spn - 5.14 - my bloody valentine

[retro_eidas]

Since they didn't use any songs in this ep thus no lyrics for me to quote in the cut and I'm not going to quote from Jensen's shitty movie, I'll quote Dante at random!

• My bloody valentine? Try whole bloody season. Lovers literally devouring each other ...in the kitchen against a fridge, no less. Ha ha. Averting my eyes now, Mr. Edlund!! *cringes* This probably wasn't on purpose, but that reminded me a hell of a lot of the last scene you see Clarice and Hannibal Lecter together at the end of the "Hannibal" movie. Him looking like he's about to bite her face off with her trapped against a fridge (for squick, they actually ended up together in the book).
  
  
• Famine reminded me of creeptastic Reverend Kane from the "Poltergeist" sequels. Those sequels were pretty crap, but that old dude was stuff of nightmares.
  
  
• When's Dean going to learn to stop punching angels? But wow, Sammy doesn't look like the only one with anger issues. Sammy's more the overt raging at anything and everything but Mr. Push-It-All-Down-And-Move-On Dean seems more like a powder keg waiting to blow. Push him hard enough, he will try to lay you out, even if it may break his hand and he knows it.
  
  
• Cas really does like materializing this || close to Dean, doesn't he?
  
  
• Apparently it's business as usual for third class cherubs. "Cupid" seemed utterly undeterred about the whole Apocalypse business his (higher ranked?) emo brothers have all been going nutso over. I take it a low-ranked angel like him either doesn't care or somehow doesn't know what his brothers are doing to Earth? He didn't seem without compassion, he started sobbing when he thought he was responsible for the deaths of two of his marks. Which makes me lean towards him - and his fellow heavenly peons - just not knowing. Zachariah bragged they'd been keeping the ground troops ignorant of their greater plan. I'd take it that's true for all the lower ranked angels as well (though how could they not know what's going on?) I'd wonder what these lower ranked angels would think if they learned the extent of their brothers' shenanigans? I can't imagine they'd be too happy about it.
  
  
• Not that it's particularly surprising from all the determinism Michael was jawing about last week, but Heaven played matchmaker for John/Mary? They'd have not gotten together if not for, literal, divine intervention? All apparently to cook up some vessels? That's disturbing. I've still got this fear Heaven compelled Dean and Sam to knock up some chicks as back-up or they might. They just keep going on and on about bloodlines and family this season.
  
  
• Jimmy is still in there then? Though after Cas leaves him, too bad he'll be dead from high cholesterol in 10 years. Dude, Jimmy, salads can be awesome too. I feel sorry for Misha having to stuff his face for so many takes, I'm sure Jensen could sympathize (or it was his idea).
  
  
• Interesting (or unnerving) Jimmy's being affected by Famine - that human susceptibility to hunger - was more powerful than Castiel could fight.
  
  
• But WTF writers? Jimmy is still alive in there, so wtf was up with letting Cas nearly bang a hooker? And after all the pains they took to make sure GC!Ruby's vessel was vacated / prevent Sam from raping some possessed chick. I doubt straight arrow, family man Jimmy was up to having an affair unless it's God/angels calling
  
  
• Dean's so broken he doesn't "hunger" for anything? Though that whole "hole inside of [Dean]" line - apart from the mantears at the end of H&H - reminds me of what Dean said to Tessa the Reaper back in DTAH. Dean going to wax poetic at Death (again)?
  
  
• I'd speculate if Dean's being unaffected by Famine c/o 40 years of Hell a possible reason why the "righteous man" was allowed to stew down there so long. A failsafe so the Horsemen wouldn't affect him? However, wasn't he affected by War? IIRC, he was seeing the demon eyes just like the rest of them in 5.02. Then again, I suppose not being affected by Famine doesn't necessarily translate to the rest of the Horsemen, though that would be an interesting (and depressing) trait of Dean's. His time in Hell was to break him, but so he could be immune to Horsemen?
  
  
• How long did Dean wait before he stormed into the diner (possibly infested with demons and a Horseman of the Apocalypse) to save Cas? Less than a minute? Heh.
  
  
• Too bad all the eps couldn't have been as easily dispersed amongst Team Free Will as this one was. This is probably one of the few eps this season Show has really utilized the fact it has *three* leads, all of whom have chemistry with each other.
  
  
• It looks as though they might be trying to salvage Sam's powers off the evil heap. Though he's still got to drain the possessed. It's probably an understandable fear, but is Lucifer going to be dangling vials of his/Nick's blood in front of Sam to tempt him?
  
  
• Dean still needs a hug (though preferably not from naked fat angels, they just creep him out). Cas looked like he was ready to follow Dean out and I really wish he did. He was looking concerned and looking right at Dean chugging on that booze, you could also tell he was trying to make the effort to comfort Dean about Sam's condition. It's a shame he didn't/couldn't answer Dean's prayer this time too like he'd done in MATEOTB.
  
  
• My guess is Dean's going to have to choose to live or something, but possibly also be given a very real motivation and probably (or it may have to be) something outside of Sam.

Comments

[mandy-croyance.livejournal.com]

I'm personally of the opinion that Dean was, in fact, affected by Famine. What he hungers for, however, isn't food or sex or anything of that ilk. He hungers to be free from the apocalypse. For it all to be over. But there really isn't anything he can do so we see it manifest in the darkening of his depression to the point where he doesn't want to eat, he doesn't want to have sex, he just wants to solve the task.

I really do hope that Dean gets something to hope for, myself. Boy needs it desperately.

[eido.livejournal.com]

I do sort of think Dean did want something, but Famine was simply incapable of giving it to him. Probably, like you say, it's so far from the mundane (and Famine's arsenal seemed relegated to earthly vices) that it was well beyond Famine's abilities to provide. It could also be what Famine saw in Dean was so foreign to him, he simply didn't understand it, but to him it was coded as a big black hole of nothing. Which may or may not be the case. There's also no guarantee it was as insurmountable as Famine made it out to be (especially if what's intended to fill or heal that emptiness is divine/spiritual in origin on any level. Again, something Famine simply may not understand).

Dean's also not defined by that emptiness, anymore than War called Sam on his megalomania issues. Yes, these things are there in them both, but that's not all they are.

Dean needs a reason to live, period. I just don't think being tied to Sam at the hip is cutting it anymore (and hasn't done for awhile, kind of has been a real burden actually). If one tilted their head and squinted, you could consider the cannibal lovers a metaphor for how Sam and Dean are with each other anymore. They're loving each other to their detriments, to their deaths (Dean made the deal for Sam, Sam poisoned himself with demon blood partly to take care of Dean/do what he believed Dean couldn't). If things stay as they've ever been, they'll keep chewing until there's nothing left. "The relationship between you and your brother seems dangerously co-dependent." No shit, Sherlock.