caffienekitty: (Squee Dean)
caffienekitty ([personal profile] caffienekitty) wrote2010-09-26 12:53 am

Reaction: Supernatural 6.01

Been so long since I did one of these, I forgot the format. Picspam is unfortunately not logo-free for this ep due to technical difficulties beyond my control. Sorry to disappoint.

Contains profanity, pondering, and positivity. If any of these bother you as a reaction to this episode, this is not the reaction post for you.


Spoiler Summary

Almost nothing for Episode 1. Seriously, an entire summer hiatus and nearly nothing for the premiere.

The only thing I have wasn't even a spoiler, just an inference. I got an... odd... reaction when I used my Fred!YED 'Howdy' icon, which makes me think... YED's back??? Must be a hallucination of some kind. Maybe. Especially if it's Fred!YED, because the janitor is dead, and the Colt took out YED. But still, even as a hallucination, that'd be awesome. OMG FRED!YED. \o/


Onward.

Picspam Reaction, with speculation and randomness for Supernatural 6.01 - Exile on Main Street

...hmm. Intriguing. *ponders*



-One year has passed. Duly noted.

-[Hm. The coloring on the 'Now' is a bit 'djinn-magic-fingers' colored...]
Photo 1


-No musical montage??? *pouts* Ahh. There's music. "Beautiful Loser?" Hm.

-Life then and now montage is kind of cool and also unutterably sad.

-Ha! Dean has a truck. [And a lunch box. OMG Bwah. And a new coat. Awwwww.]
Photo 2


-Construction. Unexpected. Maybe auto repair was too painful or something. Also BWAH! at Dean using assorted tools for their designed purposes instead of splitching vampires and whatnot.
Photo 3


-Barbecues. Yep. As always, regardless of the situation, Dean adapts. *nods*
Photo 4


-Aw, Ben and Dean at the truck. ...Hey. Dean's t-shirt has a logo. Dean's t-shirts never have a logo. OH MY GOD, THE WARDROBE'S BEEN REPLACED!!! Of course it has. O.O I... all the plaid... Aw. *raises a toast* [*waves at the Impala under the car cover in the background*]
Photo 5


-And of course, the gun and holy water is never too far away. Because while Dean adapts, he doesn't change when it comes to protecting family, even if the family is new.
Photo 6


-Interesting title card. Shattering glass, reversed text through the glass... [And everything's a bit that shade of blue...] hm. That has some fascinating implications.
Photo 7


-Title: "Exile on Main St." Oh, wait, I had seen that somewhere, but I'd forgotten it. [Yay, beer continuity! *waves at 'El Sol' beer sign* Whiiiich was the beer that had an ad that Dean got his djinn!world wife from... I'm reading too much into this aren't I? Yeah. Maybe.]
Photo 8

-Credits! Hi Jim Beaver! Hi... wait, what? Mitch Pileggi?? Grandpa's back?? So, time travel or hallucination, okay... *waves hi at Fred's credit and nods* Yep.

-"Crap jobs that nobody else wanted. (...) Pest control." Hee! Very true. Aw Dean. Your buddy here is pinging my 'secretly evil' buttons, but it's good to find ways to share. *pats*

-Hey, that waitress looked like Sarah from Provenance, kind of. [Naw. I was fooled by the very white teeth and the eyebrows. So much so that I didn't notice the FREAKING DJINN TATTOO! Shoulder. See it? So. She gave Dean the poison in the beer. Or more likely when she did that little lingering arm grope. Okay, that answers one question I wasn't too worried about. Show is getting sneakier.]
Photo 9

Photo 10


-"Unavailable." Awwwww. *smishes Dean*

-[I believe that odd pyramid-of-balls streetlight indicates that this was filmed in Gastown in the Lower Mainland, but I could be wrong.]
Photo 11


-Written by Sera Gamble, no surprise. Directed by Phil Sgriccia, also no surprise.

-Poster: DJ Sam. Is that what he's been doing? Got out of Lucifer's Cage and started scratching vinyl at night clubs? [Actually, Lucifer's Cage would be a heck of a name for a night club.]
Photo 12


-Screams and running around in the dark, and claw marks in the wall and blood... and then he actually talks to the cops like a regular person might. Wild. Oh wait. "Been a cop for a long time." Ha. He's lying to them. You never get out of the family business. *glee*

-[Devil's trap under the rug. I cannot believe I missed seeing the Devil's trap under the rug. Yeah, you never get out of the family business.]
Photo 13


-Following the trail again. It's a dream, right? That laundry's a little too cinematic...
Photo 14


-HA! IT'S EVEN THE SAME DOG ACTOR FROM YELLOW FEVER! Minus the bow! Isn't it? XD *lols forever* Dean's got serious Yorkie issues. Even the dog he mentions way back in "Devil's Trap" to the fire department, wasn't that a Yorkie too?
Photo 15


-"Possums kill." *snerk*
Photo 16


-Sulfur! Which, thanks to my office's Queen of TMI, I recently learned is good for curing gout. What implications that may have for the nature of demons, I have no idea.
Photo 17


-EEEE!! CAR! CAR! HI CAR! HI! *WAVES LIKE AN IDIOT* [doesn't screencap worth beans]

-"Just gettin' a hammer!" *snort* suuuuuure. Nice cover.
Photo 18


-Lisa is very understanding. Like Batman's butler level of understanding, almost. Rather awesome.

