 Hey guys, before we start the review I'm admittedly very embarrassed but I don't know where the video component for this review went. I've checked all of my memory cards, I've checked all of my elements, I can't find it anywhere. Wish I noticed this when I did all these reviews back in February but I hope you guys are okay with just hearing my voice, I'll have photos and everything up but at least to say I did look, I don't know where it went but I do apologize. When the levee breaks and everything comes crashing down, this is a matchup. Ooh, that's a hot mug guys! Hey guys, this is my review for when the levee breaks. This is the pre-season finale for season 4 of Supernatural, episode 21 and this episode is still damn good. Not only is attention between Bobby Sam and Dean at an all-time high, the further conflict that happens between the two is incredibly well done. There's a lot of real good blocking, there's a lot of good camera angles, a lot of effort from Robert Singer which would bleed away in later seasons. Also all of the self-reflection slash hallucination slash self-torture that Sam goes through while in the safe room is really freaking good. It starts with physical torture or at least he's emulating it with Alastair torturing him. And it slowly starts to change into emotional torture with the younger version of himself. Great little kid actor as always, pointing out all of the flaws and all of the mistakes and all of the damage that Sam has done to himself. There's the sympathetic torture in terms of his mother being embodied in his own mind, kind of adding another layer of guilt and self-hate to himself and then it all accumulates together with a vision of Dean interrogating slash arguing with him. And all of this is so good, every single scene in that safe room is male-biting and so deep into Sam's character and to his relationship with not only his brother with Bobby but himself and as well again laying down little tidbits that would eventually become big, big business in the next season as well as the ending of this season. There's also Dean getting another argument slash conversation with Castiel where Castiel again doesn't really mention what a mostly wasn't supposed to be Dean of Wavre Park. But then this is also when Dean signs up for the angel army, gives himself over to the angel so to speak. But at the same time Castiel is ordered to let Sam out of the safe room and he's also used as a means of capturing Anna. And after Sam gets out and has that really emotional moment with Bobby, that part is a little nugget, it's so good. You see all of the pain and the anguish in Bobby's face and Sam's as well because neither of them want to do anything to each other. And then when he gets to the hotel and Ruby says, yeah, almost all the seals are gone and Sam asks, where the hell are all the angels? You see there in the background a little bit that the angels are actually just letting it happen, that the facade is over. But obviously we'll find that out in the next episode. And then when Sam and Dean meet in the hotel room and they have that conversation, that argument that starts with them trying to reason with each other and then eventually they have this really good fight scene. But it's so poetic that it ends with Dean saying, if you walk out that door, don't you ever come back? That's what their father said to Sam when he went off to Stanford. In that mirror reflection of the catalysts of the Winchester family in this episode, just an amalgamates together. The only little thing that I get a little bit at is Bobby going out to speak to Sam by himself rather than saying, hey, Dean, wake up, your brother's trying to escape. I think it's because Bobby can see what's happening with Dean and that he doesn't entirely agree with what's happening. He himself can fix and help Sam on his own. So that's my excuse for that part. Otherwise though, when the Levy Breaks is a fantastic preseason finale, it is such a great setup for what is about to come. And it's nuts. To give you guys a perspective, I've been watching all of these episodes to build up for myself because I'm going to be going back to work soon. I haven't watched Supernatural this fast since I did the first five seasons on my radio show, Eons Back, which I will have to talk about one day. Either way, when the Levy Breaks gets a 7 out of 7 for me, I enjoy this episode immensely and it has some of the best moments in the show's history in terms of the brothers being adversaries to each other. Obviously, this would be reflected back in season 5, right up until its finale. And it's just a really damn well-written episode. Give Sarah Gamble a fantastic credit that is deserved because she does a fantastic job with writing this episode. And then Robert Singer does a good job of directing it too. I'm not going to have a short list in here either because he did a good job. So now I ask you guys for your comments about this episode, so let's read those off