SPN Georg

Yeah, in an episode where Sam isn’t *actually Sam* until right near the end, I spend a lot of this episode going “Sam... er, well Meg really, but she’s using Sam’s face,” and “Meg... but Sam because those are his fists.” I think I at least achieved the objective that nobody will forget that Sam is just Not Sam for most of this one, which was my goal. :’D

So how does Meg’s little game fit in with the Grand Plan of the Yellow Eyed Demon? Where’s Chuck in all of this mess that on the surface looks like Meg tormenting the Winchesters for her own purposes? Because he’s there. He’s the story, and Cain vs Abel is one of his favorites, especially if you see that “killing the brother that turns evil to save him from himself” could (horrifically) fall under the heading of “You have to save Sam” too.

The story is out to get us all.

Also, shoutout to Jared for convincingly playing a character so obviously Not Sam that it was honestly a little creepy...

There’s not a lot of links to extra stuff this week, but these may be of interest!

The Superwiki page for this episode

My tag for this episode

We’ll hopefully be back to having at least *some* bonus content next week!

Until then, I actually made a twitter for this podcast! You can still find me @spngeorg and at @mittensmorgul​ on Tumblr, and at mittens#4865 on discord, as well as mittensmorgul and now spngeorg on twitter!

yeah... welcome to the screaming portion of the inside of my head :’D

So much of the foundation of angel lore, God’s Will in the Supernatural Universe, and the spiral narrative overall is planted firmly in this episode: Sera Gamble’s sneaky trick to get to write about “angels” while Kripke was still on the No Angels in SPN Ever line. But also predates Dean finding a handhold on his own free will and beginning to think he actually has true autonomy in the universe. (that doesn’t really come for him until mid s3 when he gets to shout down his dream!demon!self and reject his father’s orders.

(and poor Sam might have his hopes of angelic redemption crushed in this one, but he’s still holding on to his nebulous destiny to turn evil and need killing with both hands... )

But this is a good start...

Things referenced in this week’s episode:

The Superwiki Page for this episode

My tag for this episode

Casting Sides for Father Gregory

Casting Sides for Father Reynolds

Network Arena for the episode when it was still titled “Touched”

Oh, and that little comment in the episode title card image at the top there? yeah, go read the Arena linked immediately above. Scroll to the final two scenes. Read them and cry about the series finale with me.

Aah, Ben Edlund, that scamp who’s always shining lights into the underbelly of this show and the nature of storytelling itself. This episode is about subtext, and about why trusting the surface level read of the story will get you killed and replaced by mandroids leave you confused. The real story is never just what’s happening on the surface. And this entire episode serves as an excellent reminder of that fact.

Plus, Sam being a dick actually gets a guy Dean liked killed (there’s reasons I am not a Sam Girl... I can’t forgive him for this as easily as Dean seems to...). Yeah I know he’s doing the best he can while operating on the presumption there’s nothing he can do to change his “destiny” to turn evil, or whatever he’s built up this vague warning into in his own head because he actually has no literal concrete information on why Dean might have to kill him yet... like... just that vague ominous warning. And yet Sam takes that with both hands and shapes his entire identity around the fact that he will have no choice but to become evil, like he has no free will to choose, like, not to do that...

*sigh*

Meanwhile, Dean still doesn’t get a vacation, even after Sam’s poor choices end up inadvertently putting them back on the radar of the FBI. They really should’ve just gone to the beach instead.

Things I refer to during this episode:

The Superwiki page for this episode

My tag for this episode (which is only two pages of stuff, even if a couple of the essays are on the long-ish side...)

Casting sides for Victor

Casting sides for Ron

The white draft script with blue pages revisions embedded

the VFX department creating that one scene with the helicopter

And since it's Thanksgiving in the US as I upload this, it feels appropriate to remind all of you how thankful I am for you <3

Creepy dolls, yes, but also some meta goodness. When you have a dollhouse that’s an exact replica of the big house, and everything that happens in reality also happens in the dollhouse, you get a tidy metaphor for the concept of “as above, so below” that the show leans on completely in later seasons. “Smashing toys” here might be literal, but... it’s like the whole plot of the cosmic nonsense from Chuck, the archangels, right on down the line.

Plus Dean must confront the fact that people might think he’s queer, and mostly he just feels uncomfortable at being seen. (summed up nicely in this post from mid s10, to which I would only add that this was before Dean essentially completely opened up to Cas, since this post describes it as Cas being “sort of” allowed to be intimate with Dean, and that intimacy effectively explodes in following seasons).

