Let's Discuss: Is Sam Winchester Still In Hell?
Thursday, 26 January 2012 16:20 | Last Updated on Thursday, 26 January 2012 16:58 | Written by Alice Jester | 
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Recently I had started an article looking for clues in “Time After Time” to support a couple of theories started by Bookdal and Pragmatic Dreamer that all these time references and other clues throughout season seven were leading to an “everything is not what it seems” situation.
Something weird happened during that exercise. My silly mind (which loves doing this in times of Hellatus) took the clues amassed and started playing connect the dots. The idea was to connect the dots all the way through the starting point of these theories, which was last season’s finale, “The Man Who Knew Too Much.” The trouble is, the line kept going. And going. Suddenly I’m all the way back to “Exile On Main Street.”
There’s something I can’t buy about Sam being in a coma since “The Man Who Knew Too Much.” There’s little payoff to that story line. What happens when Sam wakes up? He and Dean leave the panic room, they’re thrilled Bobby is alive and his house is okay, and they ride off into the sunset in the Impala. That’s a lot of strife for nothing. There has to be more.
I hear the groans out there. I agree, our tin foils hats these days are tearing a bit in certain places. For pure entertainment and speculation purposes though, hear me out. What else do you have to do until the next new episode?
Reality vs Delusion
Season six was not one of my favorites to say the least. It was too disjointed, there were too many dropped plots, there was a disconnect between the brothers, and a lot of strange things happened I just chalked up to bad writing and lazy plotting. Turns out, most of season seven is following the same pattern. What if it all means something?
Back in 1990 an awesome film, Jacob’s Ladder, came out about an ex-Vietnam veteran who was having a horrible time bridging reality with delusions. He kept seeing some pretty weird shit. Creatures with horns, cars blowing up, being haunted by his dead son, all sorts of creepy things that eventually added up to something huge (yeah, I don’t want to spoil it. I highly recommend the film).
On top of that film, I recently saw Inception for the first time. That film as well was loaded with references about the thin line between reality and dreams. By the end, there was no line. While there are many different interpretations to that ending, my take was if it was real to the character, that’s all that mattered.
So why am I bringing up these two films? Because, they have stretched the concept of perception to the point where I'm looking at it sideways. I’m firmly in the camp now that questions what we are seeing in seasons six and seven is real. Or it’s one person’s reality, aka Sam’s. If that is possible, then what state of flux is Sam in? There are two possible theories I’ve come up with:
1. He’s still in Hell.
Remember what Lucifer told him in “Hello Cruel World?” Here, I have for you in case you forgot.
Lucifer: You not knowing what’s real, the paint slowly peeling off of your walls, come on man this is the sweet spot, why would I end it? Not like we’ve got HBO in the pit. All I got is you, floating over the coals with half a hope that you’re gonna figure it all out. There’s only one way to figure it out Sam. It’s up to you. It ends when you can’t take it anymore.
2. He’s in Purgatory.Not the Purgatory that the show has depicted the last two seasons. Any Catholic knows that Purgatory is a place where the soul goes to be purified before moving on to it’s final destination. Here’s what the wikipedia entry says about Purgatory:
Purgatory is a cleansing that involves painful temporal punishment, associated with the idea of fire such as is associated with the idea of the eternal punishment of hell.[33] Several Church Fathers regarded 1 Corinthians 3:10–15 as evidence for the existence of an intermediate state in which the dross of lighter transgressions will be burnt away, and the soul thus purified will be saved.[33] Fire was the Bible-inspired image ("We went through fire and through water")[34] that Christians used for the notion of after-life purification.[35] St. Augustine described the fires of cleansing as more painful than anything a man can suffer in this life,[33] and Pope Gregory I wrote that there must be a cleansing fire for some minor faults that may remain to be purged away.[36] Origen wrote about the fire that needs to purify the soul[37] St. Gregory of Nyssa also wrote about the purging fire.[38]
I’m still not really sure if it’s one or the other (or even either) but too much keeps nagging at me to ignore it. Many have doubted that Castiel was powerful enough to pull Sam from Lucifer’s cage, with or without a soul. Only Death had that kind of power, or did he? Bookdal raised the question in her essay that Death producing an eclipse was deus ex machina. Couldn’t the same be true for just waltzing down to Hell and easily retrieving Sam’s soul from Hell without a fuss? How convenient it was to put up a wall to block the horrible memories? Could it have been Sam’s subconscious that put up the wall?
You got to admit, the whether it be in Hell or Purgatory, there was a lot of symbols of burning happening in season six. Sure, there’s always been the salting and burning of bones, but that’s not what I’m talking about. There was Dean’s dream in “Exile on Main Street” of Lisa burning on the ceiling. In “The Third Man,” when the kid is put through Castiel’s cavity search, he’s burning inside. In “Weekend at Bobby’s” it was suddenly revealed that demons can be killed by burning the bones of their original body (a fact unknown before) and the Crossroads Demon was burned to death by Bobby. Then in Family Matters, when Castiel does the soul cavity search on Sam, he is shown burning inside and screaming in agony. Sam gets burned by Crowley in “All Dogs Go To Heaven.” Crowley gets burned away in “Caged Heat.” In “Like A Virgin”, the burning hand of the dragon traps the virgins in a...wait for it...underground cage. Mother of All emerges from a burning pit on fire. Sam and Dean both burn but are quickly pulled from the fire by Castiel in “My Heart Will Go On.”
Notice here I didn’t mention when Sam was really burning in his Hell flashbacks in “Unforgiven,” “The Man Who Knew Too Much,” and “Meet The New Boss.” Perhaps because those weren’t symbols. Maybe that’s his true current reality seeping through. The rest are clues that Sam is choosing to ignore. It makes sense. If he followed the trail of fire he’d be back to hell fire.
So, if Sam since the very beginning of season six has been caught in some sort of dream state, trying to escape his true agonizing reality, then is what Lucifer said true? Is this him stringing Sam along in a slow torture, making him think this is his life before revealing he’s still in Hell? Or is this Sam going through some sort of soul cleansing before his soul moves on? There have been three different phases in Sam’s mental state ever since he supposedly broke free from Hell.
Phase 1 was the soulless Sam phase. I can easily see if in a dream state of some sort why Sam would imagine himself soulless. The soullessness would be a defense mechanism from whatever peril he was suffering. New family, new life, no emotional attachments. Tons of sex without getting emotionally involved. He wouldn’t have to worry or care about Dean. Perhaps it’s a subconscious mind overwhelmed by the suffering from Hell? Turning off the emotion makes it bearable?
It would also make sense that he would latch onto a new family connection, aka the Campbells. That way he could continue to hunt knowing family had his back. It’s the only way of life he’s ever known. He probably had a mental picture about his grandfather from Dean’s description. Yet we know that the Samuel Campbell in season six was not the Samuel Campbell that we saw in “In The Beginning.” His true character was never really defined in season six. If Samuel was really all in Sam’s mind, that would make sense that we never saw the real Samuel since Sam never knew him. Why would Samuel betray his grandsons? He was a Campbell, all about hunting with family. Why bring Samuel back at all? That question was never truly answered.
Sam didn’t have an emotional attachment to this family. Is it shocking then that he built up this new family just to lose them one by one? Isn’t that what happened with his real family? This time it can happen without the pain. Just like Dean, everyone they’ve ever loved has left them. Even when Sam killed Samuel in “And Then There Were None,” his concern was over what would Mary think, not “Oh my God, I killed my grandfather!” Come to think of it, why would Dean want to kill Samuel? Betrayal is one thing, but Dean has always taken blood very seriously. (You psychologists step in here any second now. Is this a possible Freud thing?)
Phase 2 - Sam’s soul is pushed back into him. This was Dean’s doing and done against Sam’s will. That’s exactly what happened to him with “When The Levee Breaks.” Was this a sign of his mental defenses breaking down or is Lucifer controlling the dream? Who knows. The thing is, the soullessness unraveled, probably because he couldn’t hold back his emotional responses, so Sam has build up a new defense, the wall.
The wall before the season six finale was only breached once. That was at the end of “Unforgiven” when Sam remembered being burned alive. If this was reality seeping through, some sort of reboot happened. I think Sam pushed himself back into dream state, resisting the reality. Isn’t it interesting how everything was suddenly fine after that?
Enough reminders were sent Sam’s way of what would happen if he breached the wall. There was the warning from Castiel in “Caged Heat” and Death in “Appointment In Samarra.” There was Dean sending warnings in both “Like A Virgin” and again in “Mannequin 3: The Reckoning.” Was that perhaps his subconscious sending those signals? After that, they suddenly had a new foe to fight, Mother of All. Everything was all good as he was back hunting with his brother. A tactic perhaps to lull Sam into a sense of security?
