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hells_half_acre) wrote2019-01-31 09:57 pm
hells_half_acre) wrote2019-01-31 09:57 pm
Entry tags:
Quick Reaction: 14x12 Prophet and Loss
Hello!!!
Tonight's episode was watched sober, because I had to drive - but I still took bad notes and am a goof, so nothing should be that different :)
Let's get into it...
Before I jump right into it and forget to say this at all, I'll say that as per usual, Jared and Jensen knocked their scenes out of the park and made it abundantly clear that they're the reason I'm still invested in this show (them and you guys). After 14 years, and soon to be a 15th, it's Sam and Dean's dynamic and relationship that carry me through the less then stellar plots and episodes - and it's scenes like the ones in this episode that reward me for sticking with it.
We begin with Dean having a nightmare - well, we don't know that at first, but it's a good guess, judging by the fact that there's no way the show would jump ahead to Dean having completed his plan. But anyway, he's having a nightmare about being trapped in the box in the ocean, and the water is dripping in, and his cellphone runs out of batteries so he can't call Sam... and he wakes up in a motel room to find that he's somehow reached past his bed and scratched the wall until his fingers bled? I didn't really get the logistics of how he pulled that off - but suffice it to say, Dean is not doing well. Sam has inadvertently woken him up (or so he thinks) on his way back from the bathroom.
Then Sam tries to talk him out of the plan by describing how horrible a fate it is - and he's REALLY not helping Dean come down off that nightmare he just had, but of course Sam doesn't know that.
Then we cut to the bad guy, who furthers the theme of drowning by torturing and drowning some poor woman - seemingly as some sort of weird offering... it's unclear, but he's definitely going about it in a religious fashion.
Then we cut to Nick in the hospitals. Here my notes say "no one cares" which means that I don't care. Which means that I don't remember what happens in this scene besides establishing that Nick is in a hospital under police guard right now.
Back to Sam and Dean! Yay! They are driving. Dean has not told Cas and Jack about his plan, but insists that Sam has to keep his promise to help him and wants Sam to reassure him that he will, since he gave him such a hard time about it the night before. Sam reaffirms his promise to help. Dean goes to the bathroom and Sam uses the opportunity to call Cas. It seems Sam's already informed Cas, and has him researching alternatives, in addition to getting in touch with Rowena to see if the Book of the Damned has anything - it's a nada on both fronts though. Cas asks if Sam's managed to talk him out of it yet, and Sam says that he hasn't, and he's super worried that he's not going to be able to.
The bad guy is killing some other dude now - this time by slitting his throat. Then he says something about egypt, which I mostly missed because my friend and I were talking over it because neither of us really like killing scenes, so we distract ourselves from them.
Back to Sam and Dean! Yay! They are driving at night. Michael is hammering away inside Dean's noggin, and I'm like "maybe you shouldn't be driving, Dean..." but Dean doesn't hear me, and instead distracts himself by trying to have a death-bed conversation with Sam about their childhood. In true Dean fashion, he opens with telling Sam that he knows he wasn't always the greatest brother to him. And Sam is like "uh, I disagree? What the hell childhood are you remembering?" (only not in those words) - and Dean goes on to explain that when things got bad with John, Dean often had to seem like he was taking John's side in order to keep the peace - and apparently there were times when Dean would leave, and Dean wants Sam to know that he wasn't running off, it was that John would send Dean away when Dean pissed him off. And MAN, I really need to read a transcript of this conversation, because it is a gold-mine of angsty information and I didn't actually catch Dean's last line - "I think he knew that." (??) is what I have in my notes, but who the he is and what the that is, I don't know. Sam reassures Dean that he undstood/understands all that, and Sam puts the kibosh on any more death-bed conversations, he doesn't like them.
Nick is still in the hospital, I'm even less pleased to see him because I'm busy wanting to still be in the previous scene. My notes just say "Praying to probably Lucifer. He's in the hospital." So, there's your basic facts of the scene.
