Rewatch S4: Ep 22 (Lucifer Rising)

[hells_half_acre]

So much for trying not to blow off work too much...

I finally got to Lucifer Rising! Which means the next thing on my agenda is to update the timeline.

Lucifer Rising

First off, I love how everything starts at a convent called St. Mary's in a town called Ilchester. That's brilliance right there, because it completely suggests that it wasn't just luck-of-the-draw that Sam and Dean got saddled with their lives - that it was meant to be them from the beginning.

Wished they'd have given me more times, sadly, the last few episodes of the season are complete guesswork/unknowns when it comes to time-lining.

Anyway, let's actually talk about the episode:

Sam: "I've changed...for good. Dean's beter of as far away from me as possible."
-As we know from the episodes of S5 that have aired, Sam still feels this way five days later :(

Dean: "He's my blood? Is that what you were going to say?..."
Bobby: "He's your brother and he's drowning..."
-I love how Bobby is always the one to emphasis that family isn't blood, it's choice.

Dean: "No! Damn it! No. I gotta face the facts: Sam never wanted part of this family. He hated this ife growing-up, ran away to Stanford first change he got. Now it's deja-vu all over again...Sam's gone. He's gone. I'm not even sure if he's still my brother anymore, if he ever was."
-Here Dean takes Bobby's "family is choice" lesson and raising him a "then it's his choice too". Does he mean that Sam isn't his brother because he's a monster? I don't think so...I think he means that Sam has CHOSEN not to be his brother, has chosen Ruby over him - chose to abandon Dean, and not for the first time in his life. I think this is Dean's old issues coming back: Everyone abandons me...I was obviously forcing Sam to stay against his will.

Bobby: "You stupid stupid son of a bitch! Well BOO HOO. I am so sorry your feelings are hurt, princess! Are you under the impression family is supposed to make you feel good? Bake you an apple pie maybe? They're supposed to make you miserable, that's why they're family!"
- Bobby's going all in, folks! It's rare for Bobby to get really really angry at Dean, and it's especially rare for him to call him a whiny son of a bitch and a princess...but Dean totally had it coming this time. Bobby has ALWAYS been more aware of Dean's insecurities than the rest of the Winchesters - he called Dean out on his low self-esteem in AHBL2 and he's calling Dean out now on the fact that he's basing abandoning Sam on the fact that Sam abandoned him first.

Dean: "My Dad was a lot of things Bobby, but a coward?"
Bobby: "He'd rather push Sam away than reach out to him...you are a better man than your Daddy ever was, so you do us both a favour - don't be him"
-I love the fact that Bobby tells Dean that he's a better man than his father...because Dean might have a lot of issues with his father, but I think he still feels irredeemable after what he did in Hell...especially since Alastair teased him that his father never broke in 100 years. I also think it's this line that gets Dean to change his mind about abandoning Sam...which is why it's at that exact moment that the angels kidnap him.

Zachariah: "Hello Dean. You're looking fit."
-Way to be creepy, Zach.

"Suite life of Zach and Cas" - hahaha...oh the things Dean watches in motels.

We find out that the final seal is going to be broken "tomorrow night" - which means that in this episode Dean spends a day and a half (at least) in that green room and DOESN'T EAT. Wow.

Cas's guilty face...

The real voice-mail message - I love the way Dean's slightly choked at the end when he says "Sammy, I'm sorry." I really wish Sam had heard that message...sigh...I really wish they would bring that up in the show in S5.

Ok, um...relative bone to pick linguistically. In 1972, Azazel calls Lucifer "Padre", now that's something I've noticed a lot about Supernatural - they often say "Padre" instead of father...and I attribute that largely to the heavy influence of Spanish in the United States...it makes sense from a cultural-linguistics point of view that there is a good deal of bleed-over from Spanish to English these days, given that the majority (or close to) of the US speaks Spanish as a first language. (We have the same bleed-over in Canada with English words in French and French words in English). That being said, I don't think, in the 1970s that the bleed over had really started happening yet...I could be wrong though, I suppose. The South has always been heavily influenced by Spanish...anyway, it just sort of irked me that Azazel used it the way he did in 1972. I see it more as a modern thing, or something to be said with a southern accent. Maybe Azazel was Spanish when he was alive or something :-P

The newspaper article about the disemboweled nuns is dated October 16th, 1972.

