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Dean: "Please tell me you're here to help. We've been having demon issues all day."
Oh my. Sam made a deal, after all.
And Sam's deal was even more self-sacrificing than Dean's, if that's possible; Sam tried for an outright trade, and the Crossroads Demon wouldn't take it. And when he couldn't get the deal, an angry, suicidal Sam went into training with Ruby to get Lilith. And he even did it ethically. He refused to deal with Ruby when she was driving the body of an innocent bystander, so she appropriated someone who was brain-dead, someone whose soul had already departed.
I feel like I just got Sam back, that I know him again. He had seemed so different. And he *is* different. But his heart is in the right place; he did everything he could to save Dean, and then he did what he could to get Lilith. Of course he did. And Ruby was damned cool, pun intended, and proved herself to be trustworthy. Although I still wonder what she gets out of this. Is she hoping for eventual redemption? Can that even happen? Maybe it's just that there are no French fries in Hell. One assumes.
Anna Milton's predicament is really interesting. Why would her "angel-radio" just turn on like that the moment Dean was retrieved from Hell? And why would the angels want her dead? This, and Sam's essential goodness and good intentions, again implies that the angels aren't really good guys after all. Maybe killing Anna is the only way the angels have of protecting her -- sort of an express train to heaven. But it doesn't feel that way. The angels don't seem to care about individual people at all. Which makes their goals antithetical to the Winchesters.
Bits and pieces:
-- Anna Milton. Good name. John Milton, of course, wrote Paradise Lost. The actress who played Anna has a great face; really spooky eyes. And she may have the reddest red hair I've ever seen. It must have been Feria number three thousand and seven.
-- Just loved how Anna said, "And you're Dean. *The* Dean?" Our Dean is important to the cosmos. It's just so funny.
-- So there are 600 seals. That would explain why the angels can't deploy lookouts at all of them. Or can they? How many angels are there? I don't suppose there's a head count in the Bible, is there?
-- Sam was doing some serious drinking last summer. And he's still doing some serious drinking.
-- Long, intense love scene for Sam and Ruby, with semi-nudity. Something you rarely get to see on Supernatural, so let's savor it.
-- Symbolism alert: the brothers jumped out of a stained glass window. I also thought that the cabin in the end looked oddly church-like. And when Anna was hiding in the church, she was behind a stained glass panel of an angel with a weapon. I think.
-- A demon called Alistair knew Dean from Hell. Alistair had white eyes instead of black eyes, like Lilith. I am assuming that means he's a lot more powerful than the average demon.
-- There's something very Exorcist about Lilith choosing to possess only little girls.
-- Ruby was in three different bodies in this episode. Loved the maid. Her brain-dead host was a Jane Doe. There could be a future plotline with that. Like, what if someone recognized her?
-- No location given this time. Or if it was, I missed it. And the guys said they were from the Sheriff's Dept.
Quotes:
Anna: "This demon Lilith is trying to break the sixty-six seals to free Lucifer from Hell. Lucifer will bring the Apocalypse. So... smoke em if you got em."
Crossroads Demon: "Let me guess. You want to make a deal. Round and round the Winchesters go."
Shrink: "Since when does the Book of Revelations have jack-o-lanterns?"
Dean: "It's a little known translation."
Dean: "So I'm girl interrupted, and I know the score of the Apocalypse. Just busted out of the nut box, possibly using superpowers, by the way... where do I go?"
Ruby: "Proof. This body is one hundred percent socially conscious. I recycled. Al Gore would be proud."
Sam: "There's more to the story."
Dean: "Just skip the nudity, please."
(I wonder if that was a little payback on Sam's part for walking in on Dean last season?)
Loved it. Four out of four stars,
Billie
(All of my Supernatural reviews are here.)
4 comments:
I think the Angels need to kill Anna because she represents a serious threat to their efforts to stop Lilith. They may not be able to keep her out of demon hands, and if the Demons get her, they'll know everything the Angels are up to. Killing her is the only way to ensure the "leak" is plugged.
I did not care for the stuff between Sam and Ruby, and I'm pretty sure the actress playing Ruby is the problem. I like Ruby, and I don't think I'd mind Sam aligning himself with her (and sleeping with her) so much if the actress wasn't so weak. They need to find another comatose, souless body for Ruby to inhabit.
It was definitely good to have an episode that focused a bit more on Sam and showed us a bit of what happened to him between Dean dying and now.
Good review.
Thanks, Jess.
I'm sure you're right that the angels are just thinking about plugging Anna the cosmic leak. The end justifies the means, even if it's wrong. It's really fascinating that the writers are going in this direction.
Your opinion of Ruby is probably more in line with what most fans think of her. I tend to be pretty forgiving when I love a show. I didn't dislike the original Ruby (I certainly liked her a lot more than Bela) and I do like the current Ruby. I'm not crazy about her, but she's okay.
Thanks Billie for your review and for not blasting Sam for sleeping with Ruby. I'm neither a Dean-girl or a Sam-girl (love them both), but I was getting frustrated reading all the "Dean is perfect and Sam sucks" kind of comments. So many people seemed disturbed by the sex scene between Sam and Ruby and thought the show had crossed a line. I mean, the boys have killed innocent people possessed by demons before, is having sex with a demon inhabiting a dead body really worse than murder? Sam was suicidal and probably thought that he was going to die really soon. I thought the sex scene with Ruby just showed how low he was willing to let himself go, how he didn't have self-esteem left anymore.
Anyway, I don't think Genevieve Cortese is really good as Ruby, but I don't have that much of a problem with her either. I like Ruby. She'll probably turn on the guys eventually, so I'm interested to know how it's going to happen. Or maybe I'm wrong.
Also, I think that Sam was faking being drunk at the beginning of the episode, just to try to get money from the other guy. As soon as he started to talk to Ruby, he seemed perfectly ok.
I loved the episode, and I love this season, and I thought Jared did a stellar acting job. We've barely seem Sam this season, so yes, it was great to have an episode focused on him and not on Dean, even if a lot of fans seem to have hated it.
Smokin' episode! Finally some details about what's been going on in Sam's life - just waiting for the "Dean-in-hell"-episode. Maybe the "To be continued" will focus on that? I certainly hope so.
About Anna and the angels - could it be that she has the "stuff" to be an angel? Only they have to "kill" her so that she can become one? I'm not very good on angelic lore and all but doesn't she seem sort of like a "saint" and therefor could become a heavenly warrior? Just a thought?
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