Oh, do we have good things in store for you this week!
Monday -- Tanya's post is called "In Defense of Bela." Hmm, I bet our readers have interesting comments on this one.
Wednesday -- Natalie does a four-season comparison as we get closer to the end of the fourth season.
Friday -- Trish recaps and shares her thoughts on this week's episode, "The Rapture."
SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS!!!!!
Wellll, just GREAT. Tonight’s the night to do the recap and my TIVO decided the first 6 minutes weren’t IMPORTANT!!!! Actually, I think it’s the network. 6 minuters of recorded static. Still, GRRRR. Anyway, I came in when Dean pulled a gun on the kid, John’s son, under the table.
Wow, Dean is defensive. Poor Dean. What a shock to hear that John took such interest in this kid, that he taught him to drive the Impala, that he took him to a baseball game. The kid (still don’t know his name) got the normal life Sam and Dean never did.
And now Sam and Dean have to help him find his mom.
What terribly Photoshopped pictures! It looks like John still had a relationship with this boy’s mother. Is that why the kid called John for help? How much younger is this boy than our boys? If John passed through the town in 1990, he’s about 9 years younger than Sam. So John didn’t learn about him until Sam was in college. (I’m thinking about Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s own secret baby, too.)
ALWAYS with the scissors, Dean! But Sam would have never fit in that vent. (According to my brother, all that crawling around would be impossible.) And ew!!! All that blood and bits. Is this a shapeshifter?
Now it’s time to take the kid’s innocence. Sam insists the kid needs to know. He’s a bit trusting, though, taking it all in, accepting. This should have been a clue to me. Hey, there’s the journal. Haven’t seen that in awhile.
Ah, Adam. That’s his name. I should have remembered from the previews. And he’s pre-med, smart like Sam.
Sam needs to trim those 70s sideburns, do ya think? And stop pointing the gun at Adam when he should be teaching gun safety?
Dean’s touring the mausoleum, but I don’t think I know why. Is this a new body snatching or is he looking into John’s old case? Blast you, local CW! Love the mortician’s line: “Have you thought about where you’d like to spend eternity?”
And Dean’s response: “All the damn time.”
I bet.
So, graverobbers took corpses and opened them up. YUM.
So Dean goes into a bar and gives off a law and order vibe. There’s a joke.
It seems Joe the bartender worked the missing body case back in the day, and assured the locals they’d taken care of the culprit. Hm. And now the body-snatching creature wants Adam? And Sam is willing to use Adam as bait. Remember when Sam didn’t want to use the kid as bait in “Something Wicked This Way Comes?”
Sam is way hot shooting a gun, and also smiling proudly. Looks like he enjoys being the big brother for a change, having someone looking up to him the way he looked up to Dean.
Wow, Sam is telling the kid to cut off his life from friends, just like Dean told him in Season One, the first shapeshifter episode. Dean calls him on being like Dad, but Sam understands John’s attitude, now. He thinks whatever’s coming may be after revenge, but other creatures are out there who will want revenge against John and whoever John loved. Adam is meat if he’s not trained. Dean declares it’s too late for him and Sam, but Adam still has a chance to be normal. The brothers each wonder if the other is jealous of Adam’s innocence.
Here goes Dean, crawling through another tunnel. It’s gotta be a shapeshifter. Oh, YUCK, Sloppy Joe. Classic Dean.
And now, poor Dean, trapped in a crypt. I’m feeling a little breathless here. And of course he has to check out the coffin, which contains a blonde woman.
Hey, Mama’s home, and has gotten into the house that Sam thought he’d secured. Sam tries to drag the kid away from what he’s sure is not human. The kid gets the gun from Sam and his expression changes from confusion to wicked glee when he tells Sam he knows she’s not human, and plows the butt of the gun into Sam’s face, just as Dean opens another coffin to reveal the dead and mutilated body of….Adam.
Whoa. I bow to Kripke. Did NOT see that coming. (And I know I said that in my last review, but DAMN.)
And now Dean is desperate to get to Sam, who was so trusting with this kid.
What are these creatures, and what are they going to do to Sam? Hey, at least he’s not pinned to the wall.
Ah, ghouls. That’s new and unexpected.
Okay, I’m a bit jealous of the mama biting on Sam’s ear.
So Sam and Dean didn’t get the ghouls because of the fresh kills. Ghouls are usually scavengers, and they take on the forms of the last thing they ate, as well as thoughts and memories. “We are what we eat,” Mama Ghoul says.