-Jacket! Journal! Aww! Don't worry, I'm sure you'll be out of storage soon.
Photo 19

Photo 20


-Heh, flickering bulb. Would a compact fluorescent be effected the same way by a demonic presence? They don't have a filament after all. *ponders*

-Balls that bounce when there is no apparent source of them moving are creepy. See also "The Changeling"

-Aaaaand is it? Is it?? Yep! HI FRED!YED! \o/ 'Hiya'? Not 'Howdy'? Now I really know you're a hallucination.
Photo 21


-"Look what the Apocalypse shook loose"? Hunh. What does Dean's subconscious think the Colt does when it shoots things that aren't Lucifer?

-Hey! The audio feed edited out a word there! Must attempt to lipread later. ["Add a little spice to all that (-) sugar." Okay, on rewatch and slow-mo, it isn't an edited word, it's just an... odd tongue-bite facial gesture thing. The audio is still there and has moist tongue moving noises. Weird.]
Photo 22


-"Really? After all we've been through together?" Hee!

-"Did you really think you were gonna get to keep all of this? You had to know that we were coming for you." Yep. Exactly. Everything else aside, a lot of evil things still have valid reasons for wanting Dean to die or suffer.

-... Um. So Sam saves Dean by injecting him with a white fluid. ...maybe something milk-based, or spinal-fluid-based? Yeah. *koff*

-*absolutely does not facepalm through the entire commercial break*

-[Actually, given the live capture at the end of this episode gives me a really nasty feeling about how "Grandpa Samuel" is getting his miracle Djinn antidote. O.O]

-Hi Sam! If you are actually Sam.
Photo 23


-Poisoned. Oh it was totally the neighbor. *nods* [Or not.]

-"Yellow-eyes. That's what you saw?" Well, given Yellow-eyes was the big bad for the Winchester family from 1983 to 2007, it's only understandable that he'd have a bigger imprint on Dean's subconscious architecture. And Fred!YED was the incarnation they interacted with most. Yep. *nods*

-"I'm real." Says possibly-unreal-Sam. And then proceeds to prove it without Dean directly being involved in the testing process... Hmm...

-Punch him. Aw, hugs. Okay, fine, hug him first, then punch him.

-"[Castiel] hasn't answered my prayers." ...Castiel was answering prayers? What? Since when? And since when has Sam been praying to Castiel? Nope. Something isn't right here. I'm thinking that's a deliberate 'not right' moment and not a random script-pit 'whatever, lol' moment.

-"And I'm lying in that field, alone." Except it wasn't a field, it was a graveyard. That's... another 'not-right' thing, really close to the others. [Okay. Call me paranoid, but the show-runners and writers know fans are hyper-analytical and jump on little inconsistencies. This little cluster of inconsistencies, all at once, right when we're trying to see if this actually is Sam or just something Sam-shaped? And Dean wouldn't see it because there's something alive and not overtly evil and Sam-shaped right in front of him and he's too busy being boggled and emotionally fubared to notice? Yeah, somethings wrong. *nods*]

-Weeks. Oh, no, wait, it was almost the whole year while you were thinking he was dead. PUNCH HIM DEAN. I can understand Sam's reasoning, and can see its validity, but punch him anyway. I would. Gah.
Photo 24


-"You wanted a family." Uh, Dean had a family. You (and Bobby and Castiel), you well-meaning dumbass. Sam's attitude of 'I know what you want so I'm making you accept it' is a bit annoying, but it's absolutely Sammish. And yeah, Dean also wanted normal on some level, but knowing you were alive would have been, you know, nice. Seriously, Dean, punch him. Just a little.
Photo 25


-Family. Here. Gwen Campb- ...you're shitting me. What??? O.o [She looks like Ellen Ripley from the Aliens movies. Cool.]
Photo 26


-Christian and... Bart? Mark?... Campbell. And Gwen. Third cousins and a 'twice removed' (which, would he even still have the same last name?) Raised to be- Okay, this is totally still a hallucination of some kind. But, but... ALL MARY'S FAMILY AND FRIENDS AND EVERYONE WHO KNEW HER DIED!!! What the serious fuck? Hey, did Sam ever tell Dean about that stuff he found out back in early Season 3? Hm... If he didn't, there's no way Dean would know how hinky these cousins are.

-"Thought all of Mom's relatives were gone? (...) Why didn't we know about any of you?" Yes, exactly, Dean! Thank you!

