Graduation and Unshakable 4.22 Sam Morose

[zimshan]

I'M DONE! GRADUATED! I'M FREE! Or you know, now have to spend every waking hour on job applications and pray those grad apps come through. But you know...

It's been kinda depressing saying goodbye to everyone and everything all week. So I went to turn to sketching out that Sam vid finally, just to get my mind off things abit. And I realized what it was about the finale bothered me so much...


As awesome as the final twist of Sam killing Lilith ending up the final seal and Ruby's long con reveal was...

It absolutely murders Sam's arc for this year.

It draws this definitive line in the sand. Dean was right. Sam was wrong. And this show...well, it's never actually DONE that before. You know? It's never been that definitive. They're always both as equally right as they are wrong. Instead, we've got half the episode with Dean being treated like a queen by Heaven who thinks he's righteous enough to kill Lucifer, while he lectures the angels over the sanctity of preserving humanity. And the other half, we got Sam who agrees to suck a girl's blood bone-dry to kill Lilith and save the world, only to find out that he was a moron for trusting Ruby because killing Lilith actually ends the world.

And that is just ridiculously unsatisfying for Sam's character to me. Sure, he didn't go evil (though they still could jump on that *bites fingernails*) but he was so solely blind in that he didn't see he was being played. He trusted Ruby. And it led NOWHERE. I'd have almost liked it more if he'd gone evil while protecting the world and stopping the apocalypse. Or the original idea of him going evil to bring Dean back, or save him. Then he'd have at least ACCOMPLISHED something for his troubles. Instead, the whole damn year was kinda pointless. Everything that he worked for was meaningless.

And that is just so unsatisfying for Sam's character. SO UNSATISFYING. Because we've been working up to this point for the LONGEST TIME. Sam's characterization has NEVER gotten to be satisfying. S1 he was gonna kill the YED, and then he couldn't. S2 he dies, and Dean sells his soul and kills the YED and Sam watches. S3 he was gonna save Dean from going to Hell and then he couldn't. And then finally, S4, he's gonna stop the Lucifer from rising, only to actually be the one to CAUSE IT?

GUYS, THAT IS RIDICULOUSLY DEPRESSING. I mean, far far far FAR more than this show's normal depressingness is. Because it is no where NEAR SATISFYING. IT IS THE OPPOSITE OF SATISFYING.

And I don't know what to do with it or make of it.

It's just astounding to me that after all this Choice meta over the last two years, and then spending half of the year aligning Sam to Choice, that they would really end off the year with Sam's choices bringing on the apocalypse.

And yea, you can say that it balances Dean's indiscretions in Hell and his contribution to breaking the first seal. But it's not the same. Dean's not maligned nearly as bad because he was in Hell. And we didn't see it. But this? Where this places Sam? It kinda kills me.

Kripke better be planning for Choice to make a stupendous comeback next season. But what kills me even more is, after this, where IS Sam's story even supposed to go next year? UGH, I JUST DON'T EVEN KNOW ANYMORE!!!

I hate thinking of this like this. Please tell me I'm thinking about it all wrong or something. I need to work this Sam morose out, or this vid will never get made!

ETA: I guess it does assert Dean's role as protector of the Winchester Constitution, a la 'Jus in Belo'. But...dammit, for once, I just...I just really wanted more for Sam.

Comments

[raelee.livejournal.com]

Congratulations!! And good luck on the job finding and grad school apps. :)

[zimshan.livejournal.com]

Aw, thanks Rae! It is nice to be done. It's just gonna be fun trying to get that WHATS NEXT thing resolved. *crosses fingers*

[elisi]

CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!

[zimshan.livejournal.com]

KAYLEE CAKE DRESS! Hee! Thanks for the congrats, it does feel mighty good. :)

[spadada.livejournal.com]

I can't tell you you're wrong. It was unsatisfying. And it messes with what was becoming my favorite season of the show. I love Dean and even I thought it was too much. And it's just so damn humiliating for Sam. It would have been better if Dean had been fooled too somehow or if Sam ditched Ruby at Dean's behest and THAT somehow brought on the apocalypse. It's too one-sided this way and it bugs.

