Blood will Flow

The French Mistake

 

Our boys have come a long way from being victims of fate and destiny.  Yes, they always made their own choices and fought for free will, but this episode showed that the fight was something that gives their lives true meaning and that it was something they can now embrace without hesitating.  And I LOVE it!!  I will not be brought down from the high of this one by any negative vibes because this was wonderful in so many ways – and the funny, oh gawd, the funny!!!

And this was interesting because they were taking the mickey out of so many different things at once - stardom and celebrity, the show and its low ratings but highly dedicated fanbase, themselves across the board - set designers, make-up extras, directors, Sera(!!).  I bet there were hundreds on in-jokes I am never going to notice because I don't work in the industry (or on SPN, sadly…), but there were plenty of jokes I did get and had me roaring with laughter.

Like - at the start, the exchange between the director and the blonde guy about cutting out the heart to heart scene and taking the backlash of hate mail from the fans; Dean's reaction to Jensen's pretty boy make-up "I'm a painted whore!"; the big screen in Jensen's trailer playing big close up shots of Jensen implying a massive ego; Jensen being portrayed as a possible spendthrift (the maxed out credit card); Gen having to stand on her tippy tippy toes to reach Jared and the way they filmed that bit so she looked extra tiny next to both of them; Jared’s reactions in the scenes with Gen; the excruciating acting scene (OMG I actually found myself covering my eyes at its sheer delightful awfulness!!)

And Misha - my god he was brilliant.  That first scene with the boys was incredible - you could see instantly that this was Misha playing Cas, not Cas himself, and how on earth did he do that???  The tweeting was hilarious! Then - it was so cleverly shot and written and acted to move us from laughing at  Misha being comically OTT terrified, to his horribly brutal murder (they killed Misha!! WTH??).

 

The last scenes packed in a lot of drama – if I was to nit pick, I’d say it was a bit rushed at the end, and have to admit that the wing scene with Cas was not as stunning an effect as the first time we saw those wings, but that would be churlish of me, given that I really, really enjoyed this episode so much.

 

I might even watch it again right now….

Ooooooooh!!!
I just had an idea about Sam while reading lots of comments on metas for Family Matters - I had been thinking that in some ways Sam (Robo!Sam) was behaving a little bit like Castiel when he first started interacting with humans - kind of innocent and childlike in the way he seems to see everything as black and white, right and wrong but doesn't follow human morality in pursuing his aims...

What if Sam's soul isn't there because he is an angel - in fact, he is Michael?? Or has part of Michael in him somehow?
I know there are lots of holes in the idea - the biggest being - why wouldn't Cas be able to sense it or even see it clearly when he did is Angelic cavity inspection...but maybe either Michael being an Archangel could sheild himself from lesser angels, or Michael himself has changed so much by his transition through the cage, Cas doesn't recognise him.

Mmm as I am writing I'm seeing more holes but hell, who cares!! I'm loving all the opportunities for speculation here!

Wow. That was quite something. What *didn't* happen in that episode??
My first thoughts on first watch  from 6.30am this morning!! So may not be terribly coherent.
More great lines - mostly from Dean, apart from Cas getting snarky with Samuel Snr about his true form being the size of the Chrysler Building, and Sam's "Trust me, he thinks velcro is big news"about Grandpa's grappling with the 21st century.

I wonder how much of Christian's nastiness towards Dean was human and how much was the demon riding him - and I think we have some proof that Sam's demon blood issues at least are behind him as surely old Sam would have smelt the demon in his dear cousin before now? Especially as he has been such a sharp almost-alpha hunter since he came back.

I think Dean has grown up a lot too - look at the way he dealt with all the sly digs at his abilities as a hunter; and the way he faced off with Christian and then decided it wasn't worth it, showed more maturity than (say) Season 3 Dean could ever have done - and I am convinced it was a rational decision, not wimping out, which is probably what Christian took it as. The remark from Gwen about being left behind with the 'reject' must have hurt but he didn't react, and was very civil afterwards in accepting her apology.

Doesn't stop me ranting at the screen though - how dare they insult our boys??! Where were these bleeding Campbells when Dean and Sam were stopping the Apocalypse?? Arrogant gits.

So now it is shaping up nicely for Sam and Dean to work together against the world - they have Grandad to keep an eye on, and Crowley pulling their strings - another great line "Me Charlie - you Angels"!! - so I'm sure they are going to have lots of dodgy situations of questionable morality to deal with where Dean will have to be Sam's conscience, because being soulless, as Dean pointed out, means he can't tell the difference anymore.

That is not to say that I think Sam is teling the truth, because, I have no idea whether he is capable of it, and as someone else pointed out, he has always been much better at lying when it mattered than Dean.  Especially when it comes to lying to Dean - Sam with his soul intact never had a problem with that before, so why would the Soulless Guy be bothered now?

This season is brilliant at getting my stomach churning - what a roller coaster ride this is turning out to be eh?

And that is putting to one side the great philosophical debate they are opening up - exactly what does it mean to have a soul? And how much of a person can be left if their soul is gone?

Oh and they threw in a new one (next week's title might have something to say on the subject...) - where do animals' souls go when they die? To be honest, Purgatory sounded as though it might be as bad as Hell if God's waiting room is full of the angry souls of Vampires and other monsters...

Class Discuss!

Further thinky thoughts...

This possession thing is a bit of a bug, isn't it - after all you'd have thought that Cas would be able to tell if someone was carrying a demon around inside them but maybe he was a bit distracted when he met Christian.
I don't think Gwen will turn out to be possessed but hey! this is SPN, so never say never...
Interesting point my friend Kym raised, that Sam might have had an inkling at least that Crowley had his soul...mmm I'll have to mull that over...
I don't think Crowley could have got Sam out of the cage - if a demon (even one who is the King of Hell) had enough juice to break anything out of Lucifer's cage, they wouldn't have needed Sam and Dean and all those broken seals to spring the cage first time round now would they? So maybe there is still some other player in the game who has Sam and Samuel as pieces on their board for a purpose we haven't yet discovered. I hope so! This is all so layered and so much fun!
And yeah, I noticed the Alpha-Vamp's throwaway line about Mothers - sounded ominous. I'm glad they didn't gank him straightaway, he was really creepy and will make a great adversary - especially as he seems to still have a few of those creepy claws into our Dean.
Looks like we have ourselves a potential showdown with Crowley so yay! for that as Mark is giving me so much enjoyment at the moment, I want lots more snarky remarks from our fave demon of the moment!

 
And why has my font changed halfway through this post - must be more demons...