-And hi Grandpa Campbell. Just in time to be a massive distraction from the questions just posed. Soooo.... are we still hallucinating? On some level? Or is it all a plot? Ooo.... Ooo. It could be... Nifty! *cackles*
Photo 27


-Resurrections. Hm... All of them? I guess... or... gah! Brain hurts. *headdesk*

-Jem? Djinn? Can't be Djinn, Djinn work differently. [Except they are Djinn, who do work differently. According to the impossible people. Okay fine.]

-Aaaaand it's imperil the allies time? Yep! Getting emotionally connected to a Winchester drops your life expectancy waaaay down.

-Aw, was this another cousin-uncle-three-times-removed hallucinatory/monster-in-disguise? I think I'll call him Leonard. Poor Cousin Leonard, we hardly knew yah. At all. Really.
Photo 28


-Hey, either one of those photos is a flopped print or Dean and Ben were in a right-hand drive vehicle at some point. [Or as it turns out, my TV screen is so woeful I couldn't tell it was actually a photo of Ben behind the wheel of the truck with Dean in the passenger seat.]
Photo 29


-"We were at the movies, you knew that." Ah, the tragic loss of poor unknown cousin Leonard becomes even more tragic, as he died failing to protect an empty house. Actually, cousin Leonard kind of sucked. [That is, if cousin Leonard wasn't just a random corpse-inna-car they parked outside Lisa's house for verisimilitude while Dean was unconscious to cover this whole fake hallucinatory, I don't know what but something's wrong here and I'm really reading too much into this. *moves on*]

-Hi Bobby! "Dammit!" Yup, that about covers it.
Photo 30


-"Assume it's all loaded." Never ever change, Bobby. \o/

-BOBBY KNEW TOO??? OMG! PUNCH- um. PUNCH SAM!
Photo 31


-Even so, given Bobby's past and recent experiences re: his wife, I understand his reasoning here too and see its validity. It's just really painful.

-Yay for desperate!research!smart!Dean. It's off-screen but it's there.

-"Those things are coming for me, and I should've known." Yep, you should've known. And since you had devil's traps, guns and holy water lurking around and were still carrying a weapon with you, you did know, and were doing what you could to keep everyone safe. You just didn't expect possibly hallucinatory undead family members djinn.

-Lisa has a good coat. What is it with coats on TV? Do they all know mine is crap?
Photo 32


-"You're an idiot." Yes he is, but he's a well-meaning heroic idiot and we love him for it anyway. *pats Dean*

-"A guy that Ben could look up to." Aw. Aw Lisa. "Best year of my life." Seriously? Wow. O.O

-Okay, it's driving me nuts. What the hell kind of car is Sam driving?? It almost looks Mustang-ish around the headlights. [2008 Dodge Charger, I think. That took way too much Googling.]
Photo 33


-I really do not trust the 'cousins'. I just have feeling like they're vampires or some other kind of monster pretending to be 'cousins'. Like I said above, Sam did all his own tests and no one tested the cousins or Grandpa, who showed up conveniently in time to distract Dean from questioning. They could all be something other than they claim. Or it could all be a hallucination still. *is paranoid*

-Golf. Ah, a poke at Jensen's hobby, yes? Also a very logical choice of sport for Dean. *nods* It's a sport that involves a lot of bullshitting, frequently a lot of beer among the players, and convenient weighted clubs which can be readily adapted into weapons with no modification. Beer, bullshit and improvised weaponry. It's like golf was made for Dean. Makes absolutely perfect sense. *nods again*
Photo 34


-Aw, Dean reminds Grandpa Campbell of Mary. And yet if this is some thing other than actual!undead!Grandpa Campbell, this is a huge emotional manipulation on his/her/its part and still serving to distract Dean (and the audience) from questioning what's going on.

-It's a monster's ball! Apocalypse is over, the big guys aren't stomping around anymore, party time for all and sundry. Yep.

-"You don't know what you're part of, Dean." Oh really. Vampires on the Mayflower. Hunh....

-Which cousin is ths one with the not talking, and why is that? Is he actually some kind of monster that would give itself away if it talked too much? Maybe a Siren? They can shapeshift after all... *ponders*

-Three djinn in... trees? Wha? I was unaware that Djinn are arboreal. Must be part of the 'half-moon werewolf' issue. Yeah. *handwaves*
Photo 35


-Um. Dean? With the lights on, you can't see anything outside but your reflection unless whatever's outside is lit too. You know this. Oh, wait, you're drawing them into attack, so you are making yourself an easy target. Ah... *nods* [Except it's still light out the back window while it was dark out the front... aw nuts. No, no, wait, maybe... uh... gimme a minute, I'm rusty after the hiatus... Ah! There's a big storm system passing in the direction of the front side of the house, and the back side is clear. Sure. See that kind of thing around here all the time. *handwaves*]
Photo 36


-"Do you remember it? The Cage." The Cage! Thank you! Not Hell. And you may be able to relate, Dean, but you should know better than anyone that talking about it won't be on Sam's 'things to do' list for... hm. Depends if this is really Sam or not. I'd say, depending on how this 'sudden cousin invasion' turns out and the implications it has, Sam won't talk about the Cage until for a very long while. 6 or 8 episodes. Or never.

