In the first episode of the ninth season of Supernatural, everything is a mess. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Supernatural.
Trigger Warning: For talk of consent.Â
GOOD LORD. Let me split this up based on the three storylines that unfolded in this episode.
Dean
MANPAIN. SO MUCH MANPAIN. Understandably so, I should so, since season nine opens much like season two did. Here, though, Sam is the one in the coma, clinging to life, and Dean is fighting. A lot. Metaphorically, figuratively, and literally. There’s just so much fighting. And after the events of the last season, I admit it’s cool to see Dean so willing to cling to life. Of course, that renewal happened alongside Sam, so I get why Dean is so desperate here.
That sort of vulnerability – one that would lead Dean to make decisions that he otherwise wouldn’t even consider – is probably the aspect of this story that I’m most intrigued by. Dean has a lot of emotional moments in season eight: his scenes with Benny; begging Castiel (WHY DIDN’T YOU PUT THAT LINE IN THERE I HATE EVERYTHING); his heartfelt plea to Sam in the finale. These all added a depth to Dean (and to his relationship with others) that I enjoyed. I want to see different sides of him. And for the most part, Dean is in one solitary mode for “I Think I’m Gonna Like It Here.†He fights. He yells. He punches and stabs and it’s all very much the Dean we know.
It becomes more interesting when he stops. What does he do when his familiar methods don’t work? Initially, he prays to Castiel, unaware of what Castiel is going through. And what that doesn’t work, he sends out a general call to all of the recently fallen angels, fully aware that this is absurdly risky. It’s not that Dean isn’t the kind of person to take risks; I’d say that’s in his nature as a hunter. But this risk feels so much more huge to me than what he normally does! That being said, his deal with Ezekial (OH MY GOD TAHMOH PENIKETT OH MY GOD)is even more indicative of the man’s desperation.
Now, I’ll have a lot more to say about this when I talk about Sam, but I am hoping that this choice of Dean’s – to allow Ezekiel to use Sam as his vessel – will allow the show to explore a new side of Dean. Look, Dean has done something that, while beneficial to Sam’s health, is going to piss Sam off. I do not imagine that this is going to be something that Sam will shrug off easily. Given how ready Dean’s been in the past to criticize Sam for being dishonest with him, this is… jesus, y’all, THIS IS SO BAD. Again, I understand why Dean chose this, and I don’t think the show explained his reasoning for it poorly. That doesn’t negative the possible horrible implications from it.
Sam
Coma vision sequences are a dime a dozen in genre shows; I have seen so many iterations of them over the years that I admit to being a little bored initially by the use of this trope. I’m not opposed to tropes in general, of course. Some I don’t like because of personal reasons. (SHOUT OUT TO EVERYONE WHO SAW ME ON TOUR AND DISCUSS THAT TROPE USED IN THE OPENING OF THIS EPISODE, OH MY GOD.) Some carry the weight of social ills and end up passing that kind of bigotry along. But a trope is a part of a story. We use them every day, so I don’t want my criticism to come across as if I only like fiction that uses no tropes. Guess what that would leave me?
LITERALLY NOTHING.
So what is there to like in the usage of this trope in “I Think Iâ€m Gonna Like It Hereâ€? I guess that depends on the person, but I was pulled in by Sam’s decision. That mattered to me. I wanted to see how he would react to his own impending death, knowing that it was inevitable. That’s a fighting word for Dean, but that’s not the case for Sam. He’s not quite sure that he wants to fight to stay alive, and over the course of this episode, he drifts more and more towards “Bobby’s†view of life. (Okay, Supernatural, stop bringing Bobby back, IT HURTS EVERY TIME YOU DO.) Of course, Dean and Bobby are manifestations of Sam’s consciousness, so what we’re witnessing is Sam’s process of reasoning. We’re watching him decide.
And holy shit, y’all, he was gonna do it. DEATH ACTUALLY SHOWED UP, and that scene alone nearly made me cry. Like, this show has done such a good job of building up Death’s mythology that I knew instantly that this was some serious shit. Death does not show up for just anyone, so I knew right at that moment that Sam had truly made this decision. AND THEN HE’S MAKING DEATH PROMISE THAT NO ONE CAN RESURRECT HIM AND EVERYTHING HURTS. IT HURTS SO MUCH.
And it’s only going to hurt more in the future. While this episode never names it, it does otherwise explicit talk about Sam’s consent to Ezekiel. The truth is that his consent at the end of this episode was coerced. Ezekiel appeared as Dean so that Sam would instantly trust him. But what if this whole thing changes Sam irrevocably? I mean… christ, y’all, this is so uncomfortable and upsetting. Granted, it’s meant to be. This is not portrayed as some sort of miraculous healing. We know how awful this is. Yes, Sam could be healed perfectly by the end of this, but at what cost? We don’t know shit about Ezekiel. We don’t know if he manipulated Dean and Sam’s vulnerability in order to get what he wants.
But what I do know is that Sam was ready to die, and Dean took that away from him. He’s going to furious when he realizes what happened, isn’t it?
Castiel
I am utterly and completely into Castiel’s story this season. There are a few things the writers do here that are refreshing because they avoid the same patterns from past seasons. First of all, Castiel is actually in the opening episode instead of missing for half the season! (I don’t understand why he’s not a full-time cast member at this point.) Then, we get that phone conversation between Cas and Dean that allows both of them to update each other about their whereabouts and what’s going on with each of them. This sounds silly, but they finally just COMMUNICATED WHAT WAS HAPPENING INSTEAD OF WALLOWING IN IGNORANCE FOR MOST OF THE SEASON. That was one of my peeves about LOST because so many problems and issues could have been solved by a thirty second conversation.
What really thrilled me to watch, though, was Castiel’s journey as a human. It was, at times, remarkably subtle, and at others, ridiculously violent. And despite that Cas knew he had lost his grace, he still refused to adjust to life as a mortal. He tried to threaten others; he ignored hunger and thirst; he acted as if nothing had changed. But through Hael, it became impossible for him not to. I think that this season’s arc – if it is indeed about the war in Heaven and on Earth between the angels – feels a little similar to what we’ve seen for Castiel in the past. He tries to do good, messes up, and everyone hates him, but he wants to keep doing good! It sounds very similar to Cas’s story post-Leviathan, you know?
But those little moments… I WANT MORE. Seeing Castiel have to choose between water and laundry, theft and hunger, those are incredibly human things. And he’s going to have to continue dealing with them, on top of the injuries he sustained fighting off Hael. I AM SO INTO THIS PLOT, Y’ALL.
The video for “I Think I’m Gonna Like It Here†can be downloaded here for $0.99.
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