6.14 Review
6.14 ‘Mannequin 3: the reckoning” Review
So, I confess I had to dig a little to understand what the hell was that title all about. Turns out, there are two Mannequin movies, which makes this the third... I guess.
And here I was, hoping that they were going the Twilight Zone way, with the mannequin coming to life and believing that she was human only to be trapped inside the mall by all those other mannequins that didn’t get to be ‘real boys’.
It was very satisfying to see the episode pick up right where the other had left us, you know, hanging from that cliff.
The effect of Hell shrinking back into Sam’s eye, a sort of reverse shot of what we saw in ‘No rest for the wicked’ was wickedly (pardon my pun) cool!
And Dean, growing progressively desperate with Sam unresponsive self was very much like the end of ‘All hell’s break loose 1’, with the broken voice calling out to Sammy and the fumbling, completely at lost on what to do. So, nothing gets your heart broken faster than a call back to two episodes where, on turn, both leads died.
The pills were a nice touch. Dean has obviously been using them when hell memories get worse (see? I told you we’d get to learn more about Dean’s PTSD through Sam’s struggles with the same) and he even tells us that they work, so... good for him. Now, whether he got them through some black market channel (the most likely scenario) or if he actually saw someone for them is something that we may never find out, but the possibilities are definitely there.
Dean still insists on the same jokes in Valentine’s Day *g* ‘be my valentine?’ and ‘have a heart!’ were absolutely priceless... and maybe a bit of a desperate attempt on Dean’s part to prove to Sam that every thing is exactly the same as before.
The fact that we had the Valentine’s Day call back gains particular importance because of what happens later in between Dean, Lisa and Ben.
Dean doesn’t want to pick up the phone and talk to Lisa, especially not on such a meaningful period as that surrounding the 14th of February. And when he drops everything and actually goes to see Lisa, we can assume that she was on a date, but not any date... a Valentine’s Day date. And we all know that the best way to end such a date (which she either cancelled or was returning from - also meaningful on that day and that would imply that she’s not that into ‘Matt, the doctor’) is to have your ex knocking on the door late at night, right?
Lisa and Dean both sending Ben to his room was very endearing. The kid was obviously grounded after the stunt he’d pull, but the fact that they spoke in unison was incredibly domestic and spoke, more than anything, about who Ben’s parents are and what Dean feels for that kid. The shy almost-smile after the yell was sweet, kind of a ‘you messed up, kiddo, but I’m really happy to see you again’.
Ben was sweet beyond words, even if it was kind of a cheap trick that he used to get Dean to come back. But then again, he’s a teenager boy watching his mom getting involved with another man that may come to occupy Dean’s position in Ben’s life and the kid just fought the only way he could to stop that.
The scene in Ben’s room was the highlight of this episode for me. Dean, honey, you really need some serious therapy, like... yesterday!
So, the big reason why you can’t be with the woman you love (as he finally said himself) and the kid you see as your own son is because... you’re a bad influence? Because Ben will grow up to be just like you? Which is... bad? Am I getting this right, Dean?
Yeah, honey... you need banana-pills for the head, because the chimps upstairs aren’t doing their job right.
This is what broke my heart in ‘You can’t handle the truth’, this lesser way in which Dean sees himself, the way he so easily equals himself to some monstrous killer, a presence so vile and damaged that he will rotten everything around him.
And Dean, being who he is, would think that of himself, despite what we (and the rest of the frigging world) know.
Dean never truly dealt with what he did in Hell. We got glimpses of what he was going through, we saw some of the effects it had on his personality, but he never made his peace with it, because there never really was time for him to do that (with Lucifer running errands and trying to break the world and all that). And even Dean’s year with Lisa and Ben (and I’m purely guessing at this point) was more about surviving than healing and something that, I’m sure, Dean saw as temporary because it was just too good to be true (hallucination!Azazel said as much, which means that Dean was thinking it).
So, in Dean’s eyes, he’s still that broken, bloodthirsty thing that Alastair worked so hard to create, he’s still the guy who picked up a blade and tortured souls for 10 years. The fact that he kills things for a living doesn’t help much...
Dean leaves Lisa without an answer (because he can’t really tell her what he wants -lack of practice and all that-) and he leaves Ben hanging, even if the kid calls him out on his walking out on his family (outch!). Everything wide opened for the time when we get some answers to those questions.
When I got my breathe back after that one, I realized that this was a good thing and also a reason why Dean needs grandpa Campbell in his life.
Confused?
Good *g*
This is a good thing (at least for those who want to see Dean with a normal life and home with Lisa and Ben) because nothing was resolved (actually, this was the episode for that) but a lot came into light.
