#anti-nick

So...there was that fan made series that the Official YouTube Avatar Channel made...now, can anyone tell me how bad it is? Cause I heard the views were really low depending on the channel’s content and their view count. I mean, I haven’t checked, and I don’t really want to, but honestly...I heard from a Tumblr that the Avatar YouTube Channel made a ship thing and the thumbnail was guy making a face at Zuko and Katara...which is kind of immature of them to do? Which makes me think Bryke are at the helms of this YouTube channel. 

So really, I just want to ask, if anyone saw that fan-made series, then how was it? And what’s the view count now? 

I also heard it’s an Avatar Studios production...which doesn’t bode too well for the studios if this will be the content we’ll be getting.

And yeah, if it does actually suck, then...first of all, DON’T USE AANG AND TOPH AS THE THUMBNAIL FOR THE EVENT.

Seriously, are we still doing this ship bait crap? I mean, if that was their intention, then...stop. It’s lazy. Quit it. Just...tell us a story. Maybe focus on Aang and Toph in this fan-made series as it was Earth Day...you know, because, Earth, Toph, Earthbending? Anyways...

I really don’t like this whole Avatar Studios bit here. It’s just a cry for help from Bryke. It’s like...they have nothing to go on except for this series. It’s...kind of sad. And they’re chief officers of Avatar Studios...which means they are in charge and looking over EVERYTHING. 

You know what that means, right? 

No chance for Zutara...or Taang...

Which I have to say right now to these guys...

GROW UP. 

I mean, how sad can you be? Let Katara and Zuko interact for once. Let Aang and Toph interact for once. Let them have something...maybe it’s time to, oh I don’t know, Bryke, MOVE ON?

If you really want to expand the Avatar universe, then do something different. Enough of this bullshit ship baiting and whatnot and crappy storytelling. Listen to other fans and writers. And if you can’t do that, then...why are you here? Why are you in Avatar Studios? Why are you still milking this franchise? WHY are you depending on this Nickelodeon cartoon to give you recognition!?!? 

Do other things! Make other original content! Stop riding this Avatar train!

And most importantly, be men. Grow up. You act like frat boys for so long, it’s just...it’s sad. And tell the damn truth.

I’m sorry this went into a rant, but...really, you guys got to see now that these guys are relying too much on Avatar.

And really...since they left the live-action Avatar The Last Airbender, I hope the live-action succeeds. Just to let them know that they made the mistake in leaving the project cause they couldn’t handle change from the creative people that work there. And that their Avatar Studios will crumble so bad, all because they were selfish and arrogant thinking that they could do it all, because they think they were the ‘brains’ of the show...when all honesty, they were just ‘idea guys’. That’s all they are. Idea guys. 

And I won’t go into race or anything, but as for these white guys...they shamed me on being white. And I will NOT make the same mistakes that these two have made.

“Get out of jail free card.” So yeah. Jack’s been fixing mortal injuries and murdering enemies and being the magical fix-it guy and this is exactly why the writers have had to keep messing up Cas in various ways or having him vanish because Sam and Dean can’t have a magical superpower hanging around fixing stuff all the time. Jack is a lot more powerful than Cas now, and a lot more of a wild card, while Cas as completely proven himself, so this issue has shifted from Cas, who is much more of a steady fixture in Sam and Dean’s lives, to Jack who is re-powered up and extra powerful and a loose cannon. So of course things have to go terribly wrong with Jack. What the endpoint will be, I don’t know. Re-souled and reduced power? Re-souled and turned human? I don’t know. There’s probably going to be a lot of hurt first.

The shots of that empty bunker as the camera reflects Sam and Dean’s search for Mary and Jack, who were supposed to be back there, is very very telling. Oh so interesting. Sam and Dean alone in their bunker is no bueno and the narrative is underscoring in yellow highlighter with these visuals and the boys’ worry. The bunker should be filled with their family and the emptiness and loneliness of those tracking shots...

“Not Nick, not Lucifer. I’m you.” So Jack created this manifestation? Have to say, Jack’s subconscious is an asshole, and extremely hard on Jack. Of course.

This music score is some MCU epic angst levels.