-Well, if the neighbors aren't evil, they're dead. That was a given.
Photo 37


-Ooo, nice tatts. Retractable. Must be handy for job interviews.
Photo 38


-Golf clubs. See? What was I saying? Like I said, golf is a sport with frequent ready access to beer and weapons. Let's see you try and subdue a Djinn with a football, Sammy. *nods*
Photo 39


-Ooo, hallucinations. Hallucination cam! Wheeee!
Photo 40


-OMG LISA CEILING FIRE AND BEN WITH THE- jeeeeeez, Dean. O.O [...aaand ya know, Ben's got at least half-archangel-vessel bloodline so if this was YED and not a hallucination, feeding Ben demon blood for a second go round at trying to pop Big L out of the Cage again might be a viable plan. Ooo. Except of course it's all a hallucination, (ETA: And also it doesn't matter because Ben's almost certainly not biologically Dean's although my subconcious and possibly Dean's thinks so, at least at seven minutes to one AM or while under the influence of a double-dose of djinn-juice respectively) but still. Eeek.]

-...A live capture...? That's... hunh. That's really suspect. Particularly since they got Sam out or the room first... [So. 'Grandpa Campbell' and all the little assorted 'Campbells' have something they are keeping from Sam and Dean regarding Djinn. Or maybe monsters in general. Sam so far has been pretty Sammish, so if he is something other than Sam, he may not be aware of it. The Campbells are definitely not to be trusted, but this does imply that the Djinn weren't willing assistants in whatever is going on. Hm. Some ploy to get Dean back hunting again? Something to get him out of cover? I don't know. Something's not right, and it's going to be interesting finding out what it is.]

-Aw. Lisa onna mini-bike. Hee!
Photo 41


-[Just taking a moment to evaluate Sam's hair. Looks a bit helmet-ish in this particular scene, but his hair does tend to clench on occasion. It wasn't distracting me one way or another in earlier scenes, so I think it's livable. *nods*]
Photo 42


-"No." No? Why? What? Ohhh. Of course. Lisa and Ben are pretty much screwed if he leaves. See, Dean's been living at the same place for a year, and from his perspective (regardless of whether this was all a set-up by the 'Campbells' or not), the monsters have started showing up on the doorstep. Leaving Lisa and Ben on their own, they have very limited experience with monster defense, even after a year of picking up bits from Dean who has done some around the house defenses, but given his and Lisa's earlier conversation in the episode, it isn't something he's been avidly teaching them, and since Dean's location info might have been uploaded to Monster Facebook or whatever, unless Lisa and Ben pull up stakes and leave town, they're going to be in danger as bargaining chips on getting Dean's attention, or as bait for a trap, or as 'shifter templates, or... Yeah. So. Dean's choice here is to let Sam go off with a group of people he's obviously comfortable hunting with, who seem to have his back even though they're obviously evil fakes and stay with two people who he's come to consider as family to protect them from danger he feels he's brought them into, or go with Sam who doesn't appear to need him too much anymore (ow), and leave Lisa and Ben undefended. There isn't even a choice there. Of course he'd stay, even though it probably hurts like Hell to not be back hunting with Sam, at least he knows Sam's (apparently) alive, well, and backed up tactically, and they can call each other, or email, or visit anytime they want to. Of course it's all going to go to hell, but right now, this is the most logical decision Dean could make, given his character. *nods*

-Or what Dean said. *nods again*

-Wha? Wouldn't even think to try? Come on, Sam. You care. Now I'm starting to wonder if you aren't something other-than-Sam. [Oh, wait. It's Sam. Only Sam could look like this. XD]
Photo 43


-Impala handoff attempt. Oh. Oh Dean. (Did he call her Hunter? If so, Awwwww. [Nope. "She should be hunting, take her." Also very true. Also awwwww.])
Photo 44

Photo 45


-Um, Dean? Not to harsh your new found state of calm, but there's still dead or incapacitated people (or things that look like people) in your house. Tricky to explain. Might be traumatic for the mundanes. Oh, and your neighbors are dead, maybe. Your life is going to involve a lot of cops in the very near future.



Hm. Interesting. Kind of a Pyrrhic start to the season, but I can see all kinds of things developing from it. More of a setup for a gradual reintegration and a possible ton of 'things are not what they seem' down the road. That title card with the reversed text... hm. Something is not right here, and it's not Dean.