I love Dean's face after he smashes the angel and then realizes that Cas is standing right there.

I also love the gradual fade to the usual grey-tone of the show as Dean realizes that the angels are working against humanity...I also love the crushing horror and devastation in his eyes...so well done.

Zachariah: "Sam has a part to play. He might need a little nudge in the right direction, but I'll make sure he goes through with it."
-And there is your answer as to who changed the voice-mail.

I love when Dean ducks his head in order to catch Castiel's eyes and pull them back up to look at him. Such a nice little touch that they didn't HAVE to do, but added so much to the emotional punch of the scene.

Dean: "I'll even take Sam as is!"
-Just as Dean found his line in the last episode, he's found his next line in this episode - your brother being a drugged up possible monster is preferable over being everyone being dead.

Again, Jensen does this great slight choke in his voice the second time he says "we're done!" Awesomesauce.

Cas won't let Dean eat! It's been MORE THAN A DAY! I wondered about the timing of that, because it made me think of Persephone and the pomagranates. It was probably just coincidence, but for some reason I now think that something horrible would have happened if Dean had eaten that burger.

And yet again, our characters are working off book! Defying prophecy! It makes me wonder what Chuck originally saw for this - was Dean going to stay with the angels, was Sam going to be killed by Lucifer? We'll never know. All we know is that Dean and Sam were NOT supposed to be reunited.

Then we get the horrible climax...I love the way this scene is done in slow motion, Sam's pounding heartbeat over everything, the confusion of it all even though it's slow.

And yes, I love the way Sam says he's sorry...and I love the fact that Dean calls him Sammy.

Extended Scene
-Chuck and Cas facing off against the archangel...and Cas has a really bad joke, and I'm glad they left it out, because ugh.

Commentary by Eric Kripke

Part way through the commentary, Kripke states that they are actually still editing the episode while he is commentating - there are a few scenes in the episode where Kripke doesn't speak at all, and given Kripke's usual chattyness, I'm inclined to believe it might be because the scenes hadn't been completely edited properly yet...but I could be wrong about that, maybe he's just distracted.

Kripke had to scale back the nun violence. Originally it was quite gruesome, and then he was told that they really couldn't do that to a bunch of nuns, so he toned it down. Still, he tells a story of how Serge felt like he was going to go to hell as they worked on the scene...Kripke is Jewish, haha.

Kripke directed because originally Kim was slated to direct. Kripke tried to direct the episode Kim-Manners-Style as a tribute to him...and worked really really hard and wanted it to be perfect and something Kim would be proud of, and he didn't eat or sleep the whole time he was working on it, but he had a great time.

Kripke says that nun-murdering and baby-eating were the "only place left for Supernatural to go."

He talks about Sam's self-hatred, and how he and Jared talked about it, and said "you're suicidal and you hate yourself for what you did to Dean." He praises Jared (after calling him a giant) for doing things right on the first take nearly all of the time. He says that he really didn't have any points or corrections to give the guy. He praises both Jared and Jensen with being "wonderful technical actors" - they know how to angle their faces to make a shot interesting, and they know what poses to hold from take to take to make editing seamless.

This episode ties together ALL the mythology of the past 4 seasons, because we find out that everything - the whole demonic conspiracy - was all done on Lucifer's orders to Azazel...and he teases us for S5 telling us that there's even more to it that we have yet to discover.

Kripke credits Misha for making the angel storyline work - because he is so awesome.

He praises Jensen some more, saying that he brings a vulnerability to Dean in everything he does. That this episode is like a redemption for Dean - who wanted in 4x10 to be an angel so he wouldn't feel - now he realizes he would rather be human, even with the pain, than be an unfeeling heartless angel. In Kripke's universe perfect=cold and hateful, and things are much better imperfect. It's Humanism. Hope and Salvation are found in family. When you turn away from family the world is destroyed, and when you turn towards family the world is saved.

Phil Sgriccia actually directed the scene where Cas stops Dean from eating the burger and cuts his arm - because they were crazy behind schedule. It was the very last scene shot. (If any of you were at LA con, or saw the videos from it, you might remember Jensen saying that they were wrapped for S4, but him and Misha still had to go back and shoot one more scene - well, this must be it.)