Okay, Nick’s really dead-dead. Can’t say I’m sorry but I get that for the characters, this is horrifying, to know someone they care about killed someone like that. It’s not about whether Nick deserved it, it’s the out of control brutality. I’ll just wave my hands and pretend this isn’t undermined by how much an actual honest-to-god majority of the fandom in every lane, even lanes that never agree on anything, wanted Nick gone and thank you, Jack.

Cas’s memory flashback of Mary, oh noes, this hurts. He offers to heal her but she’s reluctant. “Are you still afraid of me?” Oh my heart. Cas forming attachments to more than just Sam and Dean, this matters. Cas of yore didn’t attach like that, and didn’t mourn. Not the way now!Cas does. 

Cas: “I know you know this Mary, but Sam and Dean are glad to have you back...you should know they’re happy. I mean, finally they don’t have to be so alone.” Mary: “Castiel...they were never alone.”

LEAVE ME TO CRY SHE KNOWS CAS WAS THERE FOR THEM SHE ACKNOWLEDGES IT. 

And it’s interesting Cas assumes their aloneness when, well, he exists. No, I don’t think this line is there to acknowledge Sam and Dean have each other although that’s certainly true as to why they were never really alone and Mary knows that too. But the context here was Cas specifically talking about Mary, a third party, making them less alone, and Mary points out they haven’t been, because hello, Cas is right there and has been there for them a long time and Mary has figured that out.

Oh goooood everything about this Sam, Dean, and Cas scene is heartbreaking.

“I was scared. I believed in Jack for so long. I believed that he was good...we were a faily and I didn’t want to lose that...I failed you and I failed Jack.”

JUST STAB ME.

Dean’s lashing out, saying if anything has happened to Mary, “you’re dead to me” to Cas is very harsh. That doesn’t mean he’s a horrible person, abusive, doesn’t love Cas, is actually going to never ever forgive Cas. He’s scared too. He’s grieving he’s hurt and he trusts Cas. Cas holding this information from them wasn’t the right thing to do. But it’s also not all Cas’s fault, Sam and Dean knew something was wrong, they knew Jack was soulless. So it’s not a matter of Cas deserves to hear such harsh words. 

Dean is ready to grab that BOTD and do whatever it takes. Hey Dean, remember in S10 you made Sam swear to never use that to save you? Because of the damage it could cause? After you say “you’re dead to me” to your best friend--even if understandable how upset you are--now you’re throwing away your own hard-earned awareness of the butterfly effect of going too far to get a loved one back. Dean is in major pain and not thinking clearly. And oh here’s the thing...he doesn’t get into this state of mind just for Sam.

I’ve pointed this out before, I’ll say it again: it’s not about Sam. It’s not about Cas. It’s not about Mary. It’s a Dean thing. It’s his fear of losing family. Talk all you want about how far Dean will go for Sam but he’s flipping out losing it over Mary, and we saw how devastated he was by Cas’s death, to the point he lost all hope. Dean’s rage over Kevin’s death and he broke furniture. Dean’s rage over Mary’s death and he broke furniture. We saw MoC Dean completely lose it over Charlie’s death. We saw what Dean was like in Purgatory refusing to leave Cas behind no matter the risk to himself, to themselves (although not risk to the world).

This is all incredibly painful but I’m not seeing how else Dean should be expected to react all this, I also think it wouldn’t be good if things stay there with no growing and well, guess what, they don’t.

Something that isn’t making sense--if Jack is soulless, how does he feel this much remorse for killing Mary, how is his subconscious torturing him so much about losing Sam and Dean’s trust? I’m not sure where Jack’s story is going ultimately but maybe this is a reason to hope he’s not completely lost.

Rowena: “Talk to them Jack, they’re your kin.” Yep. Rowena, who said yes to Michael to save them all. Who swore up and down to never be weak again, that love was a weakness, has gone all Team Free Will on us. I love her arc so much.

Mary training Jack flashback. I’m always happy when SPN actually shows hunter training and this transitions beautifully into a Sam memory of Mary and now I’m going to start yelling about CLOSURE CLOSURE CLOSURE again. Like last week, it’s all pointing to saying goodbye to Mary. (Which I have some thoughts on, on a meta-textual level, but will do that in a different post).

