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London yesterday was very cold. And the buses were frustrating. The exhibition was excellent, but very crowded - there's nothing quite like a bunch of people spending 15 minutes in front of every single item on display to create a log-jam!
The Car Scrapping Man came out this morning, but decided it was going to be too much like hard work to get the car out of the car park and then left again. I have to find someone to get the engine boosted and turn the car around so it can be pulled right out of the yard with no effort required by him, apparently. Bah. Such a waste of time!
SN's Mystery Spot
"Whoever said Dean was the dysfunctional one has never seen you with a sharp object in your hands."
Whoa.
1. Is it just me, or did this episode feel like it could or should have been twice as long?
2. Okay, so Groundhog Day is kind of a cliché. In genre film and television, every man and his dog eventually makes a show like this. But this was a fantastic twisting of the formula! Various repetitive elements were established very early on, with enough variety in each re-run to prevent it becoming stale, yet monotonous enough that Sam's increasingly weary frustration was palpable. And then to twist the formula further, by allowing the timeloop to end but still continue to mess with both Sam and viewers…that was a neat twist.
3. Timing is everything. This episode wasn't intended to air in this slot – it was switched with next week's episode. And yet…having Dean die in the teaser, when last week's episode ended on Dean telling Sam that he didn't want to die, man, that gives the death scene so much more impact even than it would have had anyway.
4. The ending. On first viewing, I was a bit puzzled as to why the hell the Trickster would go to so much trouble to confront Sam again, when it had no need to, and to undo three months worth of time to put him back, because that seems to require a lot of time-and-space bending power and seemed rather extreme and motiveless, not to mention, let's say it, not entirely possible – undoing time seems to take the laws of this universe a lot further than they've ever gone before. So I tend to think, no – it wasn't anything to do with manipulating the actual universe. It had created a little mini-reality just for Sam, and kept it going to watch Sam's reactions, but then when, to use the Trickster's own words, it was no longer fun, then it wasn't worth the effort of maintaining that separate reality any longer. So it messed with Sam's head one last time, and then burst the bubble, so to speak, putting him back where he should have been all along.
5. Sam's three months alone. I wanted more. This is where the episode felt like it could and should have been a lot longer, so that we could really dig deep into Sam's head during his time alone, post-Dean. It feels kind of morbid to say, but I wanted details, like…I wanted to know if he burned Dean's body or buried it, since burning is standard for hunters, but burial seems safe for Dean, since the crossroads deal means they know his spirit isn't going to be wandering the earth. I wanted to follow Sam through those excruciating first hours and days, although I suppose we already did that with Dean and there just wasn't time or space in this episode. The cheesy little montage is what we got, with Bobby's voicemail messages supplying timeframe and specifics, and that kind of fits with the idea of the Trickster having created a separate reality for Sam.
6. Sam became so...neat during that time alone. Organising the weapons compartment in the trunk in much the same way that John organised his, keeping the motel room so neurotically tidy, pinning the research so neatly – such an enormously painful contrast to Dean's more slapdash approach. Sam is tidier and more methodical than Dean; we already knew that, but this was extreme. Almost as if he needed to underline the difference between his life now and his life then as a constant reminder of what he was missing.
7. Sam's clinical ruthlessness in that final scene with the Trickster-conjured Bobby, man, that was so cold and so terrifying a prospect for what he could become. I hope he takes a good hard look at himself now, with the memory of that burned into his mind. Family is everything, but the loop of sacrifice has to end somewhere. Someone has to draw the line and learn how to let go, but as things stand it doesn't look as if Sam is going to be able to be that person.
