Rewatch S14: Lebanon (14x13)
BACK!
Finally tackling Lebanon after all these months... it has a special feature attached to it too, so let's see if I can do it all tonight, and take a break between the episode and the feature for dinner.
Lebanon
You really trying to tell me that Sam would go into a creepy artifact room and pick up a random talking teddy-bear and actually try to pull the string? Seriously? Do better.
So, criticism out of the gate isn't great - so I'll say that I love that this opens with the classic reversal of the teaser death - where we're usually introduced to our monster of the week by the first kill. But instead, the first kill is done by the our heroes. So, that tells us right away that there's not going to be a typical monster of the week.
I love outsider POV - so the teens talking about the brothers"who live in town is perfect and I love it. I also love that they go by the Campbell brothers.
Also, stopping for beer on the way home with your car full of weird stuff - not the best, but I also once drove across the entire country with all my possessions in my car so I'm one to talk.
Ah, young queer love... yay representation... even if one of them is a car thief.
And this is why we don't steal cars kids... they sometimes contain the ghosts of evil clowns in a cigar box.
Swear the kids to secrecy and then head home to use a weird magical item that might have horrible consequences...yay!
John!
John: "...and now you live in a secret bunker with an angel and Lucifer's kid?"
- How to tell a show with a simple premise is now in it's 14th season.
Dude, if I saw my dead husband and I was a former hunter, I probably wouldn't let him kiss me - just saying... but I guess Mary came back from the dead too, so maybe she's like "This happens, I'm sure he's not a zombie after my brains or whatever!"
I'm not commenting on the dialogue a lot - but just wanted to say that I like the acting a lot in this episode. Like, Jeffrey Dean is always nice to have on the screen.
Dean wanting to have one family dinner is also heart wrenching.
The Sam and John scene is also fantastic...
John: "I screwed up with you a lot, didn't I."
Sam: "It's okay."
John: "No, Sam, tell me the truth."
Sam: "I don't want to talk about that."
John: "You didn't have a problem talking about it before you left."
Sam: "Dad, for me that fight was a lifetime ago - I don't even remember what I said. I mean, yeah, you did some messed up things - but I don't - when I think about you, and I think about you a lot. I don't think about about our fights. I think about you on the floor of that hospital. I think about how I never got to say goodbye."
...
John: "Sam, I am so sorry."
Sam: "But you did your best, Dad. You fought for us, and you loved us - and that's enough."
- So, on the one hand, this is classic 'easier to forgive when people you love have been dead for years' on Sam's part. On the other hand, no, I don't think it's enough. Yes, John loved them, and yes, all his very misguided parenting was focused around that - but that doesn't make the "messed up things" any less messed up.
-Also, I feel like John is more apologizing here for the being dead on the floor thing rather than the childhood of emotional neglect.
-Also, I know this is a John-redemption type episode, but honestly... I kind of think John is out of character in it. Like, would the John of 2003 be this apologetic? He didn't seem this apologetic in 2006 when they caught up with him then. Maybe a little, though, I do remember him and Sam parting on good terms in Shadow, and he did just hear a cliff's notes version of the past 16 years, so maybe I'm being too hard on him - and at this point, he would be knocked down a peg or two and in apologizing mode.
And now we enter the alternate universe where Dean is a wanted criminal and Sam is a douchebag lawyer.
Dean: "So what are there too of us?"
Sam: "No, I think it's a temporal paradox."
- I love Sam's life that he can just call that.
Alternate Cas and Zachariah's back...
Zachariah: "This town, it's always been a little muddy for us. Some sort of interference."
- An excellent explanation for why the Bunker isn't just constantly besieged.
Zachariah: "So, you're going to tell me - before he, how do I say this.. murders you all."
- I do love how sometimes we're reminded that Cas was one of Heaven's best soldiers... you know, in between making him incompetent for plot purposes.
Where was Jack in these episodes? I don't even remember. He's just weirdly absent for some reason? Maybe I missed a line where they're like "Cas took him on a road trip, fun!" Oh wait! Did they leave him at Donatello's? I honestly have no memory of where he is.
And the classic catch - either John goes back or Mary dies. Well, really, it's either John goes back or reality is unraveled, so while it's all romantic for John to let them kill him to save Mary, but honestly, even if Mary wasn't around, they should still send him back.
John: "I guess I hoped eventually you would get yourself a normal life, a peaceful life, you know - a family."
