{"id":117563,"date":"2016-06-21T11:08:50","date_gmt":"2016-06-21T15:08:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=117563"},"modified":"2025-09-23T11:41:33","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T15:41:33","slug":"supernatural-season-2-episode-21-all-hell-breaks-loose-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=117563","title":{"rendered":"Supernatural<\/i>: Season 2, Episode 21: \u201cAll Hell Breaks Loose, Part 1″"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"h39\"<\/p>\n

\nWritten by Sera Gamble
\nDirected by Robert Singer<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cMillions of spiritual creatures walk the earth Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep.\u201d \u2014 John Milton, Paradise Lost<\/em>, Book IV, Lines 677-678<\/big><\/p>\n

The writers’ staff for Supernatural<\/i> are well-versed (pun. sorry.) in The Bible and John Milton’s Paradise Lost<\/i>, as well as every urban legend, supernatural entity, and unexplained phenomena ever reported on the planet. The backlog of data must be extraordinary, entire hard drives filled with “Let’s Maybe Use This Obscure Spirit-Demon From the Appalachian Region Some Day”. Supernatural<\/i> has to be one of the funnest (and most rigorous) research-based writing jobs in television. We had to read Paradise Lost<\/i> in high school, and it was only when I went back and re-read it<\/a> that I truly understood the EPIC SIZE of it all, plus the distilled purity and transcendence of its imagery\/language. <\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

What in me is dark
\nIllumine, what is low raise and support;
\nThat to the height of this great argument
\nI may assert eternal Providence,
\nAnd justify the ways of God to men.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So much in literature and language as we know it comes from Paradise Lost<\/i>. The first example that comes to mind is the stunning:<\/p>\n

Yet from those flames
\nNo light, but rather darkness visible.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

William Styron’s book about his depression is called Darkness Visible<\/i><\/a>, and ever since it came out I cannot read Milton’s lines without thinking, “If that isn’t a perfect description of depression and despair I don’t know what is.” <\/p>\n

The Supernatural<\/i> writers have a lot of fun with Milton. Anna Milton, of course. The bar named Milton. This verse – taken from Jewish religious texts and the Old Testament – helped create Season 7: <\/p>\n

or that Sea-beast
\nLEVIATHAN, which God of all his works
\nCreated hugest that swim th\u2019 Ocean stream<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

… (shivers …) <\/p>\n

Castiel’s entrance is straight out of Milton. Ferocious warrior angels. There are a couple of episode titles that quote Milton, including the two-part finale of Season 2. (Milton uses past tense though: “broke” not “breaks.”) <\/p>\n

All Hell Breaks Loose<\/i>, in Supernatural<\/i>, refers to literally just that, opening the Gate to Hell in the cheese-ball-Roger-Corman-esque cemetery, letting out an “army” of demons. There’s a personal Hell as well (it’s always the personal that gives Supernatural<\/i> its extra charge.), the Hell of loss. “All Hell Breaks Loose, Parts 1 and 2” is the first time a Winchester brother actually dies. Dean came close in “Faith,”<\/a> (a turning point in the series, in my opinion, a declaration of intentions, or, at the very least, a testing of the waters to see if the show could “take” its own spiritual ramifications. “Faith” introduced “faith” into the series. That wouldn’t really bear fruit – “Houses of the Holy” an important stepping-stone along the way, although faith there remained a philosophical debate – until now: with a cross-roads demon, a “deal with the Devil,” Dean’s deal, Sam’s resurrection, and then the truncated Season 3, with Dean’s march towards Hell – which then, of course, basically predicts the entry of the angels in Season 4. If there’s a Hell, then there must be a Heaven. All of that is really set up in Parts 1 and 2 of the Season 2 finale.)<\/p>\n

In Milton\u2019s poem, just before kicking Satan out of the Garden of Eden, the angel Gabriel asks Satan why the other inhabitants of hell hadn\u2019t broken out of the underworld and accompanied him to the garden: \u201cWherefore with thee came not all hell broke loose?<\/em>\u201d (Book IV, Line 916.) <\/p>\n