I’m GROSSING out, the way they’re tasting Sam. Apparently John killed their daddy, who never hurt anyone alive (just ate dead bodies) but why did they wait so long to get back at him? It took 20 years to figure out revenge?
OMG, Sam is bleeding out! And what scars he’s going to have….all kinds. Dean busts out of the crypt (that has a stained glass ceiling? But is underground?) Why didn’t Dean shoot the kid in the head as soon as he was done with Mama Ghoul? That’s unlike him. Maybe if he’d aimed, and hesitated because he’d be killing his brother’s likeness, but no. He doesn’t even look at Adam, instead going straight for Sam, only to be attacked from behind. Dean comes out on top, but did go a little overboard on the beating in the head of the Adam ghoul. Ick. Why don’t they put tourniquets on Sam?
So the boys stand once again at a funeral pyre. What does Dean mean about Adam going out like a hunter? Just because the kid was killed by a ghoul doesn’t mean anything, right? Dean points out that Sam is more like John than Dean will ever be. Sam takes that as a compliment (!!) and Dean tells him to take it however he wants it. I don’t think Dean meant it as such.
Trish is here with me, and we’re puzzling over the purpose of this episode. What was the point? How did it move the story forward? Just to redeem John’s decisions to make his sons into hunters so they could defend themselves?
The dh asked why we’re surprised John had only one son we don’t know about. But in “Home,” John still wore his wedding ring. Being involved with a man like that would be weird, right?
So what do you think? Was this an important episode? Did it teach us anything new? Is it one you’ll watch over and over?
As urban legends go, Bloody Mary has always been particularly scary to me, which is why episode five of Supernatural really freaked me out! I remember first hearing about Mary at a slumber party in sixth grade. My girlfriends dared each other to go into the dark bathroom and summon her. When it came my turn I flat out refused, persuading them to play Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board instead.
Strangely, although no one knows Bloody Mary’s true origins, this terrifying test of courage among teens has gone on for generations. The rules may vary, but it generally goes like this. Step into a darkened bathroom, heart hammering, hands trembling, light one candle, look into the mirror and say Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, while you turn yourself around and when you stop, and look back at your reflection, pray like crazy she’s not there to claw your eyes out.
(Sheesh, I have the heebies just writing this!)
Of course, there are variations to the incantation and the consequences. On SPN the victims’ eyes explode and bleed out. Others think Mary will drive you insane, appear behind you and claw your face or leap from the mirror and yank you in with her.
Why a mirror? Well, many believe mirrors are portals to the spirit world. In fact, some cultures will cover the mirrors in a home where someone has died so the soul can't get confused and become trapped in the looking glass. Makes you wonder what, er, make that who, is on the other side, doesn’t it?
Speaking of who…who’s Mary? There again the folklore is fickle. Some believe she’s a vengeful witch, others think she’s a terribly scarred woman who died in a car crash and a few call out “Hell Mary” to summon the devil himself. However, the majority seem to think she’s either Mary Worth, a child murderess, who can be summoned by saying, “I believe in Mary Worth,” or she’s actually Queen Mary I who had two “phantom” pregnancies and earned her nickname, Bloody Mary, by persecuting Protestants and can be called by taunting her with, “I have your children” or “I killed your baby.”
Whatever you believe, the question is, will you summon Mary? Or have you already?
As for me, in the interest of this article I thought long and hard about facing my fear. I even went into my dark bathroom, stared at myself in the mirror and whispered “Bloody Mary” once in my head. That’s as far as I got….
Q. Have you been a fan of Supernatural from the beginning? If not, how did you find the show and when?
A. I found the show about halfway through Season One when we were in London of all places. They were re-running the first episodes, three in a row, and we kept catching them. We looked the show up when we got back to the States and have watched it ever since.
Q. Dean Girl or Sammy Girl?
A. Dean girl. All the way.
Q. What have you thought of this season so far? What do you think of the introduction of angels to the storyline?
A. I think it's interesting. I had wondered where they were going to go after last season, and they've really opened up the world of the show even more. There's some nice dread with what they've hinted at for Dean and whether being on the Angels' side is going to be a positive thing for him. I love how they've switched up the brothers and the theology aspects as well throughout the series.
