Weekly SPN round-up
Seen this week: "Nightmare," "The Benders," "Shadow," "Hell House," and "Something Wicked"
(Yeah, we sat down to watch an ep, maybe two, last night...and ended up watching four. It was only 8:30 on a Friday night when we got to the end of "Shadow" and we were in the mood for a jag.)
Thoughts both serious and less so:
Nightmare
Woof, this was a rough episode. I can't deny that a lot of the character/emotional stuff was very powerful and probably needed...but sheesh, I did not enjoy this ep for the most part. I am a simple girl, and I like it when there's a clear-cut bad guy even when there isn't necessarily an equally-clear-cut good guy. In this ep the victims are all various shades of despicable, the antagonist is pitiable while also being scary on a whole different frequency than the usual show bad guys. The whole parallel between Sam and Max and the comparison/contrast with which we're presented was pretty strong stuff. The final scene between the brothers, where Sam admits that they may have, in fact, lucked out in getting their dad and not someone else who dealt with the whole situation less constructively...that was excellent. Still couldn't get past how bleak an episode this was.
To keep this review from being too serious: Sam and Dean as priests! Heee! The scene where Dean has all their weapons broken down and is cleaning them all meticulously? Sheer gun lover joy, that. And what is it with people in this show? When your window has opened itself twice in the past three minutes, it's possible that placing your throat under it and essentially turning your window sill into a potential chopping block is not the best idea. Dude. Also, I imagine there probably wasn't any other way to go about Sam's visions, but did anyone else immediately think "Voldemort must be very angry!" when Sam started doing the killer headache routine? And finally: I love Dean's response to Sam's admission to new-found telekinetic abilities. "Bend this spoon." That's my boy.
The Benders
I'm not sure how I feel about the fact that the monster of the week ended up just being crazy people. On one hand, the idea appeals to me: these guys run up against spirits and paranormal creatures all the time, but can they handle human beings gone way wrong? On the other hand, I just kept waiting for the Benders to be revealed as vampires or cannibals or...something. And when they weren't I felt like I was left a little flat-footed. But whatever.
Mad props to Sam for his very athletic attempts to escape that cage. I am impressed.
I would like a round of applause for Officer Kathleen, played by blond!Elizabeth Weir (only she's not blond in this ep, so it took me a while to figure out where I'd seen her before). Because she was really quite awesome.
Dean + Godzilla movies = love. (And I adore the fact that Sam likes that awful remake. Oh, Sam, honey, your taste is truly appalling.)
Shadow
Wow, they packed a lot into this thing, didn't they? Let us just run down all the reasons why I am a fan in itemized format:
- Meg is really working as a baddie for me.
- The shadow demon things are also working.
- Dean's leers and filthy jokes about Sam and Meg.
- *sings* Spider-Sam! Spider-Sam! Doin' the thiiings a Spider-Sam can!
- Dean and his broken-up "I want us to be a family again" speech. Oh! *huggles him*
- Sam breaking Dean's heart (and mine) by saying he doesn't want things to be like they were before.
- Daddy Winchester! Hi! Have a heartrending reunion scene followed quickly by an equally-heartrending leave-taking! Oh, and that's quite a sizable truck you have, there.
Hell House
This is going alongside "Faith" as a favorite. Oh, how I love the banter and the prank war and the laughter! We don't get to see them really laugh much, as a rule, and that's too bad because Jared Padalecki's giggle is adorably goofy. It amused me to note that whenever Dean successfully pranked Sam, he laughed his head off, but that was it. Whenever Sam pranked Dean, he had to perform some kind of obnoxious little victory dance (the whole "Oh, I think that's one for me!" mime in the car and pulling the string on the cackling fisherman...thing...in the diner). I also liked that the guys would switch very obviously from serious case-working attitude to twelve-year-old prankster attitude but never mixed the two.
Also loved the whole idea of the tulpa. One of my favorite original fiction projects (currently languishing unloved on my hard-drive) has a lot to do with belief and its effect on magic and magical beings. So the ep kind of made me think about that from a different angle. The use of the internet as belief-generator was especially fun.
Something Wicked
Let me just say at the outset that I typically hate flashback eps. They rarely compel me, for some reason. I get why they're useful and sometimes even vital as a story-telling device, but for some reason they almost always rub me the wrong way.
So the fact that I enjoyed this ep despite how heavy it is on the flashbacks is impressive. Doubly so since it involved Dean angst, which I'm not sure I'm easy with just yet (I know, there's more coming and I'd better get my boots laced up now, but I'm still attached to the Sam = angst, Dean = wisecracks dichotomy).
The whole scene with the cranky little old lady was priceless. I laughed very hard. Ditto Sam's rehashing of said scene when they're back at the motel. "I was sleepin' with mah peepers open!" Hee hee heeeee!
Poor little Dean. Poor big Dean. Poor little kid being bate for the Dementor. Nice brother moments all throughout, but especially at the end, when Sam tells Dean that he's sorry for giving him so much crap about always abiding by Dad's orders. Another day saved, love and familial happiness all 'round!
Oh, and one more, less-than-thinky comment upon re-watching "Faith" with Ernie and Soupy:
I get that when you're making an episode where the monster is a reaper, and you need a classic rock song for the sequence demonstrating exactly what's going on and how the reaper is involved, you'd naturally pick "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" by Blue Oyster Cult.* But you should really think twice, if you want the sequence to be taken with due gravity, because thanks to SNL, there's always going to be someone in the audience who starts miming the striking of a cowbell with great enthusiasm, and then someone else will say "I've got a fever..." and after that it's really kind of impossible to take anything seriously. Just saying.
