the Winchesters in the latter half of this season. I've already mentioned a few times about how Sam interprets worry as mistrust - and here we are seeing WHY:
- Dean's perfectly in the right to ask if Sam's feeling okay, they both know that Sam has been feeling kind of crappy lately, that's in the open now. Dean doesn't want to assume that Sam is up for a hunt and have Sam suffer through it, if Sam doesn't think he's up for a hunt. Sam immediately says he's fine as though he's already on the defensive. Why does he do this? Well, Sam SHOWS us why - because Sam turns it around and asks Dean if HE'S okay... and I think Sam does it for two reasons a)to show Dean that it's insulting and b)to show Dean that if Dean's going to start motherhenning Sam, then he has to be prepared to be motherhenned right back...that any relationship they have has to be equal. So if Sam gets asked if he's okay, then Dean should be asked if Dean's okay.
- And this is important, because this exchange also points out that this is not the status-quo for the Winchesters. The way Sam responds to the question, his initial slight confusion, and then defensiveness, tells us that the Winchesters don't usually ask each other if they're okay. They see each other get injured, patch up their wounds, and then move on. If they aren't okay, then I'm sure they speak up for themselves - so the fact that Dean is asking means that he either doesn't trust Sam to tell him whether he's okay or not or he doesn't believe Sam when, through his actions, he claims to be okay. Either way, it becomes an insulting question to Sam that tells him that Dean doesn't trust him.
- And it could have easily been fixed here if Dean had actually answered Sam seriously. If Dean hadn't made it into a joke about how emasculating it is to talk about your feelings, then Sam may have realized that Dean's question about his well-being was just concern and not mistrust. Instead, because Dean makes it into a joke, Sam gets the message that Dean is allowed to ask Sam if Sam's okay, but Sam is not allowed to ask Dean the same question... this tells Sam that they don't have an equal partnership and the reason for that inequality is most likely because Dean doesn't trust him.
- Sam's question is really just as legitimate as Dean's. He knows Dean has to be worried about Cas. He also knows that being beaten up by your mind-controlled best friend and then ditched might mess a person up... and Dean HAS been known to take his emotional pain out on hunts to the jeopardy of them both.
Anyway... it's interesting...
I love Dean going all "G Man" on the sheriff and Sam just backing him up. I also love Dean going all protective over Krissy. They should retire from hunting and adopt Krissy - I think that's a good idea.
Krissy: "I told you, I have a boyfriend."
Aidan: "Then how come I couldn't find him in your celly"
Krissy: "We only skype."
Aidan: "And let me guess, he lives in Canada?"
Krissy: "You know, he does, actually, a small town called Kiss My Ass."
- Must be in Newfoundland. Seriously, I wouldn't actually be surprised. That is where the towns of Dildo and Come-by-Chance are located. ;)
- This Aidan dude is so frickin' creepy though. SUPER DUPER CREEPY.
- Also, it really makes me laugh that the cliche in the US is to have a fake boyfriend/girlfriend who lives in Canada. Let me tell you, in Canada, we do not have fake boyfriends/girlfriends who live in the US.
Sam: "Krissy, where's your dad."
Krissy: "Dead."
-Awkward.
All this melodramatic revenge murders make me uncomfortable...emotions...so uncomfortable.
Aidan: "You know this guy. [Dean]"
Krissy: "Yeah, we have a past."
- Krissy would be a pretty intimidating girl to date if she has a past with Dean Winchester. I mean, even if he weren't a protective father-figure...he's still DEAN WINCHESTER. They have to be legends in the hunting community by now.
And then we hear about Victor... who is super creepy. I'm not really talking about Krissy's back story or their argument here, but um, it's very well done... and maybe there are things to say that I'm just missing.
Victor: "I'm Victor Rogers."
Sam: "We've met. Rugaru hunt in Washington. I'm Sam, this is Dean."
Victor: "Ah yes, the Winchesters."
- Seriously, how are they NOT legends. Maybe Victor is just playing it cool.
- Also, I really wish they hadn't started using "Rugaru" as the default "hunt in the past" - because they didn't know what a Rugaru was until S4 and starting in S9 they start running into continuity problems with using it as one of their go-tos for past off-camera hunts.
Victor: "Because the next generation of Hunters has to better."
Sam: "Better than what?"
Victor: "Better than us! Come on guys, I know your friends. I mean, Martin was insane, and someone obviously dropped Garth on his head when he was a baby. And I know you two loved that Bobby guy, but he was a barely functional alchoholic."
Dean: "Watch it."
- Seriously... watch it. If this dude wasn't already on my "bad guy" radar by that point, that comment would have put him there.
It's interesting though that Victor is picking kids because they're smart and leaders and whatnot - but really, he's taking them away from accomplishing anything in the "real world" by doing so. So, yeah, it's not really like "I helped them reach their potential" it's more "I saw their potential and I'm using it for my own purposes."
Dean: "This is crazy."
Sam: "Is it? They've got a pretty good life."
Dean: "Kids aren't supposed to hunt, Sam."
Sam: "We did."
Dean: "Yeah, and look what that did for us."
