SPN belated ep reaction AKA PRETTY BOYS!
I couldn't grab the stupid SPN torrent before work today, so I had to go all day knowing it wasn't even busy downloading for me. Then I just COULDN'T STAND IT any longer and skipped out of work a whole two hours early to run home and start downloading it.
*facepalm* I fail at being a responsible adult.
This is spoilery, and tl;dr as well, because it's me.
First, the squee: Our show totally puts out on the emoporn front, and our boys are just so sexy it almost hurts to look at them. I could write thousands of words on all the ways they were sexy tonight.
Dean and his sympathy for the rabbit! \o/ Oh man, that moment killed me. So many fun lines this episode.
I am so terribly conflicted about the entire Ruby plotline. If she does turn out to be genuinely a demon with a a heart of gold, just a special misunderstood snowflake not like any of those other nasty demons, I think I might hurl. If we find out that she sold her soul for some terrible, moving, heartbreaking, sympathetic reason? Gah. Please, no. There are already just too many parallels between Sam and Ruby and Dean and Ruby and I just can't take her as such a convenient-for-our-boys anvilicious Mary-Sueish character. Seriously. Our show has a tiny blond ass-kicking chick with an unexplained magic knife who it turns out is really a demon but not really because she's been through a horrible tragic sympathetic past and is completely unique and not like all those other nasty demons and is now using her great powers to try to save our boys? I just can't take it. (technosage does a more positive rundown of this possibility, but I'm not convinced.)
On the other hand, if we find out she's an opportunistic demon trying to vault her way up the demon hierarchy by taking a wild risk on Sam- that she's trying to use him as a really big hole card in some kind of demon civil war, or produce a turned Winchester Antichrist for her boss, or whatever... if we find out that she has been lying and fucking with our boys heads? That will be okay. Because face it, what she did this episode? Is the perfect way to work past the boy's defenses. I've always said that the one thing that can shake Dean out of his passivity is going to be the realization that the Deal didn't work- it didn't make Sam safe, put Sam even more in danger while ensuring Dean wouldn't be around to care for him any more. Ruby enlisted Dean to change Sam by leaning on that very weak point. And leaning on the "become what you hunt" weak point, which has been a terror of Dean's for well over a year now and apparently that memo was passed to every supernatural being west of the Mississippi. And telling Dean that there's no way for him to be saved? For one thing, that tips off the viewer that she's lying, and for another, telling Dean exactly what he is afraid to hear but sure is true, and exactly what he would expect her to reassure or coddle him on if she was trying to manipulate him... well, if there was a more masterful way to manipulate Dean right now, I can't come up with it.
poisontaster lays out this interpretation here much better than I do, and I REALLY hope that's where they go with Ruby.
So why do I dislike the idea of making her a good character so much? I think it's probably because she's just so damned ANNOYING. Seriously. Kate Cassidy's acting is PAINFUL. Ruby's snark isn't as clever as she thinks it is. She tends to swoop in and save our boys, making them look less competent in the process, which I hate. Also? I have been saying since TM7 that someone needs to get that damn girl a scrunchie! Were you watching her hair whip around and completely cover her face Cousin-It style while the Demon of the Week wailed on her? If you're determined to be a little action chick, get a damn haircut.
On their theology: this whole "demons as damned human souls" thing is intriguing to me. However, I really have problems with the idea that that's how ALL demons started. That's personal for me, in that I find the story of the Fall to be perhaps the most moving single story in all of Christian culture. Lucifer as the Morning Star fallen from heaven is deeply affecting to me in a way not many stories are. (Want a secret? If you want to make me cry, moving quotes are the best way to do it. Say to me "There may come a time when the courage of main fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship. But it is not this day!" and you'll get me welling up with 100% effectiveness. Try "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, who didst rise in the morning? How art thou fallen to the earth?" It's better than peeling an onion. But I digress.) Anyway, I'm just saying that I will feel the lack of demons as fallen angels keenly in their myth system.
On Sam trying to become more like Dean: He means more like how HE sees Dean, which is unfortunate because Sam has never really seen the depth of Dean's moral convictions nor the extent to which Dean has struggled with his own moral system. They functioned well for two season with both our boys providing a check on the other, and Sam's vision of it is skewed, because Sam's thought processes are not at their most clear and rational right now.
It's also painful for Dean- especially after seeing SPN Christmas, and the ways that Dean and John tried to preserve Sam's innocence in the face of hunting. Protecting Sam was about so much more than the physical, and this is yet another way that the Deal did the opposite of that. Plus, how horrible for Dean's already fragile self-image, to find out that this is the way Sam sees him. (musesfool talks about this best here.)
