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destielshippingnews · 2 years

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Edvard's Supernatural Guide: 1x22 Devil's Trap

Supernatural’s twenty second episode is the second half of The Show’s first two-parter and the final episode of its first series. Perhaps my expectations of a series final have been ruined by Buffy where the end of each series (except the first) came at the end of a long build-up and would often have been sufficient as an ending to the whole show. As I have commented multiple times, the first series of Supernatural – and indeed much of Supernatural – suffers a lack of rising action leading the characters and the viewer towards the final conflict. This problem is perhaps due in part to the format of a twenty-two episode monster-of-the-week show in its first year, but part of it is also down to insufficient planning.

This is not to say the episode is bad, because it certainly is not, but it does not feel like a proper ending. I have also commented elsewhere that series one and two of Supernatural feel like one novel to me, with 1x22 serving as the ending of the first part. An equivalent could be the breaking of the fellowship at the end of The Fellowship of the Ring: no main plots have reached a conclusion, but a sub-plot or two has reached its end and obstacles have been thrown in the characters’ way.

The cold open of this episode overlaps slightly with the ending of 1x21 Salvation, picking up with Meg answering John’s phone and telling Dean he will never see John again (no such luck). Dean has not had time to put his mask back on after Sam attacked him, but his reaction to Meg’s implication that John is dead causes him to snap into action mode: as will be discussed in 2x02 Everybody Loves a Clown, Dean’s behaviour is typically masculine in that he responds to difficulties by seeking a solution. He wastes no time in putting himself together, putting his coat on, and dragging a hesitant Sam out of the door.

One thing which I noticed upon rewatch was a certain quality to Dean’s voice which first appears in this episode, a rough, gravelly sound which sounds like he has been screaming for a while. I am far from the first person to comment on the fact that Dean’s voice in series one is significantly higher than it is from series two onwards. I have to admit I did not notice anything unusual about his voice at all until 2020. Sure it is significantly deeper than a lot of men’s, but nothing strange. I live in Finland, and here a tiny number of men for some reason speak right out of their throats. The sound is not guttural, but rather sounds like a frog with tonsillitis. I do not have the foggiest why they do it when the vast majority of Finnish men speak perfectly normally, but some Finnish men just do. That is weird. Jensen’s ‘Dean voice’ does not even register on that scale.

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People both in and outside the show have tried to imitate it with tense vocal chords and shoulders, essentially growling like somebody in a death metal band (e.g. the cosplayers in 5x09 The Real Ghostbusters). Others have also mocked this aspect of the show and made comments to the effect of ‘trying to sound like manly men’, but comments like that are best left in their own league, as the Finns would say. Unless my ears work fundamentally different than everybody else’s, Dean’s voice sounds nothing like death metal vocals or trying to ‘perform’ manliness: rather, it sounds like a baritone singer’s voice.

This is not a music lesson, so I will keep it short: men’s voices usually resonate mostly in the chest cavity, making them sound ‘deep’. This is called ’chest voice’. Women’s usually resonate more in the head, making them sound ‘high’. This is called ‘head voice’. This is of course a continuum, and men can learn to both use more chest voice to increase their vocal range downwards / make their voices sound deeper, as well as to use more head voice to increase their range upwards. The same is true of women: they can learn to increase their range upwards with more head voice, as well as downwards into chest voice. Learning head voice is harder for men than chest voice, and the reverse is true for women, but it is a skill professional singers work towards.

I am far from an expert, but I have listened to dozens of hours of Jensen singing both at conventions and his own music with Radio Company. While I doubt he is classically trained as a singer, he definitely sounds trained to me. He is no Freddie Mercury, but he is versatile and skilled whilst having (what sounds to me, at least) great vocal control. His vocals first appeared as backing vocals on a song in 2000: while his voice definitely sounds pleasant and recognisably Jensen, it is unpractised and raw compared to his later work. If memory serves, he began singing and playing guitar more seriously with Steve Carlson around 2004-2005, and his vocal performances from roughly 2010 sound much more refined, trained, and practised.

What I hear in ‘The Dean Voice’ is Jensen’s singer training: he uses a lot of chest voice when speaking as Dean, entailing diaphragmatic breathing (lowering his diaphragm and filling his entire chest with air, rather than chest breathing) which provides more space for his voice to resonate. I also hear fantastic physical condition, as projecting a voice like that requires strong core muscles and the ability to use them in regulating breathing. Posture is also important, as the position of the shoulders and chin affect vocal production. ‘Death metal vocals’ play no part in it whatsoever, so I do not understand people adopting a faux gruff voice and thinking it represents… anything. Maybe I am just a buzzkill, but it sounds to me like people are not paying attention to anything they hear.

