Yay!  It's that day ... that special, special day.  That day that brings us a new Supernatural episode! 

Excitement reigns.  Anticipation is reaching it's climax.

Or does it?

Cause, you know ... this episode tonight marks the beginning of the final four ... those four episodes designed to create mayhem and mischief with our hearts and our emotions ... to wrap around our minds and consume our thoughts with all things Winchester driving us ever further toward that brink of sweet release when suddenly ... at the end of these four new episodes ... the ending smacks us up side the head like a blasted semi pounding into our sweet Impala crashing our dreams, sending us spinning uncontrollably into the darkness known as "summer" that most people who are not Supernaturally obsessed look forward to with anticipation yet we can only look at and see the vastness wasteland called "No New Episodes" or ... gasp ... *whispers* ... Hiatus. 

*shudders*

Perhaps we need another week before the new episodes start.  I may need more time practicing my holding of my breath.

*grins*

Okie doke ... I promised that I would post something today.  I've been trying to decide what to write and how to do it.  I have so many notes to sort through ... an overview of where we've been this season?  ... a jotting of several observations from the last few weeks? ... a full-on ramble from an episode?

Then I pulled out a piece that I had started after our last new episode aired.  It's not very long (in comparison to some things I've done) but it might amuse & entertain as well as remind where we left off and prep for what's to come. 

So, here it is ... 

911 … Please state the nature of your emergency ...

Help.  I need an oxygen ... I’ve stopped breathing …

Excuse me ... did you say that YOU have stopped breathing?

Yes!  I can't breathe.  I need help.  Now!  Air … Oxygen … Right now!

Ma'am, if you are speaking ... you are breathing.

Says you.  That's only because I've got a paper bag over my head and defibrillator paddles duct taped to my chest.  When I pass out my hand hits the button and zaps me back.

Uh … Huh … Ahem … can you tell me what happened?

I have stopped breathing.  Why is this so hard for you to understand?

Ma'am ... I'm going to dispatch someone but I need more details as to the nature of the problem.

I.  Have. Stopped.  BREATHING!.  What more do you need to know?

How about what occurred to cause you to stop breathing?

Where do I start?

The beginning is usually a good place.

Please don't make me do that ... that could take hours … 26 years is a long time …

26 years?

Yes … 26 years … of course, technically it’s only been 4 years but really it’s just this last year that has been amped further up than ever before and it’s tonight’s episode that finally did it.

Episode?

Yeah ... episode.  Supernatural was on tonight.

And you stopped breathing because of a television show?

Right.

Are you sure it wasn't a medical show you were watching?

Seriously?  I don't think so. Why would slutty doctors keep me from breathing unless it was because I was laughing so hard at what they were trying to make plausible?

So, you’re saying a supernatural show caused you to stop breathing?

Right. Only it’s not A supernatural show, it’s THE show called Supernatural.

And what exactly caused you to stop breathing?

They did it again.

What again?

They took a seemingly random, amusing script, and … with the power of performances and direction … twisted my amusement to angst … replacing my steady heartbeat with a pattern of dread which, in turn caused me to stop breathing … twice … first with Sam … and then … the ending … oh, this is sooo not good. Plus … there’s Castiel … and he said … and then Dean … and he IS different but not the way Sam thinks and yet he’s the same … ‘cause Dean’s still trying to save Sam and then … the ending … Zachariah and Prophet Chuck and what did he see … foreboding … and I can’t breathe anymore. So perhaps you could step up getting someone here with oxygen … because I REALLY need to watch it again.

