season four is well under way...

[llywela]

"This is not as appealing as a ghost-proof panic room."

Okay, so this isn't going to be as structured as last week's first thoughts – too tired, too headachey, and not enough time available today. So this is going to be just a bullet-pointed list of thoughts that occurred to me while watching.

But unstructured and bullet-pointed doesn't mean it's going to be short. I'm still me!

* So, episode two. This one didn't grab me quite as much as the last – a little less coherent, a little too much with the telling and not enough with the showing. And I'm still not sure I'm entirely comfortable with the whole God-Lucifer road they seem to be going down. I always liked about the show that it was smaller scale – this ragged band of outlaw hunters battling ghosts in sleepy backwaters, with nobody ever knowing. Ramping the action up to full-blown apocalypse kind of takes something away from that motif.

But still awesome, with such a fantastic fast pace to the episode. Season four is definitely off with a bang!

* Oh, oh, and – in a comment to my last post, I said: "Dean has always been so uncomfortable being singled out for any reason. And this is, like, the ultimate in being singled out!" And then one of the first things Dean says in this episode? "That creeps me out. I don't like getting singled out at birthday parties, much less by God." He just cannot wrap his head around the idea of anyone singling him out like that, thinking him special in any way.

Okay, so the title of this episode is 'Are You There, God? It's Me, Dean Winchester.' On first glance, it might not seem to fit that well with the MOTW plot of vengeful spirits. And yet, as so often on this show, that MOTW plot serves perfectly to highlight the ongoing character development. Now, more than ever, Dean is having to question all his beliefs and pre-conceptions, and he is not enjoying the process. "Why me?" he asks in this episode. "If there is a God out there, why would he give a crap about me? I mean, I've saved some people, okay, I figured that made up for the stealing and the ditching chicks… But why do I deserve to get saved? I'm just a regular guy?"

Dean's been asking much the same question every time he's been saved, ever since Faith in season one. He still can't understand why anyone would go to such lengths just for him, least of all any kind of higher power – especially when so many other people he considers more innocent and more deserving than himself are left to their fate.

The spirits in this episode really drive home that point. "You're supposed to help people, Dean, why didn't you help me?" Meg asks. "We did the best we could," is the only answer he has for her. He's only human – his fellow hunters are only human. Their best is all they can do, but sometimes it just isn't enough. "Tell me how it's fair?" Henriksen demands. "You get saved from hell, I die? Why do you deserve another chance, Dean?"

And that question is exactly the reason why Dean is struggling so much to come to terms with his miraculous salvation. I honestly think that if Sam had made a deal, although Dean would be furious, he'd find it easier to come to terms with. Demonic deals work by rules he understands, but this? This he just doesn't understand at all. "If [God] doesn't exist, fine. Bad crap happens to good people. That's how it is. […] But if he is out there, what's wrong with him? Where the hell is he while all these decent people are getting torn to shreds? How does he live with himself, why doesn't he help?"

To quote Bobby, I ain't touching that one with a ten foot pole. It'll be interesting to see how the Show takes the theme, though, even if maybe a little uncomfortable.

* Aww, the boys jinxed! Hilariously, that was pretty much my exact reaction. I even said it out loud, sitting at my computer, all "aww, they jinxed!" Seems like they haven't done that in a really long time.

* Hasn't taken Sam and Bobby long to get used to Dean being back, has it?

* Sam is very willing to believe in God and angels, and seems really excited by the idea; that fits well with his past hopes and beliefs…but how does he reconcile that with his own recent actions? Bless the boys, though, I love that as soon as Dean falls back on his old argument about not believing in angels because no hunter has ever seen one, Sam just turns it right back around on him and points out that Dean has now seen one, and therefore he's his own proof!

* This episode just goes to show, yet again, that hunters are safer if they work in pairs or groups – all those other hunters that got killed in this episode (and how the heck many of them are there out there?) were all alone, and that did for them. Bobby and the boys survived because they were able to work together and protect one another. Not sure why the 'witnesses' tormented our group, though, yet went straight for the kill with the other woman.

* Hunter Olivia looks like another one with a nice, stable home base to work from. And so does the other dead hunter we see, one of the ones the boys check up on. John totally could have given his sons a stable home to grow up in and still been a hunter…if only he'd been willing. On that note, I like that Bobby's place has become so very much a base for the boys to work from. They need that stability. And yet, for all that we've seen them staying there so often…they don't seem all that familiar with the upstairs!

* It's only been a day or two since the last episode – Castiel says at the end it's been 3 days since Dean first met him. But Dean seems to have clothes of his own again now, though – a much better fit than last week!

* Ah, Bobby. He really lets me down in this episode – it is the Book of Revelation, not Revelations. There's no s! Still, I can let him have that minor slip because he is otherwise so consistently awesome. His panic room is brilliant.

* Dean is still very uncomfortable about his brand. A couple of times in this episode we see him rubbing at his shoulder or glancing at it, first when Bobby shows his angelic research, including a picture of a man being pulled out of hell by an angel, and then later when they are talking about the spirits having brands on their hands left by the spell that awoke them.

* Sam forgot the pie!

* Same Ruby as the last episode, which lends weight to the theory that it was her all along in the last episode, sharing Sam's hotel room and maybe even his bed. Meg's comments later also lend weight to the theory. The thought of that still creeps me out. And the thought of Dean being saved by an angel terrifies her. "They're angels. I'm a demon. They're not going to care if I'm being helpful. They smite first and then they ask questions later." Yes, but…I still want to understand why Ruby is being helpful. Every instinct I possess tells me that her ultimate goals are entirely self-promotional, but I would really, really appreciate a bit of solid evidence. Trouble is, the character being who she is, she really doesn't have any natural confidantes. The only person she really talks to at all is Sam, and we can't rely on her to tell him anything approaching the truth.

