Dancing Angels
Picspam/Meta Review of SPN 4.16



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(I loved the episode, and all assertions or notions are merely that; ideas, spontaneous reactions. By no means do I think I am wholly right.)

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When you get right down to it, Alistair has known Dean longer than anybody. There is a certain element of nostalgia to this scene as it feeds out, bit by bit, elements of a shared history; an old joke, familiar powerplays, rote rebellion.


Reality is far too concrete. Dean could fall back into the old trade, back into mayhem, murder and maiming oh so easily. It's the fact that he can't, not out here, not in the real world, not in a place where Sam exists, where Angels walk and humans breed and play and love, the fact that he will not let himself fall back into the animal that Alistair carved him into that will eventually shut him down.

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I loved this line. 'The fire is our friend.' Ruby speaks as if she and Sam are kin, as if they, together, are of a kind separate from the rest, from the mortal, fire-fearing civilians. When she says 'our' does she mean demonic? It seems an oddly all-encompassing phrase to use simply in a singular context.




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Dean is coming apart at the seams emotionally, gripping tight to the jagged edges of reality as a buffer between his actions in the metaphysical Hell and his own will. If he never self-determines again, it might be too soon, after all all the horror and consequences his initiative wrought Down Under. Meanwhile, Sam's sense of reality - as grounded by his morality - is coming unstuck, swept off in the whirlwind of becoming Other.

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When the apocalypse comes, when the demons win, when Earth is burning, so says Alistair, they will owe everything to Dean. If that isn't anti-christ imagery, I just don't know what is. Dean is the first son, Sam is the last. Symmetry becomes ever more prominent the further into the mytharc we go.


Alistair is holy. Or unholy as the case may go. A High Priest in the cult of Lucifer, imagined or real.


Oh, Dean. He was so sure he would walk back out a monster, but the pendulum swang the other way. He shattered himself against the immovable object of Alistair and Alistair's impeccable knowledge of him in the attempt to not. Let. Alistair. Win. But, turns out, Alistair won long ago, when Dean picked up the razor. And that's when Dean gives up the ghost of himself.

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Hold up. Was that an agent of fate I just heard apologizing? This is not an everyday occurrence people, and it got a little buried under the magnificent brotherly fury of Sam as he demanded, Miracle now. Or Apocalypse.

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And there it is. We're losing.



Everybody - Alistair, Uriel, Castiel, Anna, and especially the boys, everyone is playing fast and loose with the rules to a game I fear only the YED and Ineffability understand. Angels can die in wars with demons in the realms of hell and heaven, but not when protected within a meatsuit on Earth. Then, only angels can kill angels, but Castiel did not know this. Why should Castiel fear being cast from his host and sent back to Heaven by Alistair? Surely time is relative, surely he could spin around on a round trip fast enough to come right back down and help.

Thing is, I don't think Castiel's been in heaven for a long time. He has fought, alongside Uriel and his garrison, for what seems like forever, away from home. I don't think he knows what Heaven is anymore.



All I could think when Uriel said he had killed those who would not follow him was of the way Castiel had bid his sister farewell in the beginning of the episode. A warrior-angel, fallen and slaughtered by her fellow soldier.



I just love the imagery of this shot.



Uriel went to such great lengths to guide and ease Castiel into a mindset of doubt - his act of frustration on the park bench comes to mind - but then here we go, the reason. With Castiel, they will be powerful enough. Why? Why does the entire converted garrison need Castiel? This I would very much like to know.



Castiel spinning with the punches and spitting angel blood. Who says there is no wrath?


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A righteous man. There must be more to divine monopoly game. Righteous men must have come and gone through the gates of hell, so why John? Why Dean? The YED talked about other generations, even as he affirmed that Sam's was the only one that mattered. Is this timing coincidental, or planned? Perhaps we do not yet know everything of significance about the circumstances of Dean's time in hell. Why apocalypse now? I think show knows, and I'm wanting very much to find out.



Here are some other questions:

• Just how would angels go about calling in old favours?
Oh, hey, Raphael, Raph, Raphy-old-boy, it's Anna here. Remember me? That's right, honey bun. So I was thinking, seeing as how I helped you out with that spot of ...rather embarrassing trouble you got into with with the Crusades, you could reconstruct my old human body from when I fell in disgrace and you all disowned me on punishment of death. Yeah. Good times. ???

• In order to finish the apocalypse, would one undo the damages of said apocalypse, or indeed finish it, if you know what I mean?

• When you dream in hell, do you always dream of Alistair? Serious, existential question, that.

• Grasshopper?


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