SPN 5.13 - Lots of messes
From a horror standpoint, this episode was quite a success. I can say with authority that it will put you off your dinner. I think that JA spent the entire episode feeling a fine case of schadenfreude. It was an interesting choice to have Famine's appearance come as part of a Valentine's Day episode (certainly a holiday I never expected to see represented on this show). Unlike Thanksgiving it's not necessarily considered a time of eating (although there are certainly lots of chocolate sold and dinner reservations made). But I liked the way they took the dark side of the holiday, the feeling of lacking something, and extended that in all sorts of ways. For example, in the opening segment I thought Russell's comment about wanting to be together simply because he didn't want to be alone for once was a pretty self-centered and unromantic statement. However, it fit the writers' intention pretty well in sketching out where they were going with the episode.
Unfortunately, I think the left turn with Cupid seemed like two episodes had been mashed together. I'm kind of surprised they didn't try to tie some sort of urban legend into this the way they worked in razor blades in candy for Halloween. However, Cupid, while a legend, doesn't really fit the bill. But there was definitely more confusion and horror in store as the episode went on.
What Worked
I think this episode returned SPN to its horror roots more effectively than we’ve seen in a while. As in Mystery Spot, it succeeds by subverting the optimistic and celebratory aspect of the original object. So lovers, instead of being something hopeful, are something doomed and appalling in their single-mindedness and self-absorption. In Alice and Russell’s case the “hunger” was obvious. In Janice and Jim’s case, the hunger seemed to be for connection and companionship, the flip side being obsession and self-destructiveness.
Although I would have found it interesting to see how people might shop themselves to death, the message about excessive consumption and its uselessness in delivering any real fulfillment was clearly spelled out. No question, it’s a lot easier to make eating and cooking horrifying compared to trying on over-expensive shoes, buying figurines through the Home Shopping Network, or mindlessly downloading iPhone apps. At least they gave excess a nod with Famine's fleet of SUVs.
Famine's actor did a bang-up job as the horseman, taking what was there and really giving it character. The whole idea of hunger and need being a deeply human characteristic expressed in myriad ways was a terrific take on the theme, and perhaps all the more horrifying because there’s no one who can’t relate to it. While I quite liked meret’s suggestion a while back that Famine be represented by a typically starved model, for the episode’s overall theme the writers’ choice probably worked better. This is because I think starved actresses are so common a lot of people wouldn’t even understand the reference, and also because I think too many people wouldn’t make the connection to the real hunger beneath that powers the starvation. Of course, a lot of people might also not understand why hunger was represented by a frail old man seeming on the point of death, but if you’re a certain age you’ll get it. Kudos also to the actor for not coming off like a Mr. Burns stereotype.
Speaking of good performances, just like Dean, I also liked Dr. Corman (named after Roger Corman, I wonder?). Both Edlund and the actor did well in giving him personality and a connection to the audience in a short time.
The episode also had some wonderful punchlines in it, though on the whole the humor felt uneven to me. But another plus was following up on the end of Song to show Team Free Will all working together as a team.
What Didn’t Work
One thing that disappointed me here is that Ben Edlund is usually the writer who turns out the best paced and most tightly written scripts. Like anyone, he’s not 100% on this, but the episode’s biggest problem is one I wouldn’t have expected from him. And that was the whole Cupid red herring.
Not that a red herring in itself is unusual. But this one smacked of a half-formed idea for an episode that had been abandoned along the way because there was nowhere to take it. And though Edlund is the most off-the-charts imaginative when it comes to wackiness (sometimes gross, as in the opening, sometimes hilarious as in everyone’s favorite depressed bear) either the writers found Cupid far more hilarious than I did, or there just wasn’t enough time to rework the episode so that it made better use of the side story.
For one thing, it’s rather convenient that Sam and Dean ended up inspecting the hearts of the dead lovers rather than, say, the hearts of the dead junkies. Second, how many people in the population are likely to be sporting these signs? Not everyone, according to Cupid, but surely quite a lot if we’ve got two in the same town in 24 hours. I mean, what about all the older couples who have been “meant to be” for 40+ years now? What’s happening to them?