Back to Sam and Dean! Yay! Sam finds a case in Fort Dodge, Iowa, which is apparently on their way. Dean is like "okay, one last case" and Sam is like "STOP RUINING EVERYTHING!" but then he shows Dean the case and it's, unsurprisingly, the two dead people we've seen so far - and then we learn that the bad guy has been carving Enochian into their arms.
They go visit the surviving brother of the last dude that was killed. They find out that it was his twin brother (Good one Supernatural, you can hire one actor for two rolls!). This is just heartbreaking though. Ugh. And to rub it in, they make the twin that died the older one by 4 minutes (I see what you did there, show... 4 minutes: 4 years.) Apparently the dude has been caring "I am the Word" into the people, and the dude is like, oh hey, that writing looks like the weird tattoo on this weird guy we used to be friends with - and sure enough, weird former friend has "the word" tattooed on him in enochian.
Dean calls Cas to see if he knows anything, and Cas is so enthused about Dean calling him that a)it's adorable, and b)he spills the beans about already knowing about Dean's plan... then goes on about how much he disagrees with it. Dean interrupts him and asks about the words and gives him the name of the bad guy, and Cas is like "yeah, that guy's supposed to be the prophet after Donatello". Dean ends the call with "it's good to hear your voice".
They check in with the hospital that Donatello is at, but he's still alive... I start wondering if maybe he's braindead and that's why this has happened. But we have to wait for that answer...
First we cut to the bad guy (whose name is actually Tony, but he's "bad guy" all through my notes). He's got the next victim dangling by his arms above the ground (ouch) and is going to burn him alive SLOWLY. Which is one of the deaths I hate seeing most. Thankfully, the Winchester's show up in the nick of time and put out the fire before it gets to him, and then tell him to run - which he does. Hopefully he calls the cops as soon as he can.
Sam has the guy in a sleeper hold, and then lets him go in order for them to figure out what might be happening. He says God's been talking to him, but Sam is like "NO HE HASN'T" and tells him that the people he killed were innocent. Dean knocks him back temporarily and they try to talk, but the guy tackles Dean, and there's a scuffle and he gets Dean's gun - instead of shooting Sam and Dean though, he shoots himself. This leaves the Winchesters with the Fort Dodge safe again, but no idea what caused the prophet to go crazy in the first place or if it's going to happen to another prophet too or not.
Cas surmises that maybe with Donatello stuck between life and death the next prophet was awakened, but was wired wrong because of the unclear situation. This means that it could happen again now that Tony is dead. So, the answer is probably to kill Donatello so that he's no longer muddying the prophet waters.
But first we cut to Nick, who is in his old house, which uh... whose been paying the taxes on that property for the last 13 and a half years? (or 11 and a half years if you follow show-time).... anyway, everything is covered up and/or empty. And then things get really cold.. and I'm like "Ghosts?" but then I'm like - wait, Lucifer burns cold. This is probably when Lucifer comes back. Then a woman appears, and I'm like "could still be Lucifer..." and she claims to be Sarah, Nick's wife - and that she's there because of unfinished business. Nick assures her that he's tracked down her killers and killed them - but she tells him it's Lucifer that's the problem - the problem is that Nick chose Lucifer (who technically is the one that ordered her death) and then the language gets VERY "unfaithful marriage/cheating husband" to the point where Sarah gives Nick the ultimatum that it's either her or Lucifer. That he has to reject Lucifer - and then I start thinking that maybe she is Lucifer afterall and this is some sort of test - but Nick can't reject Lucifer. Sarah says that it's because he IS Lucifer. But then she lets Nick walk away without killing him, which pisses me off. So, anyway, my idea that she was secretly Lucifer was wrong. So, I still have to put up with Nick a little longer before Lucifer ultimately comes back and re-inhabits him and then I hate him even more.
