rusty_halo | Meta: Supernatural 1×21-1×22

1x21: Salvation

The use of "Carry On My Wayward Son" is so perfect. I don't even like the song, but it, here, and especially its use every season for the finale, it's just like it hits my emotions in exactly the right place. I ♥ these boys so much.

I love this show on a lot of stylistic levels, one of which is the way it uses Western themes and imagery. The boys are often the lone strangers traveling through the desert, riding in to clean up the small town. I love the way the aesthetic is updated, the Impala instead of a horse, the classic rock, like this is the modern myth of the West. I'm sure there are many essays about this; academics do love to talk about Westerns.

Meg finally reveals herself as a black-eyed demon. Remember when a common garden demon was like a big scary thing? It's kinda like the ubervamp on BtVS--we're going to have a whole episode devoted to killing one, but soon they'll be dropping like flies.

Sam: So, Mom's death, Jessica, it's all because of me?

Dean: We don't know that, Sam.

Sam: Oh really, 'cause I'd say we're pretty damn sure, Dean.

Dean: For the last time, what happened to them is not your fault.

Sam: Yeah, you're right, it's not my fault, but it's my problem.

Dean: No, it's not your problem, it's our problem.

This is like the most driven-by-love fight ever--Dean just wants to protect Sam, wants Sam not to blame himself, wants Sam to know that his family shares the burden. Once again, I wish that Dean had grown up with someone to tell him not to blame himself, the way that he tells Sam.

Jensen Ackles plays the family stuff so well--Dean is always looking at John. He hero-worships his father, looks to him for instruction and guidance, wants his father to be all powerful, takes reassurance from following his father's orders and not having to be in charge. But I think it's dangerous the same way Dean's inability to let go of Sam is dangerous--Dean doesn't want to grow up and lose the stability of their family. He's too traumatized from already losing his mom that he just can't let go, even when it's clearly time to grow up.

And Dean stands up to John again! John starts lecturing the boys about not telling him about Sam's visions, and Dean responds by pointing out that John effectively abandoned them and was unreachable when they needed him. John concedes, but by criticizing this "new tone of yours," confirms that Dean standing up to him is a new thing. This show really is fantastic at character development--they've been laying the seeds for this all year.

This exchange says so much about the brothers and how they view themselves in relation to their family:

Sam: I wonder how Dad's doing.

Dean: I'd feel a lot better if we were there backing him up.

Sam: I'd feel a lot better if he were here backing us up.

Dean always sees himself as not doing enough, while Sam sees John as not doing enough.

Before they face the YED, Sam tries to have an emo moment where he thanks Dean for always being there for him, "just in case." Dean, however, is not having it, which is very Dean--he puts so much effort into repressing, not letting himself think about the things that scare him.

Sam wants to run into the burning house to get the YED, even though it means his own death. Yeesh, Sam and revenge, wow. Dean stops him--Dean cares more about Sam than about vengeance. "If hunting this demon means that you get yourself killed, then I hope we never find it." Fantastic foreshadowing for the finale.

Dean: Sam, look, the three of us, that's all we have. That's all I have. Sometimes I feel like I'm barely holding it together, man, and without you and Dad...

Jensen Ackles can do these big teary-eyed closeups like no one else.

And, again, oh Dean. It's like, on one hand, his love and loyalty to his family is so admirable, but on the other hand, it's so desperate and needy--his family is something he clings to because he's so broken and empty inside. He's never developed the ability to take care of himself, to pursue his own needs and dreams.

Bechdel test: The mom shouts to her baby daughter? Er, yeah, no.

1x22: Devil's Trap

The last five minutes of this are what hooked me on the show, so I love it like burning, even though the beginning has some of the earliest scary-in-a-bad-way Dean scenes.

Sam wants to stay and fight the YED; Dean insists that everything stop until they find their father. He can't even allow himself to think that John might already be dead. Dean and denial, man.

It's Bobby! Bobby, don't give Dean whiskey! Is this the first of the many, many times we see Dean drinking hard liquor in stressful situations?