And there you have it! Next, I'll review the bonus features.

Comments

[auriliawestlake.livejournal.com]

I love how you manage to take apart the episodes and find everything awesome in them, but I do have one little quibble (which I can forgive, since you're Canadian and not a USer):

...given that the majority (or close to) of the US speaks Spanish as a first language...

Um...not really. The only places that you can find a heavy quantity of Spanish being spoken in the US is in subcommunities of large cities and along the US/Mexico border. Though it's never been officially claimed, it's assumed that if you live in the US you speak English (actually, American, which is different than English English).

As a side-note, I've done some rather extensive traveling in the US and found that, depending on what region you go to, the secondary languages spoken vary dramatically from one another. For example, in southern Louisiana, Mississippi, and the far south-eastern corner of Texas, you'll find more people speak a bastardized version of French (Creole) than any other 'foreign' language. Where I lived back in Iowa, we had a very high percentage of immigrants from the former USSR, so Russian was more common than other languages. Where I live now - El Paso, Texas - we do see a roughly equal split of English and Spanish, but that's simply because we are literally right on the border with Mexico (on any given day, I see as many license plates from Mexico as I do from any state other than Texas herself). The small town where my Dad grew up in Wyoming had a large population of German immigrants, so the German language is heard more there.

I think it's mainly because the US doesn't have an 'official' language that most other countries think we speak Spanglish - that, and the fact that we do get a large number of both legal and illegal immigrants from Mexico and other Spanish-speaking countries, who then want to press the fact that though they're coming here to make a better life for themselves, they can't be buggered to learn the main language we use to communicate and so try to push through legislature on an 'official' language.

All that said, most USers do know a few words in Spanish, even if they don't actually know the language - just like we all know scattered words in German and French and Italian and all those other languages who've made a contribution to making American English different from the Queen's English spoken back in the UK.

A few examples of words and phrases that nearly every USer knows (and the language it comes from):

Amigo. Adios. Padre. Hasta luego. Si. - Spanish
Je ne sais quoi. Oui. Mon chere. Fou. Noir. - French
Borscht. Da. Nyet. - Russian
Ja. Nien. Frauline. Herr. Comandant. - German
Alfresco. Al dente. - Italian

And these are just the ones I came up with off the top of my head.

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Huh, thanks for the info! It's true, I have never studied the states as much as I've studied Europe and Canada (for obvious reasons - in that I've lived both places). I can only base my observations off pop culture, and there's a TON of Spanish/Latin-American influence in pop-culture these days, that wasn't there in the 1970s...so, maybe that's what I was reacting to.

But it's true, there are tons of loan-words (ie: words taken from other languages) that have been used in US-English for a while now.

Anyway, hope I didn't offend or anything - it's just that the Spanish is more represented in pop-culture than the other communities...but of course, I should have realized that the US was much like Canada with it's pocket-communities.

Thanks for the information! :-)

[auriliawestlake.livejournal.com]

No, no offense was taken. I understand that though the rest of the world may not realize it, but the US and Canada are different countries with different cultures and customs and languages (I'm willing to bet real money that the version of English you use is subtly different from both the one I speak and the version spoken in the UK). I force myself to keep a pretty open mind when things like this come up and try to provide as accurate a correction I can when applicable.

We do have a large quantity of Latin influence on our pop-culture, it is true, but that's mostly because of what I said before about the US getting a lot of immigrants from Mexico, Central and South America. But even with the amount of folks coming here from Spanish-speaking countries, the vast majority of people born and raised here don't bother with learning a second language. I worked in call-centers for nearly a full five years and even the bilingual folk who worked with me were mostly first and second generation USers.

(Oh, and my use of 'USer' instead of 'American' is simply another example of my intentional attempt at keeping an open mind while online - everyone living in North and South America are technically 'Americans'; how arrogant are we in the US that we co-opted the term to mean solely those of us living in the US?)

[claudiapriscus.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure it is fair to say we co-opted it. It's just one of those historical oddities. And due to the way language works, it simply has the weight of tradition behind it.

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Oh, I didn't mean that most of the US was ONLY Spanish...I just mean that most of it SPOKE Spanish...I mean like, if people are bilingual in the US they are English-Spanish bilingual, rather than English-something-else. And that US-english has more Spanish loan-words than UK-English or Canadian-English....if that makes sense.