Back to Sam and Dean! Yay! They're at the really fancy long-term care hospital that they put Donatello in, posing as his nephews - the doctor agrees that sometimes it's good to let go... and Dean is like "YEAH SAM!" and Sam is like >:-| and then they find out that someone else has come to see Donatello - it's Doctor Novak. (aka, Cas) and Sam and Dean are both like "Doctor" and Dean is trying not to laugh, but his-trying-not-to-laugh-face is very similar to his this-is-turning-me-on face, so my friend and I have a good laugh about that for a little bit.
Then they find out that Donatello has been muttering things in his sleep - and Sam goes with the doctor to see him, and Dean hangs back with Cas, who gives him the what-for about the plan and whatnot. Then Sam comes back with a recording the doctor took (and no one mentions that both Sam and the Doctor entered the room, and then only Sam comes out of it closing the door behind him). Donatello has been muttering the same weird enochian phrases that the bad guy had written all over his room (or yeah, I missed talking about that part earlier - the bad guy had a creepy room, the end.) Cas thinks that this is a sign that Donatello's mind is re-ordering itself. Sam and Dean tell the real doctor that they've changed their minds - and then Cas goes about healing him.
At first, Sam and Dean wait in the hallway, and they have another chat - Sam talks about Donatello being trapped in his body halfway between life and death, and Dean is like I GET IT, SAM, GIVE IT A REST! (only in different words). Then they go into the room to see how Cas is doing, and he's successful! Donatello is awake.
They get Donatello sitting back up and eating grape jello and Cas tells Dean that Donatello is still soulless... and then Dean throws Cas under the bus by leaving him to explain to Donatello what exactly happened to get him in the hospital (which, honestly, even I sort of forget... it was something about something...information Donatello had, I know that much.)
Then Dean goes outside and finds Sam slamming back beers by the Impala, because there's only so long Sam can go in times of grief before he turns to the drink. Sam is in full pissy-half-drunk mode. He tells Dean there's "no rest for the self-destructive" and lays into Dean for betraying their ideals of faith in family... it's a hard line to take, because Dean's plan is pretty much the same as Sam's plan in S5, which Sam made Dean honour, and Dean DID, but, as I touched on last time, I do see it from Sam's POV that as far as he knows they have the situation much better in hand than they did in S5 and that they possibly don't need those drastic measures. Also, let's face it, if you can go through your life without being a hypocrite at least once, you're probably not human. The point is, that Sam has had it up to here with Dean's pessimism - and Sam sees Dean's plan as Dean giving up on Sam or the rest of the family finding a better way. Sam is so upset that he punches Dean, something that he actually rarely does (I wrote a whole ficlet about it back during S4)... actually, I think this is the first time that Sam has ever punched Dean while not possessed/supernaturally-influenced! Sam goes for a second punch, but it turns into a hug... which is probably one of the more realistic portrayals of affection between men who are raised in heavily toxic-masculinity environments (for the record, I think John was actually decent at undercutting toxic masculinity and WAS affectionate with his boys, as evidenced by every interaction we see with John - but I think the hunting community/paramilitary-training lifestyle/society was a lot for John to fight against, especially since he himself was a product of it.)
Sam believes in them and Dean, and he wants Dean to believe in them too. Dean acquiesces, how sincerely only time can tell, but he tells Sam "let's go home" and that he believes in them, in ALL of them (as he sees Cas walk up), but he tells Sam that if they can't find another way, if this remains the only card that Dean can play, then Sam has to let him go.
And that's how the episode ends!
As I said off the top, except for the Nick scenes, which I'm obviously hugely biased towards, it was really great episode... and even the Nick scenes were really well acted - I can't fault MarkP for his skills. I just fault the writers for not being able to say goodbye to him when I think they should have. And I'm still happier with him being Nick than I am with him being Lucifer, however long that lasts.
But yeah, Jared and Jensen are great and did a fantastic job and I want to watch those scenes with Sam and Dean talking all over again - especially the one where Dean actually talks about the less than stellar parts of their childhood instead of just pretending it was all fine.