Sam: "Maybe they're doing it right. Maybe they can hunt AND have a real life."
Dean: "You know that's not true."
Sam: "Why? Because it didn't work for us?"
Dean: "Because it doesn't work for anybody."
- I really like this argument, because neither of them is necessarily wrong. Just because it's never worked before, doesn't mean it's not possible. Sam and Dean don't know the most well-adjusted people, and they certainly don't know anyone who TRIED to have a normal life AND hunt. That being said, well, Dean DID try for a little bit, and that was destroyed, ironically, by vampirism and then demons. If you get too deep into the hunting world, then your normal life becomes leverage against you... then there's also the danger aspect of hunting. Normal lives don't tend to have as high of a death-toll.
- And I think the idea of being able to have both appeals to Sam. Whereas for Dean, that ship has sailed. He's all in for hunting now and not turning back.
Creepy dude in van... ever since the van was invented, we have been warned to stay away from the creepy dudes in vans.
Victor: "Whirlwind, right? It's always that way with kids. You got any?"
Sam: "Me? Ah no."
Victor: "You want any?"
Sam: "Uh, I don't know."
- I think this is possibly my favourite aspect to this episode, because it wasn't until Victor asked that I realized no one else ever had... Does Sam want kids? Does Dean? I mean, we know once upon a time, Dean kinda did... and he kinda had one too. But we don't know about Sam.
Then we get Victor's tragic backstory. Every hunter except Garth has a tragic backstory... which is probably why Garth is the most well adjusted Hunter we know.
I mean, technically, Victor is doing a good job of looking after the kids and making sure they'll actually be well-adjusted hunters... but exactly how he came to be their guardian and how he's setting the whole thing up is where we get into YOU MUST DIE NOW territory.
I feel so bad for Jimmy Day too, the Afghanistan War Veteren that just got turned into a vamp and then decapitated. So sad.
I remember when this episode aired and Dean drove up to the lodge in "Conway Springs, Kansas" and some people commented that there was no way in hell that looked like Kansas.... and my reaction informed me that over the past few years, I have become a proud BC resident, because my response was: "Who the hell cares! It's gorgeous! You WISH Kansas looked like that."
Though, seriously, I don't know what they were thinking saying this is Kansas and then filming the pivotal scene deep in a temperate rainforest. :P
And Dean finds the newly turned vampire...
I kind of think Dean must have a lot more sympathy for newly turned vampires than he did before S6. I kind of wish they would mention it with words, but, on the other hand, I think we see it enough through action. They're not actually a vampire for Dean until they feed - I think until then, they're still humans to him.
Dean: "Look last time I'm going to ask you nicely, take the damn guns off me or someone's going to get hurt."
"Big talk."
Dean: "Yeah, it is." *takes gun*
- I love Dean.
Krissy: "So let's say this isn't the vamp that killed my Dad. She's still a monster and deserves to die."
Dean: "Not if we can save her."
Aidan: "What?"
Dean: "She hasn't fed yet, and we can reverse this if we can find her maker and get his blood."
Aidan: "And why should we care about her?"
Dean: "Like I said, hunting isn't always about killing."
Aidan: "Oh please, preach to some other choir, we're not buying it."
Dean: "You want to kill an innocent girl?"
Krissy: "I want the bloodsucker who killed my dad to pay."
Dean: "And we're going to find out who that is, but let's not be so blood thirsty that just anyone will do."
- I love this whole exchange for multiple reasons. 1)I love that Dean talks directly to Krissy 90% of the time. She's the only one that he cares about in the room and making sure he maintains as much eye-contact with her as possible let's her know that. 2)I love that Dean says that hunting isn't always about killing, because it's also about saving people. It's what Dean emphasized first in the speech to Sam way back in 1x02 - "Saving people. Hunting things." To Dean, the saving is the most important part of the job. 3)"not being so blood thirsty that just anyone will do." - again, going back to the early seasons, I can't help but think of Bloodlust and how Dean basically said that John raised them to hate everything that wasn't human, and how there really was an element of "kill anything and everything" to John's quest for revenge... there are other lines that are floating just out of reach in my head, but I think there was a line at some point about looking for the YED and killing everything in their path as they did so. Anyway, I like the fact that Dean has learned over the seasons that it's not the right way to do things.
Sam's tied up; must be Wednesday.
Victor really should have started messing up the place before Sam woke up...and also killed him before he woke up. Instead of waiting for a good monologing opportunity. Oh villains, their actions never make sense.
Victor: "I don't need to justify my actions to you, or your self-righteous ass of brother!"
- Geez, sorry.
Dean: "Hey, we're home!"
- I love Sam's little *Hey Dean, Victor's the bad guy and I'm tied up...ugh, this day* hand motion.
And Krissy puts it together... Victor killed their families. Ouch.
Victor: "...come with me. We can get past this."
- I also like how the other kids look to Krissy and she just shakes her head. I mean, technically, Victor isn't wrong about her being a leader. But seriously, are the other kids actually thinking about it? THE GUY KILLED YOUR FAMILY! I think they are just looking at Krissy like "are you buying this crap?" and Krissy is like "No! Jeez, he killed our families!"