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According to him, the reason he gradually lowered his voice when portraying Dean was an attempt to imitate and emulate Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s portrayal of John.

We know that Dean is also a singer: I commented in 1x17 Hell House that Dean was singing along to Blue Öyster Cult’s Fire of Unknown Origin in tune with a nice-sounding tenor, and episode 15x07 Last Call shows us that Dean’s vocal range spans from bass to tenor, sitting most comfortably in a baritone range.

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Having said all this, there were a few episodes roughly somewhere in series twelve or thirteen where his voice sounds excessive to my ears. I have said usually nothing sounds unnatural or forced about it, but in a handful of episodes late in The Show’s run, the director really should have said ‘Slightly less chest voice’.

What is strange to me is hearing Jensen’s normal speaking voice which is how most of his other characters speak (people say Tom in My Bloody Valentine sounds like Dean, but I think they see Jensen and do not pay attention to what they actually hear, but whatever), but returning to the episode at hand, Dean’s voice has a rough quality which suggests he is straining to keep control of himself.

In the car, Sam thinks it prudent to continue with the ‘I coulda killed him [Azazel]’ crap from the end of last episode. Other than this being irksome (that conversation is over, Sam, drop it), it shows that Sam is okay with abandoning and even sacrificing John in order to get the job done. While it is wonderful that Sam and I both agree on the acceptability of sacrificing John, I do not understand why he thinks sticking around in Salvation would be a good idea: Azazel has disappeared, and going after John is their best chance of getting to him. In contrast to Sam, Dean refuses to even entertain the notion that John might be dead. Part of this is his own reliance on John’s continued existence for his mental stability, but also because it would make no tactical sense whatsoever for Meg to kill John rather than keep him alive and perhaps offer him in exchange for the colt.

Knowing help is needed, Dean drives across the border to Sioux Falls in South Dakota to Bobby’s. Bobby is a fan favourite, but I have to admit I do not like him nearly as much as some people. Admittedly he was a better father figure to Dean and Sam than John, but a) that is a very low bar, and b) I simply cannot forgive him for him ‘I’m so sorry your feelings are hurt, princess’ in 4x22 Lucifer Risingafter Sam tried to strangle Dean to death in cold blood,or for trying to guilt and shame Dean when he was metaphorically suicidal in 5x18 Point of No Return.

Contrary to John, Bobby’s ‘parenting’ can generally be described as ‘tough love’, but a few times too many it veers into simply damaging parenting and bullying tactics. That said, Dean and Sam seem much more comfortable around Bobby for the majority of their time with him than they ever do with John. I think Bobby actually did genuinely care about and love Dean and Sam, but rather than being an abusive, neglectful father like John, he was simply an incompetent, damaged father. His motivations were mostly love for Dean and Sam, so he gets some credit and a little leeway from me for that. He tried.

But no, Bobby; family is not supposed to make you miserable. If your family is making you miserable, you should find a better family.

All of this is in the future, though. Jim Beaver did not expect his role as Bobby to last for more than one episode, and it might have been the case that Missouri Moseley was supposed to make a reappearance (thank Odin she did not). Personally, I am glad his character stuck around, but it is very convenient that yet another acquaintance we have never heard of turns up in the story just when he needs to. He is also yet another acquaintance who has not been in contact with the family for an extended period of time… because of John, whom Bobby tried to shoot in the persqueeter last time they met. There is a through-line here: adults do not like John.

Bobby exposition-dumps about a manifold increase of demonic activity in the last year, and of an approaching ‘storm’ which we should have been made aware of a few episodes ago, but whatever. At this point, Bobby’s Rottweiler Rumsfeld barks outside, putting everybody on edge, then he suddenly falls silent and his chain is shown to be broken. We are to presume he is dead, but he is never spoken of again so nothing is ever confirmed.

Meg then smashes in the door and Dean tries to throw holy water on her, but once again gets yeeted into a wall (one of several times he goes flying in this episode). Given the situation it was probably necessary for somebody to get twanged into a wall in order to lead Meg into a false sense of security. Why did it have to be Dean again, though? I have said before many times that The Show does not like Dean (one of the reasons I hyperfocus on him in these analyses instead of...anything else), but is it really necessary to keep flinging him into stuff? Sam is also young, healthy, and muscular, he can take being twatted into a hard surface a few times.