Let me know what you thought in comments! :)
Tonight's episode was watched sober, because I had to drive - but I still took bad notes and am a goof, so nothing should be that different :)
Let's get into it...
Before I jump right into it and forget to say this at all, I'll say that as per usual, Jared and Jensen knocked their scenes out of the park and made it abundantly clear that they're the reason I'm still invested in this show (them and you guys). After 14 years, and soon to be a 15th, it's Sam and Dean's dynamic and relationship that carry me through the less then stellar plots and episodes - and it's scenes like the ones in this episode that reward me for sticking with it.
We begin with Dean having a nightmare - well, we don't know that at first, but it's a good guess, judging by the fact that there's no way the show would jump ahead to Dean having completed his plan. But anyway, he's having a nightmare about being trapped in the box in the ocean, and the water is dripping in, and his cellphone runs out of batteries so he can't call Sam... and he wakes up in a motel room to find that he's somehow reached past his bed and scratched the wall until his fingers bled? I didn't really get the logistics of how he pulled that off - but suffice it to say, Dean is not doing well. Sam has inadvertently woken him up (or so he thinks) on his way back from the bathroom.
Then Sam tries to talk him out of the plan by describing how horrible a fate it is - and he's REALLY not helping Dean come down off that nightmare he just had, but of course Sam doesn't know that.
Then we cut to the bad guy, who furthers the theme of drowning by torturing and drowning some poor woman - seemingly as some sort of weird offering... it's unclear, but he's definitely going about it in a religious fashion.
Then we cut to Nick in the hospitals. Here my notes say "no one cares" which means that I don't care. Which means that I don't remember what happens in this scene besides establishing that Nick is in a hospital under police guard right now.
Back to Sam and Dean! Yay! They are driving. Dean has not told Cas and Jack about his plan, but insists that Sam has to keep his promise to help him and wants Sam to reassure him that he will, since he gave him such a hard time about it the night before. Sam reaffirms his promise to help. Dean goes to the bathroom and Sam uses the opportunity to call Cas. It seems Sam's already informed Cas, and has him researching alternatives, in addition to getting in touch with Rowena to see if the Book of the Damned has anything - it's a nada on both fronts though. Cas asks if Sam's managed to talk him out of it yet, and Sam says that he hasn't, and he's super worried that he's not going to be able to.
The bad guy is killing some other dude now - this time by slitting his throat. Then he says something about egypt, which I mostly missed because my friend and I were talking over it because neither of us really like killing scenes, so we distract ourselves from them.
Back to Sam and Dean! Yay! They are driving at night. Michael is hammering away inside Dean's noggin, and I'm like "maybe you shouldn't be driving, Dean..." but Dean doesn't hear me, and instead distracts himself by trying to have a death-bed conversation with Sam about their childhood. In true Dean fashion, he opens with telling Sam that he knows he wasn't always the greatest brother to him. And Sam is like "uh, I disagree? What the hell childhood are you remembering?" (only not in those words) - and Dean goes on to explain that when things got bad with John, Dean often had to seem like he was taking John's side in order to keep the peace - and apparently there were times when Dean would leave, and Dean wants Sam to know that he wasn't running off, it was that John would send Dean away when Dean pissed him off. And MAN, I really need to read a transcript of this conversation, because it is a gold-mine of angsty information and I didn't actually catch Dean's last line - "I think he knew that." (??) is what I have in my notes, but who the he is and what the that is, I don't know. Sam reassures Dean that he undstood/understands all that, and Sam puts the kibosh on any more death-bed conversations, he doesn't like them.
Nick is still in the hospital, I'm even less pleased to see him because I'm busy wanting to still be in the previous scene. My notes just say "Praying to probably Lucifer. He's in the hospital." So, there's your basic facts of the scene.
