SPN Rewatch #13
Sep. 19th, 2014 10:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
borgmama1of58.17 Good-Bye Stranger
This episode goes by really fast!
CREEPY opening of thousands of Deans killed by Cas!
Dean looking through the Men of Letters stuff at the beginning, finding the old porn mag--that is the kind of natural brotherly interaction that makes me smile, as opposed to setting up fake arguments about Stooges...
Castiel saying he is a celestial being and can hear Sam and Dean talking about him...
The lady with the curlers--I liked her and felt bad for what happened to her!
Meg! Crowley must have a hair thing, he gave Kevin a haircut when he kidnapped him, and now gives Meg a dye job?
Meg is not one of my favorite characters, but I appreciated her in this episode, her conversation with Cas and then with Sam...
The big scene in the crypt, everyone watching had to be pulling for Cas' connection with Dean to break Naomi's hold...it was hard to watch Dean looking so brutalized...
Cas breaks free...Dean's flinch when Cas reaches out to heal him, oh that hurt...
And Cas can't trust anyone, he leaves...betraying Dean yet again...
Meg's heroic end, buying time for the boys to get away. Though I don't quite understand why Crowley just let them drive off...
And we end with Dean's 'don't lie to me that you're okay, Sam' speech. Which always puzzles me, because what exactly would Dean do if Sam said, 'you know, I feel really lousy and I'm coughing up blood' besides get all frantic 'you can't do that, Sam!'
8.18 Freaks and Geeks
I am so proud of Krissy and so sad for her at the same time...
The makeout scene at the beginning was a little overdone IMO--would Krissy and Aiden really have behaved so 'in character' on a hunt? I know, it was done that way on purpose to throw the viewer completely off...
I have always loved how, when either of the boys has something critical to say to another person they always pull them aside, never call them out in front of others. I mean, that's been a character trait since the beginning, and I have always appreciated that must have been something they learned from John.
Aiden's 'do you know this guy?' and Krissy's 'we have history.' :)
There was right stuff and wrong stuff in this episode. The idea behind what Victor was doing--providing a grounded 'school for hunters,' making a family instead of having more dysfunctional on-the-fringes individuals--is not a bad idea.
It's how he went about it that is horrific.
Love Dean in full-out 'family business' mode--saving people. Not just the new vamp, but Krissy--'We don't kill people...You don't kill people!' Every fiber in his being was driving him to stop these kids from turning out like him...
And the end, when he doesn't argue with Krissy over staying--'Really? I thought I was gonna have to fight you way more on that'--he gives Krissy the respect for being her own person that he needs to learn to give his brother...
8.19 Taxi Driver
This is it.
There have been some lame episodes over the course of 8 years, some frustrating character arcs, some episodes that I can simply forget exist.
But this.
This is the only episode that makes me so angry that I cannot sit through it without yelling at the TV.
Because it's a huge, pivotal episode--the completion of the 2nd trial. And it's a mess-and what makes me so mad is that there's no reason for it to be! Everything necessary to have made this a cliffhanger episode existed. How did so many people involved with this episode let it get so appallingly bad?!?!?
WTF is the business with Kevin hearing Crowley's voice? Was it strictly Kevin hallucinating? Because I can't tell whether it's in Kevin's head or if Crowley has some new superpower.
Why not have him hear Crowley while the Winchesters are there hearing nothing? Spookier, right?
Then they have to find a way into hell, so they grab a demon and torture it with holy water and it breaks. NOOOO! First of all, this totally negates Sam's efforts trying to rescue Dean from Hell way back between seasons 3 and 4. When Dean comes back from Hell, Sam says he tried everything--except he obviously didn't think to ask a demon about getting in...
And the guy gives it up from holy water?!?! How brutally did they torture the demon back in Repo Man? Or Let it Bleed? Or lots of other times they needed info from a demon. And this just required holy water???
But the solution to finding out about rogue reapers was so basic, I can write the entire dialog:
Sam: How are we going to get into Hell? I tried, Dean, the months...years...you were down there, and there just weren't any spells or deals or...portals to do it...
Dean: You're forgetting, Sammy, we have something now you didn't then--the Men of Letters library! I'd bet Baby's hubcaps that there's something in one of those books...or boxes...that'll do the trick.
The taxi driver dude is pretty cool. Though having him ask for a future favor was a really ineffective red herring, considering Crowley kills him 2 scenes later...
