more 8.01 thoughts because I can!
Overally, I had fun. I try not to get overly cerebral in how I anticipate these eps, but I went into this mostly hoping for Dean being screwed up, violent, maybe a bit feral, and I feel like the show really delivered on that front. The rest...well I'll probably pay more attention to it later.
-I like Kevin. He's just fun. I enjoy when he's on screen, having his reactions, dealing but not really dealing.
-I really really enjoyed Dean's characterization. Coming out of the portal and scaring the shit out of some kids, not because they misunderstood his intentions, but because he was genuinely fucking scary. Awesome. And watching him and how he behaved was just, to me, gold.
I like how he'd apparently had his inability to talk about his emotions burned right out of him. Or maybe he just felt like that 'deep abiding love' stuff was in the past and it didn't feel like a part of his psyche anymore. Either way, works for me!
I liked how when they were walking through the campus, Dean was looking at everything and Sam was just staring straight ahead. (That's exactly how I walk, btw, and I'll never understand how people can be all Sam-like and just...stare straight ahead. But they do. It's freaky.) To me that felt very practical and realistic, and frankly was kind of a relief.
And Dean's thing about the food, asking 'this is for me?' Eeee! And his reactions in the hotel. Also eee! I really just want realistic behaviors and reactions, and so far we seem to be right on track.
-I had less issue with Sam's stuff than I expected. Namely because it's not actually that hard for me to imagine him post s7 being just burned out, wrung out, and ready to be *done*. And while I don't doubt he wanted on some level to look for Dean...maybe on a deeper level he didn't really know if he wanted Dean back.
It's not out of the realm of possibility that maybe Sam just...didn't want to face that reality, or couldn't do it. Maybe he wasn't physically capable of it. And of course he wouldn't be able to tell Dean because he doesn't have the vocabulary to talk about that sort of thing. Also I suspect there's more to the story than we've seen so far. So I'm not being too judgy at Sam right now. I really can't blame him for wanting to get out. And not knowing where to start looking, and just being too overwhelmed to try.
-I need to go back and watch again for more plot stuff--I do think the pacing could have been a lot better and the story probably wasn't that strong. A lot of focus on action and propelling the plot without real consideration given to how to present this in a dynamic way. But it was okay. At least it wasn't completely uninteresting.