Q. What is your favorite episode(s)?
A. There are so many great ones, but one that sticks out is the one with mini-Dean. Season three - The Kids are Alright.
Q. What about the show makes you a fan?
A. The relationship between the brothers and the witty banter. Great writing and great chemistry.
Q. To you, what has been the scariest bad guy/urban legend the boys have encountered?
A. The Season One episodes were the most suspenseful, I think. Followed by Season Two. They have gone more to developing overriding arcs than the monster-of-the-week types. But even when they do monster-of-the-week eps now, they still don't do the same edge-of-your-seat, peeking-through-your-fingers, holy-crap-I-can't-watch suspense, I don't think. I remember the painting one making me peek through my fingers. The most powerful bad guy has probably been the trickster, but not the scariest. The guy who took parts to make himself immortal was pretty creepy. Wow, it's kind of hard to choose!
Thanks so much for being with us today, Anne. You'll have to let us know what you think of the remainder of the season and what you think Kripke and company have in store for Season Five.
For everyone else, has something Anne said ring particularly true for you? What do you think has been the creepiest urban legend or bad guy?
More fun on tap this week:
Monday -- Trish does a fan interview with author Anne Mallory. I'm pretty sure she's a Dean girl. Maybe we'll find out.
Wednesday -- Terri will take a closer look at the urban legend about Bloody Mary. Personally, this one creeps me out way more than lots of others.
Friday -- MJ walks us through this week's new episode, "Jump the Shark." And you know what's cool? I'll be at her house Thursday night to watch it with her. :)
This post contains mild spoilers of the level of short episode descriptions/titles, as well as wild speculation.
The countdown has begun. Starting next week, we have four episodes remaining. I can't believe we're this far along already, that the season is almost over. It feels like it just started.
I had a need to kind of coalesce the season, condense it into its essence. I intended to rewatch the whole season again before I wrote this, but of course it's not summer so I didn't have time. So instead of doing a one-line recap of each episode, I'll explore the season's main parts.
Dean
In many ways, this has been Dean's season. When the show was conceived, Sam was the focus, the hero, but immediately the brothers became intertwined and inseparable (in a metaphysical rather than physical sense). When a guy gets dragged from hell by an angel, though, he tends to become the center of attention.
Poor Dean has really struggled this year, and he still can't catch a break. Being selected by the angels seemed to indicate he was special, but Dean just felt like a tool for dicks...until he found out he was the first seal and therefore is destined to be the one to stop Lucifer from rising. Just a little pressure there.
In the meantime, he's struggled with finding out that his mother was not only a hunter, but the reason Sam got marked, she got killed, and they wound up on the path they did. Sam's marking has led to his use of this suspicious demon power. Dean still doesn't know the extent of Sam's secrets, and it's tearing him apart. If he can't save his brother, how can he save the world?
Sam
Sam may not have the heavy storyline this year, but it's not like it's light, either. With Dean gone, he turned to what he knew and what he had in order to keep hunting and to try to track and kill Lilith to punish her for taking his brother. He hasn't adjusted all that well to being in charge and then having that taken from him. He also sees himself as his brother's protector--maybe he truly believes Dean was damaged in hell and left something behind, but I think he's trying to justify his need to run things now, or at least to not be run by Dean, as well as trying to do for Dean what Dean has done for him for so long.
Certainly, once we got past all the hints of what he's chosen to do and found out what he was really doing (i.e., drinking demon blood to turbo-boost his demon-fed powers to better defeat his enemy), his storyline expanded.
The Angels
The whole angel thing delights me to no end, because it fits my own logic. If there is a God, he made humanity in his image, and we're inquisitive children. God also made angels, and angels are rebellious teenagers (ref. fall of Lucifer). So that makes God a parent, and any of us who have or are parents know that we're not infallible. So God's not infallible.
So why wouldn't angels make mistakes, too? They can crave something they can't have and make bad decisions and question themselves and their father. Faith doesn't have to be about God. In fact, it usually isn't, or if it is, God's mostly a filter. Faith and belief are about ourselves and each other, and in that context, the angels in Supernatural aren't that different from humans except for the PHENOMENAL COSMIC POWERS (but no iiiiitty bitty living space).
Essentially, the humans and the angels are fighting the same internal battles as well as the same external one, with often oppositional methods.
The Big Plan
Seasons 1 and 2 had the same Big Bad: the Yellow-Eyed Demon, later known to be Azazel. Season 3's Big Bad wasn't known for much of the (truncated) season, but when Lilith appeared, she was truly scary. So it's been interesting that she remains TBB in season 4 without showing up for 18 weeks. Of course, Alistair was a pretty good fill-in, if only for his effect on Dean.
It's still a bit fuzzy whether Azazel/YED and Lilith were after the same thing, if he worked for her, or if she just took over the plan once he was gone. Said plan is to break 66 of the 600 or so seals that exist to keep Lucifer imprisoned, which, once broken, will allow him to roam free and bring hell to earth.