So Sam is in Purgatory. And he strolls through it looking worried...and encounters exactly one nasty monster. One. Way to be scary, show. If they didn't have the budget or time to stage fight scenes, how about showing Sam wiping his blade with bodies at his feet and a little blood on his face???
One monster.
And then there's Hell. And it starts out promising, with all the tortured souls asking Sam to save them. The creepy girl repeating over and over, 'I knew you'd come.' But Sam plows on past, right to Bobby's unlocked door. And Bobby isn't even a little damaged. WTF again?!?!
Where's the scariness of Hell? Where's the torture Bobby's been suffering? I mean, why were the other souls grotesquely mangled and Bobby is merely dirty? Yeah, psychological torture of having him see Sam and Dean...but why not have the fake boys hurt him? I mean, just walking in and saying 'Hi Bobby' and flashing black eyes? Even 200 times in a row, so what???
This episode should have been big! It should have mangled my heart with the hurt! Tied me in knots with anxiety over whether Sam was going to succeed! Not leaving me going huh? That's it?
Oh yeah, what was the deal with Sam leaving his watch as a marker for the door? Wouldn't it have made infinitely more sense to leave some other item, and have the watch to check for the whole 'running out of time' pressure of finding Bobby in Hell's huge prison? Oh, I forgot, Sam just followed the bloody red brick road right to Bobby.
Finally, a good moment in Hell--two Sams and Bobby has to make a split second decision which one to kill. That was nerve-wracking. Well, it could have been if if lasted longer than a blink...
THEN THEY WALK OUT OF HELL AND LEAVE THE FRIGGIN' DOOR OPEN!!!
I. Have. No. Words.
Now we get some supposed to be 'aww, Bobby' conversation between him and Sam, but it's just...forced. And letting us know that if the writers can think of another way to bring Bobby back they will because TPTB are feeling regret over killing his popular character.
Finally, a real Purgatory fight! Whoo-hoo! And Benny saves the day...And I mean literally, the scene between Dean and Benny in the alley was perfection--both of them perfectly in character, feeling the emotions but stuffing them down because that's the way they roll, and yet Dean's pain, knowing what he was asking, Benny's assurance that it's okay...Take that scene and rewrite the rest of the whole damn episode around it, for pity's sake!
And Benny, back in Purgatory with Sam--we get a glimpse of Sam getting his eyes opened about Benny. Finally. And it is in Winchester character for a reevaluation of whether someone is a friend or a monster to happen at the last minute under duress.
A hug! We get a spontaneous hug from Dean for Sam when Sam returns from Purgatory! Yay!!!
And then there's Crowley, and Naomi, and blah--blah--blah and the trial gets done. And Sam says he understands Dean's relationship with Benny a little better now.
This could have been such an epic episode...but instead of being drained from tension and emotions, I'm exhausted from being frustrated.
Sigh.
ETA: Go read kalliel's alternate take on this episode! http://kalliel.livejournal.com/294349.html She provided some perspective that at least lets me pretend it was supposed to be like this...
7.20 LARP and the Real Girl
So they follow up the most disappointing episode in the show's history with one that is pretty much perfection...
Dean in uniform as the opening sure gets our attention...
Everything that happens here flows from the characters reacting exactly in character to a scary--and then heartbreaking--scenario.
The funny--Charlie bringing up Carver Edlund's books and the boys' reactions...Charlie's monster chart on her tablet--and it being trumped by Dad's journal :)...Charlie nailing the target at the shooting range...the dressing room montage...the unbreakable coroner--all delightfully humorous.
The scary--Sam not being able to shoot...Charlie trying to keep the coroner from finding the boys in the morgue...the djinn getting Charlie...
The fantastical--the whole game in Charlie's mind...
The heart-breaking--when Charlie explains about her mom...Dean gets it...but still says she has to let her go...Charlie waking up and crying in Dean's arms...Charlie reading to her mom the last time...
I confess that I was crying too.
And bonus perfect--Dean's good-bye to Charlie--"I love you" "I know" and then he goes into the bunker where Sam starts to apologize for not listening to Dean and Dean just goes up and gives Sam the only 'just-because-not-connected-with-tragedy' hug in the show ever.
My heart...
This episode goes by really fast!
CREEPY opening of thousands of Deans killed by Cas!
Dean looking through the Men of Letters stuff at the beginning, finding the old porn mag--that is the kind of natural brotherly interaction that makes me smile, as opposed to setting up fake arguments about Stooges...
Castiel saying he is a celestial being and can hear Sam and Dean talking about him...
The lady with the curlers--I liked her and felt bad for what happened to her!
