- TV Spoilers & Speculation Corner: 01/04/12
- TV Spoilers & Speculation Corner: 01/11/12
- TV Spoilers & Speculation Corner: 01/18/12
- TV Spoilers & Speculation Corner: 01/25/12
- TV Spoilers & Speculation Corner: 02/01/12
- TV Spoilers & Speculation Corner: 02/08/12
- TV Spoilers & Speculation Corner: 02/15/12
- TV Spoilers & Speculation Corner: 02/22/12
- TV Spoilers & Speculation Corner: 02/29/12
- TV Spoilers & Speculation Corner: 03/07/12
- TV Spoilers & Speculation Corner: 03/14/12
- TV Spoilers & Speculation Corner: 03/21/12
- TV Spoilers & Speculation Corner: 03/28/12
- TV Spoilers & Speculation Corner: 04/04/12
- TV Spoilers & Speculation Corner: 04/11/12
- TV Spoilers & Speculation Corner: 04/18/12
- TV Spoilers & Speculation Corner: 04/25/12
- TV Spoilers & Speculation Corner: 05/02/12
- TV Spoilers & Speculation Corner: 05/09/12
- TV Spoilers & Speculation Corner: 05/16/12
- TV Spoilers & Speculation Corner: 05/23/12
- TV Spoilers & Speculation Corner: 05/30/12
- TV Spoilers & Speculation Corner: 06/06/12
- TV Spoilers & Speculation Corner: 06/13/12
- TV Spoilers & Speculation Corner: 06/20/12
- TV Spoilers & Speculation Corner: 06/27/12
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This week, we have spoilers for Once Upon a Time and Supernatural:
Once Upon a Time (Sunday nights, 8pm, ABC)
By Heather S. Vina
The big news from last week is that Barbara Hershey has been cast as the Evil Queen’s mother, another Evil character. Yay, more Evil characters! ‘Cause we don’t have enough of those running around already, winning over Good all of the time.
Mega Buzz cleared up that it is a guest-starring role this season, with potential appearances next season:
“Loving Once Upon a Time, especially the Evil Queen. What’s coming up for her? – David”
“NATALIE: Who’s more evil than the Evil Queen? Her elegant, yet imposing mother, of course, AKA the woman who taught Regina everything. Chills. (This just in: Academy Award nominee Barbara Hershey has booked a multi-episode arc as the matriarch of the most evil family in fairy tale world. The Black Swan actress has the potential to return in Season 2, should the series be renewed.)”
TV Guide print had an interview with Emilie de Ravin about her upcoming episode, “Skin Deep.” A reader at SpoilerTV summarized it here (http://www.spoilertv.com/2012/02/once-upon-time-episode-112-skin-deep.html).
Kristin at E!online had a little bit up for this week’s chat (Warning, a spoiler for Grimm is in there, too!):
“EnterpriseJim: Got Grimm? Once Upon a Time?”
“You’ll get both and you will like it. We just chatted up Amy Acker, who reunited with her Angel EP for her role as Grimm‘s monster of the week this Friday. “I love him to death so I was so excited to get the phone call,” the sweet-as-Fred actress told us today about David Greenwalt. “When I read the script and saw I got to play such a fun, crazy, different character, it was just an added bonus.” Acker’s also coming up on Once Upon a Time, in which she’s playing “the complete opposite” of her Grimm character: Grumpy’s girlfriend! “I’m hitting all the fairy tales,” she joked. Wow. Grumpy is seriously batting out of his league. Way to go, little man.”
ABC announced that Jane Espenson will be having a Twitter event for February 12′s episode.
TVLine announced that Noah Bean has been cast as the “stable boy” character: “He’ll play a handsome stable boy in Fairytale Land who tends to horses at the royal manor. He’s a young romantic who believes that love can make anything possible, even breaking through the barriers of his social station.” Sounds like he will be the Evil Queen’s love interest.
And, in more casting news, according to EW, Roger Daltry has been cast as the voice of the Caterpillar in an Alice In Wonderland-themed episode! The episode is the previously announced “Hat Trick”. This was my mom’s favourite fairy tale, so I hope they do this one right!
ABC announced their February Sweeps Programming and here are their bits about Once:
“ONCE UPON A TIME – ‘Skin Deep’ – After Mr. Gold’s house is robbed, Emma keeps a close eye on him when it looks like he wants to track down the criminal and dole out some vigilante justice as payback, and Valentine’s Day finds Mary Margaret, Ruby and Ashley (Jessy Schram, Falling Skies) having a girls’ night out. Meanwhile, in the fairytale land that was, Belle (Emilie de Ravin, Lost) agrees to a fateful deal to give up her freedom in order to save her town from the horrors of the Ogre war, on Once Upon a Time, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 12 (8:00-9:00 p.m., ET). Emilie de Ravin (Lost) guest stars as Belle and Jessy Schram (Falling Skies) guest stars as Cinderella/Ashley.”
“ONCE UPON A TIME – ‘What Happened to Frederick’ – With their love for each other growing stronger, David finally agrees to tell Kathryn about his relationship with Mary Margaret and put an end to his loveless marriage. Meanwhile, in the fairytale land that was, while runaway groom Prince Charming searches for Snow White, he agrees to aid Abigail on a dangerous mission to recover something precious that was lost to her, on Once Upon a Time, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 19 (8:00-9:00 p.m., ET). Alan Dale (Lost) guest stars as King George.”