\"Paradise_Lost_1\"
\nIllustration by Gustave Dor\u00e9 for Paradise Lost: Gabriel banishing Satan<\/i><\/p>\n

\n“Hell”, in Milton’s context, does not mean Hell the place<\/i>, but the inhabitants<\/i> of Hell. And so there’s that double meaning in the Supernatural<\/i> title: There’s the common vernacular: “The shit hits the fan” “Everything goes nuts” “Here comes Chaos.” But it’s also Miltonian: a door opens, and “Hell” streams into this world, including John Winchester (in a cheese-ball effect).<\/p>\n

What’s Dead Should Stay Dead. You Sure About That?<\/h1>\n

Part 1 and Part 2 are separate and distinct in so many ways (Part 1 taking place almost entirely in that ghost town, Sam dominating, Part 2 is Dean-dominated, taking place at crossroads and in abandoned buildings). If you think about it: Part 1 very well could have been the finale, leaving the audience with “OMG Sam’s dead.” But the real cliff-hanger is Dean making that deal. That’s what puts Season 3 in motion. Dean goes against everything he’s been saying for the entire season, post-John’s-Death, most particularly in “Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things”<\/a>: “What’s dead should stay dead.” Dean knows about the deal his father made in exchange for his own (worthless) life. There’s that Guilt aspect of it. But also: messing with the natural order, according to Dean, is wrong and in direct contradiction to their mission. Hunters restore people’s lives to what is natural<\/i>, not super<\/i>natural. How do you reconcile that with what John Winchester did? What Dean is now about to do? Oh, so the rules apply to all of the people you help but not to you? You make an exception for your own family? Although it’s always been clear that Dean will do what it takes to protect his brother, this is the first time we’ll see the LENGTHS that he will go. When Dean was dying, Sam took him to a quack faith-healer. When Sam is dead, Dean trades his own future for his brother’s life. You see the disconnect, already in place. If Dean had died in “Faith,” I think Sam would have “let him go.” He would have cried and mourned, but Demon Deal? I’m not sure about that. <\/p>\n

The other thing that is so important about Part 1 is what we learn about Mary. “It’s you,” she says to the dark figure in the nursery. It changes everything we thought we knew. Mary (Samantha Smith) haunts the series so much that it seems like she’s a regular cast member. (And I, for one, am happy to see that potential being explored again, from the Season 11 finale. Dean has never recovered from that loss. He’s almost 40. He’s not a Mama’s Boy. He’s a traumatized orphan. Still.) Mary’s death is burned into his (and our) brains.<\/p>\n

\n\"super6\"<\/p>\n

On Episode Influences<\/h1>\n

“All Hell Breaks Loose” Part 1 is the closing-out of the Psychic Kids Arc, something Season 2 has been driving towards (off and on) from the get-go, starting in Season 1 with “Nightmare”<\/a>, and the suggestion that something might be “wrong” with Sam. Some of this doesn’t really make sense (mainly being the attitude that Sam is a freak, a monster, something to be hunted – especially since hunters clearly utilize psychics. Hello, the sexy Pamela. But whatever.) Sam’s tendency to go off the rails takes up much of the first half of this entire series. Sam can “go dark,” and he tries to do the right thing by engaging in wrong behavior. Sam realizing he is connected to other people, other “kids”, outside the Winchester Belljar (TM). (Belljar Effect babbling here<\/a>, but mainly here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

As the “blue roses” start to emerge in the series, first Max, and then Andy from “Simon Said”<\/a> and then Ava from “Hunted”<\/a>, Sam realizes he is not alone. There’s probably a comfort in that, along with alarm. Dean and Bobby look at him with fear and sometimes suspicion. They hate his “powers”. The other Blue Roses accept it. They don’t have to be alone, a freak, there are “more of us” out there.<\/p>\n

