stacked day 39: 5.07, 6.06, 9.04, 15.17
dean studies sandwich
5.07 is one of the episodes that has aged the strangest from the Kripke years. I find it to be one of the weaker Season 5 episodes, the momentum of the oncoming apocalypse a little stalled as Sam, Dean, and Bobby face a witch running poker matches that deal in years instead of dollars. Both Bobby and Dean lose their hands, sacrificing years of their life to the game; Bobby doesn't really age noticably, but old!Dean is portrayed by Chad Everett1. It's nice to see the three of them spend time together and there's some fun old-man-Dean stuff. Sam ends up winning the poker game and giving everyone their years back while old!Dean is quite literally dying of a heart attak. Compared to the quality of the season so far, I usually regarded it as Just Fine. When I did rewatches back in high school, sometimes I'd skip it; it seems like Jensen Ackles is quite a draw for me…
But, watching this episode after the series finale, it's devastating. Dean doesn't actually get to be this old! And that's kind of the only thing I can think about. If this episode landed on another day instead of the ever-charged sandwich of S5 and S15, I wouldn't have much to say about it. What should be a light-hearted beginning to the episode block sort of leaves me devastated for the rest of my viewing.
A string of suicides brings Sam and Dean to their next case in 6.06, where a goddess is compelling people to tell their harshest truths. Eventually, people start truth-dumping to Dean; he sees it as an opportunity to finally figure out what's going on with Sam, his suspicions aggravated by the fact that his brother let him get turned into a vampire. But, when the goddess captures both him and Sam, her power doesn’t work (because Sam is soulless, but we still don't know this). Dean, however, says a pile of heartbreaking things: that “what I'm good at... is slicing throats. I ain't a father. I'm a killer. And there's no changing that. I know that now.”
I really like Season 6; it has my #1 favorite episode of the series and makes a lot of interesting moves; I am interested in its dissolution of Dean's desires. The continued dangling carrot of “normal life” differs for each brother; for Sam, despite the continued interruptions in his attempts, the desire does not go away so much as evolve. From Jess, to Amelia, to Eileen, to Blurry Wife (booo) in the series finale, the Life feels more temporary, rather than something he is resigned to. I'll talk more about Eileen when we get to her, but I like his love interest being a hunter in the later seasons; he is still looking for love, but finds someone more compatible with the life he leads (and has accepted! and likes!). Normal guy behavior (genuine). Dean, on the other hand…After the experiment with Lisa, he does not try the “normal life” again; in 11.04, Sam asks Dean if he'd ever thought about settling down with another hunter—someone with “shared life experience.” It's a nice line that foreshadows Eileen (also a Robbie Thompson character), but the implications for Dean are interesting. The show stops trying to give him love interests after Lisa (I do not count Amara as a love interest) (Cas is a love interest but not on purpose). He really internalizes the failures with Lisa; for seasons and seasons, he believes he is not deserving of even an approximation of a life outside of hunting.
Season 9 continues Dean's reckless decisions spiral. In 14.03, Apocalypse-World-Kaia clocks how he operates from a place of fear; here, in 9.04, that fear is not really manifesting as anger as it does so often later on. Charlie has come for a visit, and the boys realize there’s a portal to Oz? in the bunker? And the Wicked Witch? Is there? Dorothy too! Sorry, this episode is a memory-hole and I was editing something while watching it; the plot isn't super important, but what is, is that Charlie is killed by the witch. Dean asks Ezekiel, the angel possessing Sam, to bring her back. He protests--he is still at half-strength, a big use of his grace like that will continue to slow down the healing process for both him and Sam. But Dean insists; he cannot lose her, just like he couldn't lose Cas, just like he couldn't lose Sam. Ezekiel does it, but the actions feel very tenuous; Dean cannot keep utilizing the secret angel that his brother doesn't know about, can't keep lying to the people he loves about how he is protecting them. It all feels very “Humpty" by Mitski (oh the eggshells…sorry I listen to one artist).
Finally, this brings us to Season 15, in which Dean's fear manifests in anger, in which he really only seees himself as a killer. In 15.17, everyone knows Jack's plan to beat Chuck. They know Billie is making him into a bomb, and he will die. Sam and Cas are still not okay with this, but Dean is desperate; he and Sam argue, and Dean says that Jack is not family--and Jack unfortuantely overhears this. But, Jack wants to continue with the plan, and so does Dean; Sam and Cas stay at the bunker to research alternatives while the two of them go on to the final preparations.