Dean: "I have a family."
- Awww... YES! Reject sociatal expectations on what a happy life should look like!
Really, Dean and Sam are estranged from both their parents.. like, both of their parents missed out on the most formative events of their lives. It's an interesting dynamic, that we sadly never get to explore.
Dean: "Why not send him even further back and let some other poor sonsofbitches save the world - but the problem is, who does that make us? Would be be better off, maybe? But I'll be honest, I don't know who that Dean Winchester is and I'm good with who I am. I'm good with who you are. Because our lives, they're ours, and maybe I'm just too damn old to want to change that."
- So, when Dean said "who does that make us?" I thought he meant morally - like, it'd be morally wrong to purposefully inflict the burden of saving the world on someone else in order to save themselves. And I was like "yeah, how could you live with yourself if you knew you'd done that to someone?"
- But then he continued, and I realized what he was ACTUALLY talking about was the dilemma of regret. You can regret that something happened to you, or that you made a mistake, but ultimately the things that happen to you are what create you (for the most part - at least the huge things). So, maybe you would like yourself just as much in some other life, but you don't actually KNOW that. You don't know where or who you'd be if you'd turned left instead of right on that road, or not ended up stranded at 2am on that trip.. or not fallen in love with that person who hurt you, etc... or gotten that job, or not gotten that job, etc. There are so many variables that lead us into the lives we have.
- The whole point of not going into the Malak Box was for Dean to NOT give up his life in order to get rid of Michael.. and changing the past to the point where he never saved the world would be essentially also sacrificing the life he has now. So, the fact that Dean doesn't want to do it means he's in a pretty good place in life.
And John had "one hell of a dream" which is cool, because it leaves the door open to always ask the question about just how much John knew.
DINNER TIME!
Oh wait, first...
DELETED SCENES:
Scenes 10-11
- Dean calls Mary to tell her that his car was stolen, and that's why she was heading back to the bunker.
Scene 24
-Kids asking the hard questions "So, if a werewolf bit a vampire who was also a shifter?"
Dean: "Easy, Werepireshifter."
Meanwhile, Max tells Sam about how hard it is to make friends when you constantly move around (her dad is in the military).
Ok, NOW it's DINNER TIME!
Supernatural Homecoming - Exploring the 300th Episode - Special Feature
Wow, I forgot how young Jeffrey Dean Morgan was back in S1.
They talk about wanting to explore Lebanon a little. Lebanon is 200-300 people town, so everyone knows everyone... and then Sam and Dean are these mysterious relatively-new comers.
They wanted to make Lebanon a character in the show too, that would expand the "family" that Sam and Dean feel they have. Since they've never had neighbours before that knew their names.
Cas talks about playing S4/5 Cas again, and how it's a completely different character.
Glynn - "I think one of the most enduring themes of this show is Sam and Dean trying to find a semblance of home, of family."
Jensen - "What his heart truly desires is his family to be together."
- Wow, that's actually a WAY better way to put it then "Dean wants John" - because Dean has ALWAYS wanted his family to be together, that's been his through-line since S1.
JDM - "I shouldn't call them kids, they're grown men. But they're my kids, and I'll always think of them that way."
Glynn - "Thematically this season has been about identity. Dean Winchester is someone who has always been in the service of others, sometimes to the detriment of himself."
- Again, Glynn is saying amazing stuff in this feature.
Jared talks about how Sam has grown now and made some questionable decisions in his life, and so that's why he understands and forgives John. So, yeah, I can get that. I still think that you can't forgive without an apology though, and I feel John's apology was for the dying, not the childhood.
They also talk about how Mary needed that forgiveness from John... and I have to admit that while I was watching, I completely forgot that Mary technically got John killed (eventually) and was the cause of her family's life. Hahaha
Ahh, they show the 300th episode party! Remember when we used to be able to have parties? I'm sad they didn't get to have a series wrap party. Like, wow, that would have been a bash, you know? But, not worth the danger in these times - I'm just thankful they were able to finish filming (and before the smoke rolled into town too! - wow, apocalyptic conditions these days, eh?)
That was a nice little feature! It was only 20 minutes, technically I probably could have done it before dinner, but I was hungry.
As always, let me know your thoughts in comments or what you're annoyed that I didn't talk about! :)
This entry was originally posted at https://hells-half-acre.dreamwidth.org/589216.html.
