“You’re not going to save the world, okay? You’re delusional.” - Dr. Kathryn Railly, 12 Monkeys

Angels Want to Wear His Red Shoes
by Sylvia Bond
Supernatural Episode Review – Season Four, Episode 10
“Heaven and Hell”

I had a hard time with the uneven pacing of this week’s up, but mostly I kept asking myself the super important question that I’m sure was on all True Fan’s minds: What is UP with Sam’s hair? It has been so pretty lately, and now look at it. Maybe the flat, greasy style is supposed to represent his inner emotional turmoil, but frankly, I’m in love with emo hair that moves about, and, well, maybe it’s just as well it wasn’t so pretty this week. I come across as totally shallow when I obsess about it, and I very probably should concentrate on something more substantial. More serious. Like Dean’s eyelashes. Or how about his BACK? (More about that later.)

We start off with the “angels want Anne Shirley” plot, and the telling of this tale is just too long. Too long mostly because while there was good stuff for the first half of the ep, a lot of it was not about the brothers. There was a plethora of characters, lots of heavy-handed exposition, and too much focus on the angels vs. demon storyarc. Take the very first scene. It’s a battle scene where Uriel beats up on Dean (’cause, like, angels SO have revenge on the mind), Ruby gets thrown into some glass, and Anne Shirley hides. I’m all for whumpage, but this one seemed to have no purpose, and I did NOT like the fact that after it was over, Dean helped RUBY up, but not Sam. Say what? That’s not right, that’s so not right. The Dean I know and love would never do that. For Dean, it’s Sam first, the rest of the world dead last.

Though, at the same time, I do have a private little love for the bit where Castiel starts walking towards Sam, and Sam, backing up, is trying to stop him without using his powers. Which, as you may or may not recall, he’s given up, not just for Lent, but for forever. Anyway, Castiel is coming at him like a trench-coated locomotive, and then he does that Tap and Sleep maneuver on Sam’s forehead. The way Sam went down in a boneless sprawl was perfect; kudos to Padalecki, ‘cause in that lovely body, there are a LOT of long bones to keep track of. I always get the feeling that the Soap Angel suffers Sam to live, and this instead of smiting him, because of the affection he has for Dean. Dean is his weak spot. I think he likes Dean because Dean stood up to him. Dean was mouthy, sure, but this particular angel seems to respect the honesty underlying the cocky attitude.

I also cracked up when the boys went to Bobby’s house, but, surprise, no Bobby. (The irony, oh, the irony!) And it’s DEAN who wants to haul Bobby’s ass out of a hammock, whereas it’s SAM who insists that there’s nothing Bobby could tell them that they don’t already know. So, good scene all the way around, the boys are shown as being self-sufficient and their relationship to Uncle Bobby is further cemented: Dean thinks he hangs the moon as well as the sun, and Sam’s jury is still out. But what this scene also has is the honest humor between the brothers.

Dean’s going on about who Anne Shirley’s real dad might be (making lewd comments about plumbers), then Sam delivers the best line, the BEST line ever when he says to Dean, “Dean, you’re confusing pornography with real life. AGAIN.” Dean just laughs ‘cause he don’t care, but I liked the way Show worked this in so that we can see, if only just a little bit, that the brothers are still brothers. That Sam still looks down on Dean from his lofty perch of the higher moral ground of not sleeping around. (Except for the one time with that skank Ruby.) That he’s still rolling his eyes at Dean’s antics, still pursing his mouth in disapproval. And that Dean, in his turn, perhaps playing it up just so Sam can do that thing he does with his mouth, so that just for a moment, everything can feel normal. Or, at least as normal as possible.

There’s a bit more exposition and then the Psychic Chick shows up, you remember her. The one who was blinded for daring to want to know too much? Naturally, being the tough cookie she is, the PC has taken her disability in stride and has decided to focus on the positive, that being blind leaves all her other senses wide open. She comes into play at the boys’ behest, and while she strangely ignores Dean (blind in more ways than one, apparently), she walks right up to Sam and announces to one and all that she could “bounce a nickel on that ass!” which is VERY true, from my personal viewing position. And then she calls him “Grumpy” which is totally appropriate because sometimes he is.