Meg! Crowley must have a hair thing, he gave Kevin a haircut when he kidnapped him, and now gives Meg a dye job?
Meg is not one of my favorite characters, but I appreciated her in this episode, her conversation with Cas and then with Sam...
The big scene in the crypt, everyone watching had to be pulling for Cas' connection with Dean to break Naomi's hold...it was hard to watch Dean looking so brutalized...
Cas breaks free...Dean's flinch when Cas reaches out to heal him, oh that hurt...
And Cas can't trust anyone, he leaves...betraying Dean yet again...
Meg's heroic end, buying time for the boys to get away. Though I don't quite understand why Crowley just let them drive off...
And we end with Dean's 'don't lie to me that you're okay, Sam' speech. Which always puzzles me, because what exactly would Dean do if Sam said, 'you know, I feel really lousy and I'm coughing up blood' besides get all frantic 'you can't do that, Sam!'
8.18 Freaks and Geeks
I am so proud of Krissy and so sad for her at the same time...
The makeout scene at the beginning was a little overdone IMO--would Krissy and Aiden really have behaved so 'in character' on a hunt? I know, it was done that way on purpose to throw the viewer completely off...
I have always loved how, when either of the boys has something critical to say to another person they always pull them aside, never call them out in front of others. I mean, that's been a character trait since the beginning, and I have always appreciated that must have been something they learned from John.
Aiden's 'do you know this guy?' and Krissy's 'we have history.' :)
There was right stuff and wrong stuff in this episode. The idea behind what Victor was doing--providing a grounded 'school for hunters,' making a family instead of having more dysfunctional on-the-fringes individuals--is not a bad idea.
It's how he went about it that is horrific.
Love Dean in full-out 'family business' mode--saving people. Not just the new vamp, but Krissy--'We don't kill people...You don't kill people!' Every fiber in his being was driving him to stop these kids from turning out like him...
And the end, when he doesn't argue with Krissy over staying--'Really? I thought I was gonna have to fight you way more on that'--he gives Krissy the respect for being her own person that he needs to learn to give his brother...
8.19 Taxi Driver
This is it.
There have been some lame episodes over the course of 8 years, some frustrating character arcs, some episodes that I can simply forget exist.
But this.
This is the only episode that makes me so angry that I cannot sit through it without yelling at the TV.
Because it's a huge, pivotal episode--the completion of the 2nd trial. And it's a mess-and what makes me so mad is that there's no reason for it to be! Everything necessary to have made this a cliffhanger episode existed. How did so many people involved with this episode let it get so appallingly bad?!?!?
WTF is the business with Kevin hearing Crowley's voice? Was it strictly Kevin hallucinating? Because I can't tell whether it's in Kevin's head or if Crowley has some new superpower.
Why not have him hear Crowley while the Winchesters are there hearing nothing? Spookier, right?
Then they have to find a way into hell, so they grab a demon and torture it with holy water and it breaks. NOOOO! First of all, this totally negates Sam's efforts trying to rescue Dean from Hell way back between seasons 3 and 4. When Dean comes back from Hell, Sam says he tried everything--except he obviously didn't think to ask a demon about getting in...
And the guy gives it up from holy water?!?! How brutally did they torture the demon back in Repo Man? Or Let it Bleed? Or lots of other times they needed info from a demon. And this just required holy water???
But the solution to finding out about rogue reapers was so basic, I can write the entire dialog:
Sam: How are we going to get into Hell? I tried, Dean, the months...years...you were down there, and there just weren't any spells or deals or...portals to do it...
Dean: You're forgetting, Sammy, we have something now you didn't then--the Men of Letters library! I'd bet Baby's hubcaps that there's something in one of those books...or boxes...that'll do the trick.
The taxi driver dude is pretty cool. Though having him ask for a future favor was a really ineffective red herring, considering Crowley kills him 2 scenes later...
So Sam is in Purgatory. And he strolls through it looking worried...and encounters exactly one nasty monster. One. Way to be scary, show. If they didn't have the budget or time to stage fight scenes, how about showing Sam wiping his blade with bodies at his feet and a little blood on his face???
One monster.
And then there's Hell. And it starts out promising, with all the tortured souls asking Sam to save them. The creepy girl repeating over and over, 'I knew you'd come.' But Sam plows on past, right to Bobby's unlocked door. And Bobby isn't even a little damaged. WTF again?!?!