Phase 3 - The wall is down, but somehow Sam is managing okay. He had a little rough time adjusting but everything is manageable. As he said in “Defending Your Life,” he’s good. Except, look at “Meet The New Boss” when Sam collapses after remembering burning. Is that reality again? He collapsed, he was out for a little while, and suddenly he woke up functional again. Exactly like “Mannequin 3” and “The Man Who Knew Too Much.” Alright, semi okay. As Lucifer eluded to in “Hello Cruel World,” if there wasn’t some fallout from the wall breaking, would Sam believe it was real? Yet all it took was one intense conversation with Dean and everything was stable.
It’s interesting that ever since the beginning of “Meet The New Boss” Sam has not been seen experiencing any memories of Hell. So is the wall truly down? Or is Sam now using hallucinations to protect himself from those memories? Is there still a wall there, blocking what he doesn’t want to remember? What is it he’s trying to avoid? Or is he fighting something?
Is That All You Got?
I know, it all sounds like a lot of speculative nothing. Here’s a couple more clues to toss around. In “Let It Bleed,” when Sam was knocked out by the demons at the warehouse, he was literally dragged into a cage by demons and locked in. Then he was seen from an overhead shot lying in there unconscious. Perhaps a symbol for his current state? He’s in limbo in the cage in Hell? Here’s something else. When they do lock him in that “cage” so to speak, there’s a number 28 tacked onto the door frame. That’s Sam’s age. Happy accident, or does it mean something?
In Bookdal's essay, she listed several elements that were present in season seven. One was “redundancies and replacements.” There are plenty of these in season six as well. Castiel betraying Dean, which is a parallel for when Sam betrayed Dean. Ditto for Samuel betraying Sam and Dean. The Djinn coming back and attacking Dean. Lisa burning on the ceiling. Sam not coming clean with Dean until he’s forced in “You Can’t Handle The Truth” and “Family Matters,” much like “When The Levee Breaks.” Meg on the torture table in “Caged Heat.” The two orphaned boys in “Mommy Dearest.” In “The French Mistake” Misha’s throat is slashed by the angel who needed to make a call, much like Meg in season one and in “Croatoan” in season two. Also in the episode, Castiel’s black wings appear just like in “Lazarus Rising.” There also have been a few more episodes taking place at Biggersons than before. There’s also replacements like Sam’s Dodge Charger for the Impala and the Campbell family for Dean.
Bookdal also raised the problem of skewed Time. Season six definitely had that. When Sam collapsed in “Unforgiven” it felt like to him he was out for a week. Dean confirmed it was only a few minutes. In “Frontierland” there was a time clock running at Bobby’s and the clock in the town square, emphasizing that impact of time. There’s time disappearing during Dean’s abduction in “Clap Your Hands If You Believe.” The obvious time lapse though is when Sam and Dean first reunite in “Exile On Main Street.” It had been a year since Sam fell into the cage. However, come “You Can’t Handle The Truth,” the calendar on the wall shows it’s real time again, October 2010.
Then there’s the clues that Sam is a state of flux. He was in a coma for ten days in “Like A Virgin.” He collapses and is unconscious in “Unforgiven” and the beginning of “Mannequin 3: The Reckoning.” Then there’s the coma in “The Man Who Knew Too Much.” There’s his period of unconsciousness in after collapsing in “Meet The New Boss.” There’s his long sleep in “Hello Cruel World.” Add that to him disappearing for ten days between “Slash Fiction” and “The Mentalists” and four days in “Season 7: Time For A Wedding.”
Sam’s been in some alternate realties too, like “The French Mistake” and “My Heart Will Go On.” Interesting too that in “My Heart Will Go On” they’re up against Fate. They try to figure out a way to stop Fate, but Castiel intervenes. Was that Sam’s mind telling him to escape Fate?
There’s Dean declaring a clean slate at the end of “And Then There Were None.” Wouldn’t that help someone who’s trying to reconcile or let go of his transgressions on earth? Someone who was trying to purge his sins? Forgiveness from the one person who was most damaged by your actions helps. Again that happens in “Defending Your Life” when Sam no longer feels guilty about what he’s done. He feels like he paid his dues in Hell.
What about the whole Mother of All plot? It turned out to be nothing. Easily disposed of. Same with the whole Alpha storyline and Heaven’s weapons from Balthazar. Is it poor plotting, or a dream state that lacks fluidity? A dream state using those plots as a distraction from the real problem?
Time After Time
Then there are those clues from “Time After Time.” The standout is the line from Jody Mills after finding the bottle of whiskey from Rufus. “It’s weird, huh? It’s like their life’s a big puzzle. Just keep finding pieces of it scattered all over the place.”
What do you suppose that line meant? That Sam needs to be looking at the pieces being left behind and put them all together? Until he does he cannot move on? Are they pieces of his life, or the people he knew that are now gone? Couple that with Lucifer waiting for him to put it all together and there’s some good evidence that Sam needs to be figuring out something.
There’s also the carving of Sam’s name on the wall. What a sign! Just the nature in which it’s carved, like someone desperately scratching on a wall. When Sam spotted that, the camera moved in closer in four jagged movements. It wasn’t just a normal fade in. That’s Sam’s subconscious screaming at him. Perhaps.
Yeah, that’s quite a lot to absorb, isn’t it? So, is it all fun teasing by the writers or does it mean something? If it is all a dream, how long do you think the writers would play it out?
With all that in mind, I end with my favorite line from Jacob’s Ladder. It’s something I keep as food for thought as more clues are revealed. Chances are this isn’t exactly want’s happening, but it’s an intriguing notion nonetheless.
The only thing that burns in Hell is the part of you that won't let go of life, your memories, your attachments. They burn them all away. But they're not punishing you. They're freeing your soul. So, if you're frightened of dying and... and you're holding on, you'll see devils tearing your life away. But if you've made your peace, then the devils are really angels, freeing you from the earth.
If anything, this proves to be nothing more than a fun exercise of pondering to kill the time until the next new episode. For all the latest Supernatural info and article links, follow The Winchester Family Business on Twitter at @WinFamBusiness
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Comments
Your thoughts are interesting for me to consider now. Previously, I always was of the belief S6 and S7 were flimsy and/or messy because the apocalypse arc was over and things after were no longer based on planning and destiny but "freedom" and randomness...
That having been said I don't really want to see the show end. I enjoy the show and the actors so much! Sara, the other producers, the writers and everyone else working on the show have had a daunting challange. To carry on a show
that basically reached it's zenith.
I have to disagree on season 5 finale being the perfect ending. It was about as perfect as season 3 finale. Cause really neither brother deserves eternal damnation. Both were manipulated by Heaven and Hell, and they were both responsible for the Apocalypse together with quite a few angels and demons, so how is it fair that only Sam gets to go to the Pit, and that for ever.
If it had to end with one brother dead then he should at least gone to heaven so that the brothers might meet again in the future.
If Dean had been forced to kill Sam to save his soul, that would have been a good ending. Otherwise the season five finale was far to depressing to be a satisfactory end to the series for me.
I liked S6 and am enjoying S7 so I don't really have any complaints if there isn't some big payoff coming.......but, wouldn't it be fantastic if there was!
Here's an inaccuracy. In Season 7, Time For A Wedding, Sam tells Dean the address of the wedding chapel. That was not the address for the Little White Wedding Chapel.
Here's another one, same ep. Could be chalked up to the weird shit that happens when dreaming. How did tiny Becky move the ginormous Sam from her apartment to the cabin and tie him up?
I'm sure I'm so wrong about this and it is piss poor writing, but I'm holding out hope!
Now I have this theory around my mind... and yeah!! 11.34 is Hell...... :S I've been thinking about possible endings for this season... and I came out with "nahh!!! they cannot do that...... but......" and now I'm all confused.... u.u
Dean didn't want to kill Samuel the first time he betrayed them. The second time it was a "fool me once..." situation.
Sam I absolutely still hallucinating. I can't quite tell if you are differentiating between a hell memory and a hallucination, but Sam is still seeing things. Levi!Sam says so and periodically we see Sam messing with his scars. Dude is faking being ok.
In "Hello, Cruel World" Lucifer actually says "Ok so I'm not real, but I'm not going anywhere" suggesting that the hallucinations are just that, but Sam isn't going to be able to get rid of them just by willing them away.
[spoiler]when Sam will be going crazy, for real this time.[/spoiler]
perhaps things will get clear whether Sam is dreaming since the last season or not.
also to me this season is from Dean's point of view not Sam's. What if Dean is the one dreaming since the beginning of the season ?