Finally tackling Lebanon after all these months... it has a special feature attached to it too, so let's see if I can do it all tonight, and take a break between the episode and the feature for dinner.
Lebanon
You really trying to tell me that Sam would go into a creepy artifact room and pick up a random talking teddy-bear and actually try to pull the string? Seriously? Do better.
So, criticism out of the gate isn't great - so I'll say that I love that this opens with the classic reversal of the teaser death - where we're usually introduced to our monster of the week by the first kill. But instead, the first kill is done by the our heroes. So, that tells us right away that there's not going to be a typical monster of the week.
I love outsider POV - so the teens talking about the brothers"who live in town is perfect and I love it. I also love that they go by the Campbell brothers.
Also, stopping for beer on the way home with your car full of weird stuff - not the best, but I also once drove across the entire country with all my possessions in my car so I'm one to talk.
Ah, young queer love... yay representation... even if one of them is a car thief.
And this is why we don't steal cars kids... they sometimes contain the ghosts of evil clowns in a cigar box.
Swear the kids to secrecy and then head home to use a weird magical item that might have horrible consequences...yay!
John!
John: "...and now you live in a secret bunker with an angel and Lucifer's kid?"
- How to tell a show with a simple premise is now in it's 14th season.
Dude, if I saw my dead husband and I was a former hunter, I probably wouldn't let him kiss me - just saying... but I guess Mary came back from the dead too, so maybe she's like "This happens, I'm sure he's not a zombie after my brains or whatever!"
I'm not commenting on the dialogue a lot - but just wanted to say that I like the acting a lot in this episode. Like, Jeffrey Dean is always nice to have on the screen.
Dean wanting to have one family dinner is also heart wrenching.
The Sam and John scene is also fantastic...
John: "I screwed up with you a lot, didn't I."
Sam: "It's okay."
John: "No, Sam, tell me the truth."
Sam: "I don't want to talk about that."
John: "You didn't have a problem talking about it before you left."
Sam: "Dad, for me that fight was a lifetime ago - I don't even remember what I said. I mean, yeah, you did some messed up things - but I don't - when I think about you, and I think about you a lot. I don't think about about our fights. I think about you on the floor of that hospital. I think about how I never got to say goodbye."
...
John: "Sam, I am so sorry."
Sam: "But you did your best, Dad. You fought for us, and you loved us - and that's enough."
- So, on the one hand, this is classic 'easier to forgive when people you love have been dead for years' on Sam's part. On the other hand, no, I don't think it's enough. Yes, John loved them, and yes, all his very misguided parenting was focused around that - but that doesn't make the "messed up things" any less messed up.
-Also, I feel like John is more apologizing here for the being dead on the floor thing rather than the childhood of emotional neglect.
-Also, I know this is a John-redemption type episode, but honestly... I kind of think John is out of character in it. Like, would the John of 2003 be this apologetic? He didn't seem this apologetic in 2006 when they caught up with him then. Maybe a little, though, I do remember him and Sam parting on good terms in Shadow, and he did just hear a cliff's notes version of the past 16 years, so maybe I'm being too hard on him - and at this point, he would be knocked down a peg or two and in apologizing mode.
And now we enter the alternate universe where Dean is a wanted criminal and Sam is a douchebag lawyer.
Dean: "So what are there too of us?"
Sam: "No, I think it's a temporal paradox."
- I love Sam's life that he can just call that.
Alternate Cas and Zachariah's back...
Zachariah: "This town, it's always been a little muddy for us. Some sort of interference."
- An excellent explanation for why the Bunker isn't just constantly besieged.
Zachariah: "So, you're going to tell me - before he, how do I say this.. murders you all."
- I do love how sometimes we're reminded that Cas was one of Heaven's best soldiers... you know, in between making him incompetent for plot purposes.
Where was Jack in these episodes? I don't even remember. He's just weirdly absent for some reason? Maybe I missed a line where they're like "Cas took him on a road trip, fun!" Oh wait! Did they leave him at Donatello's? I honestly have no memory of where he is.
And the classic catch - either John goes back or Mary dies. Well, really, it's either John goes back or reality is unraveled, so while it's all romantic for John to let them kill him to save Mary, but honestly, even if Mary wasn't around, they should still send him back.
John: "I guess I hoped eventually you would get yourself a normal life, a peaceful life, you know - a family."
