More Supernatural (S2 and S3)
Moonshayde went and asked for it, so here are various Supernatural thoughts.
I'm going to ramble for a bit here to try to figure something out, and it probably won't make that much sense, so bear with me. Well, actually, this whole thing is rambling, so I guess you'll have to deal. This is not an essay and it's not really a critique--just some of my scattered observations and feelings. I may write more later, but maybe not.
For some reason the S2 finale was not as awesome as the S1 finale. Maybe because the scale felt so much smaller, which doesn't really make sense, because S1 was just the Winchesters and S2 was, you know, the damn gate to hell. But it wasn't as emotionally satisfying, for me. It didn't feel as focused, as intimate, that's for sure, and um, maybe because it felt kind of rote and inevitable? Like, YED wants the gate opened, so he finds a guy, and the guy opens it, and then they close it, and Dean kills YED, and then that's it. S1 finale was intense and heart-pounding, because you had no idea what was going to happen from one moment to the next. In this one you just watched it unfold.
It was cool to see John come back for a second, but it wasn't as heart-rending as when the boys saw Mary in S1's "Home." (And even then, it didn't affect me as much as it might have, because it felt sort of manipulative to me, and I don't like that. I mean, I'm fine with being emotionally manipulated by shows, as long as I can't tell that they're doing it. Does that make sense? I guess I need sincerity and believability.) And then John sparkles and vanishes, and okay. Still didn't have the impact I'm sure the writers wanted it to have. The bullet coming out of the gun was a nice effect. Yet not as awesome as you'd think it would be. I dunno. Am confused by this. Thoughts? Am I the only one who felt this way about the two finales?
But yes, I'm falling deeper and deeper in love with the brothers. S2 was full of awesome episodes that had a good mix of plot and character development, with strong acting all around. There was the odd episode or two that wasn't as great, but on the whole it was fantastic. S3, though...
Well, S3 returned to the MPD of S1, with some great episodes and some really average ones, only it was even worse. S3, for me, would have this incredibly awesome, fantastic, tear-jerking suspenseful masterfully crafted episode, immediately followed by some of the most boring dreck there's ever been on television. It was weird. I wasn't sure what to expect from one episode to the next. This was also particularly obvious to me since I watched the whole season in the space of a couple days over the weekend. I imagine watching it while it was on the air would be even more tortuous. At least I knew that I had a decent finale to look forward to.
And it was. Decent, I mean. Better than S2's, not quite as spectacular as S1, but close. The final image, though... Guh. Break my heart, will you. All season long the boys are talking about Dean going to hell, but it's all abstract, and even they don't quite believe it will happen. Because, duh, LOVE THEY WILL ALWAYS FIND A WAY to save each other. And then it happens, and poor Dean is stuck, and stuck bad. Owie.
I think the most brutal episode, though, was "Mystery Spot." It starts out so light-hearted, and I'm laughing at the silly boys and Dean's death montage, and especially the ax! Oh, the AX. It was so horrible and funny. And then, you know, Wednesday, and Sam holds his dead brother and closes his eyes and opens them again, and Dean's still dead, and ow ow ow ow ow. You know, as the viewer, that it's a TV show and of course Dean is going to be back in the next episode, but Sam can't know that. You just want to put a hand on his ginormous shoulder and be all "Oh, Honey, it'll be okay, I promise."
And the ending. Somehow that was the worst, the most brutal part of it for me, because Sam just asks, "Don't go down to the car without me," and Dean steps out into the hallway, momentarily out of sight. And I'm just thinking, and I can see it on Sam's face, that no, that's too far away, you have to stay there, Dean, where Sam can keep an eye on you, because you could still...you could...anything could happen to you! Stay there, Dean. Please. Then, SHOCKER!, he doesn't get killed in any way, and fade to black, but I still hurt. I'm sure that there are a ton of fanfics about the aftermath of that episode, with Sam traumatized and clingy and Dean not quite understanding but trying to be sympathetic, but I feel a tremendous urge to write another, because DANG. Don't think I didn't notice that Sam didn't tell him everything, too. (Sheez, what a tortured sentence that was.) Anyway, I already have a plot and everything. ::whimper:: Stop me, I don't need anymore bunnies!
Also "A Very Supernatural Christmas." So Sam was all, "I don't get it--why again do you want to do Christmas THIS YEAR when never before, huh?" And Laura goes ::dramatic eyeroll:: DUH, Sam. But then but then, oh really nasty cellar, and creepily hilarious pagan gods, and "If you fudgin' touch me again I'll fudgin' kill you!" That scene was so perfectly balanced, funny and terrible at the same time, like "Mystery Spot." Not to mention the flashbacks. As soon they seep in, you know, I'm thinking, "I WILL NOT be manipulated. I WILL NOT be manipulated." Have I mentioned that I don't like emotional manipulation? I was completely certain that wasn't going to cry. And I didn't, not at Tiny!Sam and Tiny!Dean, anyway, though the amulet did make me smile and go all soft and fuzzy.