And thanks for the USers thing! Haha, that always annoys me about Americans (USers), in that when I lived abroad, people would say "Are you American?" and I'd have to say, "No, Canadian," even though technically I am from the Americas.

And yes, Canadian-English, UK-English, and American-English are all VERY different. Even within America English is different from place to place...for instance, I can't understand a single thing anyone says in rural North Carolina (I tried once, seriously - luckily they could understand me and all I wanted was some french-fries and a milkshake.)

In Canada we don't say Padre, for instance (unless we are a Spanish-speaking-Canadian). We also have different spelling (as you may have noticed in my posts)...and then there's route (Rah-out) versus route (root)...anyway, yeah, Canada and the US are very different countries, not just geographically, politically, socially, and culturally, but linguistically too.

[auriliawestlake.livejournal.com]

It is true that if we're bilingual, it's a good bet that it's English/Spanish bilingual, but what I was disputing was the whole 'most of USers speak Spanish', 'cause we really don't. Not really.

And I've been several places where it took a couple of days to get used to the local accent/word choices (for example, where I grew up, if something was diagonally across from something else it was 'kattywhumpus', but just an hour north of my rural area, it would be called 'kitty-corner'). And Canada and Australia have always been a bit closer to UK-English than the US ever was - don't ask me why it's that way, it just is - (at least as far as spelling is concerned).

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Ha, I've never heard kattywhumpus before...that's cute. We use kitty-corner where I'm from.

Cool tools, I'm clear now on what you were objecting too ;-) Thanks for setting me straight. Again, I blame pop-culture (It's my usual scapegoat.)

I don't know why the US is so different either! Not a linguist, after all. I did, however, once read an article that blamed the humidity for the southern-drawl, it was an interesting read...but that has nothing to do with spelling or word choice.

[auriliawestlake.livejournal.com]

I have the feeling that pop-culture is to blame for a lot of misconceptions about the US (rather like how if you live in a city and are black, you speak ebonics...I don't know about NY or LA, but I've been to both Detroit and Chicago - the 'bad' parts of town - I've never once heard ebonics used. Sure, the slang was a little different, but not to the point that movies would lead you to believe).

As to just why linguistics in the US is so very different than other English-speaking countries, well... It has more to do with the following than anything else:

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

We - the US - have always willingly accepted the refugees from all around the world, and those people brought with them their languages, food, and customs that over the years slowly got absorbed into what we know today.

The US in a nutshell: A Lebanese man selling a traditional waffle-like confection had his vending-stall next to a US teen selling ice cream during the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis. It was a hot day, and the ice cream kid was selling more product than the warm Lebanese confection. The kid ran out of paper cups for his ice cream, and the Lebanese man approached the kid with an idea that would line both their pockets - and thus, the waffle-cone for ice cream was invented.

I've seen some snarky comments from folks from countries that have a long history of, well...history wondering just what it is that keeps the US together as a nation, because we're less than 250 years old and our population is basically rejects from every other country in the world. Most of the time, I just ignore them - they don't get it, and no amount of explaining could possibly make them understand. But I think I finally figured out how to word it: You may be from a country that has the weight of history behind it, but the US is a country with the dreams of the future in front of us.

*rereads post*

Damn...I'm getting really thinky tonight, ain't I?

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Ha ha, you are thinky tonight! But it's cool. You like your country, there is no harm in that! Canada is much the same way when it comes to ethnic diversity - so I understand what you mean.

There's something I love about walking around downtown in a major city in Canada and hearing everything from French to Korean, and knowing that we're all trying to make the country into something better than where our families originally came from and it's really rather nice.

Though, I should say, since my work concerns aboriginal peoples...that there are people living in Canada that DO have the weight of history behind them, and they are fantastic people too! :-P Ah politics.

But yeah, pop-culture usually gets it all wrong with countries. Believe me...I've seen what Canada ends up looking like :-P

[auriliawestlake.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've notice how Canada (when not being filmed as a stand-in for the US) tends to come across in films and television, too. It's kinda like the frustration I feel whenever some TV show or movie says that Iowa's flat - trust me, it ain't that flat; not when I wound up getting clocked at fifty mph in a twenty-five zone (I was on my bicycle, for cryin' out loud!).

