I wrote reviews for SPN eps 3.2 and 3.3, but the Vampiresandslayers site has yet to post them, so ... *grumble* ... I went and got uber-thinky on our most recent episode. Therefore I present for your reading pleasure:

SIN CITY - A META in Four Parts


Part the First: Ruby

Ruby, Ruby, Ruby. Geez, she's a manipulative, conniving bitch. I think I like her.

So, what is Ruby's game? She's definitely upped the ante in this episode, going from sly hints and manipulation to outright blackmailing Sam. From getting Bobby to work with her on restoring the Colt's magic properties - and lord, it's a shame we missed that conversation - to sneering at Sam about what he'll have to do to save Dean, we can feel the claws sinking in. She's pushing harder, getting bolder. (As for Bobby shooting her ... bzuh? Should we chalk that up to Bobby caught off-guard and just for once panicking?)

We know the demon horde isn't working towards any common goal, and we know she has no compunctions about killing other demons. Or at least, some other demons. She was notably absent during Sam's confrontation with Dean's captors. But what side is she on?

Is she one of the YED's officer corps? The ease with which she finds Sam strongly suggests she's privy to the same 'tracking system'. Is she a demon with aspirations to fill the YED's shoes, or does she work for another high-up demon with ambitions? Or does she have her own, private agenda? We just don't know. All we can be certain of is that she knows a lot about Sam's family and past, and she wants to help Sam - but clearly with ulterior motives. It's those motives that pose the million-dollar question.

What we know: The YED - now known to be arch-demon, Azazel - was planning an invasion of the human world, but with his death, the plan collapsed and the invasion force turned into a headless mob. Ruby seems intent on kyboshing that action, which is downright weird for a demon. But ... we know demons have their own politics, and I sincerely doubt she's in it for any good reason. I'll be shocked if she's looking to turn to the "light" or anything else positive.

My hunch is that she's here as damage control. I suspect she's trying to stamp out the wildfires caused when The Plan fell apart, because absolute overthrow of the earth is kinda hard to attain by chaos and mob rule. That claim she wants "peace on earth" rang all kinds of bells, with me. Peace, yes, but maybe only until a more 'orderly' Armageddon can be organized. Or, perhaps she's putting in her bid to make sure Sam, Azazel's would-be captain and potential Boy King, is firmly under the thumb of, or deeply indebted to, unknown Hellish parties.

Is Ruby the Demon Formerly Known as Meg, returned? I'm not a bit sure. Some things about her, particularly her prickliness and cunning in this episode, remind us of Meg. Some of her clothing choices seem familiar. We know Meg was one of the YED's soldiers and that at one point she seemed to chafe under his rule. So if Ruby is Meg come back with a new agenda of her own, it would not really surprise me. But I do have a suspicion that Ruby is not entirely her own agent, that she has a "boss" or some higher authority to answer to, and thus she courts Sam for whatever those purposes are. Thus, Ruby strikes me as an entirely new character with a new or alternate agenda.

The question that worries all fans is how far Sam will go, how much he'll play along, and whether he can or will pull back before he gets in too far. It's no longer a worry about him being possessed or turning into somebody who eats babies. We're talking about Sam going evil on a genuinely cosmic scale. We can only hope Sam's native stubbornness keeps him from buying too much into her game.

For now, however, we can rest assured that Ruby is an absolutely wild card in an already joker's-wild game. It will be interesting to see what Dean and Bobby's reactions are, now that she has inserted herself so baldly into their affairs.



Part the Second: Sammy and the Dark Side

Oh, Sam. Ohhh, Sammy. What is happening to our Samsquatch?

What's up with Sam, anyhow? We loved the brotherliness of BDaBR, and this episode started off with them marching off side-by-side. They were cute as heck when meeting Richie, the semi-inept Jersey hunter, Dean chuckling and Sam grinning indulgently. It's okay that they take different angles on a job, Sam doing surveillance on the town pimp, Trotter, while Dean worries where old friend Richie went. On the face of it, there's nothing unusual in those actions.

We are even treated to some awesome Sammy brilliance, when he turns the table on Trotter's thug and disarms him, slick as Chuck Norris could ever do. Heh, and yes, again that delicious Padalecki-Winchester comedy timing, when Sam realizes he's stalking in the wrong forest and Trotter is just an ordinary albeit corrupt human.

