If David Boreanaz is the hottest hottie on TV, then Jensen Ackles is a very, very, very close second. By like a hair. Or, in Ackles’ case, a freckle. Mmmm, freckles. I’ve had a long-term relationship with Boreanaz, starting when I discovered Buffy, so I guess Ackles is my approaching-midlife-crisis fling with a younger man.
Yeah, Padalecki’s okay, too, but for me this is the Dean Winchester show. He’s hot and conflicted and tormented and angsty and bow-legged and freckled, with limpid green Anime eyes that emote more pain than a human being could possibly bear and the prettiest mouth I’ve ever seen on a man. Yeah.
Over the last few weeks, Crossroad Blues, based on the legend of blues great Robert Johnson, emerged as one of the most highly anticipated episodes of the season. Thematically, it promised tons of angst, because there was no way they could manage a case about deals with the devil without addressing what happened in In My Time of Dying, when John traded himself for Dean. Dean knew this implicitly, but not explicitly. The anticipation was that the dynamic would change in the course of this episode, and that Dean would take a painful trip into angst-ville, having to face full-on the fact that not only is he alive and his father isn’t, but he’s alive because his father isn’t.
Penned by Sera Gamble, Crossroad Blues definitely lived up to the hype. While the main plotline of folks bargaining with the devil was a bit pedestrian, it proved a perfect backdrop for Dean’s soul-searching encounter at the Crossroads, and a brilliant and hot performance by Ackles. Seriously, whose ovaries didn’t explode when Dean went from OMG I am in such pain with my limpid green Anime eyes to Gotcha complete with smirk when the demon stepped under the Devil’s Trap?
Even the Hellhounds plot had some great moments, though. The scene where the surgeon was torn apart on the hotel floor by the invisible Hellhounds was genuinely creepy, as were the brief incursions of the demons into the hotel manager and Evan’s wife. Evan’s bargain to save his wife was, of course, a good complement to Dean’s dilemma, and John’s decision to trade himself for his son. We’ve known since In My Time of Dying that Dean was eventually going to find out what happened, and that when he did, it was going to fuck him up. And guess what? We were right.
The final conversation between the demon and Dean left some highly charged questions unanswered. Like Sam, I have to wonder if John is really in hell, or if the demon was just taunting Dean. I think it could go either way…but the first option is probably the most likely, given this show’s tendencies and the storyline’s high potential for pain and angst and Dean being hot while conflicted and emoting with his limpid green Anime eyes.
And I am so looking forward to that.
Favorite Moments:Sam pouting because Dean has a police record and he doesn't.
Dean: Usually I like a warning before I'm violated by demon tongue.