I cast my vote (in the poll) for the article not being far-reaching enough, especially with it having an entirely Sam-centric focus. It's possible that the Team is just stringing Dean-leaners along during Sam's "time-outs," but I doubt it. As an example I offer up all the Dean/Bobby action in the S6 finale. Are we to presume Sam's dreaming that he's dreaming AND that he's also dreaming about stuff happening with Dean and Bobby that he's not (dreamily) a part of? No, I'm reasonably confident both JP and JA are working mytharc stories, one or both of which are currently non-obvious. I appreciate AJ's discussion of what is "real" being a matter of what a given character perceives though, and I think it's going to be quite relevant. Because my hunch, which I've actually had (at least in a generic sense) since season 3, is that "Dean" and "Sam" likely have personal "issues" they need to work on in "different realms."
Also have to agree with Nazli, this season has been incredibly Dean POV based and I just cant fit that into your theory. I'd buy it if we were seeing Dean go through everything he has been through Sam's eyes but we havent. We've mainly seen Dean through Dean's eyes.
I am very confused and somewhat dissapointed that you arent a writer on the SPN team, this would have been an excellent two season arc. But there are just too many things that down add up.
Thanks for the article
Still dont think the writers are smart enough to have pulled this off though.
If I have to pick one, I like the Purgatory theory the best. Sam having his soul cleansed before ascending to Heaven because he so deserves to go there. I saw "Jacob's Ladder" a very long time ago, so I don't remember the ending at all, I'll have to check it out now. You've got my curiosity piqued.
Thanks for all these cleaver clues. Keep 'em coming.
Another way in which I think the article may not be far-reaching enough is that I think "the crazy" predates Exile on Main Street. Certainly looming unanswered questions go back much farther. For instance, what happened to Sam in the hours after Jake stabbed him in AHBL? When Sam returned, it was hard to reconcile the look on his face when he shot Jake with the events we had been shown and the nature of Sam's character as we understood it. Yes, we had already seen Sam's capacity for obsession. But if all Sam knew was that Jake stabbed him in the back and that Jake might be a pawn in YED's end game, would that be enough to explain Sam's reaction... his twisted expression of hatred that borderlined on evil? Remember, Gordon Walker threatened Sam's brother in order lure Sam in for the kill, and when Dean wanted to finish Gordon off, Sam said no.
We know that in Supernatural death does not equate to instant oblivion. Soooo... what happened to Sam after Jake killed him? Did Sam go to Heaven? Was he angry to have been yanked out, and he couldn't take his anger out on the person who yanked him (Dean), so he took it out on Jake? Did he go to Hell and he was angry that Jake had sent him there before Sam could have had a chance at redemption on Earth? Perhaps. But we were never given any reason to think Sam would have gone to Hell.
Maybe Sam was a ghost. That was my original theory. He watched, helplessly, when Dean sold his soul and he also watched his killer succumb to YED's temptations and/or threats. Such a turn of events would have made Sam's reaction to Jake a little more understandable to me, and it certainly would not be far-fetched in the SPNverse. That said, another possibility is that Sam went to Purgatory. And maybe Sam never came back. And maybe Dean self-destructed a whole different kind of way than we were shown and followed Sam there.
In another pre-Swan Song episode that falls into "the crazy" department, Ash told the fellas he could find no trace of Mary or John Winchester in Heaven. Another mystery. Where are they? Samuel's alliance with Crowley suggests Mary might be in Purgatory. If that's true, and Sam is also in Purgatory, that's two Winchesters. And Jody has already been mentioned, so let's bring her up again. "I think something's alive in at least three of those boxes." If Mary and Sam are in Purgatory then we only need one more to make 3. Who is the third... if there is one? Is Dean on a rescue mission trying to recover, say, John, Mary and Sam? John was just as MIA as Mary (according to Ash), and whatever Cas was up to, he was doing it for Dean... because of Dean.
That's not my first choice though, for a couple of reasons. One reason combines a generational thing with my fondness for John Winchester. Since S1 set John up as the show's methaphorical God, and since Dean indicated in DaLDoM that John failed at protecting his family, I feel like the series is going to find its way back to John. In addition, there's a minor little dialog point... or not so minor if you judge on the basis of negative reactions by a segment of the fandom. During S4 Sam suggested a couple of times that Dean had "lost something" when he came back from Hell. Some fans got angry, saying that was either false or bad writing, or more likely both. But Sam has spent many more years getting to know Dean than we have and Sam has psychic abilities in his resume. So it's possible that Sam knew or sensed something the fans weren't keyed-in to.
So let's review. Mary died. She's not in Heaven and Samuel's alliance with Crowley suggests she might be in Purgatory. The theory has been put on the table that Sam may be in Purgatory. On two occasions he's died and it has been implied (AHBL) or made known (S6) that Sam came back "wrong." And in S4 Sam suggested that when Dean came back, he also came back different, perhaps "missing something." So if Sam and Dean have that in common perhaps they have Purgatory in common too.
John went missing. God went missing. And God's kids are screwing up and dying, one after another. Michael and Lucifer are in The Cage. Gabriel, Raphael and Uriel are dead.
If this is a dream, whose dream is it? Sam's but not Dean's? Dean's but not Sam's? Either of those scenarios, alone, would lessen the merit of the other character. At least it would unless you accept a dream "reality" as having the same merit as waking "reality." That's one quite legitimate possibility. Another possibility is that it's neither Sam's dream nor Dean's. Then whose? John's perhaps? Who was the first Winchester who knowingly defied "the natural order?" John.
Also, if such a theory were to pan out, it would again leave Dean's personal 2.5 year story (depression and faltering) again lying on the ground. They already did that with Swan Song and I don't think they'll repeat that.
I don't know how the writers plan to resolve Sam's mess of a story; this personal journey through mental illness, since they have said many times that this is a permanent condition for Sam. A permanently mentally ill badass hunter who is supposed to be half of a hunting team that is the best on the planet stretches credulity and diminishes the character. What were they thinking?
I'm hoping they use Sam's institutionalization (Jared's pregnancy leave) to plan a better story for Sam; a story that isn't another Sam problem, but something interesting that will give this character some growth.
And they better damned well give Dean one resolution to at least one of the many dropped plots over the course of the series. I'm hoping that either Dean finally goes nuts and Sam pulls him back, or that Dean at least realizes he is a good hunter and commits to it. It's time that he either chooses to hunt or gives it up.
I think while being tortured in hell is bad, Sam life is worse then Hell because while he is 'safe' and alive......he'll never really be safe (which is all he's ever wanted according to Pilot sam....to feel safe). He'll always be in Hell because of his hallucinations and breaks in sanity. (which Sara said is permanent)
I think always being mentally on guard against your own internal landscape, never ever being able t let your guard down even during 'safe' downtime as got to be worse then being in Hell. Because Sam will always in one way or another be IN Hell. He's simply traded one Hell for another.
I think the most tragic thing about all this is the idea that sam has always fought for some sort of control over his life. When Sam CHOOSE to throw himself into the pit, he choose to do it, knowing his suffering was absolute...but at least it would have meaning (preventing the apocolypse...saving 6 billion lives but most importantly Dean) and he earned his redemption.
But this life...this Hell was forced on him, his control over his life taken from him and now...now his suffering has no meaning. It's suffering because some creature wanted to cause a diversion for someone else. And to add insult to injury his suffering causes more suffering for his beloved brother cause Dean will always see this as his own failure. Sam not only suffers horrendously for nothing but he fails to once again help/protect his brother.
THIS life is Sam's Hell....and as Kansas sang the only peace Sam will ever get is when he is 'done' or dead.
But i fear even then Peace isn't certain. Tragic.
I agree with your comment completely, thank you Amy!
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When would we ever see SamPOV in this series? WHEN?
If the last two seasons are all in Sam's head, means that Sam is punishing himself (S 6 while soulless what he did)) and only thinking of Dean, being in Deans head and seeing all with Dean's eyes (S 7). Where is Sam in all this?
Would he make his own personality invisible to be able to endure the utterly torture of his soul and they (writers)make S7 a Sam centric season in retrospective without putting Sam into the center but Dean?
I think that the writers wouldn't go there, but its interesting to read your article. Thanks for this!
So, I really hope that's not the case for SPN. Sincerely, this I would deem poor writing, a way to resolve a plot without resolving it. A way to cover all the plot failings of the past seasons without even having the guts to admit them. A sort of narrative "deus ex machina".
More than that, I agree with others here: it would be possible if ALL the stories we watched were showed through Sam's eyes, but the POV in the last seasons has been principally Dean's, and there were too many events that were showed far from both brother's eyes. If Sam is imagining all of that, then he's not "living in his mind", he's "telling a story" to himself, so he should be aware that's just a story.
But with that said, if it were just the last two seasons that were off in some way, I could live with that. They weren't my favorite seasons anyway!
