6.11 episode reaction/review...

[ash48]

1. Sam got his soul back. *does the Sammy Soul-back Shuffle*

2. Dean is awesome. Period. I love this character SO much. There is nothing he will not do for his brother - sell his soul, kill himself, be Death for a day. This man's devotion to his brother is ALL ENCOMPASSING! And he's still eye rolling, and defying, and caring, and scared, and brave, and thinking about food.. and so self sacrificing. I also love that Sam's soul is very important - but (and this is VERY Dean I think...) not for the sake of other people's lives.

I reckon he's of the all time great TV characters. (there's a lot more here to Dean in this ep, but it's all too deep for me. I know this will be examined to pieces over hellatus..\o/)

3. Sam got his soul back. \o/ \o/(and it was bright and shiny!)

4. Death was FANTASTIC! So happy to see him back. Love that Show made Death sympathetic to Dean's need. The Winchesters RULE the universe.

5. Tessa! \o/ I'd be happy to see her face in death...

6. Bobby! Being clever one minute and somewhat stupid the next. Hee! During that scene I was yelling at him.."don't go down there" and then remembered the corn fields...:) Of course you go into places you shouldn't. I also thought..."Sam vs Bobby"? Soulless!Sam is ruthless and efficient. No contest. Though Bobby gave a good (ish) fight.

7. Sam got his soul back! \o/ \o/ \o/ And he was TIED UP in the panic room. Oh be still my heart.

8. Cas is Sam's boyfriend. He is! Sam admitted it... :)

9. Sam and Dean had a long, loooong moment staring at each other through the panic room window. *dies*

9. Sam got his soul back. \o/ \o/ And yes, I know we don't know what Sam will be like, or how he will react to what he did without a soul, or how angry he will be at Dean for giving it back to him, or how much he will remember.... but AT LEAST IT WILL BE ALL SAM!!... won't it? It will be SURELY!!! Ack! Cannot think about that... I need Sammy....

10. And most important for me:

My biggest concern for the moment Sam got his soul back was that nothing that went before would make sense. And ok, there are things that remain unanswered but I can believe that Sam has been driven this whole time by the need (aka agenda) to NOT the get his soul back. He didn't tell Dean about being around because he knew Dean would fight to get his soul back. He lied and was deceitful so he would never have to face getting his soul back. Flimsy maybe... but I can go with it at the moment. Everything else he did was because he had no empathy or care.

I'm still not sure why he fought so hard to save Dean in the last episode (yes, I can live with that he did it because he understood what it is to be a brother...) especially if the argument was that Dean could help him get his soul back. He didn't want his soul back - or did he only come to that conclusion last episode?? Ack! I hope not. I can go with his motivation (since the very beginning) as not wanting his soul back. Perhaps I better not think too hard about that.... just yet...

11. Sam got his soul back!!! \o/ AT LAST!! (I remember posting a while back that I'll give them until the hiatus... musta heard me. *g*)

And they've left it open for lots of angst... and even maybe a hug?! Could we would be so lucky?

Though with Sam's "wall" will it feel as though he's only been away for a day?

Oh Show. You win this round.

<3333

Comments

[maenad.livejournal.com]

I don't know. I do think that we are meant to see this Sam as a supernatural entity. Not only that he is not human but that he is supernatural. This whole business of not needing to sleep is a pretty big anvil. Not only can human beings not function, heck not survive without sleep, no organism in the natural world can (as long as we are talking fauna and not flora). I am not aware of any creature in the animal kingdom that can. The human organism most certainly cannot.

Okay - I was quasi-incoherent there because I was typing when I should have been sleeping. :) And I can see an argument the other way, certainly: soul and body shouldn't be separated before death so what happened to Sam was unnatural and the fact that there were two of him might well be described as 'supernatural'.

I think it depends on how you define 'supernatural'. Sam clearly wasn't human - the fact that he didn't sleep made that clear even if Veritas had kept her mouth shut. And they're still in the midst of exploring what souls are and what they mean, so there's a lot still unknown.