“How much did the two of you go through when I wasn’t there for you” “Somehow they’re literally the bravest, kindest most heroic men on the planet.” I AM GOING TO CRY. I’m glad Sam got to hear all that. I’m sorry Dean didn’t but he did get Mary’s apology last week for not being there for them more often.

But damn, CLOSURE THEME. I been saying. After John literally fading in ep 300 and Sam and Dean moving forward from that. Now they say goodbye to Mary. 

“Cas should have told us.” “Dean, it wasn’t just Cas. We knew Jack was dangerous...I just dumped Jack on Cas and left. I knew something was gonna...” “I did too...it was a warning...I just couldn’t see it.”

MY BEAUTIFUL SELF-AWARE HURTY WINCHESTERS.

So there it is. Yeah Dean is still mad and Sam has to initiate the wave-down and takes the pro-Cas argument. But Dean capitulates immediately. He knows. They both know. They all knew something was wrong with Jack and it’s not all on Cas, although yes Cas should have told them about Felix. The narrative continues again and again to show sympathy for Sam, Dean, and Cas and I am immensely enjoying all this character development where they’re voicing these things so readily. That this conversation fell within the same episode as Dean’s harsh words to Cas.

Of course Cas isn’t there to hear this, but things are pointed in a good direction for these three at least.

They all wanted to believe in Jack so so much. Even Dean with his initial rejection was won over. They all wanted to believe. I can’t say they were wrong, because I can see why they did, and by S14 I’m rooting for Jack to be good too. I’ve been metaing all season about the good Jack as brought for them, Team Free dads. 

I don’t have a strong sense where they’re going with Jack, it’s not like with Mary and what looked like an inevitable march to closure. I did expect Jack to go dark and here we are. But where this lands? I hope they don’t lose Jack. I don’t think they were wrong to see the good in him but how does soulless ultra-powered Jack can get fixed and how he can come back from having killed Mary Winchester? 

Dumah tells Cas that Mary is “at peace. She died instantly, completely.”

There’s Rowena, being the Cassandra warning Jack about the consequences of meddling with necromancy, plus there’s no body so it’ll be a full mess. 

Dean wanted to race for the BOTD. Jack is hell-bent on using necromancy. Winchesters.

Dean’s memory of Mary sleeping on his shoulder as he drives through the night and he looks so content and happy. JUST STAB ME IT WOULD HURT LESS.

Although Dean didn’t get to hear all the things Sam did from Mary, Dean did get some sense of connection back with her. He got to have his mom back, that hole of loss that’s been in him since he was four years old and he accepted the whole brittle complicated realness package, after most of his life idealizing a soft-focus childhood memory. Although he hits the ceiling about Mary in this ep, Dean was able to let John go in ep 300, and I think losing Mary now is also different. He’s not four years old. He has a family (albeit one that’s yet again a hot mess but I think they’ll work things out). He got at least to get to know her as Dean the adult, not Dean the four year old who had his mom ripped away plus trauma of seeing her burning on the ceiling. He got to say what he said to her in S12, to acknowledge what losing her did to him, to their family, and his hate and his love. There’s at least some healing here.

Jack’s subconscious really wants to burn it all down. Not only will Sam and Dean never trust Jack again, “you can never trust them.” Oh SHUT UP WHO ASKED YOU, JACK’S SUBCONSCIOUS.

Sam looking at the pictures. MY SADNESS

AND CAS WALKS IN. 

AND THEN DEAN.

Okay, that’s good, they’re all in the same room and nobody is yelling. Dean’s still behind a wall of ice right now.

“She’s in heaven and she’s at peace.”

Dean’s clipped inquiry about whether Cas just took Duma at her word about Mary and Cas’s reply that no in fact he went into heaven to see for himself. Zing. Is that all you think of me, Dean, pls. Without getting outwardly angry at Dean. Okay yes this is terrible but they are going to be okay and this is some big Destiel drama going on right here before our eyes. If anyone ever got it together enough to bring this out of subtext to full text, I’d be expecting make-up sex. 

