supernatural

lately I have fallen prey to the TV show "supernatural." A series that follows the adventures of Sam and Dean Winchester as they go about "Saving people and hunting things, the family business." Which usually means hunting and killing everything from ghosts to hellhounds to sending demons back to hell. Along the way they pick up some angelic companions in the attempt to keep Lucifer from being released from the pit and beyond.
The show does raise some interesting points though. Until season four the main goal of the two heroes is to find and kill the yellow eyed demon Azazel, the demon who killed their grandparents, their mother and sam's girlfriend.
Through these seasons the two brothers and their father (spoilers, he dies) learn that their soft spots are each other and that they will go to great lengths, even trading their souls, to save the other's life. At the end of season three, it's time to collect, and Dean is killed and his soul is dragged into hell.
The interesting thing here is how they portray hell. It is actually a place you would never, ever want to be. Dean is chained in darkness. absolutely alone at first. Then later (four months later after he's rescued) he says that time works differently, and on earth it was four months, but there it was forty years, and he was tortured by the demons every day until there was nothing left, then he was made whole again and it started all over (dante's inferno anyone?) then, after thirty years of torture, he was made to torture the other souls in hell. For ten years. he describes the emptiness and regret that he can never be forgiven for these things.
The third season ends with dean chained in darkness, utterly alone, ripped to shreds,and screaming for sam, who can't save him.
Where the third season leaves off the fourth begins, with dean being miraculously saved from hell by an unknown source. (later revealed to be an angel acting on God's command.) Since Dean, Sam, and Bobby have no idea who it is that saves dean they decide to consult a psychic who tries to conjure up the being. This ends in her eyeballs being fried out of her head. yeah, it's never a good idea to employ a psychic to conjure angels. it reminds me of saul and the medium. when will they learn?
since Castiel, the "angle of the lord" confronts Dean about the existence of God and Angels Dean wrestles with the existence of God and why bad things happen to good people, why doesn't God step down and stop all the horrible things? because, after all, Sam and Dean can't save everyone. He wrestles with the thought that God takes a specific interest in him as a person. When the angels tell him he needs to get out of town because they are going to destroy it just to keep one witch from raising the a powerful demon, on God's orders, he struggles with how God can raze thousands of people just to get rid of one. He defies them and goes on to find and destroy the demons. In the end he's told that the angels orders were never to destroy the town, their orders were to do whatever dean told them to do, but that it had been at test, and Castiel "loved people, because they were his father's beautiful creations."
As it continues Dean struggles with the concept and character of God and angels, though he sides with them when he clashes with his brother Sam, who although seems morally good, is being deceived and played like a pawn by some pretty evil demons. and he doesn't really know it.
and somewhere on that note, we left off watching supernatural that night. or maybe we watched some more, I don't remember. it was late at night, or early in the morning.