Dean: "I have a family."
- Awww... YES! Reject sociatal expectations on what a happy life should look like!
Really, Dean and Sam are estranged from both their parents.. like, both of their parents missed out on the most formative events of their lives. It's an interesting dynamic, that we sadly never get to explore.
Dean: "Why not send him even further back and let some other poor sonsofbitches save the world - but the problem is, who does that make us? Would be be better off, maybe? But I'll be honest, I don't know who that Dean Winchester is and I'm good with who I am. I'm good with who you are. Because our lives, they're ours, and maybe I'm just too damn old to want to change that."
- So, when Dean said "who does that make us?" I thought he meant morally - like, it'd be morally wrong to purposefully inflict the burden of saving the world on someone else in order to save themselves. And I was like "yeah, how could you live with yourself if you knew you'd done that to someone?"
- But then he continued, and I realized what he was ACTUALLY talking about was the dilemma of regret. You can regret that something happened to you, or that you made a mistake, but ultimately the things that happen to you are what create you (for the most part - at least the huge things). So, maybe you would like yourself just as much in some other life, but you don't actually KNOW that. You don't know where or who you'd be if you'd turned left instead of right on that road, or not ended up stranded at 2am on that trip.. or not fallen in love with that person who hurt you, etc... or gotten that job, or not gotten that job, etc. There are so many variables that lead us into the lives we have.
- The whole point of not going into the Malak Box was for Dean to NOT give up his life in order to get rid of Michael.. and changing the past to the point where he never saved the world would be essentially also sacrificing the life he has now. So, the fact that Dean doesn't want to do it means he's in a pretty good place in life.
And John had "one hell of a dream" which is cool, because it leaves the door open to always ask the question about just how much John knew.
DINNER TIME!
Oh wait, first...
DELETED SCENES:
Scenes 10-11
- Dean calls Mary to tell her that his car was stolen, and that's why she was heading back to the bunker.
Scene 24
-Kids asking the hard questions "So, if a werewolf bit a vampire who was also a shifter?"
Dean: "Easy, Werepireshifter."
Meanwhile, Max tells Sam about how hard it is to make friends when you constantly move around (her dad is in the military).
Ok, NOW it's DINNER TIME!
Supernatural Homecoming - Exploring the 300th Episode - Special Feature
Wow, I forgot how young Jeffrey Dean Morgan was back in S1.
They talk about wanting to explore Lebanon a little. Lebanon is 200-300 people town, so everyone knows everyone... and then Sam and Dean are these mysterious relatively-new comers.
They wanted to make Lebanon a character in the show too, that would expand the "family" that Sam and Dean feel they have. Since they've never had neighbours before that knew their names.
Cas talks about playing S4/5 Cas again, and how it's a completely different character.
Glynn - "I think one of the most enduring themes of this show is Sam and Dean trying to find a semblance of home, of family."
Jensen - "What his heart truly desires is his family to be together."
- Wow, that's actually a WAY better way to put it then "Dean wants John" - because Dean has ALWAYS wanted his family to be together, that's been his through-line since S1.
JDM - "I shouldn't call them kids, they're grown men. But they're my kids, and I'll always think of them that way."
Glynn - "Thematically this season has been about identity. Dean Winchester is someone who has always been in the service of others, sometimes to the detriment of himself."
- Again, Glynn is saying amazing stuff in this feature.
Jared talks about how Sam has grown now and made some questionable decisions in his life, and so that's why he understands and forgives John. So, yeah, I can get that. I still think that you can't forgive without an apology though, and I feel John's apology was for the dying, not the childhood.
They also talk about how Mary needed that forgiveness from John... and I have to admit that while I was watching, I completely forgot that Mary technically got John killed (eventually) and was the cause of her family's life. Hahaha
Ahh, they show the 300th episode party! Remember when we used to be able to have parties? I'm sad they didn't get to have a series wrap party. Like, wow, that would have been a bash, you know? But, not worth the danger in these times - I'm just thankful they were able to finish filming (and before the smoke rolled into town too! - wow, apocalyptic conditions these days, eh?)
That was a nice little feature! It was only 20 minutes, technically I probably could have done it before dinner, but I was hungry.
As always, let me know your thoughts in comments or what you're annoyed that I didn't talk about! :)
This entry was originally posted at https://hells-half-acre.dreamwidth.org/589216.html.