Although I enjoy this character and her sassy attitude, the scene where she hypnotizes Anne Shirley went on too long, I’ll just say that straight out. I get that we needed a way to release Anne Shirley from her prison of not knowing who and what she was, but sheesh. It took almost a whole segment between commercials while Sam and Dean linger in the background, like incapacitated set dressing. Granted, the view is good (and the framing of the shot was lovely), but I felt like the boys did that a lot this ep, standing about, letting themselves get bossed or thrown around.

Suddenly Anne Shirley bounces up and lo, she’s an angel of the Lord, but a naughty angel who hankered after human things and fell to earth. What? More angels? I for one think it’s getting crowded around here. How many more angels do we need, I ask you? But the episode picked up steam (as well as purpose) when Dean and Anne Shirley were talking about what it means to be human and how that’s different than what it means to be an angel. Although I will say that the scene felt very much like an eternity in Sunday Bible school, I liked what came out of it. I liked Dean’s rueful laugh when Anne Shirley was talking about how irritating it was to have a father who barked out orders and expected you to go places and do things without even so much as an explanation or a how do you do. Of course Dean would think about The Dad, who he must miss something terrible. (As for angels, isn’t it their JOB to stand around for 2,000 years doing what God tells them to do? Sorry, I just don’t feel sorry for her.)

Then there’s the scene where Sam stays up late, reading, trying to figure out what to do. Sam doing research in the dark of night is always good, even if he’s talking to Ruby and Dean’s nowhere to be found. What’s also good here is how tawny Sam looks, how at home he is surrounded by his nest of books, his laptop. I’m sure that it’s firelight he’s researching by, he looks that good. I also like the look on his face when he’s talking to Ruby, who wants him to use his special powers. No, he says, and no. Just no. His expression is quite perfect for someone who is torn between being good and loosing to something evil and being evil to beat something evil.

One of my favorite funny scenes was the bit where the boys and that skank Ruby and Anne Shirley are all in the Impala, driving down a rain-slick road, and Dean starts to snicker. When Sam asks him why, he explains that having an angel and a demon in the back seat at the same time is like the start to a very bad joke. Or, in keeping with how Dean views the world, rather like the start of a letter to Penthouse Forum. Whereupon Sam says, again, totally funny, “Porn. Reality. Dean.” Hey, Dean? Never change, kiddo, never change.

And although I did enjoy seeing the boys in full sunlight (or grey daylight, anyway) when they get where they’re going, I thought the trip to bountiful for Anne Shirley’s grace was again too long. Not only is there a lot more standing around for the boys (albeit with some nice, meaningful glances between them), I find myself completely uninterested in an angel’s back story. And not only that, I don’t like angels BEING the story. This is very single-minded of me, I realize this, but the story has gone very far afield, and I desire it to return to where it seems it ought to be, and that is, about two brothers on a road trip.

Back at the cabin, there is more dither when Angle Radio announces that either Dean must give Anne Shirley up or go back to hell. This no one is willing to do, the most obvious reason for which is that the Winchesters don’t negotiate with terrorists, full stop. This settled, outside by lamplight, there is an Anne Shirley and Dean scene that, for once, seems to have real purpose as it pushes the plot forward in a Dean-ish direction. The conversation is not only full of juicy goodness, it’s overflowing with angsty, Dean-ish reactions. First off, Dean doesn’t want Anne Shirley’s thanks, and foists her off with cocky Deanspeak like, “Can the thanks-for-trying speech,” and “Participation trophies suck ass.” This is so very Dean to be flip and keep all those emotions at bay, THIS is the kind of scene that no matter how long it is will always be too short and leave me wanting more.

