Rewatch S13: Exodus (13x22)
Apr. 15th, 2019 08:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hells_half_acreHello! I had a busy weekend with my sister visiting, so didn't get to do one of these - so, welcome to Monday! And then I'll try to finish this all up on Easter weekend. :)
So, episode...
Exodus
Oh man, I just realized that one of my favourite Sam shirts was partially destroyed by those vampires!
Dean: "No, kill him."
Lucifer: "No, he's not strong enough."
Gabriel: "Dean..."
Jack: "Stop it."
Dean: "You've got the blade - he's the devil - kill him!"
Jack: "Stop it!"
Dean: "Oh great! Does that when he's scared. WAY TO GO, DAD!"
- I mean, Dean's yelling at Lucifer here... but, um... I don't think it was Lucifer that escalated this situation, Dean...
Lucifer does play this well, because if he comes across as the poor victim "you're trying to keep me from my son?" with good intentions "I'm the only one who understands him", then he gains Jack's sympathy. It's classic emotional manipulation.
And, just to put a little context to partially part of the reason I hate Lucifer SO VERY VERY MUCH, this is an actual text that I wrote to one of my sisters the other day when she had to tell our father that she was too busy to see him until the evening on just ONE of the days that he was visiting: "You also have to remember that Dad is incapable of writing a sentence that doesn't sound like emotional manipulation. So, even if he's like 'well, that gives us a nice day to relax around the hotel and take it easy!' he's going to say that in a way that makes you feel like the worst."
BUT, this is suppose to be about the show, not my personal family dynamics... but you know, they DO affect how I interpret the show, so I thought I'd be honest about that.
Anyhoo, again, reference to Gabriel not being powerful enough to kill Lucifer... probably, because he's drained, and not because he's Loki... but still.
Sam: "Hey, listen I'm sorry about all this."
Dean: "Are you good?"
Sam: "I'm alive, yeah."
Dean: "Well, then you got nothing to apologize for."
*hugs*
Dean: "I thought I lost you, man."
*hug breaks*
Dean: "What do we do about Lucifer?"
Sam: "I'll handle him. I will. I'll handle him."
- I hate the fact that Sam is ONCE AGAIN blaming himself for Lucifer being a problem, when really he had absolutely no choice. I mean, his choice was either "die and Lucifer is still a problem" or "live and help with the Lucifer problem." I wish Sam COULD have handled this Lucifer problem, just so that he'd feel redeemed, but the truth of the matter is that Sam's ALREADY done his part and doesn't actually NEED to do anything else... besides go to therapy so he'll stop feeling guilty for everything that goes wrong in the world.
- That all aside, I like how Jensen plays Dean's expressions here... like, we know Dean doesn't want Sam anywhere close to Lucifer or the apocalypse... but he also just has this look on his face like "you are alive, so I will agree to and smile at everything you say, because I love you SO MUCH." It's done really well.
Sam: "...and get back home before it's too late."
Mary: "I uh- boys, um- about that...I'm not going back."
Dean: "I'm sorry, what?"
Mary: "I fought beside these people. I respect them. I respect their cause. You can't expect me to just abandon them."
- A the fundamental Winchester flaw - not being able to walk away from a fight... or, maybe, better said, putting SAVING PEOPLE above their own best interest. It's the same thing we saw in What IS and What Should Never Be. The Winchesters can chose to be happy, or they can chose to save people, but they can't choose both... and every time they try to, it never lasts for long before tragedy strikes, or they're reminded that the two are not meant to go together.
Mary: "Sam, Dean, I know what you went through to come find me. But these people are being slaughtered, they need me here!'
Dean: "No, we need you, mom. WE need you."
- And that's the other thing that do - put physical well-being as a higher importance than emotional well-being. Better alive and with a broken heart, than dead. Dean and Sam don't need Mary to stay alive, they've obviously got that covered... and so therefore, they don't need her.
Lucifer: "Son."
Jack: "It's Jack."
- Good opening move.
Castiel: "Jack, talking to Lucifer is not a good idea."
Jack: "I'm not going to talk. I'm going to listen."
- That's a worse idea, Jack.
Dean: "... and we never walk away, not ever. But sometimes we should have! Because not every fight, every where, can be won! It just can't. Tell her!"