What I find amusing is that everyone, regardless of their country of origin, is indoctrinated from a very young age to believe that their country is the best place on earth - they call this brainwashing 'patriotism'.

At least I can admit when my country is doing or has done things which probably weren't the smartest - like how the US seems to think it's our place in the world to act as the planet's police force or how we seem to think that the whole world ought to operate on a capitalist economy. Capitalism and representative democracy are all well and good for us, because that's what we know and it works for us, but for other countries, particularly those with a long history of near-totalitarian leaders? Not so much. You really have to be raised with the concepts before being able to make them into successes.

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Very true.

And yes, it IS quite frustrating how Canada tends to come across in pop-culture...I mean, we have our own stuff that gets it right, of course...and then there's shows like How I Met Your Mother who take it SO over-the-top that it's alright, because you know they are being ridiculous on purpose.

I escaped the brainwashing of 'patriotism' by going to a private school that didn't do the whole indoctrination thing (or at least didn't indoctrinate patriotism)...but man, I fear for my children (if I ever have any and can't find a similar school or can't afford it), because I'm going to have to un-indoctrinate them everyday after school :-P

As it is, I obsessively worry about my niece and nephews who are living in the US and what they are being indoctrinated with...man...anyway, yeah...the world be crazy, yo.

[auriliawestlake.livejournal.com]

Amen to that!

[claudiapriscus.livejournal.com]

On the 'padre' seem, that seems like it might be a very spaghetti-western sort of word? I mean, I grew up in the SF Bay Area, a place that has a lot of Spanish roots, and it's still a word I associate with old westerns. So it might not be such an anachronism.

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Good point...Supernatural is basically a modern Western too - I mean, they do it in that style...so that's probably why they used it.

[auriliawestlake.livejournal.com]

Not to mention the tendency of demons on Show to use other 'old west' style words (like 'howdy').

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Good point! I never really put that together before, but now that you point it out...well, it makes all the more sense.

[kitishy.livejournal.com]

First, your commentaries on the episodes have been awesome. Thank you. Now, on "The Great Padre Debate" :p, I definitely see the spaghetti western angle as plausible. Also from my understanding the use of padre for priest is not uncommon in the States. And Azazel was you know, wearing a priest. I think he'd find using that terminology amusing. It totally worked for me as one of the many ways Azazel likes to twist things. And I know in 1972 padre was used for priest by non-Spanish speakers because of M*A*S*H. Father Mulcahy was called padre by a lot of different people. Yay for my tv education! Thanks again for the comments and yeah I think I just wanted to make a reference to M*A*S*H. :)

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Cool! Thanks for weighing in!

Thanks especially for giving me a reference for padre being used for priest in the 1970s! Yay for M*A*S*H! Really, that's all I needed...Padre just isn't used that much up here in Canadaland, so it seemed weird to me...but obviously it's been around in the US for a long time!

I'm glad you've enjoyed the commentaries! :-)

[trystan830.livejournal.com]

very cool review!

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[trystan830.livejournal.com]

welcome!

[katsheswims.livejournal.com]

Do you know if anyone ever asked (at a con or something?) if Sam or Dean ever brought up the voicemail offscreen, or you know they know the 'truth' about that misunderstanding?

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Yes, someone did ask at a Con about the voicemail message, and it was quite hilarious. Jensen didn't know what they were talking about and Jared explained...then they went into character to see if their characters had dealt with the issue, and decided that it was all good. There's a video of it somewhere up on youtube. If I have time later, I'll try to track it down for you maybe...I think it was chicago con 2009.

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Found it...it's at the 1:00 mark of this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=TwU-Czmmfjs&feature=related

So, yeah...that's a thread they never really addressed in the series (which means plenty of opportunity for great fanfic that can't be proven false!)

[katsheswims.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much. I was really happy to see that. I always wanted them to talk about it. And though Jared and Jensen seem to think the boys have never talked about it ect, it was still fun to see. (Jensen was so cute when oblivious)

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

I agree about Jensen's obliviousness being adorable. I also find Jared's attempt to explain it to him adorable.

These threads that are never tied up make for great fanfic, so I don't mind little ones - though yeah, it would have been great if they had taken a moment to address that message...just because the doctored message was SO harsh. Ah well!