SPN 8.07 Reaction-thingy
I didn't hate it?
[click for tl:dr with images & spoilers]
I'm trying to get into the headspace of watching the season we're getting instead of the season in my mind. I feel like there were so many interesting and exciting places the story could have gone, and what we're getting is mostly quite dull. Take Crowley, for instance, as the Big Bad: he's coming across rather Bond Villain, no? He's best, I find, in small doses, and as the enemy-of-your-enemy, whom you know will double-cross you at some point, but whose help is very useful in the meantime. The banal smarminess of his evil works best that way - making him King of Hell made him much less interesting. And the way he keeps getting thwarted every week is starting to get ridiculous. Next week I expect him to tie Kevin to a railroad track while twirling his moustaches and cackling.
Kevin would look very fetching in a flapper dress. Just sayin'
And speaking of Kevin: I love him. And his mother. I think the Trans are lovely additions to the cast, and I enjoy them a great deal. But there is something about having the main season-arc being a straight-up MacGuffin quest, handed to them by someone we just met, which adds to the feeling of silliness. It should be good, having Sam and Dean get a chance to do something pro-active for a change, but somehow the stakes just don't feel high enough. Maybe if Crowley were threatening a takeover of Earth, or something? But as it is, it seems like if they didn't bother with the quest, the result would be pretty much the status quo. So it's hard to get too excited about it.
And the Purgatory stuff looked awesome, but there was not much substance to it, just a lot of desaturated shots of Dean & friends playing paintball in the forests of Caprica. Benny turned out to be the vampirate with the Harlequin backstory and the heart of gold, and thus the least interesting new character on this show in ages. And there seemed to be a set-up for dealing with Dean's PTSD, his harder edge, and that has just fizzled and gone nowhere.
I do see the aesthetic appeal of Purgatory.
Right, I was trying to say something nice, wasn't I? Damn it. I did like the sense of affection between Sam and Dean in this episode (even if it was MAJOR whiplash from last week, to the point where I wondered if they'd aired the episodes out of order). Just, IDK, that scene where Dean is staring out the window at night, and Sam is apparently woken by the sound of him angsting, and gets up to comfort him, and Dean talks about his ~feelings~, and Sam pats him on the back in a manly way, and then heads for a pee before it all gets too mushy. I liked it, OK? I'm easy like that. I really wish they'd thrown in a few small moments like that earlier in the season, before they got to the big fight.
There was some really interesting Dean-insight here, too. Much as the "big reveal" about Purgatory was not exactly exciting or unexpected dramatically, there was a pretty big emotional payoff. I mean, we've always known Dean had a martyr complex, but the idea that his sense of guilt and responsibility is strong enough to alter his own memories? Wow. And ow. Dean will literally choose to remember things in such a way that he can feel guilty about the actions of others. It is at once incredibly, breathtakingly endearing, and insanely selfish. And it explains a lot about certain things: he has trouble accepting the choices of others, doesn't he? Ego boundaries, Dean. You are not the people you love. And of course he can't handle the idea that Sam let him down, because Sam is an extension of himself, and Sam's failures are, in fact, Dean's failures. *
Plus I enjoyed the return of creepy!stalker Cas, because he's basically this dirty old man in a trenchcoat who likes to perve on watch the Winchesters sleep. Or whatever ;) And who can blame him, really?
I like to watch them too, Cas.
The other thing I found interesting was the introduction of Naomi and the Metatron stuff. Naomi is an archangel, maybe? Or working for one? A lot of juice, anyway. Enough to pull Cas out of Purgatory, and to fuck with his memories. And she's interested in the Winchesters, specifically. Which seems to bring them back to the centre of the story. Plus, when you combine "immensely powerful angel who likes to alter memories" with Sam's (and the text's) vagueness about what exactly happened between the moment Dean vanished and the moment he hit that dog, it starts to look rather interesting. Add in the mysterious shadowy figure watching Sam's house, and his seeming lack of surprise at finding Dean, even though he apparently wasn't expecting him. Plus Benny's comment about the portal: "They told me it would be here." They who? Angels? Was that rescue attempt number one?