Plus Dean is hammered over the head with the awful promise that John extracted from him before dying, and which has slowly been grinding him down all season long. Sam effectively grabs that bit of sandpaper and replaces it with an industrial belt sander (warning for folks who adore Sam, since I love him too... I am... not fond of him in this episode lol... even less so in the next one...).

But I did manage to keep this one pretty close to an hour! Yay me!

Things that may be of interest:

The Superwiki page for this episode

My tag for this episode

Casting sides for Susan (dated 10/23)

White Production Draft (dated 10/30)

You can find me here (obvs), and also at mittensmorgul on tumblr, mittens#4865 on discord, mittensmorgul on the tweeter, or email me at mittensmorgul@gmail. Tell me how you listen (do you watch along with the episodes? is this podcast more of a refresher of the series in itself? do you have thoughts or input on how I could made this more valuable to you the listener? I’d love to hear from you!) We’re already 1/10th of the way through the series now, and I appreciate all of you along for the ride with me. :)

Aah, Hunted. The truth of John’s final order to Dean finally comes out, and this episode goes to prove exactly why it took him so long to tell Sam. Their behaviors and actions in this episode, now that I’m really thinking about it, kind of set the groundwork for my tag sam sympathizes and Dean empathizes, even if the first post in that tag is my rant about 9.14... (i just reread that post and it goes a long way to explaining my thoughts about these two morons and their disgustingly unhealthy codependency, so it’s worth a read if for nothing else than to understand the pov from which i talk about them and the show).

Gordon Walker returns to again be humiliatingly bested by Sam and Dean, and we learn Jo has chosen to go out hunting on her own. So it’s not all just miscommunication and tantrums. :’D

Things referenced in this week’s episode:

The Superwiki page for this episode

My tag for this episode

specifically this post

and this one

Casting sides for Ava Wilson

And while we’re here, the ONE significant bit in this script that didn’t make it into the episode (the show and this podcast both lol...) is a little bit that would seem to provide motivation for Ava to ditch out on her fiancée and dive headfirst into the demon army hunger games, thus giving her disappearance at the end of this episode a more powerful ambiguous possible meaning. As aired, the episode leaves us with the assumption that Ava was content to return to her old life, eager to get back to her little bubble of personal happiness, but this one tiny bit of the casting sides script sheds just the tiniest bit of doubt that that was actually the case. This is right after they steal Scott’s psych files. The scene as aired cuts right after Ava says, “I’m awesome!” Which is where this bit of the script picks up:

[Sam looks up at Ava. She’s giddy, grinning from ear to ear.

Kinda makes her look like she’s about to seriously reevaluate her entire life, giving credence to the read that maybe she was in a bit of a spiral, making her even more vulnerable to taking Azazel up on the whole Demon Powers thing we discover about her at the end of the season. But it was cut...

Alrighty then! A final apology for just how long this episode ran (my goal is always to keep them under 100 minutes, and I squeaked this one in under the wire, even after cutting about 40 minutes from it >.>)

Aah, Croatoan. The midseason finale of s2. There’s just... too much in this episode to sum it up tidily in a little synopsis like this. I really tried to keep the podcast under an hour and a half and came SO CLOSE but still failed (don’t worry, it was over two hours before I edited it >.>). So instead, I’m just gonna cackle about the fact John had a crackpot theory about the Roanoke Colony disappearance that Azazel probably laughed his ass off over as he planned out this whole test for the Winchesters.

Is Sam immune to the weirdo demon virus? (yes) Do people who have the demon virus behave as expected? (yes) Can the demons control the situation once everyone is infected, manipulating them not just to become ravening monsters who kill everything but who are still capable of manipulation to follow a specific agenda and accomplish complex tasks? (yes)

(i mean the croatoan infected were methodical and not mindless, yet still followed multi-step orders like “guard the bridge” and “do not let the Winchesters leave town” and specifically isolating Sam so that he a) understood that he had been specifically and directly infected with the virus and b) could be proven to have been immune to the virus all along. MULTIPLE infected people had an opportunity to infect him and chose not to. He could’ve been infected without even knowing it, surreptitiously, and yet no, they specifically wanted him to KNOW he was being deliberately targeted and infected. SINISTER! and PURPOSEFUL!)

This is s2′s “it’s all about the blood” that functions like s6′s “it’s all about the souls.” Because yeah, it’s all about the blood-- from Sam’s demon blood infection to the blood bowl phone demons use. Because that’s exactly what Azazel did to Sam by feeding him his blood. He turned him into a phone receiver for manipulative visions.

OKAY. Before this turns into an essay, here are things referenced in this week’s episode that may be of interest:

The Superwiki Page for this episode

My tag for this episode

Casting Sides for Mark Vargo

Casting Sides for Dr. Lee

Heck, I can’t believe I’ve done 30 of these now! I’m 1/11th of the way through the series! LOLOLOL!