I forgot that Bobby and John had been fighting. John "just has that effect on people," eh? I like seeing Dean slowly come to realize that John is fallible.

Bobby's dog's name is Rumsfeld? Eww.

The exorcism scene is very disturbing. Dean's glad that there's a girl inside Meg, because maybe she'll be able to provide info about their father's location, even though this means that, um, an innocent girl has been suffering for months and is about to die? And Dean's rage at Meg, his vow to march into hell and kill every last demon, it's palpable and terrifying. I get it--he's terrified that his father really is dead--but it's scary to see him so irrational and hateful. He takes such pleasure in Meg's pain and he so violently refuses to believe John's death that even Sam is disturbed enough to stop the exorcism for a moment. It's been an established character trait since 1x02 that violence makes Dean's unhappiness "bearable," that when Dean is really hurting he takes it out by hurting others--here we see one of the worst manifestations of this trait in his sadistic treatment of Meg.

Their argument about whether to finish the exorcism and free/kill the girl inside is interesting. I think a big part of why Dean wants to finish it is selfish--he wants the demon to suffer and he wants information from the girl if possible--but he's also right that the most humane thing would be to free the girl's soul from being trapped inside a broken body with a demon.

So, the girl dies, and in her dying moments the boys grill her for information about where their father is (Dean) and where the YED is (Sam). I get why, but man, their obsessions are out of control. That poor girl--I wish they'd comforted her and let her speak last words related to, y'know, herself and her own life and her own last wishes. :(

They argue about whether to bring the Colt when they rescue their father:

Sam: Dean, you know how pissed Dad would be if we used all the bullets? He wouldn't want us to bring the gun.

Dean: I don't care, Sam. I don't care what Dad wants, okay? And since when do you care what Dad wants?

Sam: We want to kill this demon.

This is a fantastic reversal of the boys' usual positions. Suddenly its Sam and John against Dean, with Dean as the outsider. There's a quote from a later season that I wanted to keep in mind, that Sam is more like John than Dean will ever be, and you definitely see it here. Sam and John are both driven by vengeance in a way that Dean isn't--Dean doesn't care about vengeance if it means losing his family. That's the core of this episode: John and Sam argue for vengeance first, Dean argues for famliy first, and Sam switches positions because ~HE LOVES DEAN SO MUCH~.

Dean calls Sam and John selfish for being willing to sacrifice themselves to get their revenge, because Dean will be left behind to bury them. You could easily reverse this, though, and say that Dean's being selfish, trying to prevent them from achieving the thing they want most because he's so afraid of being alone. I understand both positions and sympathize with them--based on the loss that John and Sam experienced, they're totally justified in being willing to sacrifice themselves to get revenge for Mary and Jess. But again, it's my heart that aches for Dean, because he loves and needs his family so much, and they don't love him back enough to put his need for them over their own need for revenge. You can see where Dean's insecurity comes from--he's right to be afraid that they don't love/need him as much as he loves/needs them. (It's only in the ends of 1x22 and 2x01 that Sam and John do finally put their love of Dean above their desires for revenge.)

Dean using the Colt to save Sam is so fucking awesome. Of course he wouldn't leave the Colt in the car; of course he'd be willing to "waste" a bullet to save his little brother. ♥♥♥ Dean.

Dean: Hey, Sam, you know that guy I shot? There was a person in there.

Sam: You didn't have a choice, Dean.

Dean: Yeah, I know; that's not what bothers me.

Sam: Then what does?

Dean: Killing that guy, killing Meg? I didn't hesitate; I didn't even flinch. For you or Dad, the things I'm willing to do or kill, it's just, uh, it scares me sometimes.

I just have to note how fantastically acted this is, how much silence they let linger between the lines, the way Dean speaks slowly but rushes over "it scares me sometimes" because it's so difficult, so not-Dean, to admit to being afraid.

I also love that they call out how scary Dean's behavior has been, and I love that Dean himself is disturbed by it.