Victor: "I taught you everything you know."
Krissy: "Not everything, Victor."
*Krissy kicks ass*
- Best not to tell a girl who had a hunter for a father that you taught her everything she knows... especially when you killed that father. Also, don't tell that to a girl who has hung out with Dean Winchester either.
Dean: "Krissy, don't."
Krissy: "If we want revenge for our families deaths, he gives it to us!"
Dean: "We don't kill people. You don't kill people."
Krissy: "He's not a person. He's a monster."
Sam: "Krissy, this ends bad no matter what we do."
Krissy: "Exactly."
Dean: "Krissy, don't."
- I love this standoff too. I like how Dean says "we don't kill people" and then amends it to "you don't kill people" - because Dean HAS killed people, and he knows that Krissy doesn't want that blood on her hands, no matter how much the death is deserved.
- I also love Krissy calling Victor a monster, because she's right too, in a way... we saw that with the Benders way back in S1. Humans can be the worst monsters, especially since they don't HAVE to kill to survive, like most monsters do.
- I also just like Dean repeating "Krissy, don't." for reasons that I can't articulate.
But Krissy doesn't have any bullets in the gun anyway.
Aidan: "So we're just going to let him live?"
Krissy: "Yeah, all alone, with himself. No family. No friends. Ask me, that's not much of anything."
- Ah boycotting. An Irish tradition. This was actually the punishment in Ireland before the British colonization... if you did something wrong, your punishment was to be ignored... and for a social animal, such as humans, that's actually a pretty horrible punishment. We actually still use it today under the name of "solitary confinement" and it's considered inhumane to do it too long. It's not the room and the facilities that makes solitary so horrible, it's the lack of human contact. It's why in Castaway, Tom Hanks had to have an imaginary friend - and even then he still tried to kill himself.
- Anyway, the other thing I like about this is that Krissy is reaffirming that she values family, either found or by blood, above anything. She's already talked to Dean about how crucial having Aidan and Josephine was after losing her father, and this just reaffirms that she's not about to leave them, even if they were brought together under false pretenses.
Anyway, Victor agrees that being boycotted is worse than death, and kills himself in front of everyone. If those kids weren't already scarred for life, I'm sure that'd do it... though, I'm really glad he did it, because there was absolutely nothing stopping him from leaving, scouting new kids, and doing the exact same thing to them as he did to these ones.
Sam: "I'll wait outside."
- When Sam goes outside, You can see that he just goes and sits on the front steps. It's adorable.
Dean: "Okay, whenever you're ready, we'll be in the car."
Krissy: "What are you talking about?"
Dean: "Cincinnati, your aunt, a normal life. We'll be there by lunch tomorrow."
Krissy: "Look, I hate how we were put together, but I can't deny that it feels right, and why should I let Victor ruin that too?"
Dean: "So what you're saying is that you like that boy over there and you'd like to stay."
Krissy: "What? Aidan? He's like my brother, it's not like that."
- I like the punchline coming in a minute, but I also kind of wish they could have done this episode WITHOUT the romance for Krissy aspect...or at the very least, not made Aidan such a creep about it.
- I also like the fact that Krissy can figure out that good can be salvaged from this horrible thing that happened to her. It shows a real maturity and strength of character, I think.
Dean: "And hunting?"
Krissy: "We won't go looking for it, but any monsters show up around here, they better look out."
Dean: "Okay. Good."
Krissy: "Really? I thought I was going to have to fight you way more on that."
Dean: "You're not a kid anymore, you can make your own decisions."
- Aww, I like Dean respecting Krissy's decisions.
Krissy: "You're alright for an old guy."
Dean: "I'm really not that old."
Krissy: "You keep telling yourself that."
- Dean is old enough to be Krissy's dad, if Dean had a kid when he was 14... which hey, some people do. But man, I remember when I was a teenager and everyone over the age of 25 was an adult and "old" and now I'm in my 30s and I'm like "I'm super young though?", but I know past me would be like "No, you are old."
Dean: "Well, I'm going to have a guy check on you every once in a while, make sure you have everything you need. His name is Garth."
Krissy: "Garth."
Dean: Yeah, he's a little strange at first, but you'll come to love him."
- Awww, Dean loves Garth.
*kiss on cheek instead of fist-bump.*
- Awww....
Krissy: "Take care, Dean."
Aidan: "Yeah, goodbye, Dean!"
Dean: "Aidan, come here, there's something I want to tell you about Krissy."
Aidan: "Yeah, I know, you'll kill me if I ever hurt her blah blah blah"
Dean: "No, she'll kill you. Good luck."
- So, for all my complaining about how they made Aidan too creepy to be someone I'd approve of, I do love this line that reiterates that Krissy can take care of herself and doesn't need a man, either young or old, to look after her.
Sam: "This is good."
Dean: "Is it?"
Sam: "Could be a lot worse."
Dean: "Will be, if we don't shut those gates of hell soon."
Sam: "What do they have to do with any of that?"
Dean: "They're hunters now. You don't just walk away from that. There's only one way out of that and both you and I know it ain't pretty."
