SPN 3.5 Bedtime Stories
For whatever reason I'm not feeling very, hmm, insightful this morning -- tired, distracted by the nano thing, etc. -- but I'll comment a little on the ep.
Boy, Sam and Dean are spending a goodly percentage of this season so far arguing passionately, and I like that -- I think there's just so much stored up, so much going on, that friction is inevitable and natural. I liked that Dean hamfistedly pointed them to their case, and I thought the case was an interesting one, albeit truly frightening -- and that is of course the point the ep made multiple times, vis-a-vis the unsanitized version of Grimm's, and how we expect fairy tales to be, well, fairy tales, a la Disney, but they weren't. The various villains in the ep (commandeered by Coma Girl) were truly shocking.
Things I found less happy-making -- Dean not remembering the original recipe of the tales; Dean making a tired and pretty out-of-the-blue gay crack (never mind the bigotry inherent in his words -- where did it COME from? That Sam noticed the pumpkin and the mice and made the connection? It's about FAIRY TALES, Dean, it's a connection YOU should have made, just as quickly).
I'm on the fence about Sam. On the one hand, his characterization is truly coherent here -- he really IS racking up the body count, focused on Dean's predicament, and he's becoming more and more dangerous with each episode. If they are shooting (as it were) for gray-areas Sam, unsure if he's really good or a mix of good and bad, they're succeeding.
OTOH, that rising body count is making me nervous. So it's like good AND bad that Sam's going this direction, somehow.
What this ep and last week's are doing for me is making me sit on the edge of my chair, worrying and wondering about where this season is taking the boys. Specifically, Sam -- by and large I'm disappointed with what I'm seeing with Dean, although I can also see some of the reasoning for it. (Not his dumbing-down -- the sharp-Dean with the demon chick last week would have remembered some gorram fairy tales, I think, although then again he couldn't do an exorcism by heart, which -- DEAN.)
As I said, I'm distracted today, and there wasn't any one thing I could really focus on in this ep that was a huge YAY or equally huge NAY. The episode made me uncomfortable several times, and worried at the end. Worried at Dean's continued relative passivity with regard to his predicament (albeit not all that surprised by this point), worried at Sam's giant steps toward -- something alarming. It worries me that Dean slept through Sam's errand to call up the crossroads demon. FWIW, it doesn't worry me that he took the opportunity to wipe out another demon, but it DOES worry me that we get no reflection on the fact that there's yet another HUMAN he killed, there's no clear sense of remorse, no acknowledgment of the fact that he's now broken John's cardinal rule a bunch of times this season. Granted -- it appears this method may be the only way to kill a demon, but sometime soon it would be reassuring to have Sam reflect as Dean did in season two about what he'll do for his family, the lengths to which he will go. Without that, it really DOES highlight the question of who and what Sam is, or is becoming. Which...could be the point, of course. Can't say yet.
Maybe I'll have some more to say later. Right now, that's the best I can do. I'm...troubled. Not a BAD ep, and in places a pretty good one, but the progression in Sam's arc really does suggest this is only the beginning. And where THAT will go... ::shivers:: I dunno, but it's a lot scarier than even the really scary material in this ep was.
Boy, Sam and Dean are spending a goodly percentage of this season so far arguing passionately, and I like that -- I think there's just so much stored up, so much going on, that friction is inevitable and natural. I liked that Dean hamfistedly pointed them to their case, and I thought the case was an interesting one, albeit truly frightening -- and that is of course the point the ep made multiple times, vis-a-vis the unsanitized version of Grimm's, and how we expect fairy tales to be, well, fairy tales, a la Disney, but they weren't. The various villains in the ep (commandeered by Coma Girl) were truly shocking.
Things I found less happy-making -- Dean not remembering the original recipe of the tales; Dean making a tired and pretty out-of-the-blue gay crack (never mind the bigotry inherent in his words -- where did it COME from? That Sam noticed the pumpkin and the mice and made the connection? It's about FAIRY TALES, Dean, it's a connection YOU should have made, just as quickly).
I'm on the fence about Sam. On the one hand, his characterization is truly coherent here -- he really IS racking up the body count, focused on Dean's predicament, and he's becoming more and more dangerous with each episode. If they are shooting (as it were) for gray-areas Sam, unsure if he's really good or a mix of good and bad, they're succeeding.
OTOH, that rising body count is making me nervous. So it's like good AND bad that Sam's going this direction, somehow.
What this ep and last week's are doing for me is making me sit on the edge of my chair, worrying and wondering about where this season is taking the boys. Specifically, Sam -- by and large I'm disappointed with what I'm seeing with Dean, although I can also see some of the reasoning for it. (Not his dumbing-down -- the sharp-Dean with the demon chick last week would have remembered some gorram fairy tales, I think, although then again he couldn't do an exorcism by heart, which -- DEAN.)
As I said, I'm distracted today, and there wasn't any one thing I could really focus on in this ep that was a huge YAY or equally huge NAY. The episode made me uncomfortable several times, and worried at the end. Worried at Dean's continued relative passivity with regard to his predicament (albeit not all that surprised by this point), worried at Sam's giant steps toward -- something alarming. It worries me that Dean slept through Sam's errand to call up the crossroads demon. FWIW, it doesn't worry me that he took the opportunity to wipe out another demon, but it DOES worry me that we get no reflection on the fact that there's yet another HUMAN he killed, there's no clear sense of remorse, no acknowledgment of the fact that he's now broken John's cardinal rule a bunch of times this season. Granted -- it appears this method may be the only way to kill a demon, but sometime soon it would be reassuring to have Sam reflect as Dean did in season two about what he'll do for his family, the lengths to which he will go. Without that, it really DOES highlight the question of who and what Sam is, or is becoming. Which...could be the point, of course. Can't say yet.
Maybe I'll have some more to say later. Right now, that's the best I can do. I'm...troubled. Not a BAD ep, and in places a pretty good one, but the progression in Sam's arc really does suggest this is only the beginning. And where THAT will go... ::shivers:: I dunno, but it's a lot scarier than even the really scary material in this ep was.