Another issue with this scene is the ease wherewith Meg appears to have found the Winchesters. If it was indeed so easy, 1x21 Salvation looks completely pointless. Why did she not do this a few days ago? Whatever the case, Dean, Bobby, and Sam dupe her and trap her in the show’s first devil’s trap, a sigil specifically for trapping demons. The version used in this episode is significantly more complex and involved than devil’s traps used later in the show. This is likely due to ease of production (both within and outwith the show), given that such traps are employed with increased frequency later on.

Following this is a sequence of scenes featuring some exceptionally strong performances. Dean’s scary side came out, his rage barely kept under control as he interrogated Meg, the gravelly aspect to his voice morphing into a furious growl. However, during the exorcism scene, his desperation and fear are plain in his tense bearing and the set of his face as he fights against the possibility that John is indeed dead. He had a wild, intense look in his eyes and a set to his jaw that would have me running for the hills if directed at me. Who is this man and can I have a whole show about him, please? Soldier Boy in The Boys was supposed to be a horrible, scary cunny-hole, but nothing he did in his forty minutes of screen time held a candle to Dean’s wild, animalistic presence in this scene.

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(On the subject of Soldier Boy, he might have had heterosexual men considering the attraction of their own sex, but Dean’s deep, rumbling voice as he snapped I lied! and the sheer masculine force of him in this scene would have had them fighting over the lube in the local grocer.)

On the other side of this interaction is Nicki Aycox’s Meg. Given her acting choices were limited, being tied to a chair and all, I was completely convinced by her performance as a trapped demon trying desperately and failing miserably to save face and maintain a facade. She is a tiny woman, but she did not seem meek, frail, or weak at any point before the exorcism, even after Dean slapped Meg so hard he reconfigured her brain. After the exorcism, she transfigures utterly into a broken woman glad for the horrific ordeal to be over and glad to finally be dying. A moment previous she had been all bravado and cockiness (and as Paula R. Stiles pointed out, quite the masochist), then she was utterly shattered and spent. Demon!Meg was completely gone, and Human!Meg was a totally different entity. The fact Nicki Aycox is a tiny woman – slim, a good foot shorter than Jared, and a head shorter than Jensen – definitely worked in her favour here.

I have said on several occasions that Meg 1.0 does not work for me, but it is certainly not due to a lack of acting talent, for she definitely has it. In fact, if it were not for Jensen chewing the scenery up, she would have stolen this scene.

While Dean was interrogating Meg, Sam performed an exorcism which differed from the one in 1x04 Phantom Traveler (in Ecclesiastical Latin: note the pronunciation of v as ‘v’ and c as ‘ch’ like Italian e.g. ‘veni, vidi, vici’, rather than the ‘w’ and ‘k’ of Classical Latin as in ‘weni, widi, wiki’). Jared’s pronunciation in general sounds acceptable: he clearly has the accent of a native English speaker, but it definitely does not sound like this is Sam’s first time reading Latin. On the subject of 1x04, Dean and Sam encountered a demon which possessed humans. Why, then, so they seem so surprised to learn that ‘Meg’ is actually a demon possessing a real woman? Did Eric Kripke just forget that when writing this episode?

What also gave me pause for thought was why Bobby and Sam were hesitant to exorcise the demon from Meg, even though it would have resulted in Meg dying from the wounds she sustained in 1x16 Shadow. There is no way they can let Meg go free while possessed, nor do they have any other option? This sounded to me like the writers knowing the viewers would have questions, and so they included this to answer said questions.

It does have the effect of Dean perhaps looking like the ruthless one willing to sacrifice anything and everything to keep his family safe, but I see it as Dean accepting it has to happen. This is a recurrent theme throughout the show: Dean sees something horrible which has to happen due to a lack of other options, and accepts that it has to happen / he has to do it. See for example the Mark of Cain, or the Malak Box. While this happens, people around him try to stop him being the responsible adult because ‘There has to be another way’, even getting violent, angry, and pissy with him because his decision is not the ending they want. See, for example, Sam punching Dean because of his decision with the Malak Box, or Cas trying to shame him for the same reason.

Note that even though Sam is supposed to be the main protagonist of this show, it was crossing and underestimating Dean which was Meg’s AND Azazel’s biggest mistake. Sam would have left John to his fate and not gone after him, whereas Dean’s devotion to his family (even members who do not deserve it) is what drives this last part of the plot forwards and what leads to their downfall. Dean makes the choices which make the story happen, whereas Sam still does not. Of course he does do things in the plot, but he is mostly reactive and passive compared to the character who was supposed to be the stupid sidekick.