The show will be preempted on February 26 for the Oscars.
And finally, there was this little thing called the “Big Bowl?” “Super Circle?” Oh, wait, “Super Bowl” this past Sunday and, therefore, no new episode. Sadly, it took my friend telling me Saturday night, when we were talking, before I realised that there wouldn’t be one, LOL! I’m not a football person. So, no ratings this week. The show will be back next week with “Skin Deep”.
Supernatural (Friday nights, 9pm, CW)
By Paula R. Stiles
Rachel Miner’s appearance at Vancouver Airport last week was no coincidence. A Meg reappearance has been confirmed. Since they’ve been filming 7.17 this past week, we can fairly reasonably assume that’s the episode she’s up there for. In addition, Misha Collins tweeted a photo of himself, sitting on a hospital bed in what looks like white orderly gear. Fan speculation is currently running high whether it’s a genuine set photo or Collins messing with the fans. Could be both. He’s efficient that way. Fan speculation is also already turning kinky as to whether Meg might be playing nurse to an amnesiac Castiel. See what you started, show?
If 7.17 ends up with Dean pulling an Elwood P. Dowd on Sam and Castiel, I will laugh so hard.
A full array of official photos is up for this week’s episode, as are a promo, a clip (which came out over the weekend. How early!) and an early look with Robert Singer (You can find the Canadian promo and Singer preview for 7.13 from last week here). The promo is clown-heavy and the clip is a payphone conversation between Dean and Frank (“I am the Eggman!”) about how things aren’t going so far on the Leviathan hunt.
Initially, the photos were rather blah, showing only Sam being threatened by (and shooting at) some seedy-looking clowns inside a nondescript warehouse. Yeah…who decided it was smart to let Sam go around armed with guns, again? Anyway, the newer photos show Sam looking anxious in a suit, a closeup of Dean looking grim, and two action shots of bird-dog Dean chasing a freaked-out guy named “Cliff” (Dagan Nish) in a yellow lion suit. I can already see that last scene will not get old on repeated viewings.
Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles had a joint video interview come out last Friday. Padalecki also had a print interview from TV Line. In it, he talks about the possibility of season eight (It’s high and he is signed up for it if it happens – and no, he does not say, or even imply, that it’s the last one), Sam’s hallucinations (and Mark Pellegrino’s return), and the fact that Dean will go all out for revenge later in the season. One interesting thing is that Padalecki hedges on whether or not Sam will eventually see “Bobby” (or whatever Dean thinks he’s seeing) and says Sam thinks Dean is seeing things because he’s drinking too much. So, basically, Sam is cracking up and assuming that Dean is cracking up, too. Good times.
Some have complained that this interview makes the rest of the season sound very Samcentric, however, this is Padalecki talking about Sam’s role in it. So, for example, he talks a lot about Sam’s motivations in last week’s episode, even though we ended up seeing little of that onscreen and the episode itself is Deancentric. Also, if he is in less of the latter part of the season, he may simply know less about what is going on in it.
In the video interview, a very sleepy-looking Ackles talks about filming 7.12 (which perks him up). When asked what other time he’d like to time-travel back to, he says (in a faux-Scottish accent) “Medieval times!” Then he admits that it would be too expensive (Actually, it could be doable, if they went with a realistic portrayal rather than fantasy King Arthur or that Pillars of the Earth nonsense), but he wouldn’t mind going to the future (again).
Padalecki would like to go back to the early 40s because people were more united back then. In reality, people were so divided that the U.S. didn’t enter the war for two years, until U.S. soil was bombed at Pearl Harbor, and many European Jews were turned away for asylum because many in the U.S. were both xenophobic and antisemitic. And then there were other fun things like the Japanese internment camps, paranoia and security about spies, and rationing. On the other hand, I can see his point. If you talk to people who lived through and fought in WWII, there is a sense of solidarity there, of vastly different people temporarily working together and knuckling down to what needed to be done.
Later, both Ackles and Padalecki try to explain the premise behind “The Slice Girls”. It’s a bit of a struggle.
There was also another convention in Nashville, Tennessee this past weekend. Some spoilers came out of it, though they were rather vague, about Castiel’s return, the return of the Impala (which has undergone an overhaul in real life), and a bit that Sam will have facial hair at some point in the relatively near future.
There’s a non-spoilery spoiler from Ask Kristin this week about Castiel, which is basically taken from Misha Collins’ panel at the Nashville convention, about how he won’t come back in the raincoat. If the photo Collins tweeted is any indication, we now know why.
Finally, this week’s ratings for “The Slice Girls” are up to 0.8/2 and 1.72 million (It’s often said that the ratings for a current episode reflect the opinion of the previous episode). The show was also upgraded to a sure thing for renewal on the Renew/Cancel Index on TV by the Numbers, mainly because it was second only to The Vampire Diaries in a week full of CW original broadcasts and has been in the top tier of the network all season. This does not mean that the show is absolutely guaranteed to be renewed (That won’t be known until the network makes renewal announcements), but the sure things on the Renew/Cancel Indices tend to be pretty accurate. In addition, DVR+7 ratings for the new year have been as high as usual. They went from 0.8 to 1.2 for 7.11 and 0.7 to 1.1 for 7.12.
So, speculation: There are several mysteries going on here, not unlike last season. Unlike last season, however, we know for a fact there’s a mytharc and what it is (the Leviathans), at least for now, and we have a pretty good idea of what’s a character arc and what’s connected to the mytharcs. That’s an improvement on the incoherent mess that was last season’s throughline at this point.