Sam: "I think mom made up her mind."
Dean: "See! Wait what?"
Sam: "Mom doesn't want to leave these people. So let's take take them with us."
- And smart Sam to the rescue. How do we honour Mary's personal choices and agency, but still get what we want? How do we compromise in this situation? We join them, but in a way that keeps mom as safe as possible.
- But I do wonder what fights Dean thinks that they should have walked away from.
Dean: "...how many we talking?"
Mary: "That's uh... 25?"
- It's not so bad! Also, that gives us a number of how many hunters entered the world. Not all stayed in the bunker.
Lucifer: "...humans are so messed up. They're so willing to be lead."
Jack: "My mother was human."
Lucifer: "Awesome lady, incorruptible. Not like that. Great kisser! Lost my virginity to her. Too soon? Okay..."
- Firstly gross.
- Secondly, way to have a kid on the first try go, I guess?
- Thirdly, UGH, Lucifer.
Lucifer: "So, I want to think about this - your grandfather is god."
- Uh, just because angels CALL God their father/dad doesn't mean he is. I mean, I guess if you're thinking of being only one step removed from creation, it makes sense? So, like, Cain's grandfather would have also been God, because God made Adam and Eve and Adam and Eve made Cain. But, if you're just going by BEGATS, I don't think God BEGAT anyone. Though, I suppose that's the whole premise of Frankenstein - what is creation? What is birth? What does it mean to create life and what are your responsibilities to the life you create? Etc. Okay, I guess I've talked myself out of my objection. If we go with "everything God directly created is his "child"" then yes, God is technically Jack's grandfather. (And, technically all of our great^nth grandfather.)
Jack: "I need to know about my powers. My family!"
Castiel: "Jack, we're you're family. We've been protecting you. We've been honouring your mother's wishes. We're your family."
Sam: "Jack, you have no idea who Lucifer really is."
Jack: "And I never will unless I talk to him."
- Or, maybe you could talk to the guy that he tortured for X-years in the cage?
- This actually gets into a mistake that parents can sometimes make. This whole time, Sam and Dean have been trying to NOT talk about Jack's lineage - about Lucifer... I mean, one, it's a painful topic. But mostly, they've just been trying, through omission to distance Jack from Lucifer while at the same time being very careful not to get him angry with the truth. There are so many reasons not to talk about what Lucifer has done. But, in so doing, Jack doesn't have a counter to whatever Lucifer tells him. Like, a few years ago, there was a high profile Canadian celebrity who actually got the jump on his own sexual misconduct scandal. He released a statement to the public about how, woe-is-him, this woman was framing him, and it was the fault of the authorities not understanding BDSM culture, etc, that they were falling for it. And he was really just victim in this weird bitter ex-girlfriend's revenge plot. And for a couple hours or a day it was effective. I believed him. I made a joke on twitter about how stupid the case was, implying, by the nature of my joke, that I believed he was misunderstood. Because, at that point, we had only heard from him... and then as soon as stories from the accuser emerged, and with them the stories from several other women, I was like "oh shit. oh shit. I have made a huge mistake." But for those few hours, he had managed to frame the whole thing in his favour. And it was only because I took the time to listen to the people on the other side of story that I realized just how much he had manipulated the situation to put himself in a favourable light. Without Sam telling Jack the story from the other side, Jack now has nothing to counter whatever Lucifer tells him - Lucifer can frame the story in just the right way so that he looks like he's the poor misunderstood person and everyone else are the bullies.
- Again, thinking of the circumstances in my own family - the sister who just had my father visit her had to try to convince my niece to give her grandfather a chance, despite knowing her mother's side of the story - she had to try not to have my nieces knowledge of my mother's side of the story sully her own relationship with her grandfather. Now, is that the right approach? I don't know, that's a whole other debate. On the one hand, it's important for children/young-adults to be able to navigator or choose familial relationships themselves unburdened by the past, but at the same time, should they be kept in the dark about the shortcomings/faults of their relatives? If someone does wrong by a member of your family, but hasn't done wrong by you, what do you do? Jack obviously loves Sam... if he KNEW how Lucifer treated Sam, would he really be able to forgive that? Do you NEED to be able to forgive someone to have a relationship with them? So many questions, not very many clear answers.