Also, while I liked (and expected) Castiel’s sudden appearance, the cell phone bit wasn’t as funny this time. As a side note, I’m guessing that Castiel can instantly triangulate on Dean when he gets cell phone calls, because the location info would seem to be pretty meaningless in such a short time frame.
Castiel also failed to explain a lot – such as why would a Cupid “go rogue” by killing? And why would it initiate death in that manner? And what do the classes of angels mean? In short, by utilizing this half-baked Cupid idea, I feel the writers have just undermined a lot of their angel buildup for no particular payoff. What’s more they could have done some interesting character arc issues here (I mean, boy are the Winchesters disasters in the relationship department) as well as have Cupid be anything but a cute cherub. They’d already set up the premise of the dark side of romance in the opening sections. The restaurant and post-restaurant scene didn’t gel at all for me.
For one thing, why does Cupid have a body? There was no suggestion that he had just gone out and possessed someone, yet clearly he usually moves around without one. He’s said to be a lower order of angel so perhaps he doesn’t possess the same deadly effects as an unvesseled higher order angel but this didn’t seem to be thought through. After all, if he can just become corporeal and he’s not even all that powerful (witness the way Castiel can command him) then why do the so much more powerful angels require a human body instead of just creating one for communication purposes? They can apparently do so much to mess with flesh, blood and time, yet they can't cloak themselves without help?
The humor also seemed to consist of a drawn out joke that assumes a naked man is inherently funny. While I thought Dean’s line “Is this a fight, are we in a fight?” was great, it would have been a lot funnier if it were true. That could have been one of the best cinematic slapstick fights since Harmony and Xander went at it in S4 Buffy. While I also liked Sam’s impulse to dutiful comfort, and Dean’s pushing off of responsibility onto Castiel (“Give him hell, Cas,”) I actually liked that bit better as a character moment where we see Team Free Will working together for the first time as a trio. Mike was entertained by Sam though, quipping “He’s naked, he’s crying, and he’s potentially dangerous. I couldn’t be more uncomfortable.” So maybe this joke just plays differently for men.
On a different note is my disappointment with Dean’s storyline. Why does Dean not eat? It’s not like food hasn’t always been a big issue for him, and we’ve seen him chowing down pretty recently. Seeing Dean with a normal appetite in the restaurant would have seemed less staged than suggesting he’s not hungry at all. In fact, Edlund could have done something funny there with Castiel not ordering his own meal and yet doing the whole “dog-watching-its-owners-eat” thing or poaching food off of Sam and Dean’s plates. But instead we have to have it hammered in that Dean is “not himself” which began with Sam’s surprise that he wasn’t going out.
The harvesting souls idea is interesting but highly perturbing in terms of the larger verse canon. We know souls go to hell or to Reapers but since when do they get consumed? On the one hand, this certainly explains why an apocalypse is more terrifying than any natural catastrophe since people don’t just die they are wiped out in the most complete way possible. Or perhaps souls are simply caged, since Sam is able to retrieve and destroy the demons after Famine eats them. Of course, Sam's been able to destroy souls for a while, starting with Alistair. One wonders if Sam could also destroy human souls. Most significant to me though, is the clear possibility that Reapers don’t actually send souls anywhere but simply consume them, to become part of Reapers themselves.
Speaking of Reapers, why had one not come to collect the souls of the deceased in this city? Have Reapers stopped operating since AAH? Since when do ordinary demons have the abiliy to supersede them? I’ll grant that perhaps demons always had this ability when the soul was promised to them, and we know that Azazel was able to control Tessa. But this certainly starts to look as if demons are, as a whole, more powerful than Reapers and can interfere with natural laws at will.