* Sorry, I don't do the heavy metal umlaut.
(Yeah, we sat down to watch an ep, maybe two, last night...and ended up watching four. It was only 8:30 on a Friday night when we got to the end of "Shadow" and we were in the mood for a jag.)
Thoughts both serious and less so:
Nightmare
Woof, this was a rough episode. I can't deny that a lot of the character/emotional stuff was very powerful and probably needed...but sheesh, I did not enjoy this ep for the most part. I am a simple girl, and I like it when there's a clear-cut bad guy even when there isn't necessarily an equally-clear-cut good guy. In this ep the victims are all various shades of despicable, the antagonist is pitiable while also being scary on a whole different frequency than the usual show bad guys. The whole parallel between Sam and Max and the comparison/contrast with which we're presented was pretty strong stuff. The final scene between the brothers, where Sam admits that they may have, in fact, lucked out in getting their dad and not someone else who dealt with the whole situation less constructively...that was excellent. Still couldn't get past how bleak an episode this was.
To keep this review from being too serious: Sam and Dean as priests! Heee! The scene where Dean has all their weapons broken down and is cleaning them all meticulously? Sheer gun lover joy, that. And what is it with people in this show? When your window has opened itself twice in the past three minutes, it's possible that placing your throat under it and essentially turning your window sill into a potential chopping block is not the best idea. Dude. Also, I imagine there probably wasn't any other way to go about Sam's visions, but did anyone else immediately think "Voldemort must be very angry!" when Sam started doing the killer headache routine? And finally: I love Dean's response to Sam's admission to new-found telekinetic abilities. "Bend this spoon." That's my boy.
The Benders
I'm not sure how I feel about the fact that the monster of the week ended up just being crazy people. On one hand, the idea appeals to me: these guys run up against spirits and paranormal creatures all the time, but can they handle human beings gone way wrong? On the other hand, I just kept waiting for the Benders to be revealed as vampires or cannibals or...something. And when they weren't I felt like I was left a little flat-footed. But whatever.
Mad props to Sam for his very athletic attempts to escape that cage. I am impressed.
I would like a round of applause for Officer Kathleen, played by blond!Elizabeth Weir (only she's not blond in this ep, so it took me a while to figure out where I'd seen her before). Because she was really quite awesome.
Dean + Godzilla movies = love. (And I adore the fact that Sam likes that awful remake. Oh, Sam, honey, your taste is truly appalling.)
Shadow
Wow, they packed a lot into this thing, didn't they? Let us just run down all the reasons why I am a fan in itemized format:
- Meg is really working as a baddie for me.
- The shadow demon things are also working.
- Dean's leers and filthy jokes about Sam and Meg.
- *sings* Spider-Sam! Spider-Sam! Doin' the thiiings a Spider-Sam can!
- Dean and his broken-up "I want us to be a family again" speech. Oh! *huggles him*
- Sam breaking Dean's heart (and mine) by saying he doesn't want things to be like they were before.
- Daddy Winchester! Hi! Have a heartrending reunion scene followed quickly by an equally-heartrending leave-taking! Oh, and that's quite a sizable truck you have, there.
Hell House
This is going alongside "Faith" as a favorite. Oh, how I love the banter and the prank war and the laughter! We don't get to see them really laugh much, as a rule, and that's too bad because Jared Padalecki's giggle is adorably goofy. It amused me to note that whenever Dean successfully pranked Sam, he laughed his head off, but that was it. Whenever Sam pranked Dean, he had to perform some kind of obnoxious little victory dance (the whole "Oh, I think that's one for me!" mime in the car and pulling the string on the cackling fisherman...thing...in the diner). I also liked that the guys would switch very obviously from serious case-working attitude to twelve-year-old prankster attitude but never mixed the two.
Also loved the whole idea of the tulpa. One of my favorite original fiction projects (currently languishing unloved on my hard-drive) has a lot to do with belief and its effect on magic and magical beings. So the ep kind of made me think about that from a different angle. The use of the internet as belief-generator was especially fun.
Something Wicked
Let me just say at the outset that I typically hate flashback eps. They rarely compel me, for some reason. I get why they're useful and sometimes even vital as a story-telling device, but for some reason they almost always rub me the wrong way.
So the fact that I enjoyed this ep despite how heavy it is on the flashbacks is impressive. Doubly so since it involved Dean angst, which I'm not sure I'm easy with just yet (I know, there's more coming and I'd better get my boots laced up now, but I'm still attached to the Sam = angst, Dean = wisecracks dichotomy).
The whole scene with the cranky little old lady was priceless. I laughed very hard. Ditto Sam's rehashing of said scene when they're back at the motel. "I was sleepin' with mah peepers open!" Hee hee heeeee!
Poor little Dean. Poor big Dean. Poor little kid being bate for the Dementor. Nice brother moments all throughout, but especially at the end, when Sam tells Dean that he's sorry for giving him so much crap about always abiding by Dad's orders. Another day saved, love and familial happiness all 'round!
Oh, and one more, less-than-thinky comment upon re-watching "Faith" with Ernie and Soupy:
I get that when you're making an episode where the monster is a reaper, and you need a classic rock song for the sequence demonstrating exactly what's going on and how the reaper is involved, you'd naturally pick "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" by Blue Oyster Cult.* But you should really think twice, if you want the sequence to be taken with due gravity, because thanks to SNL, there's always going to be someone in the audience who starts miming the striking of a cowbell with great enthusiasm, and then someone else will say "I've got a fever..." and after that it's really kind of impossible to take anything seriously. Just saying.
* Sorry, I don't do the heavy metal umlaut.