And then John tells Dean not to worry, and gives the most loving, supportive speech, gives him the approval that Dean's been waiting his entire life to hear. And that's how Dean knows it's not really his father. *SOBS*

Sam, forced to choose between his father and Dean, chooses Dean twice in this sequence. He believes Dean that John is possessed, and he refuses to kill John when he has the chance. Okay, I'm usually harsh on Sam, but here I will say ♥♥♥ Sam too. And, of course Sam would believe Dean--Dean is the one who raised him while their father was off killing things, and Dean is the one who gave him support and approval while John treated him like a marine-in-training.

Sam choosing not to kill John when the YED has him is even more impressive, because all season Sam has argued that revenge is worth any cost, while Dean argued that it's not worth losing a member of their family. But when it comes down to it, Sam chooses their family too, even after bonding with John over their shared desire for vengeance. And I am not sure how much of it is down to Sam not wanting to kill his father versus how much is Sam knowing how much Dean needs their father and Sam not wanting to let Dean down.

Also, I have to say, in the competition of parents who put way too much responsibility on their children, John Winchester wins. I know why he asks, I know how much his desire for revenge has shaped his life, but what an absolutely horrible thing, to ask a child to kill his own father. This is the mentality that fucked these kids up good.

The demon pointing out that Sam was going to ask Jess to marry him rubs it in to Sam how much he's lost, hurts Dean because Dean can't stand to see Sam hurt, and hits right at Dean's abandonment issues.

Dean intentionally draws the demon's attention to him because he doesn't want it hurting Sam. This is pretty much the essence of Dean, the combination of big-brother protective love and self-destructive martyr complex. It just occured to me the extent to which I go for self-sacrificing characters. I find the martyr thing terribly creepy when done for a cause, but it is absolute CRACK when a character sacrifices himself for someone he loves, especially if it's someone he loves in a non-romantic way. Think Francis Crawford of Lymond (for Christian) or Spike (for Dawn) or Brian Kinney (for Michael). I won't go for just a martyr complex in isolation, but combine it with other archetypal traits I adore and I'll be totally sold.

The YED sure knows exactly which button to push to hurt Dean:

You fight and you fight for this family but the truth is, they don't need you, not like you need them. Sam, he's clearly John's favorite. Even when they fight, it's more concern than he's ever shown you.

And then the demon in his father's body starts torturing him and uh... yeah, Jensen Ackles wins at playing pain, and I'm a little disturbed that this is the scene that got me to start watching the show. And then, the way Dean collapses when Sam shoots John, and Sam runs over to him, terrified, and Dean's obviously seriously hurt, but all he can think is to worry whether their dad is okay. ♥♥♥ Dean, times a million.

John, finally, wins some points for overcoming the demon long enough to not kill Dean. He really does love his children; it's sad how much his damage prevented him from being what they needed in a father.

(Remember that scene at the end of Return of the Jedi when the Emperor is torturing Luke and Luke cries out for his father to help him and that's what finally inspires Vader/Anakin to redeem himself, overcome the Emperor's hold on him, and save his son? 'Cause that's like, one of my favorite moments ever, one of those primal archetypal film moments that changed me when I first saw it at age eight. No wonder this scene grabbed me and didn't let go.)

And then John begs Sam to shoot him, and on a meta level it makes sense that they had to take Dean out of play physically, because he'd stop Sam, he'd wrestle the gun away. Here he can't get between them, can only plead from the sidelines that the two vengeance-obsessed members of the family don't destroy the family to get their revenge. And, like I said, ♥♥♥ Sam, for choosing family over vengeance, and Dean over John.

Bechdel test: No, and the stuff with Meg makes me very uncomfortable. Yes, she's a demon and in the text she deserves it, but there's such a huge problem of violence against women in the real world that we really don't need television shows to come up with excuses to portray three big strong men tying up and torturing a woman. Dean calling Meg "bitch" is just icing on the misogyny cake.

Next: Overall thoughts on season one

Originally published at rusty-halo.com. You can comment here or there.