By their mythos, neither body nor soul on its own could be considered human, although both bits in their way might reasonably be dubbed 'Sam'. Despite his newfound prowess, Sam was a long way from indestructible: Dean knocked him down and restrained him on multiple occasions, as did various monsters. There's no suggestion that he couldn't be killed. It's the other bit, the bit that was missing, that is the 'super' part that goes beyond nature - that even Death couldn't rip apart.

Dean is fairly concrete by nature: he likes what he can see, touch and prove to be real. The supernatural tends to freak him out - these things come in from outside and wreck people's lives. Even when they'd studied them enough to know their habits and how to kill them they remain largely mysterious - where do these things come from, and why do so many of them insist on eating people? Naturally he's adjusted his position on these things a fair bit over the years, but he's still not overfond of things that don't belong.

But all the bits of Sam that were there definitely belonged here. Even dead, his body would belong here, but there's no particular reason to think he should be dead - he marched out of his body in Death Takes a Holiday and it went on breathing perfectly well without him - and he doesn't seem like any of the zombies they've encountered. His soul might belong in a variety of places, depending on the circumstances, but his body wasn't from without at all. All Dean's fears for Sam (and Sam's fears for Sam) centred around him being just a bit more supernatural than the average. I just think it's ironic to accuse Dean of falling back on his prejudices when the goal now is to adjust Sam back up to a little bit more supernatural in order to restore his humanity - by giving back the bit that can live forever and flit between dimensions.

But I'm just trying to explain the peculiar way my brain was working. :) I do agree that criticising Dean on that point is wrong. I think he's the only one who has been trying to make a decision that's in Sam's best interests, because everyone else's choices just seem to be easier for them. I'm not necessarily blaming them, because they clearly have problems of their own (okay - I'm blaming Samuel, because there's 'making a grief-crazed decision' and then there's 'having a year to think about it, losing several lives along the way and still deciding this is the best course of action'), but still: to Bobby Sam was better at his job now, Castiel seems to be under the impression that Sam's suffering doesn't count if they don't have to look at it and having an effective killing machine with limited curiosity about seems to have been useful for Samuel. It's only Dean who has managed to face up to the fact that this isn't Sam in any way that really matters, that Sam is elsewhere and that the bit that is here can't be permitted to go on making the disastrous decisions he has so far - because none of this is what Sam-of-old would have wanted or done.

Er. And it also occurs to me that I probably shouldn't be using somebody else's journal to ramble on, because that's a good way to clog up an inbox. Sorry, ash48.

[(Anonymous)]

"Er. And it also occurs to me that I probably shouldn't be using somebody else's journal to ramble on, because that's a good way to clog up an inbox. Sorry, Ash48"

Sending my apologies as well. I'm fairly new to livejournal, I'm more used to general discussion boards/groups where rambling is par for the course ;-)
Could I interest you in continuing this exchange someplace else? I'm really enjoying it and I've got a few more thoughts on the matter.
Is there anywhere else we could go?

Pandora

[maenad.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes, certainly. :)

As to where - hmm. My journal? Email? Somewhere else I haven't considered yet? Any preferences?

[ash48.livejournal.com]

Hey pandora. Just to let you know it's absolutely no problem you guys chatting here. It's made for great reading. I haven't weighed in because I've been flat out, but I have enjoyed your conversation. So yeah. No need to apologize at all.

At welcome to LJ. It can be a confusing place. But it can also be a fabulous place. Lots of places to chat and see fabulous fan works. If you have any questions please free to ask me.

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks ash48 :-)
Happy to be here!
Had a real busy day today and am too tired to string 2 coherent sentences together, I'll chime back in tomorrow to air a few more theories/thoughts ;-)

Pandora

[ash48.livejournal.com]

No need to apologize at all. I have been enjoying your conversation. Feel free to chat here. No problem whatsoever.:)

[maenad.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you! I'm so glad it's not bothering you - I got kind of caught up, and I only appreciated when I looked at the whole thing what a lot of writing it was in your space.

