SPN 5x18: okay, fine, you can stay. For now.
Continuing our theme of things that are pastede on: the littlest Winchester! Only this is the interesting kind of pastede on, because I remembered him and wrote him off after his apparent on-off episode, which makes it actually kind of clever to use him as Chekhov's gun, hung innocuously on the wall in Act I and destined to be fired in Act III.
FYI, what prompted my decision that I probably ought to live-blog this was Dean's "blow me, Cas," at which point I nearly snorted banana out my nose. That kind of ludicrousness ought to be commemorated. So, to backtrack briefly: the Zachariah cold open was creepy in a great way, Bobby remains the only person who can effectively two-by-four a Winchester with the fact that his pain is not the universe's only pain, I'm pleased by the well-choreographed angelic knife fight, and Supernatural remains the only show where I prefer it when it appears that no women will enter the episode, because that greatly reduces the opportunities the show will have to make me pissed off and mildly disgusted. We now resume our regularly scheduled programming.
Adam: I have no investment in you, but after "dewey-eyed bromance" and "you know how full of crap you are?", I'm kind of hoping they actually make you something more than a plot device. I also approve of whichever writer decided to make Adam very similar to John.
Does anyone else feel like the "insert Lisa here" plotline allowed the writers to feel like Dean's heterosexuality was sufficiently reestablished that they could throw all the Dean/Cas fangirls a low-cost bone? The "last person who looked at me like that, I got laid" line is so blatant it's nearly odd (particularly five minutes after "blow me"), but how Ackles played the wordless reaction shot off of Cas's glare.
I think Dean has just delivered the most deeply fucked-up variation on the "if we're going down, then we're going down together" speech that I've ever heard. Wow. Show, never let it be said you wussed out on your own melodrama.
The line "psychotically, irrationally, erotically codependent on each other" really belongs in a better series (or maybe just in a prior season of this one). Serious points for it, though.
Also, Adam, please tell me you've noticed that while Sam, Dean, and Bobby may have you on lockdown, the angels are either holding your mother out as a carrot or holding her out as a hostage. In the manipulate-off, I think they're prettttttttty much neck-and-neck here, with Heaven maybe inching ahead for indirectness.
Cas kicking the crap out of Dean was great. I like this character best wrathful and with a fuse that burns slow but white-hot -- he's most interesting when he quits bothering with restraint. Ambushing Dean was neither nice nor helpful, but it felt like a damned authentic reaction, and they did a great job of making the audience consider than Cas maybe could reach a point where he'd just smite Dean himself. Also, I feel like this whole episode is pointing to the fact that, for all Dean's claims of not wanting anyone else to take a bullet for him, what he really desperately wants is not to be in the driver's seat anymore. Dead, overtaken by Michael, it doesn't make a difference anymore -- so long as the next cosmic fuck-up (or even the risk of it) won't be on his shoulders.
Ahahahahhahha "should I say it in Spanish?" Oh, Bobby, I really want someone to write the story about your life, in which the Winchesters are just supporting characters.
This whole scene between Zachariah and Adam is gold. This show has always been best with its villains, tricksters, and turncoats, and Zachariah is one of the strongest (particularly when he gets someone other than Dean to talk to and so the writers let him score the points).
"Word to the wise: don't piss off the nerd angels" -- yeah, I'm also awarding points for that. Otherwise, the scene in the silo is playing less like a key moment in the relationship arc and more like I think this line's mostly filler, but that could be the Lifetime incidental music someone looped into the soundtrack by mistake.
"But then I won't have to watch you fail" is a great lean back toward the early S4 noir of Cas's character. I like that the apology that follows is matter-of-fact and not even a little apologetic, and I also find it interesting that, by my interpretation, Dean and Cas are on parallel tracks right now -- disillusioned, tired, desperate, ready for it to be over, and pissy as all hell that the other has the bad taste to be feeling demoralized too.
DUDE. DUDE. THAT TRICK WITH THE SIGIL WAS FUCKING RIGHTEOUS. Seriously, that is the first deeply cool, deeply clever thing I have seen the series do in a long-ass time that I had not seen anyone in fandom do first.
Annnnnnnnnnnnnd thank you for remembering that we got invested in Dean as a character because the emo was matched, if not outclassed, by the GED and the give-'em-hell attitude. It's been a long-ass time since an episode ended with a night-driving scene where Sam and Dean's relationship got better instead of worse, and not only did this feel like a conversation between two adults, the extent to which I can buy how they're finally back on each other's teams really pays off all the false detentes and weak reconciliations that have peppered the season.
Okay, show, you've justified the reasons I find you compelling despite the many recurring ways you gross me out. You can stay. (Just please keep your damned hands off the ladies. Ditto the people of color. I can hardly believe it, but I think I am actually expressing a preference that you not write for nor cast any characters other than svelte white men. It's really better for all concerned.)