In the car ride home after getting one of Adam’s ribs (yes like Adam the first man Adam), Dean pulls over. He tells Jack that since he found out about Chuck, he feels like he is not real, that he has never been free in his entire life. We know what Dean thinks of himself, that he has no way to be besides a hunter; it makes sense that he takes Chuck's meddling harder than Sam. He tells Jack that he gives him hope that he has a chance to be free, afterall. He tells Jack thank you, but not I'm sorry. I think of the way John used Dean as a weapon, and how Dean is doing that to Jack now; he may say Jack isn't family, but he is definitely performing fatherhood the way he knows it best.
Meanwhile, Sam and Cas enter Billie's library; they realize that her plan to kill Chuck and Amara would create a power vacuum for her to fill. When Dean and Jack get home (Jack’s bomb activated, ticking), they try to stop the plan. Dean is desperate, going as far as to point a gun at Sam; he says he doesn't care who takes over, as long as Chuck is gone; just like in 15.03, he is unreceptive to any reason, zeroed in on what he perceives to be the source of all of his issues. The eggshells, once again.
It is interesting to watch Dean flip out on his family intercut with Chuck manipulating Amara; as Dean and Sam argue, and Cas holds his son who is vibrating with power, Chuck narrates the breakdown. Can we really judge Dean for his actions? Is Chuck not pulling the strings right this very second? I like the possibility of this reading, the complexity of what makes a character acting in character. Are Chuck's desires the true manifestation of this character? Do characters have a life outside of how they are written? It emphasizes Dean's anxieties, that he is not real--we see it, playing out in these repulsive actions. Sam's first plea is that Billie becoming the new God would mean the world reflected in her orderliness; Billie loathes the chaos the Winchesters bring to life-and-death. The apocalypse world refugees would return to a world that no longer exists, everyone they brought back to life would die. Sam mentions Eileen (who he resurrected in the first half of the season) and Dean looks at Cas (we know how many times he's died!). And yet, this doesn't work. Finally, Sam talks him down, in what I think is Jared's best scene of the series, by telling Dean that his big brother as protector is the only thing he's ever been certain of in their life. The affirmation: we are real. Dean was always there to protect him from John, from Lucifer; now, Cas and Sam attempt to protect Jack from him. Once again, the tension between the narrative role of the father and the practical role of the father arises; I love that Sam reminds Dean of how he parented him as Dean once again emulates the worst parts of their father. What's real, what is story manipulation? It is a twisty, twisty thing.
To watch Dean's calm confession that he cannot perform fatherhood against his violent desperation to gain a modicum of control over his life ten years later is devastating; to watch Dean as an old man for a joke in an episode and know he will not live to fifty is to wonder if he ever really got to be free, after all.
Stray Observations
Unfortunately this is the first time so far I didn't watch these episodes all on their proper day; I fell asleep before 9.04 and 15.17… :(
Bobby saying he is useless and should kill himself because he is disabled…ok. like not to say I don't understand! But the reality is way more hunters should be physically disabled because of the nature of the job lol
In 6.06, Dean and Lisa talk on the phone. She's truth-spell'd, and says Dean's relationship with Sam is unhealthy, which, fine. BUT she says: “It's not that you shouldn't be close with your brother, I'm close with my sister, but if she died I wouldn't bring her back to life.” And I'm like, okay, skill issue! I also find the detail of her having a sister kind of funny — now, if Lisa was my sister, I would tell her to not let Dean in her house.
Unfortunate for Dean that the truth spell doesn’t affect angels because while Cas doesn't fully know what's up with Sam, he definitely knows a little bit. I love, love that scene where Cas refills his drink; Hays era queercoding core lmao. The tension of their relationship in S6 is great, a much slower simmer than the pain of miscommunication in S9 or the shit that makes me faint in S15, lol. Realizing this #stack day is partially rough because of this ??????? Wow
Soulless Sam is kind of at peak scary in 6.06…like yeah we gotta get him fixed
9.04 is another Robbie Thompson episode :))) It's cute, I LOVE CHARLIE, obviously. Her getting to go be gay with Dorothy in Oz is a preferable ending to what actually happens to her later, but whatever!
Drives me so fucking crazy that in 15.17, the episode before the ANGEL confesses his gay love for the human , we get an Angel x Human relationship? Before our very eyes? Fine!
i literally cannttttt stop thinking about despair……soon……
Honestly 15.17 is a great episode and there's an abundance of stuff I didn't really have the energy to talk about, Meredith Glynn I'm so sorry your Amazon Prime series was cancelled, thank you for your service
Allegedly a notable actor, but I mostly know him from a talk show clip where Lily Tomlin walks off stage because he said something revoltingly misogynistic… :)
"simply put him to sleep castiel" SO TRUE