Reaction/meta: SPN 06x19
Warning: confused, mostly still-unsorted, disquieted thoughts about family and fiat in Supernatural. Also, me being temporarily a bit more negative about the show than I really am on the whole.
1. If I didn't already know that anybody with an agenda separate from the Winchesters' will be demonized (and probably end up dead), this could be a very interesting development. I mean, hell, yeah, looks like Cas has got his hands in some ugly shit, but at least someone is exercising a will and a plan that falls outside of the world of the cozy, emotionally incestuous Team Winchester.
(Doesn't absolve him of all wrongdoing. Just makes it interesting.)
It would be less annoying if contradicting Dean's sense of loyalty and family didn't always, always just happen to end Really Badly. Sam runs away to school: girlfriend dies horribly. Sam gets involved with Ruby: the only fix, emotionally, pragmatically, and morally, is to return to the fold. (Note that his sin wasn't trusting a demon; it was trusting a demon "over his own brother"-direct quote, "Changing Channels".) Samuel has his own notion of what family means that clashes with Dean's (and would probably have clashed with Sam's, if he'd had a soul): first he's weak/evil, then he's toast. Cas tries to keep a massively destabilized cosmic order upright and doesn't share the battle plans with some guys who are friends, yeah, but still human and who he just possibly thinks have already suffered enough: well, we'll see. But it's not looking good. There are conflicting messages about "free will": It's great, so long as it's been sanctified somehow by Winchesterness.* But if it isn't, it's doomed to failure and moral disease.
I'm just… well, I'm weirded out and discomfited, because it seems like the message buried in the show's unconscious is Never Go Outside the Family for Anything; Bad Things Happen. And, um, yeah.
2. Anyway. On a lighter note, I hope Eve's not actually dead; it would be lame for the ancient, older-than-angels Mother of All to get that easily ganked by a human and a substance that didn't even exist in the show's 'verse till last week.
Also, am pleased that Crowley is still kicking-not so much because it means moar Mark Sheppard (though that's definitely one reason) as because I didn't want the bones thing to be true, and always had my doubts. It just seemed to clash with the nature of demons as already established; I could buy it being something that would hurt like hell, but not something that would destroy them. So, am pleased that there is not really such discontinuity.
3. Edit: You know what? Have now decided to be positive about this development of Cas's. Even if he's ultimately punished by dying for it, at least he will have Done Something Fucking Interesting. And soulless!Sam's the only other one who can claim that this season, at present. /bitchy
*Obviously, there are a few reasons why Sam's experiments with demon blood and palm-controlled powers didn't work out so hot apart from the fact that his brother didn't like it. But it's the Doylist aspects that are bugging me today, not the Watsonian ones.
1. If I didn't already know that anybody with an agenda separate from the Winchesters' will be demonized (and probably end up dead), this could be a very interesting development. I mean, hell, yeah, looks like Cas has got his hands in some ugly shit, but at least someone is exercising a will and a plan that falls outside of the world of the cozy, emotionally incestuous Team Winchester.
(Doesn't absolve him of all wrongdoing. Just makes it interesting.)
It would be less annoying if contradicting Dean's sense of loyalty and family didn't always, always just happen to end Really Badly. Sam runs away to school: girlfriend dies horribly. Sam gets involved with Ruby: the only fix, emotionally, pragmatically, and morally, is to return to the fold. (Note that his sin wasn't trusting a demon; it was trusting a demon "over his own brother"-direct quote, "Changing Channels".) Samuel has his own notion of what family means that clashes with Dean's (and would probably have clashed with Sam's, if he'd had a soul): first he's weak/evil, then he's toast. Cas tries to keep a massively destabilized cosmic order upright and doesn't share the battle plans with some guys who are friends, yeah, but still human and who he just possibly thinks have already suffered enough: well, we'll see. But it's not looking good. There are conflicting messages about "free will": It's great, so long as it's been sanctified somehow by Winchesterness.* But if it isn't, it's doomed to failure and moral disease.
I'm just… well, I'm weirded out and discomfited, because it seems like the message buried in the show's unconscious is Never Go Outside the Family for Anything; Bad Things Happen. And, um, yeah.
2. Anyway. On a lighter note, I hope Eve's not actually dead; it would be lame for the ancient, older-than-angels Mother of All to get that easily ganked by a human and a substance that didn't even exist in the show's 'verse till last week.
Also, am pleased that Crowley is still kicking-not so much because it means moar Mark Sheppard (though that's definitely one reason) as because I didn't want the bones thing to be true, and always had my doubts. It just seemed to clash with the nature of demons as already established; I could buy it being something that would hurt like hell, but not something that would destroy them. So, am pleased that there is not really such discontinuity.
3. Edit: You know what? Have now decided to be positive about this development of Cas's. Even if he's ultimately punished by dying for it, at least he will have Done Something Fucking Interesting. And soulless!Sam's the only other one who can claim that this season, at present. /bitchy
*Obviously, there are a few reasons why Sam's experiments with demon blood and palm-controlled powers didn't work out so hot apart from the fact that his brother didn't like it. But it's the Doylist aspects that are bugging me today, not the Watsonian ones.