Remember, by the way, that Azazel knows Dean will kill him. They met in 1973 in 4x03 In the Beginning… and Dean told Azazel he was the one to gank him. This explains some of Azazel’s hesitance in the events of 2x01 In My Time of Dying, but also shows how prideful and even hubristic he was: had he refused a certain trade in 2x01, Dean would never have been in a position to kill him.

Also worth noting is that Dean is the unquestioned leader of proceedings in this scene; both Bobby AND Sam defer to him and follow his lead. This reflects the role he later adopts as the unofficial captain of Team Free Will. And how everybody else falls apart when he is absent...

Moving on, Meg’s dying words lead Dean and Sam to Jefferson City, Missouri, where John is supposedly being kept and guarded by demons. Sam is an idiot and draws protective sigils and wards on the outside of the car boot (silly because rain exists), and then another plot-point conflict arises regarding whether or not to take the colt along with or not. Dean wants to use the colt to save John, whereas Sam wants to keep it in reserve for killing Azazel.

Sam tries to use the ‘Dad wouldn’t want us to do it’ argument on Dean, a tactic which Dean soundly rejects. Dean is firmly of the opinion that saving John matters above all else. This is a continuation of their discussion in the car at the beginning of the episode, but here Sam goes further and begins ret-conning his own life and Dean’s motivations by claiming that Dean went to Standford to get Sam in order to kill Azazel. This is not what happened. Dean’s motivation throughout the series has remained constant: he picked Sam up because ‘Dad’s gone on a hunting trip and he hasn’t been home in a few days.’ Dean knew nothing of ‘the demon’ at that point, and Sam is wrong to assert killing Azazel was Dean’s goal then. If I were ill-disposed to Sam, I would say this is an attempt at manipulation: ‘You wanted me to do this. I could have carried on with my studies, but you dragged me along with you to kill this demon, and now you’re trying to stop me doing that.’

Sit down, Sam. Thankfully, Dean does not take this lying down, but instead says Sam and John are ‘a lot more alike than I thought’ and that they cannot wait to sacrifice themselves. ‘You’re selfish...you don’t care about anything but revenge.’ Dean is calling everybody out and I love that for him.

To be fair to Sam, he has been terribly written. He is so inconsistent that it has been very hard for me to understand him, and it is only through lengthy discussions with a friend that I can see what the intention with him might have originally been. He was supposed to be somebody who had always known he was an outsider and never had a real sense of normality, or of right and wrong because of his unstable, unrooted upbringing. He tried to find normality and stability at university, and through successful masking (pretending to be ‘normal’) he managed to fit in. But then the metaphorical faeces hit the air ventilation appliance and he was dragged right back into his unstable life which confirmed he was a freak and unfit to live in normal society. However, he was deeply unhappy in the otherworld he found himself in, and unable to rely on his moral compass. I could have liked a Sam such as this quite a bit more if he were written more sympathetically, and if he were not such a mean-spirited bore.

Returning to the episode, what follows is a mostly boring scene in which Sam sets off a fire alarm to empty the block of flats and then he and Dean trap the demons guarding John in a cupboard. To do this, they use fire extinguishers full of holy water, then bar the door with salt. This scene also gave us Dean fulfilling a childhood dream by becoming Fireman!Dean (we live for Fireman!Dean, be honest), and it ends with Dean and Sam finding John, who is busy performing the wife’s role from Gerald’s Game.

This is followed by a quick exeunt down the fire escape (so people can get right from the street to your bedroom window on the nth floor? Why, Vancouver America, why?) with an indisposed John in tow. The Loquacious Terminator appears ex nihilo after John’s rescue and proceeds to beat Sam up while Dean struggles with John. Sam is utterly overpowered, but Alec X5-494 momentarily takes over control of Jensen’s body from Dean and roundhouse kicks The Loquacious terminator. If TLT were a normal human, this would have been enough to delete the last five years of his memory, but alas TLT yeets Dean Alec X5-494 into a car windscreen. Thankfully Dean and Alec’s vessel is made of much tougher stuff than a normal human: and he is not adversely affected by his second yeeting of the episode. Dean reasserts his control over Jensen’s body and ventilates TLT with the colt. After a horrified, uncomprehending look at the TLT’s dead body – the body of the man TLT possessed – Dean hurries John and Sam away from the scene towards the Impala.