Oh and by the way, speaking of Campbells? Those of you who know Joseph Campbell? Refusal of the call to adventure and refusal of the return. Possibly. Just sayin'. ;-D



(PLEASE, NO SPOILERS OR REFERENCES TO SPOILERY MATERIAL IN COMMENTS! Any and all promo material for unaired episodes is considered to be a spoiler in this journal. The further definition of what constitutes a spoiler for this journal is located in left hand sidebar. Theory and speculation based on aired episodes only.)
bellatemple: (SPN - backlitchesters)

[personal profile] bellatemple 2010-09-26 08:27 am (UTC)(link)
I haven't even finished reading your post (there's way more symbolism than I caught in my analysis of rhythm and story structure while watching it), but you mentioned something that made my brain sit up and go "wait, what?", so I have to mention it:

First, second, third, etc. cousins, sans removal, are lateral along the generational line. So, to use my own large extended family as an example, my dad's cousin's daughter is my second cousin. The "times removed" cousins relate to generational differences. My dad's cousin is my first cousin once removed. My cousin's son is my first cousin once removed. My second cousin's sons are my second cousins, once removed. Their kids (once they're old enough to have them) would be my second cousins, twice removed. If my cousin's oldest daughter, who actually is of physical parenting age (though we'd probably want to yell and throw things if she got pregnant now), had a kid, it'd be my first cousin twice removed. I double checked this, there's a nice little chart of it here, and am ridiculously proud of the fact that what I worked out on the fly in while teaching a unit on family to my EFL classes was actually correct. ;D

So the "something something, twice removed" guy is two generations away from Sam and Dean.

Now, depending on the lateral generation degree gap, it's possible that this is because of longer or shorter generations in different branches of the family . . . but it's also maybe due to weird'n'wacky time and/or resurrection stuff. Eh? Eh?

Yeah, okay, back to reading the actual post.

ETA Okay, so apparently Sam's car is newer than mine. That is . . . so wrong. (Seriously, no one drives a new car in this world. Dean's truck is old, even. Ava drove an old school bug. THE CAR IS A HUGE INDICATION THAT SOMETHING IS NOT RIGHT IN THE STATE OF . . . what is it, Indiana? THE STATE OF INDIANA.)
Edited 2010-09-26 08:39 (UTC)
aescu: (contemplative)

[personal profile] aescu 2010-09-26 08:39 am (UTC)(link)
I too noticed a lot of these inconsitencies and things that just don't seem right. I'm wondering where all this leads to - we'll see. My guess is 6.03 or 6.04 the shit will start hitting the fan.

[identity profile] eilonwy.livejournal.com 2010-09-26 09:04 am (UTC)(link)
Awww, poor Cousin Leonard.

(Yay for CK recaps! I lurves your recaps, I does.)
bellatemple: (Default)

[personal profile] bellatemple 2010-09-26 09:34 am (UTC)(link)
Dude, seriously a five year old car can set you back ten grand, at least! Someone on my flist mentioned something about the Campbells reminding her of a cult, and now I can't get that idea out of my head.

And, you know, I had this whole awesome idea going for awhile of hunting families being a matriarchical thing, too, like, passed down through the mother's side? Man, I loved that theory. The idea that Deanna had been raised a hunter and brought Samuel into the whole game. . . .

My current one now is that the hunting families are kind of like royalty. They clearly don't like letting outsiders in, right? So if they were all madly inter-marrying with each other over the years, like, two or three families who only really associated with each other -- it fits with Samuel being so disapproving of John, too. He's not of hunting stock, so he's not fit for the daughter of a hunter to marry. Also, the years of inbreeding would fit the whole bloodline vessel thing, methinks, like, the Lucifer connection (which apparently goes through Mary, since John's the Michael side) lurked in the bloodline for a long time until it finally managed to manifest in Sam.

. . . and it would set a historical precedence for wincest. Which I never thought I'd be theorizing about.

[identity profile] borgmama1of5.livejournal.com 2010-09-26 09:48 am (UTC)(link)
First review of yours I've seen.

I'm friending you so I don't miss any others.

I love your stream-of-conscious style. And for this line:

"Beer, bullshit and improvised weaponry. It's like golf was made for Dean."

And the usefullness of retractable tattos!

[identity profile] maenad.livejournal.com 2010-09-26 10:22 am (UTC)(link)
Hi. Um. You don't know me, and I'm not entirely sure how I got here but I've thoroughly enjoyed all your reviews. I failed to get up the nerve to comment last season because apparently talking to people is hard. Anyway - would you be offended or freaked out if I rambled at you a bit? I have no one to talk about this stuff with; my friends and family get this glazed expression ... And, well, you say smart things!

Also BWAH! at Dean using assorted tools for their designed purposes instead of splitching vampires and whatnot.

Can I just say - now he wears safety gear? Every vampire episode, I screech and yell 'Wear a mask if you're going to do that! It can't be good that you're getting that much vampire blood near your mouth!' but ... at least he's safe from sparks and sawdust? Bah, Dean.

Following the trail again. It's a dream, right? That laundry's a little too cinematic...

The bright, flapping laundry and wandering haplessly through a familiar environment suddenly turned evil reminded me a little of Dream a Little Dream of Me, too. Past horrors revisited. I also liked the horror-esque sequence of Dean's hallucination. False scare (it's something harmless), false scare (there's nothing there), IT'S BEHIND YOU! The man knows his horror movies. Of course, he also knows enough with to know not to follow the script to the end, but since helplessness is the whole point of this kind of nightmare ...