Sam, Dean, and Cas holding the hunter’s funeral pyre for Mary hurts in a thousand ways but for the sake of Team Free Will, the three of them grieving together, they’re all there together, shouldering it...I expected this ep to be a Team Free Will fest and it is, in a really hurty way. It’s also significant we’re seeing Cas grieving. To get to grieve. To be present at a hunter funeral for family.

Cas trying to go to Dean to comfort him, and I presume try to apologize and say how very sorry he is and Sam putting out his arm and stopping him was shattering but so right. Sam is right. Dean needs some breathing room and Dean deserves some breathing room. He’s not canceling Cas but he’s still raw from the grief and trust issues. 

Dean has already acknowledged his own shared culpability. He hasn’t talked to Cas about it but he acknowledged it, and Sam acknowledged it. As I said earlier, Dean trusted Cas so much and they went through so much together to get there. Even if Dean knows it isn’t all on Cas I think Cas hiding the information about Felix from him shook him. He also, given that he already acknowledged shared culpability, is likely feeling uncomfortable because after saying “you’re dead to me” to Cas, well, how does he walk back from that? And even if his rational brain knows it isn’t all on Cas, Dean still hurts. So Dean’s not ready and Sam knows it, and I think Sam, knowing that, also sees how desperately Cas wants to make things right with Dean, and that if Cas gets rebuffed right then, it’ll hurt even more. Sam is playing Destiel mediator, as well as being protective of Dean, and you just know he hates it when they’re like this, but he also understands. This gesture was really intuitive of Sam. 

The MW joining the SW and DW on the table feels right. Interesting nobody added a JW. Back to my thoughts about the camera’s lonely track through the empty bunker, SW and DW’s initials aren’t alone on that table any more. Even though they lost Mary. Hopefully family doesn’t have to die to get carved on there and we may see more to come.

i just found the most hilarious reviews for the handmaid’s tale and i’m dying lol. since twop is dead(?) (is it? i dunno cos i never look anymore tbh) this is the next best thing. and it’s doubly awesome cos she hates all the same characters. (mutual nick hate is my life). i have another post in my drafts about how amazing amy glynn’s reviews at paste are. and they are. but they are serious. these ones are snarktastic.

“Welcome back to America’s favorite rape and explosions show, The Handmaid’s Tale.”

“Nick goes out into the rain, full emo cigarette smoking, resigned to boning this virgin, when he spies something. Oh no! It’s Offred, sprawled in the rain, bleeding to death. He picks her up and screams for help. My god. These two. Offred is the world’s worst teenager. And Nick is her bad boy boyfriend. She’s going to robotically obey and then bleed to death in the rain? Get the fuck out of here with that. These two act like they are in a My Chemical Romance music video circa 2005.” (This is my fav one of them all.)

First off, S14 has to be possibly the most domestic SPN season ever. We’ve had glimpses. But S14 is really digging in showing us this family’s life in the bunker. Add to this, even though Cas wasn’t present for game night, how accepted and normalized it is that Cas lives there. That’s his home. He’s expected and if he goes he at least tells Dean and it’s temporary, it’s assumed he’ll come back. Our bunker family includes 2 characters who aren’t blood related to the Winchesters, Cas and Jack, but they are part of the family nonetheless, something S14 has made abundantly clear. 

Why is this domesticity important? Isn’t SPN about killing monsters? It’s important because SPN is about killing monsters. It adds texture and layers to our heroes, makes their lives even more real, and ups the drama factor when we can see them have moments of domesticity and being a family to contrast with the harshness and the monster fights and the darker aspects. SPN from the get-go, has as its primary fuel the bonds between characters. Most of SPN is about Sam, Dean, and Cas as charcters who have MHI and PTSD and how they keep on keeping on, and their bonds with each other and other characters. 

We also need to be reminded of the stakes. Our heroes need to be shown living the world they’re trying to save and we need to see why they care if their loved ones are imperiled. We need to see them being a family to understand what could be lost. Remember in ep 300 alternate Sam and alternate Dean we learn are isolated characters and we see Cas devoid of personal attachments, and that was their tragedy. 