Then Anne Shirley says that she knows what Dean did in hell and that he should forgive himself for it. Dean’s reply of “I don’t want to talk about that,” is broken and jagged, and as she touched his face and he tipped his head away, it cut me to the quick. All this while I’ve been ignoring the question of what Dean did in hell, since I couldn’t imagine what he would do that would be that bad. Here, though, I got a huge slice of the darkness that was, and that is owed to Ackles himself for bringing the whole issue to life for me. He does that thing with his face, and half-lidded eyes, and staring at the middle distance so intently that you just don’t want to see what he’s seeing. Major points go to him for engaging me for, really, the first time this ep.

Then, naturally, the ep takes an interesting little detour, when Anne Shirley uses one of Dean’s best lines and announces that since it’s (possibly) her last night on earth, they should have sex, and sex they have. While the sex scene might have been a bit gratuitous (in that since Sam had one, let’s give Dean one), I found myself not minding that very much. And you know why? Partly because I was not expecting it, but also because one of the first things I realized was that it was Sex in the Back of the Impala. Back seat interactions of this type have a tone, and are usually initiated by the kind of boy my mother always warned me about. She surely would have warned me about Dean.

Yeah, it was like that. Frankly, there could have been a message scrolling across the bottom of the screen that said, “And then they had sex in the back seat of the Impala,” and you almost wouldn’t need anything more. There are so many, many fangirls who can picture this scene exactly, not to mention the fanfic that has described this type of scene in minute detail over and over and over, it’s almost overkill for me to describe it again for you here.

And THEN Dean takes his shirt off. In a word, incendiary. My couch was still charred from last week, thank you very much, and I kept thinking I might want to disconnect all those fire alarm batteries just in case. Because it was hot, full stop. It was hotter than burning, it was seduction and skin and a whole lot of sizzle, and I was bought and sold by the images of Dean’s bare back. He’s got a beautiful one, made up of curved muscles and that dip of spine, and lord, you could see a little bit of his underroos, which just sweetened the whole deal. I about died. Anne Shirley who? Doesn’t matter who he was with, he was, at LAST, with somebody. For all we’ve gotten the message pounded into our heads that Dean is Romeo and Casanova all rolled into one, it’s about time we got some canonical proof. More like this, please.

There are a couple of things, though, that I’d like to point out. Where the frack was Dean’s amulet? You know, the one he never takes off? I fully expected it to be whacking the chick in the chin, but no. As for the little Titanic shout-out at the end there, it had some sharks circling around it. Not only is it a cliché, there’s no way Dean’s going to let some chick, angel or no, leave sticky fingerprints on the Impala’s windows. Not no way, not no how. And, lastly, about the bit where Anne Shirley puts her angelic hand where Castiel put his angelic hand. The fit of her fingers to the burn mark on Dean’s beautiful shoulder is pretty exact, which means that her body, in this scene, is where Castiel’s was when he pulled Dean out of Perdition. Can you say, um, intimate? I knew that you could.

Then there’s the little dream scene, where Uriel and Dean chat. Not only was Dean beautiful (I love this kind of half-lighting on his face), I bought it when Uriel threatened Dean with hell if he wouldn’t give up Anne Shirley. Dean spreads his arms wide (in a rather Sam-like gesture) and says, “Come and take me.” Yea, verily, he bites his thumb at the angel. There’s lots of power between these two characters, because neither of them has any affection for the other; be it ever this way please, because I think it’s more interesting when there’s animosity between characters like this. (Not that I didn’t enjoy Uriel’s implication that Castiel is quite fond of Dean, because Dean should have someone who’s fond of him and is looking out for him. I mean, besides Sam.)

Okay, Ruby. Let’s talk about her for a minute. She’s no friend of mine, right, because she never was able to help Dean, and she seems to be leading Sam a merry dance, and other than seducing him into doing a bad, bad thing, there doesn’t seem to be much use for her. I was rather glad when Aristotle or Aristide or whatever dragged her away for a nice little slice and hack session with the demon-killing knife. She had it coming, and she’s had it coming for a while. But. While I’m not normally critical or worried about the oft-discussed and complained about misogynistic leanings of Show, I must say that the “how” of the torture session hit my feminist button pretty hard.