8. Dean's many deaths. Boy. From the sublime to the ridiculous. Sam's little 'not like this' really broke my heart, and so did each of his initial faltering attempts to break the loop – changing the time of their visit to the Mystery Spot, pulling Dean back before the car could hit him – gradually developing into increasingly desperate mania: verbally sniping at Dean, taking the Mystery Spot owner hostage so he could rip the place apart, and so on. And the way DyingDean that first time around kept his eyes glued to Sam's face the whole time he was dying. The many, many loops that were referenced but we didn't get to see, or were implied off camera, such as Sam accidentally hitting Dean with the axe. I think that one was probably the worst, and maybe all the more awful because neither we nor Sam got to dwell on the fact of his being the one to kill his brother, because the day reset itself immediately. Overall, I kept expecting Sam to reach the conclusion that tying Dean to the bed and maybe sedating him for the day was the only way to keep him safe - and even then, the motel would probably have burned down!
9. The fact that Sam got so caught up in trying to find ways to save Dean that he totally lost his focus on the case, that was interesting – another example of Sam's tunnel-vision when he gets focused like that. And so it was Dean who thought to talk to the missing man's daughter, which provided Sam with the clue he needed to figure out the Trickster's involvement. I can't help thinking there's a significant point there, and maybe that's the point that the Trickster was trying to make, although why he would care I don't know: that Sam is not going to cope when Dean is gone because his balance will be gone. We've seen it already this season, that Sam's focus on saving Dean at all costs is affecting his judgement and blinding him to the bigger picture. His reaction to Dean's many Tuesday deaths and more particularly the Wednesday death only served to drive that point home all the more. Sam has had a taste now of what lies ahead of him, and it wasn't pretty.
10. Sam chose not to tell Dean about the Trickster's final game, about the months he spent alone with Dean dead. Those boys are keeping a lot of secrets from one another this season, and that's never healthy. I can understand why he wouldn't want Dean to know, but it feels significant that he has opted for non-disclosure once again.
11. A Sam-initiated hug. Yay! Sam is never touchy-feely in the slightest, he almost never touches his brother even casually, so to grab Dean and hug him like that is the biggest possible statement he could make of just how devastated he was during those three months alone. As if he needed any more motivation to find a solution for the crossroads deal!
12. I'm now having visions of ParanoidSam not wanting to let Dean out of his sight for many days to come!
There's so much more I could say about this episode, but I've got application forms to fill in, and a car conundrum to put some thought into, so the rest will have to wait for the full recap.
The Car Scrapping Man came out this morning, but decided it was going to be too much like hard work to get the car out of the car park and then left again. I have to find someone to get the engine boosted and turn the car around so it can be pulled right out of the yard with no effort required by him, apparently. Bah. Such a waste of time!
SN's Mystery Spot
"Whoever said Dean was the dysfunctional one has never seen you with a sharp object in your hands."
Whoa.
1. Is it just me, or did this episode feel like it could or should have been twice as long?
2. Okay, so Groundhog Day is kind of a cliché. In genre film and television, every man and his dog eventually makes a show like this. But this was a fantastic twisting of the formula! Various repetitive elements were established very early on, with enough variety in each re-run to prevent it becoming stale, yet monotonous enough that Sam's increasingly weary frustration was palpable. And then to twist the formula further, by allowing the timeloop to end but still continue to mess with both Sam and viewers…that was a neat twist.
3. Timing is everything. This episode wasn't intended to air in this slot – it was switched with next week's episode. And yet…having Dean die in the teaser, when last week's episode ended on Dean telling Sam that he didn't want to die, man, that gives the death scene so much more impact even than it would have had anyway.
4. The ending. On first viewing, I was a bit puzzled as to why the hell the Trickster would go to so much trouble to confront Sam again, when it had no need to, and to undo three months worth of time to put him back, because that seems to require a lot of time-and-space bending power and seemed rather extreme and motiveless, not to mention, let's say it, not entirely possible – undoing time seems to take the laws of this universe a lot further than they've ever gone before. So I tend to think, no – it wasn't anything to do with manipulating the actual universe. It had created a little mini-reality just for Sam, and kept it going to watch Sam's reactions, but then when, to use the Trickster's own words, it was no longer fun, then it wasn't worth the effort of maintaining that separate reality any longer. So it messed with Sam's head one last time, and then burst the bubble, so to speak, putting him back where he should have been all along.