The monsters are really just a backdrop to explore these characters. Because SPN is a horror/urban fantasy series, we aren’t going to spend a whole lot of time on the domestic stuff, it needs lots of monster-killing action, but all in service of revealing character, and the domesticity needs to be there as part of the emotional weave. It stood out to me how extra domestic the start of Game Night is, with Mary and Jack putting snacks together, Mary trying to talk to Jack, and Dean trying to fix the mouse trap game, they reference that Sam is off getting pizza and will be back shortly, and we have a reason Cas isn’t there but we know if Cas were he’d be right in the thick of the domesticity.

They also did it because of how hurty this ep gets later on, for dramatic contrast.

Dean, our smart little engineer. Dean seems really, really frustrated he can’t fix the mouse trap game which you might think is just there for comedy but it’s not. He’s really minds he can’t fix that mouse trap game. Dean hates it when he can’t fix things, doesn’t he. When someone in his family is hurt or something’s wrong with them and there’s nothing he can do. He’s also not over that PTSD from having Michael screaming and banging in his head. It’s the little things. You think SPN actually forgot he has PTSD, look again.

And where is Cas? Why, he’s off meeting with the angel Anael to get a fix for Jack’s soullessness, without telling Sam and Dean, because Cas...he’s still got issues which I’ll get to a moment.

Interesting Cas orders a waffle he’s apparently not eating. Maybe just to not appear out of place in the diner. While Anael doesn’t even get coffee. Like it’s important to Cas to behave as a human, even if he’s not actually going to eat that waffle. Maybe Cas just wanted a waffle. It’s a really cute waffle, I’d want that waffle. This is reminding me of Cas and the milkshakes in 14.15. Why do they keep showing us Cas and cute milkshakes, Cas and cute waffles. It’s tantalizing. Almost lampshading the fact that this idea of Cas and milkshakes, Cas and waffles, is appealing, the idea of Cas enjoying these things, and maybe Cas would enjoy these things, yet he’s not going to actually consume them. 

So Anael was Joshua’s right hand. That was a reveal that shows she was an angel of some importance.

I love the Anael and Cas dialogue. “Ill-conceived lone-wolf desperation.” Anael has seen some things. There’s several moments here where she sees through Cas’s bullshit, and several moments where Cas sees through hers. 

Cas is not only hiding his deal with The Empty, he’s gone off to find God to fix Jack’s soul without telling Sam and Dean.

Oh this Dean and Mary scene. I’ve talked about Mary’s arc before, and how purposeful the distance and remoteness is, why the character is meant to be brittle, and wondering what kind of progression we’d see, a softening on that. Here’s another moment of it.

“You’re here, okay?” “But I should’ve been here more. I know I can be closed off, hard.” “That’s where I get it from.”

Oh, this is making me worried for Mary. That’s an awful lot of emotional honesty and softening and I’m thinking about John in ep 300 and closure and how that ended up. Dean got to say what he did to Mary near the end of S12. “I hate you and I love you and I forgive you.” And that was why Dean needed Mary back. But Mary has stuck around for several seasons and there are still unresolved things there. Which this scene offered one step towards a resolution for. How very John paralleling of you, SPN. 

Dean relating to Mary’s facade isn’t spn vilifying Dean. SPN doesn’t think Dean is actually closed off and hard, the narrative doesn’t show us that, and the authorial voices don’t believe it. Dean does however construct a facade for himself and I’m not sure how people can claim it’s vilifying Dean for SPN to remember that. (People want consistency and SPN to remember Dean’s characteristics...it does). Dean references his facade here. 

Remember that Dean’s perception of himself is that he’s a hardass. The Dean we actually see--and yes SPN is not only aware of that dichotomy but plays with it consistently--is a big-hearted squishy vulnerable softie who outbursts his emotions often and does a terrible job of hiding how much he cares. But in his Dean’s own mind his face is impeccably forged.

He’s acknowledging here he realizes Mary has a facade too and her brittleness and remoteness isn’t because she doesn’t care. 

I think also Dean wants to relate himself to his mom. He modeled himself on John much of his life and had to find a way to being his own person away from that shadow, but he’s actually always been more like Mary and he wants to be close to her. So here he purposefully spells out a connection between them, even though Dean isn’t really just like Mary, their facades are still a commonality.

