9.11 Initial reaction

[caranfindel]

Once again I find myself in the odd position of not particularly caring for an episode that most of my flist seemed to love. And I say this in all seriousness – you guys all have such good taste that it makes me wonder about my own.

Of course, even an episode I don’t love has its lovable moments…

Lovable moments

Sam and Castiel! All of it! Every second of them together. I love these two so much. The guinea pig, jam is troubling, the hug (this is when you hug back, there you go, I am dying of the cuteness), and yeah, Cas having to hurt Sam (I CANNOT HELP IT, I AM ONLY HUMAN). Sweet sassy molassey, these two complete me.

Sam strips down to just a t-shirt!   \0/

“You are the farthest thing from family.” Dean has his standards.

Crowley has a supply of extract of kraken. Of course he does.

Changing the Cain and Abel story to make it a parallel of the Dean and Sam story. Nice. And yes, Dean, where IS your brother now? Oh, yeah, he’s off trying to sacrifice himself to save others. And this time you’re not there to stop him.

Things that rubbed me the wrong way

How did we get from Dean going after Gadreel to Dean going after Abaddon? Was I not paying attention?

John keeps a picture of Tara for his files? No. Just no.

Tara has a trick knee that detects demons? Jesus, people. Why not just let her be suspicious and say “Christo?”

Tara blasts holes in her devil’s trap? Seriously, how has she stayed alive this long?

The way Cain keeps telling Dean how brave he is. It’s kind of… annoying? Pandering to the fans? Especially since Dean was being more stupid and stubborn than brave? I kept expecting Cain to add “but you sure are a dumb son of a bitch.”

Castiel’s speech to Sam (okay, I said I loved every second of them together, but I lied, I was obviously distracted by the one-layeredness and the pain and all that) about how being human made him understand guilt. If I recall correctly, Cas felt pretty damn guilty even in angel form. Leave the sandwich out of it, bub.

And now the questions!

WTF is the mark of Cain going to mean for Dean? Since he conveniently didn’t let Cain explain? I’m sure Crowley knows, and I’m sure Cas knows, and I imagine even Sam has an idea. All I know about it is from this completely amazing endverse comic (Go, read it now, I insist. I’ll wait. Oh, you need some incentive? Here you go).

So, yeah, gonna be interesting.

What did Cas do, exactly, to Sam? I assume he didn’t completely remove Gadreel’s grace, because he said he could have pushed further but didn’t. And if he’d removed it all, Sam would have gone back into a coma, right? So I guess Cas removed as much as he safely could, and then the rest disappeared when he healed Sam all the way? But why is it that he had to heal Sam in stages after Gadreel was ejected because it was too much to do at once, but then after Sam had actually taken several steps backward (due to removal of the grace), he was able to completely heal him all at once? Also, am I the only one who saw him eyeing the PBJ and thought he was going to use up all of his own grace to heal Sam, and then go snarf down that sammich?

What’s up with Crowley? I liked thinking he was helping Team Free Will because of his partial humanity. That he really had started to care a little about them. But now it looks like he’s just using them. Why did he work so hard to get Sam freed from Gadreel? Was it just a way to free himself?

As usual, I’m unspoiled for the next episode, so please help me stay that way, thanks!

Comments

[thursdaysisters.livejournal.com]

Changing the Cain and Abel story to make it a parallel of the Dean and Sam story.

Yes! This was an unexpectedly poignant moment (and one that frightens me with the prospects of Dean's new tat).

[kalliel]

I loved every single bit of this episode (the parts I don't care about notwithstanding, lol), especially THE BEES. My flist is considerably more 50/50 about it, but whatevs, I am exquisitely happy. XD

I too noticed that suddenly Dean/Crowley are suddenly very gungho about this finding Abaddon thing. Okay then, Dean. XD Though this is fairly standard Winchester Attention Span at work: "Well, I got nothing. I guess I'll just occupy my time with some other, vaguely related endeavor until something shakes loose!"

And I agree with you abut the remarks about bravery thing. It didn't bother me overmuch with Cain, because part of me is like, dude, he's a beekeeping demon hermit--he probably doesn't even know where to BEGIN conceptualizing/describing this random Winchester dude because what even. But as a general thing, I just can't, with that kind of thing. It makes me wildly uncomfortable and it's just. It never seems RIGHT. 9x04's attitude toward Charlie bothered me the same way. As far as 9x11 goes, I think it was definitely some of the comments I saw in the Dean!girl circles of Twitter/LJ reaction posts that were the true source of my discomfort. Maybe that makes me a fake Dean!girl, I don't know.

[caranfindel.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it was kinda like that Charlie thing. Turning him into a Mary Sue maybe?

Also.. BEEEEEEEES!!!!! XD. (Although I thought Sherlock when I saw them).