7x2 Review

Part one: Summary

After Leviathan-Cas goes bath bomb in the municipal water supply, the leviathans spread out and get bodies of their own to sate their ravenous hunger. Jodie Mills, Soux Falls Sheriff, notices something fishy going on in the hospital and calls Bobby for help. Meanwhile, Sam is battling with his Lucifer disorder and struggles with what is real. The leviathans turn out to be everything-proof and the boys find themselves homeless, Bobby-less, and useless as they're being carted off to the lions’ den.

Part two: Review

Though Sam actually has a devil on his shoulder, the portrayal of his mental disorder parallels the reality of mental illnesses that many people go through in our primary world. Lucifer is the personified voice of doubt that disrupts the individual’s tether to reality. For some, that voice makes so much sense that they are unable to come down to earth at all but, similarly, pain is medium through which Sam grounds his self in reality, or rather the reality of the show. 

Ever since the wall in Sam’s mind collapses he’s haunted by the friendly neighborhood satan but because Lucy existed outside in the “real world,” his struggle to stay sane becomes infinitely more complicated. Lucifer tells Sam his biggest fear is reality: he never left the cage. For every reasoning to oppose the notion of Sam’s cage predicament, Lucy comes up with a rebuttal that makes perfect sense. At this point even the audience is dubious of the entire former season. 

From a logical standpoint, Lucifer is just the doubt that Sammy has contrived to question what is and isn't real. We know that Sam is intelligent and an excellent problem solver so it is easy to assume that, since satan is a figment of his own creation, he would be able to delude not only his self but Dean and Bobby as well. If Lucifer made a paradise for Sammy, why is so crappy? Well, if it wasn’t, Sammy would never believe it. But Dean says that Lucifer isn't real, end of story, except Lucifer says the same thing about him. And round and round we go.

Furthermore, since this is Supernatural, we have to factor lore in to logic: Lucifer is real, the cage is real, the pain he felt is real. Now, no one can possibly imagine what torture via the devil does to someone, but Sammy’s experience can be compared to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder where the individual is stuck in a fun house of their trigger; anyone would question reality. 

Speaking of triggers, el Diablo also accurately depicts suicidal thoughts. Sam is seen disassembling and cleaning his gun in, what is assumed, a hyperactive coping method but Lucy comes along and asks, “Why were we cleaning our guns?” and mimes blowing his brains out. Similarly in victims of suicidal thoughts, they are a slow realization of ones own subconscious urge to end their life. He makes it appealing, telling Sam to skip to the end to know for sure if he's in the cage or not, paralleling that inner voice to end this pain and go on to the next.

Lucifer makes a good point: What can you take from someone who has nothing? But when you realize that Lucifer (at least this version of him) isn't real, you notice that its Sammy who’s coming up with this logic. The dissociative masochist becomes the sadist so its no wonder Lucifer is the one in Sam’s brain creating doubts that he can’t refuse.

Masochism is both the cause and the solution to Sam’s delusions. When you live with a mental disorder long enough it somehow becomes addicting and Lord knows the Winchesters must be masochists so Sam trusts what he sees even though he knows he isn't entirely grounded in reality. Its also the pain he inflicts on his self, a pain different from hell, to make Lucifer lose his footing in reality but ultimately, Sam can’t get rid of his disorder. Lucy comes back and acknowledges that his game of guess-the-reality is over but he is far from done in torturing Sam from inside his head.

Part three: Questions, problems, concerns

Since this episode established the Leviathan lore, I have some criticisms about its continuity with the Supernatural Universe. First, since they were all dispersed as a unified black liquid and inhabited people via touch since one got in the girl through drinking the water and another through just a splatter of water, how does the individual leviathan manifest in this world? Demons are smoke but they're always a consistent mass who enters through the mouth of the vessel; Leviathans seem to need only a few droplets of contact with water for an individual leviathan to enter a host for one but consumption of a stream of water for another. Also, how does the hive mind when in Cas turn into multiple individuals who don't completely understand each other? On one hand, leviathans seem like intelligent manipulators but on the other they believe a sarcastic comment on a soap opera to be a reputable fact. 

Another criticism I had is the way they “morph” into a new body. The leviathan holds the wrist and transforms into the owner of the wrist…clothes and all. Even shape-shifters had to shed a gross skin to make a transformation.

A final criticism that I have is the infamous leviathan mouth; since I already knew it was coming, I was surprised by how late in the episode it occurred. Now, if all the eating shots before this reveal were entirely off screen I wouldn't have minded but that wasn't the case. When Jodie follows Dr. Sexy to where he took her roommate, she see that he has cut open the woman and is eating an organ… with his normal mouth.

I have more criticisms of this episode but as this section is getting too long, I leave you to question leviathan logic in your own homes and spread the word.