-FINALLY, this also touches on the debate of WHO is your family? Is it the people who raise you or the people whose DNA you share? Is it both? Is it neither?
Mary: "Jack isn't going to the darkside. He'll see Lucifer's true nature. And he'll see it through his own eyes, not yours."
- And this is the counter-argument. That kids need to make their own decisions, not be influenced by their parents' opinions. But, is that really the case? If they had sat Jack down at one point, and carefully given him the entire history of their interactions with Lucifer - couldn't Jack make up his own mind still? I think what Mary is saying is "don't just forbid Jack from seeing his father and insist that it's because his father is evil without him seeing proof", which is a valid criticism. You run the risk of having Jack grow resentful that he didn't have the chance to make his own decisions there. But, I think that's different than saying, "okay Jack, this is what Lucifer has done since he was freed in 2009... what you decide to do with that knowledge is up to you."
Dean: "You let Charlie go with Ketch?!"
- Dean is REALLY controlling for someone who doesn't actually like being a leader.
Gabriel: "Okay, you think Dad was a bad guy and you were just a victim? That was just your excuse."
Lucifer: "Excuse for what?"
Gabriel: "For it all, Lucifer. For it all!"
- Yup, being called out on playing the victim.
Oh yeah, this is the episode with the weird German Cas! hahaha
I'm trying to figure out how this Cas came to be... he's still Jimmy Novak, but he's got a weird twitch and a bad eye, so he's been in some shit. So, either this Jimmy Novak's parents decide to move to Europe (or not emigrate from Europe)... or Castiel spent some time in another vessel that was German, and he carried the accent over? Or his first assignments in Jimmy were in Germany, and he took up the accent to fit in?
Gabriel: "... but he's not like you. I can see it in his eyes. His mother's bloodline, the Winchester's influence..."
Lucifer: "I can be an influence."
Gabriel: "He's not going to want that. He'll see who- WHAT you are."
Lucifer: "I've changed."
Gabriel: "Dude, it's me. I've known you since the stars were made. You can't change, you're incapable of empathy, love - you live to be worshiped or feared or both."
- This is where my Gabriel is Loki theory REALLY falls apart, because it's hard to believe Loki could carry the ruse to this level.
- Also, "I've known you since the stars were made" is a great line.
- And also I agree that Lucifer hasn't changed in the slightest - not even after ACTUALLY TALKING TO CHUCK LAST SEASON!
Gabriel: "Don't you get it? Humans are innocent and beautiful - but you couldn't- you couldn't stand that the old man loved them more than you, so you tempted them, you corrupted them, just to prove how flawed they were."
- I mean, this is a recap... but I also like how it doesn't prove that Lucifer is better than humans. If you destroy a beautiful thing, it doesn't make you beautiful, it makes you a destroyer. If you corrupt something innocent and good, you're the corruption. Everyone has the POTENTIAL to be flawed, if you purposefully make someone give in to their flaws, and live their worst life, that doesn't make you better than them, because someone better then them would help them out of their own shit, not push them further into it.
Gabriel: "...that's why he locked you up. To stop the cancer. But it was too late then, and guess what? It's too late for you now."
- BURN! And also, TRUE!
- And yeah, sadly, unlikely to be Loki. But I REALLY hate Gabriel's death, y'all, so I'm still going to go on the theory that it's another faked one.
*Sam hugs Charlie*
Sam: "Sorry!"
- hehehe
Ketch: "You actually saving me? It's about bloody time."
- Ha, still the worst, Ketch!
Au!Cas: "You align yourself with the humans?"
Cas: "I vastly prefer them over angels"
Au!Cas: "Don't think that you are better than me. We are the same."
Cas: "Yes, we are."
*STAB!*
- And that's the difference between Cas and Lucifer. Cas is aware of his own faults. The roads that he could easily go down. He doesn't see himself as better than. He aligns himself with people who he feels will keep him on a good path and that's where he puts the service and loyalty for which he was created.
Lucifer: "...but sometimes doing the right thing can go wrong."
Jack: "My father makes a valid point."
Lucifer: "Father."
[...]
