SPN: Salvation / The Devil's Trap
Mar. 23rd, 2011 09:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snick_backupYanno, I get to these big climactic episodes and I can't figure out what to say. It's hard to dig deep into the story and analyze it when the story has, emotionally speaking, turned itself inside out and shown me its guts. Also, I'm having a heck of a time differentiating between "This was very well done" and "This broke my heart in the best possible way." Quality vs. id fodder; I can't tell them apart just now. So.
---
Now, finally, I'm invested in the idea of the Winchester family as a whole. I think the turning point might have come during that conversation in Salvation when John says he's going to Lincoln and Sam asks him incredulously, "You want me and Dean to kill the demon by ourselves?" Followed by this bit:
Because when push comes to shove, they're a team. They're indivisible.
That bit's also an interesting commentary on Dean vs. Sam. Sam wants help sometimes; Dean wants to be help, always.
---
OH DEAN. Peacemaker and order-follower, the guy desperate to keep his family together and willing to do anything to make it so. And the show knows this. The bit between him and Sam, where it he says scares him realizing the lengths he'll go to for his family? Yes. The part where he says that Sam and John are all he has, that he has trouble keeping it together as it is and he's not sure he'd survive without them? Yes. Because John and Sam have both had lives outside of hunting, and Dean never has. They've had people they cared about totally independent of hunting, and Dean had Cassie, a relationship that blew up in his face. No wonder he's less interested in revenge than Sam and John are; they've lost people they loved, but the people he loves are still alive. He has so much more to lose than they do - or, if you prefer, he recognizes how much he has to lose and they don't. When Dean says they're all he has, he's telling the truth.
How does this guy not break your heart?
In a show in which revenge drives the primary arc, Dean's the guy who cares less about vengeance than about keeping together what he has left. While Sam and John want to kill the demon at all costs, like good masculine heroes should, Dean... doesn't. Man alive, how refreshing that is.
Gah, he reminds me so much of Spike in some ways, in how deeply he loves and how insecure he is in others loving him (because bad guys wouldn't keep talking about his feelings of abandonment if he didn't actually have some). In how vulnerable he is, despite the exterior. In how narrow his focus is when push comes to shove.
---
I don't just love Dean, I love how intentional the show has been in developing him. The writers have known about Dean's motivations and insecurities since Skin at the latest, and they have been steadily dropping hints and pieces ever since:
Boom boom boom. Beautifully executed.
When I started this show I had an idea it'd hit my "pretty boys angsting" kink pretty hard, but I didn't expect the characters to be, yanno, actually any good. The characterization I'm seeing here - with John, too, not just with Dean - is complex, consistent, and defies cliches. What a lovely surprise.
---
* The Sam-Dean interplay in these eps was excellent, too. First Sam tells Dean that Dean's the only one who has always looked out for him, and then in the face-off between Dean and possessed!John, Sam proves it by trusting Dean's judgment. Given a choice between John and Dean with zero context or explanation, Sam sides with Dean. Perfect moment there.
* I'm fairly ticked that Pastor Jim, whom I knew of by osmosis, dies in the first scene I see him in. I was looking forward to him.
* Met Bobby finally. I approve. "John Winchester has that effect on people." Heh.
* So. Car crash. Fie on you, SPN, and your totally conventional season-ending cliffhanger. Fie!
---
Yeah. I'm definitely in love with this show.
Now, finally, I'm invested in the idea of the Winchester family as a whole. I think the turning point might have come during that conversation in Salvation when John says he's going to Lincoln and Sam asks him incredulously, "You want me and Dean to kill the demon by ourselves?" Followed by this bit:
DEAN [in the Impala with Sam, staking out the house and talking about John]: 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.
Because when push comes to shove, they're a team. They're indivisible.
That bit's also an interesting commentary on Dean vs. Sam. Sam wants help sometimes; Dean wants to be help, always.
OH DEAN. Peacemaker and order-follower, the guy desperate to keep his family together and willing to do anything to make it so. And the show knows this. The bit between him and Sam, where it he says scares him realizing the lengths he'll go to for his family? Yes. The part where he says that Sam and John are all he has, that he has trouble keeping it together as it is and he's not sure he'd survive without them? Yes. Because John and Sam have both had lives outside of hunting, and Dean never has. They've had people they cared about totally independent of hunting, and Dean had Cassie, a relationship that blew up in his face. No wonder he's less interested in revenge than Sam and John are; they've lost people they loved, but the people he loves are still alive. He has so much more to lose than they do - or, if you prefer, he recognizes how much he has to lose and they don't. When Dean says they're all he has, he's telling the truth.
How does this guy not break your heart?
In a show in which revenge drives the primary arc, Dean's the guy who cares less about vengeance than about keeping together what he has left. While Sam and John want to kill the demon at all costs, like good masculine heroes should, Dean... doesn't. Man alive, how refreshing that is.
Gah, he reminds me so much of Spike in some ways, in how deeply he loves and how insecure he is in others loving him (because bad guys wouldn't keep talking about his feelings of abandonment if he didn't actually have some). In how vulnerable he is, despite the exterior. In how narrow his focus is when push comes to shove.
I don't just love Dean, I love how intentional the show has been in developing him. The writers have known about Dean's motivations and insecurities since Skin at the latest, and they have been steadily dropping hints and pieces ever since:
- His conviction in Faith that Leila deserved healing more than he did.
- His compulsive need to take care of Sam as evidenced in The Benders, Something Wicked, and lots of other places.
- His confession in Shadow that half the reason he went and got Sam at Stanford was because he missed him.
- His playing peacemaker between John and Sam in Dead Man's Blood.
- The look on his face in the same ep when John makes the off-hand comment about Dean not taking care of the Impala.
- And everything in these two episodes, right down to the bald statement that if going after the demon is going to get Sam killed, then Dean hopes that they never find it; the demon telling Dean what's apparently the most painful fear of all, that Dean needs his family more than his family needs him.
Boom boom boom. Beautifully executed.
When I started this show I had an idea it'd hit my "pretty boys angsting" kink pretty hard, but I didn't expect the characters to be, yanno, actually any good. The characterization I'm seeing here - with John, too, not just with Dean - is complex, consistent, and defies cliches. What a lovely surprise.
* The Sam-Dean interplay in these eps was excellent, too. First Sam tells Dean that Dean's the only one who has always looked out for him, and then in the face-off between Dean and possessed!John, Sam proves it by trusting Dean's judgment. Given a choice between John and Dean with zero context or explanation, Sam sides with Dean. Perfect moment there.
* I'm fairly ticked that Pastor Jim, whom I knew of by osmosis, dies in the first scene I see him in. I was looking forward to him.
* Met Bobby finally. I approve. "John Winchester has that effect on people." Heh.
* So. Car crash. Fie on you, SPN, and your totally conventional season-ending cliffhanger. Fie!
Yeah. I'm definitely in love with this show.