Back to Sam and Dean! Yay! Sam finds a case in Fort Dodge, Iowa, which is apparently on their way. Dean is like "okay, one last case" and Sam is like "STOP RUINING EVERYTHING!" but then he shows Dean the case and it's, unsurprisingly, the two dead people we've seen so far - and then we learn that the bad guy has been carving Enochian into their arms.
They go visit the surviving brother of the last dude that was killed. They find out that it was his twin brother (Good one Supernatural, you can hire one actor for two rolls!). This is just heartbreaking though. Ugh. And to rub it in, they make the twin that died the older one by 4 minutes (I see what you did there, show... 4 minutes: 4 years.) Apparently the dude has been caring "I am the Word" into the people, and the dude is like, oh hey, that writing looks like the weird tattoo on this weird guy we used to be friends with - and sure enough, weird former friend has "the word" tattooed on him in enochian.
Dean calls Cas to see if he knows anything, and Cas is so enthused about Dean calling him that a)it's adorable, and b)he spills the beans about already knowing about Dean's plan... then goes on about how much he disagrees with it. Dean interrupts him and asks about the words and gives him the name of the bad guy, and Cas is like "yeah, that guy's supposed to be the prophet after Donatello". Dean ends the call with "it's good to hear your voice".
They check in with the hospital that Donatello is at, but he's still alive... I start wondering if maybe he's braindead and that's why this has happened. But we have to wait for that answer...
First we cut to the bad guy (whose name is actually Tony, but he's "bad guy" all through my notes). He's got the next victim dangling by his arms above the ground (ouch) and is going to burn him alive SLOWLY. Which is one of the deaths I hate seeing most. Thankfully, the Winchester's show up in the nick of time and put out the fire before it gets to him, and then tell him to run - which he does. Hopefully he calls the cops as soon as he can.
Sam has the guy in a sleeper hold, and then lets him go in order for them to figure out what might be happening. He says God's been talking to him, but Sam is like "NO HE HASN'T" and tells him that the people he killed were innocent. Dean knocks him back temporarily and they try to talk, but the guy tackles Dean, and there's a scuffle and he gets Dean's gun - instead of shooting Sam and Dean though, he shoots himself. This leaves the Winchesters with the Fort Dodge safe again, but no idea what caused the prophet to go crazy in the first place or if it's going to happen to another prophet too or not.
Cas surmises that maybe with Donatello stuck between life and death the next prophet was awakened, but was wired wrong because of the unclear situation. This means that it could happen again now that Tony is dead. So, the answer is probably to kill Donatello so that he's no longer muddying the prophet waters.
But first we cut to Nick, who is in his old house, which uh... whose been paying the taxes on that property for the last 13 and a half years? (or 11 and a half years if you follow show-time).... anyway, everything is covered up and/or empty. And then things get really cold.. and I'm like "Ghosts?" but then I'm like - wait, Lucifer burns cold. This is probably when Lucifer comes back. Then a woman appears, and I'm like "could still be Lucifer..." and she claims to be Sarah, Nick's wife - and that she's there because of unfinished business. Nick assures her that he's tracked down her killers and killed them - but she tells him it's Lucifer that's the problem - the problem is that Nick chose Lucifer (who technically is the one that ordered her death) and then the language gets VERY "unfaithful marriage/cheating husband" to the point where Sarah gives Nick the ultimatum that it's either her or Lucifer. That he has to reject Lucifer - and then I start thinking that maybe she is Lucifer afterall and this is some sort of test - but Nick can't reject Lucifer. Sarah says that it's because he IS Lucifer. But then she lets Nick walk away without killing him, which pisses me off. So, anyway, my idea that she was secretly Lucifer was wrong. So, I still have to put up with Nick a little longer before Lucifer ultimately comes back and re-inhabits him and then I hate him even more.