- Crowley transitioning from the most-hated demon in Hell because he betrayed Lucifer to being King of Hell in the space of a year
- The threat of the Apocalypse being downgraded from more important than anything else in season 5 to being more of an annoyance in season 6 (and along those same lines, the Leviathans have seemed to be more of an annoyance too, prior to Bobby's death)
- Sam suddenly losing all traces of demon blood when he came back (no symptoms whatsoever, and no references to his psychic ability in an episode in which they're in a town of psychics)
My guess, though, is that if this is in someone's head, it's in Dean's. Think about all of the Amy baggage and Sam disappearing for periods of time. That was all about Dean's fear of losing Sam. Maybe part of Dean knows that Sam isn't really with him?
That could be because Sam is still in Hell and Dean is in some kind of alt-dimension or delusion state, or maybe Dean is still in Hell. Or maybe Sam really died in the nursery fire. That would also explain all of the fire references with Sam.
Sam often seems to be mostly about Dean's fear of loss (losing his brother, or maybe the loss of his mother). Cas was about hope - the angels rescuing Dean were originally presented by Sam as an argument that maybe there's something good in the universe - then Cas turned bad, which correlated to Dean's slip into depression. Bobby has been a device for Dean to work out his Daddy issues. And maybe Sam was never that close to his family because he died as an infant.
Anyway, this is a fun line to explore. Thanks for bringing it up!
Well, this would help explain Dean's mysteriously drank beer in Epi10 (S7)
So for now, that is what I will go with.
This is for pure amusement people!
I'm not entirely happy with seasons 6 and 7, but I'm not championing a "dream" scenario. I also don't hate the show. I'm just taking clues and forming a theory. One that is likely very wrong. I mean look at the X-Files and Lost. They had all those clues and they went nowhere.
I do think writers start out with the best intentions, and due to budgets and time constraints and meddling networks they end up producing something short of what was intended. Often way short.
As fans though, that doesn't take away our right to speculate and to question. Not bringing up plot holes in seasons 6 and 7 is like not acknowledging the elephant in the room.
I swear, if any fan gives me the line again "If you're not happy don't watch" I'm reaching through cyberspace and smacking them silly! That's a narrow minded defense mechanism and is just as insulting as the worst fan attack. Any fan that has put time into this show is allowed to question. We are not mindless robots, and I don't see any puppies and rainbows on this site.
Thank you. Back to speculating!
Frankly, I don't know how you think up stuff like this. Color me impressed, because my mind doesn't work like.
I agree with the other posters who said that I'm not certain the writers are that clever. I think they simply lost track of plot points. I also concur that with so much of seasons six and seven have focused on Dean's life, actions and POV it makes it unlikely that this is Sam's vision. Yes, Sam could be projecting onto Dean, but Sam's entire life has been left out of episodes. TFAW and Mentalists are prime examples.
In TFAW, we never see how Becky ensnares Sam, we only see Dean finding out Sam has been ensnared. We also never see Sam released by Dean. True this may be attributed to the writers' increasingly annoying need to keep what is happening mysterious, so we don't know what Becky is going to do at the end, but for an episode devoted to Sam being married a number of crucial scenes from his POV are omitted.
The Mentalists starts with Dean tracking down a case and Sam already on the scene. They agree to work together and split up to do interviews. We see Dean do all the important interviews, including those with the upcoming victims. Dean is even in the first interview with the shop owner who is behind everything. Sam's individual interviews are not shown and he kind of disappears until Dean has met with Melanie (without Sam) and with Camille (again without Sam). If this is all Sam's vision, he is cut out of a surprising amount of it.
My final issue with this theory, as intriguing as it is, is that there is really no way to continue the show if it is true. If Sam can't be rescued from the Cage, then there is no Sam and Dean fighting monsters and the show ends. Similarly, if Sam is in the Christian Purgatory preparing his soul for heaven, then he is dead and again how can you have the Sam and Dean show? If Sam completes his cleansing in Purgatory does Dean then pull him out of heaven so the show can continue. This isn't an announced final season and the actors, and the writers have expressed their willingness to continue. I don't see that as possible with a dead Sam. Yes, it could be turned into the Dean and Cas show, but although some of fandom has expressed support for that concept, I really think that the majority of the fans would have trouble adjusting.
I absolutely love how invested everyone is in the show and I love all the speculation.
To those who didn't agree with my comments on sea. 5 finale: I still think it would have been a good place to end the saga. I wasn't so much thinking of Sam spending eternity burning in hell as much as him volunteering to sacrifacing his life to end the apocalypse. Noble, right.
Anyway I am extremely glad the show I love is still on and for now, no one is burning in hell (or are they?) My head hurts.
So, is Sam in hell? Possibly, but that seems unbearablly cruel. And if he was ever rescued, no matter how resilient he is presented to be, there's no way he could realistically be a functioning person after centuries of torture. (In part, because we humans, even with the advent of modern medicine, can only live about 100+ years so there's no way he could recover from damage that exceeds that time span. Evolutionary impossibility. But that's being a bit too much of a science geek.)
Is he still in Christian Purgatory? That's something to ponder. There have indeed been many examples and/or symbols of burning. And wouldn't it be neat to reintroduce angels in that circular way? (I'm referring to one of the quotes you gave.)
I'm also considering the possibility that maybe all of Season 6 & 7 are in Dean's head because he's still unconscious in the Stull cemetery after being beat up by Lucifer?! We are seeing a lot from his point of view.
This could introduce the idea of the two brothers being separated mentally and physically but, because their emotional & psychic bonds are so strong, they are still fighting to get back to each other.
I must confess that I really like Amy's theory though - that this is all playing out in real time and Sam's Hell is now a Hell on Earth. (In fact I think Mr.Padalecki suggested as much in a recent interview). That's a very plausible, reasonable explanation, which is ripe with angst and emotional dramatic potential.
I also know that if I wanted to play Devil's Advocate (would that make me Lucifer's Advocate or Crowley's Advocate or Demon-To-Be-Named-Later's Advocate?) I could probably find the counter argument to all the points that have been raised.
For instance, Dean seeing Lisa burning on the ceiling, while he was under the effect of the Djinn's toxin... It makes a huge amount of sense for that to be his biggest fear. The woman he and his Dad and his brother loved most in the world, his mom, was killed that way. His brother's future wife was killed that way. I believe he had come to truly love Lisa and that had to be scary. Based on family history, when a Winchester man loves a woman.. It's not a Motown tune. Instead, it's bleeding bellies and fire on the ceiling.
I love musing on the what-ifs because it's such a great creative exercise. The problem is that sometimes the sound of hoofbeats and the swishing of tails does turn out to be zebras. But usually, it's just horses, or perhaps an ass or two.
Sorry for the lengthy post. I've been sequestered in a work conference, and I think I needed an outlet..
Pragmatic Dreamer
In response to comments about people from the show saying what was happening was real, I noticed in an interview earlier this year Sera was answering questions about whether Castiel was dead in terms of reality being what is real for Sam and Dean. They believed Cas was dead, therefore Cas was dead. Comments about Sam's soullessness being real could have been along the same lines. It was real to Dean, therefore it was real.
Another thought is maybe Sam is still dead and in hell and Dean has had a mental breakdown and these past two years have been his way of coping with loss and putting up defenses. Instead of Sam being in the mental breakdown state, it really is Dean.
I've always thought that maybe Gamble and Singer had an underlying arc going that we haven't been really made aware of and maybe they're starting to give us more clues. Just like Sam and Dean, I think this show has lots of layers and it's not transparent. Maybe the writers have been dropping us clues like bread crumbs and we're finally starting to put the puzzle together. If that's the case, boy, they've been having a good time with all our angst feelings. We all thinking that maybe the writing isn't up to par as its been in the past and them thinking "we've got a big surprise for you all" and "we're doing this all on purpose guys". I actually think that they're a clever group of people who probably get a lot of joy in watching and listening to us moan and groan. Just following some of the comments made by some of the writers on twitter has given me that impression.
I would lean toward there being something supernatural behind the twist, given what this show is about. I would take back every mean think I said about them if it turned out there was a twist to this that made this all make sense. I tend to overthink these things, though.
So my theory is this - Soulless Sam was just an extension of Dean's subconscious. Dean wanted to turn off the emotion, so part of himself became Sam without a soul. This had unintended consequences, so Dean got back Sam's humanity. When he got back Sam's soul, Sam was still really part of Dean's subconscious (his dream brother who never caused any problems) and the wall was keeping out Hell and the real Sam.
The Sam sitting in Bobby's basement who told Sam (Dean) that he couldn't handle him was the real Sam, but Dean let him in anyway because he really wants Sam back and he wasn't going to leave his brother alone in Hell. This was also why the Sam earlier in the episode recognized the Impala as "his" car (because he was still Dean at that point).
