yourlibrarian (yourlibrarian) wrote in mind_over_meta, @ 2009-11-06 22:53:00 |
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Entry tags: | supernatural |
SPN 5.08
This show is breaking my brain. At different times during the night I felt like I was (1) Inside ash48's vid "Changing Channels" (I was going to hunt down a link, but clearly everyone has seen it), (2) Inside a J2 AU, and (3) Inside an Impala bodyswap fic. And given next week's preview it seems like we're going to get more of the same. Since when did this show become about Kripke and the fans?
Not that there weren't some funny and interesting moments in this episode but I felt like my suspension of disbelief was getting whiplash. I hardly know where to start in discussing this because while some things fit into a pattern, clearly none of it was designed this way.
The Trickster, Gabriel, network executive…
1) For example, the Trickster was likely always meant as a one-off character who was brought back in Mystery Spot because he was both a popular character and also a powerful enough entity (the most powerful up until that time) that his appearance could explain temporal tampering, which was, at the time, a new development in the show's verse. He returns here for the same reason. Given the frivolity of being trapped in TV shows it fits his sense of humor (and taste for popular culture), and doesn't seem that much of a stretch given the abilities he's already demonstrated.
However at the end of Mystery Spot (also written by Carver, but such a superior episode by comparison) the Trickster suggests that he's more involved in the larger demon apocalypse plan than we would have thought. However, if he really wants Sam to end the world and bring on the apocalypse (just like the other angels) why does he want Sam to let Dean go in MS? Because if Sam rescues Dean too soon the first seal might not break? Because Sam is sure to go darkside with Dean gone? In which case why bother bringing Dean back? At least one consistency is that since his first appearance the Trickster has been trying to drive a wedge between them, so perhaps all he wanted there was to create enough distance between the two that killing one another would be a real possibility.
A lot of things have changed since then, such as the viewpoint between Sam and Dean as they discuss the Trickster. Dean didn't even remember all the times he was killed, and the time before when he ran into the Trickster he actually regretted the idea of killing him. Why has this changed? After all they just let Patrick walk away in the previous episode and he had caused peoples' deaths too. And I would have expected Sam to be afraid of running into the Trickster. Certainly at the end of Mystery Spot I'm sure he never wanted to encounter him again for fear of coming into his crosshairs once more.
Instead Dean carries a grudge, even though what the Trickster did to him surely pales in comparison to what Dean went through in hell. Sam is ready to find allies in any corner, and seems to feel taking a chance on him is a better option than leaving him alone. Of course, with the end of the world at hand, perhaps neither is thinking much about the long term in any way. But there did seem to be a reversion there to the idea of Dean being Mr. Wrong-is-Wrong and Sam being Mr. Wrong-is-Relative when only a few episodes earlier in the season the two seemed to be on opposite sides. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to make of that. Is it just sloppiness in their characterizations, or is it telling us that the changes in both were temporary?
What is reality?
2) The question of powers and what is possible for the angels to do was really blown wide open in this episode. I had speculated late last season about where demigods like the Trickster fit into the universe of angels and demons, and there was a reminder that he wasn't alone with Leshi in FI a few episodes back. Even then some were suggesting that all demigods were fallen angels, and that theory certainly got a boost in this episode since Gabriel is, at least, an angel incognito. We could now posit a sort of axis with angels being either AWOL like Gabriel and Anna to fallen and demonic such as Leshi and Lucifer. Ruby suggested that all demons were once human but it begs the question where their powers came from if this was so. We do know that humans such as witches can draw power from demons, and even hunters like Bobby can create magic from rituals. So perhaps power can also be, in some ways, permanently granted – perhaps like small bits of distributed "grace"? And although we know that Castiel has lost much of his power due to having died and returned (possibly without a vessel), clearly Gabriel was always more powerful than Castiel (perhaps because he now inhabits a vessel himself).
But Gabriel can create more than just people or scenarios. He suggests to Sam and Dean that they must survive 24 hours in his game space, but when Castiel appears later he says that both have been missing for days. Since they are then only in the second "show" since their arrival, time is passing much more quickly than in the real world. This also indicates their own bodies could not have been operating normally or the Trickster wouldn't have needed to make them hallucinate. After a few days without sleep they would have been doing it themselves. However, there is another place where time passes much more rapidly, and where bodies restore themselves and power augmentation occurs routinely – hell. One wonders then if hell is actually anything more than a larger scale hallucination than what Gabriel sets up for them here – one that has been set into motion with no one controlling it.
Most interesting of all is how Sam and Dean were able to (1) Create the stakes that they attacked the Trickster with and (2) Create the oil to trap him when the Impala wasn't really there. This implied something deeply fascinating, which was that while Gabriel could create a world according to his own design, he could not control Sam and Dean's actions within it. Instead, this world was malleable to people's will – not only his but theirs, hence Dean being suddenly able to speak Japanese when it counted, which was an even more unexplained skill than Sam being able to perform minor surgery.
This idea certainly ties into the notion of free will, which was emphasized in the "theme song" that played over this week's revised credits. It stated that Sam and Dean, learning to blaze their own trail and work together again could, in fact, succeed over the demons. It also reinforced the idea that the angels, Gabriel included, cannot actually force humans to do anything. Just like his game here, they have to consent to take part, and they do have the power to change the rules. So when Gabriel tells them that they have to go out into the real world and play their roles there, it suggests that, as in here, they are capable of improvising.
I also don't know that I take the Trickster at his word about wanting the world to end. The Trickster has always been teaching a lesson. For example, he first appears after Dean is able, for the first time, to picture Sam as evil after the events of BUaBS. This unacknowledged fear of their possible differences comes out in general mistrust over small things, and the open expression of what different perspectives they have on the same events.