There is not enough time for me to wonder why the streets were so empty that nobody noticed a gunshot, a fist fight, or Alec X5-494 making an appearance, as the next scene begins in a cabin somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Dean is deeply shaken by not having hesitated to kill Meg or shoot TLT in order to save Sam and John. ‘There was a real person in there.’ This is one of many occasions when the viewer is allowed to see behind Dean’s mask to what is beneath. Dean has never killed a human before this episode, and while the death of Meg and TLT’s vessels were not his fault, he holds himself accountable and is deeply hurt by having killed them.

This is painful for him for many reasons, one of which being the fact that humans generally do not enjoy killing other humans. But Dean has been groomed to believe that his only worth is in fighting for and protecting others, and for minimising their pain and suffering as much as possible, even at the cost of his own safety, health, and life. Killing Meg and TLT’s vessels goes against this, and he believes he has failed in his purpose. His care for his family and his hunter instincts are powerful enough to override his moral compass, and this raises the question in his mind: am I a monster?

I am also reminded of the fact that many war veterans who suffer PTSD are not traumatised by things which happened to them, but rather things they did. Being in war caused them to do things they would otherwise find inconceivable, and it brought them face to face with their own capability for violence. This is what I see in Dean: his own capability for violence scares him, even to the point of traumatisation.

Though Dean does not realise it, John’s treatment of him has not turned him into a mindless, hateful killer. He does not do what he does because he enjoys violence, but rather violence is a necessary part of what he does which he happens to excel at. Roughly fifteen years after Dean sits in that cabin pondering whether he truly is a bad person, somebody will tell him the truth about himself:

‘I know. I know how you see yourself, Dean. You see yourself the same way our enemies see you. You're destructive, and you're angry, and you're broken. You're "daddy's blunt instrument." And you think that hate and anger, that's... That's what drives you, that's who you are. It's not. And everyone who knows you sees it. Everything you have ever done, the good and the bad, you have done for love. You raised your little brother for love. You fought for this whole world for love. That is who you are. You're the most caring man on Earth. You are the most selfless, loving human being I will ever know. You know, ever since we met, ever since I pulled you out of Hell... Knowing you has changed me. Because you cared, I cared. I cared about you. I cared about Sam, I cared about Jack... I cared about the whole world because of you.‘

Dean also beats himself up for having wasted one of the colt’s bullets in saving John, at which point John conveniently appears at just the right moment to reassure Dean, almost as if we were watching a television show. John praises Dean, but rather than being aglow with joy at finally hearing words of praise from his father, Dean almost shrugs it off, clearly very suspicious.

I will discuss in a few weeks’ time why exactly I read John as an abusive father, and why Jensen’s claim that a) Dean knew John loved him and b) John was not abusive are simply incongruous with what I can see on screen, including lines of dialogue which come out of Jensen’s very mouth. One such line appears in this scene. Dean recognises that John is not John because John praises him for having used a bullet to save him, rather than ‘tearing me a new one [by which he means ‘a new hole in his body’, i.e. ripping and stabbing, referring to extreme anger and possibly physical violence]).

The fact that Dean can tell John is not John by the fact he acts like a reasonable, loving father is another load of soil on the mountain of evidence in the case against John, but more on that in a dedicated essay. My reaction to this cutting line from Dean’s mouth was a) ouch and b) John wasted a bullet on a basic vampire, so if he had dared to chastise Dean for using it to perforate a demon, he would have been an utter hypocrite. Dean’s realisation leads him to draw the colt on John, and upon re-entering the room, Sam quickly takes Dean’s side (more of this Sam, please!) John tells Dean to shoot him if he is so confident, but a few tense seconds pass with Dean hesitating (once again reminding me strongly of Alec X5-494 from Dark Angel, specifically of some scenes in 2x11 The Berresford Agenda) before Azazel!John reveals himself by way of having yellow eyes.

Once more, Dean is yeeted into a wall because the writers love doing that to him, but at least it is a double yeet this time, as Sam is subjected to the same treatment (strangely enough, the cuts and blood from the beating he took earlier are gone). With his vessel’s sons duly pinned against opposite walls, Azazel!John proceeds to pontificate rather than snapping his fingers and killing both boys. He talks about how Sam was going to propose to Jess, and had even gone ring shopping (while still at university? Bold move, Sam. Almost as bold as Dean’s denim jacket and jeans combo), which is surprising seeing as how I have hardly seen Sam grieve at all. It is also revealed that Azazel killed Jess and Mary because they got in the way of his plans for Sam and the psychic children like him.

At this point, Dean breaks the monologue by saying ‘Listen, do you mind just getting this over with? I can’t stand the monologuing’, to which I had to chuckle. Other than this being characteristic of Dean, I also thought ‘Dean, just wait until you watch The Walking Dead; Negan is unbearable!’