Later, Sam reacts normally when he discovers Dean is gone. He puts on his hunter's cap and goes to work: talks to the priest, doesn't reveal too much, doesn't trust anyone, uses good instincts. It's only when Dean says, "be careful", code that the priest may be the enemy, that Sam changes gears.

When Sam gets inside, he sees Dean being choked to death by the demonic priest while another demon stands by. Seriously, what else could Sam have done, there? Ask the demons to wait nicely while he found an exorcism? Hell, no. The Colt was the only effective weapon Sam had that was going to save Dean's life, because Dean was being killed. I'd have been surprised if Sam didn't react in a decisive manner. Just like Daddy had trained him, just like Dean would do.

Has Sam changed? Did he come back different? Is he missing some internal governor that kept him who he is: gentle, empathetic, compassionate? Of course, he's changed, no one could survive all he has and remain untouched, but is it in any way supernatural or evil? Right now Sam is definitely a walking conundrum. We've no idea if he remembers anything from when he was dead. We don't know if he feels any different from Before, or even what he thinks about having been stone dead for at least 24 hours, let alone what he makes of coming back with a demon's help. Last but not least, we don't know if the lack of visions means his abilities are lost, or if he's going to quietly discover he has other powers, and try to direct them. It could be just that nobody's on his psychic frequency, now, with the YED and the other Psy-Kids dead.

So, is he going evil? Or has Sam simply, finally, taken a page from Big Brother's book? After all, Dean has been Sam's model of a protector since he was six months old. It's not that Dean hasn't killed just as coldly. (Beheading a vampire with a power-saw comes to mind.) It's not that the Winchesters have never killed a demon's innocent host: Dean did just that when a possessed man had Sam down in "Devil's Trap". It's that Sam performed this killing. Softhearted Sammy of whom Dean once insisted, "You're not a killer. It's not in your bones." After the Jake Talley incident, Dean is certainly freaked, and I'm sure Bobby's never gotten over the shock of Sam back from the stone cold dead.

But should it surprise us that Sam dons the role of defender with literal exactness? I do think we're going to see new sides to him, a character in evolution. After all, Sam still doesn't know who or what the hell he really is. (Demonic baptism, formerly dead, intended right hand of Azazel, Mom and everyone close to her killed, etc.) His beloved brother is sentenced to Hell on Sam's account. Now Ruby is trying to blackmail him with promises that she'll help save Dean. Oh, and that faith Sam used to have in God? Is probably curled up in a tiny corner somewhere, shivering. After all, God may not want anything to do with a Sam who's not only tainted by demon's blood, but also demonically returned from the dead. There's a lot brewing that Sam's not letting anyone see.

What's really screwed is that Sam is in this alone. He can enlist Bobby's aid, but there appears to be a point where he quietly shuts the door. We no longer see him agonizing about his destiny, or whether he'll become evil. We have yet to see him fret about what the demons want from him or if he can withstand them. If this trend continues, it's probably because he doesn't want to put that burden back on Dean, when Dean is in such dire straights, himself. Sam may believe he can no longer ask Dean to save (or kill) him, when it's Dean who needs to be saved.

Finally, while on the face of things we may fear Sam taking Ruby's marching orders too much to heart, I'm not so sure about that. I doubt Sam, headstrong and willful as he is, will by any means become Ruby's puppet. We're seeing Sam become more comfortable living in a hunter's skin, and maybe he's accepted that this is actual war. Unfortunately, saving Dean is his driving force, so it may well render him more ruthless than he used to be. It's actually an interesting mirror-effect to see Dean stepping away from that old black-and-white view of good vs. evil, while Sam steps forward towards it.

But Sam's not evil, no, I don't think so. He hasn't lost his conscience; he's not without awareness of consequences. However, he's a soldier at war with his brother's soul at stake, and war erodes something in the best of men. He learned a very bitter lesson with Jake Talley's betrayal. Further, Sam is John Winchester's son, and he may become every bit as driven as Dad ever was, trying to win Dean's ticket out of Hell. After all, Winchesters always pay their debts. Even if it's with their own blood.