Heh, flickering bulb. Would a compact fluorescent be effected the same way by a demonic presence? They don't have a filament after all.

You know - since it's hard to tell how much of this is real and how much hallucination, that flickering light immediately preceded Sam's arrival. And the light went out above Sam's head when he was looking in at Dean in Swan Song. At the time I thought it was the mystical force of whatever decided to drop him on Dean's doorstep, like Dean crawling back into the light into the middle of a logger's daydream, but since he says he came back in 'the field' ...

And hi Grandpa Campbell. Just in time to be a massive distraction from the questions just posed. Soooo.... are we still hallucinating? On some level? Or is it all a plot?

This whole episode seemed to be an exercise in throwing so much information at Dean's head that he couldn't address any of it. He's good at weird! And he could handle any one of these weird things easily. But every time he questions something, they turn around and toss a new bit of weirdness in his face. It's not so much that questions are left unanswered as that he never gets a chance to properly raise them. It's the opposite of being kept in the dark - dazzled with too much. It's a headache-inducing sort of deception.

BOBBY KNEW TOO??? OMG! PUNCH- um. PUNCH SAM!

Next week, I vote for punching everybody. On general principle. :)

It's like golf was made for Dean.

Also? Dean retired. Golf is what you do when you retire. Because he's being normal. :)

I'd say, depending on how this 'sudden cousin invasion' turns out and the implications it has, Sam won't talk about the Cage until for a very long while. 6 or 8 episodes.

I think he knows. But he also knows that if he wants anything out of Sam before the end of the season, he needs to start prodding now. These things take time and shouting. :)

Of course. Lisa and Ben are pretty much screwed if he leaves.

I'm really glad someone finally got this. I never understood it when Sam was telling that to Jimmy or when Dean was telling it to Sam in The End. How are your kith and kin safer if you wander off so you won't know if something bad has happened to them until a monster turns up with their severed heads?

Impala handoff attempt. Oh. Oh Dean.

Silly Dean. With the way Sam's worrying about his own mental state here and the crazy cousin invasion and all the rest of the weirdness, now isn't the time for symbolic torch passing. Right now that car is no good to Sam at all unless Dean is in it. Which I assume they'll manage, one of these days. :)

Anyway. I hope you don't mind. I'll certainly go away if I'm being annoying or excessively strange. But I feel better for blathering so - um, thank you?

[identity profile] babelmira.livejournal.com 2010-09-26 10:34 am (UTC)(link)
I actually looked her up to see if she was Weaver's daughter.

Stewart caught the car straight away. The joys of living with a car nut.

[identity profile] saberivojo.livejournal.com 2010-09-26 12:06 pm (UTC)(link)
I don't seem to be able to comment in a way that is coherent - but thank you for the wonderful recap and picspam. *is happy*

But one little thing. I am so very glad that you wanted Dean to punch Sam. I did too! A really big old uppercut or maybe a solid right cross because hey SAM DESERVES IT. And yes, Sam has been through Lucifer and his cage and has seen/felt/been a part of/something truly evil personified. We are talking Lucifer here but I don't care.

Dean should have punched him. It would have made everyone feel better including me.

Thanks for the romp through again!
ext_224997: (Default)

[identity profile] darkamber.livejournal.com 2010-09-26 01:03 pm (UTC)(link)
Fabulous reaction post!
Many of your thoughts are similar to my own.
Really looking forward to see how the season and characters develop, since so much seems to be up-side-down and sideways.

[identity profile] lnhart.livejournal.com 2010-09-26 02:54 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm with you on the evil Campbell clan. I couldn't look at them without getting a vampire vibe. Maybe that's just fashion these days. (Now I feel like saying, "Darn kids" or some other geezer-type remark.)

If people are going to be punched next week, I'd like Grandpa Campbell to be first. He was so irritatingly condescending.

Also, I want Sam to get a hair cut.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I enjoyed them, as always.

[identity profile] kimmer1227.livejournal.com 2010-09-26 03:17 pm (UTC)(link)
Dean should have punched him. It would have made everyone feel better including me.

Yes pleez. One of those slow motion punches that comes down from Georgia.

[identity profile] claudiapriscus.livejournal.com 2010-09-26 03:20 pm (UTC)(link)
"-Punch him. Aw, hugs. Okay, fine, hug him first, then punch him."

That was EXACTLY what I saw saying, all through that scene. (And the scene with Bobby.)

"-"Assume it's all loaded." Never ever change, Bobby. \o/

-BOBBY KNEW TOO??? OMG! PUNCH- um. PUNCH SAM! "

Exact same reactions again. GMTA!

I'm still chewing over the episode of the whole. It was kind of...expositiony. It will be interesting to see where they take it. I'm pretty convinced something is very wrong with Sam (the way he turned down the impala! that was cold)...though I'm not entirely sure what Bobby's excuse was. Probably plot-convenience.