Why for once cant it be simple Sam went through the worst hell possible and he isnt superman for once and walks away untouched by his experience and why cant it simply be about Sam this time and not Sam=plot device =how it impacts Dean=sl.
Sam hasnt been a equal for a long time . Sam being still in hell or purgatory will make no difference .Until the show starts seeing that Sams life is about Sam and not how it burdens or impacts Dean then the status quo will stay.
Perfect..
Shouldn't such words give us pause?
You can pause if you would like. I don't get your point.
Now, I can see Sam, the real one, trying to interject himself into Dean's fantasy world. Sam would do all that he could to break down those walls that Dean has built around himself and bring him back to reality. Even if the real Sam was still in Hell, he would be trying to contact Dean at some level.
As for the show possibly having Dean being the one who has been falling apart instead of Sam and also being prejudicial towards one over the other, why point to that? No matter which character they would choose, the other would figure prominently,too, because that's how it was in their real life. It's a show about two brothers, Sam and Dean...I really don't follow the objections. If the show only told stories about one brother and not included the other, then that would be a valid argument. However, all episodes have shown both brothers involved. The Girl Next Door was primarily a Sam-centered episode, but Dean was there, too.
Foe example... {grin}
So Sam's trying to dream himself into a happy place - heck, Cas gave RoboSam that advice last season. And Sam's happy place is somewhere in between his old hunting life and the normal life he coveted in his youth. He's got respectable monogamy with a girl who thinks he's really special. It's a life with waffle irons and class reunions. He can make a difference and perhaps satisfy Fate by being a hunter but there's no opportunity to hide that from his girl and, in fact, she has some interest, knowledge and talent (?). To the untrained eye it looks like a life with many of the plusses of Sam's life with Dean without some of the minuses; and the cherry on top is the plusses that resemble a more normal life.
Yeah, but what about Dean? Sam imagines Dean is going to be unhappy that little brother has made a new life without Dean - It'll no doubt be hard for big bro' to hear little Sammy doesn't need him anymore. Recognizing this, Sam might want Dean to find his own "better life." But where would Dean's better life be found - Lisa and Ben? No. Although it would certainly be possible since they don't remember him, Dean forbade Sam to ever mention them again. He was adamant about that. So Sam might back away from thoughts of pairing him with Lisa. And heck, if Dean did "go there" he'd have an opportunity to keep his hunting past a secret and perhaps retire from the life... again. That wouldn't be a parallel to Sam's happy and open marriage, open where hunting is concerned. But if not Lisa... who? Ah... Cassie. Sure, they were both strong-willed so a relationship might be a little challenging at times. But Dean loved her enough to be honest and she probably would be supportive of his hunting now that she's seen him in action and even directly benefited from his skills, abilities and heroism. She's not some fragile flower or anything. So the Route 666 poster would be on the wall of Sam's dream as a reflection of what he wanted for Dean. It would be akin to having a "family photo" on the wall of Dean and his wife.... if Dean had a wife. Remember, it's Sam's dream, not Becky's. It wouldn't necessarily matter if Becky supposedly decorated the place; Becky's not real. So it's not unreasonable to think the decor would in part be items of significance to Sam moreso than Becky.
I've always had trouble with the time issue since the end of season 5. It seemed to me that Sam appeared out of hell almost immediately after he went in. Or at least got pulled out in the time it took Dean to get to Lisa's house, which couldn't have been more than a week. I know in later episodes Sam said he had been in hell for more than 100 years (I'm doing this all off memory, so if I'm wrong, please correct me).
How is that possible? Dean was in hell for a few months "human time" and said it was like 40 years. So how could a week for Sam be over 100?
My second thought is more based off real life happenings than show happenings. From Jim Beaver's interview, the show gave him quite the send off with slideshows and a party - which to me says he is leaving for good (since they didn't do that for Misha). That tells me that Bobby's death is real. So its either that he really died how he died, or he died in the fire that burnt his house down. Which means the furthest back "dream world" could be is that point.
*sigh* either way, I just want ALL the boys back together.
I have a thought on the Bobby comment too. There were a lot of people who thought Bobby seemed off after his house burned down. He showed up back at the hospital wearing different clothes and never mentioned Dean's call or that his house burned down. Expanding on the theory that this is playing out in Dean's head, maybe the Bobby that was a figment of Dean's imagination died in his house fire, but real Bobby dreamrooted his way into Dean's dream at about the same time, so we were seeing a different Bobby. That would explain why he wasn't concerned about the dream house burning down, or why he didn't get Dean's call (it was on the other Bobby's phone).
If I recall correctly, if you are killed while dreamwalking, then you die for real. So maybe Bobby really is dead.
Kripke stopped writing a show about two brothers in season 4; he bowed down to all the haters who've been jealous of Sam having the mytharc and he spat all over Sam or sidelined Sam, depending on the episode. The past two seasons have been even worse, with Sam not even being Sam (though I actually dig Soulless Sam), Sam not getting any POV even when he's Real Sam, Sam not getting something as basic as simple dialogue to explain what he thinks or feels about something.
SPN hasn't been about Family in a long, long, long, long time. I'd say, based on how Sam is treated by the writers, that SPN is the most ANTI-FAMILY SHOW that I've ever watched, and I watch a lot of tv.
As for this turning out to be about Sam in some way, either his hell or in his head, it would be nice, but the telling is in the Journey, and a tv series is a Journey through many episodes. Why can't Sam have a Journey along with Dean, why does Sam have to be hidden, ignored, or disparaged so much?
This season has been great on a surface entertainment level, but it won't have any depth or emotional reality without including Sam along with Dean, in every episode. To me, the first half of the season has no emotional relevance for me because what the writers are doing with both Sam and Dean's emotional arcs hasn't made any sense to me. Maybe there is some grand pay off in the end, but we need to see some pay off in every episode, or it all starts to look like a waste of time and energy.
What if Sam's wall is actually Dean's defenses? What if the whole Campbell scenario was actually Dean wishing for Sam to have family outside of himself, Bobby and Cas? He knew that he couldn't wish for John and Mary for Sam since he'd already done that before and it didn't work. So, now how about Samuel? He also knew that the rest of the Campbell family was dead and he didn't even know them really...but he did know Samuel. He had conversed with him and gotten to know his grandfather, if briefly. Now, as for not bringing back his grandmother, Deanna, he didn't spend a lot of time with her and so, he wouldn't have a problem not bringing her back in his mind for Sam. Sam wouldn't be alone. He would have some family. However, later on, Dean decided this wasn't working. So, he killed off Samuel.
I believe that Dean is using past experiences, etc. to interact in his dream world with his version of Sam. He would expect Sam to come back broken, not whole since that was Dean's own experience. He would expect people within his dream/mental state world to die, since all the people he has ever cared about have followed this path. He would not expect a happy ending for himself, but would try desperately for Sam to have it, even if it turns convoluted.
As for the real Sam... I believe he is desperately trying to reach him from the real world and break through as he did in the past. It starts soon after Dean enters his dream world...He's been there all along interjecting Dean with doses of reality on some scale. This time is different. Dean has decided to stay. So, Sam is fighting for him to return with all his might. Sam is the strong one and Dean is the one who is broken and lost. Hence another example of this point, Dean's shown drinking and agonizing a lot more than in the past.
If this is the big "secret" arc, that the writers have been following since the beginning of Season 6..I would say it's a genius move! The ramifications and directions this could take is boundless. Not just for Dean, but Sam, too. I mean, does Sam continue the fight or at one point lay down his arms and give in? I really don't see that happening. Sam will always fight for Dean as Dean will always do the same for him.
It's fun to speculate about whose non-reality we might be witnessing, when it began and why. But I've found it particularly head-spinning because there are too many potential dreamers, too many possible jumping off points. And there's the very real potential that the jumping off point won't be anything we're even privy to yet. One of my specs is that this all goes back to a drunk driving accident on prom night when Dean stole Rachel away from Sam.
I can't shake the notion that "Dean's" mytharc (or Michael's or... well, JA's) will work its way back to The End. And we didn't get a big mytharc climax for Dean in S5, not because the Team cares nothing for Dean. Oh... Kripke identifies more with Sam and Gamble loves Sam.... yada yada. No. Dean didn't get mytharc climax because Dean's mytharc draws heavily on what is hidden behind the veil. Apocalypse... but maybe yes/maybe no with the capital A. Dean's mytharc cannot climax until The End... of the series.
Above, someone said something roughly to the effect (I believe) that we probably couldn't have a secret storyline of the type some of us tend to spec about because the subject matter would likely mean the end of the show. *Yeah* Exactly! Why do you think the secret story (if there is one) is being kept secret? Cuz we haven't reached the end of the series.