We can only hope that Dean - and Bobby - will hang onto Sam tight enough that he doesn't lose too many more pieces of himself. If Sam slides too far into the dark, it will be because he reached too far for all the best bad reasons.



Part the Third: Dean and the Demon Horde

Ah, yes, the demons. It's Spring Break, demon-style, and the baddies are out to par-tay. When Dean heads out the door with Sammy, the pair of them look like they're off to summer camp. After all, what's more straightforward than kicking some evil ass?

But the minute the boys' boots hit the ground, they are rudely awakened to just how complicated this case is. This ain't just a couple demons prodding people to do dangerous things: this is a half-dead factory town transformed into a thriving modern day Sodom and Gomorrah. Is this a twisted new form of the "Croatoan" experiment? Sure, Dean goes through the motions of leering at the girls and letting Sam drag him around, but it's all show. Dean's interactions with Richie show us that Dean's head is firmly in the game. He's focused on their goal of putting down the demonic threat.

Thus, it was interesting to see how that vision wavered when Dean found himself trapped with a demon for company. I thought the wine cellar scenes dragged, and that's where the weight of expository stuff went, but maybe better in one dump than mucked up over several episodes. Or something. By this time, my eyes had been so dazzled by the sheer number of people/crowds teeming in this episode that I was getting a little glassy-eyed.

Whatever, demon!Casey and Dean had some interesting moments. Casey was a terrific (and gorgeous) vehicle by which to present some of the demons' views. She almost seemed sincere at times and ended up presenting an air that made her oddly compelling. Certainly the part was splendidly played. However, I think the only honest personal thing she ever said to Dean was that Hell was the pit of despair. The sympathy, the chat-across-enemy-lines, the plea to spare him? Politics, methinks. Once trapped, she may have decided it would behoove her to get in good with the Boy King's brother. Who knows, her original intent may have been to use Dean as bait, to capture Sam for their own nefarious purposes. Poor Richie just got in the way.

We also finally get to see what we knew must lie behind Dean's four-hundred-watt smile: he's scared of going to Hell. Furthermore, he's morbidly curious what Hell is like. I really enjoyed his mild-spoken confession that he's like to believe in God. It seemed entirely sincere, and I liked the continuity from way back in "House of the Holy", when Dean first entertained the notion of Divine Will. Oh, Dean hasn't taken up Sunday school, and the whole business about going to Hell has to complicate things mightily. But it's interesting to see that when a demon tries, this time without the snarling and spitting of the first one (3.1), to convince him of the similarities between demons and humanity, Dean is actually listening, and interested in demon!Casey's comments on her faith in Lucifer.

Is Dean considering whether the existence of Lucifer means there really is a God? Is he questioning whether that God knows he exists? Is he wondering whether his lifetime of sacrifice might warrant some sort of intercession? Goodness knows Dean's already burnt out on doing a thankless job, and now he's facing a world of no-wins: himself in Hell, a demon army loose in the world, and his brother a target for every bad thing aboveground. If he wishes to find some faith, maybe it's just in the very faint hopes that, somehow, the long fight against evil will be worth something.

But I don't think Kripke is trying to convince us, the viewers, about humanity's worth or lack thereof: he's trying to lead us to share Dean's moral quandary and emotional journey. Dean's just slipped on a banana peel, folks. He's been blasting around in a cloud of joi-de-vie, acting like his job here is done so all that's left is to live fast, die hard, and leave a kick-ass memory. But now one wonders if he's hearing echoes of Dad's final command to, "Watch out for Sammy". So, maybe we're being urged to see the demonic stance, to feel uncomfortable and dislike the point of view, and to worry where that takes our boys. It will be all the better from which to follow Dean's own struggle back towards the light. Because kids, I've no doubt it's about to get dark.

Oh, and Dean botching the exorcism-from-memory? Relax. How often have we seen Sam or Dean perform an exorcism? Three, maybe four times? How often have we seen any hunter perform an exorcism by memory? Never. I think the words must be too exact to risk mistakes, so they've always been read, not recited. It's not a slam against Dean; it's just a hole in the hunter system. Maybe they *need* to practice memorizing, though....



Part the Fourth: The Story

So, the episode opens with a priest and a nun in church, looking up to see a man in the choir loft. "God's not with us any more," the man says - and promptly blows his brains out.

