Let’s Speculate: Unforgiven
Warning!!!! If you haven’t seen the latest episode of “Supernatural” and the preview for next week, do not read this! There is going to be plot-based speculation and discussion! You’ve been officially warned!
All right, seriously, please pay attention to that warning above if you haven’t watched the entire episode and seen the ending because you have to see it unspoiled. I’m not kidding about this!
Okay, if you’ve made it this far, I assume you’ve seen the ending and it’s now safe to talk about it. So let’s talk about it!
Worst. Flashback. Ever.
I have to say, I did not see that coming. Sam seized and had a flashback to hell. Holy crap. That is really, really not good. And by “not good,” I mean catastrophically bad. This was Sam’s lesson about what happens when you scratch at the wall. He felt the need to fix his mistakes on that case, which is a very Sam thing to do. But look what it cost him. I can only hope that he really learns a lesson from this and leaves the wall alone! Man!
Now, in last week’s speculation article, I said the following:
“Any bets on how long before Sam remembers something from Hell? I think no longer than two episodes. Yep, sorry, everyone who hoped the “Great Wall of Sam” was going to last the rest of the season. My money is on some crumbling and soon.”
No longer than two episodes. But wow, I really didn’t think it would be the next frigging one! Poor guy can’t catch a break.
(Note from Alice: I remember in Mo Ryan’s recent interview with Sera Gamble, Sera answered a question with “There’s a reason why we left him screaming.” OMG! That’s what was happening when his soul was put back into place. Yikes!)
Arachnophobia
Anybody think Sam will want to hunt down as many arachnes as possible or do you think that’s going to be a loose end? I think it’s probably going to have to be a loose end, unfortunately. But it would be kind of cool to stumble across another one at some point in the season.
Nobody puts the Impala in a corner
Did you all see the brief flash of Impala chasing Dean in the preview for next week? Holy Pilot flashback, Batman! Also, whatever is doing the possession is so going to get its ass killed for that. You don’t mess with a Winchester’s wheels, man!
All right, seriously, that’s all I’ve got this week. I enjoyed the episode and thought the structure was really cool. And don’t even get me started on how awesome the flashbacks were. You’ll all hear about them ad nauseam in my visual review, I think. Anyway, what did you all think of that ending?
::cries:: Oh Sam, no. The Winchester boys just cannot catch a break. No matter how hard Dean actually tries. Sigh, maybe one day Sam will listen to him and they’ll go to the Grand Canyon.
I liked the way the flashbacks were done. I had actually hoped that they would have called Samuel for help, however, Dean would have had to go back on his promise then, so, maybe not.
I’m liking that Dean is no longer “my way or the highway” with Sam and actually supporting Sam’s choices even if he doesn’t like them.
Definitely an episode that deserves a re-watch.
I loved it…it won’t make my top ten of all time list but it was awesome nevertheless. I liked the boys quoting John at each other. Loved the B&W flashbacks and ‘choppy’ editing of them (sorry, I don’t know the technical term :P)
The arachne’s eyes were scarier than YED’s and we got half of bitch/jerk.
And Dean treating Sam like an adult was great.
Sam’s hell flashback was terrifying…I just sat there with my mouth hanging open.
Grandpa did absolutely nothing to improve my opinion of him.
Can’t wait for next week…desperate to see Dean in a fight with a mannequin.
The episode blew my mind! While I’m not liking Samuel too much I’m starting to understand a bit of why grandpa has left the boys in the dust. If Sam’s attitude was like this for a whole year, it’s enough to distrust and be scared of the guy. When he said he doesn’t know Dean or Sam, he meant it. I think he’s making assumptions that Dean is similar to Sam and doesn’t want to get acquainted with either one of them. As it is, Dean’s huge mistrust of Samuel from the very beginning set off the tone and tenseness between him and his grandsons.
