I present to you the only two times Warrant’s “Sweet Cherry Pie” plays in all of Supernatural, both times over shots of Dean at strip clubs either real or dreamed. (eta: Grrrr first .gif isn’t working. I’m workin’ on sorting it out.)
The first time we hear it is in 5×13, “The Song Remains the Same.” Dean is dreaming at the time. He is initially fantasizing about the demon woman alone, but at one point closes his eyes for a moment and opens them to find, to his surprise and delight, that an angel has joined her.
The second time is in 10×02, “Reichenbach,” as Dean sits in the Angelz strip club (and behaves really disgustingly). He watches a stripper dressed in an American flag bikini top (n.b., I have no idea what the American flag imagery is there for!), and fights with the bouncer when she refuses to let him touch her; “Sweet Cherry Pie” continues to play as he beats the bouncer. He then heads outside the club, where Crowley confronts him.
My tentative theory about this is sort of twofold. First, I think that the use of “Sweet Cherry Pie” in “Reichenbach” is meant to show just how driven by violence Dean is at this point. Violence and killing has earned a place alongside sex (and pie, for that matter) among things Dean gets a strong hankering for. This is demonstrated by the way the song keeps playing as Dean whales on the bouncer; violence is Dean’s “cherry pie” these days.
But I also think they may have intended to reference the show’s first use of the song and bring to mind what was going on in that scene—Dean fantasizing about a demon and an angel. They could have picked any other song, but they chose this one. As dorkilysoulless and I have already discussed, it seems that Dean and Crowley were having some form of a sexual no-strings-attached fling at the beginning of Season 10, so that takes care of the demon half of Dean’s fantasy.
When Dean walks out of the club, Crowley confronts him. Dean stands between Crowley (demon) and a sign that says “Angelz” (angel).
So if the demon from 5×13 is personified in Crowley, where the hell is the personification of the angel in the whole “Dean caught between and fantasizing about an angel and a demon” thing? Well, they cut away from this shot directly to a shot of Castiel washing his hands… I guess he’s the angel they’re referencing. (“No!” gasps the Destiel-shipping meta blogger. “You don’t say!”)
Bonus bi pride colors in the “mirror” above the pole in the club and in the neon lights to one side:
(If anyone knows more about how the American flag and mirrors fit into this, I’m all ears!)
Mirrors are often used in SPN to hint at the truth beneath the surface, revealing the monster or monstrous within.
We’ve seen overhead mirrors a few times. The times they reflect things upside down are rare.
Here’s one from Season 3: Sin City – which was all about the tenuous line between demon and human.
And then another Season 4: Lazarus Rising- again in which Dean is struggling to come to terms with the monster within that was revealed in his time in Hell.
A similar parallel can be seen in Dean’s deliberate examination of himself in the mirror, here in Season 4 Lazarus Rising and Season 9 Meta Fiction.
Together the visual motifs evoke: red/white/blue/flag = free will, mirrors on the ceiling = everything turned upside down, and mirror reflection = reveals the monster hidden within (Dean’s “monstrous” behavior with the stripper).
–
And then I ran into this, which is the hotel Sam and Dean stayed in in Lazarus Rising. Verrrrrry innnnnnnteresting. 🙂
Hearseeno 