Things I don’t care about in the least: Sam’s hellpain. I didn’t care when it was the Sambot plot. I don’t care now. The endless harping on it has not made me love it one whit more. In fact, I find the lack of mystery in that area quite irritating. Not helping is that it’s unrealistic, inconsistent and not terribly respectful to the subject matter. But then, how can it be when the writers don’t have a clue about the difference between basic psychological concepts like PTSD, psychosis, delusions, and hallucinations?
The general approach to insanity this season, however, is rather interesting and growing more so, while being carefully hidden underneath the frequent references to Sam’s hellpain. For example, Frank, Dean’s Bobby replacement, is genuinely psychotic. He appears to be suffering from some form of paranoid schizophrenia, or as close as this show is able to take it. Sam’s not really delusional – at least, not yet. He knows his hallucinations of Lucifer aren’t real. But Frank has completely bought into his own conspiracy-ridden worldview and is quite delusional. That he has real enemies is not a shock. Delusional beliefs are generally built out of the furniture of a person’s life and not whole cloth.
This is important because, while Sam has a fairly good handle on his own hallucinations (so far) and does not buy into Frank’s delusional universe, Dean increasingly does. We see Dean being sucked more and more into Frank’s worldview, becoming, himself, further isolated and more paranoid (not entirely unlike Sam with Ruby about this time in season four, actually). As if he needed any more of that. Even scarier, Dean is drinking so heavily that, when he keeps seeing more and more things that seem out of place (an empty beer bottle, moved papers, sleeping 36 hours), both Sam and Frank think the booze and the grief are making him imagine things. Dude, when the two other inmates in the asylum are saying, “What’re you – nuts?” something’s wrong. When Sam gets removed from this equation by his own breakdown in 7.17, especially if his temporary replacement will be a whacked-out Castiel, where, exactly, will that leave Dean?
I’ve noticed that people are finally moving off assuming that these “visitations” Dean’s having have to be Bobby and admitting that we really don’t who or what did those things, or why (We only know they’re intentional foreshadowing of something). It could be Bobby. It could well be Castiel from behind the scenes. It could be someone – or something else. And Dean could be losing his mind. He is not a reliable narrator. Sure, he seems convinced it’s Bobby’s ghost and it seems to make sense, but there’s a reason why that would be lame. This is a horror show. Since when has it ever turned out that well with the supernatural? When has there never been a nasty twist when Dean has chosen to believe in something apparently good? When has the other shoe never dropped?
Dean wants to believe Bobby’s ghost is watching over him. He also wants to believe his brother is getting better and that his monster daughter could be talked down from trying to kill him. And look how that’s been turning out.
We’ll be back next week with more spoilers. Stay tuned and check out our reviews of Game of Thrones, Doctor Who, Torchwood, The Event, Once Upon a Time, and Supernatural.








Thanks again for the round-up Paula.
I’m hoping your right on the direction Dean is headed, and that Sam going bonkers is just another stepping stone into Dean slowly losing it. I’d like to see a dark Dean. I think Jensen would rock it and it would give him a real chance to stretch his wings and play a whole new side of Dean, that we’ve only seen glimpses off.
As for Plucky, this one is a little confusing because of conflicting spoilers, one saying that Dean’s fear is losing his brother, and that Sam’s is clowns. I wonder if this is actually a bait and switch, and more about Dean’s fear than Sam’s.
The kids draw a picture of their fears and it comes to live and kills the parents. To a kid parents would be the people they would fear losing the most.
I wish you could submit a script Paula. I’d love to see where you take Dean in it.
That should be Conflicting spoilers where one says we don’t learn Dean’s fear and another one that says we do.
I did find your speculations very interesting. I did notice that there is a general, overall theme of insanity in this season. Even Garth, I thought, is in that ilk, along with a psychotic Frank. I also agree that Sam has a handle on this hallucinations, and given JP’s written interview about Sam’s inner strength stuff, there isn’t any surprise that once we sit through the hellpain, he’ll have that resolved fairly quickly (thank God).
I can also see where you are coming from regarding Dean becoming more isolated and sucked into Frank’s paranoia (i.e., the phone booth scene). What I need more explanation of, though, is that you say both Sam AND FRANK are thinking that the drinking and grief are making Dean see things. Sam, I get, but please expand on the Frank stuff. I know Frank told Dean to find a way to keep going without burning himself out and I know Frank has called Dean stupid. I haven’t noticed drinking around Frank, though. Was there something else you’re talking about?
Anyway, the promo would make sense that if Dean gives up drinking and women, he is giving up on his coping mechanisms and that could lead him further off the edge. Sam going out of the picture would be the final loss and, I hope, hope, hope that Dean gets as angry as Hell itself and goes crazy.
I don’t know what role Cas will have. JP says the brothers were right about Cas and re-introducing the relationship (or was that giving him redemption?) will be tricky. Since JP doesn’t usually tell us anything important in his interviews, that doesn’t really mean anything. I don’t really care, except that I do not want anymore angel storylines.
Meg/Cas or Dean/Cas? Which will it be? I hope it’s Dean/Cas, since an angel playing smash-face with a demon was kind of repulsive and not funny at all. But I hope that Dean doesn’t decide to take care of Cas like he always does Sam — Cas having been considered a fourth Winchester and all.