now. Alright, so starting off here, when the Levy Breaks is one of my top five favorite episodes of Supernatural, it's not the deepest or the most nuanced dive into the subject matter of drug addiction, of course, but it did a pretty good job of what the show was. The lengths of which Sam was willing to go through to get the demon blood, the hallucinations, the desperation and the agony, knocking Bobby out, I'm honestly a little surprised that they went so dark for the episode. They never do something like that with the shows in later years. When Mary shows up and justifies Sam's actions to himself, it hits closer to home than most might expect. As an addict, you grasp for anything to make yourself feel better about yourself, usually contrasting yourself to other people, verse off or seeking validation from something important to you, no matter how small or insincere it may be. Hurting people close to you, begging when faced with the panic of realizing you're boxed into a corner and about to withdraw, the confrontation between the brothers was the icing on the cake after it all. Actually, you do a pretty good means of describing it, that's dead on. I love that Supernatural wrote a serious story about addiction and self-destruction, yet filed it, veiled it within the context of angels versus demons and the apocalypse to get all the teenagers who love the show to watch and digest it. Somewhat akin to that of what Todd Phillips did with Joker, I'd like to think that at least a few kids decided against trying the line of Coke or Oxy after watching this. Now, actually, I think funny enough, talking about Todd Phillips and the Joker, that movie, honestly, if you're actually looking for the production of that film, is a complete nothing mirror. He is on such a goddamn high horse, he did not have that vision, like the movie was put together like complete shambles, but I get where you're coming from, and yes, the fact that it has such a serious view on drug addiction, our addiction in dent general is really well done. I 100% agree with you on that. The Angels storyline is good enough, but it's all secondary to Sam, Dean, and Bobby aspect of the story for me. Although Castiel's inner conflict and tension with Anna is a taste of what's to come, right along with Dean's oath. It's just an absolutely fantastic episode and not many people seem to love it as much as I do. Maybe it's just a little closer to home for me personally. Nope, I will agree with you, man. I love this episode too. It was very, very well done. I thought the blood drinking was similar to how addiction worked in real life. The sudden revelation about it being similar to a drug, to a drug made it a bit more relatable to us audience in my opinion. Plus it shows how addicts attempt to hide their addiction. I can kind of see where you're coming from there. More so for me, it's just because we're watching the characters or watching them grow, we've been there for pretty much everything and the fact that Sam's addiction kind of comes out of left field is a little bit sudden, but when you put it like that, I kind of get it where you're coming from. When the Levy breaks, Harkins back to when Dean was told by his father that if he couldn't save his brother and if he couldn't, he'd have to kill him. Actually, that's a good point. That's a good drawback there. The hallucinations were so well acted and I love how they really mess with Sam's psyche. The Bobby hallucination was something I picked up upon a re-watch because it was so intense that it felt like Sam really knocked Bobby out. Plus it has one of, wait, what? You think that that's a hallucination? What? No, that's actually Bobby. I thought that was actually Bobby. Plus it has one of my favorite demons returning ever so briefly. Sarah Gamble has done a fantastic job writing the pre-nuptial episodes of the seasons in Supernatural. Yeah, she actually has. You're right. Also interesting backstory on Lilith so suddenly that she is the first demon which ties in heavily with a lot of Judeo-Christian mythologies. When Sam and Dean fought each other and Sam walks out on Dean, I remember watching this live. Oh, you mean the other way around. Oh, no, no, you're right. I'm feeling emotionally wrecked. This exactly ties in with Lucifer and Michael in the latter season and how they relate to the archangel. I don't know what else to say. It's just a really good second to last episode and one of my favorite episodes in the season. I guess I can add that Castile letting Sam go again adds to all that mystery and buildup of the season finale after Dean swore allegiance to the angels. He is setting up the chess pieces for the apocalypse essentially and I love that. It's his character that's in a way forced to do. Do it. You can tell by his body language he does not want to do it but he knows he has to. Yep, no, that's a good point. Again, adding the intrigue and all the levels of deception and whatever's going on in this episode