Sam: "Maybe they'll be different."
Dean: "Maybe if we shut that hell hole once and for all, those three can have a real life."
Sam: "Maybe they won't be the only ones."
- Again, we have the adventures of The Optimist and the Pessimist. Also, this is yet another thing that Dean decided was not more important than Sam's life by the end of the season.
- We also get that last line of Sam's, which tells us that Sam's not completely willing to die at this point - that he still has some hope left for living. You could call it a continuity error, because he's previously already voiced that maybe he was wrong about being able to survive - but I just call it being human. I mean, for the last few months I've been waffling back and forth about my own future like crazy, with completely different opinions about what I should do from one day to the next... thankfully, my decisions do not include a possibility of self-sacrifice. :P
And that's it... short one this evening!
It's Krissy's episode....
I do like Krissy. Kind of pissed that they ruined her happy ending though, I gotta say. It was like the ONE hopeful thing about S7 and they robbed us of it.
But on the other hand, I like Krissy as a bad-ass hunter too.
I like this whole ploy with pretending to be bait... or rather, being bait, and pretending they are just innocent necking teenagers.
Dean: "...I just want to make sure you're okay."
Sam: "I'm fine. Are you okay?"
Dean: "Me?"
Sam: "Yeah, Cas dinged you up pretty good."
Dean: "And?"
Sam: "And I just want to make sure you're okay."
Dean: "What like my feelings?"
Sam: "If that's what you want to talk about, sure."
Dean: "'kay. Well, I'll tell you what. Why don't I go find some herbal tea..."
Sam: "Okay." *leaves*
Dean: "...you find some cowboy junkies on the dial, and we'll just talk it out... good talk. Nay, great talk!"
- Okay, I'm going to skip over the comedy and the destiel-ity of these lines to talk about why they're a good example of the communication problems between the Winchesters in the latter half of this season. I've already mentioned a few times about how Sam interprets worry as mistrust - and here we are seeing WHY:
- Dean's perfectly in the right to ask if Sam's feeling okay, they both know that Sam has been feeling kind of crappy lately, that's in the open now. Dean doesn't want to assume that Sam is up for a hunt and have Sam suffer through it, if Sam doesn't think he's up for a hunt. Sam immediately says he's fine as though he's already on the defensive. Why does he do this? Well, Sam SHOWS us why - because Sam turns it around and asks Dean if HE'S okay... and I think Sam does it for two reasons a)to show Dean that it's insulting and b)to show Dean that if Dean's going to start motherhenning Sam, then he has to be prepared to be motherhenned right back...that any relationship they have has to be equal. So if Sam gets asked if he's okay, then Dean should be asked if Dean's okay.
- And this is important, because this exchange also points out that this is not the status-quo for the Winchesters. The way Sam responds to the question, his initial slight confusion, and then defensiveness, tells us that the Winchesters don't usually ask each other if they're okay. They see each other get injured, patch up their wounds, and then move on. If they aren't okay, then I'm sure they speak up for themselves - so the fact that Dean is asking means that he either doesn't trust Sam to tell him whether he's okay or not or he doesn't believe Sam when, through his actions, he claims to be okay. Either way, it becomes an insulting question to Sam that tells him that Dean doesn't trust him.
- And it could have easily been fixed here if Dean had actually answered Sam seriously. If Dean hadn't made it into a joke about how emasculating it is to talk about your feelings, then Sam may have realized that Dean's question about his well-being was just concern and not mistrust. Instead, because Dean makes it into a joke, Sam gets the message that Dean is allowed to ask Sam if Sam's okay, but Sam is not allowed to ask Dean the same question... this tells Sam that they don't have an equal partnership and the reason for that inequality is most likely because Dean doesn't trust him.
- Sam's question is really just as legitimate as Dean's. He knows Dean has to be worried about Cas. He also knows that being beaten up by your mind-controlled best friend and then ditched might mess a person up... and Dean HAS been known to take his emotional pain out on hunts to the jeopardy of them both.
Anyway... it's interesting...
I love Dean going all "G Man" on the sheriff and Sam just backing him up. I also love Dean going all protective over Krissy. They should retire from hunting and adopt Krissy - I think that's a good idea.
Krissy: "I told you, I have a boyfriend."
Aidan: "Then how come I couldn't find him in your celly"
Krissy: "We only skype."
Aidan: "And let me guess, he lives in Canada?"
Krissy: "You know, he does, actually, a small town called Kiss My Ass."
- Must be in Newfoundland. Seriously, I wouldn't actually be surprised. That is where the towns of Dildo and Come-by-Chance are located. ;)
- This Aidan dude is so frickin' creepy though. SUPER DUPER CREEPY.
- Also, it really makes me laugh that the cliche in the US is to have a fake boyfriend/girlfriend who lives in Canada. Let me tell you, in Canada, we do not have fake boyfriends/girlfriends who live in the US.
Sam: "Krissy, where's your dad."
Krissy: "Dead."
-Awkward.
All this melodramatic revenge murders make me uncomfortable...emotions...so uncomfortable.
