rewatching 4.02...

[mickeym]

And I have a peeve.



Thing that's bugging me, when the ghosts are appearing. When Ronald appears. He says to Dean "it's all your fault I died". Except, not really. Ronald went into the bank on his own, with the plan to try and find the "mandroid". He was the one holding the people hostage (initially, anyway) and the one armed, who happened to get in the way of the FBI/Swat guys. It could've just easily been Sam, Dean, or random-guy-X. Ronald didn't die of unnatural causes--he was shot by a law enforcement officer.

Am I overthinking this? (Well, actually, that's probably a given.) The rest of the ghosts, that fits. Meg, Henrickson, the girls from the things they say to Bobby. But Ronald. That kind of throws me out of it.

Stupid inconsistencies.

Comments

[wendy.livejournal.com]

I think that's the point actually. None of those deaths were Sam and Dean's "fault," yet they could have prevented all of them.

[mickeym.livejournal.com]

That's where I get hung up, though--because I don't know how they were supposed to have prevented Ronald getting shot by the FBI during a situation he actually created. I know, I know. Splitting hairs, and all that *g* It's not like, I'm hating the ep or anything, just. A thing that sticks with me and makes me go 'huh?' :)

[wendy.livejournal.com]

If they had actually protected him better or...caught the shapeshifter earlier...he wouldn't have died. Simple.

[without-me.livejournal.com]

I think all the ghosts were skewing the truth to some extent (to what extent we don't know--Meg might never have had a sister, and as far as we know Hendricksen did die instantly, without being tortured). I think within the framework of the story, we're supposed to believe that the evil bringing them back caused them to be angrier than they would otherwise have been, or something to that effect.

Of course, I could be wrong.

[vickita.livejournal.com]

This was my impression, as well.

[aynslee.livejournal.com]

I was kind of like, whaaa? to all the ghosts, until I learned what the seal/brand was about. At that point I felt like the spell used made them all incredibly bitter and angry toward the hunters who were involved in their deaths, whether or not those deaths were directly Sam and Dean's fault.

It's possible that this makes no sense. :D

[azephirin.livejournal.com]

I was surprised that Jess's ghost didn't show up, or Bobby's wife's. I don't think it's Sam's fault that Jess died, nor is it Bobby's that he had no idea what to do when his wife was possessed, but I think it works a lot better to argue responsibility for those deaths than for Ronald's (as you say) or for Henriksen's. Henriksen's death was related to the Winchesters, but they didn't bring Lilith to that police station, and it's unlikely that they could have saved him even if they had been there when she showed up. (Hope I'm making sense?)

[wendy.livejournal.com]

They wrote the ep specifically to bring Jess back and then the actress couldn't make it work with her schedule. They did try!

[aynslee.livejournal.com]

Really?!?! I didn't know that.

[wendy.livejournal.com]

To be strictly honest, I read it on an LJ comm but she is busy filming her own show right now so it makes sense.

[aynslee.livejournal.com]

That would have been SO SAD!

[azephirin.livejournal.com]

Oh! Well, that makes a whole lot more sense. Too bad that it didn't work out! That would have made a great ep.

[cloex-brosluvr.livejournal.com]

..or Bobby's wife's
I figured since we already know she blamed Bobby (from ep Dream a Little Dream of Me) they wouldn't of brought her back on again, especially so soon.

[zillahseye.livejournal.com]

I read it more as "Lillith's going for maximum emo while her lapdogs get close enough to off her opposition" than 100% truth. I found a number of the ghosts' accusations specious.

[rivers-bend.livejournal.com]

that goes for me with Hendriksen lying about what Lilith did. (unless Kripke just decided to change canon a few months after original airing.) They weren't strictly ghosts, they were agents of Lilith. I don't know that I believe Meg's story about her sister either. I think they have "demons lie" to answer to.

[pyroblaze18.livejournal.com]

I would have liked to see a Meg and Bobby scene… I think it would have been interesting to see what she blamed him for, since he was involved at the end too

[aislinn-tredor.livejournal.com]

I had the same thought.

Every time Ron blamed them I thought, "No...you went into a bank, held it up with a gun, took hostages, and got yourself shot by the SWAT team. It was your own fault, not Sam and Dean's that you were an idiot."

He didn't fit the pattern very well IMO. It would have made more sense to have Nancy or hell, even Madison.

[munibunny.livejournal.com]

I kind of took it more like Sam and Dean weren't able to save him. He was touched by the evil once he knew it existed.

[deansdemongirl.livejournal.com]

I think they brought Ronald back partially for the homage they could do to Jensen's movie Devour.

The scene were Ronald first appears sitting at the top of the basement steps is an exact duplication of the scene in Devour where Jake Gray is in his basement, turns around and his dead friend Conrad is sitting on the steps and starts talking to him.

Also if they had been upfront with Ronald that it wasn't a mandroid but that it was a creature that they had to take care of instead of making him feel like he was an idiot who had to prove himself right, he wouldn't have been there in the bank.

We don't know that Henricksen is lying. Yes we saw the white light but that could have been merely to stun everyone so that Lillith could then take her time with each of them and kill them.

[lazy-daze.livejournal.com]

Simple answer: they were struggling for guest stars to come back to fill the ep and Ronald was one of the few that could, as they started scraping the barrel :P

[ihearthings-ii.livejournal.com]

Well, I mean, we know that spirits are born out of violent deaths *and* that spirits get a little messed up and don't always get things right. So maybe all these people who died violent deaths with the Winchesters around just blamed them? Or something. Hmmm.

[glendaglamazon.livejournal.com]

When Bobby finds the info about the mark he says:

B: The Mark of the Witness.
S: Witness? Witness to what?
B: The Unnatural? None of 'em died what you'd call "ordinary" deaths. See, these ghosts, they were forced to rise. They woke up in agony. They're like rabid dogs. It ain't their fault. Someone rose 'em. On purpose.

That, combined with Dean and Castiel's chat about Lilith breaking the seal, casting the spell, and specifically choosing people who would--in their agitated, rabid state--go after hunters, leads me to believe what many people have said. The ghosts weren't acting on anything they necessarily thought as they died.