Supernatural: Season 6 x 20 " The Man Who Would Be King"

[quirky_thoughts]

I'll tell you a story
'bout Heaven and glory
And now my story's begun;
I'll tell you another
            Of Dean and his brother,
                         And now my story is done.

Taken from an old English nursery rhyme. I've changed the names and places to protect the innocent. :D



But that nursery rhyme kind of sums up Cas's life but I hope his story isn't done....not yet anyway.

I loved seeing Cas telling his story here because as it turns out, his actions have driven this whole season, and it reminded me of Swan Song in that it took me by surprise by the way it was done and beautifully executed.

So now we know he's very, very old, probably older than the Earth itself. I loved seeing the primordial soup and the little snippets of history.  So despite being older that humanity he still finds making the right decision difficult. You'd think he'd be all knowing and wise by now.

No,  he betrays his only human friends...for all the right reasons.   So does the end justify the means?



       ...but the look on Dean's face says it all for him..
                              


Cas was extra awesome with all that smiting...especially forcing the demon back down Ellsworth's throat. That's a new one.

We get to see Crowley, King of Hell enticing Cas. He is one sneaky awesome demon.  Loved how it's explained how he used Samuel  and his motley crew to find the Alphas to get to Purgatory. I'm assuming that's why Christian was a demon in their midst, feeding information back to Crowley.

And Hell....so queuing is the new torture is it? LOL Us Brits won't have a problem with that...we're good at queuing although I reckon after a few millennia it'll get a bit tedious.. :P

I also love Crowley's honesty and everything he said made sense. Cas would make a great King of Heaven and Crowley would be the lesser of evils for the  King of Hell. If Raphael wins the struggle it's going to be bad news all round. So why is Dean against it? On principle maybe?  I expect we'll find out the downside soon enough though.

And it was a nice surprise seeing  Raphael in his old vessel once more, and had to laugh at  his Heaven with the George Bush portrait on the wall.

Castiel: Who's Heaven is this?
Raphael: Ken Lay's. I'm borrowing it.
Castiel: I still question his admittance here.
Raphael: He's devout. Trumps everything.

We also get to tie up some of those interesting little niggles as well:

The light flickering outside Dean's when Sam's watching him inside in the first ep. It makes sense that it was Cas watching Sam.

Who pulled Sam out of Heaven and why he was without his soul?  I really love the continuity of this, in that Cas would treat Sam in the same way as Dean. It's totally believable he could be so proud and didn't even consider he didn't do the perfect job and left Sam's soul behind. 

When Cas was trapped in the circle of holy fire  the conversation with Sam and Dean was heartbreaking...for all of them.



   Look me in the eye and tell me you're not working with Crowley

                                                              sonofabitch

                   I'm one the one who raised you from Perdition.

Well you did a piss poor job of it. Wait...Did you bring  me back soulless on purpose?

                                                 How could you think that?

                                  Well I'm thinking a lot of things right now Cas.

A couple of gripes.

Anyone else bothered by Dean saying that Cas was like a brother to him?
And Sam saying he'd die for him?

That kind of jarred me a bit and took me by surprise. I don't really know why but I suppose I don't feel they have that kind of relationship.
They've become extremely close, I know, but voicing it that way didn't feel right. 




So the final shots are of Cas struggling with his conscience and I really feel for him here.
When he asks God for a sign, I immediately thought...you should know it already. Dean's the sign!

A totally wonderful but painful episode.

 

Comments

[mateofangelus.livejournal.com]

Anyone else bothered by Dean saying that Cas was like a brother to him?
And Sam saying he'd die for him?

Me! I hated it. It came out of nowhere in my opinion. Yeah, they're close, but they're not *that* close.

This episode really pissed me off, and it seems like I might be the only one.

When Cas was trapped in the circle of holy fire the conversation with Sam and Dean was heartbreaking...for all of them.

I agree, but that brings up one of the things I hated about the episode. Besides that scene, Sam was completely cut off. In the rest of the episode Dean's feelings were the only ones that mattered.

And I hated the pandering to Dean/Cas fans. It was completely inappropriate.

I won't spam your journal with my bitching, though. I did plenty of it in my own review.

Nice review-I love the screencaps :)

[quirky-thoughts.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean about Sam being cut off. That was a bit glaring...especially then have him say he'd die for Cas. I don't think the relationship stuff is Ben Edlund's forte (by his own admission) and he's also a bit of a Dean!boy so I'm not really surprised with what we got.

I think I was prepared for it to be a Cas ep and enjoyed it for what it was.

[mateofangelus.livejournal.com]

I don't mind that it was a Cas centered episode. That is actually an interesting change. I was upset because it could have been an incredible episode and it just wasn't. It was good, but didn't reach it's potential. Sam's feelings being cut off was awful and half the time I couldn't take Dean's feelings seriously because it was just pandering to the Dean/Cas fans. I have nothing against Ben Edlund, but if relationships are not his forte then he should have had no part in this episode.