yourlibrarian (yourlibrarian) wrote in mind_over_meta, @ 2010-01-29 15:29:00 |
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Entry tags: | supernatural |
SPN 5.12 - I just got my daiquiri
Finally, the show is back. It’s not that Swap Meat had fewer plot holes than usual, ha HA, no. But at least it had some important elements that made for a watchable, even memorable episode:
1) It was a well acted and neither Sam nor Dean came off as idiots.
2) OMG, the vessel issue!
First things first. What made this episode work was that the acting was back. JA didn't actually have to deliver a whole lot since, for the most part, Dean just had to act puzzled or disdainful. But that worked here. The three kids all did well, particularly Colton James as Gary. This was a critical role, much like Chad Everett's, although in that case he really needed to be Dean. But here James had to be more like a wired Sam than a totally goofy, unbelievable stereotype, or else Dean should have caught on much sooner. After all, this is a guy who has seen his brother possessed before. While no one would have guessed Gary to be Lucifer, you'd expect Dean to be on his guard these days for unusual behavior.
That was one aspect where I felt the idea was weak. With Dean faking out Gary with a form under a mattress, clearly he knew something was up and felt himself to be at risk. Given their tattoos, possession shouldn't have been the first thought on his mind, but then Bobby got possessed and who would have ever believed that (*cough*)? I would have expected Dean not just to be angry, but to be rather freaked out at the possibility that Sam wasn't Sam. Nothing good ever comes of that. I'll cut the writers some slack and suggest that maybe it was because the network didn't want Dean going all Abu Graib on a minor that Dean seemed as calm as he was. Gary did seem pretty scared, more so with Dean than he was with demon!Nora.
While perhaps it wasn't much of a stretch for JP to play a 14 year-old a teenager, I found the opening fairly hilarious. Given the previews, I realized what was happening right away, but even so it was fun to watch JP make the most of that. I was somewhat sorry that they'd chosen to film it the way they did, with JP playing Gary and Gary seen to be in Sam's shoes. Watching it the other way around would have been both more of a stretch and more fun for the viewer. I would have found it interesting to see how Colton played Sam, though JP may have taken the teenage shtick too far.
But it worked ok as it was. The script was well paced, with plenty of story to flesh out the episode. Given that Siege was responsible for the ham fisted Fallen Idols, I wasn't expecting a lot. But then, this was not an episode that required subtlety since the writing was centered on stereotypes, and a great deal of it featured characters-of-the-week who, short of being age inappropriate, could not be out of character.
So much for point #1. The real eye popper for me was the demon's casual phrase “an empty vessel just waiting to be filled.” This raised a number of points I hadn't even considered before.
The first is the question of what it is that makes Sam and Dean so special, and I should have thought before that it's really their physical form that Lucifer and Michael are after. This actually makes sense continuity-wise, since it's implied that it is a genetic strain that makes certain humans adequate vessels for angels and the personality or other characteristics of a host wouldn't seem to matter. After all, Rafael's poor host seems all but destroyed, so certainly "who" he is wouldn't seem to matter at all. There's still a question of whether or not he even needs to be alive, but his mind wouldn't seem to be of any importance. Similarly, Jimmy wasn't always aware of what Castiel was doing and certainly had no control over him at all. So the human's mental or emotional imput would seem to be beside the point.
This means that Sam and Dean both do have the possibility of an "out." They don't actually have to be in the bodies when they're possessed. Presumably demon!Nora got excited because with Sam out of his body, Lucifer may not have needed permission to take it over at all – or Gary's permission would have sufficed. Presumably this was why Nora wanted them to meet at once. Obviously there would be ethical issues involved with swapping bodies with someone, and I've no idea if the transposition spell requires that the other body be inhabited by someone living. Otherwise, what Ruby did, Sam and Dean could do as well.
Of course this is still a problem in the larger picture, because Sam and Dean want to stave off possession so that the apocalypse will not be completed, not simply so that they will have a chance to live. But I wonder if there would be any way for them to bodyswap and leave their original forms booby trapped. I also wonder if Sam and Dean swapping bodies with one another would somehow negate the possibility of successful possession. There are possibilities here.
Of course, another behind-the-scenes possibility is that establishing this plot device means that the characters of Sam and Dean could go on without their current actors.
Some other things in this episode also seem potentially significant. JP’s usual approach aside, I don’t think that Sam was meant to be seen as sympathetic. Starting with Dean’s question to Sam about wanting a normal life again and concluding with Sam’s dismissal of that as not just unworkable (as Dean has always been telling him) but undesirable, the telegraph button is being hammered that Sam as we knew him is gone. It wasn’t so long ago (Kriss Angel, in fact) that it was Sam who was plaintively asking Dean if he didn’t think there was something more for them someday – something to hope for. It was Dean who categorically quashed that. So what’s with Dean asking him this odd and pointless question and then finding it disturbing that Sam no longer buys into it? Sam already told him pretty plainly in Wishful Thinking that he’s not that guy anymore. Dean himself has been treating Sam during this season as if he’s all too aware of it. What’s the deal now?