Aidan: "You know this guy. [Dean]"
Krissy: "Yeah, we have a past."
- Krissy would be a pretty intimidating girl to date if she has a past with Dean Winchester. I mean, even if he weren't a protective father-figure...he's still DEAN WINCHESTER. They have to be legends in the hunting community by now.
And then we hear about Victor... who is super creepy. I'm not really talking about Krissy's back story or their argument here, but um, it's very well done... and maybe there are things to say that I'm just missing.
Victor: "I'm Victor Rogers."
Sam: "We've met. Rugaru hunt in Washington. I'm Sam, this is Dean."
Victor: "Ah yes, the Winchesters."
- Seriously, how are they NOT legends. Maybe Victor is just playing it cool.
- Also, I really wish they hadn't started using "Rugaru" as the default "hunt in the past" - because they didn't know what a Rugaru was until S4 and starting in S9 they start running into continuity problems with using it as one of their go-tos for past off-camera hunts.
Victor: "Because the next generation of Hunters has to better."
Sam: "Better than what?"
Victor: "Better than us! Come on guys, I know your friends. I mean, Martin was insane, and someone obviously dropped Garth on his head when he was a baby. And I know you two loved that Bobby guy, but he was a barely functional alchoholic."
Dean: "Watch it."
- Seriously... watch it. If this dude wasn't already on my "bad guy" radar by that point, that comment would have put him there.
It's interesting though that Victor is picking kids because they're smart and leaders and whatnot - but really, he's taking them away from accomplishing anything in the "real world" by doing so. So, yeah, it's not really like "I helped them reach their potential" it's more "I saw their potential and I'm using it for my own purposes."
Dean: "This is crazy."
Sam: "Is it? They've got a pretty good life."
Dean: "Kids aren't supposed to hunt, Sam."
Sam: "We did."
Dean: "Yeah, and look what that did for us."
Sam: "Maybe they're doing it right. Maybe they can hunt AND have a real life."
Dean: "You know that's not true."
Sam: "Why? Because it didn't work for us?"
Dean: "Because it doesn't work for anybody."
- I really like this argument, because neither of them is necessarily wrong. Just because it's never worked before, doesn't mean it's not possible. Sam and Dean don't know the most well-adjusted people, and they certainly don't know anyone who TRIED to have a normal life AND hunt. That being said, well, Dean DID try for a little bit, and that was destroyed, ironically, by vampirism and then demons. If you get too deep into the hunting world, then your normal life becomes leverage against you... then there's also the danger aspect of hunting. Normal lives don't tend to have as high of a death-toll.
- And I think the idea of being able to have both appeals to Sam. Whereas for Dean, that ship has sailed. He's all in for hunting now and not turning back.
Creepy dude in van... ever since the van was invented, we have been warned to stay away from the creepy dudes in vans.
Victor: "Whirlwind, right? It's always that way with kids. You got any?"
Sam: "Me? Ah no."
Victor: "You want any?"
Sam: "Uh, I don't know."
- I think this is possibly my favourite aspect to this episode, because it wasn't until Victor asked that I realized no one else ever had... Does Sam want kids? Does Dean? I mean, we know once upon a time, Dean kinda did... and he kinda had one too. But we don't know about Sam.
Then we get Victor's tragic backstory. Every hunter except Garth has a tragic backstory... which is probably why Garth is the most well adjusted Hunter we know.
I mean, technically, Victor is doing a good job of looking after the kids and making sure they'll actually be well-adjusted hunters... but exactly how he came to be their guardian and how he's setting the whole thing up is where we get into YOU MUST DIE NOW territory.
I feel so bad for Jimmy Day too, the Afghanistan War Veteren that just got turned into a vamp and then decapitated. So sad.
I remember when this episode aired and Dean drove up to the lodge in "Conway Springs, Kansas" and some people commented that there was no way in hell that looked like Kansas.... and my reaction informed me that over the past few years, I have become a proud BC resident, because my response was: "Who the hell cares! It's gorgeous! You WISH Kansas looked like that."
Though, seriously, I don't know what they were thinking saying this is Kansas and then filming the pivotal scene deep in a temperate rainforest. :P
And Dean finds the newly turned vampire...
I kind of think Dean must have a lot more sympathy for newly turned vampires than he did before S6. I kind of wish they would mention it with words, but, on the other hand, I think we see it enough through action. They're not actually a vampire for Dean until they feed - I think until then, they're still humans to him.
Dean: "Look last time I'm going to ask you nicely, take the damn guns off me or someone's going to get hurt."
"Big talk."
Dean: "Yeah, it is." *takes gun*
- I love Dean.
Krissy: "So let's say this isn't the vamp that killed my Dad. She's still a monster and deserves to die."
Dean: "Not if we can save her."
Aidan: "What?"
Dean: "She hasn't fed yet, and we can reverse this if we can find her maker and get his blood."
Aidan: "And why should we care about her?"
Dean: "Like I said, hunting isn't always about killing."
Aidan: "Oh please, preach to some other choir, we're not buying it."
Dean: "You want to kill an innocent girl?"
Krissy: "I want the bloodsucker who killed my dad to pay."