When Dean says “This is taking too long” and enters the restaurant, Mike guessed that what Dean actually hungered for was to be a hero. This made such perfect sense that I thought it was a brilliant move by the writers… until it turned out that wasn’t what they were going for. I found this an incredibly missed opportunity on their part, because it would have made more sense and would have also laid a line for future episodes. Having Famine tell Dean how broken he is, isn’t exactly treading on new ground, and I’m getting kind of tired of hearing it.
What’s even worse though is Dean, as both Winchesters have for the umpteenth time this season, standing around and doing nothing in a crisis. Just as I was extremely irritated at Sam and Dean standing there when Dean walked up to Lucifer and shot him, and as so many people were when Dean took a whole day to suspect something was up with Sam, here we have him standing around with the knife in his hand doing nothing for an endless few minutes while Sam exorcises the demons and then kills Famine himself. As appalled as he seems to be with Sam’s power, you’d think he wouldn’t want to just watch as Sam does all the heavy lifting (which also, obviously, takes a toll on him).
“I’m a horseman, Sam. Your power doesn’t work on me.” Presumably then, the horsemen are not demons. They wouldn't seem to be angels either, though we don't know if Sam would have any effect on them or not. Perhaps Famine simply meant that he and the others were much more powerful than any demon (since Lilith was presumably among the strongest). Why then, would they be so dependent on the rings? And if all the horsemen have lost their power, does this then mean there is no apocalypse regardless of what happens with the vessels?
What Upsets the Entire Apple Cart
However, the most problematic blunder of the episode is the discussion with Cupid about “destiny.” In the immortal words of Inigo Montoya, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” Someone, I’ve forgotten who, wrote meta recently focusing on all the different angel perspectives on the issue of destiny. The essay pointed out quite well how few of them seemed to take the same perspective on it, even though all of them seemed to put faith in the concept. And in MBV we seem to see the direct opposite of the word in action. We have someone whose job it is to manipulate other people into carrying out actions to benefit a third party. The Cupid suggests that John and Mary were specifically disinterested in one another originally, until an angel tampered with their feelings. How, specifically, this gets done isn't clear, but given how easily Sam and Dean’s minds were manipulated in TL, making two people feel compulsive about one another wouldn’t seem to be out of the question. A lot of it is just chemicals to start with.
However, it suggests that “destiny” is interchangeable with the word “interference.” After all, Chuck’s visions too, supposed plotlines of the future, have been tampered with to suit someone’s purposes. If people’s attraction and choices are in fact the result of an instilled compulsion to do so, then people’s lives really aren’t their own in any real sense. When Castiel explains how Famine is magnifying people's hunger, there is a brief shot of Sam showing comprehension. He realizes why his need for demon blood has become so difficult to fight off. Eventually, he becomes as unable to resist it as Castiel or anyone else in the town. But can Sam thus be held responsible for this in any way? Given the gruesome way many of the people died, one can not imagine it being any kind of real choice for them, any more than it was for Isaac to drink drain cleaner in M7. This may be tragic and horrifying, but it undermines character development in a big way if all your characters can simply become puppets on strings – not just because you can make their limbs move the way you want (as angels and demons do when they possess bodies) but because you can make a person’s peculiar personal drives overwhelm them, thus wiping out any other aspects of their personalities.
The perfect example of this is Castiel’s line “The cherub made them crave love, and then Famine came and made them rabid for it.” So in both cases the people in question lost their agency to do what they otherwise might not have done had someone not manipulated them, or even in Famine’s case, controlled them.
Thus “free will” doesn’t exist when one is being controlled by outside forces. Instead what becomes exalted is force of will. So we see Alistair taunting Dean about John not breaking in hell. Whether true or not, the point is that John was supposedly expressing “free will” in expressing any at all given his torture in a place where it could never end. Given the argument being made in this episode, Dean really is at fault for not holding out forever – because if you're going to give in at all, why not do so sooner than later anyway? It's not like he could have expected rescue via angel.
I take a pretty negative philosophical view towards this perspective. Between this concept of "strength" over "choice" and the “genetic line” argument that the show has been developing, we are getting dangerously close to a highly reactionary view of humans as deserving what they get because they are sheep vulnerable to anyone’s control. Furthermore, anyone capable of resisting that control is genetically superior and thus heroic due to circumstance.