And you are so right about next season. Draining the girl is going to be very hard to come back from... For both am and Dean. And the show has gotten so dark now that I can't imagine how they are going to inject any humor into the story. I've been with you all along that the boys have to go out fighting (like Team Angel), but can a take an entire season of build-up to The Final Battle when the brothers' relationship has been so damaged? (Maybe JDM will come back from the dead like he did on Grey's and smooth everything out.)

On the other hand, YOU ARE A COLLEGE GRADUATE AND THAT IS AWESOME!!! Congrats. It is sad, you are right, but it is exciting too. Can't wait to see what you do next :D

[zimshan.livejournal.com]

RIGHT? I had this nagging feeling in the back of my head all this time that this season was going on in this very S4 Angel kinda way in that I loved the journey all the way up until the last bit, which kinda spoiled the whole season. And yea. That's what I'm arriving at now. Not nearly as bad. But still the same similar feeling.

Too one-sided is exactly it. UGH, SHOW, WHY???

I can't really even look at it outside of the fact that Dean was PART of the reason why Sam fully ended up going through with it though. But I feel like the text of the finale didn't feel enough like he shared the blame.

And next year just BOGGLES MY MIND right now, what they're gonna do. My mind is just kinda blank at this point.

But anyway, thanks for the congrats! IT IS AWESOME. Just kinda a big change that's gonna take me a while to adjust to. All in due time I guess. :)

[deathisyourart.livejournal.com]

Hmmm I don't see it as black and white as you do. Dean was played as well, but the big difference between Sam and Dean is that Dean has doubt, he always has had doubt, whereas, even as far back as Houses of the Holy (which this episode referenced strongly) Sam is so sure his first decision is the right one that he was willing to kill a human to save his own butt. Sam has been on this path for a long time now, and it is hard to get off a moving train like that, plus Dean had the benefit of Zach having an ego and spilling the beans the moment Dean started to question things. I think that after not saving Dean from Hell that Sam wanted to prove himself so badly that he just couldn't see straight, and being that lost makes him fallible, but not irreversibly so, and it doesn't make Dean right. They were both blinded by prejudice, Dean just had the benefit of Castiel being inherently good...and both boys are responsible for Lucifer, so ... Sam needs to pick his friends better?

Sorry that I am rambling, I am trying to do several things at once. I do believe that Sam will get the chance to redeem himself, and I don't believe that choice was the only thing that got damaged here, especially since choice is what got Castiel to turn and help the boys. Also, for 4 seasons we have heard how important and dangerous Sam is/can be, so we needed there to be an adequate payoff to that.

[zimshan.livejournal.com]

It's not so much how I see it but more how it felt like the text played it. I see them as both culpable much more than it felt the show played it in the finale.

But you are right about the doubt. Sam and his tunnel-vision really screwed him over. But Dean's fear screwed Sam over just as much. Ugh, I don't know.

Also, for 4 seasons we have heard how important and dangerous Sam is/can be, so we needed there to be an adequate payoff to that.

True. But on some level, if this was the payoff, it wasn't enough of one. Which is why I think Kripke is still gonna pull a "all is not right with Sam" in the premiere opener.

[spectralbovine.livejournal.com]

Congrats on graduating!!

[singingrl.livejournal.com]

Congrats hun! I'm in the same boat, if a little older than you, I'm sure you'll find a job and a grad school to attend soon :)

[afrocurl.livejournal.com]

Congrats on graduating, hon!

Apps can be a bitch, but good luck.

As for SPN, I hadn't thought of Sam's arc that way. To me, I guess it's just not on the list of things I put into my mind as the episode aired. But, that dynamic will be interesting, to be sure.

[harper47.livejournal.com]

Wooo hooo!!!! Congratulations!!!! That is so fantastic! Good luck on the next phase of your journey.

You know I was ambivalent about the finale, probably not in quite the same way you were but . . . . . . I do think Sam is a dark, tragic figure. Well both boys actually but Dean tends to seem more heroic tragic where Sam tends to be more lost tragic. I don't know. I do think that the comparison to Angel's final fight is very fitting.