Where's the scariness of Hell? Where's the torture Bobby's been suffering? I mean, why were the other souls grotesquely mangled and Bobby is merely dirty? Yeah, psychological torture of having him see Sam and Dean...but why not have the fake boys hurt him? I mean, just walking in and saying 'Hi Bobby' and flashing black eyes? Even 200 times in a row, so what???
This episode should have been big! It should have mangled my heart with the hurt! Tied me in knots with anxiety over whether Sam was going to succeed! Not leaving me going huh? That's it?
Oh yeah, what was the deal with Sam leaving his watch as a marker for the door? Wouldn't it have made infinitely more sense to leave some other item, and have the watch to check for the whole 'running out of time' pressure of finding Bobby in Hell's huge prison? Oh, I forgot, Sam just followed the bloody red brick road right to Bobby.
Finally, a good moment in Hell--two Sams and Bobby has to make a split second decision which one to kill. That was nerve-wracking. Well, it could have been if if lasted longer than a blink...
THEN THEY WALK OUT OF HELL AND LEAVE THE FRIGGIN' DOOR OPEN!!!
I. Have. No. Words.
Now we get some supposed to be 'aww, Bobby' conversation between him and Sam, but it's just...forced. And letting us know that if the writers can think of another way to bring Bobby back they will because TPTB are feeling regret over killing his popular character.
Finally, a real Purgatory fight! Whoo-hoo! And Benny saves the day...And I mean literally, the scene between Dean and Benny in the alley was perfection--both of them perfectly in character, feeling the emotions but stuffing them down because that's the way they roll, and yet Dean's pain, knowing what he was asking, Benny's assurance that it's okay...Take that scene and rewrite the rest of the whole damn episode around it, for pity's sake!
And Benny, back in Purgatory with Sam--we get a glimpse of Sam getting his eyes opened about Benny. Finally. And it is in Winchester character for a reevaluation of whether someone is a friend or a monster to happen at the last minute under duress.
A hug! We get a spontaneous hug from Dean for Sam when Sam returns from Purgatory! Yay!!!
And then there's Crowley, and Naomi, and blah--blah--blah and the trial gets done. And Sam says he understands Dean's relationship with Benny a little better now.
This could have been such an epic episode...but instead of being drained from tension and emotions, I'm exhausted from being frustrated.
Sigh.
ETA: Go read kalliel's alternate take on this episode! http://kalliel.livejournal.com/294349.html She provided some perspective that at least lets me pretend it was supposed to be like this...
7.20 LARP and the Real Girl
So they follow up the most disappointing episode in the show's history with one that is pretty much perfection...
Dean in uniform as the opening sure gets our attention...
Everything that happens here flows from the characters reacting exactly in character to a scary--and then heartbreaking--scenario.
The funny--Charlie bringing up Carver Edlund's books and the boys' reactions...Charlie's monster chart on her tablet--and it being trumped by Dad's journal :)...Charlie nailing the target at the shooting range...the dressing room montage...the unbreakable coroner--all delightfully humorous.
The scary--Sam not being able to shoot...Charlie trying to keep the coroner from finding the boys in the morgue...the djinn getting Charlie...
The fantastical--the whole game in Charlie's mind...
The heart-breaking--when Charlie explains about her mom...Dean gets it...but still says she has to let her go...Charlie waking up and crying in Dean's arms...Charlie reading to her mom the last time...
I confess that I was crying too.
And bonus perfect--Dean's good-bye to Charlie--"I love you" "I know" and then he goes into the bunker where Sam starts to apologize for not listening to Dean and Dean just goes up and gives Sam the only 'just-because-not-connected-with-tragedy' hug in the show ever.
My heart...
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Date: 2014-09-20 07:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-09-20 11:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-09-21 02:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-09-20 01:27 pm (UTC)I apparently have a lot of thoughts about 8x19, so I moved them here instead of non-conning you/your comments section with them. XD
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Date: 2014-09-21 02:18 am (UTC)Because how much would it hurt, and how hard would it be to deal with, the realization that these massive, traumatic experiences you've had in the past, and all these challenges you failed to surmount, did not exceed, and were crushed mercilessly beneath... have been clear-cut flat and neutered? The thing that nearly destroyed you, in ruins...
your mind can't account for the shift--you don't see, or you disbelieve, the temporal distance that separates past experience and now...So when you look at the ruins of Hell, this tepid mess, all you can think is what the fuck is wrong with you, that that's the thing that hurt you. The thing that you will never really "get over."
Genius interpretation.
Not that the writers intended it, but I will use it in my headcanon, thank you!
no subject
Date: 2014-09-26 10:53 pm (UTC)