Lucifer: "Kids! You gotta know how to talk to them, you know what I mean?"
- Such a classic "my kid's shitty biological dad is poisoning him against me and there's nothing I can do about it because I'm a better person" coupled with "my kid's shitty dad is acting all sanctimonious about being a better father than I am, even though HE knows FULL WELL that he is super super shitty."
Rowena has been staying up for 48+ hours trying to keep that rift open.
Oh yeah, I forgot they joined up with Bobby's team, so there's actually more than 25 now, but even so, about 6 of them just died.
Michael: "Can it be? Gabriel?"
- Again, my theory falls apart.
Gabriel: "I can buy you some time. All I did on earth was run. I'm not running any more."
- This would be a greater sacrifice if it wasn't completely pointless. Sam and Dean are two feet from the door, they don't need any time, they literally just need to WALK THROUGH THE DOOR, leave Lucifer on the ground, and have Rowena close the gate immediately after. And or, position Gabriel on the OTHER side of the rift with his archangel blade out, so that whoever walks through the gate next, whether it be Lucifer or Michael, gets a stabbing.
My Loki theory really falls apart here, because there's even less of a reason for Loki to sacrifice himself for the Winchesters than there is for Gabriel to do so.
Also, this is classic BuckLeming, who ALWAYS get the second to last episode, and ALWAYS kill someone in it for flimsy stupid lazy-writing reasons.
But again, this was staged all wrong - I'll cover that when I get to the rewrite section, I guess.
Lucifer: "Sam, what are you doing? I'm hurt."
Sam: "How did you think this was going to end?"
*pushes Lucifer away from the rift*
- NICE, SAM!
- If only it was permanent.
Sam: "Well, you did it Rowena, you got us all here. We owe you one."
Rowena: "Don't think I won't collect."
- Collect in sexy times?!?
- Seriously, how can you not love Sam and Rowena hanging out while Sam is wearing a SINGLE LAYER OF CLOTHING. It's downright scandalous.
Dean: "Gabe - he'd been on the the run for so long. He sacrificed himself. He's the reason Sam and I got out. We owe him everything."
Cas: "What about Lucifer?"
Dean: "Sam handled it."
- Almost, anyway.
- I am also just going to headcanon that ONE of those hunters is Gabriel, and it was yet another ruse. SOMEHOW. I refuse to believe that shitty death was the actual end of Gabriel.
So, my headcanon is that Michael's vessel is Jake Talley's brother... and that in this AU is was Jake and his brother who were the Lucifer and Michael vessels.
Okay, rewrites:
Ketch rewrites - he barely does anything in this episode besides exist and make a few quips. You could easily not have him at all and just have Charlie be the person needing rescue. But, in the case of having his redemption arc start in S12 instead of this season, he could stay.
Staging rewrites - If you want Gabriel to be out of the picture again, fine - but make his life mean something. Have the boys NOT BE STANDING RIGHT BY THE DOOR when Michael arrives. Have them back by the bus, having made sure everyone got off and is in a line... or have them being the people hanging out on the periphery while everyone else runs through. The initial blasts of the incoming angels could easily also throw them further afield. Then, have Michael stand between them and the door. Mary could be making sure the people still ran through, but then they'd need Gabriel to clear Michael out from between them and the door so that they could make the run for it... while Gabriel is fighting, the boys are MOVING, they've got that much distance to cover... Gabriel's death halts their progress a little bit, but Sam still pushes Dean through before turning back and knocking Lucifer back from following them - meanwhile, Michael is too far away to reach them in time, and Sam still exits and the rift closes before Lucifer or Michael can get to it. Mainly, in the staging, we want to AVOID Sam and Dean just STANDING RIGHT BESIDE THE DOOR while Gabriel fights and dies. Because it makes his death an unnecessary suicide... unless he REALLY thought he could win, but it certainly didn't seem like he did.
OR, you could rewrite it so that we KNOW Gabriel lives but they don't. When we come back after the toast in the bunker and see Gabriel's corpse... and then we see him in the background of the wide-shot while Lucifer and Michael talk... have that corpse unceremoniously disappear while they talk, and they don't even notice. It's a little easter egg there for the audience to see and not the characters. Where's Gabriel? Even if we never get an answer, we still get an answer - he's alive, somewhere, up to his old tricks.