Mary saying “I’m grateful” for all the time she gets to spend with her kids. Her adult kids. Not the babies she lost. Her children as they are.

Ohhhh something bad is going to happen I can feel it.

We get smart researchy Sam, and Mary and Dean mother-son badass hunting team. I’m sorry we haven’t seen more Mary and Dean team-ups, I’ve been waiting for that. (See why I’m nervous? There’s a lot of Dean and Mary stuff in this ep I’ve been waiting for and was denied and now getting it...Marty, I’m scared. I know how SPN operates).

So Nick is basically a complete amoral psychopath now and I am both bored yet weirdly relieved the story isn’t even going close to trying to make him someone relatable or intriguing. Nick is one of the only things most of this fandom in all lanes agrees on: he has to go. And SPN is making him as unpleasant as possible, reflecting that.

Jack and Donatello have no soul and yet they show more conscience and care of others than Nick, who has his soul still, which is raising questions in my head about how souls work on SPN and can empathy be learned even if the soul is gone. It’s not that Jack isn’t incredibly dangerous without his soul, his inner compass is completely borked. But not totally absent. Donatello also has judgment about how to treat others. But Nick...Nick is only murderous. 

“Because you’re a good man. You are. It’s one of the reasons I’m so proud of you.” 

We are John paralleling like mad here. Sam gets to hear Mary is proud of him. Dean gets an apology for her distance and her letting him know she appreciates being with him.

Closure, closure, closure. Something terrible is going to happen. 

These Cas and Anael scenes are utterly delightful. Not just because Misha and Danneel have a great rapport but the themes the dialogue is wading into is making me rub my hands together in metaish glee.

“I believe in Heaven.” 

Anael was a believer. Joshua’s right hand. She was a good soldier. Unlike Cas, it doesn’t sound like she had much inclinations to rebel. It seem unlikely Anael ever needed a reset, but like Cas, she eventually did.

“I don’t need Heaven and I don’t need God. I’m happy,” Anael says.

There’s that theme of actual happiness vs. false happiness again.

“Really?” says Cas, who we know has figured out how important bonds with others are. “Because that sounds lonely.”

“We’re all lonely because we’re all alone,” says Anael.

Well this just got deeply philosophical. We can feel alone even when we’re with others. Anael feels God abandoned everyone and she’s not wrong, and she hasn’t found a connection with others the way Cas has. And Cas, even though he has found those connections, is still a lonely figure. Isolation, alienation, feeling he doesn’t belong have been major themes with Cas for years. But Cas knows things Anael doesn’t about how life one earth works.

Oh I so am enjoying Dean kicking the crap out of Nick.

Jack is soulless yet still cares about helping Donatello.

“My father was a monster.” “He loved you...and you broke his heart.”

Shut up Nick, you manipulative psycho. Love isn’t enough. Lucifer “loves” like Thanos “loves.” 

Back to Cas and Anael, “I’m doing this for Jack,” Cas says. Which he is, in part, but it’s not the only reason. Anael may have passed on coffee but she’s packing tea. “You’re doing this because you’re afraid. Because in your mind it’d be easier to call God than tell Sam and Dean Winchester the truth. Jack’s soul is gone.”

Here is my whole separate post of its own on over-protective Cas trying to shield Sam and Dean from the storms and while it’s done out love, it’s misguided and his methods of shielding them often end badly.

But if you think Jack is all Cas cares about? Jack is the only reason Cas has done anything lately? You aren’t paying close enough attention (also that’s ignoring big chunks of canon anyway but I’m talking specifically, that even some of Cas’s Jack decisions have been about protecting Sam and Dean from pain...read my post). 

There’s another samulet. Cas recognizes the object most likely to be the telephone to God because it’s similar to the Winchester samulet. It’s not identical to Sam and Dean’s. Similar but different design. Slightly different purposes. One glows in the presence of God. Another acts as a voicemail system. Are there others, with other purposes, related to God?

Chuck abandoned humanity and the angels but made sure means of communicating with him were left, perhaps scattered all over the world? In case of emergencies? Was it a full abandonment? 