Lisa still loves Dean even if, understandably, she can’t put her life on standby waiting for him to make up his mind; Dean loves Lisa and Ben, he just doesn’t see himself as a good influence in their lives; and Ben sees Dean as a father, the father he wants to have because clearly the kid is smarter than Dean and has seen something that Dean’s kind of blind about.
Lisa’s reasoning that having Dean around would make her constantly worry about his wellbeing is... well, laughable, and I think that she’s only fooling herself with that one. The very fact that she next confesses that she worries when the phone rings, thinking that its Sam telling her that Dean is dead, tell us that she’s full of crap and does worry about Dean, regardless of his presence or not. So, woman, do yourself a favor and take some honey with that sour, because just as long as you’re taking the angst of wondering if Dean’s dead or alive, you might as well sweeten it with some prime quality nookie.
And Dean...
Well apart from all the therapy that he seriously needs to stop seeing himself as the thing from the Black Lagoon, he needs the example of a hunter who managed to start a family and who actually made it work and had a happy life with his wife and daughter up until the moment that Azazel decided to ruin it. Namely... grandpa Campbell.
Oh, I’m sure they’ll clash eventually. After all, Dean always keeps his promises. But Dean’s not going to kill a member of his own family; he won’t even kill a fellow human being unless it’s in self-defense. So, they’ll talk. Eventually. And maybe the Samuel we saw in Sam’s flashback, the one who came back pretty much in the same personality-condition of the one we saw in ‘In the beginning’ will pop his bald head back and enjoy the fact that he lost a wife and a daughter, but gained two grandsons in the process.
And maybe grandpa will finally live up to title and give his confused grandson some sage advice on how to hunt monsters and go home at the end of day.
The hunt itself was... okay, I guess. Apparently, everyone was hungry for some good old ghost story with the Winchesters, like the ones we had in season 1. Not necessarily my favorite thing (not when the show has come so far after that), but like I said, okay enough.
The idea of the ghost possessing things was cool, especially when the things that Rose Brown picked to do her dirty work were freaky dummies and dolls. The first one had me laughing really hard, because the things that those poor anatomy dolls endure... it’s no wonder that one decided to come back and get his sweet revenge.
The mannequin was just spooky! There is something about a faceless plastic head that scares the crap out of me. And the sex doll... spooky for a whole bunch of different reasons. And that was before she killed the guy! Come to think of it, that was one dude who certainly died happy. I mean, he was already living under the impression that his sex doll was an actual person, so to have that come true... must’ve been fun up until the part where she suffocated the hell out of him (which, also... well, you know what happens to a guy when his brain gets cut off from oxygen like that, right? The last big rise of the flag? The flight of the salmon? No? Okay...)
And man... those guys certainly deserved what they got. I mean, jackass is not what I would call a group of guys that lures a woman into an empty apartment under false pretenses. That shit was a crime even before they actually killed her!
And just how naïve and desperate does one woman needs to be to agree to a date with an unknown man in some random apartment? Really? Do people with fully functional brains actually do that?
So, yeah, everyone but the sister who survived kind of had it coming in the end.
Speaking of the end. Man... I have so many problems with the end of this episode. Sorry to say, show, but that was some very poor writing chops there.
So, you wanna put in a cool twist about the last remains of the ghost and come up with the ol’haunted transplanted kidney.
That’s cool.
It’s a really fresh and out-there idea. Its cool especially for all the problems it raises because how the hell are they gonna pull that sock out?
So, why did the writers, instead of working their brains out a bit and coming up with an equally cool solution, simply resorted to killing Isabel Brown in the freakiest accident that I’ve ever seen?
Honestly, that piece of glass must’ve had a built-in pilot to travel that far and lodge itself right on her kidney.
And notice that, despite the fact that Dean WAS RIGHT FRIGGING THERE, he was A-ok, and the girl, who was waaaaaay back from the exploding glass, got sheehs-kabobed?
And do call me a geek for this, but wouldn’t they have to actually salt and burn the kidney for the ghost to finally disappear? Or did the ghost had some deep seethed rage against the sister that watching her die was enough for the ghost to move on?
I don’t know... it just seemed like the easy way out for me.
And I’m not even going to blame the new writers for it (Charmelo and Snyder) because the whole episode felt like they were given the task to take the characters from point A to point A, without compromises and without actually leading them anywhere, so... I guess there was so much they could do with it.
Still... easy way outs in writing is not a good thing. You guys are supposed to be professionals... you should know this shit ;)
All in all... it was a meewahh epsiode, kind of like ’Red sky at the morning’ as in it had its shiny moments but in the end leaves you with a sort of bad taste in the mouth.
