SUPERNATURAL 13.02 Review “The Rising Son”
Read the previous review here.
This post contains spoilers for Supernatural.
Poor Jack the Nephilim. He wasn’t born yesterday, but damn close to it. The poor kid doesn’t know which way is up, and only one of the Winchester boys have any interest in helping him find true North. We’ve had thirteen seasons to understand just how lost Dean Winchester can get. It’s always at its worst when it involves his family, and it’s always met with the same response: wrath.
These boys have been on our screens for quite a long while, and for a large hunk of that they made the same mistakes over and over again. Miscommunication, lies, resurrections – the Winchester brothers have made a whole host of terrible choices in the thirteen years we’ve known them. Miraculously, we’ve seen some growth out of the two of them over the past few years. Make no mistake, they’re still a couple of lovable idiots, but now they’re smarter lovable idiots. “The Rising Son” sports an almost alarming amount of honesty from Sam and Dean, both with each other and with Jack.
Even with their new found honesty, Sam and Dean each remain at their respective constants. Sam is the believer. He has hope that Jack can be saved and isn’t inherently evil. Dean, on the other hand, can see no way that the son of Satan can be anything other than a monster. There are a myriad of reasons that each brother feels the way that they do, but for Sam we’ll likely see it tie back to the idea that there was a point where no one thought he could be saved after the demon blood incidents. Dean’s justification is both simpler and more complicated at the same time. Both boys have lost everything but each other time and time again, but Dean Winchester has never been accused of being emotionally stable.
The eldest Winchester can’t handle letting new people in his life when he’s convinced he’ll only lose them too. Instead, he digs his feet in and acts like he doesn’t care. Ol’ Dean-o’s never been the best actor though, and it’s already apparent he’s starting to care for Jack.
It’s still too early to be sure which side of good and evil Jack will fall on, but as of “The Rising Son” he’s leaning heavily on team good guy. There’s a conversation between Dean and a bartender in the middle of the episode where they talk about making their fathers proud. On the face of things, it just looks like Azmodeaus seeing the parallels between himself and Lucifer and Dean and John and playing on them just enough to make him comfy. Underneath that might exist the obvious replacement of Castiel with Dean as a surrogate father figure.
As it stands currently, Jack just wants to do the right thing, make his friends happy and keep them safe. He’s just as confused and angry by his situation as Sam and Dean are. With that confusion comes easy manipulation, which our new baddie, Azmodeaus, attempted to use to his advantage. It doesn’t work, because we’re not that far into the season yet, and really how many problems could the Prince of Hell meets Colonel Sanders cause? The answer to that will likely be a lot, but let’s have some fun while the chips are still in our favor.
By the end of “The Rising Son” Jack believes doing the right thing is killing himself. The kid has no idea how to do anything, but that issue pales in comparison to being caught by Dean. In a display of more refreshing honesty, Dean tells Jack outright that he doesn’t believe that he can be saved. He also tells him that if Sam’s wrong, and he’s right, he’ll be the one to do the killing. Not Sam, not Jack, him. Because, like it or not, he’s caught feelings for the kid, and if push comes to shove, neither of the people he cares for will shoulder that burden. Why? Well, because Dean Winchester’s an idiot.