And why? Because apparently it was pretty necessary to the story that Ruby be stripped naked (rather than nekked, which is a whole lot more fun) and strapped down to what appeared to be an execution table. You know, the kind that death row inmates are strapped to before they get the Needle of Death jabbed into their arm. Her arms are spread wide and tied down with leather straps, her mouth is covered with more leather, and there’s another just-wide-enough leather strap across her chest tight enough so that her breasts push up in a prominent way.

Since the camera never goes lower than Ruby’s chest, you never see just where Aristotle or Aristide or whoever was slicing and dicing. There were streams of blood that pooled suggestively around the legs of the table, but for the most part, what was happening to Ruby was off camera. The only thing that was on camera were her BOOBS, and so thusly, the intended drama of the torture session was diminished to a skin show. I didn’t care what was happening to Ruby as much as I cared about the whole non-consensual overtones of the entire scene. I mean, really. When Dean was rigged up on those wires in hell, yes, he was barefoot, but he got to keep his clothes on. And why? Because he was a man, that’s why. Oh, Show.

Then comes the morning after, and Dean’s drinking. Again. While I like the continuity of him dealing with it this way, I really wish that Show would give us the long-promised PTSD. But before I can even start in on that, the angels show up. And guess what? It’s Dean who has sold Anne Shirley out. But the reason as to why is rock solid character truth: either Dean gives up Anne Shirley or they take Sam. See? There’s nothing else he can do, and Anne Shirley knows it. Sam first, the rest, nowhere, and that’s just facts.

What made this scene really cool was Dean, the way he stood there, the expression on his face. And the kiss he delivers to Anne Shirley, all that pain and sorrow spilling out of him as he says he’s sorry. Because he is, not just because he’s giving her up, not just because the two of them had a recent roll in the Impala, and especially not because there’s no way he could make any other choice, not with Sam as the other option. But I think his sorrow comes from a deeper place than that, little parts of Dean have broken off inside, this Dean that would give someone up so easily, rather than, as the Dean of old would do, and that is fight till there is no more fight to be fought, and then run, and run, and run, until there’s nowhere else to run. Dean’s given it up here, and THAT is the pity of it.

During this scene (with all the beautiful profile shots of Dean and reaction shots from Sam, who must, for his own part, be quite sensitive to the fact that Dean places him first above all things) Anne Shirley forgives Dean. He doesn’t look like he feels forgiven, but I had this feeling, given the hard stares between the Soap Angel and Dean, that Anne Shirley was a Castiel proxy, and that the writer(s) took the easy way out. Given all the setup regarding the relationship between the Soap Angel and Dean, how much more satisfying it would have been to have the Soap Angel go up to Dean, kiss him on the forehead, and say, “You are forgiven.” Hey. Italian guys kiss. Castiel looks Italian. So?

Then the demons show up for the show down with the angels. The battle between them was lame. It wasn’t lame because of the reasons behind it, it was obvious that they would fight over Anne Shirley and that the good guys would win. But I kind of expected something more. If you get angels and demons fighting, even on a budget, I would have expected something more than them going at it fist to cuffs. I would have expected heavenly bolts of electric power and demonic fire and brimstone rather than the punching and shoving we got. Is that too much of a cliché, do you think? Maybe it is, but that would have been better than the big nothing we got. I also took umbrage at the fact that what Sam and Dean did was hide and then hide some more. That’s not like the brave boys I know and love. (Except then Sam reveals his scathingly brilliant idea and I forgive everything.)

I will admit, as well, I’m tired of the whole angle vs. demon storyarc at this point, and that’s partly because I find the angels boring. They stand and pose, posture and pontificate. They stare. They’re obscure. They’re also like on a three-hour tour or something because they never change clothes and the Soap Angel needs chap stick like nobody’s business. Show’s been dangling them about like they’re the greatest thing since sliced bread and yet they have revealed nothing and add nothing to the texture of the story. Maybe I’m alone in this. Maybe I’m just pouting because for every second an angel is talking (or staring) means less screen time for the boys. It’s still the Sam and Dean show, not the Soap Angel-Uriel Dude-Ruby show, you know.