So, I confess I had to dig a little to understand what the hell was that title all about. Turns out, there are two Mannequin movies, which makes this the third... I guess.
And here I was, hoping that they were going the Twilight Zone way, with the mannequin coming to life and believing that she was human only to be trapped inside the mall by all those other mannequins that didn’t get to be ‘real boys’.
It was very satisfying to see the episode pick up right where the other had left us, you know, hanging from that cliff.
The effect of Hell shrinking back into Sam’s eye, a sort of reverse shot of what we saw in ‘No rest for the wicked’ was wickedly (pardon my pun) cool!
And Dean, growing progressively desperate with Sam unresponsive self was very much like the end of ‘All hell’s break loose 1’, with the broken voice calling out to Sammy and the fumbling, completely at lost on what to do. So, nothing gets your heart broken faster than a call back to two episodes where, on turn, both leads died.
The pills were a nice touch. Dean has obviously been using them when hell memories get worse (see? I told you we’d get to learn more about Dean’s PTSD through Sam’s struggles with the same) and he even tells us that they work, so... good for him. Now, whether he got them through some black market channel (the most likely scenario) or if he actually saw someone for them is something that we may never find out, but the possibilities are definitely there.
Dean still insists on the same jokes in Valentine’s Day *g* ‘be my valentine?’ and ‘have a heart!’ were absolutely priceless... and maybe a bit of a desperate attempt on Dean’s part to prove to Sam that every thing is exactly the same as before.
The fact that we had the Valentine’s Day call back gains particular importance because of what happens later in between Dean, Lisa and Ben.
Dean doesn’t want to pick up the phone and talk to Lisa, especially not on such a meaningful period as that surrounding the 14th of February. And when he drops everything and actually goes to see Lisa, we can assume that she was on a date, but not any date... a Valentine’s Day date. And we all know that the best way to end such a date (which she either cancelled or was returning from - also meaningful on that day and that would imply that she’s not that into ‘Matt, the doctor’) is to have your ex knocking on the door late at night, right?
Lisa and Dean both sending Ben to his room was very endearing. The kid was obviously grounded after the stunt he’d pull, but the fact that they spoke in unison was incredibly domestic and spoke, more than anything, about who Ben’s parents are and what Dean feels for that kid. The shy almost-smile after the yell was sweet, kind of a ‘you messed up, kiddo, but I’m really happy to see you again’.
Ben was sweet beyond words, even if it was kind of a cheap trick that he used to get Dean to come back. But then again, he’s a teenager boy watching his mom getting involved with another man that may come to occupy Dean’s position in Ben’s life and the kid just fought the only way he could to stop that.
The scene in Ben’s room was the highlight of this episode for me. Dean, honey, you really need some serious therapy, like... yesterday!
So, the big reason why you can’t be with the woman you love (as he finally said himself) and the kid you see as your own son is because... you’re a bad influence? Because Ben will grow up to be just like you? Which is... bad? Am I getting this right, Dean?
Yeah, honey... you need banana-pills for the head, because the chimps upstairs aren’t doing their job right.
This is what broke my heart in ‘You can’t handle the truth’, this lesser way in which Dean sees himself, the way he so easily equals himself to some monstrous killer, a presence so vile and damaged that he will rotten everything around him.
And Dean, being who he is, would think that of himself, despite what we (and the rest of the frigging world) know.
Dean never truly dealt with what he did in Hell. We got glimpses of what he was going through, we saw some of the effects it had on his personality, but he never made his peace with it, because there never really was time for him to do that (with Lucifer running errands and trying to break the world and all that). And even Dean’s year with Lisa and Ben (and I’m purely guessing at this point) was more about surviving than healing and something that, I’m sure, Dean saw as temporary because it was just too good to be true (hallucination!Azazel said as much, which means that Dean was thinking it).
So, in Dean’s eyes, he’s still that broken, bloodthirsty thing that Alastair worked so hard to create, he’s still the guy who picked up a blade and tortured souls for 10 years. The fact that he kills things for a living doesn’t help much...
Dean leaves Lisa without an answer (because he can’t really tell her what he wants -lack of practice and all that-) and he leaves Ben hanging, even if the kid calls him out on his walking out on his family (outch!). Everything wide opened for the time when we get some answers to those questions.
When I got my breathe back after that one, I realized that this was a good thing and also a reason why Dean needs grandpa Campbell in his life.
Confused?
Good *g*
This is a good thing (at least for those who want to see Dean with a normal life and home with Lisa and Ben) because nothing was resolved (actually, this was the episode for that) but a lot came into light.