Then in Mystery Spot he wants Sam to let Dean's death go. Why? I don't think it had anything to do with Dean per se, but simply that with Dean being the most important thing to Sam, Dean is what Sam is least able to let go of. Get him to move past that, and the obsessive vengeful tendency that led to his pursuit of Lilith might not have taken place.
The Trickster also pretends to end things when they're not really ended at all – his faked death in Tall Tales, the end of the time loop (but not Dean's death) in Mystery Spot. We see it again here briefly with his supposed death in the warehouse. But I rather wonder if his point wasn't to get Sam and Dean to play their roles as Lucifer and Michael, but to realize how it is they could alter the outcome.
At the end, Dean imparts one lesson to Gabriel he has been slowly learning through the seasons. It's not enough to challenge the world on one's moral high horse when that same courage doesn't apply to those in the inner circle. Dean has been learning about the fallibility of his father, brother and even mother. To some degree he backed away from all these problems. Yet what would have been the result of his standing up to John, or Sam? Would it really have changed anything? And for how long? Gabriel's looking at eternity – that's a long time to be at odds with those closest to you.
Sam, Dean, by any other name
3) Woven into the "shows" were some meta points about Sam and Dean as characters. The opening segment in the "sitcom" was fairly straightforward about Dean's predilections for food, women, and being the action rather than research part of the team. Later we get Sam being told twice that he's brilliant but afraid, and the "girl that just died" seemed to be playing the old chord of Sam being reluctant to get close to anyone again after Jess and Madison. (Although this point is rather undermined by the events in Free, even if the sex scene wasn't broadcast). The Nutcracker show would seem to suggest that regardless of their behavior lately, Dean has not forgiven Sam for the events of last season. Sam's betrayal with Ruby is something Dean has already brought up himself (and may I say, given Sam's 'punishment' in Nutcracker, that seems an awfully slashy take on the form of his betrayal). However, what's really interesting is that through "playing the game" the Trickster forces Dean to put into words his deeper belief that Sam is the root cause of their family tragedy – that in fact, what he said to Bobby in 4.22 about Sam maybe never having been his brother is still there, lurking under their renewed partnership. Similarly, the herpes commercial seems to play on Sam's incautious addiction to demon blood and his efforts at rehab.
"Since Dad flipped the lights around here, we knew it was all going to end with you." That seems a curious thing to say. Certainly everyone's been saying for a while "it had to be you" which, vague much? And the idea that Sam and Dean are the only pair of brothers to fit that mold in all of human history? Hardly. So it did make me wonder if the idea of "as it was in heaven so shall it be on earth" is rather literal. So far, it's been suggested that Lucifer is a separate entity, and that Michael is as well, another archangel like Rafael and Gabriel. But Anna's "grace," which apparently made her an angel, was kept separate from her personality, her memories, even some of her abilities (her ability to repel them with the sigil, and her ability to hear them). And presumably Anna is not as powerful as an archangel. What if, like Anna, Sam and Dean are sleeper agents who don't know who they really are? What if that's what all the "special people" who can see angels in their true forms, hear their voices, become their vessels, are? Angels who have long separated from their grace and have but to accept it anew? Anna, upon having her grace restored died as a human, but remained an angel, reconstituted into something else.
You want to work in this town again?
4) Arc-related developments aside, I found that I didn't enjoy the whole "traipsing through TV land" concept as much as I expected to. And this had to do partly with the amount of meta in the writing that had nothing to do with the story but a lot to do with the production itself. But it was primarily due to the amount of mugging and overacting Jared and Jensen decided to employ. It was almost like watching an extended gag reel instead of the show, and really blurred the line between the characters and the actors in a way that made me check out of the whole episode at times.
I know that some people didn't care much for Hollywood Babylon for similar reasons on the meta front. With that episode being drawn from the actual SPN production, one could become so occupied in counting the swipes they were taking at people, that the story became secondary. However, again, that show was a model case-of-the-week compared to this one
I had to laugh at the reference to Denny on Grey's Anatomy, especially with Sam asking what a ghost was doing on that show to start with. And who ever thought we'd get to see Sam and Dean riding a tandem bicycle (though clearly JA has one) or playing sports? However, it verged onto the uncomfortable to see them dissing particular actors. The irony of calling someone a "no-talent douchebag" while hamming up a scene so much I could hardly remember they were supposed to be doing a job, appeared to be lost on the production personnel.
Final Thoughts
1) So Dean has a weak spot for soap operas? Or is it just due to a show that featured two former co-stars of JA's?
2) Nice to know someone has a soft spot for the old Hulk series. I know I always used to enjoy it.
3) Since when have Sam and Dean started referring to their cases by title? Wouldn't "that time in Ft. Lauderdale" make more sense? Although, assuming that they've now read Chuck's SPN series of books (of which Mystery Spot was one) presumably Dean knows all about Sam's six month AU.
4) Interesting idea to shoot the police scanner scene through flapping curtains.
5) Nice callback to Tall Tales when Dean asks Sam "No seriously, what the hell?"
6) Also, another callback to Monster when the publisher, Sera Siege, brings up how many people prefer stories about sexy doctors to the SPN series
7) Let's see, in the last episode Sam got the clap, and in this one he's hammered (with instant replay) in the crotch, gets herpes, and has Dean rooting around in his ass. Are the writers trying to tell us something?
8).Dean, you were inside your brother for hours. That's kind of dirty.
9) "Should I honk?" LOL!