a little more about spn 5.11
Rewatching this week's episode of SPN.
I had thought the "Pudding!" part was where it started going bad (apparently this is a "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" reference? despite having seen the movie and read the book, I didn't pick up on it, possibly because it's been over 10 years) but I think instead the moment when it really starts to go bad was the scene where Sam is supposedly drugged.
A)I don't pretend to know how a psych ward would deal with this in real life, but dude attacked a doctor with a weapon. He'd probably be in full restraints and drugged to incoherency, right? B) Sam's a happy drunk? Since when? The only time we've seen him really drunk, he was maudlin and suicidal. It played like they were handing out pot in the hospital. In other words, played inappropriately humorous, for no good reason -- it was neither in character nor important to the plot for it to be funny, so it felt forced. The only true moment in that scene was Sam telling Dean he's been half-crazy since before hell, because that's fairly accurate, at least from Sam's perspective.
That's the scene where the writing crosses the line into ridiculousness and tips the writer's hand that they're not in the least bit interested in actually exploring their own premise. It makes it hard to judge simple things like whether or not Dean's therapist was supposed to be read as real the first time he runs into her and a hallucination the other times (I think the show was going for hallucination all along, but the fact that the writers wouldn't know appropriate doctor/patient interaction if it slapped them upside the head makes this ambiguous -- I mean, what professional worth her salt asks personal questions of a patient in public areas like a common room or the hallway? I think it's giving the writers too much credit to assume that was supposed to be a hint she wasn't real.)
And then the reveal that Cartwright is a hallucination starts as a good scene, but devolves into OMG DEAN THINKS HE'S CRAZY -- in all caps. A)Dean's been around enough to know that creatures can fuck with your mind, so why does he leap to thinking he's the one who's crazy? I could buy that if they'd sold it, but they don't bother and B)over the top direction is over the top. It's part of the same problem "Yellow Fever" had, in jumping straight to exaggeration instead of going for slow burn.
They overplay everything. One of the exceptions I liked was when Sam was going batshit in the common room, and the camera cuts to Dean just sitting there, watching, then murmuring "what's happening?" in a detached way. That was creepy and powerful, moreso than Dean running down the hallway and sinking into a corner because OMG CRAZY.
I think the main flaw with this episode is that a general, cliche CRAZY is used instead of a more specific, character driven one. "Yellow Fever," by the same writing team, had the same problem -- Dean's fear, at least at first, was just GENERAL FEAR. I think it played better in "Yellow Fever," because eventually those general fears tightened into the specific fears Dean was feeling at the time. That never happens in "Sam, Interrupted." The crazy stays generic.
One thing they got almost right was the different reactions to the crazy from the brothers: Sam reacting with anger, and by fighting, and Dean reacting with fear and self-doubt. But the episode was too much of a mess to really make any coherent point.
It was a wasted opportunity: the episode starts by signaling that it might explore some of the problems in Sam and Dean's relationship ("unhealthily codependent," to put it mildly) and then never goes there. Nor does it do a very good job of exploring either of the brothers' individual problems, though there are moments (Dean's conversations with Cartwright about his sense of responsibility, Sam's revelation about his anger). But overall, the good moments were overshadowed by the rest.
On that note, does anyone know of any fic that gets this kind of scenario right? There's got to be some Sam and Dean in the psych ward fics out there somewhere.
I had thought the "Pudding!" part was where it started going bad (apparently this is a "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" reference? despite having seen the movie and read the book, I didn't pick up on it, possibly because it's been over 10 years) but I think instead the moment when it really starts to go bad was the scene where Sam is supposedly drugged.
A)I don't pretend to know how a psych ward would deal with this in real life, but dude attacked a doctor with a weapon. He'd probably be in full restraints and drugged to incoherency, right? B) Sam's a happy drunk? Since when? The only time we've seen him really drunk, he was maudlin and suicidal. It played like they were handing out pot in the hospital. In other words, played inappropriately humorous, for no good reason -- it was neither in character nor important to the plot for it to be funny, so it felt forced. The only true moment in that scene was Sam telling Dean he's been half-crazy since before hell, because that's fairly accurate, at least from Sam's perspective.
That's the scene where the writing crosses the line into ridiculousness and tips the writer's hand that they're not in the least bit interested in actually exploring their own premise. It makes it hard to judge simple things like whether or not Dean's therapist was supposed to be read as real the first time he runs into her and a hallucination the other times (I think the show was going for hallucination all along, but the fact that the writers wouldn't know appropriate doctor/patient interaction if it slapped them upside the head makes this ambiguous -- I mean, what professional worth her salt asks personal questions of a patient in public areas like a common room or the hallway? I think it's giving the writers too much credit to assume that was supposed to be a hint she wasn't real.)
And then the reveal that Cartwright is a hallucination starts as a good scene, but devolves into OMG DEAN THINKS HE'S CRAZY -- in all caps. A)Dean's been around enough to know that creatures can fuck with your mind, so why does he leap to thinking he's the one who's crazy? I could buy that if they'd sold it, but they don't bother and B)over the top direction is over the top. It's part of the same problem "Yellow Fever" had, in jumping straight to exaggeration instead of going for slow burn.
They overplay everything. One of the exceptions I liked was when Sam was going batshit in the common room, and the camera cuts to Dean just sitting there, watching, then murmuring "what's happening?" in a detached way. That was creepy and powerful, moreso than Dean running down the hallway and sinking into a corner because OMG CRAZY.
I think the main flaw with this episode is that a general, cliche CRAZY is used instead of a more specific, character driven one. "Yellow Fever," by the same writing team, had the same problem -- Dean's fear, at least at first, was just GENERAL FEAR. I think it played better in "Yellow Fever," because eventually those general fears tightened into the specific fears Dean was feeling at the time. That never happens in "Sam, Interrupted." The crazy stays generic.
One thing they got almost right was the different reactions to the crazy from the brothers: Sam reacting with anger, and by fighting, and Dean reacting with fear and self-doubt. But the episode was too much of a mess to really make any coherent point.
It was a wasted opportunity: the episode starts by signaling that it might explore some of the problems in Sam and Dean's relationship ("unhealthily codependent," to put it mildly) and then never goes there. Nor does it do a very good job of exploring either of the brothers' individual problems, though there are moments (Dean's conversations with Cartwright about his sense of responsibility, Sam's revelation about his anger). But overall, the good moments were overshadowed by the rest.
On that note, does anyone know of any fic that gets this kind of scenario right? There's got to be some Sam and Dean in the psych ward fics out there somewhere.