**********

Humor has become an extraordinary art form with Supernatural. Sneakily, they draw upon the theme and the drive of each season … going from making us laugh freely and out loud as The Boys, back together again after years of being apart, prank each other as they did when they were younger to being distracted by the events of their lives and having a Trickster lead them around by the Weekly World News. The writers have poked fun at themselves, the producers, and the directors in a relief episode giving The Boys, and us, a break from the heartache before plunging us ever forward to the climax of the season. Then, as things became more intense and the boys lives went from simply searching for their father and then hunting the YED to the very real possibility that Dean would actually go to hell and leaving Sam alone and on his own, the humor turned darker as once again the Trickster was involved bringing a macabre humor for fans until the episode deftly was twisted and the horror of The Boy’s reality was woven through Sam’s realization of what life would be like without Dean. To lighten things, the Ghostfacers were visited as a spoof of television network’s reality programming, yet the undercurrent remained… Dean’s deal was still there … time was marching forward … The Boys, and us, had a momentary break from the fear and angst before being plunged once again toward a season finale which took our hearts to new levels of horror and ache. 

Then came this season and humor has been woven in brief spurts … laughable situations masking underlying pain, angst, fear and horror … until The Monster at the End of This Book. Definite laughter bubbles through the hilarity of The Boy’s situations in episodes such as Yellow Fever and Wishful Thinking, yet each episode also carried a weight … an inescapable darkness … almost as though the laughter were forced … attempts to return to the Winchester version of normal … so many things seemed to remind us of that first season of The Boys coming back together after being apart, however this time it seemed as though darkness hovered on the edges. Always hovering in the back of our minds (and theirs) was Dean’s time in hell and Sam’s harnessing of the dark powers within himself. The laughter seemed tinged with desperation. It was as though the boys were desperate to return to normal and yet, they couldn’t go back. As much as they might want to, as much as WE may want them to, they can never go backwards. They will never again be the fresh face peeking around the door. They have grown through the darkness they’ve experienced and battled and we must acknowledge that and watch as they go forwards. 

And then we have The Monster at the End of This Book. Once again, an episode ripe with humor provides the necessary lightness after the angst of previous heart ache before we are plunged into the horror and heartache commonly referred to as the ending of the season. Once again, an episode that begins with gut busting laughter, only to twist in that familiar breath taking, heart rending Kripke fashion.

Who would have known a children’s book could provide the foundation for such an episode?

I wasn’t sure … there was something always niggling at the back of my mind from the first time I heard the title of this episode. I know that it’s been passed around – I’ve seen it from two different sources - so it’s not news, but it was a *facepalm* for me that I didn’t catch it right away. You see … I actually own this book. It’s part of the Golden Books Sesame Street Children’s series. I actually own seven of them.  (Of the series, not this individual book.) Four of them, including this book, were originally my little brother’s when he was small. When my mother was getting rid of them in a garage sale, I laid claim, putting them away with many of my other books I saved from childhood. My girlies have adored them and The Monster at the End of This Book was a particular favorite of all three girlies. (If they tell you anything about funny voices … ignore them … it was only childish fantasies, I’m certain.)  I read this book so many times that it took its place along side Dr. Seuss’ Green Eggs & Ham, Maurice Sendek’s Where the Wild Things Are and Disney’s The Lion King as things that I could quote verbatim without even really looking at them. By the time my Twinkles came to this book, I could actually dust, vacuum and read (recite) it at the same time while they sat side by side in my big chair and turned the pages for me.      

For those who perhaps aren’t aware, this little book begins with Sesame Street’s self proclaimed loveable blue furry monster Grover reading the book's title to us from the corner of the title page … The Monster at the End of This Book. And he freaks out. Grover is scared of monsters.  Grover does not recognize himself as a monster as it is defined by society. He’s not ugly or frightening. He’s not wicked or evil. He’s simply sweet, loveable, blue, furry Grover. He’s scared by the title … he is afraid of monsters and he particularly does not want to see the one at the end of the book. So, through the creative illustrations and dialogue, we make our way through the little story as Grover works very hard to keep us from getting to the end of the book. He tapes pages together … he staples the book shut … he blocks the pages with brick walls … and each time we turn a page of the book, thus “tearing through” one of his attempts to keep us from reaching the end, he cries out that we need to stop … begging and pleading that we can’t go forward … that there is a monster at the end of the book that’s going to get us. Now, in true Sesame Street tradition, the end of the book is all cuddles and warmth and happiness as Grover finds that the monster at the end of the book is actually himself … blue, furry, loveable Grover. He ends the story with words “and you were worried”.    It’s a fun, silly little book. 