I like your speculation, though, and I’m am getting really curious as to where the season goes. I can’t say curiosity has been something I’ve felt since Swan Song, so that’s good.
Oh, one further comment. I can see now that we’re probably having the clown episode — Sam encountering his greatest fear — as foreshadowing him confronting his Lucifer hallucinations.
Well, at least in the clip, it looks like Sam has washed his hair recently.
That’s all I’ve got.
Thank you for the spoilers! I really believe Dean is experiencing some kind of SPN being. I really don’t believe it’s Bobby, but it could be Cass, Death, God, or another being connected to the leviathans. Whoever or whatever it is seems to be helping Dean so it will be interesting to see how this plays out.
While Sam might be questioning Dean’s stability, I have more faith in Dean’s instincts than any other person or being in the SPN universe. Dean is using Frank, but he also knows that Frank is nuts so at this point he is a paid source. Dean is clever and he, I really believe, is the core of the mythology. So I really don’t believe Dean will follow Frank down the rabbit hole.
I also watched the interview with Jensen and Jared, and I thought the whole Slice Girl’s episode probably didn’t sit well with JA since, IMO, it was out of character for Dean to be involved with a monster, and then father a child. I really can’t find a reason for why the show would go there. I think a medieval episode would be great! Imagine Dean as a knight. Was Jared saying he wanted to go back to the 40’s? I thought I heard him say the time of the Flapper Era, but that was the 1920’s. It is good to hear JP argue for a more mature Sam rather than the one we have had for the last seven years.
Thanks again Paula!
@Crowley_Gal
Well, think of it this way–if Sam cracks up in 7.17, what about the rest of the season. There are six episodes after that. Does Sam get out or is he institutionalised for more than one episode? We don’t know.
But also, while Sam is distracted with that, Dean is dealing with the Leviathan plot pretty much single-handedly, and the writers have already said the latter part of the season will be Leviathan-heavy. So, all of this stuff with Dean has to be going somewhere for the same reason the whole “The Leviathans are building something sinister in this field” thing has to be going somewhere. This is the time to be laying the groundwork for the Leviathan plot in the last quarter of the season.
As I said last week, the alternate synopsis could be a creative interpretation by someone not affiliated with the network, let alone the show. That could be where the conflict is going in.
However, we need to keep in mind that a lot of episodes have sounded Samcentric, or at least Sam-heavy, and it’s all been a feint to conceal the actual plot, which was more Dean-heavy and/or focused on the mytharc. So, there is a strong possibility that Dean has something going on that the official spoilers are not letting out. Added to that is that Sam is an adult and the fears the children draw come after their parents. So, why are Sam’s own fears coming after *him*? Likely, there’s something going on with the MOTW being released or roused in some way that changes its usual behaviour (as in “Bloody Mary”), but the pattern of this season indicates they wouldn’t ignore that it would go after Dean, too, the way they ignored it in “Bloody Mary” (and got yelled at for the next several years about it).
@Ginger
I don’t know that village idiot qualifies for the DSM-IV, but I did think of Lee when I was saying that. Lee had some significant damage of his own, which Dean smelled like a shark smells blood and zeroed right in on. I thought it was interesting that everything we saw of Lee indicated that his daughter grossly underestimated his skills by calling him “a pretty good hunter”. For him to have lasted as long as he has, hunting alone, he’d have to be a whole lot better than “pretty good”. Yet, he follows the general pattern that, the better the hunter, the more damaged he/she is.
As far as Frank, I don’t recall specific instances of Frank commenting on Dean’s drinking (though I’m sure Dean drank in front of him). I was thinking more of Dean bringing up his grief and Frank acting as if Dean was acting like an hysteric. Also, there have been a few times (the three weeks-three days thing, the 36 hours asleep, the whole “We’re friends”/”No, I just pay you” exchange) where Dean would say or do something and Frank would act as if Dean had just landed from Mars. Is that probably part of Frank’s delusional thinking? Sure. One of the features of delusional thinking is its rigidity. But it’s a sign of Dean’s own mental fragility and dangerous willingness to buy into Frank’s delusions that he doesn’t question things like Frank’s obsession with “Leviathan” celebrities, things that Sam, who is supposedly five fruitloops short of a full box, just rolls his eyes at. Dean’s normally a major skeptic, but he can be downright childlike around Frank, sometimes, which makes for a very dangerous folie a deux.
I think it’s kind of interesting that the folks associated with the show are sort of giving in more and more and admitting that, yes, it will be Castiel coming back and, yes, it’s very likely he will be coming back in a recurring role, rather than just to be killed off at the end of the season. I’m wondering whether he’ll be part of the cliffhanger at the end of the season.
Yeah, Jared Padalecki has been saying for a while that the clowns are the official beginning of Sam’s Big Crack-up.
@shamangrrl
LOL!
@Lily
I don’t think Jensen Ackles was very thrilled with “The Slice Girls”. I’m sure he didn’t much want to do all that extra weight-lifting for the shirtless scene and I’m sure he didn’t like doing the scene, itself. In fact, I kind of wonder if part of the chivalric behaviour with the actress was also a way for him to figure out how to set boundaries for himself, as well, with the crew. Sure, it wasn’t comfortable for her, either, but they focused a *lot* more on his skin than hers.
But he also just seemed to think the whole premise was dumb, which it was.