The main thing which has been bothering me this season (yes, aside from all that other stuff!) is that I haven't been able to make Sam make sense to me. There is a gap between this moment:
gif stolen shamelessly from someone on tumblr
And this one:
screencap by caffienekitty
Which has not been filled in by either Sam himself, or the text. I mean, we know what Sam looks like when he's lost and broken, and it's not like this:
The first time I saw the picnic flashback, with all the bright colours and oversaturation, I thought it looked like Heaven. It's exactly the same filters and lighting they use for Heaven scenes, like the park Castiel used to visit. Now I'm wondering if that was entirely co-incidental. There are many possibilities, from Amelia being an angel or the whole thing being an implanted memory, to Sam making a deal of some kind with Naomi to get Dean out of Purgatory, or just her implanting a conviction of Dean's death in Sam's mind. In any case, I do believe that we will get an explanation of some kind for what actually happened to Sam after Dean disappeared, and I'm actually pretty interested to see it.
she has people watch the Winchesters for her. Kinky!
It was not a great episode by any stretch, and bits of it were pretty silly. I'm so over Crowley, and the Escape From Purgatory turned out to be a giant anticlimax, and I like Cas well enough but really don't care about his manpain. And there wasn't enough Sam, though I liked the Sam we got. But - I really liked the glimpse of the inside of Dean's head (MUCH scarier than Purgatory!). And I like Naomi, and I'm interested in her agenda, and I like the sense that there's further mystery about Sam, that all that won't just be skipped over. I have the sense that there will be both emotional and plotty follow-up, and that maybe both Sam & Dean will gain some emotional insight out of it. Which - boy, do they ever need it.
***********
*ETA: Thinking about the fight last week in light of this is interesting. Dean tells Sam "Those aren't mistakes, those are choices." Which - firstly, what is a mistake but a bad choice, and secondly, while some of those things were choices, others were not. Losing his soul was not a choice Sam made, good or bad: it was something that was done to him. Sam was the primary victim there, not Dean. And the mistake, the bad choice, was made by Cas. And again, Dean is casting himself in memory as the primary victim of Castiel's betrayal, but it was Sam's soul he lost (by accident) and Sam's mind he broke (on purpose).
Dear Dean: your brother is not an extension of you.
***********
[click for tl:dr with images & spoilers]
I'm trying to get into the headspace of watching the season we're getting instead of the season in my mind. I feel like there were so many interesting and exciting places the story could have gone, and what we're getting is mostly quite dull. Take Crowley, for instance, as the Big Bad: he's coming across rather Bond Villain, no? He's best, I find, in small doses, and as the enemy-of-your-enemy, whom you know will double-cross you at some point, but whose help is very useful in the meantime. The banal smarminess of his evil works best that way - making him King of Hell made him much less interesting. And the way he keeps getting thwarted every week is starting to get ridiculous. Next week I expect him to tie Kevin to a railroad track while twirling his moustaches and cackling.
Kevin would look very fetching in a flapper dress. Just sayin'
And speaking of Kevin: I love him. And his mother. I think the Trans are lovely additions to the cast, and I enjoy them a great deal. But there is something about having the main season-arc being a straight-up MacGuffin quest, handed to them by someone we just met, which adds to the feeling of silliness. It should be good, having Sam and Dean get a chance to do something pro-active for a change, but somehow the stakes just don't feel high enough. Maybe if Crowley were threatening a takeover of Earth, or something? But as it is, it seems like if they didn't bother with the quest, the result would be pretty much the status quo. So it's hard to get too excited about it.
And the Purgatory stuff looked awesome, but there was not much substance to it, just a lot of desaturated shots of Dean & friends playing paintball in the forests of Caprica. Benny turned out to be the vampirate with the Harlequin backstory and the heart of gold, and thus the least interesting new character on this show in ages. And there seemed to be a set-up for dealing with Dean's PTSD, his harder edge, and that has just fizzled and gone nowhere.
I do see the aesthetic appeal of Purgatory.
Right, I was trying to say something nice, wasn't I? Damn it. I did like the sense of affection between Sam and Dean in this episode (even if it was MAJOR whiplash from last week, to the point where I wondered if they'd aired the episodes out of order). Just, IDK, that scene where Dean is staring out the window at night, and Sam is apparently woken by the sound of him angsting, and gets up to comfort him, and Dean talks about his ~feelings~, and Sam pats him on the back in a manly way, and then heads for a pee before it all gets too mushy. I liked it, OK? I'm easy like that. I really wish they'd thrown in a few small moments like that earlier in the season, before they got to the big fight.