[identity profile] claudiapriscus.livejournal.com 2010-09-26 03:24 pm (UTC)(link)
I would have also accepted a hug that turned into strangling ;)

[identity profile] irismay42.livejournal.com 2010-09-26 03:44 pm (UTC)(link)
Yes! What she said!

I'd not even thought about the reversed text on the title card. Seeing as we're supposed to be seeing Sam and Dean's positions reversed. I liked the part where Dean was trying to get Sam to talk about being in the Cage (YES! Not GenPop like Dean!), just like Sam tried to do with Dean in season 4.

But where the hell is Adam, guys???

The Campbells are evil. I don't believe they're even the Campbells. I like the siren idea though! I was thinking maybe shapeshifters, but thought that might be too obvious!

I'm hoping Sam's still an unwitting accomplice though. Not-Grandpa did say something about getting the chickie Djinn out of the way before the boyS come back...

So do you subscribe to the "Ben is Dean's son" line of thinking then? (Going by your mentioning of him being archangel vessel material.) I still don't think Ben is Dean's son. If he'd been living with him and Lisa for a year, Lisa would have told him. He seems to have been totally honest with her about everything (as he was with Cassie), so I don't think she'd keep anything that important from him.

As for Sammy, yeah that boy loves his secrets. (Hello, Jessica anyone?) There's definitely something he's not telling Dean.

Interesting pick up on him saying he'd showed up in 'a field' though. Which was where Dean showed up. Hmmm...

And yes, if Dean had run off with Sam and become a 'deadbeat dad'? I'd have punched him. Although not in the face. Obviously.

Where do you stand on the episode's most important issue? i.e. The tucked in shirt and tight jeans.

[identity profile] bistokids.livejournal.com 2010-09-26 04:56 pm (UTC)(link)
I love this. I've just written a review, so I held off reading any others till it was done, then I clicked on this and you've said so much of what I thought. (Only you said it in a much funnier way, and with pictures! *g*)

Oh, except that I was way denser, because I actually didn't make the connection between bar-girl and Djinn-girl till I read it here. *headdesk*

A really fantastically entertaining and thought-provoking review. And the arboreal Djinn made me giggle! :D

[identity profile] sams1ra.livejournal.com 2010-09-26 05:47 pm (UTC)(link)
Aw Dean. Your buddy here is pinging my 'secretly evil' buttons, but it's good to find ways to share.
Don't worry, it's the right buttons Sid pushed, cuz he was totally the Dracula shapeshifter in Monster Movie.

Ya know, I'm kinda amazed, after all the sh*t they've gone through, that they still look things up in John's journal. Also, how could they not have memorized the thing by now? 0_o

-"Really? After all we've been through together?" Hee!
Hee Hee ;)

-[Actually, given the live capture at the end of this episode gives me a really nasty feeling about how "Grandpa Samuel" is getting his miracle Djinn antidote. O.O]
Yeah, Grandpa Campbell is totally gonna turn out evol. Muahahaha. Ahm. (Btw, another good YED...)

And Fred!YED was the incarnation they interacted with most. Yep. *nods* Well, he did curve up Dean pretty good. And died, which was also good.

attitude of 'I know what you want so I'm making you accept it' is a bit annoying, but it's absolutely Sammish. And yeah, Dean also wanted normal on some level, but knowing you were alive would have been, you know, nice. Seriously, Dean, punch him. Just a little. TOTALLY!

Getting emotionally connected to a Winchester drops your life expectancy waaaay down LOLZ!

Which cousin is ths one with the not talking, and why is that? Is he actually some kind of monster that would give itself away if it talked too much? Maybe a Siren? They can shapeshift after all... *ponders Nah, he's just busy with his lines for Flashpoint...

I still refuse to believe Ben's really Dean's kid. He's not. *pouts* But anyways, listen to this part again. I'm thinking when YED tells Dean something else is after Ben, it means something. Or, ya know, not.

[identity profile] blackcat333-99.livejournal.com 2010-09-26 06:00 pm (UTC)(link)
Hey! Show is BACK!!!

Thank you for the caps of the bar scene -- I was trying and trying to pinpoint when Dean got whammied the first time and the connection between bar girl and the djinn never clicked. Now it all makes sense. (except for the part where the neighbors presumably got killed so quickly when Dean was wandering around mostly functional for almost a day with that poison affecting him before the trippiness started to really take him out of it.

-Heh, flickering bulb. Would a compact fluorescent be effected the same way by a demonic presence?

I loved the duel use of the flickering bulb. It's always been a sign of demonic presence, but in 2.20 it also went over literally over Dean's head at the moment when he figured out he was trapped in that djinn's hallucination, so we got another clue disguised as being something it wasn't.

Punch him. Aw, hugs. Okay, fine, hug him first, then punch him.