* (Cross-posted to Dreamwidth and LJ, but comments are welcome at either.)
FYI, what prompted my decision that I probably ought to live-blog this was Dean's "blow me, Cas," at which point I nearly snorted banana out my nose. That kind of ludicrousness ought to be commemorated. So, to backtrack briefly: the Zachariah cold open was creepy in a great way, Bobby remains the only person who can effectively two-by-four a Winchester with the fact that his pain is not the universe's only pain, I'm pleased by the well-choreographed angelic knife fight, and Supernatural remains the only show where I prefer it when it appears that no women will enter the episode, because that greatly reduces the opportunities the show will have to make me pissed off and mildly disgusted. We now resume our regularly scheduled programming.
Adam: I have no investment in you, but after "dewey-eyed bromance" and "you know how full of crap you are?", I'm kind of hoping they actually make you something more than a plot device. I also approve of whichever writer decided to make Adam very similar to John.
Does anyone else feel like the "insert Lisa here" plotline allowed the writers to feel like Dean's heterosexuality was sufficiently reestablished that they could throw all the Dean/Cas fangirls a low-cost bone? The "last person who looked at me like that, I got laid" line is so blatant it's nearly odd (particularly five minutes after "blow me"), but how Ackles played the wordless reaction shot off of Cas's glare.
I think Dean has just delivered the most deeply fucked-up variation on the "if we're going down, then we're going down together" speech that I've ever heard. Wow. Show, never let it be said you wussed out on your own melodrama.
The line "psychotically, irrationally, erotically codependent on each other" really belongs in a better series (or maybe just in a prior season of this one). Serious points for it, though.
Also, Adam, please tell me you've noticed that while Sam, Dean, and Bobby may have you on lockdown, the angels are either holding your mother out as a carrot or holding her out as a hostage. In the manipulate-off, I think they're prettttttttty much neck-and-neck here, with Heaven maybe inching ahead for indirectness.
Cas kicking the crap out of Dean was great. I like this character best wrathful and with a fuse that burns slow but white-hot -- he's most interesting when he quits bothering with restraint. Ambushing Dean was neither nice nor helpful, but it felt like a damned authentic reaction, and they did a great job of making the audience consider than Cas maybe could reach a point where he'd just smite Dean himself. Also, I feel like this whole episode is pointing to the fact that, for all Dean's claims of not wanting anyone else to take a bullet for him, what he really desperately wants is not to be in the driver's seat anymore. Dead, overtaken by Michael, it doesn't make a difference anymore -- so long as the next cosmic fuck-up (or even the risk of it) won't be on his shoulders.
Ahahahahhahha "should I say it in Spanish?" Oh, Bobby, I really want someone to write the story about your life, in which the Winchesters are just supporting characters.
This whole scene between Zachariah and Adam is gold. This show has always been best with its villains, tricksters, and turncoats, and Zachariah is one of the strongest (particularly when he gets someone other than Dean to talk to and so the writers let him score the points).
"Word to the wise: don't piss off the nerd angels" -- yeah, I'm also awarding points for that. Otherwise, the scene in the silo is playing less like a key moment in the relationship arc and more like I think this line's mostly filler, but that could be the Lifetime incidental music someone looped into the soundtrack by mistake.
"But then I won't have to watch you fail" is a great lean back toward the early S4 noir of Cas's character. I like that the apology that follows is matter-of-fact and not even a little apologetic, and I also find it interesting that, by my interpretation, Dean and Cas are on parallel tracks right now -- disillusioned, tired, desperate, ready for it to be over, and pissy as all hell that the other has the bad taste to be feeling demoralized too.
DUDE. DUDE. THAT TRICK WITH THE SIGIL WAS FUCKING RIGHTEOUS. Seriously, that is the first deeply cool, deeply clever thing I have seen the series do in a long-ass time that I had not seen anyone in fandom do first.
Annnnnnnnnnnnnd thank you for remembering that we got invested in Dean as a character because the emo was matched, if not outclassed, by the GED and the give-'em-hell attitude. It's been a long-ass time since an episode ended with a night-driving scene where Sam and Dean's relationship got better instead of worse, and not only did this feel like a conversation between two adults, the extent to which I can buy how they're finally back on each other's teams really pays off all the false detentes and weak reconciliations that have peppered the season.
Okay, show, you've justified the reasons I find you compelling despite the many recurring ways you gross me out. You can stay. (Just please keep your damned hands off the ladies. Ditto the people of color. I can hardly believe it, but I think I am actually expressing a preference that you not write for nor cast any characters other than svelte white men. It's really better for all concerned.)
* (Cross-posted to Dreamwidth and LJ, but comments are welcome at either.)