I Know That Angel...
What does it say about me that I was able to sit through about forty minutes of the latest Supernatural episode, which featured intense psychological and physical torture, angels of the Lord questioning other angels of the Lord, holy water in a syringe as a torture instrument, and the cliched 'sexualized blood-sucking' metaphor, when I couldn't stand to watch a hand get pureed in a high school home-ec classroom in a previous episode?
I have pretty specific squicks, I guess. But, I think I'm getting over the whole "I'm-scarred-for-life-because-I-accidently-saw-The Exorcist-at-thirteen" thing. I'm planning on using a line, if not more, from the movie in BT. And Linda Blair vomiting split pea soup has become over the years a more or less abstract humorous mental image, as opposed to one inspiring existential terror. Such is progress.
I enjoyed the episode. The mental "ah ha" at the credits and appearance of Misha Collins as Castiel helped, but not as much as the drama of the thing. (Collins had a one-episode appearance on Charmed.) It was just plain compelling, even though I'm a n00b and didn't understand exactly why John Winchester had been in hell in the first place, let alone why Dean had been. Watching Ackles crumble a bit under the revelation that his dad didn't break under the same conditions that broke him? Damn.
But I'm by no means leaning towards becoming a SPN fan. I've read too much over at FFR about the misogyny in the fandom, and while no TV show should be judged by one episode, if the lack of female characters in this episode is at all representative of the rest of them, I don't like the look of it.