Dean: "And we're going to find out who that is, but let's not be so blood thirsty that just anyone will do."
- I love this whole exchange for multiple reasons. 1)I love that Dean talks directly to Krissy 90% of the time. She's the only one that he cares about in the room and making sure he maintains as much eye-contact with her as possible let's her know that. 2)I love that Dean says that hunting isn't always about killing, because it's also about saving people. It's what Dean emphasized first in the speech to Sam way back in 1x02 - "Saving people. Hunting things." To Dean, the saving is the most important part of the job. 3)"not being so blood thirsty that just anyone will do." - again, going back to the early seasons, I can't help but think of Bloodlust and how Dean basically said that John raised them to hate everything that wasn't human, and how there really was an element of "kill anything and everything" to John's quest for revenge... there are other lines that are floating just out of reach in my head, but I think there was a line at some point about looking for the YED and killing everything in their path as they did so. Anyway, I like the fact that Dean has learned over the seasons that it's not the right way to do things.
Sam's tied up; must be Wednesday.
Victor really should have started messing up the place before Sam woke up...and also killed him before he woke up. Instead of waiting for a good monologing opportunity. Oh villains, their actions never make sense.
Victor: "I don't need to justify my actions to you, or your self-righteous ass of brother!"
- Geez, sorry.
Dean: "Hey, we're home!"
- I love Sam's little *Hey Dean, Victor's the bad guy and I'm tied up...ugh, this day* hand motion.
And Krissy puts it together... Victor killed their families. Ouch.
Victor: "...come with me. We can get past this."
- I also like how the other kids look to Krissy and she just shakes her head. I mean, technically, Victor isn't wrong about her being a leader. But seriously, are the other kids actually thinking about it? THE GUY KILLED YOUR FAMILY! I think they are just looking at Krissy like "are you buying this crap?" and Krissy is like "No! Jeez, he killed our families!"
Victor: "I taught you everything you know."
Krissy: "Not everything, Victor."
*Krissy kicks ass*
- Best not to tell a girl who had a hunter for a father that you taught her everything she knows... especially when you killed that father. Also, don't tell that to a girl who has hung out with Dean Winchester either.
Dean: "Krissy, don't."
Krissy: "If we want revenge for our families deaths, he gives it to us!"
Dean: "We don't kill people. You don't kill people."
Krissy: "He's not a person. He's a monster."
Sam: "Krissy, this ends bad no matter what we do."
Krissy: "Exactly."
Dean: "Krissy, don't."
- I love this standoff too. I like how Dean says "we don't kill people" and then amends it to "you don't kill people" - because Dean HAS killed people, and he knows that Krissy doesn't want that blood on her hands, no matter how much the death is deserved.
- I also love Krissy calling Victor a monster, because she's right too, in a way... we saw that with the Benders way back in S1. Humans can be the worst monsters, especially since they don't HAVE to kill to survive, like most monsters do.
- I also just like Dean repeating "Krissy, don't." for reasons that I can't articulate.
But Krissy doesn't have any bullets in the gun anyway.
Aidan: "So we're just going to let him live?"
Krissy: "Yeah, all alone, with himself. No family. No friends. Ask me, that's not much of anything."
- Ah boycotting. An Irish tradition. This was actually the punishment in Ireland before the British colonization... if you did something wrong, your punishment was to be ignored... and for a social animal, such as humans, that's actually a pretty horrible punishment. We actually still use it today under the name of "solitary confinement" and it's considered inhumane to do it too long. It's not the room and the facilities that makes solitary so horrible, it's the lack of human contact. It's why in Castaway, Tom Hanks had to have an imaginary friend - and even then he still tried to kill himself.
- Anyway, the other thing I like about this is that Krissy is reaffirming that she values family, either found or by blood, above anything. She's already talked to Dean about how crucial having Aidan and Josephine was after losing her father, and this just reaffirms that she's not about to leave them, even if they were brought together under false pretenses.
Anyway, Victor agrees that being boycotted is worse than death, and kills himself in front of everyone. If those kids weren't already scarred for life, I'm sure that'd do it... though, I'm really glad he did it, because there was absolutely nothing stopping him from leaving, scouting new kids, and doing the exact same thing to them as he did to these ones.
Sam: "I'll wait outside."
- When Sam goes outside, You can see that he just goes and sits on the front steps. It's adorable.
Dean: "Okay, whenever you're ready, we'll be in the car."
Krissy: "What are you talking about?"
Dean: "Cincinnati, your aunt, a normal life. We'll be there by lunch tomorrow."
Krissy: "Look, I hate how we were put together, but I can't deny that it feels right, and why should I let Victor ruin that too?"
Dean: "So what you're saying is that you like that boy over there and you'd like to stay."
Krissy: "What? Aidan? He's like my brother, it's not like that."
- I like the punchline coming in a minute, but I also kind of wish they could have done this episode WITHOUT the romance for Krissy aspect...or at the very least, not made Aidan such a creep about it.
- I also like the fact that Krissy can figure out that good can be salvaged from this horrible thing that happened to her. It shows a real maturity and strength of character, I think.