Let me know you're own thoughts!
So, episode...
Exodus
Oh man, I just realized that one of my favourite Sam shirts was partially destroyed by those vampires!
Dean: "No, kill him."
Lucifer: "No, he's not strong enough."
Gabriel: "Dean..."
Jack: "Stop it."
Dean: "You've got the blade - he's the devil - kill him!"
Jack: "Stop it!"
Dean: "Oh great! Does that when he's scared. WAY TO GO, DAD!"
- I mean, Dean's yelling at Lucifer here... but, um... I don't think it was Lucifer that escalated this situation, Dean...
Lucifer does play this well, because if he comes across as the poor victim "you're trying to keep me from my son?" with good intentions "I'm the only one who understands him", then he gains Jack's sympathy. It's classic emotional manipulation.
And, just to put a little context to partially part of the reason I hate Lucifer SO VERY VERY MUCH, this is an actual text that I wrote to one of my sisters the other day when she had to tell our father that she was too busy to see him until the evening on just ONE of the days that he was visiting: "You also have to remember that Dad is incapable of writing a sentence that doesn't sound like emotional manipulation. So, even if he's like 'well, that gives us a nice day to relax around the hotel and take it easy!' he's going to say that in a way that makes you feel like the worst."
BUT, this is suppose to be about the show, not my personal family dynamics... but you know, they DO affect how I interpret the show, so I thought I'd be honest about that.
Anyhoo, again, reference to Gabriel not being powerful enough to kill Lucifer... probably, because he's drained, and not because he's Loki... but still.
Sam: "Hey, listen I'm sorry about all this."
Dean: "Are you good?"
Sam: "I'm alive, yeah."
Dean: "Well, then you got nothing to apologize for."
*hugs*
Dean: "I thought I lost you, man."
*hug breaks*
Dean: "What do we do about Lucifer?"
Sam: "I'll handle him. I will. I'll handle him."
- I hate the fact that Sam is ONCE AGAIN blaming himself for Lucifer being a problem, when really he had absolutely no choice. I mean, his choice was either "die and Lucifer is still a problem" or "live and help with the Lucifer problem." I wish Sam COULD have handled this Lucifer problem, just so that he'd feel redeemed, but the truth of the matter is that Sam's ALREADY done his part and doesn't actually NEED to do anything else... besides go to therapy so he'll stop feeling guilty for everything that goes wrong in the world.
- That all aside, I like how Jensen plays Dean's expressions here... like, we know Dean doesn't want Sam anywhere close to Lucifer or the apocalypse... but he also just has this look on his face like "you are alive, so I will agree to and smile at everything you say, because I love you SO MUCH." It's done really well.
Sam: "...and get back home before it's too late."
Mary: "I uh- boys, um- about that...I'm not going back."
Dean: "I'm sorry, what?"
Mary: "I fought beside these people. I respect them. I respect their cause. You can't expect me to just abandon them."
- A the fundamental Winchester flaw - not being able to walk away from a fight... or, maybe, better said, putting SAVING PEOPLE above their own best interest. It's the same thing we saw in What IS and What Should Never Be. The Winchesters can chose to be happy, or they can chose to save people, but they can't choose both... and every time they try to, it never lasts for long before tragedy strikes, or they're reminded that the two are not meant to go together.
Mary: "Sam, Dean, I know what you went through to come find me. But these people are being slaughtered, they need me here!'
Dean: "No, we need you, mom. WE need you."
- And that's the other thing that do - put physical well-being as a higher importance than emotional well-being. Better alive and with a broken heart, than dead. Dean and Sam don't need Mary to stay alive, they've obviously got that covered... and so therefore, they don't need her.
Lucifer: "Son."
Jack: "It's Jack."
- Good opening move.
Castiel: "Jack, talking to Lucifer is not a good idea."
Jack: "I'm not going to talk. I'm going to listen."
- That's a worse idea, Jack.
Dean: "... and we never walk away, not ever. But sometimes we should have! Because not every fight, every where, can be won! It just can't. Tell her!"
Sam: "I think mom made up her mind."
Dean: "See! Wait what?"