Absofreakinglutely. I get Sam's motives, but he deserves a punch. Maybe two. And frankly, so does Bobby. Yes, they were trying to protect Dean's new life, keep him safe and happy... but 1) he's an adult and they had no right to try dictating what is best for him; 2) they were condemning him to a lifetime of nightmares. Very generous. and 3) Dean was right about voicing the impact this had on Lisa and Ben. And now Lisa and Ben get to be at even higher risk than living with a somewhat crazy ex-hunter who has Issues. Because there's the Baggage.

Also, punch Sam again for his attempt to guilt-trip Dean at the end when he reverses his stance and decides that, oh well, he was wrong and Dean should leave Lisa and Ben and go off with the new New Family and join that shady bunch of long lost relatives. I love Sam, I do, but man... he was squarely in the "what a dick" box this episode. It's okay. He'll get out of there eventually. Maybe with some forceful assistance, lol.

I'm very intrigued by the Campbells. They are a bit shady, but I also believe they are family. Just maybe not the family you really want to trust too closely. There's almost a Mafia-esque vibe to them. The Monster Mob Squad. They have their Family Business, they've recruited Sam into the fold, and now they're sending him out to get the other family member that's not in the know. And what sort of induction processes might be headed the Winchesters' way? Lol. Okay, seriously, though... this should be interesting. They could go either way.

[identity profile] eilonwy.livejournal.com 2010-09-26 06:59 pm (UTC)(link)
I suspect they won't be as epic as in previous seasons
Sadness!

but I intend to continue them until the end of Show. :-)
Happiness!

In all seriousness, one of the things I love about your reviews is that while you take Show seriously (mostly, hee), your reviews aren't negative. You go with it, and wonder how things will work. So many other reviews I've read this weekend (and especially the comments to them) have been about the Failure of Show, and how Bad it was, and the Epic Fail, and even that the episode was boring... Was everyone watching the same thing I was watching?!

Anyway, I just want you to know how much I appreciate your reviews!! :)

[identity profile] njoyingnsanity.livejournal.com 2010-09-26 07:24 pm (UTC)(link)
You actually helped me makes sense of a few things that seemed off and wrong to me.

1. Sam says he woke up in a field/Stull Cemetery so why did the light flicker when he was standing outside Lisa's house watching Dean? Before he "saves" Dean in the garage the lights flicker.

2. Grandpa Campbell says monsters aren't acting normally vampires out during the day, werewolves changing at the half moon does that mean that certain creatures and demons may not react to holy water, salt or devils traps? Plus Sam did all the testing himself and he made an awful face at the salted holy water and come on salt water doesn't taste THAT bad. How sure was Dean that that knife was silver since most people can't tell the difference between silver and stainless steel in a dark room at a distance. Plus if Lucifer is still in him uh duh Dean, Lucifer is an archangel evil sure but technically not a demon, and if the colt couldn't kill him I doubt salt, holy water or silver would cause him to bat an eyelash.

3. Something is WAY of with the Campbells. Sam's own research back in season three was it, said all Mary's friends and FAMILY were dead. Who brought them back if it were Cas he would have most likely answered Sam. The Campbell line is the line through which Sam inherited the ability to be Lucifer's vessel they could all "including gramps" be Lucifer's vessel.

4. What about Adam did whatever it was who pulled Sam out of the cage leave Adam there. Since he doesn't belong there if it were an angel why would they leave him there. Remember Adam was yanked from heaven by the angels which meant he was good enough to go to heaven. He went to hell because Michael got pulled into cage while using him as a vessel. Adam did nothing wrong. Also Adam is John's son but not Mary's meaning the ONLY vessel bloodline he has is MICHAEL'S notice how everyone else who came back has LUCIFER's.

5.Dean's YED hallucination makes me think maybe there is something special about Ben like he may actually be Dean's and if so another vessel who being another descendant of both the Micheal and Lucifer bloodlines of vessels could go either way. Now that Sam may not be Sam and really doesn't seem to need Dean to protect him anymore maybe Dean's been given a new kid to protect.

6. The car it's what activated Sam's childhood memories and allowed him to gain control over Lucifer. If I were Sam considering how it played a part in saving the world and helping me defeat Lucifer I would love that car more than Dean ever did, but Sam didn't want her. Something's fishy there Sam wouldn't feel that way about the Impala but Lucifer he might damn well hate it, maybe even fear it since Sam seeing it again could cause him to regain control again.

[identity profile] malevolent73.livejournal.com 2010-09-26 07:51 pm (UTC)(link)
I went through the entire episode with fear and dread and doubt running rampant through my brain. Nothing is as it seems. Trust no one. I wonder how long they'll torture us. :\

[identity profile] ciaranbochna.livejournal.com 2010-09-26 08:16 pm (UTC)(link)
I am a horribly distrustful person, so I hold nothing sacred. If it looks wrong I will poke it with a stick, throw salt on it, then set it on fire:P Still, there were more questions than answers this ep, so that bodes well for pondering:)Sam should have been bloody well punched--agreed!!

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