Suppose this is the secret storyline: Dean is Michael or Jesus or, yes maybe Azazel, ...or some other favorite son of Heaven. He yielded to temptation once and got an Earth girl pregnant. Her name was Mary - their child was Sam. Unions of angels and humans produce Nephalim and God has decreed in the tourist's version of the Bible that Nephalim must die. Gabriel was forced to incite them to kill one another. Can you say YED and the PKs? So God demanded that the angels kill their nieces and nephews, in some cases maybe their own sons and daughters. You don't suppose that might have been why Gabriel flew the coop? And Dean (or Michael, or Raphael the healer, or whomever) couldn't take the in-family violence anymore either. He couldn't kill Sam. So he disgraced himself like Anna did, making sure he fell into the Winchester family. And *that* is why Dean knew without Dad telling him that it was his job to protect Sammy. Dean (or one of his siblings) is the one who put the target on Sam's back in the first place. It's why Dean's relationship is kind of brotherly yet kind of fatherly. Biologically Dean is Sam's brother but spiritually Dean is Sam's father (or uncle).
So just like Sam broke from his biological father in anger, Dean broke from his own heavenly father in anger. An important part of Sam's journey was to find his way back to his human father. And an important part of Dean's mytharc is to find his way back too - to his angelic/spiritual father or Father. But I don't think Season 5 was the right time in the series to go there.
That's all just spec, of course, one path of a million I've gone down, and will no doubt prove to be almost entirely wrong. But the part that I'll bet money on is that Dean's mytharc is, indeed flying under the radar and its doing so, not because it is deemed unimportant. At risk of alienating the Sam-girls, you save the best for last {weak smile}. But Dean's arc is laying low and playing slow because of the nature of the arc. It needs to hit its climax when the series reaches The End.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it... for the next five minutes anyway.
I mean no offense "Sweet" just a differance of opinion.
Sweet is right in the sense the show became about Deans pov and feelings even this season . Regardless of what Sam has gone through , yes we have a brother relationship of sorts but it is one dictated by Dean because of the strong Dean pov .
I dont see that changing not this season or a season 8 if there is one?.
You can't tell who you might have crossed paths with on the internet under different "names." Are you familiar with my "Ring of Fire" spec? If you're looking for evidence of a secret storyline, I think The Man Who Would Be King is quite possibly the best episode to turn to. I would call it my favorite episode if only I could be sure what I think was going on there was... you know... *actually* going on there, and not just going on in my head (LOL).
What's your "Ring of Fire" spec? I'd love to know more about it.
The main premise that lays the foundation for my unique (?) interpretation of ManKing is this. If you were on "a hunt" and your quarry could make himself invisible, how do you strategize with team mates. Hades, for example, has a Helmet of Invisibility. If you're plotting to rescue someone from Hades' Realm, you might not want to say, "OK guys, let's go in through the south gate." The problem is, for all you know, Hades is standing right next to you. Unless Cas is Hades, which is possible, invisibility would seem to be a property common to angels. We saw a supposedly invisible Cas a couple of times in ManKing. We saw examples of code-talking early in the series. I call it "hunter-speak." Meeting up in Jim Rockford's hotel room. Funkytown means someone has a gun on you. I loved that stuff and then it kinda went bye-bye. If the show is trying to swing back and get closer to its roots, don't ya think hunter-speak might turn up again. Ah, but maybe TeamSPN isn't going to give us the code book this time. That was primary school. We're college kids now. Not to mention the hunter-speak with no dictionary is a great way to serve up one or more hidden storylines.
As I alluded to (I knew brief wasn't gonna happen), I was already thinking these thoughts when ManKing aired. And then how does that episode start? Cas is telling us about the Tower of Babel. Hmmmm. He also speaks of teaching poetry to fish. Along those lines, in the recent episode I'm guessing Ezra was referring to a scarecrow when she called Dean a "farmer clown." Poetry. Hunter-speak.
So, where was I? Babel and poetry... covered. And here's a lovely bit from Crowley that I'm thinking of having inscribed on my tombstone - "All possible entendres intended." My theory is that all of this is telling us that whatever our characters seem to be talking about, well, you'd do well to imagine other possible entendres. Again, turning to recent examples: bucks. Bobby mentioned a couple of bucks butting heads in the woods. Dean tells Ezra that, in the future, gas costs four bucks. Bucks can be slang for guys. Now re-evaluate what Bobby and Dean might actually have been talking about with the bucks references.
This may sound just too over the top. Let me use my best Bela voice when I say, "I am aware." (LOL) But I point you to the babel, and the poetry and the entendres... and I'm only just getting started with ManKing.
The amazing thing (if I'm not waaaay off base), is that the two scene with the most tension in ManKing remain tense for me, even though I don't think any of us actually know what is causing the tension. Cas did not betray Dean. Or at least "Cas" did not betray "Dean." Those two were the most "on the same page" in the ring of fire scene. There was problem, for sure, but they're basically working the secret story together. To some extant Bobby and Sam are in on the secret story too. But there is disharmony in the group and different factions may have formed with some different agendas. Why do I say this?
Cas did not unknowingly walk into the angel trap. He was given "stage direction." He knew what was coming.
We start with Dean, Bobby and Sam preparing to "trap" Cas. Dean prays. He calls Cas in for a "pow wow." That's indian language. Cas arrives and Bobby immediately says, "Johnny on the spot." Hunter-speak translation: You need to hit your mark. Cas is surprised the gang is still there. Sam says they had to bury the bodies and gestures to the floor... roughly in the area Cas will soon walk to. Dean shakes the a glass... hey, Cas... pay attention to this. He says the demons had whiskey. What would you call that in an old Western... fire water. Hunter-speak. Then Sam starts telling telling him they have a way to find Crowley. He's holding a book and acts like the info is in it. His hand bobs up and down like he's talking with his hands.... but... not really. I don't find that geasture wholly natural looking. Kinda... yet not. I think it's actually like airport ground crews directing a plane. Forward. Forward. Forward. Stop. And voila. Cas is standing in what's about to become a ring of fire.
Notice, BTW, that "Guy the CRD" waved alcohol in "Becky's" face prior to his capture via a ring of fire. Just saying...
Back to ManKing. Well, I'm running way too long. Knew I would. Watch the rest of the exchange and imagine Cas just followed stage direction to get "trapped." Imagine that there's a secret story going on. Then pay really close attention to the words, the tones and especially the body language. And especially of Dean and Cas. "I need you to look at me," says Dean at one point. Yeah. That's because "Look at me" is hunter-speak indicating that visual communication is going to happen.
When Bobby starts talking about Even and Purgatory, Cas tenses up. Whatever Bobby was saying and/or whatever Bobby's agenda is in the secret story, Cas was not happy. He wanted to say something... confront? Explain? I'm not sure. All I know is that Bobby's words put Cas on the edge of something and Dean held Cas's eyes and subtly shook his head, "No." Dean "talked him down" from... something... but he never said a word. Cas switches gears entirely, turning his focus to Sam. There's more interpretation to be done with the rest of that scene, but I want to move on to the end before I hit a wall.
Cas shows up at Bobby's to talk to Dean. I sooo don't believe Bobby "got the angel-proofing wrong." Cover story. As I said before, there's real shared tension between Cas and Dean in the Ring of Fire and it's being carried over here. But my impression is that Cas and Dean had a plan going but something happened and Cas took it upon himself to improvise. Dean's not happy and he tries to convey something in hunter-speak to Cas. When Cas says, "I don't understand," he doesn't understand the hunter-speak. Dean tries again. There's a lot of body language again when Dean talks. Cas figures out what Dean's getting at. When he tells Dean "You're just a man," look at Cas's face. He looks like he's trying not to smile. And then Dean says, "I dunno, I've taken some mighty big fish."
Hmmmm. Let's go back to the beginning of the episode. Before the Tower of babel, what did Cas talk about. And my big brother said, "Don't step on that fish, Castiel. Big plans for that fish." And with all possible entendres, "taken" can be con artist lingo.
Dean's worry at the end is legitimate, I think. His stress earlier and in that scene was real. Whateve he and Cas have cooking, it's risky. But they were soooo on essentially the same page. Now... "Dean" may not have been Dean in that episode (or parts of it). My best guess is that Dean was channeling Michael. But JA's character and MC's character were not adversaries at the end of that episode... not in the secret story anyway.
And as for the omitted portion of my Ring of Fire analysis: Although my sense was that "Dean" and "Cas" were the closest to being on the same page, it was Bobby, not Sam, whom I took to be the biggest "odd man out."
