caranfindel | Episode poll 12.14: "The Raid"

> SERIOUSLY, WHY THE FUCK WOULD SAM WORK WITH THE BMOL?

You know, it's not so utterly impossible when you think about it. I'm just re-watching Criss Angel is a Douchebag - that convesration:

Dean: it ends bloody or it ends sad; that's just the life.
Sam: what if we could win? cut the head off the snake.

We know that Sam is capable of a kind of "end justifies the means" pragmatism when he's up against it. (We saw it in Jus in Bello and Mystery Spot, too). Now, true, he was up against the Apocalypse then, and his relationship with Dean was critically damaged, neither or which are the case at the moment. Nevertheless, I think the show has made an effort to make it psychologically plausible. Firstly, the Winchesters have just saved the world from the feud between God and his sister, and Sam thinks they've defeated Lucifer, too. It's possible this could have re-ignited his old hubris that it's his job to save the world, especially combined with the damage that was done during his spell in pseudo-guantanamo. He's admitted he's still having issues with that, and I think they went deep. Was it you I was talking to about the scene where he was working out and how I thought that was a nod back to The Third Man and a shorthand way of saying Sam was losing his soul in that place? Now, I know BMOL stuffed up but I think Sam was already well on the way to being sold when he saw what they'd achieve in the North West Region or whatever it was, and I think the fact that they actually showed some vulnerability may even have helped - when he saw the place was staffed with ordinary people who were just trying to do their jobs, and that Daniels was willing to acknowledge their failures. Also, I believe wanting to bond with Mary is a huge factor in this. All season we've been seeing subtle hints that Sam is even more desperate than Dean to have a relationship with her and, though I'm not suggesting he thought of it this way consciously, I think the division between Mary and Dean over BMOL presented him with an opportunity to 'get Mom's attention' by 'picking her side'. What Mary has signally failed to appreciate up until now is that the little boys who never had a mom are still very much alive in the adult men in front of her but, possibly, she's starting to get it now.

Were there great gaping holes in the plot of the episode? Hell, yeah! I think Dabb's main weaknesses are in plotting and sometimes a certain moral blindness, plus there are some really really weak links in his writing team, but I do think he has a reasonable understanding of the characters, and cares about them in a manner that's been woefully absent in preceding seasons. I actually do feel that, whatever else this season's episode have sometimes lacked in the execution, there has been more effort made to maintain emotional and psychological credibility and continuity than there has for years. So, I'm gonna give show kudos for effort :)

Possibly interesting addendum: at the end of Criss Angel, when Sam goes to meet Ruby, he tells her "I'm in." Exact same words he said to Daniels. Hmmm. *strokes chin*

Edited 2017-03-06 12:43 (UTC)

That seems like a pretty good summation of what the writers are going for. It gels with my interpretation of Sam's general headspace/motivations, anyway.

But yeah, plotting is a big weakness. Unless the whole kidnapping/torture opener later pays off in some big way, I think it was a pretty major misstep to have that be the BMoL's introduction. If the show was going to go the should-we/shouldn't-we-work-with-them route they should've been set up as a temptation from the start--introduce some genuinely sympathetic members, have them contribute something useful, make the audience want to trust them. Then we get gradual reveals of their shadiness and have to guess at which members can be trusted and which can't and how deep the corruption goes. Basically, what was done with the angel story arc in season four.

That said, I still can't get around how anyone is supposed to buy that the BMoL are going to be the big picture saviors of North America when they failed to even show up for multiple apocalypses--apocalypses which would presumably have also taken out Great Britain. Which I get is the unavoidable plot wrinkle of introducing a new world-building element on top of so much established history--it would be really hard to come up with a seamless retcon, but they could've at least tried to handwave it.

There's also the ethical issues--the xenophobia/fascism the BMoL espouse which so far has been only glancingly addressed. Well, I'm pretty sure the endgame conflict and resolution is going to hinge on that--there's going to be an oh-fuck-we're-in-the-belly-of-beast-and-the-beast-is-committing-genocide moment. I'm undecided about which side of the Doyalist/Watsonian line I'll fall on--more annoyed with the writers or the characters when that happens.

Well, I'm pretty sure the endgame conflict and resolution is going to hinge on that--there's going to be an oh-fuck-we're-in-the-belly-of-beast-and-the-beast-is-committing-genocide moment.

I can live with this if they actually address the situation.

I suppose, if the show wanted to annoy me even more, they could make the final conflict/resolution about quibbling over the BMoL's precise means instead of the full implications of their ends. Reveal that they've been assassinating humans and have that be where the Winchesters draw the line.

I know this could never happen on the show, but I have been entertaining the premise: what if that wannabe Jack Bauer dude from 12x09 actually managed to track/put Sam and Dean - and by extension the BMoL - under surveillance and the US intelligence services are about to blow the roof off everybody's operation?The big bad hell our heroes unleash this season turns out to be the US government and the lengths they (and the American public in a monsters-are-real frenzy) would be willing to go to in the name of, er, securing our metaphysical borders. Which would mean a dystopian hellscape brought on not by monsters but by the people who fear them.

That would be a a good way to go for a series finale :)

I think the fundamental problem with the show's season arcs is that they're clearly planned in two halves: they run with one plot for the first part of the season, then they adjust their plans for the second half once they've got some viewer feedback on the early episodes. This can make for some really awkward disjoints when the feedback on their original plans is negative.

The two halves structural problem makes a lot of sense. Oh, network television, how frustrating it can be...

Was it you I was talking to about the scene where he was working out and how I thought that was a nod back to The Third Man and a shorthand way of saying Sam was losing his soul in that place?

I don't think so. I LOVE THIS IDEA.

though I'm not suggesting he thought of it this way consciously, I think the division between Mary and Dean over BMOL presented him with an opportunity to 'get Mom's attention' by 'picking her side'.

Hmmm, very interesting.

Possibly interesting addendum: at the end of Criss Angel, when Sam goes to meet Ruby, he tells her "I'm in." Exact same words he said to Daniels. Hmmm. *strokes chin*

ALSO VERY INTERESTING! And I believe his state of mind then was "this is a bad thing but I have to do it in order to achieve the good thing," which makes a lot of sense in context.

Exactly. I think z_publicizes is right and this is a belly-of-the-beast deal. I think that, beause the BMOL are human, Sam doesn't recognize that he's making another devil deal, but that's what he's doing.

Episode poll 12.14: "The Raid"

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