Jared Padalecki did talk about 20s Flappers. Then he talked about the 40s. I think he got them confused because of the Eliot Ness angle, but I was trying to cut him a break. At least he knew what year we got into WWII, which is more than most people I know.
Dean is certainly using Frank, but Dean’s problem is that insanity actually makes him a better hunter. Look at him in “Bloodlust” and “Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things”. At the very top of his game as a hunter; completely off his nut as a human being. So, yeah, I think he will not only dive down the rabbit hole with Frank, but fall much further. He’s primed to do it. He doesn’t care about staying sane. He just wants Dick’s oily head on a plate.
Possible titles for episode 20 and 21
7.20: The Girl With the Dungeons and Dragons Tattoo
7.21: In Case of Emergency
http://all-spn.livejournal.com/1583092.html
Re: Garth and DSM-IV: Well, maybe not, but I think the person who dreamed up his character sure does
As for Lee, you are right; Krissy had told Dean the story and the damage was clearly there in Lee. Besides, the immediate connection between the audience and Lee was John2. Although he seemed to give more emotional support to his daughter, he still drug her around all over the country and Krissy was already a very stupid Dean2. I would absolutely love to see Lee brought back if Ian Tracey is available, but we get him and we get the brat. I still regret that Ian played second fiddle to the kid — what a waste of a fine actor — and I would love for just him to show up to help Dean in some final push to the mytharc.
For Dean to even consider working with Frank implies that there is a folie a deux, paid contractor or not, in my opinion (and may I add my sarcasm — especially in the writers’ room with the quality of these substitute characters introduced this year). But then, I can only take Frank’s character in small doses. He’s too chaotic for me. I did find it interesting that the first time Sam and Dean met him, Sam tried to correct something Frank said and Dean told him to forget it, that Frank was on a roll. I thought that was a call-out to Dean’s ability to read people.
Needless to say, I really do want to see Dean lose it because, as you point out, he is a better hunter when push comes to shove. Mostly, like others, I’ve wanted to see Dark Dean for a long time.
@Sherry
Thanks! Wow, that 7.20 title is…dumb.
@Ginger
LOL! on whoever thought up Garth. Yeah…it was probably someone who watched Memphis Beat and then wrote exactly the same character for Qualls. The good news is that Qualls’ MB character improves quite a bit over time. The bad(depending on your feeling about the character) news is that Garth probably won’t live that long.
One reason why Ian Tracey was on my short-short list of Actors I Desperately Want To See On This Show, Especially As Hunters was because Tracey can give you ten volumes of fascinating psychological damage in two lines or less, and still have time and energy to go off for a coffee and a cigarette, afterward. And they gave him quite a bit more, so I’m completely unsurprised that he took the bit and ran with it.
I don’t really mind Krissy that much. Yes, the actress was too inexperienced to overcome the lousy writing on her first outing, but she did have good chemistry with Ackles and Tracey is lovely with children. So, if they actually give her some scenes with both of them, her next outing should be better.
I’m on the fence about Frank. On the one hand, the writers give him some pretty stupid lines. On the other, I have to admire McNally’s performance. There are times when I see Frank rollicking along, and Dean keeps yanking him up short with the “Screw this; you *work* for me,” when McNally projects this genuine sadness in Frank. I think that Frank, in his thoroughly screwed up way, likes Dean and wants to have a relationship with Dean along the lines of what Bobby had.
Whether it’s been Frank or Bobby or Gordon, or even Rufus, Dean’s profound damage has had an odd effect on the lone wolfs of the hunter world. Hunters who have lasted long enough to become very experienced *and* too antisocial to play well with even other hunters are really attracted to Dean’s willingness to put up with a wide variety of weird in his friends and family.
And Dean, on his part, keeps seeing them as father figures. He’s vulnerable to them. He’s been fighting hard to distance himself this time with the payment thing, but it’s definitely a losing battle. He’s going so crazy so fast that you can almost hear his nails scraping across the floor, scrabbling for purchase as he goes over the edge.
What’s kind of surprising is Sam’s indifference to Frank. Sure, Sam thinks Frank is nuts, but the last time Dean fell this hard for the Wrong Daddy, it was Gordon, and Sam and Gordon hated each other on sight.
I think it’s fun to see Dean go crazy for the same reason it’s fun to see a werewolf wolf out or a vampire go on a blood rampage. I mean, the writer doesn’t turn those characters into monsters to *avoid* showing us how monstrous they can get. Sam’s wrong. The more dark and disturbed Dean is, the *better* a hunter he becomes. And if they go with the season-four idea of Sam having to drink so much demon blood that he ceases to be human in order to kill Lilith, we may see Dean go so crazy and savage that he’ll be “human” solely in genetics, as the only way to take down the Leviathans.
Thanks for the spoiler roundup, Paula! Some awesome theories, as usual!!
Something in particular jumped out at me: “I think it’s kind of interesting that the folks associated with the show are sort of giving in more and more and admitting that, yes, it will be Castiel coming back and, yes, it’s very likely he will be coming back in a recurring role, rather than just to be killed off at the end of the season. I’m wondering whether he’ll be part of the cliffhanger at the end of the season.”
Where are you seeing these hints/give ins that Castiel will be back in a recurring role?