I’ve spoken before how the Blue Roses Arc doesn’t really do it for me, although I love each individual “kid”, including the new ones that show up here. Its motley-crew of superheroes, its kid-soldier-dystopian-narrative, was an attempt to make something happen, but then everyone realized it didn’t work, and it seems that Kripke put his foot down, so they dropped it as unceremoniously as they burned down the roadhouse. A “demon army” of “special” “kid” soldiers … I grew out of the appeal of that in junior high. Nothing against junior high sensibility, but it just didn’t feel as real to me as the Winchester Family Drama and Sam learning that he has been “chosen” (which will then be flipped in Season 4, when Dean is “chosen.”)<\/p>\n

Putting a bunch of “freaks” together in one place calls to mind many things, including:<\/p>\n

\n\"wild\"<\/p>\n

\n\"islandofmisfittoys\"<\/p>\n

\n\"WT2\"<\/p>\n

\n\"fe4e3-sevensamurai\"<\/p>\n

\n\"NEr1Dizhrdewus_2_b\"<\/p>\n

\nand the most obvious:<\/p>\n

\n\"91ec5706-04ea-4d32-9fca-66a715e6596a\"<\/p>\n

\nIt’s an adolescent fantasy: that which makes you “weird” makes you also The Best The Brightest (quoted by Yellow-Eyes later). You’re not just different, you’re awesome and powerful! Your high school peers might bully you but at night you swoop through the skies saving Mankind. There is potential there, but not enough, not in THIS story about two brothers. Like “Faith,” it feels like the writers\/Kripke were testing the waters of what they had created. “Is the story about THIS?” “Can the story ‘take’ THIS? Or will it fall apart?” And they have to do that in full view of their audience. So here, in Part 1, they felt the need to kill this Arc off, to clear the way for Part 2 and Season 3. <\/p>\n

There are shots in Part 1 that are so Breakfast-Club-ish, the majority of the “kids” in the same frame, that it’s practically a direct replication.<\/p>\n

\n\"h16\"<\/p>\n

\nToo bad they didn’t just smoke a joint, blast some music, put on eyeliner, and dance. <\/p>\n

But more so than the Breakfast Club<\/i>, the main influence on this episode is Fred Zinneman’s 1952 movie High Noon<\/i>, starring Gary Cooper, Grace Kelly, Thomas Mitchell, Lloyd Bridges, Katy Jurado, Harry Morgan, and Lee Van Cleef. <\/p>\n

\n\"47afd07917f8e143319ab4bbf0084b16\"<\/p>\n

\nIt’s a terrific movie, albeit with an extremely controversial backstory surrounding its production (look it up). It was a tense and terrible time, the Hollywood Blacklist a black mark in the history of the US, not to mention Hollywood. The community has not recovered totally. (The Coen brothers’ latest, Hail, Caesar!<\/i>, takes place during that time, and lampoons it, risky when you consider that when Elia Kazan won a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003, FIFTY YEARS after his testimony before the HUAC, FIFTY YEARS, there were still people in that audience who refused to stand up for him. In protest. He was not forgiven. I’m sure that all of those scowling movie stars remaining in their seats would have behaved PERFECTLY in such a terrible time, and would have WILLINGLY sacrificed their careers in order to do the right thing. Morons. I’m sorry. I hate that superior attitude towards the past. Kazan was a complicated man, a liar (he admitted it), who did shitty things, and is also one of my artistic heroes. I can reconcile those things, no problem. I actually got to meet him<\/a> and held it together just long enough to shake his hand before falling apart in an alleyway half an hour later, sobbing. He’s a hero. <\/p>\n

High Noon<\/i> starts off showing three men waiting around under a tree, the desert surrounding them, all as Tex Ritter sings “Do Not Forsake Me, O My Darling,” composed by Dmitri Tiomken (it won the “Best Music” Oscar). <\/p>\n

\n