Who knew as I read this little tale, acting the parts and making the voices for a couple of giggling big-eyed girlies and their sister, that years later it would lend its title to a Supernatural episode of such foreboding?

I loved this episode. I seriously, truly, sincerely LOVED this episode.  It ranks up there in the top of my other 77 favorite episodes. *grins*  I give thanks to Kripke and Company for the homage to the fans … it was spectacular and so fun. The small moments, the nuances … everything, particularly in those first 15 minutes were geared to make the fans laugh at themselves and it worked. I mean, come on … raise hands … how many of you saw the series of books in the publishing agent's bookshelf and wanted them for your fan selves???? We have the DVD’s but wouldn’t it be great to have The BOOKS???? 

Also, with this episode, Julie Siege has come “into her own” and moved right up there amongst the top of the Supernatural A-List of writers. For along with the laughter came the twist into terror. This time it was not the MOW terror of a wendigo or a zombie or a vampire shocking and scaring us.  It was not a demon threatening The Boys (although there is one in the mix) but something even more heart pounding, bone chilling.

“She was telling the truth about one thing – she’s NOT going to survive the apocalypse. I’ll make sure of that.”

Remember when I’ve said in earlier blogs that the seasons of Supernatural remind me of a series of books? Given that The Kripke has said he has five seasons in him, it’s like a series of five books – each one telling a portion of the overall story, each episode a chapter in that season's particular book?

I don’t know if it was Jared’s particularly fine delivery, his total embodiment of Sam lending the weight to this statement or if it was simply the verbalization of the dread that has been culminating from the beginning of the season. But I am filled with a bone chilling fear that there is going to be a monster at the end of this particular season’s book and it’s not necessarily going to be Lucifer. I’m so desperately afraid that the monster at the end of this season’s book is going to be our own, sweet, loveable, puppy Sammy. 

Suddenly, I don’t want to get to the end. I don’t mind this hiatus. I want to stop now. If we don’t go forward then we won’t find out. Because, this won’t be a sweet and cuddly Sesame Street ending. This is going to be a dark and twisted Kripke ending.  It's going to hurt.  Alot.

In my heart I feel this dread ... and I'm going to share it with you ... here ... now.  It's not spoilers for I haven't read or listened to a thing about the season ending.  It's pure speculation that my heart conceived at the end of The Monster at the End of This Book.  I'm praying I'm wrong. 

Speculation:  The 66th and final seal that releases Lucifer is when Sam (hyped up on demon blood) kills Lilith.

The first seal is broken by Dean.

The final seal is broken by Sam.

"And the righteous man who begins it is the only one who can finish it."

Oh.  Crap.

So, how to stop it from happening? Dean must stop Sam … how does he do that? By killing him? Question: Going back to IMTOD, exactly how much did BDW know and exactly what was he referring to in his whispered message to Dean? If he can’t SAVE him, he has to KILL him????

I really, really need to be wrong.   Problem is ... this scares the crap out of me.  Being wrong means Kripke is going to do something even worse simply because, while my mind is full of imagined fear … Kripke & his writers minds are full of gleeful twists and tortures. They are the wicked Alistairs of the television world, delighting in carving off pieces of our hearts and shredding the foundations of our souls.

That might have been a bit melodramatic … but you get my thought here, right? Right???

So, there you have it ... that is what occurred in my brain after watching The Monster at the End of This Book. 

Now it's time to move onward ... cause whether I'm ready or not, the rollercoaster ride that began with Dean's return in Lazarus Rising ... no ... scratch that ... it began with The Pilot and just continues to accelerate ... has hit one of those giant loop-d-loops and we're gonna be losing our lunches on this one ... along with our hearts ... and our minds.

Good thing I've still got these defibrilators taped to my chest, a paper bag close at hand and 911 on speed dial.  I just hope the lady doesn't laugh at me again.