[(Anonymous)]

"I think it depends on how you define 'supernatural'. Sam clearly wasn't human - the fact that he didn't sleep made that clear even if Veritas had kept her mouth shut. And they're still in the midst of exploring what souls are and what they mean, so there's a lot still unknown."

Yes. I'm with you on the bits of Sam here belong here and I think the argument you are making is valid. Except for one thing: the sleeplessness. That's what brings me up short and I struggle to make sense of it.

I was on board with the animalistic theory until that was revealed. I am still not quite sure why they made that an issue and what it is supposed to signify. It's more than not natural, it not only directly contradicts the animalistic nature of Sam's (that he is still part of nature, he misses the parts of him that make him human, but in every other way he is an earthly creature) but it is a trait that up to now has been a clear sign of supernatural according to the rules of the show. This is what keeps bugging me and I still haven't come up with a satisfying explanation other than a vague "supernatural".

Pandora

[maenad.livejournal.com]

Yes. I'm with you on the bits of Sam here belong here and I think the argument you are making is valid. Except for one thing: the sleeplessness. That's what brings me up short and I struggle to make sense of it.

I was on board with the animalistic theory until that was revealed. I am still not quite sure why they made that an issue and what it is supposed to signify. It's more than not natural, it not only directly contradicts the animalistic nature of Sam's (that he is still part of nature, he misses the parts of him that make him human, but in every other way he is an earthly creature) but it is a trait that up to now has been a clear sign of supernatural according to the rules of the show. This is what keeps bugging me and I still haven't come up with a satisfying explanation other than a vague "supernatural".

Well - possibly. I'm not sure how clear cut that is. Zombies I'll definitely grant you. Angels I'll almost certainly grant you - that is, they definitely don't sleep in Sam and Dean's experience, but they only know them in human form; how they behave in their natural state is considerably more mysterious. But vampires sleep - remember all the clambering amongst the hammocks in Dead Man's Blood? Werewolves seem to be all about sleep - it's implied that they have to be asleep to transform, and once they do they act on their subconscious desires; they're essentially the world's most dangerous sleepwalkers.

I think they are defining sleep, dreaming and rest as aspects of the soul rather than of the body. They've laid some groundwork for this - Dean talked of dreaming in Hell as a kind of solace. Meg talked of dreaming again after Lucifer rose - it's clearly something demons are capable of, but which they've been denied; being dead already they can't die from a lack of sleep, but it can be one among the many things that torments them.

Most monsters have souls - so it's unsurprising that they need to sleep, and it logically follows from the fact that most monsters are ex-humans. And most monsters are clearly people - even demons have demonstrated affection and loyalty between themselves. I think 'animalistic' is probably the wrong word, because animals clearly do sleep and many of them dream. 'Machine-like' might be closer: Dean ran through his entire film repertoire to find 'machine' metaphors for Sam, although I think he was pushing his luck by the time he got to Bladerunner. A machine might need to be shut down if a part wears out or if it overheats - but it's never in need of a nap. Admittedly Sam was something of a backwards machine - rather than things being added together to make something new, something was taken away. But still: as he has been recently he was made rather than born, but no more 'supernatural' than my computer.

I think the point is to play with the concept of monstrosity: over the years we've met ethical vampires (Dean among them), an ethical werewolf, an ethical zombie in Karen Singer and plenty of ghosts who just wanted to help. Having or being souls (or at least I assume so - their zombie mythology confuses me), being people, they had the power to choose to do the right thing, even at a great cost to themselves. Sam, who was not a person, had no such capacity. In the end it wasn't being a supernatural freak that made him a monster - you could pour demon blood down his throat all day and he'd still be Sam - it was quite the opposite.