The monologuing does indeed go on for a fair few minutes, but to be fair on the show, this is the conflict which the show has been leading up to for twenty two episodes, so it is acceptable. The boys spent most of series one searching for their dad, and the reason for them being in the story in the first place was Azazel forcing Mary to make the deal in 1973, and then murdering her in 1983. The boys (specifically Dean) wanted to find John and keep him safe, whereas Sam’s focus was revenge for Jess.

To have all of this come to a head in this manner is indeed some successful dramaturgy. It was also dramatically fitting that abused son Dean should end up almost cut open and torn apart by his dad, and that rebellious Sam should almost become a patricide. Most of what Azazel said to Dean after Dean’s monologue quip was entirely spot-on: Sam is John’s favourite (regardless of what Jeffrey Dean Morgan was thinking when he played the part), and John seems largely indifferent to whether Dean lives or dies. After all, he was nowhere to be seen in 1x12 Faith. That said, John and Sam do need Dean, as everything always falls apart when Dean is not around.

Dean taunts Azazel!John about having killed his kids, to which Azazel!John responds by ...well, it is quite hard to tell, as the camerawork does not reveal exactly what it is Azazel!John does to Dean. Dean bleeds quite profusely, but it is only after quite a while that I eventually managed to make out a cut on Dean’s chest. The amount of blood is much more than would be expected from a simple surface wound, so the cut must be quite deep. Still, the shots were bad in this section.

Paula R. Stiles commented on the vague similarities with Azazel’s torture of Dean here and sadomasochism. I honestly did not make any links between Dean bleeding to death and sexual gratification, but having it pointed out to me brought to mind the large number of posts I have seen of Dean (and Sam) covered in blood and cuts with notes or captions such as ‘Oh, he looks so cute, let me tuck him up in bed.’ This brings to mind a Jocasta complex rather than S&M, but maybe I am just weird in that men bleeding to death does not arouse me.

Something I am 100% certain of, however, is that sexual violation, rape, and sexualised violence are among the torture tactics used in Hell. This almost definitely happened to Dean, and some of the things Alistair says to Dean in 4x16 On the Head of a Pin heavily imply he raped Dean when Dean was in Hell. The same is true of some of Lucifer’s taunts of Sam. While I am glad none of this was shown, it is a shame that the effect and trauma of it is glossed over.

I am not too far away from 2x15 Tall Tales, where a young man is ‘ probed’ again and again and again. Read: he is raped. The audience is supposed to laugh at this.

But on the subject of sexualised violence, I and others have commented before on the fact that it is almost always Dean who is the victim of ‘sexualised’ violence on the show, as well as the fact that he is the butt of gay jokes. I am aware that Jensen is a very good-looking man, but why the hyperfocus on doing this to his character? Is it supposed to be a comment on ‘masculinity’, since casual viewers and plenty of writers see him as ‘a manly man’? Or is it just a case of sexualising Jensen for the reasons outlined in 1x04 Phantom Traveler, and thinking it is harmless because he is a man?

Returning to the scene and the discussion of bad shots, what was not bad was Jensen’s acting. I am aware I have already indulged myself this analysis, but Jensen’s acting, Dear Reader! Dear Reader, Jensen’s acting! He switches seamlessly from sneering in the face of death and taunting his would-be-killer to a scared, dying little boy struggling to stop himself screaming long enough to beg his father to save him. ‘Dad, don’t you let it kill me.’ He looks in stricken horror at the torrent of blood flowing out of the wound in his chest, knowing he is probably about to die in a lot of pain. And then the final bloody-mouthed ‘please’.

Why is this man on this shit-show of a show? Why could we not have had him on Buffy, where most of the writers do not suck? Or something with a big budget like Battlestar Galactica? If Dark Angel had not been cancelled in favour of Joss Whedon’s Firefly, the show could have been finishing its sixth series at the time this episode was broadcast, and then I would not have to miss Alec X5-494 so much.

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Then again, somebody less talented might have been chosen to portray Dean...

John manages to momentarily wrest control of his body from Azazel in a scene reminiscent of Sam regaining control over his body in the graveyard in 5x22 Swan Song, both occasions after the entities in their bodies had been hurting Dean. The damage is done, and for all John knows Dean is dead. Sam points the colt at John as Azazel reasserts control, then shoots John in the thigh. With Azazel weakened, John is able to finally reassert control over his own body, but Azazel is still in there, and John orders Sam to kill him, bellowing for him to shoot him in the heart and end it. Sam, once again, hesitates and lets Azazel get away.