It’s a huge gap and somewhere along the way all three of them are going to have to face each other again but I’m hoping they can bridge it. Samuel NEEDS to see his REAL grandsons and get rid of his misconception of them. His desperate need for his daughter back shows me he’s not handling the modern times very well.
All in all, another episode I love. The ending just about killed me. I did find myself screaming at my TV “NOT THE WALL!” Who does that? I’ve never done that with a show…ever! Man I love this show….
Wow just wow. And I am so glad that this ending didn’t happen at a season finall. Gosh a cliffhanger like that sure would have drove me nuts for month. It was such a relief to see poor Sammy up and walking in the preview.
Guess the boys will start to think that Sammy can handle it somehow after this first seizure and that Dean won’t worry that much anymore.
Fight with a mannequin have to see that one.
OMG! I can not believe it! just watched the episode and my mind was blown…
I can’t believe Samuel actually just stood there as Sam opened fired… Dean would have kicked his ass 😛 . Anyway; great cliffhanger!! Poor Sammy 🙁 His hell flashbacks look more intense than Dean’s, which is saying something.
I can’t wait for the next episode and most of all ‘The French Mistake’ !! 😛
I loved the episode so much I’m incoherent. The “EEEEEEEEEE!” from my inner fangirl makes it hard for my inner TV critic to think, so she gave up and joined in the squee! 😉
My TV Critic and Fan Girl are both thrilled! And crushed, and so devastated, and just overall amazed. Trying to write the review today. No schizophrenic review this week!
As thrilled as I am with the episode, I was shocked with the poor ratings. I heard it was 2 million viewers. With all the renewal talk going on, this news get me worried about our chances of a Season 7. 🙁
Don’t worry about last night’s ratings. ALL the networks were WAY down this week. Tons of shows the entire week had bad ratings. CSI hit series lows and that’s shocking considering it started on a Friday. The Vampire Diaries, Nikita, One Tree Hill, Hellcats, 90210 and Gossip Girl all hit either series lows or season lows. Smallville and Supernatural actually did good compared to all those. Their ratings did fall, but by far less than many other shows including Fringe, which just crashed in a freefall.
I wouldn’t worry about a Season 7. Chances are extremely good it’s happening.
Thanks Alice. I feel a litle better. 🙂
The next one is likely to focus on Dean, as we’ll be seeing the reappearance of Lisa and Ben. I think that episode is meant to find a solution for their relationship. Based on what I’ve heard about it, my guess is that Lisa has found someone else…
As form Sam, I don’t think it’s the wall coming down (not yet). It’s meant to be a warning to Sam to stop scratching. Maybe he’s gonna have seizures everytime he forces his mind too much. I wonder if we’ll be seeing Adam in one of his visions.
Loved this episode.
When I saw the clips for next week, I thought ‘not the Impala’.
Why does everyone(thing) that loves Dean get processed? 😆
I agree with AndreaW, the wall is not coming down (that is for episode 22, we all know how the ptb like to torture us over the summer), but there is now a small crack in it.
Loving the second half of the season. 😀
Batman last week, Spiderman this week, Superman had better watch his ass!
Sorry. I’m a bit ‘wow’ after this episode. I was really looking forward to this one, Robo v Soul. Soul wins hands down. While RoboSam was kinda hot, after seeing this, he wigs me out. I think I’d even be afraid to feel him up at this stage. (I’m having a hard time connecting the different versions of Soulless Sam we’ve seen so far. The Sam we saw in Unforgiven is so far removed from anything we’ve seen up until this point.)
It’s strange, what Roy said to Sam, that instead of killing one monster, he just created more. It ties in with ‘Appointment in Samaria’, where we saw, and Death told Dean, how the boys upset the natural order of things. Is it fair to ask, would we be better off without them? Think back to AHBL; without the boys, there would be fewer demons free. When Lucifer was freed, the creatures started acting strange. In the overall scheme of things, do the boys make things worse? Just wondering….