[(Anonymous)]

"I do agree that criticising Dean on that point is wrong. I think he's the only one who has been trying to make a decision that's in Sam's best interests, because everyone else's choices just seem to be easier for them. I'm not necessarily blaming them, because they clearly have problems of their own (okay - I'm blaming Samuel, because there's 'making a grief-crazed decision' and then there's 'having a year to think about it, losing several lives along the way and still deciding this is the best course of action'), but still: to Bobby Sam was better at his job now, Castiel seems to be under the impression that Sam's suffering doesn't count if they don't have to look at it and having an effective killing machine with limited curiosity about seems to have been useful for Samuel. It's only Dean who has managed to face up to the fact that this isn't Sam in any way that really matters, that Sam is elsewhere and that the bit that is here can't be permitted to go on making the disastrous decisions he has so far - because none of this is what Sam-of-old would have wanted or done."

Absolutely. I found it baffling the way everyone else showed no or little interest in the situation, there was no sense of urgency, no sense of unease even! Everyone seemed happy to have the functional Sam around for their own ends.

Yet I keep reading review after review questioning Dean's right to interfere and wondering how the restored Sam will react to Dean's interference. Grateful I should think, but the prevalent sentiment seems to be that Dean needs to be forgiven for doing what he did and that he was being presumptious.

Pandora
(my response to the first part of your post is further below)

[maenad.livejournal.com]

Absolutely. I found it baffling the way everyone else showed no or little interest in the situation, there was no sense of urgency, no sense of unease even! Everyone seemed happy to have the functional Sam around for their own ends.

Yes, although to be fair this was a deeply weird situation for everyone, Dean included. What they had could pass for Sam, more or less, as long as you didn't get too close or know him too well. I think it's been established that Sam is a little harder to know than Dean - he's more prone to isolating himself in a crisis, tends to connect better with ethical monsters, who are something of a rarity. Castiel and Bobby both outright stated that they prefer Dean - yes, they love Sam, but it's Dean their eyes go to first. Only Samuel and Dean bothered to get close enough to see that something was badly wrong and Samuel pretty clearly didn't care.

They did seem to grasp that the fact that a part of Sam remained trapped was a bad thing, but seemed to be under the impression that getting any part out at all was enough of a victory. Right to the last Bobby was protesting to Sam that he'd been like a father to him. Which - no. He had to the other bit of Sam, and what remained retained memories of that. But the whole point of that spell was to do something that Sam himself could never, ever live with. Bobby really didn't get it. Samuel had never met Sam and didn't know him at all; to Bobby and Castiel he was a secondary concern. Which left Dean, who knows Sam when he sees him, as the only one with any clear grasp of exactly how bad this was.

It makes a certain amount of sense, given the way their characters have been established, but it's a little sad how isolated Sam was. It took more than a year to get any help to him, because until Dean showed up there was no one around who knew him well enough to act on his behalf. But then - fair enough - they are playing with what counts as family: and you clearly need caring and familiarity to go with blood.

Yet I keep reading review after review questioning Dean's right to interfere and wondering how the restored Sam will react to Dean's interference. Grateful I should think, but the prevalent sentiment seems to be that Dean needs to be forgiven for doing what he did and that he was being presumptious.

Well, depending on what he remembers and how well he deals with it, I could see Sam surfacing tetchy that Dean didn't just shoot him weeks ago. I rather hope not - but it's within his range of known possible responses to this kind of scenario. What I can't imagine is Sam thinking Dean should have allowed him to go on as he was - I don't see how anybody who'd ever seen Sam could think that.

Regardless, I'm fairly certain Dean did the right thing here. Sam's original injunction not to rescue him made sense at the time, but that ship has well and truly sailed. Apparently people are going to poke at Lucifer's cage regardless of whether Dean leaves it alone, and his solution was as elegant as you could ask for: Death is the least likely person to liberate the archangels he helped to imprison, and as a natural breaker of boundaries he's the best person possible to get in and out without disturbing things. This is the best option: Sam gets to come home, the world doesn't end and with any luck they'll be able to do something about the current mess that's throwing everything out of joint. And stop Sam's head from exploding, since that seems to be the next potential crisis. :)