Yeah, I’d say that pretty much sums up last night’s episode of Supernatural. “On the Head of a Pin” was revelations-city about Dean’s place in the coming war, Sam’s trip down that long dark path and apparently even angels get the blues.
The episode began with a visually intriguing if not totally necessary scene of Castiel walking through a parking lot of trashed cars. In the center of it all is a dead woman and as the news helicopter circles above, their bright spotlight illuminates two long shadows fanning out from the woman’s body – hmm…looks like angel wings.
Cut to first sign of the apocalypse, Sam is driving the Impala and Dean doesn’t seem to care. They’re on their way back from Pamela’s funeral and Dean looks tired and beaten (emotionally, not literally). Sam, on the other hand, is charged by this. He’s done with being a pawn in this no-win game and an angry Sammy is a dangerous Sammy. Just you wait and see.
Long time fans, think back to first season, to Dean driving, hell bent on hunting while Sam fades away in the passenger seat, too overwhelmed by Jessica’s death to even think straight. The juxtaposition is perfect, they’ve switched roles and Sam is now, quite literally in the driver’s seat. All he needs is one more little push and that comes in the form of the angels snatching Dean right out of the motel room in order to have him do their dirty work.
Actually, dirty doesn’t even begin to cover it. The angels want Dean to torture Alistair to find out who is behind the angel killings. But that’s like asking an alcoholic to step up to the bar. Dean’s afraid he’ll lose what little humanity he has left if he goes down that road again, but I have faith in you Dean. I know you can do it and still stay strong. Just don’t listen to Alistair spouting all those stories about torturing dad and about how Dean broke when Daddy didn’t. . . oh yeah, and how Dean himself broke the first seal when he took up the knife in hell. Yeah, that did it. Once again Dean is felled by self-esteem issues. Seriously, he needs a chat with Tyra Banks because this boy needs to get his fierce on!
Near the end of the episode, when Dean is lying in a hospital bed, eyes misting with tears and he says that line about not living up to the expectations of his or Castiel’s fathers – geez, I just wanted to slap him upside the head but I was too busy reaching for the tissue box. Jensen Ackles cries like nobody’s business and I think he and Dean are going to need therapy when this is all over and done with!
Meanwhile, we’ve got a very determined Sam ready to do whatever he has to in order to save Dean. I don’t care what people have been saying about Sam’s path this season, it’s clear that he still loves his brother. It’s that love that made him cross the line and do something he truly didn’t want to do. But Ruby hops on to his lap, slits herself open and he licks that blood right up. Did you catch her creepy little smile while he was macking on her arm? She’s evil, I tell you, and not just in a ‘hey, she’s a demon’ way. I think she’s been manipulating Sam all along. Offering him that shoulder to cry on. The one person who doesn’t judge him. The one person who understands his issues. Oh boy, he’s a chocoholic headed for Hershey Town, PA. There’s no turning back now.
So Sam defends Alistair with relative ease, then he gives Castiel an embarrassed look like, “pretend you didn’t see that.” Then he’s off to the hospital with Dean, we assume, because we were deprived of any kind of scene with Sam tending to his wounded brother. (Notice no wide shots in that entire fight scene with Sam and Alistair. I don’t think Jensen was there at all, thus no brother hug at the end.)
That’s when the episode does something unusual, it spends the next full act (from commercial break to commercial break) without Sam or Dean. It’s Castiel, Uriel and Anna mixing it up and it was more than I needed to see. The Uriel as the bad guy stuff was fine, but I don’t get the return of Anna, particularly the fact that she returns in the same body. Nice trick. I think Castiel should have finished off Uriel so he could feel some of what Dean’s feeling. Betrayal sucks, big time, doesn’t it?
By the end of this episode, Dean’s pretty much broken and alone in this world. Sam might still be walking around on two legs, but the little brother that Dean devoted his whole life to is gone.
I’ve always seen Dean as the mother-figure in the Winchester family. He’s the caretaker, the one who nurtured not just Sam, but Dad, too. He was the cook, the nurse, the teacher and the cheerleader of the family. And now, literally, the fate of the world is in his hands.
When I was a kid, my mother had a needlepoint sign that she would hang on her bedroom door when she needed some alone time. The sign said, “mommy has had it.” Dean Winchester needs to put that sign on his door then maybe Sammy will surprise us all and become the savior of the world instead of the one that leads us all into the pit.
Watch Supernatural every Thursday night at 9:00 on The CW.
没有评论:
发表评论