Oh, and the look Ruby gives Sam when he says he's not scared of angels, like 'wise up, dude'. Interesting. Ruby maybe feels that God and his angels might not feel as positive about Sam as he does about them?

* Oh, man, Bobby's reaction to finding the corpse of hunter Olivia. Bobby knows absolutely everyone, which means it's always going to hit him hard when a hunter falls by the wayside. Dean's death was a massive blow, and he's only been back a few days, so to have as many as twenty other hunters taken out in one fell swoop… Bobby seems really shaken in this episode – like he's taking one hit after another and has to really dig deep to keep himself going.

* You know, the gas station Sam stops at on the way back to Bobby's looks an awful lot like the one Dean pilfered when he first popped up last episode… And how cute is Dean, with his head actually hanging out of the window as he sleeps? Sam is driving the car an awful lot already this season.

* I'm not sure we really needed so many flashbacks of the spirits haunting our boys…but maybe a casual viewer would.

* Aww, I like Dean fretting about Sam's head after Henriksen first works him over. "How many fingers am I holding up?" "None." Hee. Triage, Winchester style.

* Bobby has a lot of very close calls in this episode. Too many. Show, don't even think about killing Bobby! When that ball comes tumbling downstairs and he can't take his eyes off it, I'm just about screaming at him to stay alert and move!

* Is it just me, or do we catch a glimpse in Bobby's yard of the car Dean stole in the last episode? Also, since we actually get to see upstairs in Bobby's house in this episode, and so can see just how roomy it is…how come the boys have to sleep on the sofa and floor in his living room?!

* All that stuff Meg says about her little sister – how much was true, and how much a lie to hurt Dean? I mean, Henriksen lies about the way Lilith killed him – we saw what happened. She just blasted them. There was no torture. It's an effective way of getting them to drop their guard, though hitting below the belt like that.

* "You think you're some kind of hero?"
"No, I don't."
Oh, Dean.

* 'Mark of the Witness', 'Rising of the Witnesses', 'Signs of the Apocalypse'. It all makes me rather nervous. I hope they know where they are going with all this. Oh, but I love that Dean considers five dollars a gallon to be a sign of the apocalypse!

* "Any chance you've got what we need right here in this room?"
"So you thought our luck was going to start now, all of a sudden?"
Hee.

* Oh, man, I love Dean's little grin as he recognises Ronald and refers back to the laser eyes. Even though he is now a dangerous spirit. Dean really liked Ronald.

* "If you're going to shoot, shoot. Don't talk."

Dean does keep trying to keep the spirits talking, though – at least while he finds or re-loads his weapon. He's a practical man.

* "You know what really pisses me off, Sam. You saw how I suffered, for months. I thought you must have learned something. I thought I'd died for something. But what you're doing with that demon Ruby? How many innocent bodies has Ruby burned through, just for kicks? How many girls just like me? And you don't send her back to hell? You're a monster!"

Ouch. But a valid point, in many ways. Ruby wore that one body for the whole of last season…and the brothers never even learned her real name. She's had her current one for two episodes now. Helpful or not, and whatever her motivation for that, she's still a demon.

* "Are you all right?"
"No."
Oh, boys. I love that they each get to save the other in this.

* And then there's Dean's midnight visit from Castiel. Lots of food for thought there.

"I'm not here to perch on your shoulder. We had larger concerns."

I really liked Castiel's first appearance – I thought the actor did an excellent job. I'm withholding final judgement on the character, however, until we know more. I mean, he's still walking around in someone's body, and no matter how devout the man was and no matter how necessary it is to have a means of communicating with Dean, it's still a violation. Dean is still so angry at the idea of angels and divine intervention – or non-intervention, as the case may be – and at the same time so intimidated by Castiel. It's a very beguiling combination, and certainly imbues their scenes together with a lot of energy.

"That's why we're here. Big things afoot."
"Do I want to know what kind of things?"
"I sincerely doubt it. But you need to know."

* Six angels died in battle? After they built up how indestructible Castiel was last episode? How does that work? And…since when is the number of angels limited? The Bible talks about thousands upon millions of them! Show needs to make up its mind – are they using Biblical mythology or not. And…it is implied that the battle was against Lilith, to prevent her breaking the seal? But last episode showed demon-kind to be terrified of angels, so…I'm not sure I understand, entirely.

And…the Rising of the Witnesses is one of the 66 Seals, break them all and Lucifer is released…from where exactly? And this brings on the Apocalypse? And Lilith is behind it? The mythology is all getting very…well, involved, shall we say. It's based on Judeo-Christian mythology, but I'm getting a vibe similar to AtS, in some ways – about intervention because this isn't the right time, or the right apocalypse, or whatever. It's dodgy theological ground to be treading on, so I'm a little wary, but shall remain open-minded and see where they are going with it all. It'll be interesting to see how (or if) all this ties in with the story of Sam's powers and destiny, and the plans the YED had for him.

* "You think the armies of heaven should just follow you around? There's a bigger picture here. You should show me some respect. I dragged you out of hell. I can throw you back in."

Yikes!

Okay, so more coherent and hopefully rational thoughts to come sometime next week, depending on time and motivation.