I think I've caught his eyes darting for no reason a couple other times since then but I only have remember one. The guys were conversing on a side street ot in an alley at the very end of an episode, some sort of mini heart-to-heart. Sam separates to get into the car first so all we see is Dean. And his head turns slightly back over his shoulder before he proceeds.
That's except for one other bit where Sam gets into the eye darting action, That would be the "Lenore" scene of Mommy Dearest. I really don't think "Lenore" was Lenore. Maybe she was Trickster. I suspect some if not all of the cases the guys go on are partly about passing information to the angels or whomever the folks are working on the secret story. Maybe an angel, a demon, a monster and a god or something {shrug}. Anyway... Before they go to get Lenore they discuss needing an inside man, a friendly monster with claws and teeth... and somewhere in there Sam's eyes dart sideways to where I think Bobby should be in the room. Later, when Lenore talks about not being able to resist Eve, everyone goes back to feeding... or whatever, memory fades... Dean's eyes dart over to Sam.
Sorry... going stream of consciousness here, which I do all the time at my normal SPN hangout. I just put something else together (well, maybe) while I thought about posting more "entendre" stuff from the most recent episode. That's what happens when you're a spec maniac, you wander to unexpected places.
So I was thinking about the clues that Ezra isn't just similar to Bobby, Ezra was Bobby. "Idjit" was obvious. As a tailor a tool of her trade would be a sewing machine. Singer is a prominent brand name there. And then there was the taxidermy. It was too dark for me to make out exactly what she had mounted on the wall but it was bovine. I can't believe it was a domesticated cow/bull so maybe a buffalo or water buffalo? But cow-like. Now, go back to Mommy Dearest. During the interrogation scene, the monster called Bobby (or his group) "Stupid head of cattle." Since aspects of that episode had me focused on Greco-Roman myth and Sam's glance early in the episode made me think Bobby might be a "friendly monster" I wondered if "head of cattle" made Bobby a Minotaur. What I can't remember is if Istarted to make the connection I made while musing here. I certainly didn't expand where I'll be going. It could also make Bobby a "cowboy" !!!
Why the exclamation points? Well, cowboys and indians has come up a few times over the years. And notice that in my ManKing post, I say I think Dean used indian lingo as hunter-speak... combining pow wow and fire water. Then add to that Mommy Dearest, ManKing and Let it Bleed all gave me the impression that Cas and Bobby are opponents in some way. And whatever this something is (Titans vs Olympians gaing control of Heanen/Olympus?) Dean may be aligning more with Cas while Sam is aligning more with Bobby. That could make Dean an indian like Cas and Sam a cowboy like Bobby. It would explain pow wow & fire water. It would explain why Sam was shown on the horse in FrenchMis and later put on the horse in Frontierland.
As I've said, I get the impression that there may be a couple different hidden stories. Who knows, maybe 3. What did Bobby say recently about Dean finding resons to keep hunting? Love or spite or a $10 bet. Something like that. Perhaps those things are at play in the sub-story and our gang of 4 may be involved in them all but dividing into different factions in different story lines.
The possible Sam & Bobby vs, Dean & Cas scenario was highlighted by the stake-out in Mommy Dearest. Dean and Cas in the (Olympian?) silver car with Bobby and Sam in the (Titanic) gold car. This vibe gets reinforced in the Ring of Fire. On one level Sam seems aligned with Bobby and Dean wholly seems aligned with Cas. It is Sam who starts talking about Eve and Purgatory and Bobby chimes in his support. That said, clearly all 4 participated in the trapping of Cas so they must all be cooperating on some "mission" ...although Cas's reaction may be that he suspects Bobby is a traitor rather than him reacting to Bobby's stance on a different "mission." Hard to say. But, for all that Sam is in some ways aligned with Bobby, his "connection" to Cas was evident in the Ring of Fire too.
Sorry. Stream of consciousness makes it so hard to follow along. I'm flitting back and forth. Wish I had time to settle in and write something more organized.
1) I luvs me my John and Jack references in the show. They always capture my attention. We get Michael references repeatedly too. In fact we got not one, but likely two just in the last episode. And the overt one tied closely to Dean. When Sam and Jodi interview Lila she asks, "Is Michael in trouble again?" Yeah, he probably is. If he's not stuck in The Cage he's probably stuck in 1944. And both may apply. FYI, I believe The Cage is the original title for the original Classic Trek pilot that was later transformed into The Menagerie. And look... we've got false reality for the benefit of an infirm individual and a "glass" reference there. Hmmmm...
But I digress. It's a bad habit. Like I said, stream of consciousness...
Anyway, I'm guessing we're to take another Michael reference out of the another interview name... Terry Cervantes. You meant like Miguel de Cervantes? We were possibly cued in to the importance of "thinking Spanish" when Dean (I believe) said "numero dos" (numero something anyway). And now add in entendres... hunter-speak. Terry Cervantes... "Tarry, Michael" Pair that with Ness's earlier emphatic request that Dean "slow down." Timing is important in the hidden story and perhaps Michael needs to stall for time.
Didn't I say I was focusing on "Johnny on the spot"?
2) Johnny on the Spot is stage direction for The Ring of Fire scene. Who sings the song "Ring of Fire"? JOHNNY Cash. And Johnny Cash's name came up in my first case of thinking I heard hunter-speak in the post-Castiel era. "Johnny Cash, Endre the Giant... Einstein, Sam. Man mixes a mean white Russian." That line (or two) made my eyes go wide. I get still get a little giddy when I think about it, just like ManKing. Hunter-speak! Pretty sure. Really pretty sure. Sure enough {grin}.
W-O-W! Great theories. And err...about the Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, naw, I'd probably laugh.
Another aspect of coded or cryptic information in the pre-Cas era was anagrams. In the turducken episode, I think, one of the victims was named Gerald Browder. I "anagrammed" that to get Broward Ledger and spec'ed back then that a ledger might be important in one or more upcoming episodes. Hey! I got one right! This episode had a bookie's ledger; and it also mentioned a Gerry spy. Gerry as in German or... as in Gerald? Soooo... was Trickster the bookie? Was the ledger located, as I think I also spec'ed it might be, near (or perhaps through) the wormhole of the Mystery Spot? Both?
The funny thing is, I can't tell you which episode this was or give you a good quote; but it could wind up being huge when fans look at the show in retrospect. At some point Sam is feeling a bit overwhelmed by what the gang is up against. Apocalypse? CasGod? Levis? I don't remember. Anyway, he turns to Dean and asks him something like: Remember back when our job just used to be about hunting ...wendigos. And Dean replies with a disgruntled "No." Now, most fans probably presume that was sarcasm... but what if it was more than that. It could be that Sam was talking to someone 100% not Dean who never even hunted wendigos. Or it could be that, for "Dean" (or Deanichael, or whoever" hunting wendigos was never about hunting wendigos. Or perhaps even more likely, "Dean" was serving two masters and it was never solely about hunting wendigos. Remember Sam's glad he's got all his crazy under one umbrella. Some people aren't so lucky. Some people probably have to work on the super secret sub-story and hunt wendigo, simultaneously...
I think it will be fun to see if any of these theories are valid. I ALWAYS look forward to every episode even if the season isn't my favorite. And for the record I think everyone working on that show works very hard to make a fine TV show. Sara takes a lot of heat but it is still one of the best, if not the best show on TV.
The idea that Sam would be in a similar situation as Jacob in that movie never occured to me, but, wow, clever thinking.
I haven't watched the episodes often enough to see those clues, but I did think it was peculiar that the plotting was so sloppy and the story seemed to be going nowhere.
It would be so, so cool storywise if Sam never returned since Swan Song and all this is just about his soul on its way through purgatory to find redemption.
Now that I read this, I actually hope you're right.
It would make it into a good story again. It does make sense in some ways.
It could explain why the plot is all over the place in season six and now seemingly in season seven.
I want to make another movie resemblance here: Mulholland Drive.
SPOILER: In the first half of the movie there's all these loose bits and pieces that are random, but it makes sense when you find out it was a dream.
Also I found it so anticlimactic how in season 6 Sam was already walking around for a year and suddenly shows up again like that, like it's nothing.
Of course that was because he had no soul, but it felt like a weird way of picking up again after the dramatic and deeply emotional ending in Swan Song.
Also Dean's reaction was remarkably dull, not at all what you'd expect after seeing his pressumed-in-hell little brother that meant the world to him alive again.
I don't know, maybe I'm the only one seeing this. It never sat right with me.
So in that aspect this theory would make a lot of sense.
But if I'm honest I find it too 'good' to be true. It's hard to believe the writers would say after two (or more) seasons:
"yeah none of this actually happened, it was all a purgatory dream".
I doubt it if they have the guts for that, they might think they would piss off the fans with that.
So I don't think this is going to come out, but it seems right, it would bring the quality of the story back on its former level.