Some reading this might feel I am being unfair to Sam here. After all, Dean too hesitated to shoot minutes prior to this. However, Dean did not know for certain that John was possessed, whereas Sam did. Contrary to popular belief, I am also human and understand that shooting one’s father would be one of the hardest things to do, even if it would mean killing a demon. This does not mean Sam’s second failure to kill Azazel is not frustrating.

Dean is mercifully still alive (I would not have continued watching if he had died) and begs Sam not to kill John, and Sam of course does not. Azazel escapes, and the Winchesters climb into the car and drive to hospital (which according to Sam is ten minutes away). John seems none the worse for wear, and Sam positively chipper, but Dean is bleeding out and struggling to retain consciousness in the back seat.

What this scene reveals to the viewer is that Sam’s motivations and character have changed slightly. John chastises him for not shooting him, saying that killing the demon comes before everything (so John would let Dean die if it meant killing Azazel. Would he let Sam die, though?) and that he thought they were agreed on that. Sam, however, looks at Dean in the rear-view mirror, and disagrees with John. Revenge does not come before everything. At least in this scene, Sam values his family over revenge. If only the show had stuck with this version of Sam...

The scene ends with a lorry blind-siding them, and before the credits roll, the camera shows the wreckage made of the Impala in the collision, followed by panning up to reveal the lorry driver’s black eyes – he is possessed by a demon.

And so the first series ends. 1x22 Devil’s Trap is a lot better than some episodes I have reviewed so far, but there are a few scenes which slow it down a bit. Given the low budget of the show, what we got was the most that could have been expected. (The viewership was also: at its most popular, it only had around half the number of viewers for its live broadcast as Buffy did at its least popular. Supernatural was almost cancelled during its second series due to this.) However, the drama the episode offered was a satisfactory conclusion to the first series.

#edvard's supernatural guide #spn meta #spn #supernatural #spn 1x22 devil's trap #dean winchester #sam winchester #john f*cking winchester #jensen ackles #Yellow-Eyed Demon #s01e22 #dark angel #alec x5-494 #meg 1.0 #nicki aycox #rockstar!jensen

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highfunctioningflailgirl · 3 months

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Damage Control - 1x22 Devil's Trap

Zero bars.

“Shit!”

Sam stuffs the cell phone back into his pocket, mind racing. He can’t call 9-1-1. Both Dad and Dean are gravely injured. The demon might return. The Impala is out back. From the map he studied earlier he remembers the location of the nearest hospital.

It’s up to him now.

“Sit tight,” he says both to his father and his brother, as if any of the two were able to get up and walk under their own power right now. “I’ll be right back.”

He runs outside, grabs the first aid kit from the trunk of the Impala, throws a blanket into the back seat and leaves the door wide open. Back inside the cabin, he drops to his knees between his father and his brother.

Dean first.

“You with me, man?”

He’s curled up on his side, white-faced and breathing in faint puffs, arms protectively cradling his chest. When Sam gently rolls him onto his back, he groans feebly in response.

“Is he– … Sam, is he okay?” Their dad is trying to drag himself closer, leaving a trail of blood on the floor boards.

“I dunno. He’s lost a lot of blood.”

Sam unclamps Dean’s arms and pulls his blood-soaked t-shirt up to expose the damage. He finds two long and deep slashes across his chest and stomach that look almost surgical. The lower one has opened the muscle tissue of Dean’s belly, but at least he can’t see intestines. The white of bone shimmers through the one across Dean’s ribs.

“Oh God.”

Sam rips open gauze pads and slaps them over the wounds, applying pressure. Dean moans in distress.

“That bad?” John Winchester, hand clutched to his own bleeding leg, sounds scared, and if Sam wasn’t so busy trying to save his brother, he’d take a moment to be surprised.

“He needs a hospital,” he says instead, Dean squirming feebly underneath his hands. “And fast. I’ll get him there. The both of you!”

“Hnnng… Sammy! Fuck, that hur— guhh…!” Dean squeezes his eyes shut against the pain. His lips are slick and dark with blood.

“I know, Dean, I’m sorry,” Sam apologizes. He’s scared, his heart beating frantically in his chest, but he’s trying not to show it. “I know it hurts like hell. But we’ve got to slow down the bleeding before I move you.” With one hand and his teeth, he rips strips of tape from a roll and secures the dressings as best as he can. At least there’s not nearly as much blood welling up as before, when the yellow-eyed demon, in their father’s body, had held Dean in his vise-like grip.