The first seal was for a righteous man to spill blood in hell. Alistair explained that John was to be the righteous man, but he held strong. That's got to be devastating to Dean, but John had at least one thing, maybe two, that Dean didn't have. One is his sons. A father who would go to hell to save his son's life has a sphere of love that will give him strength. The other is experience and knowledge. I think he probably knew the scripture or lore that described the breaking of the first seal, and knew if he gave in, he was condemning his sons to the same fate he suffered. That's powerful motivation, even for 100 years.
The Future
We've got three parties that seem to know the future. The Prophet Chuck, who saw something really bad but is being prevented from telling Dean and Sam what it was. I'm latching on to the nuances in Chuck's writing of his visions. His interpretations of events aren't always what happens.
Zachariah, a powerful angel, seems to know what Chuck saw, so he has some prescience, too. How firm the future is, how unchangeable, is one of the big questions of the season, stemming from Dean's trip back to his parents' younger days. My interpretation of Zachariah's hold on Chuck is that it is fluid, and he believes the boys expectations will affect outcomes in a negative way, so he doesn't want them to expect what's coming.
And finally, high level demons like Lilith apparently can see or sense the future, too, because she claims to know she won't survive the war. Not news to Sam, who is of course bound and determined to take her out, even if he goes with her. But how much does she see? Can she only see what pertains to her? Again, fluidity seems to be a factor, because she offered to stop her quest, which would mean the war would cease and she wouldn't die, presumably.
NOW
Is it me, or is there an awful lot to happen and be answered in just four episodes? Next week we meet the third Winchester brother (and apparently never see him again, so that's why I think he's the "person close to the Winchesters" who is going to die). Then we learn about the man Castiel is possessing. Neither of those premises seems to lend itself too well to progressing the main storyarc, but then, I didn't think the meta episode would when I first heard about it, or the Prius-driving, latte-sipping Dean episode, either, and both did a great job of doing so.
The final two episodes are just starting to be talked about, and I haven't been seeking info. But they're called "When the Levee Breaks" and "Lucifer Rising," which inspires all kinds of fear. And questions:
1. Is Lucifer going to make it to earth?
2. If he does, will season 5 be about putting him back?
3. If he doesn't, what will happen in season 5? (Killer robots, supposedly.)
4. Are Sam and Dean going to take the final step that makes them mortal enemies?
5. If so, will season 5 be about them being apart?
6. If so, is Kripke insane, or just ensuring we'll hate the show by the end of season 5 so no one will try to tempt him to come back for a season 6?
Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your personal viewpoint, we'll know many of these answers in five short weeks.
~~~~~~~~~
Your turn. What details did I leave out that are particularly important? Where do you think we're going? Are you excited, sad, apprehensive, or all of the above? Sound off in the comments! First-time commenters especially encouraged!
It seems like any time I thumb through a magazine on a plane or at the grocery checkout, there are an abudance of quizzes designed to give you "insight" about yourself. So, in that vein, I thought it was high time for a Supernatural quiz. All right, maybe your current job is teacher/journalist/lawyer/stay at home mommy, but hey, lots of people are seeking alternate employment these days--in case you ever decide to add "Demon Hunter" to your resume, wouldn't it be nice to know ahead of time what your hunting style is?
Unless you happen to live right on top of a Hellmouth and can do all your exorcising/slaying/etc. in one convenient location (see: property listings, Sunnydale), the Hunting lifestyle often requires a lot of travel. Which of the following most closely resembles your road-trip philopsophy?
A) I can handle the crappy hotels and diners as long as there's a stable Internet connection--which reminds me, don't touch my laptop.
B) Driver picks the music, shot-gun shuts his cakehole.
C) You do what you gotta do. Even if you can't get on the road because you're, I don't know, in prison, you can still send people out on murderous errands for you. Being behind bars is no excuse for slacking! Get out there and kill!
D) Great, I love to see new places! Just don't tell my mom I'm here.
Obviously, the very root of Hunting is to, you know, hunt. Before you apply for this job, take a long hard look at how you feel about nonhumans and possibly having to kill them. Which of these best describes your philosophy?
A) I'm often conflicted--and often have sex with nonhumans.
B) I'm often conflicted. Especially since my brother may be nonhuman.
C) I say, as long as your knife's freshly sharpened, sticking someone with it is perfectly humane.
D) My biggest conflict isn't an ethical choice, it's why so many fans seem to loathe and despise me. What the hell did I do to you?