This idea gets emphasized when Dean asks Castiel when he became hungry. Castiel blames Jimmy – his weaker genetic component if you will. Presumably then, angels are powerful because they are genetically superior and cannot be controlled in the same way as human beings. Which rather turns the idea of “free will” around on its head, because then angels would seem to be the only beings actually free of anyone else’s control and thus able to exercise choice. If we discover that the “will” most people are following come from angels’ decisions about what their lives will be like, then "destiny" is just a hierarchical force from above that can, when it decides, wipe out the individuality of any weaker forces below. Even demons have been shown to affect humans, as we saw with the Seven Sins, though this seems to be a limited effect compared to being tied to another human being for life.
As Sam struggles at the bathroom mirror, Castiel utters a funny line that gets rather lost: “I’m an angel, I can stop any time I want.” This is patently untrue within the episode, but the question remains if it is true in the larger sense. Is an angel uncontrollable when in its natural form? Angels can be tortured by other angels but they can't, apparently, be made to do things. Even humans can summon a demon with the right tools or control a Reaper, so there's a sort of balance between what humans can do to demons and vice versa. But I’m not clear that angels can be dictated to against their will, which would certainly explain why they can control the universe.
Character Implications
There were quite a few of them here, though, as with the Destiny issue, I wonder if the writers were aware of what they were setting up. For example, with Castiel we discover that angels can read one another’s minds, or, at least, that more powerful angels can read the minds of less powerful ones. It’s appeared in the past that angels were doing so with humans, but this now seems confirmed and also sets up a huge problem in that none of Team Free Will are going to be able to keep their plans secret if their angel antagonists are determined to find them out.
Another issue is the rather appalling discovery that Jimmy is still in there. I really don’t understand how or why Castiel had to be reconstituted with Jimmy present since, as in my discussion last week about Anna, it seems clearly unnecessary. But it certainly puts an even uglier spin on previous events in the season, and makes me wonder what happens to Jimmy in the future when Castiel de-powers to the point that he’s essentially human.
Speaking of who is and isn't human, are any of Team Free Will fully human or angel any more? Famine tells Sam that he is special, he can eat all he wants with no ill effects. The only other “person” who is able to do this is Castiel, who confesses to having eaten hundreds of burgers by the time he starts consuming raw trays of meat. And then there’s Dean, who seems to carry no human desires of any kind any more. I have a lot of trouble with this because he’s definitely shown some of those desires earlier this season, but that's not the message being hammered in. So if Dean doesn't react like any other human, is he anymore? Famine is surprised Dean can even “walk in my presence.” Maybe there’s another reason for that than his supposed emptiness.
Sam suggests that what’s up with Dean is recent. Of course, recent could mean since Jo and Ellen died (as was suggested in Sam Interrupted) or it could mean since they returned from their time travel. Certainly Dean's dream in Song would suggest his appetites were perfectly intact however long ago that was. Unfortunately, SPN is often terrible at indicating how long it has been between episodes or how much time passes in each one. So that trip could have been a month ago, long enough for Sam to notice and confront him about it. That he does is a relief to me. Even if Dean isn’t connecting with anyone, it feels to me like a continuation of their exchange at the end of Song, and a return to Sam and Dean at least struggling with one another rather than the distant, unconnected presentation that has been going on for a good part of the season. Castiel challenges Dean too, emphasizing their connection as well.
As for Sam, he is still deeply ashamed of his weakness for demon blood. When he tells Dean he can’t go, he simply says “you know” to Dean, forcing him to say “demon blood” at which Sam looks away. At the end we see Sam going through withdrawal again. I'm really not clear why this should be the case, other than by drinking demon blood, Sam is also killing potentially living humans. Sam never seemed to be out of control in terms of his behavior while using demon blood. If anything, the scene in the diner makes this clear. Despite being hopped up and being almost as strong as before, he resists Famine's orders. He also presumably went along with Castiel and Dean to Bobby's to withdraw again. So if Sam is in control, why would his team not want him to be as strong as possible, especially as their strongest member, Castiel, keeps getting weaker all the time? Are they worried about Sam becoming less human through it? And if he were, would that make him less valuable to Lucifer?