Sam: "Mom doesn't want to leave these people. So let's take take them with us."
- And smart Sam to the rescue. How do we honour Mary's personal choices and agency, but still get what we want? How do we compromise in this situation? We join them, but in a way that keeps mom as safe as possible.
- But I do wonder what fights Dean thinks that they should have walked away from.
Dean: "...how many we talking?"
Mary: "That's uh... 25?"
- It's not so bad! Also, that gives us a number of how many hunters entered the world. Not all stayed in the bunker.
Lucifer: "...humans are so messed up. They're so willing to be lead."
Jack: "My mother was human."
Lucifer: "Awesome lady, incorruptible. Not like that. Great kisser! Lost my virginity to her. Too soon? Okay..."
- Firstly gross.
- Secondly, way to have a kid on the first try go, I guess?
- Thirdly, UGH, Lucifer.
Lucifer: "So, I want to think about this - your grandfather is god."
- Uh, just because angels CALL God their father/dad doesn't mean he is. I mean, I guess if you're thinking of being only one step removed from creation, it makes sense? So, like, Cain's grandfather would have also been God, because God made Adam and Eve and Adam and Eve made Cain. But, if you're just going by BEGATS, I don't think God BEGAT anyone. Though, I suppose that's the whole premise of Frankenstein - what is creation? What is birth? What does it mean to create life and what are your responsibilities to the life you create? Etc. Okay, I guess I've talked myself out of my objection. If we go with "everything God directly created is his "child"" then yes, God is technically Jack's grandfather. (And, technically all of our great^nth grandfather.)
Jack: "I need to know about my powers. My family!"
Castiel: "Jack, we're you're family. We've been protecting you. We've been honouring your mother's wishes. We're your family."
Sam: "Jack, you have no idea who Lucifer really is."
Jack: "And I never will unless I talk to him."
- Or, maybe you could talk to the guy that he tortured for X-years in the cage?
- This actually gets into a mistake that parents can sometimes make. This whole time, Sam and Dean have been trying to NOT talk about Jack's lineage - about Lucifer... I mean, one, it's a painful topic. But mostly, they've just been trying, through omission to distance Jack from Lucifer while at the same time being very careful not to get him angry with the truth. There are so many reasons not to talk about what Lucifer has done. But, in so doing, Jack doesn't have a counter to whatever Lucifer tells him. Like, a few years ago, there was a high profile Canadian celebrity who actually got the jump on his own sexual misconduct scandal. He released a statement to the public about how, woe-is-him, this woman was framing him, and it was the fault of the authorities not understanding BDSM culture, etc, that they were falling for it. And he was really just victim in this weird bitter ex-girlfriend's revenge plot. And for a couple hours or a day it was effective. I believed him. I made a joke on twitter about how stupid the case was, implying, by the nature of my joke, that I believed he was misunderstood. Because, at that point, we had only heard from him... and then as soon as stories from the accuser emerged, and with them the stories from several other women, I was like "oh shit. oh shit. I have made a huge mistake." But for those few hours, he had managed to frame the whole thing in his favour. And it was only because I took the time to listen to the people on the other side of story that I realized just how much he had manipulated the situation to put himself in a favourable light. Without Sam telling Jack the story from the other side, Jack now has nothing to counter whatever Lucifer tells him - Lucifer can frame the story in just the right way so that he looks like he's the poor misunderstood person and everyone else are the bullies.
- Again, thinking of the circumstances in my own family - the sister who just had my father visit her had to try to convince my niece to give her grandfather a chance, despite knowing her mother's side of the story - she had to try not to have my nieces knowledge of my mother's side of the story sully her own relationship with her grandfather. Now, is that the right approach? I don't know, that's a whole other debate. On the one hand, it's important for children/young-adults to be able to navigator or choose familial relationships themselves unburdened by the past, but at the same time, should they be kept in the dark about the shortcomings/faults of their relatives? If someone does wrong by a member of your family, but hasn't done wrong by you, what do you do? Jack obviously loves Sam... if he KNEW how Lucifer treated Sam, would he really be able to forgive that? Do you NEED to be able to forgive someone to have a relationship with them? So many questions, not very many clear answers.