Dean: "And hunting?"
Krissy: "We won't go looking for it, but any monsters show up around here, they better look out."
Dean: "Okay. Good."
Krissy: "Really? I thought I was going to have to fight you way more on that."
Dean: "You're not a kid anymore, you can make your own decisions."
- Aww, I like Dean respecting Krissy's decisions.
Krissy: "You're alright for an old guy."
Dean: "I'm really not that old."
Krissy: "You keep telling yourself that."
- Dean is old enough to be Krissy's dad, if Dean had a kid when he was 14... which hey, some people do. But man, I remember when I was a teenager and everyone over the age of 25 was an adult and "old" and now I'm in my 30s and I'm like "I'm super young though?", but I know past me would be like "No, you are old."
Dean: "Well, I'm going to have a guy check on you every once in a while, make sure you have everything you need. His name is Garth."
Krissy: "Garth."
Dean: Yeah, he's a little strange at first, but you'll come to love him."
- Awww, Dean loves Garth.
*kiss on cheek instead of fist-bump.*
- Awww....
Krissy: "Take care, Dean."
Aidan: "Yeah, goodbye, Dean!"
Dean: "Aidan, come here, there's something I want to tell you about Krissy."
Aidan: "Yeah, I know, you'll kill me if I ever hurt her blah blah blah"
Dean: "No, she'll kill you. Good luck."
- So, for all my complaining about how they made Aidan too creepy to be someone I'd approve of, I do love this line that reiterates that Krissy can take care of herself and doesn't need a man, either young or old, to look after her.
Sam: "This is good."
Dean: "Is it?"
Sam: "Could be a lot worse."
Dean: "Will be, if we don't shut those gates of hell soon."
Sam: "What do they have to do with any of that?"
Dean: "They're hunters now. You don't just walk away from that. There's only one way out of that and both you and I know it ain't pretty."
Sam: "Maybe they'll be different."
Dean: "Maybe if we shut that hell hole once and for all, those three can have a real life."
Sam: "Maybe they won't be the only ones."
- Again, we have the adventures of The Optimist and the Pessimist. Also, this is yet another thing that Dean decided was not more important than Sam's life by the end of the season.
- We also get that last line of Sam's, which tells us that Sam's not completely willing to die at this point - that he still has some hope left for living. You could call it a continuity error, because he's previously already voiced that maybe he was wrong about being able to survive - but I just call it being human. I mean, for the last few months I've been waffling back and forth about my own future like crazy, with completely different opinions about what I should do from one day to the next... thankfully, my decisions do not include a possibility of self-sacrifice. :P
And that's it... short one this evening!
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no subject
Date: 2014-02-01 04:31 pm (UTC)And pretty much yes to everything else you said as well!
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Date: 2014-02-01 07:21 pm (UTC)Yeah, the Winchesters have a pretty f*cked up style of communication. It's interesting though, that the f*cked up-ed-ness of it all comes from a)trying to communicate through action rather than words, and b)trying to juggle how you should behave with how society thinks you should be behave.
The problem is, and always has been, that Sam and Dean can't talk about their feelings - because they were raised in a hyper-masculine environment that forbade emotions and the admission of possessing them.
Which, just circles around to my belief that one of the themes of Supernatural is exploring how f*cked up a solely masculine world would be... which is why I think the show is pretty feminist despite not having any regular female characters.
And... I just used this comment to expand on my own thoughts unprompted. Sorry! :P
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Date: 2014-02-03 05:17 am (UTC)and Dean HAS been known to take his emotional pain out on hunts to the jeopardy of them both.
Woa... which particular instances were you thinking of? My image is more of Dean not letting his feelings get in the way of a hunt (even though he might be a little more forceful/angry than necessary). In particular CSPWDT and Crossroads Blues. On the other hand, I just rewatched Houses of the Holy where it was Sam whose feelings were getting in the way.
Let me tell you, in Canada, we do not have fake boyfriends/girlfriends who live in the US.
*rolling on the floor*
They're not actually a vampire for Dean until they feed - I think until then, they're still humans to him.
I also think though that his motto since Sam's demon thing came to light has been to hunt what is evil now - not any monster and not what could become evil in the future. Even more so after Purgatory aye? It's not what you are, it's what you do - was what Sam said, but is what Dean has lived by since Season 2.
haha... which is pretty close to what you say later on :D
But I also think that John pretty much felt the same way. I do not believe John thought of Sam as evil. He told Dean that if he couldn't save him, he might have to kill him - which I believe means that John would have tried his best to save Sam as well. I like to believe that he said those words to Dean to 1) show how serious a situation it was and 2) to make sure Dean saved Sam... because he knew Dean could never kill Sam. I could go on and on on this subject but I'll stop there. Sorry for the rant.
Ah boycotting. An Irish tradition.
They had this in old time Japan as well. It was called Murahachibu. Very tough sentence.
The problem is, and always has been, that Sam and Dean can't talk about their feelings - because they were raised in a hyper-masculine environment that forbade emotions and the admission of possessing them.