On the writing: Oh writers. You still haven't figured out how to gracefully handle exposition, have you? Seriously. Jared's "old world black magic, Dean, warts and all" was such a painful line, so painfully delivered. *cringe* And also, after fully two minutes of painfully obvious and repetitive dialog about witches:
Sam: We find the motive-
Dean: We find the murderer.
NOBODY tag-teams dialog like this in real life. Especially not such painful dialog. Seriously. That whole two minutes from the time they leave the Dutton's house to when Dean drives off? Could have been like four lines of dialog.
Sam: Check this out.
Dean: Hex bag?
Sam: Right. Witches.
Dean: Goddamit. I hate Witches.
(insert bodily fluids spewing and unsanitary joke here)
Dean: So how do we find our witch? Would be anybody, right?
Sam: Yeah. I figure we follow the motive.
Seriously. That's it. 15 seconds to their two minutes, simply by not repeatedly insulting the intelligence of both Dean and the audience. *sighs*
And while we're talking about the writing?
Ruby: Look at you. Trying to be all stoic. My god, it's heartbreaking.
Okay, this is BAD DIALOG. I'm sitting here watching Dean be stoic and heartbreaking and terrified and I'm clutching my pillow and near tears because oh, Dean and becoming what he hunts and maybe hurting people and losing his humanity but it was his free choice and he's determined to own it. And Jensen is hitting it out of the freakin' park because he's JENSEN ACKLES and that's what he DOES, and he's so gorgeous doing it I can't tear my eyes away and oh, Dean,... and then Ruby opens her big mouth and informs those of us who missed it that Dean is actually being stoic right now, and we're supposed to be heartbroken.
God, save me from the awful dialog.
That said, the line "there's a real fire in the pit" was a good line well delivered. It makes me shiver.
Lastly: rivers-bend in this post identifies the source of so much of my wibbling and ambivalence right on the nose. There are so many good stories that can happen now, so many awesome epic ways to go from here... and yet I feel horribly ambivalent about all of them because the only thing I want from this show is the epic lovestory of Sam and Dean. That's all. Nothing else. I don't care about the Antichrist or the demon apocalypse or the demon king rising in the West or ANY of it it if means we lose that. For all my worries and wibbles and quibbles and ambivalence and serious feeling that the show is going a way I don't like, I acknowledge that the writers have actually done a kickass job of an awesome mytharc. It's just that being so attached to one particular element of the show has made me far less able to appreciate what they're doing, simply because of my fear of losing that one element. Huh. It's an interesting little ponder about the way I interact with things fannishly, since I've felt myself doing much the same thing with many other works.
*facepalm* I fail at being a responsible adult.
This is spoilery, and tl;dr as well, because it's me.
First, the squee: Our show totally puts out on the emoporn front, and our boys are just so sexy it almost hurts to look at them. I could write thousands of words on all the ways they were sexy tonight.
Dean and his sympathy for the rabbit! \o/ Oh man, that moment killed me. So many fun lines this episode.
I am so terribly conflicted about the entire Ruby plotline. If she does turn out to be genuinely a demon with a a heart of gold, just a special misunderstood snowflake not like any of those other nasty demons, I think I might hurl. If we find out that she sold her soul for some terrible, moving, heartbreaking, sympathetic reason? Gah. Please, no. There are already just too many parallels between Sam and Ruby and Dean and Ruby and I just can't take her as such a convenient-for-our-boys anvilicious Mary-Sueish character. Seriously. Our show has a tiny blond ass-kicking chick with an unexplained magic knife who it turns out is really a demon but not really because she's been through a horrible tragic sympathetic past and is completely unique and not like all those other nasty demons and is now using her great powers to try to save our boys? I just can't take it. (technosage does a more positive rundown of this possibility, but I'm not convinced.)
On the other hand, if we find out she's an opportunistic demon trying to vault her way up the demon hierarchy by taking a wild risk on Sam- that she's trying to use him as a really big hole card in some kind of demon civil war, or produce a turned Winchester Antichrist for her boss, or whatever... if we find out that she has been lying and fucking with our boys heads? That will be okay. Because face it, what she did this episode? Is the perfect way to work past the boy's defenses. I've always said that the one thing that can shake Dean out of his passivity is going to be the realization that the Deal didn't work- it didn't make Sam safe, put Sam even more in danger while ensuring Dean wouldn't be around to care for him any more. Ruby enlisted Dean to change Sam by leaning on that very weak point. And leaning on the "become what you hunt" weak point, which has been a terror of Dean's for well over a year now and apparently that memo was passed to every supernatural being west of the Mississippi. And telling Dean that there's no way for him to be saved? For one thing, that tips off the viewer that she's lying, and for another, telling Dean exactly what he is afraid to hear but sure is true, and exactly what he would expect her to reassure or coddle him on if she was trying to manipulate him... well, if there was a more masterful way to manipulate Dean right now, I can't come up with it.
poisontaster lays out this interpretation here much better than I do, and I REALLY hope that's where they go with Ruby.
