Rewatch S14: Absence (14x18)

[hells_half_acre]

I'm still alive!

Trying to do every two weeks at the very least, because every week wasn't working. I can't believe it's been over a year since I started this rewatch and I'm still not done. I'd say "I'm the worst" but I think the actual correct answer is "2020 is the worst"

The good news is that I still have a job and it's paying me fairly well - the bad news is that it takes up a LOT of my time. I've been working part time for the past two years, so switching to full time has been an adjustment.

Absence

Ugh, this beginning of the episode is horrible. I hate it when people don't know that someone is dead and they need to be sad now.

I still think that Jack killing the snake isn't that big of a deal. Maybe I know too many farmers? Like, mercy kills are totally a thing with animals.

Poor Jack. UGH! I forgot that even after Jack killed Nick, I STILL HAD TO PUT UP WITH STUPID LUCIFER HALLUCINATION! RARRRRR!!!!!!! This is why the rewatch of this season is taking so frickin' long, btw. I'm not exactly motivated when I have to put up with this guy. Sigh...

It was fun when I could re-write the seasons not to include him. Let's do that again...

Re-write - show don't tell. Just have Jack clearly upset and/or crying. Have him talk to Mary as if she's there, and try to explain himself, worry about what Sam and Dean will do, then get angry and destroy a tree or something.

Dean's in denial about the state of Jack's soul.

The cabins they build for this show are really nice design, btw. I've been in one on a location tour - like, if they were properly built with insulation and plumbing and whatnot, I'd totally live in one.

And Dean finds a clearing of ash... I don't think they could have put that together, but at the same time, it occurs to me that a hunter's pyre might look similar to that too.

Flashback to Cas and Mary in black and white. I wonder why they chose Black and White here? I mean, it's kind of cool, but also kind of weird?

Cas: ... you should know they're happy. Finally they don't have to be so... so alone.
Mary: Castiel, they were never alone.
- Awww, it's true though. Sam and Dean always have allies and family doesn't end in blood.

Seriously, I guess it's my ABSOLUTE HATRED of Nick/Lucifer, but I don't see the big deal here either - you don't know how Nick's body got like that.

And now Dean's denial goes to anger/blame. Poor Cas and Jack.

And now we get to see how three dads deal with their son messing up big time.

Cas: I failed you, and I failed Jack, and I failed-
- Don't be so hard on yourself, Castiel.

Rowena: I don't know where she is or what happened, but I can tell you with certainty - Mary Winchester is no longer on this earth.
- You know, for a universe with a confirmed after-life + confirmed alternate universes, that is an EXTREMELY GENTLE way to break that news. Mary Winchester still exists, she just no longer exists in the same plane of existence as you.

"Nice thighs" - my thoughts about Jensen in the most dramatic moment of the episode. :P

Poor Rowena... she's very good with Jack, considering the circumstances.

You know, Heaven IS kind of like the Borg... in the episode Hugh, where they gave an individual Borg free will and indiviual thoughts and then sent him back to the Borg in the belief that it would spread through the collective mind and destory them from the inside... Anyway, my point is that Cas met the Winchesters and Heaven has been on a slow decline ever since.

Flashback with Sam, and parental guilt, etc. It's a good scene.

Sam smartly points out Dean's hypocracy.

Ugh, Lucifer hallucination again. This scene is well acted by Alex and Ruth though.

Duma: She died painlessly, instantly. She's in heaven. A special heaven. Mary Winchester is complete. You and the Winchesters may not be, but she is.
- Seriously, Mary is living the dream in terms of deaths I'd prefer.

Jack knocking Rowena back into her apartment is great. Really nice scene cut and well done.

Seriously, this much remorse from someone who is soulless is actually really impressive... it just speaks to how much of a mistake it was. I understand the fear of Jack not having a moral compass and possibly needing to keep him from harming others... but it's clear (much like Sam and Donatello) he still remembers morality and what are good actions and bad actions.

And hey, at least they have a body to burn now and can go through the full ceremony of grief.

SERIOUSLY, I can't believe I had to put up with this f*cking Lucifer character until THE SECOND TO LAST EPISODE OF THE SERIES. The last time he made any sense was S7. Then I had a few blissful seasons without him, and then frickin' S11 or whatever the hell it was.

Cas reporting that Mary is at peace in Heaven - that's the reality of life, the dead have it easy, it's the people who have to live without them that suffer and have to recover from the death.

Sam holding Castiel back from going to Dean is pretty heartbreaking.

And we're done! That was a very emotionally heavy episode. I feel like I should have talked more about Dean's relationships with Jack, but I kind of feel like that's way too complicated a topic to even broach... like I don't have proper words to explain it. I also don't want to treat it as special - because I think despite the longer time it took Dean to warm up to Jack, he had the same relationship to him as Sam and Cas did. Only Sam and Cas also have something a little bit extra. In Sam's case, it's identifying himself in Jack, and in Cas's case, it's having Jack embody his hope for a better world/life. When it comes down to it, I think Dean's relationship with Jack might actually be the least complicated, but therefore the most volatile.. especially since Dean DOES have that early skepticism to fall back on as an "I told you so" (no purposefully, but there's a reason it takes Sam pointing out Dean's hypocrisy before Dean acknowledges that it wasn't like Dean was being hyper-vigilant either anymore).

It does drive a wedge between Dean and Cas, because Cas saw more warning signs than Dean did, but didn't pass them on. (Again though, I wish they'd picked a different warning sign than that snake, because I honestly don't get it. Maybe they needed to build up the idea that Jack really loved that snake? Like, I would be most like "uh oh" if we had seen be-souled Jack totally into his little snake friend and so very happy to have a pet... and THEN we see him kill it 'our of mercy' without any emotion. I think maybe THAT's the problem. Because yeah, I've had to put down animals out of mercy, so I totally get the choice, but I do cry the entire time if they were an animal I had formed any sort of bond with. So, yeah, that's the problem - I never saw Jack form an attachment to that snake. It was always a really emotional-less relationship.)

Okay, I'm glad that's settled. Thanks for letting me talk that out.

If there's anything else you'd like to discuss in comments, please let me know!