Cas sneaking away from his family to call his father for help out of their sightline because he’s scared and worried, why is that familiar. Where have I seen that before...oh yes, Dean calling John way back in “Home” in season 1.

This while Sam and Dean are going through closure things with the Winchester parents and Cas is again looking for his absent father.

“Go home and tell Sam and Dean the truth.” GOOD PLAN, ANAEL. 

I love this exchange with Cas and Anael so much. This is the whole lynchpin of what Cas has learned.

“Just because God’s not with us doesn’t mean we’re alone.” “Why? Because we all have each other?” “Yes.”

Similarly to how Dean had already accepted himself without needing John’s approval to do it, Cas has already figured out he’s not alone even though his father is a chronic abandoner.

Now Sam is beating Nick! It’s the Nick gets beaten up episode and I am so here for it. Sam doesn’t kill him of course because Sam is a good person but I am also sort of sorry Sam doesn’t kill Nick. Which I don’t think is the takeaway they intended and yet.

Sam’s Nickrage. Sam tried to see the good in him and give him the benefit of the doubt. Nick turned out to be completely amoral, and Sam was wrong. And now there’s something wrong with Sam’s shared Team Free Will adoptive child, Jack, who Sam needed to believe in. Sam has had something wrong with him and he’s not all bad, he was worth saving, others are worth it too and Sam needs to believe that. Jack maybe will vindicate Sam in this by the end while Nick is proving to Sam that isn’t always true and I think being faced with that is breaking Sam’s heart. No not everyone is worth saving. Not everyone can be saved.

It’s almost like survivor’s guilt. Sam is a good man. Sam had demon blood in him, he’s made mistakes, he’s done some terrible things, he’s been through some stuff, and he is worth saving. Sam doesn’t seem himself as worth it while others as less worthy, and he’s having trouble not over-identifying on this issue. This is a very long arc for Sam--think back to S8 and Sam talking about knowing as a child he was tainted, that he’d never qualify as a knight, as a pure hero he saw in the books about King Arthur. 

But those are idealizations of the heroic paradigm. Someone can still be heroic while being tainted and imperfect. Sam’s figuring this out but he’s still struggling with the object of the proof that not everyone is worth being saved: Nick.

I am not here for Nick beating up Sam. :((((((((((

I am here for badass Dean which is always good to see.

Oh no Sam. :((((((((((((((

“Count with me.” “You always put me first. Your whole life.”

Look I know Sam won’t die-die for good yet but this is still upsetting, Dean trying to keep Sam with him and Sam deciding that should be his final words to Dean, because he’s aware of all Dean took on and he’s grateful. Sam knows. This is also a mirror flip on Dean’s head injury in Ouroboros. This made my heart ache. :(

No can we not have Lucifer back please? I adore 98% of the characters on this show, I’m serious, I am an ensemble gal, but Lucifer’s story has, for reals, played out. Nick is irredeemably awful and dull, Lucifer is boring and selfish and cruel and petulant and I’m bored. Luckily for me neither is being presented as someone I am supposed to or expected to feel sympathy for and I hope it stays that way. 

Hey SPN, you’ve successfully made me feel zero sympathy for characters who I clearly am supposed to feel zero sympathy for! You did your job! But do you realize how dull this is? I’m not sure this is supposed to be so dull.

Jack just saying no to Lucifer. Bye, Lucifer! Thank you, Jack!

Thank you Jack for saving Sam!

Hey Jack’s not doing too badly for someone’s who’s soulless...oops wait. No this is not good.

Look I get the way Jack killed Nick is not good and soulless Jack is really dangerous and that was a horrible way to kill someone which Jack didn’t have to do, he could have done it mercifully and didn’t. Of course Mary is horrified witnessing that, and I would be too, but otoh thank you, Jack for dispensing with Nick who is not just murderous. Murderous can be interesting, there are lots of interesting villains out there. But he is just so boring. The drama of Mary’s distress at what Jack did is undercut a bit here because I’m not sorry someone kills Nick. I rarely ever root for any character to die, even ones I dislike (just write them off maybe) but I’m making an exception.

Really Jack’s doing me some solids in this ep.

And then a bad.