The demons are more interesting because although they never change clothes either (except for Ruby, who’s like Mary Anne and has a trunk full of grubby things from Old Navy), they have attitudes. They strut. They walk into rooms like they own the floor and everyone standing on it. They announce and threaten and sneer and then they allude to things that they know that you might want to know if you only knew what they knew. Demons are like the hellish, living version of the World Weekly News or one of those gossip mags like Star and Celebrity that you know you shouldn’t read and wouldn’t be caught dead buying, but can’t help looking at while standing in the checkout counter. (Which is precisely why they are there.) Still and all, the battle has been elevated to way above the boys’ pay grade, and the story, especially this week, is no longer about them. Their issues (the effects of Dean’s time in hell, Sam’s naughty use of his powers) has become a mere subtext to the larger issue, that of the battle against the powers of darkness.

Finally THAT’s over, and we have the dénouement, with Sam and Dean sitting on the hood of the Impala, drinking beers against a rain-scratched sky. This kind of set up makes my whole body relax with pleasure; it doesn’t matter what’s next, as long as I know it involves only Sam and Dean together. But as for Dean’s reveal? Can you say didn’t see that coming? I knew that you could.

So Dean starts talking, which in itself is an amazing thing, but not only that, he’s imparting real information. He’s talking about his time in hell, about how time is different down there, how four months up top for Sam actually equates to 40 years for Dean. And the rack, how he was on it all the time, getting sliced up in new and interesting ways, and how, magically, he was put back together. This I knew, or at least I wasn’t surprised by the idea that part of the demon’s fun would be ripping you apart only to put you back together to rip you apart again. And fanfiction, I must say, got this part right, so I felt in very comfortable territory.

I also felt comfortable with the way Dean told this part of the story, he’s a pretty stoic fellow normally, and true to form, he’s got everything under control. Sam, at his shoulder, sucking back a beer, is listening, and also pretty much under control. But then Dean’s tale takes a horrible, horrible turn which I did not see coming, not for a hundred miles. Apparently, at the 30-year mark, Dean finally broke, and the deal for his getting off the rack was to take his turn at torturing other souls. This he did for 10 years until the Soap Angel raised him out of Perdition.

Dean crying is an amazing sight. In the dictionary next to “mantear of pain,” you’ll see his face and that single tear track. But here, he’s weeping. He was very Sam-like in this, with tears spilling down his face, a waterfall of them, and we were two seconds away from full-on snot when Dean wipes his face with his hand, like he could wipe away the memory of what he’s done. My jaw fell OPEN because I’d never seen Dean fall apart like this and as beautiful as it was and as transfixed as I was, I almost felt bad to enjoy it like I did because Dean NEVER comes apart like this. Then again, I’ve been begging for some sign that he’s got PTSD, and here I’ve got me some.

Then Dean turns his head away. He’s spoken his piece and what’s the saddest of all is the fact that there is no comfort to be found. I was shouting at the TV, “OH, give him a bloody hug, give him a kiss on the forehead, SOMETHING! Oh, Sam!” But my cries fell on deaf ears. Now, I know in my heart that the list of bad things that Sam has gone through is as long if not longer than the list of bad things that Dean’s gone through, and I’m not here to tell you that one boy deserves more comfort than the other. This time, however, it’s Dean’s turn and there was nothing for him at this stopping point in a very long journey. And perhaps, even if Sam had offered comfort, Dean would have turned him away, he’s just in that much pain. If he felt he wasn’t worthy before? Try now.