-FINALLY, this also touches on the debate of WHO is your family? Is it the people who raise you or the people whose DNA you share? Is it both? Is it neither?
Mary: "Jack isn't going to the darkside. He'll see Lucifer's true nature. And he'll see it through his own eyes, not yours."
- And this is the counter-argument. That kids need to make their own decisions, not be influenced by their parents' opinions. But, is that really the case? If they had sat Jack down at one point, and carefully given him the entire history of their interactions with Lucifer - couldn't Jack make up his own mind still? I think what Mary is saying is "don't just forbid Jack from seeing his father and insist that it's because his father is evil without him seeing proof", which is a valid criticism. You run the risk of having Jack grow resentful that he didn't have the chance to make his own decisions there. But, I think that's different than saying, "okay Jack, this is what Lucifer has done since he was freed in 2009... what you decide to do with that knowledge is up to you."
Dean: "You let Charlie go with Ketch?!"
- Dean is REALLY controlling for someone who doesn't actually like being a leader.
Gabriel: "Okay, you think Dad was a bad guy and you were just a victim? That was just your excuse."
Lucifer: "Excuse for what?"
Gabriel: "For it all, Lucifer. For it all!"
- Yup, being called out on playing the victim.
Oh yeah, this is the episode with the weird German Cas! hahaha
I'm trying to figure out how this Cas came to be... he's still Jimmy Novak, but he's got a weird twitch and a bad eye, so he's been in some shit. So, either this Jimmy Novak's parents decide to move to Europe (or not emigrate from Europe)... or Castiel spent some time in another vessel that was German, and he carried the accent over? Or his first assignments in Jimmy were in Germany, and he took up the accent to fit in?
Gabriel: "... but he's not like you. I can see it in his eyes. His mother's bloodline, the Winchester's influence..."
Lucifer: "I can be an influence."
Gabriel: "He's not going to want that. He'll see who- WHAT you are."
Lucifer: "I've changed."
Gabriel: "Dude, it's me. I've known you since the stars were made. You can't change, you're incapable of empathy, love - you live to be worshiped or feared or both."
- This is where my Gabriel is Loki theory REALLY falls apart, because it's hard to believe Loki could carry the ruse to this level.
- Also, "I've known you since the stars were made" is a great line.
- And also I agree that Lucifer hasn't changed in the slightest - not even after ACTUALLY TALKING TO CHUCK LAST SEASON!
Gabriel: "Don't you get it? Humans are innocent and beautiful - but you couldn't- you couldn't stand that the old man loved them more than you, so you tempted them, you corrupted them, just to prove how flawed they were."
- I mean, this is a recap... but I also like how it doesn't prove that Lucifer is better than humans. If you destroy a beautiful thing, it doesn't make you beautiful, it makes you a destroyer. If you corrupt something innocent and good, you're the corruption. Everyone has the POTENTIAL to be flawed, if you purposefully make someone give in to their flaws, and live their worst life, that doesn't make you better than them, because someone better then them would help them out of their own shit, not push them further into it.
Gabriel: "...that's why he locked you up. To stop the cancer. But it was too late then, and guess what? It's too late for you now."
- BURN! And also, TRUE!
- And yeah, sadly, unlikely to be Loki. But I REALLY hate Gabriel's death, y'all, so I'm still going to go on the theory that it's another faked one.
*Sam hugs Charlie*
Sam: "Sorry!"
- hehehe
Ketch: "You actually saving me? It's about bloody time."
- Ha, still the worst, Ketch!
Au!Cas: "You align yourself with the humans?"
Cas: "I vastly prefer them over angels"
Au!Cas: "Don't think that you are better than me. We are the same."
Cas: "Yes, we are."
*STAB!*
- And that's the difference between Cas and Lucifer. Cas is aware of his own faults. The roads that he could easily go down. He doesn't see himself as better than. He aligns himself with people who he feels will keep him on a good path and that's where he puts the service and loyalty for which he was created.
Lucifer: "...but sometimes doing the right thing can go wrong."
Jack: "My father makes a valid point."
Lucifer: "Father."
[...]
Lucifer: "Kids! You gotta know how to talk to them, you know what I mean?"