Oh. Yeah. Damn. Talk about a lesson (for me) in "be careful what you wish for" {"professional" smile}. I succumbed to the temptation to read your spoiler yesterday, and this morning I'm feeling a little doom and gloomy. It wasn't the hugest of spoilers and I won't give away what it said. But I will say that I can envision it perfectly fitting a spec from Season 5 - one that I liked at the time because it seemed like where Dean's mytharc had been "destined" to go.
My spec, was that the episode The End would turn out to be semi-prophetic - that we'd have a scene very much like the late episode exchange of Dean and White Sam. But notice that I didn't call that guy Samifer.
"I know what you are."
"What am I?"
Yes, what was WhiteSam? Because, if I took away the context of the episode, if I looked at the surroundings and thought about Dean's "issues." I saw a man in a cemetery who had lost everyone he loved and was raging against God.
What has me a bit melancholy is that, in my spec, this scene would be revisited in episode 17 or later of the series' final season. Sam needed to make peace with his biological fa,ily and Dean needed to make peace with "God works in mysterious ways." So reading that spoiler was a little like a friend just got diagnosed with a potentially fatal disease :-(
It doesn't have to be that way, of course. But good ways to draw the series to a close were discussed above, and I haven't imagined anything better. I guess this is where I get to take some comfort from the fact that I don't have a proclivity for creative thinking.
Anyway, I had a lot of fun reading this theory! I think you forgot all the craziness on time that happened on Adventures in Babysitting! Sleeping 36 hours? The weeks passing that fast at the first minutes of the episode? Frank thinking weeks were days (or something like that LOL)? And the beer bottle too! You know, I wanna believe this all MEANS something... I really hope they are not just letting us theorize over here for nothing!
I love your idea! It's really awesome and would totally explain the wasted storylines! ^^
Honestly this was a premise I’d originally said ‘No way, Jose’ to but the more I think about it, the more I think it’s possible (not very probable, but definitely possible). I’d tend to go with the hell scenario as opposed to the Purgatory one because despite the many uses of fire these last few seasons, and with fire being the great cleanser (which would tie in with Purgatory), the idea that Sam and/or his soul went from Earth to Hell to Purgatory would make things too complicated. For example, how did his soul get out of the Cage to go to Purgatory and then get out of Purgatory? Angels and demons were still looking for a way in at that stage. For that matter, how did his living body get out of the Cage to get to Purgatory?
If this scenario does turn out to be true and it concludes in a believable fashion, I’ll be sending the writers a box of chocolates and a high five because they had me fooled, big time. It’s strange, individually I’ve found the episodes this season fine (apart from 'The Mentalists', grrrr), it’s only when you place these episodes into the overall season things start going amiss for me. Season 7 has sometimes felt like someone is trying to make a jigsaw with a hammer and a pair of scissors. Instead of having the episodes sit seamlessly into one big picture, the writers seem determined to make the pieces fit, no matter what the overall picture looks like at the end.
However, if it is a case as is discussed here whereby Sam is still in hell, then it would explain a lot of the disjointedness about the season (for me. I’m well aware that 99.9% of people are delighted with the way season 7 is going, I’m merely part of the .1%). It would also be good as it could serve to answer a huge amount of unanswered questions of the last 2 seasons, and there are many outstanding questions; larger ones such as whether or not Castiel actually did get Sam out of hell, where Adam is and Crowley keeping the demons away etc.
Take Castiel getting Sam out of the Cage. If you consider it logically, it was too damn easy. As it was designed to house Lucifer and it took generations to spring him from it the last time, you’d think it’d be pretty damn impenetrable yet seemingly Castiel and Death were able to hop in there willy nilly and retrieve different parts of Sam. It took Castiel and a legion of angels to get Dean out and he was nowhere near as deep so the idea of Castiel rescuing Sam on his own seems implausible.
At this stage, Castiel was merely a souped up angel who still deferred to Raphael. How could he get Sam out? Surely if Raphael wanted to bring about the Apocalypse so badly he’d have just hopped into the Cage and freed the relevant players himself. He surely had more resources than Castiel, and up until he took in the souls, Raphael was a hell of a lot more powerful than Castiel so if Raphael wanted the Apocalypse to be a go again, then I dare say it would have been a go again. However, if Sam were led to believe he’s out and there was a threat of the Apocalypse then.....
Upon his release from the Cage, consider the events that Sam is threatened with. They are all Sam’s hells being replayed chronologically backward (something akin to Bobby in Death’s Door) ie his last fear he refaced first, and his earliest fear he faced last.
First, the threat of the Apocalypse and a return to the Cage. No major thought needed as to why this would be forefront in his mind! While Sam was in hell, then the idea that his actions stopped the Apocalypse could be seen as one of the few things that would give him strength and a bit of peace; the knowledge that he did the right thing for a just cause, and most importantly it was his choice to do so. Here, as with Cold Oak, Sam got to die having done something worthy. Given that Sam got so little right in his time on earth, the threat of the return of the Apocalypse would be crippling. To think that the sacrifice he made in Season 5 would be as ineffectual and irrelevant as the one he made in season 2 had to be torturous.
Once Sam truly believed he was ‘out’ then another form of hell would have to come into play, namely the loss of self. This has always been one of Sam’s biggest fears. We saw this when he asked Dean to kill him if he ever turned into something he’s not. Soulless Sam was about as far from Souled up Sam as you could get so he was turned into something he’s not and once again, Dean was put into a position where he had to consider whether or not to kill him. Therefore the hell Sam went through in Season’s 2 and 3 he was faced with again.
Finally, the hell of not being trusted and being faced with the realisation that he will probably never be trusted. Having a brother who is just waiting for the other shoe to drop in relation to you is another hell of early seasons coming into play once again. To think that after all you’ve done, all you’ve sacrificed that you’ll get no peace from the mistrust is scary. To relive your biggest fears and failings again and again in different scenarios, I can think of nothing worse.
This gradual dismantling of Sam, if it is a game, is brilliantly done on Lucifer’s part and it would be much more symptomatic of the excellent writing and careful story planning we’ve seen from SPN in the past.
Consider back in Mystery Spot how Sam reacted to being on his own, how alien he was to the Sam that we know. Now, upon Sam’s return, there were only three people who even knew he was alive, who cared some bit about him; Dean, Bobby and Castiel. One of these three is now dead, another almost killed him for jollies while the third feels he can’t be trusted. If Lucifer is seeking to make Sam feel utterly alone, as alone as he was in the Cage then he’s doing a hell of a job.
It would also serve to explain Castiel’s illogical excuse for taking down the wall and his decision to stay away. Were I Lucifer and I was playing this game, I wouldn’t let Castiel have contact with Sam either as it would make him all the more confused and feel all the more isolated. Perhaps Castiel’s ‘We do have a more profound bond’ and Bobby’s ‘Well you are my favourite’ to Dean are also words that Sam thinks he should be hearing, thereby alienating him all the more. Add to that, having Castiel knock Sam’s wall for no real reason and thereby make Sam the wedge between Dean and Castiel would surely haunt Sam.
Add to that the overall bleakness of this season so far has been reminiscent of hell (for me). I know that some people found season 6 darker but I didn’t. I found that it was full of hope; hope that the boys could triumph, that their relationship could be fixed, that the trust would be earned and that they could be happy. For me, that’s been missing for this season so while the number of ‘fun' episodes has meant that the season hasn’t been overly dark, I do find it bleak overall.
I find the knowledge that with Bobby’s death and Castiel’s... whatever, Sam and Dean are truly isolated. Consider that when they die there will be no one there to mourn them, or bury them or possibly even know they’re dead. I think this to be a horrific fate for two men such as Sam and Dean and a huge insult to them and all they’ve done. Not being thanked and not being paid, I can deal with but not being remembered? That’s bleak. The idea that Sam can never be okay and so can never be trusted is bleak. Dude shouldn’t even be driving a car or holding a gun for fear of a hallucination; that’s bleak. The idea that what’s causing Dean’s depression is wrapped up in Sam is bleak. How can Sam help Dean with his problems when Sam is Dean’s problem? That’s also bleak. However, if you think that all of the above are not true and are merely figments of Sam’s imagination then hello ray of light. The hope that has driven SPN since season one is back.
Now while there are numerous reasons as to why Sam is not in Hell/Purgatory ie I don’t think the writers would go in that direction, fans might be ever (!) so slightly displeased with it, lack of POV, lack of ‘real’ Dean, rather clichéd, show writing itself into a corner, going on for too long etc, I do think it would be interesting (and was Sam and/or Dean seeing out the show in hell how Kripke first imagined it?).
And I have to say, that clown laugh at the end of 7.14 was very reminiscent of Lucifer so who knows!!
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