Lisa still loves Dean even if, understandably, she can’t put her life on standby waiting for him to make up his mind; Dean loves Lisa and Ben, he just doesn’t see himself as a good influence in their lives; and Ben sees Dean as a father, the father he wants to have because clearly the kid is smarter than Dean and has seen something that Dean’s kind of blind about.
Lisa’s reasoning that having Dean around would make her constantly worry about his wellbeing is... well, laughable, and I think that she’s only fooling herself with that one. The very fact that she next confesses that she worries when the phone rings, thinking that its Sam telling her that Dean is dead, tell us that she’s full of crap and does worry about Dean, regardless of his presence or not. So, woman, do yourself a favor and take some honey with that sour, because just as long as you’re taking the angst of wondering if Dean’s dead or alive, you might as well sweeten it with some prime quality nookie.
And Dean...
Well apart from all the therapy that he seriously needs to stop seeing himself as the thing from the Black Lagoon, he needs the example of a hunter who managed to start a family and who actually made it work and had a happy life with his wife and daughter up until the moment that Azazel decided to ruin it. Namely... grandpa Campbell.
Oh, I’m sure they’ll clash eventually. After all, Dean always keeps his promises. But Dean’s not going to kill a member of his own family; he won’t even kill a fellow human being unless it’s in self-defense. So, they’ll talk. Eventually. And maybe the Samuel we saw in Sam’s flashback, the one who came back pretty much in the same personality-condition of the one we saw in ‘In the beginning’ will pop his bald head back and enjoy the fact that he lost a wife and a daughter, but gained two grandsons in the process.
And maybe grandpa will finally live up to title and give his confused grandson some sage advice on how to hunt monsters and go home at the end of day.
The hunt itself was... okay, I guess. Apparently, everyone was hungry for some good old ghost story with the Winchesters, like the ones we had in season 1. Not necessarily my favorite thing (not when the show has come so far after that), but like I said, okay enough.
The idea of the ghost possessing things was cool, especially when the things that Rose Brown picked to do her dirty work were freaky dummies and dolls. The first one had me laughing really hard, because the things that those poor anatomy dolls endure... it’s no wonder that one decided to come back and get his sweet revenge.
The mannequin was just spooky! There is something about a faceless plastic head that scares the crap out of me. And the sex doll... spooky for a whole bunch of different reasons. And that was before she killed the guy! Come to think of it, that was one dude who certainly died happy. I mean, he was already living under the impression that his sex doll was an actual person, so to have that come true... must’ve been fun up until the part where she suffocated the hell out of him (which, also... well, you know what happens to a guy when his brain gets cut off from oxygen like that, right? The last big rise of the flag? The flight of the salmon? No? Okay...)
And man... those guys certainly deserved what they got. I mean, jackass is not what I would call a group of guys that lures a woman into an empty apartment under false pretenses. That shit was a crime even before they actually killed her!
And just how naïve and desperate does one woman needs to be to agree to a date with an unknown man in some random apartment? Really? Do people with fully functional brains actually do that?
So, yeah, everyone but the sister who survived kind of had it coming in the end.
Speaking of the end. Man... I have so many problems with the end of this episode. Sorry to say, show, but that was some very poor writing chops there.
So, you wanna put in a cool twist about the last remains of the ghost and come up with the ol’haunted transplanted kidney.
That’s cool.
It’s a really fresh and out-there idea. Its cool especially for all the problems it raises because how the hell are they gonna pull that sock out?
So, why did the writers, instead of working their brains out a bit and coming up with an equally cool solution, simply resorted to killing Isabel Brown in the freakiest accident that I’ve ever seen?
Honestly, that piece of glass must’ve had a built-in pilot to travel that far and lodge itself right on her kidney.
And notice that, despite the fact that Dean WAS RIGHT FRIGGING THERE, he was A-ok, and the girl, who was waaaaaay back from the exploding glass, got sheehs-kabobed?
And do call me a geek for this, but wouldn’t they have to actually salt and burn the kidney for the ghost to finally disappear? Or did the ghost had some deep seethed rage against the sister that watching her die was enough for the ghost to move on?
I don’t know... it just seemed like the easy way out for me.
And I’m not even going to blame the new writers for it (Charmelo and Snyder) because the whole episode felt like they were given the task to take the characters from point A to point A, without compromises and without actually leading them anywhere, so... I guess there was so much they could do with it.
Still... easy way outs in writing is not a good thing. You guys are supposed to be professionals... you should know this shit ;)
All in all... it was a meewahh epsiode, kind of like ’Red sky at the morning’ as in it had its shiny moments but in the end leaves you with a sort of bad taste in the mouth.