I’m just watching 10.05 Fan Fiction again, and at the VERY END when Maeve comes running down to the stage to tell Marie that the publisher’s ticket was claimed, THIS is her response:
MAEVE : The ticket you left for the publisher? Someone claimed it!
(We see the arm of a man. When Marie sees him, she’s shocked.)
MARIE : Oh my gosh! But wait… does that mean that– Calliope came for me or for–?
MAEVE : Who cares? Go, fangirl!So Marie’s very first thought on seeing Chuck, or Carver Edlund, is that maybe Calliope was there for him, because it had been his story first. But it was “Marie’s vision” they were writing and performing.
In the previous scene, though, she proved she really did understand that she was talking to “the real Dean” when she handed him the prop Samulet and told him to take it, calling him “jerk.” Dean reflex-replied “bitch,” and immediately realized how bad that must sound… But Marie just grins at him while Dean awkwardly shuffles away.
And it struck me funny, because when we see Chuck again at the end of s11, we see him repeatedly dodge claiming full responsibility for problems he’s directly responsible for. Beginning in 11.20 and running right up through the final scenes of 11.23, we see Chuck hiding out, writing a highly sanitized and self-glorifying version of his own story, foisting off the responsibility to clean up his own mess onto anyone and everyone else. He’s a hybrid slippery eel/weasel. He’s got an explanation and an excuse for everything. He’s the embodiment of obfuscation and denial whose solution to every problem is to lock it up and try to pretend it doesn’t exist.
While we’re here (and since it’s also a Robbie Thompson episode) I’ll also quickly bring up the scene in 11.04 where Sam is talking to “his dad” in his dream. I still think there’s a lot of evidence pointing to that not being Lucifer, but Chuck himself sending that particular vision to Sam.
And since 11.20 was also penned by Robbie, I think it’s only reasonable to tie a few things together for comparison’s sake. I think he was already setting up the culmination of Chuck’s story all the way back in 10.05, even if the full measure of Chuck (as God) wouldn’t finally unravel until the end of 11.23.
From 11.20:
Metatron: It’s not. But you helped the Winchesters before.
Chuck: Helped them? I’ve saved them! I’ve rebuilt Castiel more times than I can remember. Look where that got me.
Metatron: So you’re just gonna let Amara win?
Chuck: Eh, it’s her time to shine.First of all, can I point out that he used the word shine to describe The Darkness? The dark don’t shine on its own…
Okay, back to the point (hopefully!).Compare what he’s said to Metatron here, that he’s saved the Winchesters (including Castiel) over and over again, but John said this to Sam back in 11.04:
SAM: No, my father is dead.
JOHN: When has death ever stopped a Winchester?
SAM: Look, I don’t know what this is, but –
JOHN: What you said about relationships, wanting something more … I never wanted this for you boys. This life. Not really.
SAM: We turned out okay.
JOHN: You did, didn’t you? But that was on you boys. You did that, not me.
SAM: Well, you played your part.
JOHN: I did my best, anyway, for what it was worth.
SAM: This isn’t real.
JOHN: I never could fool you, could I?Let’s start with death never having stopped a Winchester. In 11.20 quoted above, Chuck claims responsibility for all the Winchester resurrections. Death hasn’t stopped them only because Chuck has repeatedly interfered to make it so. Chuck needed the Winchesters to keep doing his work for him. Sure, he complained about all the work resurrecting them again and again created for him, but he still got to hide out and take the back seat while they did all the really grueling work for him. He played his part, for what it was worth, i.e. kept the Winchesters in the game to keep doing his wetwork.
Back in 11.04, “John” tells Sam that how the boys turned out was all on them. This entire exchange works if “John” is really Chuck, as well. He goes on to say:
SAM: I prayed when I was in that church, and I saw … Something. And now, here you are, whoever you are, whatever you are. What the hell is this?
JOHN: Dream. Vision. Call it what you want. The message is still the same. The Darkness is coming … And only you boys can stop it.
SAM: Okay, fine. How? We need help, not visions of dead people.
JOHN: God helps those who help themselves.
SAM: Who are you?
Int. Impala: Sam wakes from his dream to find Dean has pulled over and is parked.Sam has seen through the illusion, he knows it’s not really his dad, and then immediately implies that Sam thinks this is the same entity who sent him the vision back in 11.02. “John” neither confirms nor denies this, but the message of the previous vision Sam got was DEFINITELY not “the same” as what he’s receiving now. His previous vision wasn’t about the Darkness coming and only Sam and Dean being able to stop it. This is distinctly new information for Sam.
The “God helps those who help themselves” line has always bugged me, because that’s really what Chuck has always done, at least as far as the Winchesters are concerned. His help has never been particularly helpful, other than keeping them in play on his giant game board.
Telling Sam that “only you boys can stop it,” well… we know full well after 11.23 that no, ONLY Chuck and Amara themselves can stop it. Only going all the way back to the river’s ugly source can they actually stop it, and that source was Chuck betraying Amara and locking her away in the first place.
So finally getting back to the original point here, way back in 10.05 where Marie sort of sees straight through to the heart of the issue (since Robbie has just shown us that she also saw through Dean’s mask, much the same way he showed us that Mildred saw through his mask in 11.11.. Robbie loves writing the Wise Women), and got it even just for a second that hey, maybe Calliope wasn’t there to eat HER, but because of CHUCK being there. She was just the “puppet” that stood in for the REAL AUTHOR OF THE STORY.
I think even just for a split second, Marie realized she might have been nothing more than a proxy, a stand-in stunt double, for a higher power. Because we know from 11.20-11.23 that that is exactly Chuck’s modus operandi when it comes to handling his problems.
It’s what he tried to convince Sam to do in 11.04. It’s what he tried to convince Metatron to do in 11.20. It’s what he tried to convince EVERYONE to do in 11.22. It’s the responsibility he tried one last time to foist off to Dean with the ridiculous Soul Bomb plan. And finally in 11.23, Amara refused to let the game continue and brought them face to face to finally hash out their issues themselves. No more proxies, no more puppets, no more hiding.
And it all started with this one little acknowledgement to Marie. When she asked him what he thought of her version of his story, he said, “Not bad.”
It was the first step in him acknowledging one of his proxies and validating their work. And it only comes full circle at the end of 11.23 when he basically says the same thing to Dean.
Ugh, reblobbed again because I left off one of the points I wanted to add here, and that’s the fact that Chuck himself was the one who reminded me of Sam’s 11.04 dream again in 11.21:
Chuck: You’re frustrated. I get it. Believe me, I was hands-on – Real hands-on, for, wow, ages. I was so sure if I kept stepping in, teaching, punishing, that these beautiful creatures that I created… would grow up. But it only stayed the same. And I saw that I needed to step away and let my baby find its way. Being overinvolved is no longer parenting. It’s enabling.
Dean: But it didn’t get better.
Chuck: Wel,l, I’ve been mulling it over. And from where I sit, I think it has.
Dean: Well from where I sit, it feels like you left us and you’re trying to to justify.
Chuck: I know you had a complicated upbringing, Dean. But don’t confuse me with your dad.Don’t confuse me with your dad.
Is it one more deflection from Dean’s accusations? One more attempt for Chuck to shift the blame and avoid the real issue: that everything has been one long slippery slope we can trace all the way back to locking up the Darkness.
And that reminded me of this post I made a while ago about whose fault this whole mess really is.
Okay, I need to stop thinking about this for a while now. 😀
Published
Hearseeno 