Methinks the central purpose was to draw a solid line between Dean and Sam. Given the way that Fallen Idols didn’t just drop anvils but hurled them, Gary’s repeated insistence that Dean was a good guy, and his reluctance to kill him, combined with Dean valuing the normal life seemed to set him up as being on the side of humanity. Sam being glad it’s not his life after all seems to be an unsubtle way of telling us that Sam doesn't relate to human beings well anymore. However, Sam wanted Gary to make peace with his life, and to stay on the straight and narrow so that they wouldn’t have to hunt him down again. He also did what he could to keep Trevor alive and to keep him from repeating Sam’s own mistakes. This belies the suggestion that Sam has actually changed in any significant way. Rather, the real message seems to be that Sam no longer holds out any hope for himself being "normal" or perhaps being "human", and has, if not embraced, at least accepted being something different. What this is seems pretty nebulous but it's clear he's different from Dean – not that that's new either.
In this episode, Sam is set up as being distinctly different from Dean in most ways. Dean connects with Gary. Despite Gary being at least as misguided as Sam, he is nonetheless very enamored of Dean, a hero worship that Sam no longer carries. Just as importantly, I suspect that Dean’s belief in Sam, something that sustained him for a long time, is something Sam no longer believes in either. Dean said in 5.01 that things couldn’t go back to how they were. I think this episode is one of the best examples of that. Sam does still love Dean, we saw that in the last episode. But I don’t think he believes much in that feeling being returned. This episode is literally about Sam not being himself, but it is also figuratively about the distance between Dean and Sam as a tangible thing.
Given that there was no one clue tipping him off (certainly not Sam’s voicemail messages), Dean seemed to have eventually realized Sam wasn’t Sam in the same way that he knew in the cabin (1.22) that John wasn’t John. John wouldn’t have praised him, and nowadays, neither would Sam. It seemed significant to me that one of the best SamnDean moments this season -- that of Gary and Dean simultaneously exorcizing Nora -- was not really a SamnDean moment at all. Dean’s partner in that, the person who came to a realization about what was right and wrong and came down on the side of saving Dean, then sharing his knowledge so they could save themselves, was not Sam. In this scene Gary, unknowingly, said no to Lucifer. He said no to power, and part of why he did so was his fear for, and his liking of, Dean. For Dean this has to sting, that with so little investment Gary seems to have done what Sam did not. I'm pretty sure that factored into their decision to let him off with just a mild warning.
Of course, Gary doesn't really know what he's giving up, nor what has been at stake. Gary also has the option of going to back to his life and being left alone, however much he thinks he doesn't want it. Gary was merely scared by being in over his head and made a snap decision. As Sam suggested in the last episode, he and Dean both may be half-mad at this point from the incredible pressures and losses they've faced. Their decision making is not necessarily all that reliable. Gary wants to escape his future just like Sam did. He’s not motivated by what Trevor is, nor even, if Sam isn’t lying about Nora’s motives, his feelings like Nora is. Sam tells him to rebel “in a healthy way” but one wonders if Gary hasn’t marked himself now. Sam didn’t turn down the power, and without Nora’s motivation to stay away, Gary may not either. It may have been easy for Dean to see Gary and Sam in this episode as quite different, but that isn't really fair to Gary or Sam. Not every pressured kid turns to black magic, assassination, and possession to escape his family. And no one else, not even Dean, knows what it's like to have been Sam at this stage. Regardless of his mistakes, Sam's still a much better man than Gary, who lacks both a sense of perspective and responsibility.
As to the episode as a whole there's some good, some pretty boneheaded, and some unfathomable.
The Good
1) Although it’s hard to believe a 17 year old would do, well, most of what he did in this episode, I’ll rewrite the script in my head to have him be 14. In which case the opening scene, his driving, and various other bits make more sense. I especially liked JP's bit with the straw.
2) A few really nice outdoor shots with the Impala – I always miss those.
3) Sam almost eats, twice!
4) Gary driving the car – or not. I just cringed when he asked to drive. Sam may have to steal it to drive it again.
5) Nice bit with Gary knowing all about Isaiah and Maggie, given his interest in withcraft.
6) I liked that musical beat with Dean after Gary torches the bones and we cut to commercial.
7) I liked the plot twist when it turns out that Gary isn’t just joyriding, but that the bodyswap is part of a larger, arc-related plan. There are serious logic problems with this plot twist, but at least the idea was a good one. It may also lead nicely into demons having their own equivalent of the angels’ Jesus freak network.
8) “Uh, it’s adi nos.” Heh. I’d be happy to see Gary come back again, he's an interesting character. In some ways he's like a darker, younger version of Andy.
The Bad
1) Katie’s family has apparently lived in this town for a long time, and yet there were no rumors about this house, and about the ghost before they bought it?