5. Sam's three months alone. I wanted more. This is where the episode felt like it could and should have been a lot longer, so that we could really dig deep into Sam's head during his time alone, post-Dean. It feels kind of morbid to say, but I wanted details, like…I wanted to know if he burned Dean's body or buried it, since burning is standard for hunters, but burial seems safe for Dean, since the crossroads deal means they know his spirit isn't going to be wandering the earth. I wanted to follow Sam through those excruciating first hours and days, although I suppose we already did that with Dean and there just wasn't time or space in this episode. The cheesy little montage is what we got, with Bobby's voicemail messages supplying timeframe and specifics, and that kind of fits with the idea of the Trickster having created a separate reality for Sam.
6. Sam became so...neat during that time alone. Organising the weapons compartment in the trunk in much the same way that John organised his, keeping the motel room so neurotically tidy, pinning the research so neatly – such an enormously painful contrast to Dean's more slapdash approach. Sam is tidier and more methodical than Dean; we already knew that, but this was extreme. Almost as if he needed to underline the difference between his life now and his life then as a constant reminder of what he was missing.
7. Sam's clinical ruthlessness in that final scene with the Trickster-conjured Bobby, man, that was so cold and so terrifying a prospect for what he could become. I hope he takes a good hard look at himself now, with the memory of that burned into his mind. Family is everything, but the loop of sacrifice has to end somewhere. Someone has to draw the line and learn how to let go, but as things stand it doesn't look as if Sam is going to be able to be that person.
8. Dean's many deaths. Boy. From the sublime to the ridiculous. Sam's little 'not like this' really broke my heart, and so did each of his initial faltering attempts to break the loop – changing the time of their visit to the Mystery Spot, pulling Dean back before the car could hit him – gradually developing into increasingly desperate mania: verbally sniping at Dean, taking the Mystery Spot owner hostage so he could rip the place apart, and so on. And the way DyingDean that first time around kept his eyes glued to Sam's face the whole time he was dying. The many, many loops that were referenced but we didn't get to see, or were implied off camera, such as Sam accidentally hitting Dean with the axe. I think that one was probably the worst, and maybe all the more awful because neither we nor Sam got to dwell on the fact of his being the one to kill his brother, because the day reset itself immediately. Overall, I kept expecting Sam to reach the conclusion that tying Dean to the bed and maybe sedating him for the day was the only way to keep him safe - and even then, the motel would probably have burned down!
9. The fact that Sam got so caught up in trying to find ways to save Dean that he totally lost his focus on the case, that was interesting – another example of Sam's tunnel-vision when he gets focused like that. And so it was Dean who thought to talk to the missing man's daughter, which provided Sam with the clue he needed to figure out the Trickster's involvement. I can't help thinking there's a significant point there, and maybe that's the point that the Trickster was trying to make, although why he would care I don't know: that Sam is not going to cope when Dean is gone because his balance will be gone. We've seen it already this season, that Sam's focus on saving Dean at all costs is affecting his judgement and blinding him to the bigger picture. His reaction to Dean's many Tuesday deaths and more particularly the Wednesday death only served to drive that point home all the more. Sam has had a taste now of what lies ahead of him, and it wasn't pretty.
10. Sam chose not to tell Dean about the Trickster's final game, about the months he spent alone with Dean dead. Those boys are keeping a lot of secrets from one another this season, and that's never healthy. I can understand why he wouldn't want Dean to know, but it feels significant that he has opted for non-disclosure once again.
11. A Sam-initiated hug. Yay! Sam is never touchy-feely in the slightest, he almost never touches his brother even casually, so to grab Dean and hug him like that is the biggest possible statement he could make of just how devastated he was during those three months alone. As if he needed any more motivation to find a solution for the crossroads deal!
12. I'm now having visions of ParanoidSam not wanting to let Dean out of his sight for many days to come!
There's so much more I could say about this episode, but I've got application forms to fill in, and a car conundrum to put some thought into, so the rest will have to wait for the full recap.