The crack in the wall appeared a hell of a lot earlier than I thought. (I originally predicted last episode of the season. That makes me, in terms of predictions, 0 from 15, a new record!) This adds a whole new dimension to the rest of the series for me now because the next 9 episodes will be spent thinking about that fecking wall. And in fairness, Death? Next time you’ve a free weekend, maybe spend it in some sort of DIY class cos dude, that wall had the staying power of wet toilet paper.
The shot of the Pit caught me completely by surprise because with less than 20 seconds to go, I was winding down thinking ‘Damn, that was good’ when all of a sudden, wham. Those final few seconds left me kind of ‘Holy crap, did I actually see that…’
I was just thinking (and I’ve only seen it the once, need to do a rewatch), the shot of Dean in hell showed the vastness of where he was. It’s like he was completely alone in this huge empty space(?) whereas with Sam it was so confined, like he was in a wee box. I really don’t like fire; I don’t like it at all. (So I guess hell is cold, but the pit is damn hot. Either that or Michael and Lucifer were just flambéing Sam for fun?)
What made it worse is that Sam didn’t seem surprised by what was happening; he didn’t struggle, he almost seemed resigned to it at this stage. That also freaks me out.
I love the boys ‘packing’; they just ball everything up and shove it into a bag, yet their clothes are always perfect! Do they have an iron in the truck of the Impala? I swear, that thing must be like Hermiones purse in The Deathly Hollows. Everything bar the kitchen sink…
Also, mar, je suis dumbass, what did Sera Gamble mean by ‘There’s a reason we left him screaming’. Is it that Sam’s soul was being burned when Death entered the Cage and yanked it out so the remnants of that were what was shoved back in him? So that wasn’t just a random day in the Pit then? (Sorry, it’s been a long day and I can’t think properly at the moment…)
Thanks for this, Ardeospina, I’m now off to rewatch. Enjoy your visual review!
I don’t agree that it’s Sam’s fault there are more archane through his lack of empathy. As Roy said it was already too late when Sam and Samuel arrive. His mistake was not in shooting them, it was not beheading them as they were already monsters. That makes it also Samauel’s mistake, so again not related to Sam’s soulessness.
Using Roy for bait and not telling him, yeah that was wrong on all levels.
But blaming Sam for more monsters that Roy (and the others) created is not related to his soulessness. The more monsters all relates back to not beheading the original male victims.
Episode I was waiting for and did not disappoint me. It was one of the best ep I have seen because i was sure where Sam and Dean were standing regarding the issues discussed and Dean was not vague or ‘I said it so you do it’in his reasoning for not scratching the wall.I think the soulless Sam was how he really was when soulless because he does not have to pretend like in front of Dean or Bobby.(with Bobby i think he was all puppy dog eyes).Here in that year he was with people who he was related with but was not familiar in his life before hell.So i think this the real souless sam.[quote]
The shot of the Pit caught me completely by surprise because with less than 20 seconds to go, I was winding down thinking ‘Damn, that was good’ when all of a sudden, wham. Those final few seconds left me kind of ‘Holy crap, did I actually see that…’
I was just thinking (and I’ve only seen it the once, need to do a rewatch), the shot of Dean in hell showed the vastness of where he was. It’s like he was completely alone in this huge empty space(?) whereas with Sam it was so confined, like he was in a wee box. I really don’t like fire; I don’t like it at all. (So I guess hell is cold, but the pit is damn hot. Either that or Michael and Lucifer were just flambéing Sam for fun?)
Similar thoughts as Tim the enchanter’s were running through my head. Sam looked huge compared to the cage..
As far as I am concerned, best ep of the season. It was compelling and kept me really “watching” until the very end and to top it off, a good old fashioned “oh no!” to make me want even more!
I agreed with you Arde about the wall thing being sooner rather than later. I think it’s going to be an ongoing thing and the end of the season will bring its collapse and an agonizing summer of wondering how they are going to put HumptySam back together again.
Great article, as always!
Maybe in the Sam’s soul issue?