I feel bad for Dean. I feel so bad for him because this, his confession, contains the most awful reveal ever, especially for someone like Dean. This is the guy, you remember, who was always the first to wade hip deep into blood and gore to rescue those who needed rescuing with very little thought to his own safety. His needs were unimportant enough to come dead last, especially when some innocent civilian needed their ass hauled out from the fire. This lack of consideration for his own needs has been much-discussed, Dean’s feeling of “I don’t deserve to live,” in spite of the many, many times that he has been brought back among the living (In My Time of Dying, Faith, and Lazarus Rising), twice at the expense of someone else, has only confirmed this. He doesn’t even believe it when an angel of the Lord tells him that God Himself wanted Dean on earth to do good.

While I watched this scene with my fangirl mind, focused totally on Dean, my other mind was watching Ackles, amazed at his ability to cry like that, because those tears were real, and never mind that this is supposedly only TV, that boy pulled out ALL the stops and cried like it was his last day on earth. Real crying is quite unattractive, and while this guy would be beautiful even if you put a bag over his head, Ackles pushed it hard in the direction it ought to go, with contortions and grimaces, and that unsettling redness to the eyes which you only see when the grief is painful enough to pull blood to the surface. I was actually concerned for him, after making yourself cry that hard, how on earth do you come down from there?

Let’s talk some more about Ackles, now. Last week, the ep was full of Padalecki, exploding with long, tall, and dark goodness, and as a True Fan, I’d say it was about time. Not that there is such a thing as too much Dean, but there is such a thing as not enough Sam; it’s the Sam AND Dean show, after all, and I’ll keep reminding Show until Show remembers it. But Ackles this week, man. While Padalecki’s Sam was once again relegated, for the most part, to being a very underused set of guest towels, Ackles’ Dean was in the forefront, giving not his usual 100% but instead 110% percent, carrying the heft of the episode on his very broad, capable, and handsome shoulders.

Ackles seems to understand what many other actors do not and that is even if the camera is not on you, even if the scene is not about you, there are reasons and means by which you can add texture to a scene. That you can move, and express, and attend, all of which validates what the other character is doing, and Ackles does this all the time, always aware of what the story needs. Then, when the camera is on him and the scene is about Dean? He ramps it up and makes every twitch, every movement of his mouth, everything, it all counts. It all means something. And he makes it look like a walk in the park.

He’s good. He’s very damn good and I don’t want to shoot myself in the foot, but there it is. It needs saying: Ackles has developed so much as an actor that he’s almost outgrown this part, and perhaps even Show. The writer(s) sometimes don’t seem to understand the power of the characters they’ve created, and often underutilize the talents of the actors who play them. I think that Show would improve its ratings if it would allow their characters to live up to who they are, and if it would allow these actors to do more, more often, instead of saving scenes like this admittedly very brilliant soliloquy for the last three minutes of each ep.

Back to Sam and Dean. The freeze frame of the final image in my mind creates an interesting silhouette that I keep coming back to. That of the brothers sitting shoulder to shoulder, on the hood of the Impala, beers in hand. But. They’re not touching, they’re not talking, in fact, their heads are each turned in the opposite direction, like the double-headed Janus, the Roman god of beginnings and endings. On purpose or accidentally, I got the feeling that either the brothers would continue as they had begun this season, as in not really communicating with or understanding each other, or, with luck, we would find ourselves watching them once more inside the realm of the “saving people, hunting things” lifestyle again. I for one have my fingers crossed for the latter.

Sylvia Bond is a ten-year technical writing veteran with too many degrees under her belt to count. She lives in Colorado, but does not ski, preferring instead to spend her money and time at the annual Great American Beer Festival, taking road trips across the United States, and reading historical fiction from the comfort of her fluffy green arm chair. She has been involved in fandom since 1993 and been writing fanfic since approximately 1993. What she finds most amazing about fandom (besides the open heartedness of fans and the sheer amount of creativity) is how visible fandom has become. “In my day,” she says, “we had to hide behind P.O. boxes to get fanfic. But nowadays, people wear t-shirts that shout their affiliation and share their shiny toys on the internet.” It’s a wonderful world.

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