“You’re gonna be alright, son.” Their dad’s voice sounds steadier now, his commanding tone returning. Sam can still hear his worry for Dean, but also his anger about letting the demon escape. “We’ll get you out of here, fix you right up. And next time we find that yellow-eyed bastard, I’m gonna pay him back for what he did to you, I promise!”

Sam turns to him and tosses him a rolled-up bandage before pressing both palms back on Dean’s chest. While he shares his father’s need for revenge, he has different priorities now. “Here, tie this around your leg!”

Over his shoulder, he watches his father wrap his gunshot wound and pull the bandage tight with a teeth-clenched grunt. Counting in his head, Sam gives them all three more minutes, his pressure on Dean’s wounds steady. He takes a deep breath. Then he lifts his palms to check.

The dressings are blood-smeared from Sam’s hands, but, encouragingly, there’s no bright red soaking through - at least not yet. Dean’s eyes are open and lucid, his breathing sharp and fast, but uninhibited. This may be their window of opportunity.

“Alright, brother,” he says as firmly as he can. “Think we can get you up now?”

He knows that, ideally, he shouldn’t move Dean, go for help instead and bring back the cavalry. But the demon might come back, and they’re in no condition to fight. They’ve got to go.

Dean blinks heavily and scrunches up his face, bloody teeth showing. He’s starkly pale against all that red. But he nods. “Uh-huh.”

“Okay.” Sam pulls the t-shirt back down over Dean’s bandages. He gets up and behind Dean and slides his hands underneath his armpits.

“I’ll get him to the car first, then you,” he informs their father.

“Sammy, you can’t–”

“Yes, I can.”

A choked sound of agony comes out of Dean when Sam hauls him upright, but the injured Winchester does his best to get his feet under him and not pass out in the process. Sam slings his brother’s arm across his shoulders and hooks his free hand into Dean’s belt. Dean’s breathing raggedly, trembling with pain. But he’s vertical, and that’s got to be good enough.

“Ready?” Sam asks.

Dean nods weakly.

Taking most of his brother’s weight, Sam somehow manages to half-carry, half-walk him to the Impala. He lowers him into the back seat, propped up so he doesn’t choke on the blood he’s still bringing up in small amounts. Whatever the demon did to him, it must have caused internal injuries as well. Sam grabs the blanket and spreads it over Dean’s legs to keep him warm.

“Stay awake, okay? I’ll be back with Dad in a minute.”

When Dean doesn’t react, Sam urgently pets his cheek. Sluggishly, his brother’s eyes peel open.

Sam gives him a shaky smile. “There you go. Now stay awake!”

Reluctantly, he leaves his brother alone and rushes back into the cabin. His father is already standing, leaning against the wall, all weight off his injured leg.

“We’ve got to hurry,” he says urgently. “He might come back.”

The hairs at the back of Sam’s neck stand up.

“I know.”

If the bastard shows up again, Sam will not hesitate. He’s got one bullet left.

He slides under his father’s arm to support him.

“Sam, where’s the colt?”

“I got it.” He feels the weapon safely tucked into the back of his jeans. “Let’s go!”

When they’re at the car, Dad dropping heavily into the passenger seat, Sam’s dizzy with exhaustion and adrenaline. It’s a heady mix - his heart pumping in his ears, his legs shaking, thoughts ricocheting in his head like a spray of bullets. Danger pings up his spine, screaming at him to run run run, and in the middle of it all he’s trying to stay calm, the only one left standing.

He zips around to the driver’s side, yanks the door open and slides behind the wheel. Turning the key in the ignition, he whips his head around to check on his brother.

“Dean?”

His brother’s limp in the back seat, but his chest is rising and falling, the blood on his shirt glistening in the dark. His eyes flutter open when he hears Sam’s voice.

Dad has turned his head around as well, for once getting his priorities straight. “Hang in there, son,” he says, and manages to make it sound like an order. “You’re strong! You’ve got this!”

The engine of the Impala roars to life. Dirt and pebbles spray as they take off, the big car lurching on the unpaved road. Sam grits his teeth against every pothole, only now becoming aware of his own injuries again. His right eye is so swollen that it’s messing with his vision on that side, and he squints into the darkness ahead. His cheek’s puffy and hot, pain radiating down into his jaw and screaming for an ice pack.

No time for that now. Beside him, his father is white-kuckling the dashboard and bleeding through the bandage around his leg. Behind him, in the rearview mirror, Dean coughs, fresh blood trickling down his chin.

Sam pushes his own pain into the background and focuses on driving.

The Damage Control Series - Masterlist

Read the whole series on AO3 here: