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]

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. :)