So why do I dislike the idea of making her a good character so much? I think it's probably because she's just so damned ANNOYING. Seriously. Kate Cassidy's acting is PAINFUL. Ruby's snark isn't as clever as she thinks it is. She tends to swoop in and save our boys, making them look less competent in the process, which I hate. Also? I have been saying since TM7 that someone needs to get that damn girl a scrunchie! Were you watching her hair whip around and completely cover her face Cousin-It style while the Demon of the Week wailed on her? If you're determined to be a little action chick, get a damn haircut.
On their theology: this whole "demons as damned human souls" thing is intriguing to me. However, I really have problems with the idea that that's how ALL demons started. That's personal for me, in that I find the story of the Fall to be perhaps the most moving single story in all of Christian culture. Lucifer as the Morning Star fallen from heaven is deeply affecting to me in a way not many stories are. (Want a secret? If you want to make me cry, moving quotes are the best way to do it. Say to me "There may come a time when the courage of main fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship. But it is not this day!" and you'll get me welling up with 100% effectiveness. Try "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, who didst rise in the morning? How art thou fallen to the earth?" It's better than peeling an onion. But I digress.) Anyway, I'm just saying that I will feel the lack of demons as fallen angels keenly in their myth system.
On Sam trying to become more like Dean: He means more like how HE sees Dean, which is unfortunate because Sam has never really seen the depth of Dean's moral convictions nor the extent to which Dean has struggled with his own moral system. They functioned well for two season with both our boys providing a check on the other, and Sam's vision of it is skewed, because Sam's thought processes are not at their most clear and rational right now.
It's also painful for Dean- especially after seeing SPN Christmas, and the ways that Dean and John tried to preserve Sam's innocence in the face of hunting. Protecting Sam was about so much more than the physical, and this is yet another way that the Deal did the opposite of that. Plus, how horrible for Dean's already fragile self-image, to find out that this is the way Sam sees him. (musesfool talks about this best here.)
On the writing: Oh writers. You still haven't figured out how to gracefully handle exposition, have you? Seriously. Jared's "old world black magic, Dean, warts and all" was such a painful line, so painfully delivered. *cringe* And also, after fully two minutes of painfully obvious and repetitive dialog about witches:
Sam: We find the motive-
Dean: We find the murderer.
NOBODY tag-teams dialog like this in real life. Especially not such painful dialog. Seriously. That whole two minutes from the time they leave the Dutton's house to when Dean drives off? Could have been like four lines of dialog.
Sam: Check this out.
Dean: Hex bag?
Sam: Right. Witches.
Dean: Goddamit. I hate Witches.
(insert bodily fluids spewing and unsanitary joke here)
Dean: So how do we find our witch? Would be anybody, right?
Sam: Yeah. I figure we follow the motive.
Seriously. That's it. 15 seconds to their two minutes, simply by not repeatedly insulting the intelligence of both Dean and the audience. *sighs*
And while we're talking about the writing?
Ruby: Look at you. Trying to be all stoic. My god, it's heartbreaking.
Okay, this is BAD DIALOG. I'm sitting here watching Dean be stoic and heartbreaking and terrified and I'm clutching my pillow and near tears because oh, Dean and becoming what he hunts and maybe hurting people and losing his humanity but it was his free choice and he's determined to own it. And Jensen is hitting it out of the freakin' park because he's JENSEN ACKLES and that's what he DOES, and he's so gorgeous doing it I can't tear my eyes away and oh, Dean,... and then Ruby opens her big mouth and informs those of us who missed it that Dean is actually being stoic right now, and we're supposed to be heartbroken.
God, save me from the awful dialog.
That said, the line "there's a real fire in the pit" was a good line well delivered. It makes me shiver.
Lastly: rivers-bend in this post identifies the source of so much of my wibbling and ambivalence right on the nose. There are so many good stories that can happen now, so many awesome epic ways to go from here... and yet I feel horribly ambivalent about all of them because the only thing I want from this show is the epic lovestory of Sam and Dean. That's all. Nothing else. I don't care about the Antichrist or the demon apocalypse or the demon king rising in the West or ANY of it it if means we lose that. For all my worries and wibbles and quibbles and ambivalence and serious feeling that the show is going a way I don't like, I acknowledge that the writers have actually done a kickass job of an awesome mytharc. It's just that being so attached to one particular element of the show has made me far less able to appreciate what they're doing, simply because of my fear of losing that one element. Huh. It's an interesting little ponder about the way I interact with things fannishly, since I've felt myself doing much the same thing with many other works.