In the meantime, we get a glimpse of Sam and Dean at Bobby's house, enjoying a moment of cozy hunters' domesticity. Bobby is working on the antique magic Colt - yay, for continuity - and the boys have wind of possible demonic omens in Ohio. Leaving Bobby to his gunsmithing (and a good thing, because shooting a 160+ year old firearm is risky business!) the boys take off.

Expecting a boarded up factory town, they instead find a working man's mini-Las Vegas. The entire town seems devoted to decadence and vice, made even more notable by the fact that Ohio state law frowns upon such things. Floating to the top of the heap is a former Rotarian named Trotter, suitably unsavory-looking with his black suit, bald pate, and squinty looks.

So, it's a given: demons are behind this explosion of debauchery, and the boys walk in with both eyes open. What I noticed in this episode was that it seemed long on exposition, with lots of throwing open windows to say, "Here, this is what's been going on all this time." We get our first clear look at the YED's plans for Sammy and an anvil-sized reminder of the demons' superiority complex towards Mankind. We see Ruby stepping up her game with Sam, pressuring him with her blackmail offer of helping save Dean. Last week we were cuffed upside the head with the revelation that all the people closest to the boys' mother have died or been killed since 2001. We have lots of answers as to what was going on in the demonic camp for the first two seasons, but a whole slew of new questions and worries for Season 3.

For one thing, we again get to see demons whittling away at our boys' faith in the justness of their cause. Is Kripke ham-handedly trying to suggest - again - that there aren't that many differences between humans and demons? That we're all prone to weakness, sin, and evil, and the world today is an almost unsalvageable place? Not really. I think Kripke is simply letting us have a good look at the Enemy's POV. The demons would like us to despair of the evil Man does and to question whether we're really worth saving. That's Hell's agenda, and always has been. Weaken our morals, shade ethics to hues of grey, make excuses for transgressions, and make honor look absurd.

Of course demons are going to justify themselves at the expense of humanity, and yeah, they got lots of ammo with which to work. But that's what Kripke wants us to see. He's making us step back from the black-and-white maxim of "saving people, hunting things" and look at the grayer questions such as, if there is a God, why does He let bad things happen to good people?

It made for a rather cluttered and messy episode, another case of trying to stuff a movie's worth of information into a single episode slot. The timeline-continuity of the episode suffered, certainly. It's a long drive from Bobby's place in South Dakota to anywhere in Ohio, but Bobby did it between the point Richie went missing and when Sam found Dean with the demons. They could have edited better to indicate to us whether it had been mere hours or a full day's time. Somewhere in there, Dean also had time to discover and tend to Richie's body, and paint a devil's trap. So ... yeah. The story must have taken place over two or three days, but we barely get a break between crowded bar scenes. (To which I'll add, the cops there were probably a minor concern, given that prostitution and gambling are illegal in Ohio and all that vice was going unchecked.)

However, I think this one will prove important to the overall season's story arc. I think we may come to see this as the episode that sacrificed story quality in order to get information out there to support episodes to come. That's the bummer with TV: we only have 40-45 minutes to get the story in. If there was a director's cut of this episode, it may well smooth out the glitches and bumps. But ... as it is, we just have to paint over the cracks with our imagination.

In the end, we are set up to face some pretty uncertain times for our boys. Sam is driven to save Dean, and he has a demon taunting him with promises of help. Dean is trying to keep up his game face and make the most of his last year, but he's just had his faith in Sammy rattled pretty hard. And now we know for certain that whatever Plan the demons once had is shot, and it's chaos with every demon for itself.

Plus - the Colt is now back in play, Ruby having shown Bobby how to make the proper magical rounds for it! YAY! (Sooooooo much love for gunsmithing, gun-tuning Bobby!)

Do I think Sam was intended to be THE Anti-Christ? In a word.... no. I think someone in Hell got ambitious and decided to try pushing the End Times ahead of schedule. If there is a Divine Hand in Kripke's vision of the world, it may be simply that this is *not* meant to be the end, and if God's tools are crusty old hunters in ball caps and cocky kids with classic cars ... so be it. They do say He works in mysterious ways. If nothing else, it may mean that no gambit by the demons is a sure thing, and for the Winchesters, there still remains hope.