I have so much trouble watching Bloodlust, because at one point while Dean is sharpening his knife, he draws the edge of the blade vertically over the whetstone, a move that can only curl your sharpened edge over and blunt it. JA's advisors should have caught that--someone on set had surely sharpened a knife or seen someone do it.

JA has worn a beaded bracelet to every con since Chicago 07. It looks like some sort of brown agate or jasper. He seems to wear jewelry as personal talismans, like the beaded chain with the pendant hidden under his shirt, so I've wondered what the stone is, and what it means to him. I noticed because I wear a labradorite one very similar, and the stone has meaning to me. It may just be someone gave it to him, or he likes it. But he wears it off-camera, along with woven and leather or jelly bracelets. He had a very wide silver ring at Asylum UK last summer, worn on his right hand. It looked Indian or possibly Thai, with a lot of wirework and beading, completely different than Dean's ring.

Dean hasn't worn his wooden skull bracelet nor his silver ring since hiatus, at least. Possibly before, I'd have to rewatch a-purpose. Such a hardship.

Houses of the Holy this morning, and Dean does tell Sam (in the church, when he's telling how Mary told him angels watched over them), "There is no God. There is no higher power."

Yet I still feel like he was appealing to God for help at the end of the last episode. And it makes sense to me that even if he didn't believe in God before, he does now -- believe he exists, anyway, if not that he's around and necessarily helpful. I think Castiel might have something to do with that, too -- his faith is pretty unshakable, in God, if not in the other angels or the current mission.

And Dean could certainly feel that he has some claim to asking for God's help -- God, or so they tell him, is asking an awful lot of him.

There's a lot of water under the bridge between Houses of the Holy and My Bloody Valentine. In some way, I think asking his father for help is akin to asking his Father for help. They're the same sort of appeal. And I think MBV, watching Sam, listening to Sam scream his name in anguish, is enough to break him and have him seek the sort of higher power that even Castiel is not anymore.

ita has it right here. I don't think Dean's belief has actually changed any. But in extremis, all his personal reserves, all his alternate sources of help and strength have proven inadequate. He's faced huge odds before, and he's worn to nothing. He can't quit. No, I mean, there is no way he's going to be allowed to quit, he can't surrender because if he does then Sam quits and if Sam quits, Lucifer has him, so Dean cannot just quit.

He still doesn't believe, but he supplicates the idea of god, a power a lot of the world does believe in. A last ditch appeal to the possibility of god's existence. And if he needed a visualization to hang that plea on, I feel sure it would be his dad.

Just my take on it. Foxhole conversion, I think is the term I'm looking for.

Okay, Houses of the Holy is just ouchy². Especially in light of My Bloody Valentine, this ending conversation:

SAM: I wanted to believe so badly. It's so damn hard to do this, what we do. All alone, you know. There's so much evil out in the world, Dean, I feel like I could drown in it. When I think about my destiny, when I think about how I could end up.

DEAN: Well don't worry about that, all right. I'm watching out for you.

SAM: Yeah, I know you are. But you're just one person, Dean. And I needed to think there was something else watching too. Some higher power, some greater good. And that maybe...

DEAN: Maybe what?

SAM: Maybe I could be saved.

JP knocks it out of the park with this one. His need for external support is quite palpable. And when you tag on the end of MBV, it's heartbreaking.

What killed me, along with that scene, was Sam telling Dean he does pray, every day, and Dean's complete shock. Like, poles and poles apart in philosophy, and it's Dean who looks so alone.

I keep hearing "What don't I know about that kid?" from Lazarus Rising every time there's something Dean didn't know about Sam. It's more sad than anything else. And currently I don't think it counts.

Sam and his rapt need to believe are beautiful. I only vaguely remember when he first meets Castiel and has his bubble burst. I can't wait to see it again.

I only vaguely remember when he first meets Castiel and has his bubble burst.

It's awful. Hurty awful times a hundred.

Yes, ouchy is right. Dean had no idea that Sam believed so deeply let alone that he was praying every day. Soup and blankets stat!

I was thinking earlier about how cool it was to get to see Mary again a couple weeks again. Mary and John are such crucial characters for no more screen time than they have had. I would really like to see Original Mary again.

You know there should be a fic that a young Joss Whedon saw the young Mary kicking some ass (maybe even killing a vampire) and that was the inspiration for a young blonde who wasn't afraid to save herself and didn't need anyone to save her. It makes me smile to think of Mary being the inspiration for Buffy. :)

It's awful. Hurty awful times a hundred.

It really is. It hurts to see Sam's face. He is crushed.