Poor Dean, has his second-worst fears confirmed, that John sold his soul to Hell for Dean to live. Don’t worry, he still has his worst fears waiting to be confirmed-- what that whole thing about having to possibly kill Sam if Dean fails to save him could possibly mean...

Things referenced in this episode:

The Superwiki page for this episode

My tag for this episode (heck it’s only one page... how do I not have more posts about this one?)

Casting Sides for Dean’s crossroads demon (please go read to see what was added to her lines, about how Dean was “supposed to be dead” and John was “supposed to be alive” just adding to his burden of guilt and slathering on a heaping helping of cosmic consequences gone wrong)

Casting Sides for George Darrow (please go read to appreciate the fact they took out the awkward scenes of George having to explain Hoodoo to Sam and Dean like they were children)

Casting Sides for Robert Johnson (which are basically just neato to read, and confirm that the scripted date for when he sold his soul was 1928, and got borked by whoever keyed “1930″ into the chyron by mistake, creating the baffling anomaly of an apparent 8 year demon deal, instead of the standard 10)

Would you like to join our discord server to chat more about these episodes? Or about anything and everything to do with Supernatural? Message me here on tumblr or over at my main blog (I’m @mittensmorgul), and I’ll give you a link.

I always thoroughly enjoy this episode. You can’t go wrong with Linda Blair, Sam and Dean both reaching Peak Competency in extremely trying circumstances, and demonstrating what professional hunters with a lifetime of experience working together are capable of. Even when the real monster is actually just another selfish human.

They go in expecting a vengeful spirit, and discover it’s a death omen instead, in search of justice for her own murder even when she’s lost the ability to communicate. She finds a way and justice is served. Satisfying!

Plus Dean is unceremoniously declared “alive” again by law enforcement, which means he’s back to being wanted for murder again... his run of relative anonymity couldn’t have lasted... and it’s going to make this complicated going forward.

Things referenced in this week’s episode:

The Superwiki page for this episode

My tag for this episode

Casting sides for Detective Sheridan

And because I can’t resist shameless self-promotion, I mentioned some fic I’ve written sort of kind of tangentially related to this episode. Specifically, a fic where I used Detective Ballard as a VERY minor character, because I really do wish we’d seen (or at least heard of) her more in later canon. I vote her into the Wayward Society for characters I appreciate :’D

The Exception to Every Rule

And then I ramble a bit about wishing we ever touched base with any of the varied characters over the years who accidentally learned of the Supernatural (either through experiencing it themselves, or else reading their own stories in one of Chuck’s books...) who maybe didn’t run off to become hunters, but still felt like they had something to contribute, to support others who are suddenly thrust into the world of the supernatural... I like to imagine they start a big support group...

Worst Case Scenario

Aah, a nice distracting MotW episode! But also one where we get to tangentially explore Dean’s relationship with his parents and hunting through Jo’s essentially opposite relationship with hunting and her parents...

Plus serial killers, Sam is oddly written due to Jared’s surgery on his hand, and I actually remembered to introduce myself at the beginning of the episode again! Also, everyone be grateful I cut out the bit where my entire family was singing Tiny Dancer for no discernible reason!

Things referenced in this episode:

The Superwiki page for this episode

My tag for this episode

the tl;dr of my tag for this episode which is, unfortunately, very long in itself (don’t worry, the whole tag for this episode is really small...)

And a shorter follow-up to the above post (really a continuation of it)

Subscribe, like, rate, review, all that jazz *jazz hands*

Want to join the discord server where we talk about these episodes? message me on tumblr (you can reach my askbox on the links to my blog above) and I’ll get you a link! <3

aka that one where I forgot to introduce myself at the beginning of the episode. (Hi, I’m Mittens... just pretend I said it in the podcast) But it took me 27 episodes before I completely forgot who I was, and it’s possibly appropriate for the episode about mind control powers... :’D

This is Ben Edlund’s first episode, and oddly my shortest episode in a while (yay?!), and these are not the droids you are looking for.

Dean’s first brush with mind control is more than a little distressing for him, even when he has to constantly reassure Sam (like so many of the victims in this week’s episode) that they’re okay, everything is going to be okay. It’s all fine.

(and at that point the victims I mentioned offed themselves in horrifying ways, so this does not bode well... lol)

(I mean, we are watching Supernatural, so that’s a general reliable assumption all the time, so...)

Things referenced in this episode:

The Superwiki Page for this episode

My tag for this episode

Casting Sides for Andy Gillette (later renamed Andy Gallagher)