And what did you think of Jensen’s comment about Dean being there for Sam and him needing someone for him, and Cass being that person? I think it’s definitely a past tense thing he was talking about, but I’m also wondering if he could be hinting about the future for them too…
@Heather
In the recent interviews and previews, no matter who it’s been, they’ve increasingly been saying “Castiel” and not “Misha” or “Jimmy”. Robert Singer essentially admitted that it’s Castiel coming back, though he said it’s in a slightly different form (which seems to mean that he has amnesia). They were also talking about how he would still have powers.
I didn’t get the sense Ackles was talking in the past tense. I think he was talking about how he wanted that character back. And for Dean to have Castiel as that kind of friend, it doesn’t really work for Castiel to be back for just a few episodes and then dead for good.
Thanks for the spoiler round up, ladies.
@Paula- I also noticed that JP seemed to want not only more Sam next season (which, I’m sorry but after six seasons of Sam’s storyline dominating the show, I have no sympathy for him taking a backseat this season), but also a more serious exploration of his character. Perhaps JP then should ask that the show runners stop giving him these increasingly absurd supernatural arcs? With how much he loves playing variations of evil!Sam and now, crazy!Sam, I think his character could benefit from the writers toning things down and giving him more human and relatable issues. Being All About Dean, for example, would be a terrific start. But alas, just like in S4, his concern for Dean will end up taking a backseat to his own overwhelming Sam dilemma. I’d love for Cas to fix that damn wall and move onto something new next season.
I really hope you’re right about Cas. I keep thinking that his return was a big enough deal for the studio itself to announce and then invite journalists up to Vancouver for interviews/to watch that episode’s filming. It would seem strange to go to that trouble (not to mention risking a repeat of the fury and sense of betrayal by a number of fans) if Cas were to just die again.
Since Cas is coming back for 3 episodes this season, his amnesia will pretty much precludes him from having a true redemption arc and/or fix his relationship with Dean. I actually love the idea of Dean’s fate physical or mental fate being unknown at the end of the season. Assuming Cas regains his memory by then, I can’t think of anything that would be more devastating for him than to realize that he was the one directly to blame for his beloved friend’s “demise”/breakdown/whatever. I think Cas realizing the tragic irony of that situation could make for some interesting drama next season.
And as for Dean himself…he’s just continuing to spiral out of control. Paula, what do you think Dean would eventually need in order to turn his mindset around? Would killing Dick be enough of a victory to do that? Based on Jensen saying that Dean will need to be a “pillar of strength” once Sam goes officially nuts, some fans were speculating that concern for Sam will be enough to make Dean pull himself together. I could perhaps see that for the immediate short term but not so much as a long term solution to Dean’s many issues. What are your thoughts?
@elena
Do you mean this Q&A? http://fangasmthebook.wordpress.com/2012/02/06/jensen-ackles-talks-dean-directing-and-more-in-nashvegas/
Because I think some folks are stretching that one passage wayyyyy out of proportion: “Right now Sam’s kinda cornered the market. We had soulless Sam and now the wall’s cracked and he’s not sleeping and he’s having visions of Lucifer, and as long as that continues, Dean’s gotta be a pillar of strength. He feels like he always has to be there for his brother.” First, if Dean can’t go dark until Sam “continues” like that, what about once Sam ends up institutionalised and (presumably) safe? Second, Ackles was talking about “Evil Dean”. Not “Crazy Dean”. Not “Dark Dean”. Taking care of Sam didn’t stop Dean from doing some pretty dark and scary things in the past.
Third, and most important, remember when Ackles was saying at Comic-Con that Dean didn’t have a storyline for the first eight episodes of the season? Well, what about the Amy business? What about Dean’s depression? What about his grief over Castiel? Or Levstiel’s threat to come back for him? Or Dean’s obsession with killing Dick? Or Dean working with Frank? Seems to me Dean’s been doing plenty over the past 13 episodes and not a single one of these storylines is even close to resolution.
Also, there are conflicting statements going on here, not to mention that Ackles is, at the very least, holding back. Look at how he’s talking about Castiel in the past tense with the whole trenchcoat thing and how he *might* come back someday. This is from freakin’ last weekend. They’re filming 7.17. I think he knows perfectly well when and how Castiel comes back at this point.
Now look at Jared Padalecki’s interview with TVLine last week: “Obviously, the fact that Dick Roman has killed Bobby makes Dean even more bloodthirsty and hellbent on revenge. We’ll see Dean’s quest for vengeance really take him over, really torture him. We’ll also see Sam trying to keep his brother on track and telling him, “Vengeance is not going to lead the right way.” But also Sam’s deteriorating, so it’s not like Sam can really just get ahold of his brother; Sam has himself to worry about.”
So, wait a minute–that sounds an *awful* lot like a “Dean goes dark” storyline. And, come to think of it, Ackles never really answered the question, “Will there ever be an Evil Dean?” Not least because, well, we’ve already seen evil versions of Dean, like Shapeshifter Dean and Dream/DemonDean and LevDean. A better question might have been: “How far will Dean go to kill Dick?” We know for a fact that ongoing for at least a few more episodes because one spoiler a couple of weeks back said that Frank wouldn’t have anything on the Leviathans as of 7.15 and that the latter part of the season will be Levheavy. And how likely is it that Dick will bite it before the season finale? So, expect that revenge storyline of Dean’s to last allllll season.
I think Dick could be Dean’s version of Lilith. I don’t mean that Dick wants to die because Dick seems very interested in continuing to breathe and plot and eat. I mean that we’re going to see Dean go someplace very, very dark by the end of the season, someplace with unexpected and disturbing consequences.