Lastly, Mary and John both get a bit of a rewrite in this episode. Given “heaven”’s interference with them from very early on, John’s obsessive revenge and Mary’s decision to make the deal with Azazel say a lot less about their characters than they did at first. We already were left with this implication at the end of Song when it's suggested that Michael left Mary with certain instincts. This may be a good thing in terms of making the Winchester parents' behavior more tragic and sympathetic. But as with everyone else on the planet who has been manipulated in some way, this lack of agency makes all their actions mean less and not more.
Odds and Ends
1) Can’t say I much cared for the connection of a “nice” girl to "virgin". On the other hand, Janice’s matter-of-fact plugging of Brad as he unleashed the “whipped” line again (instead of just telling Brad to get a grip) was somewhat satisfying. 2) Thanks to the wardrobe department for putting Dean in a suit for several scenes where he didn’t even need to be in one. 3) Sam and Dean seem to be sharing the same laptop again. 4) “Unattached Drifter Christmas”, heh. 5) “Now prison, maybe.” HA! That was the most hilarious line of the episode to me. 6) So Sam can now smell demon blood? Although we heard a heartbeat, it didn’t sound like a possessed heartbeat was any different than a regular one. Rather, I’m guessing the sound was used for dramatic purposes to substitute for smell – although the way the close up on Sam outside the hospital finished at his ear makes it all a bit confusing. This could be a handy detection device, but I’m wondering if it was something that happened in only this episode because Sam’s need was heightened, or if he’s had this since 5.01? I’m trying to remember what other undercover demons they’ve run into since. 7) I think it’s so perfectly SPN that when Dean tells Sam the, I’m sure, often desired phrase “Be My Valentine,” it’s in the context of passing him a bloody heart in a morgue. And of course, given the episode title, it would have to be Dean spilling that line. 8) “I’d say that it was a very peculiar thing to do.” I LOL’ed at that one. Like the “prison” line, it was wonderfully understated. It also made me sad in retrospect to remember the swig of booze. 9) Speaking of poor Corman drinking himself to death, the time frame in this episode is rather confusing. As near as I can figure it, it takes place over three days. Sam might have been doing the opening interview in the morning, but then the shooting deaths took place at night, so their second visit to the morgue would have been during the next day. But then the restaurant scene is again at night, and then Sam is staking out the morgue the next day. The rest of the episode then takes place that night. 10) Unfortunately, Twinkie Guy didn’t seem to have any incisions in his abdomen which begs the question how Corman could have known what happened. 11) I’m assuming Sam was so clumsy in finishing off the demon in the alley because he was too busy fighting himself. 12) Given that they didn’t know what would happen, it would have made a lot more sense for one Winchester to open the briefcase while the other stood at a distance. 13) I liked the continuity we see here in Jimmy’s hunger getting expressed the same way it was in 4.20. 14) So Dean’s been carrying around War’s ring in his pocket all this time? Since we didn’t see them remove Famine’s, I’m still wondering if collecting the set will be important for the finale. 15) Dean’s idea of locking Sam down but good is to handcuff him to a sink pipe? Granted, he hasn’t much time or equipment to work with but even non-demon powered Sam looks like he could wrench a sink off its fittings these days. 16) I loved how when Castiel appeared in the Impala outside the clinic, the tell tale rustle of his wings was actually the crackling of the fast food bag. 17) Funny how Sam didn’t slice up his own hand with that glass shard when he attacks the demon. 18) “You sicced your dog on me, I just threw him a steak.” Ha! I wonder what came first, the line idea or the eating one. 19) I wonder if returning to the scene of the crime prompted Castiel to confess who let Sam out of the panic room the first time. 20) JA does despair and vulnerability like no one’s business.