- Such a classic "my kid's shitty biological dad is poisoning him against me and there's nothing I can do about it because I'm a better person" coupled with "my kid's shitty dad is acting all sanctimonious about being a better father than I am, even though HE knows FULL WELL that he is super super shitty."
Rowena has been staying up for 48+ hours trying to keep that rift open.
Oh yeah, I forgot they joined up with Bobby's team, so there's actually more than 25 now, but even so, about 6 of them just died.
Michael: "Can it be? Gabriel?"
- Again, my theory falls apart.
Gabriel: "I can buy you some time. All I did on earth was run. I'm not running any more."
- This would be a greater sacrifice if it wasn't completely pointless. Sam and Dean are two feet from the door, they don't need any time, they literally just need to WALK THROUGH THE DOOR, leave Lucifer on the ground, and have Rowena close the gate immediately after. And or, position Gabriel on the OTHER side of the rift with his archangel blade out, so that whoever walks through the gate next, whether it be Lucifer or Michael, gets a stabbing.
My Loki theory really falls apart here, because there's even less of a reason for Loki to sacrifice himself for the Winchesters than there is for Gabriel to do so.
Also, this is classic BuckLeming, who ALWAYS get the second to last episode, and ALWAYS kill someone in it for flimsy stupid lazy-writing reasons.
But again, this was staged all wrong - I'll cover that when I get to the rewrite section, I guess.
Lucifer: "Sam, what are you doing? I'm hurt."
Sam: "How did you think this was going to end?"
*pushes Lucifer away from the rift*
- NICE, SAM!
- If only it was permanent.
Sam: "Well, you did it Rowena, you got us all here. We owe you one."
Rowena: "Don't think I won't collect."
- Collect in sexy times?!?
- Seriously, how can you not love Sam and Rowena hanging out while Sam is wearing a SINGLE LAYER OF CLOTHING. It's downright scandalous.
Dean: "Gabe - he'd been on the the run for so long. He sacrificed himself. He's the reason Sam and I got out. We owe him everything."
Cas: "What about Lucifer?"
Dean: "Sam handled it."
- Almost, anyway.
- I am also just going to headcanon that ONE of those hunters is Gabriel, and it was yet another ruse. SOMEHOW. I refuse to believe that shitty death was the actual end of Gabriel.
So, my headcanon is that Michael's vessel is Jake Talley's brother... and that in this AU is was Jake and his brother who were the Lucifer and Michael vessels.
Okay, rewrites:
Ketch rewrites - he barely does anything in this episode besides exist and make a few quips. You could easily not have him at all and just have Charlie be the person needing rescue. But, in the case of having his redemption arc start in S12 instead of this season, he could stay.
Staging rewrites - If you want Gabriel to be out of the picture again, fine - but make his life mean something. Have the boys NOT BE STANDING RIGHT BY THE DOOR when Michael arrives. Have them back by the bus, having made sure everyone got off and is in a line... or have them being the people hanging out on the periphery while everyone else runs through. The initial blasts of the incoming angels could easily also throw them further afield. Then, have Michael stand between them and the door. Mary could be making sure the people still ran through, but then they'd need Gabriel to clear Michael out from between them and the door so that they could make the run for it... while Gabriel is fighting, the boys are MOVING, they've got that much distance to cover... Gabriel's death halts their progress a little bit, but Sam still pushes Dean through before turning back and knocking Lucifer back from following them - meanwhile, Michael is too far away to reach them in time, and Sam still exits and the rift closes before Lucifer or Michael can get to it. Mainly, in the staging, we want to AVOID Sam and Dean just STANDING RIGHT BESIDE THE DOOR while Gabriel fights and dies. Because it makes his death an unnecessary suicide... unless he REALLY thought he could win, but it certainly didn't seem like he did.
OR, you could rewrite it so that we KNOW Gabriel lives but they don't. When we come back after the toast in the bunker and see Gabriel's corpse... and then we see him in the background of the wide-shot while Lucifer and Michael talk... have that corpse unceremoniously disappear while they talk, and they don't even notice. It's a little easter egg there for the audience to see and not the characters. Where's Gabriel? Even if we never get an answer, we still get an answer - he's alive, somewhere, up to his old tricks.
Let me know you're own thoughts!