Good round up Paula. I didn’t have time to shift through all the spoilers from Nashcon so it’s nice to read them here.
I had heard the comments about this epi sam faces his phobia od clowns and Dean faces a phobia of his, but that wasn’t ever grounded in a reliabe source…just a lot of fan speculation.
I didn’t hear where this was supposed to be the start of Sam’s crack up. Really? There really are clowns in the epi and Sam really is afraid of them so he is not dilusional about that. How does that forecast his breakup. I missed that spoiler all together
As for Dean going “dark”..I would love to see him tear into Dick and go as deep in to revenge as it takes. Dean was so cool on Vamp blood last year that I’d love to see that again. But I don’t want Roman after this year. One year arc is enough for any series. Look at mess we have with the fallout from Sam’sS. We are STILL dealing with Sam’s train wreck of the hell pain and that is something that should have ended mid season last year. Fans said no, SG should have complied. Now she has lost even more repect from fans. So, NO more lev’s after s7.
And I think everyone has forgotten a very formidable character out there that can really throw a monkey wrench in to any speculation, and that’s Crowley. He is still very much in the picture and will be back in the later episodes. Crowley is definitely a character that has his own agenda, but if that agenda jives with the boys, he will side with them. And we already know he hates Roman.
Crowley/Cas/Dean and yeah…even Bobby’s ghost (and I really want it to be him – besides we have already been told by RS that Bobby will be back) can take on the lev as a team AND help pull Dean out of his grief mode. And I think having Sam gone (and safe as you say) will help Dean deal a lot. If Sam is there fine…but only if it’s Sam sans hallucinations. Otherwise, leave him locked up till he gets his act together.
Also was wondering what you thought about the comment on the amulet’s possible return in the same Fangasum article. That could really get Dean back on track as far as the emo-distress assuming SG used it the way she should. If it is another one of her ‘buildup to hope then dash it away again’ senerios, forget it. And really I think that is the only form of drama SG knows. Still I’d really like to see Dean go bonkers and tear into Roman with his bare hands..like Sam did to Gordon.
I think we’re going to get a DarkDean arc, too. It’s just a matter of when. And IA, Dean doesn’t have to be “evil” to be scary as hell. From the most recent preview, it would seem that he’s voluntarily giving up every outlet he has that help him keep his own “demon inside” at bay-all of them, except hunting, that is. Maybe(hopefully!!) we’ll get a little bit of DarkDean as early as this week’s episode…*fingers crossed*…
Thanks for the spoilers, girls.
@Paula: I think Dick could be Dean’s version of Lilith. I don’t mean that Dick wants to die because Dick seems very interested in continuing to breathe and plot and eat. I mean that we’re going to see Dean go someplace very, very dark by the end of the season, someplace with unexpected and disturbing consequences.
Very scary speculation, but oh so deliciously entertaining! I just don’t want Dean to turn into a Sam season 4. Dean of the future, The End, or Bloodlust, is fine, but not a Sam/Lilith repeat. I would love to see Dean’s amulet again!
@Cassieo
The only real indication we have at the moment that Dean faces his fears this week is a version of the synopsis found on an online TV schedule. These are notoriously unreliable and I’ve seen some really bizarre rewrites of episode and film synopses on those sites that have no relation to what really happens in the stories in question.
On the other hand, the part about Dean confronting the MOTW (and presumably killing it/him) alone, is from the official synop. For what it’s worth.
I’d just as soon see Dick bite it this season, too. I don’t know if that will happen, but it is entirely possible for the Leviathans to continue as a threat without Dick at the helm.
I’m not too wild about seeing Crowley again so soon. He’s been good this season, as a frenemy, but he sucked hard as an enemy last season. I’m still very wary of their overusing him and ruining him.
I think we need to look at this “Bobby’s ghost” thing with extreme skepticism. We don’t know if this is even real or if Dean is losing his mind (or both). And when has anything supernatural that Dean chose to put his faith in ever turned out to be good?
I have a feeling Sam’s hellucinations will become a non-issue once he gets out of the hospital. Since they won’t kill him off, rock bottom for him is institutionalisation. After that crisis, there’s nowhere for Sam to go but back up, no matter how much Mark Pellegrino is available or the writers may want to drag this out.
I am skeptical about the reference to the amulet. That sounded a lot more like a fan’s wishful thinking list than any actual spoilage. I’d love to see the amulet again, but I’d need more than an overenthusiastic fan report of an off-the-cuff con Q&A with one of the actors for evidence it’s coming back.
@Arafel
Can I predict that Dean will go dark? No. But I can say that, after 13 solid episodes’ worth of heavy hints that Dean will go dark (hand in hand with the mytharc), they have set it up as an expectation of a major storyline, so they’d better deliver on it. Even Sam’s hellpain hasn’t gotten nearly as much coverage. We haven’t heard a peep about that for three episodes.
@Lily
It’s unlikely that Dean going dark and after Dick would end up in the same way as Sam with Lilith. As Sam’s killing Emma showed, putting the brothers in similar situations doesn’t mean those situations play out the same way or have the same results.
Paula,
I really enjoy reading your thoughts on Dean’s mental state and I was wondering what you take on this theory would be.
Because Sam goes crazy in episode 17 and he’s in an asylum, there was some speculation that Cas might have been in Sam’s mind.