2) So a fast food worker is going to comment about a salad purchase? Why would he care? Plus, a guy with a gluten allergy is going to be judgmental?
3) Why would Dean ask Sam if he “had ever” wanted a wife and kids? Wasn’t that obvious from Sam’s whole Stanford phase? Just rewrite that line to ask him if he still wants it – that would be more to the point.
4) Given the way he was staring at Sam, Gary would seem to have come up with the idea of bodyswapping with Sam on the spot. Certainly it would have otherwise been quite a clunky way of assassinating Dean. So he arranges all that in one afternoon? After all, he couldn’t have known how long Dean and Sam would be around.
5) Gary’s quite the shot – or maybe it was Trevor -- since that dart in Sam’s neck could just as easily have gone in his eye.
6) That must be a REALLY small town. Gary’s been gone, what, a few hours, and he’s 17. The police don’t bother tracking down missing persons in that time frame and it’s not like Sam admitted to being Gary. I do get why the name didn’t put him off though, since he might have assumed Dean used an alias to look for him.
7) What did Sam find in his pocket when the police officer picked him up?
8) How is it that all these motels where Dean and Sam stay have late night maid service? Since when? I mean, I get that Gary made that up so as to get Dean moved out of the motel before Sam returned to it, but Dean shouldn’t have bought that.
9) How would Gary have known their glove compartment was full of cell phones? And I have to wonder if they went back to get the cell phones later because presumably they lost John’s cell as well. (I don’t know how Dean managed not to realize his was gone all that time)
10) Even though it’s morning before Sam tries to call Dean at the motel, I’m hand waving that because due to his unconsciousness and time wandering, Gary would have already gotten Dean out of the motel by the time Sam got to Gary’s house anyway.
11) So, a fanboy is automatically a virgin? I’d have thought that if nothing else the con episode would have disabused Sam of that notion. Also, only frustrated guys use porn? Guess that says more about Sam than Gary.
12) Uh, Sam grabs food off of a stranger’s plate? Yes, she’s Gary’s mom but she’s a stranger to Sam so that seems like really unlikely behavior for him. This is an awkward way to introduce the gluten issue, which seems like an unnecessary plot point anyway.
13) Sam’s trying to figure out who Gary is and it’s the day planner he tosses?
14) Yet another episode where apparently salting the bones is no longer important.
15) Why is Sam never doing the grave digging?
16) Dean doesn’t think it’s odd that Sam would be drunk off of one beer and one shot?
17) Why would Gary, who has a gluten allergy, think that Dean’s cholesterol killer was such a big deal? Chances are his diet is pretty protein heavy. Yeah, I know he comments on the bread but you’d think he’d have ordered something breaded with a side of pasta and lots of pie. And for that matter he should be commenting on the beer since he couldn't have drunk that even if he were legal.
18) Also, since Sam and Dean both drink, isn’t the reason they don’t drink together because someone has to drive? And why wouldn’t they otherwise? We've seen them share beers before.
19) Since a few lines later Nora makes it obvious that they have been on the lookout for Sam and Dean, and that she knows Gary bodyswapped with Sam as part of a plan to kill Dean, why does Trevor sound like he’s shocked that Sam is in Gary’s body?
20) Since Lucifer didn’t seem particularly interested in taking Dean out, why are the demons bothering to put a bounty on his head?
21) Since Sam and Dean have always mysteriously managed to escape from rope bonds, why is Sam having such a hard time with it as Gary?
22) Funny how the male witches on the show have so far gotten a pass on the death ending. Gary even “gets the girl.” Go him, huh?
The Unfathomable
1) Ok, so…Dean was crushing on their babysitter and Sam kept trying to tell her what his father did for a living (let’s leave out the plot bit pulled from the comics which had John leaving his kids with hotel maids and desk clerks across the country). They say John left them with her repeatedly. There are a few problems with this, namely that:
(A) Massachusetts is not really at the crossroads to anything, and from what Donna said she is still living in the same town, so why was John in the area so often?
(B) Sam didn’t learn about what his father did for sure until he was 9, and what happened to the whole family rule about not discussing it?
(C) The last time she saw them Sam would have been, what, 11? That would make Dean 15. Why were they staying with her at all? It’s not like John hadn’t been leaving them on their own since Dean was 8, and according to Donna the longest John was gone was two weeks, which was clearly unusual.
2) So Gary was just going to wait until Sam and Dean strolled into his town in order to kill Dean? Wow, coincidence that.
3) Sam didn’t notice his height difference or see himself in the mirror or window, or notice his hands or feet or anything else before he got to the house?
4) JP must have loved shooting this episode with all those night scenes where he is literally dripping wet. That scene at the end where he talks to Gary while Dean and Nora stand in the background and the rain whips into his face was absurd. They couldn’t have shot that in the car with Sam, Dean and Gary? Why would they have been taking Nora to Gary’s house instead of her own anyway?
As I discussed last week this episode was another case of the identity play going on this season. Looks like next week is going to continue that theme.