The Visual Story at a Glance: You Can't Handle the Truth (6x06)

They share the same blood. They share the same soul. Those are my stream of conscience thoughts as I read this....! :)

This image keeps teasing me! If there is a message being sent, I believe it might be floating somewhere in your stream.

This moment of storytelling reminds me of the claim the hell experience still has on each brother. Dean spent much of his time since hell wishing he didn't have to feel. Now Sam returns and claims a lack of feeling (though I'm not entirely convinced). Is it possible Dean will discover that what is TRUE for Sam also holds for Dean himself?

This image is the one that I totally planned to write a meta about! But now I don't need to. :)

The connection to 4x07 is a nice catch, and I didn't think about this in terms of the previous death tableaus, but there's a sort of peace here that was present in 3x04 and 3x08 as well.

The boys are in this together, share the same blood and blood's something in this show that you can't escape or change, no matter how hard you try.

The mirrored positions only enhance the connection between the boys, like they are the same things, only slightly different. Mirrors have this unique way of duplicating an image and underlining the similarities, but also to showing exact opposites. This shot is a nice way to foreshadow the conflict between them that's about to happen, but that (hopefully) will lead to them being brothers again.

And the lights on the boys. I love how the position of the boys makes the lights fall on their head and their hands that are almost touching, again highlighting things that are important. Also, the lights create a cross that further strengthens the symmetry of this shot.

It's a really striking and gorgeous shot. Go Show! \o/

It is such a powerful image, isn't it? Go Show is right!

I'm glad you brought up the lights and the additional symmetry they bring to the scene. Nice!

Do you think there is anything to take from the predominance of muted green? (I still associate green with "choice" in my internal shorthand.)

Another aspect I've been puzzling about is the source of the blood in this shot since it is not their own. Is it easy for anyone else to imagine the body above sending one more drop down to land on Sam's face?

I've lately started viewing green as a hint that something's wrong (this started after 5x16 where Zach played with twisted!Mary and Dean's hallucination!vision in 5x01 didn't help). But I hadn't even noticed that the whole room (and the last, what, 5 minutes of the ep) is green-ish - I was too scared for the boys and finding out what was wrong with Sam to see anything else. There could be something there.

The blood's interesting since, okay, there's a valid reason for it to be there (the corpse above them), but doesn't have to be there. It could just be a visual reminder that the boys do share the same blood. Or since it sort of looks like it's coming from Sam, maybe it's something like the bad blood being let out now. Personally, I wouldn't want to see blood drops on Sam anymore - the possible implications of that break my heart.

I'm glad you popped back. I seem locked into my old thinking and needed the reminder about the toxic green of 5.16.

I think this show is BRILLIANT! at including things like the blood puddle. It's given an extra creepy, legitimate purpose for being there but works so very well as a metaphor at the same time.

My thinking has taken off from an earlier comment of yours that I agree with.

there's a sort of peace here

From there I started wondering how often the show has focused on framing that includes the two boys while both are sleeping or unconscious. Heaven knows they are regularly in that situation. The usual procedure is, especially when they're both taken out during a confrontation, to cut to black (commercial) and return to the story with the boys in restraints. For instance, the devas attacked in 1x16 Shadow and we get the closeup of Sam waking to find them both bound and Meg's tormenting begins. And, when Paris Hilton got the upper hand in 5x05 Fallen Idols, we're given the closeup of Dean waking first. (In that case there is a brief overhead shot of the unconscious Winchesters tied to the tree trunks.)

I've only been able to come up with a handful of examples of the camera lingering on both unconscious boys in the same shot. Here's what I have so far, but I'd love for someone to remind me of more since I haven't thought about it exhaustively by any means.

- The scene linking 1x10 Asylum and 1x11 Scarecrow had the boys asleep to be wakened by John's phone call.
- 1x20 Dead Man's Blood had a wonderful shot of the boys sleeping in the motel while John watched over them planned their next move.
- 3x10 Dream a Little Dream of Me had the boys sprawled on the beds after taking dreamroot to enter Bobby's dream. (Oh, and that episode set a precedent for the necessity of the good guys consuming body parts, didn't it?!)

(- 4x15 Death Takes a Holiday had the boys astral projecting while Pamela waited to bring them back. I thought for sure I would find a shot of both 'sleeping' in the same frame, but not really. I think it was all done with closeups on one or the other at a time. Funny how I can see a wide shot of them looking at themselves so clearly in my head.)

It's a start, but I don't trust that I have all the examples of when the camera is focused at the same time on the brothers while they're other than conscious.

I really liked the frame. Is is very meaningful and very strong on a visual level. Thanks for sharing your thoughts about it :)

It's certainly got layers to it. I love how it has captured my imagination!

I find it really interesting that it's Sam's foot that's out of the pit, there, in light of 6.07, and that Dean has a hand up over the edge. He's still trying to climb out of Hell, I think.

What I noticed in 6.07 was the repeated framing of both boys (along with Samuel) through the cage bars - very much like the view we were given of the monster. It's hardly a new view, though. For instance, I particularly love the shot of a pacing Dean through the harp strings in Zachariah's beautiful green waiting room at the end of S4.

Personally, I'm ready to believe part of the message is that neither brother is more of a monster than the other. Dean might get motivated about saving Sam's soul, but I bet (hope! pray!) that he finds and accepts his own grace in the process.

While continuing to think about the mirroring in the 6.06 image, I've decided to look at it as creating a sort of fascinating Winchester inkblot. ;)

Ok, this is going to sound weird, but I swear to god I have never seen this image before and it's kinda freaking me out because I watch every episode at least twice... Any details you can give me on finding it?