This is VERY true and very interesting insight.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts! Enjoyed reading as usual :D
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Date: 2014-02-03 05:40 am (UTC)Different interpretations then, because S2 and Dean being messed up about John was exactly what I was thinking of... Sam even says in CSPWDT that Dean is "erratic" and that's never a good thing to be when you're a hunter.
Though, I will admit that Sam is also prone to having his emotions get in the way of hunting.. I mean, the dude gets drunk in Playthings.
But yeah, I find that when Dean gets depressed, it DEFINITELY surfaces during the hunts, and not in the best ways.
I also think though that his motto since Sam's demon thing came to light has been to hunt what is evil now - not any monster and not what could become evil in the future. Even more so after Purgatory aye? It's not what you are, it's what you do - was what Sam said, but is what Dean has lived by since Season 2.
Agreed, with the caveat that he went into a "it's what you are" tailspin briefly in S7, again, because he was depressed about Cas' betrayal and apparently death.
They had this in old time Japan as well. It was called Murahachibu. Very tough sentence.
Neat. I didn't know that. I guess it makes sense that cultures would come up with it independently of each other - given that it plays on the basic part of human-nature, which is the fact that we're social animals.
This is VERY true and very interesting insight.
It's part of the reason that I think Supernatural is actually a feminist show, despite the lack of female characters and it being all about "manpain" - because I think the central tragedy of the show all occurs BECAUSE of the hyper-masculine why they were raised...so, it's sort of a cautionary tale that the feminine is needed in order to be healthy.
no subject
Date: 2014-02-03 05:59 am (UTC)Well, I guess we could go through numerous instances where we can tell Dean is NOT OKAY! in Season 8 alone...but as you sort of point out, when Dean is not OK, we can tell he is not OK. Whereas with Sam, it's not so easy to tell. He doesn't get grumpy or lash out on hunt victims :D He just gets drunk once in a blue moon - otherwise, you have to get him possessed by a spirit or something to find out his real feelings! So in a way, it makes sense for Dean to be asking him.
hmmmm... what do you think? *grins*
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Date: 2014-02-03 07:19 am (UTC)I mean, yes, it's easier to tell when Dean is not okay, because he's a bit transparent - but Dean still doesn't admit to it, or only does so very rarely anyway and only when pressed.
My point was also, though, that because of those same reasons, it was perfectly reasonable for Sam to ask if Dean was okay as well.
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Date: 2014-02-03 11:09 am (UTC)Anyway, I agree that it is totally natural for Sam to ask Dean how he is. Of course Dean's response is totally typical too. To me, it seems like Sam already knows Dean is going to blow him off - and he is asking Dean so he can get him off his back (and not have to tell him the truth) and Dean knows that too, so blah blah ... you know, they (should) know each other so well right?
But it could be that he felt Dean didn't trust him, as you say - considering the end of this season. It's just hard to accept. I have to put it down to his mental illness to make sense of it :P
Hey! Maybe I can put Season 9 Sam reactions down to mental illness too... Gadreel did say it was a mess in there... *looking on the bright(?) side*
Thanks for putting up with my ramblings! :D
no subject
Date: 2014-02-03 09:00 pm (UTC)Interesting! I remember a lot of that talk back in S4 when we were all trying to figure out Sam's train of thought. It lead to some pretty neat discussion about how the show is actually Dean's POV, despite the pilot introducing us to the world through primarily Sam's POV. Anyway, I never thought it was unfair to Sam or the audience, I actually kind of liked that there was a main character who didn't spoon feed us his every thought and feeling and that you actually had to think about it and make an effort to empathize and figure him out.
To me, it seems like Sam already knows Dean is going to blow him off - and he is asking Dean so he can get him off his back (and not have to tell him the truth) and Dean knows that too, so blah blah ... you know, they (should) know each other so well right?
Yeah, this was also sort of my point. That Sam was asking Dean for two reasons - the first being that it would show Dean what it felt like to be asked (ie: Dean would blow it off and realize why Sam was also blowing it off). And that reason worked! But yeah, they do know each other too well, I think, and surprisingly that's where the miscommunication comes in - because they know each other so well, they assume they know what the other is thinking/feeling when perhaps they don't.
Hey! Maybe I can put Season 9 Sam reactions down to mental illness too... Gadreel did say it was a mess in there... *looking on the bright(?) side*
That's what I did for the first half of S8. Sam had a psychotic break! It's the only explanation. And you have a point with S9, a psychotic break in S8 and then the trials messing up his health... it isn't a stretch to believe that the trials also messed up his already messed up mental health too!
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Date: 2014-02-04 01:34 am (UTC)Yes, it is more interesting for the feelings not to be so clear as you said, but sometimes, it breeds discord between fans and that's the problem they were talking about. That Sam is misunderstood. You've got Dean-girls going "How could he say that?!" while Sam-girls are going "But it makes perfect sense" and bi-girls are getting super confused. No side really knows what he is REALLY thinking and why.
Huh, it's the why that is causing all the problems I guess, aye? That's why we are resorting to mental illness, here.
Anyway, I don't think I'd be wrong when I say we just all want those two to be happy - and hopefully together :)