Reading Jensen’s interview, where he talks about Dean losing Sam and losing the last bit of himself, do you think there is a possibility that Cas could be a figment of Dean’s imagination.
I’d have mixed feelings about it because I’d let to see Misha back permanently, but I would like to see Dean go off the rails. Plus the writers love symmetry.
Dean’s desperate to not lose anything else, and when he was in the asylum he started hallucinating. I don’t think it was all the wraith.
@Crowley_Gal
I’ve heard the speculation about Castiel being in Sam’s head, too, and I’m very skeptical. Jared Padalecki has stated repeatedly that Castiel is Dean’s friend not Sam’s. And it’s been stated outright that Dean meets Castiel in the hospital. Sam may or may not meet Castiel, but we don’t know that for sure the way we do about Dean. And Dean can’t meet Castiel in the hospital if Castiel is just inside Sam’s head.
I’m curious to see just how extreme they really do go with Sam’s breakdown, because the spoilers about it have exaggerated its effects so far.
But it is entirely possible that Castiel could be a Head Castiel for Dean. If you mean Jensen’s video interview from Friday, yes, he does talk about Dean becoming “self-destructive” and like a “kamikaze” without Sam’s influence (which is similar to what I was saying about the inevitable end result of a revenge storyline for Dean). And “Sam, Interrupted” already showed that Dean, when under stress and feeling isolated, can invent hallucinatory personalities without knowing it. He saw that doctor very, very early on, before Sam started to show any symptoms of the Wraith’s influence. And as the Wraith said: “I don’t make crazy; I just ramp up what’s already there.”
In a way, I wouldn’t be hugely thrilled to get a Head Castiel, either (though he’d probably have better chances of survival than the real thing!), for the same reasons as why I’m not thrilled with Fauxifer (These imaginary personalities tend to be very Magic Reset Button). But in this case, it might work. It doesn’t really make sense for the writers to give Dean an ally out of nowhere when the whole purpose all season has been to drive him slowly insane by taking away his support system, piece by piece. Ackles even refers to that process in the interview.
So, yeah, definitely a possibility. Which doesn’t preclude Real Castiel coming back and it could also be we wouldn’t find out one way or the other until later on.
I’m having a real disconnect between what the Show is showing us and these interviews. As far as Jensen and where Dean goes, I took the interview as Jensen saying IF Dean were to lose Sam, he would become self-destructive and kamikaze. I didn’t take that in any way to mean that is what Dean is going to do. I think he was talking about if Sam were to die or be beyond repair, which we all know is not going to happen.
As for Cas, Jensen made it sound like Dean was shocked at first to see Cas, like he can’t believe Cas is alive. But then he sounded like Dean is so happy to see his boyfriend alive that there is no lingering distrust or betrayal at all.
I’ll find that very hard to swallow given how Dean has always been portrayed as having trust issues, and especially if Sam is sitting there in the hospital in a strait-jacket because of Cas’s actions. I’m also going to be thoroughly pissed off if Cas is just brought back to be an ally while Jared is off work. Talk about cheat sheet! Not to mention that that would just be bringing back the angel storyline, which I am so thoroughly sick of.
@Ginger
I don’t think there’s a disconnect so much as the separation of the characters has accentuated the differences in Padalecki and Ackles’ interviewing styles. Padalecki goes at it almost always strictly from the point of view of Sam and what’s going on with Sam. Ackles talks about the general story. So, what Padalecki said about Sam is true from an actor’s POV, and as far as it goes, but it gave us the illusion that the past few episodes would be more Samcentric than they turned out to be. In all fairness, it’s difficult to give a global view of the episode if you spent half of your shooting that week in a room with a couple of guys in clown suits.
Ackles, on the other hand, likes to talk about pretty much everything *but* Dean. He likes to surprise people with the Dean stuff. So, it’s not really a shocker that he fibs by omission about his own role. And I find it interesting that Padalecki has been giving more Dean-oriented spoilers, lately. That indicates to me that there is more Dean in the story than there has been in past seasons. But I don’t think there’s any reason to disbelieve Ackles’ statements about Dean, or think they’re conditional. We already know that Dean will “lose” Sam at some point, when Sam ends up institutionalised, because we know for a fact there will be less of Padalecki (and, therefore, Sam) in the latter part of the season. Padalecki even said that in that interview, when he was shouting from offscreen that Ackles’ big challenge/reaction to Padalecki’s upcoming baby was having a lot more work. Dean is going to lose everything. It’s part of this whole metaphor they’re going for. That will probably include his sanity.
The stuff about Dean and Castiel’s reunion is certainly odd, but we don’t know how Castiel is coming back or in what form. So, who knows what we can expect? We don’t even know what shape Dean will be in come 7.17. If he’s losing it, himself, he may be willing to grasp at anything or anyone familiar.
Thanks for your reply.
I wonder if Sam is going to fulfill Bobby’s role in the upcoming episodes. The timing doesn’t seem right for him to be in the institution for more than an episode. Since they are filming 18 now, and JP isn’t off until March. So putting Sam in the researcher role would make sense and all JP to participate in the episode without Sam actively hunting. Unless Cas heals him, which I hope.
@Crowley_Gal
It’s really hard to say. I don’t see where the show can go with Sam’s breakdown once he’s institutionalised. He’s already had the Awful Revelation, been dead, possessed, turned into a monster, and had superpowers. I think that the end of the season will focus more on Dean’s descent into madness, which is one reason it’s been so drawn out.