Back to Sam and Dean! Yay! They're at the really fancy long-term care hospital that they put Donatello in, posing as his nephews - the doctor agrees that sometimes it's good to let go... and Dean is like "YEAH SAM!" and Sam is like >:-| and then they find out that someone else has come to see Donatello - it's Doctor Novak. (aka, Cas) and Sam and Dean are both like "Doctor" and Dean is trying not to laugh, but his-trying-not-to-laugh-face is very similar to his this-is-turning-me-on face, so my friend and I have a good laugh about that for a little bit.
Then they find out that Donatello has been muttering things in his sleep - and Sam goes with the doctor to see him, and Dean hangs back with Cas, who gives him the what-for about the plan and whatnot. Then Sam comes back with a recording the doctor took (and no one mentions that both Sam and the Doctor entered the room, and then only Sam comes out of it closing the door behind him). Donatello has been muttering the same weird enochian phrases that the bad guy had written all over his room (or yeah, I missed talking about that part earlier - the bad guy had a creepy room, the end.) Cas thinks that this is a sign that Donatello's mind is re-ordering itself. Sam and Dean tell the real doctor that they've changed their minds - and then Cas goes about healing him.
At first, Sam and Dean wait in the hallway, and they have another chat - Sam talks about Donatello being trapped in his body halfway between life and death, and Dean is like I GET IT, SAM, GIVE IT A REST! (only in different words). Then they go into the room to see how Cas is doing, and he's successful! Donatello is awake.
They get Donatello sitting back up and eating grape jello and Cas tells Dean that Donatello is still soulless... and then Dean throws Cas under the bus by leaving him to explain to Donatello what exactly happened to get him in the hospital (which, honestly, even I sort of forget... it was something about something...information Donatello had, I know that much.)
Then Dean goes outside and finds Sam slamming back beers by the Impala, because there's only so long Sam can go in times of grief before he turns to the drink. Sam is in full pissy-half-drunk mode. He tells Dean there's "no rest for the self-destructive" and lays into Dean for betraying their ideals of faith in family... it's a hard line to take, because Dean's plan is pretty much the same as Sam's plan in S5, which Sam made Dean honour, and Dean DID, but, as I touched on last time, I do see it from Sam's POV that as far as he knows they have the situation much better in hand than they did in S5 and that they possibly don't need those drastic measures. Also, let's face it, if you can go through your life without being a hypocrite at least once, you're probably not human. The point is, that Sam has had it up to here with Dean's pessimism - and Sam sees Dean's plan as Dean giving up on Sam or the rest of the family finding a better way. Sam is so upset that he punches Dean, something that he actually rarely does (I wrote a whole ficlet about it back during S4)... actually, I think this is the first time that Sam has ever punched Dean while not possessed/supernaturally-influenced! Sam goes for a second punch, but it turns into a hug... which is probably one of the more realistic portrayals of affection between men who are raised in heavily toxic-masculinity environments (for the record, I think John was actually decent at undercutting toxic masculinity and WAS affectionate with his boys, as evidenced by every interaction we see with John - but I think the hunting community/paramilitary-training lifestyle/society was a lot for John to fight against, especially since he himself was a product of it.)
Sam believes in them and Dean, and he wants Dean to believe in them too. Dean acquiesces, how sincerely only time can tell, but he tells Sam "let's go home" and that he believes in them, in ALL of them (as he sees Cas walk up), but he tells Sam that if they can't find another way, if this remains the only card that Dean can play, then Sam has to let him go.
And that's how the episode ends!
As I said off the top, except for the Nick scenes, which I'm obviously hugely biased towards, it was really great episode... and even the Nick scenes were really well acted - I can't fault MarkP for his skills. I just fault the writers for not being able to say goodbye to him when I think they should have. And I'm still happier with him being Nick than I am with him being Lucifer, however long that lasts.
But yeah, Jared and Jensen are great and did a fantastic job and I want to watch those scenes with Sam and Dean talking all over again - especially the one where Dean actually talks about the less than stellar parts of their childhood instead of just pretending it was all fine.
Let me know what you thought in comments! :)