Thursday, October 16, 2014

Supernatural 10.02 - Reichenbach -- Up Close and Personal

HOLY. CRAP.

WHAT JUST HAPPENED????

I am fairly certain I didn't breath the entire hour. Wow. I have watched this show for years and I am still blown away when our show brings it week after week. Good gracious! I have much love and admiration for our fantastic production, writers, crew and cast. 

Talking about bringing it...mad props to the VFX crew for making Jensen look like pre-season-1-Dean in the Cole flashback!

Complete with Samulet and John's leather jacket!!! *FEELS*

I actually felt rather sorry for Cole in this episode. Of course, I was NOT a fan of the torturing Sam part but I really felt for him otherwise. He was 13 years old when his father was killed on the floor of their house by a stranger. Cole is not aware of monsters and the supernatural world apparently (which if he was tracking Dean for 11 years I wonder about that...) so he just fuels his life with revenge and the want to kill Dean. Yellow Eyed Demon/Winchester men parallels anyone??

Side-note: if Cole wants us to take him seriously as a badass Marine he might want to consider changing his cell phone ringer...rather girly, if you ask me.

I am looking forward to watching this story unfold. I am VERY curious as to WHY Dean killed his father. What was going on in 2003? Was Dean hunting alone or with John? Does Dean remember this boy and the situation? AHH! Okay, patience.

Side-side-note: I am pretty sure, being a public librarian myself, that this would be the exact look I would have if someone came in, bleeding all over the nonfiction collection and asking about demons. 


Anywho...

AGAIN Jensen Ackles stole the show with his award winning performance as Demon Dean! Hot damn. I have sworn for years his acting couldn't get any better but I am always proven wrong. HOW IS THIS MAN EVEN REAL?! Good gracious!!

In all seriousness, though, Demon Dean is a masterpiece of acting. We have watched Dean Winchester for 10 years and I have met Jensen in real life and Demon Dean's body language and mannerisms reflect neither. Demon Dean is more open in his stance and posture. He also only smiles and laughs from his face rather then his body. That is character depth right there. Also, because Jensen hasn't acted right up next to Jared for two episodes we also get to see the camera play with his height. He towers over Mark Sheppard in the standoff scene between Dean and Crowley. He is also much taller than Cole in the fight scene. I liked this dynamic. It adds power behind the acting. Good directing, guys!

I said in last week's review that the real side of Dean bleeds through the Demon Dean performance. The more I think about that analogy the more I like it. Bleeding wounds are covered up, protected and hidden as soon as possible. People who have them don't count them as a good thing! I think the same is true for the real nature of Dean. The demon side of him is aware that there is this bleeding of another nature and doesn't like it. He chooses the demon side. As the preview for next week suggests, Demon Dean "likes the disease."  But yet we, as the audience, get to see these bleedings of real Dean; i.e. letting the wife live, being concerned about Anne-Marie's feelings, not seeing his brother as a challenge but giving him a chance to run. Brilliant, BRILLIANT acting.

Demon Dean is a riddle. He is a shocking character because he looks like our favorite elder Winchester brother but he is a bully, jerk, less-than-gentlemanly, arrogant, sleazy bastard. I am ready for the fallout of this character. I have a feeling it is coming soon, maybe even next week. Can Sam save him?

Red shirt alert AND Dean Winchester made a Princess Bride reference! A PRINCESS BRIDE REFERENCE!!!! (I might never recover from the shockingly appropriate timing of that pop culture reference) Now if we can get Crowley to say something along the lines of "Tyrone, you know how much I love watching you work, but I've got my country's 500th anniversary to plan, my wedding to arrange, my wife to murder and Guilder to frame for it; I'm simply swamped." I could die happy.


The horror of this torture scene was gut-wrenching. This was helped by two things; 1) it was filmed up close and very personal. Look how close and raw these actors are. The camera is IN. THEIR. FACE. And 2) most of the fandom is well aware of Jared's real shoulder injury (Osric was just a "hunting accident" this week instead of a demon LOL) and so the torture felt even more real and searingly painful. I found myself yelling at the TV at one point "COLE, YOU BASTARD, BE CAREFUL OF JARED'S SHOULDER!!!!" (yes, I confuse reality and fiction. I'm cool with it.)


Sam's devastation jumps off the screen every time we see him. Broken and exhausted are the words that keep jumping to mind. (Jensen's acting might be more in our face because of Demon Dean but Jared is seriously stealing my heart with Sam Winchester.) Anyone who knows me, knows that Season 3 is my favorite season of Supernatural. It is because Sam is himself the whole season and has such a desperate love and want to save his brother. THIS is Sam Winchester of Season 10 as well. His tunnel vision to find his brother, to never give up on him, to make any deal to get him back...it is so rich with love. When Sam tells Cas about Dean being a demon you can sense his wave of grief. We are living every emotion with the younger Winchester and it is a hard, beautiful ride. I hope for Sam's sake that he cures Demon Dean soon. I am starting to worry about his health.


I said the angel storyline last week feel a little flat for me but that was NOT true for this week. I see what they are doing now. They are making the angel/heaven storyline personal and human. It is Hannah wondering what the surprise in the casserole was, it is Cas laughing with a child over snot, it is Metatron going for the 8th grade insult of "You're a liar."I loved the angel story line this week. I want to see where this journey takes our angels and what effect it has on heaven.


Of course the moment that instantly turned this episode into one of the top favorite of all time was the first meeting of the brothers since Dean died in his Sam's arms over 5 months ago. Recognize Sam's face? Allow me to remind you...

I can't! I am tearing up just writing this. Damn angels and demons and ghosts and leviathans and hunters and fathers and Men of Letters and urban legends and any other myth-arc this show has or ever will come up with! This show lives and dies on Sam and Dean Winchester and the men who portray them. 

I had to watch the scene where they talked in the bar about 5 or 6 times before I actually heard the dialogue. I just watched the silent conversation. Jensen once said, "You can say a lot without saying words." and that is what happened in this scene. I dare you to watch it with the sounds off. It is all there! Everything they are saying or wanting to say or not wanting to say but saying anyways. Watch it on mute. Tell me what you think.

We end with a classic Impala scene. This is familiar yet so uncomfortable as Dean doesn't care about Baby and is handcuffed in the backseat. Sam is trying to find that humanity in his brother that he so desperately wants to know is there. Dean is determined not to show any weakness. It is a Mexican stand off and that throws us into next week with a severely amazing case of whiplash. 

I. CAN'T. WAIT. 

1 comment:

  1. Great review completely agree with all but the angel part I still find myself waiting for that part to be over to get to the "good stuff" it's like having extra commercials for me right now hopefully I can get into it soon.

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