definitely show a different side to these guys and it's really cool to see. When the Levy Breaks is my favorite Sam-focused episode, the hallucination segment is just so well executed. Lots of cool visuals like Sam's veins running black across his face and neck and him being flung around the panic room by the demon blood. Some great guest appearances too. Alastair, Mary, and the kid who previously played young Sam. Yep, those are some great hallucination bits. I especially love when the kid Sam confronts adult Sam with a childish sense of betrayal towards him harkening all the way back to his guilt over Jessica's death. I always get chills when the kid says maybe there's no escape. After all, how can you run from what's inside you when your eyes turn yellow? It makes me wish Sam's eyes had gone yellow instead of black in the season finale too. I'll admit, I'm not upset because I feel that the yellow eye thing only works for certain people and I'm actually kind of curious if they actually tried that, but I like that they made his eyes go black because it just like that full envelopment in the darkness of evil kind of how it was going. The dialogue is also really good in this episode. I love when Castiel asks Dean, do you swear to follow his will and his word as swiftly and as obediently as you did your own fathers? One of my favorite underlying themes of season four and five is the parallel between God and John, i.e. God being the absent father, just as an absent father becomes a godly figure in the children's eyes. Ooh, good point, don't hurt. It worked so well at the time, probably because it was an underlying theme and not super heavy-handed. Literally one-to-one comparison. Sorry, I'm just in disbelief at how much Dad fumbled the bag with this one. Yeah, later on, yeah, obviously, but no, all of you guys have made really good points. Like, I already knew I liked this episode, but you're just drawing up even more bits that are just so good. And then we got one criticism here, much like the Rapture when The Levy Breaks is not a bad episode, but I definitely want to skip it every time I re-watch season four to get this really surprising. I'm sorry, man, I can't skip this one. There's just too much important shit that happens in it. This episode of more of a plot-driven story in The Rapture with Sam and Dean's conflict finally reaching an emotional breaking point. However, the rest of the episode, honestly, feels kind of dull. I don't know what it is. I just not as invested in the episodes as the episode wants me to be. I just find that hallucination episode is a cheap way to bring actors back and save money as they mostly happen in one year. I don't know, I don't want to sound negative, but I don't hate this episode and I agree with your point about being a three-part buildup, but it could have been done better, at least more exciting than what we got with some new performances episodes to the exact reason why she's a horrible actress when I ran about that in the next one. Honestly, man, I can't really agree with you at all in this. I think that everything's so well done. It's not harkening back. It's like everyone else has said, kind of talking about people and important in terms of addiction in terms of going through your own stripes, you're going to rely on and essentially betray those closest to you, those who mean the most to you. And it's not a cheap way to, I don't know what else they've been done, because otherwise you've just been having like effects and that's visually, I guess that's cool, but these are really hard-hitting bits. The kid, like seeing Sam talk to his younger self was one of the best bits. Seeing his mother die again or just talk to him about the failure of him, the only one that they could have brought back, the one that they could have cemented it with is just having John there, but Jeffrey Dean Morgan would be way too expensive at this point. But yeah, no, I love this episode. I love the ending. Thank you guys all for such good comments. Like, these are really good. All right, thank you guys for your comments. Now we're heading in to Lucifer Rising, which if I'm correct is the 100th episode of Supernatural in its history. So that's pretty crazy. So give me a guy's comments about that. This is obviously the season four finale and I will see you guys next week when we review that episode. If you liked this video, leave a like and if you're interested in more, subscribe. Otherwise, see you guys next week. Thanks for watching the video. My name is Knitz and you might remember me from the animated cult classic TV show, Undergrads. It's been a while, but I'm happy to say the click is finally getting back together in an all new movie thanks to a successful Kickstarter campaign. But we are still asking for your support. To see any and all updates about the upcoming Undergrads movie, be sure to check out and like the Bring Back Undergrads Facebook page. And with any luck, we'll see you guys soon.