There was some really interesting Dean-insight here, too. Much as the "big reveal" about Purgatory was not exactly exciting or unexpected dramatically, there was a pretty big emotional payoff. I mean, we've always known Dean had a martyr complex, but the idea that his sense of guilt and responsibility is strong enough to alter his own memories? Wow. And ow. Dean will literally choose to remember things in such a way that he can feel guilty about the actions of others. It is at once incredibly, breathtakingly endearing, and insanely selfish. And it explains a lot about certain things: he has trouble accepting the choices of others, doesn't he? Ego boundaries, Dean. You are not the people you love. And of course he can't handle the idea that Sam let him down, because Sam is an extension of himself, and Sam's failures are, in fact, Dean's failures. *
Plus I enjoyed the return of creepy!stalker Cas, because he's basically this dirty old man in a trenchcoat who likes to perve on watch the Winchesters sleep. Or whatever ;) And who can blame him, really?
I like to watch them too, Cas.
The other thing I found interesting was the introduction of Naomi and the Metatron stuff. Naomi is an archangel, maybe? Or working for one? A lot of juice, anyway. Enough to pull Cas out of Purgatory, and to fuck with his memories. And she's interested in the Winchesters, specifically. Which seems to bring them back to the centre of the story. Plus, when you combine "immensely powerful angel who likes to alter memories" with Sam's (and the text's) vagueness about what exactly happened between the moment Dean vanished and the moment he hit that dog, it starts to look rather interesting. Add in the mysterious shadowy figure watching Sam's house, and his seeming lack of surprise at finding Dean, even though he apparently wasn't expecting him. Plus Benny's comment about the portal: "They told me it would be here." They who? Angels? Was that rescue attempt number one?
The main thing which has been bothering me this season (yes, aside from all that other stuff!) is that I haven't been able to make Sam make sense to me. There is a gap between this moment:
gif stolen shamelessly from someone on tumblr
And this one:
screencap by caffienekitty
Which has not been filled in by either Sam himself, or the text. I mean, we know what Sam looks like when he's lost and broken, and it's not like this:
The first time I saw the picnic flashback, with all the bright colours and oversaturation, I thought it looked like Heaven. It's exactly the same filters and lighting they use for Heaven scenes, like the park Castiel used to visit. Now I'm wondering if that was entirely co-incidental. There are many possibilities, from Amelia being an angel or the whole thing being an implanted memory, to Sam making a deal of some kind with Naomi to get Dean out of Purgatory, or just her implanting a conviction of Dean's death in Sam's mind. In any case, I do believe that we will get an explanation of some kind for what actually happened to Sam after Dean disappeared, and I'm actually pretty interested to see it.
she has people watch the Winchesters for her. Kinky!
It was not a great episode by any stretch, and bits of it were pretty silly. I'm so over Crowley, and the Escape From Purgatory turned out to be a giant anticlimax, and I like Cas well enough but really don't care about his manpain. And there wasn't enough Sam, though I liked the Sam we got. But - I really liked the glimpse of the inside of Dean's head (MUCH scarier than Purgatory!). And I like Naomi, and I'm interested in her agenda, and I like the sense that there's further mystery about Sam, that all that won't just be skipped over. I have the sense that there will be both emotional and plotty follow-up, and that maybe both Sam & Dean will gain some emotional insight out of it. Which - boy, do they ever need it.
***********
*ETA: Thinking about the fight last week in light of this is interesting. Dean tells Sam "Those aren't mistakes, those are choices." Which - firstly, what is a mistake but a bad choice, and secondly, while some of those things were choices, others were not. Losing his soul was not a choice Sam made, good or bad: it was something that was done to him. Sam was the primary victim there, not Dean. And the mistake, the bad choice, was made by Cas. And again, Dean is casting himself in memory as the primary victim of Castiel's betrayal, but it was Sam's soul he lost (by accident) and Sam's mind he broke (on purpose).
Dear Dean: your brother is not an extension of you.
***********