Supernatural 5x16: a knee-jerk reaction

Danger! Danger! Spoilers Will Robinson!
Supernatural season five, episode sixteen spoilers are contained in the following post!

I loved it. All of it.

But pardon my Enochian, but what the fuck was that, Dean? Sam has pissed me off many times before, and that’s ok because he’s Sam. But Dean? Really? Really? Dean has never ever pissed me off, not once in the four or five years I’ve been following this show. He’s done some things, he’s made some decisions, he’s done things the opposite way round from what I would expect - yeah yeah yeah, that’s all fine. But this time? I cannot believe he has pissed me off so badly.

It wasn’t all the things he was doing during the episode. Everything was fine. He was doing all the things that he normally does and that’s what makes him Dean, and that makes everything okay. But right at the end of the very last moment, what did he do? That last act right at the end--

I cannot get over the last moments of that episode.

So he is pissed off with the universe at large, and now he’s managed to somehow spread this to Castiel as well - well boo-fuckin’-hoo. Right now the only person who gives a shit is Sam. I never saw that one coming. But I cannot believe Dean threw the amulet in the bin! He threw it in the bin! I’ll say it three times: he threw it in the bin! How dare he! How fucking dare he!

Castiel has just totally lost his belief in God being good and doing things good things, Sam has just been told that, ok he’s been absolved and forgiven for everything he’s done during his life - which, let’s face it, is a pretty fucking big deal, and in the middle we have Dean, who should be saying, ‘Ok, the only thing I have left is this amulet that Sam gave me…’ But no, he throws it in the bin!

So it’s basically over for Dean, is it? He tells Sam he doesn’t believe they’re in it together. The angel Joshua (who possibly was not an angel-angel, just the original Joshua, which would explain why he is the gardener and he’s not in a position of technical authority and possibly why God speaks to him. Because he’s the gardener. He’s the bartender. He can’t do anything, he can’t change anything - but you tell him your dirty secrets, you tell him everything that pisses you off. So yeah, Joshua knows the entire deal, from God’s perspective) tells Dean that God knows everything that’s been happening, but doesn’t really give a shit.

Even though God has forgiven Sam for everything - which as we’ve already discussed is a pretty fucking big deal, especially from Sam’s point of view - he has now swanned off to go in search of Elvis on a flat bread in Mexico. Which brings us to the touchy question of where exactly God is and will they ever bother showing him in the series.

Vegas money is on ‘no’. Unless he turns up right at the end - but perhaps only because Dean finds him and tears him a cosmic-sized new one for being such a selfish arsehole.

I think I’m more raging about Dean throwing away the amulet that Sam gave him, than I am at ‘God’ or any other character in the series. I was so so so happy to see Doctor BadAss again and to find out that he’s still doing the same things. It was so nice to see Pamela and find out that she is at peace and everything is ok with her (and on a side note, no Ellen or Jo? Ok, maybe they’re noobs in Heaven and don’t realise they can meet others. No John or Mary? Hmm…) But even that showed that it doesn’t matter what happens and what peace you get and how good everything is, Dean will never really accept anything as a good thing any more. Everything good is really the bad, and filthy, and horrible - just maladjusted, just a little bit off to him. There is never going to be any peace for him, and there is never going to be any way that he will accept a good, easy life is actually just a good, easy life.

You see what angels have done to him? Once upon a time in season three, he was dreaming of Lisa and a picnic in the park and picking Ben up from baseball. Nowadays, the only things he dreams about are strippers. Why? Because they’re shallow, because they’re meaningless, because once you pay them and leave you never have to think about them again. They distract, they entertain, but they are entirely disposable.

So poor Dean can’t die, he can’t live like this, and there is no God even though possibly he was hoping there was, just so somebody could step in the last moment and actually prove there was a point to having faith in something. He’s totally fucked from every direction and the one person he should be relying on is Sam. But he won’t do it, not again. And whose fault is that?

It’s about time Dean unbent. It’s about time Dean realised that Sam is all he’s got left and he should stop pissing and moaning about how Sam has let him down in the past, and just let him help. Use all those bad bits of Sam that you don’t like Dean, put them to good use. I’m not saying make him drink demon blood and go around killing people. But it’s getting to the point where Dean really does not give a toss any more and he will say ‘yes’ to Michael just in the hope that he gets obliterated in the course. Sam needs to step in. A Winchester right-hook driven bit of shakabuku needs to wake Dean up to his one true last hope: Sam ‘Obi-Wan’ Winchester.

It going to be really interesting to see what Sam thinks of this. After all, he always had faith that there is a God and he always wanted to be right about that, that there is a being looking out for people. He’s never challenged Dean’s bitching about the lack of or disappointment in God, but now he’s been forgiven by the Man Upstairs for everything he’s ever done wrong - maybe now it’s Sam’s turn to get his second wind and use that belief. And I really really hope that Sam has the wherewithal, if he has any hope of patching it back up with his brother at all, to reach into that goddamned bin and pick out the amulet, saving it for the third time.

Castiel said the amulet was worthless. Dean should have said ‘no, it’s not’. He should have kept it - maybe not wear it, but he should have kept it. It’s not just the amulet he’s thrown away, it’s history, it’s his life, it’s the only possession that’s really his. And it’s Sam.

I am absolutely fucking raging.

On the other hand, I cannot believe I’m getting so worked up about a TV show. I need a life. And as it’s only one thirty in the afternoon on Easter Friday, that drink I really really need will have to wait about four hours.

I still can’t believe it. That episode was a rollercoaster. We haven’t had such an absolute stoater of an episode since probably ‘Lazarus Rising’, or ‘Sympathy for the Devil’. The writers really have raised the bar so many times, but they’ve outdone themselves with this one. All the cheap parlour tricks aside, like using dead characters, bringing back fan favourites, and then twisting things into horrible horrible deep dark corners that they probably did not want to see? They all worked. There were token moments of season three writing, but that’s called continuity, baby.

Plus the fact - if Dean had kept the amulet, the next time he sits in a diner next to Bruce Campbell it would have started burning brightly - and we’d know Bruce Campbell really is God, after all.

Right. I think that’s all out of my system now. I don’t know what I’m going to do with the rest of my afternoon now but I’m so pissed off with that episode - or more accurately, Dean - but I’m sure I’ll think of something. Something that involves loud music being channelled directly into my brain so I don’t have to think of anything for the rest of the afternoon.

That’s it. Go and do something less boring instead, people.

Nobody is getting peach and lube today. Soopytwist.

Tags:
Supernatural ~ The mighty BC