SPN: It's the Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester

[norwich36]

Sam's genuine awe at meeting the angels, and his awkward apology for saying "Oh my God," was pretty much the cutest thing ever, and kind of broke my heart, because as I expected the angels were not precisely welcoming to him. And what a rude awakening for Sam, to see the harshness of divine judgment as his first confirmation of its existence. Even though we (the viewers) found out a somewhat different story by the end of the episode (and presumably Dean will pass some of that along to Sam), it was still kind of heartbreaking to see Sam's faith shaken like that. *Pets him* Especially that scene with Uriel at the end. Strangely enough, I was more offended that Uriel would pressure Sam with the memory of Jess and his mom's deaths than I was by the actual threats--I have to agree with Sam and Dean, Uriel *was* acting like a total dick. But a terrifying and powerful dick, which really seems to be a good description of a lot of biblical angels, so I generally like where they're going with that storyline.

Still, I loved how Dean tried to salvage Sam's faith for him--Babe Ruth was a dick but baseball's still a beautiful game. Oh, DEAN. Scenes like that are why I give you a pass on perving on teenage girls and eating all the Halloween candy like a giant pig and then taunting the poor astronaut kid. (You SO totally deserved to have your car egged, though).

And wow. Dean is heaven's general, or something like that? Wow. I've seen some speculation around (via musesfool and probably some other folks, too) that Dean is Michael (and/or is going to somehow end up embodying him) and that Sam is going to end up manifesting Lucifer, and I have to say this episode made those predictions a lot more credible to me. I kind of love that the angels were testing Dean, too--obviously he passed, even if he didn't stop the seal from breaking. And heck, bargaining to save cities from being destroyed goes all the way back to Abraham--and Abraham similarly succeeded and failed simultaneously (bargained God down to 10 worthy men, who couldn't be found, but he managed to get his family out. Of course later he was told to sacrifice another family member. Hmm. I wonder how explicitly they're going to draw the parallels? Because, you know, on MORE than one occasion Abraham's wife pretended to be his sister....Seems like wincest writers could do a lot with that.)

I think I will end there, because the faith questions and the angel stuff was what I really liked about the ep; I am trying to ignore the invention of Samhain as a demon and the pattern of casting black men as the Winchester's chief antagonists and having them drop racist-sounding slurs against humans, because clearly that kind of thing will drive me crazy if I let it.

No, one more thought on the title of the episode: So Linus is disillusioned every year when the Great Pumpkin doesn't come--though he lives in hope that if his pumpkin patch is sincere enough, next year will be the year. Poor Sam is as sincere as he can be, but it turns out that "Jesus on a tortilla" and all that stuff just boils down to righteous angels of God being dicks. No wonder he's going to go evil!

Comments

[musesfool.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I thought of Abraham bargaining with God, too, and obviously, Dean's already been asked to sacrifice Sam by his father (save him or you'll have to kill him) and he couldn't do it. I still think he can't, so I'm guessing heaven's strategy is save him, or *we'll* have to kill him.

[norwich36.livejournal.com]

Yes, and considering the John *is* kind of God, for Dean (and I loved how Castiel underscored that by asking Dean if he questioned John's orders), I guess the Abrahamic sacrifice thing has already been done (or not done, as the case may be) on the show.