But the end. Awwww. Good glory and ham knuckles, they were so friggin' desperate and sweet at the same time. I freely admit that I did tear up at that, despite my determination not to. They were trying SO HARD. Skin mags and shaving cream! Motor oil and a candy bar! Dean's eyes when those presents appear... "Really?" Fair ginshu! I was undone, completely and utterly undone. At that moment they were real people, not characters in the TV box, just a couple of working class men trying to make it through life, with the crap of the world raining around them while each tries to hold a flimsy, make-shift umbrella to shelter the other one. ::sniffle, honk, sob:: I also admit that I rewatched that scene several times.
Also Bus in Jello, or whatever that one was. (Okay, I know the real title, but I typed that by accident and I like it better.) Dag shnepke, that would have been a great season finale, if there hadn't been the whole deal with the devil (complete with dancing in the pale moonlight) and everything. Fantastically satisfying conclusion to the FBI hunt. Or at least I HOPE that was a conclusion, because nothing could be better than that.
You know you were thinking it, like I was, that you really freakin' wanted Henricksen to just SEE A GHOST or something so he would finally get that the boys were telling the truth. Didn't you just feel like shaking him? Or slapping him? Just so unreasonable, unwilling to listen to evidence that contradicted his own beliefs, like the witnesses who said that Dean and Sam saved them and the fact that they didn't follow the pattern of true serial killers, that the deaths STOPPED when they showed up at a location, not started, and just, you know, that sort of thing. Stupid detective. So it was awesome when he got demoned and they saved him with the use of holy toilet water and Sam's massive brain.
(Incidentally, it totally made sense to me that Sam had that entire thing memorized and also was good at grabbing people through bars. After three months of fighting on his own, even though those three months don't exist anymore, I definitely expect him to be much, much better at this stuff. In fact, I'll be really disappointed if he suddenly backslides and starts sucking at hand-to-hand fighting again, because how did he survive without Dean, then, huh? I guess we'll see in Season 4.)
And Dean was hilarious, with his insistence that they don't kill the poor virgin. He was just so horrified, that anyone over the age of consent could not know the joy of teh sex yet. I'm sure he would have been happy to help her out, too, if she showed any inclination.
The ending was depressing though. Worse than a lot of the other downer endings this show has pulled on us, because it was like they fought this huge battle, they won, and it was so cool to see the demon smoke disappear, because YAHOODLE THEY KILLED THEM! And then all the nice people die. Henricksen totally could have been an ally, too, and our boys just don't have enough allies. None with authority, in any case. Now that's all chopped off, destroyed, and it sucks. I don't think it's bad writing, really, but it made me unhappy.
Speaking of, did the whole Lilith arc seem a little rushed to anyone besides me? I think this was because of the writer's strike more than anything else, though. It was just weird, that she was introduced so late in the season, and then without any build-up she's suddenly the big bad now. I know she'll be back in S4, and that's cool, but it still detracted from this season.
And that's about all I have to say about that.
I'm going to ramble for a bit here to try to figure something out, and it probably won't make that much sense, so bear with me. Well, actually, this whole thing is rambling, so I guess you'll have to deal. This is not an essay and it's not really a critique--just some of my scattered observations and feelings. I may write more later, but maybe not.
For some reason the S2 finale was not as awesome as the S1 finale. Maybe because the scale felt so much smaller, which doesn't really make sense, because S1 was just the Winchesters and S2 was, you know, the damn gate to hell. But it wasn't as emotionally satisfying, for me. It didn't feel as focused, as intimate, that's for sure, and um, maybe because it felt kind of rote and inevitable? Like, YED wants the gate opened, so he finds a guy, and the guy opens it, and then they close it, and Dean kills YED, and then that's it. S1 finale was intense and heart-pounding, because you had no idea what was going to happen from one moment to the next. In this one you just watched it unfold.
It was cool to see John come back for a second, but it wasn't as heart-rending as when the boys saw Mary in S1's "Home." (And even then, it didn't affect me as much as it might have, because it felt sort of manipulative to me, and I don't like that. I mean, I'm fine with being emotionally manipulated by shows, as long as I can't tell that they're doing it. Does that make sense? I guess I need sincerity and believability.) And then John sparkles and vanishes, and okay. Still didn't have the impact I'm sure the writers wanted it to have. The bullet coming out of the gun was a nice effect. Yet not as awesome as you'd think it would be. I dunno. Am confused by this. Thoughts? Am I the only one who felt this way about the two finales?
But yes, I'm falling deeper and deeper in love with the brothers. S2 was full of awesome episodes that had a good mix of plot and character development, with strong acting all around. There was the odd episode or two that wasn't as great, but on the whole it was fantastic. S3, though...
Well, S3 returned to the MPD of S1, with some great episodes and some really average ones, only it was even worse. S3, for me, would have this incredibly awesome, fantastic, tear-jerking suspenseful masterfully crafted episode, immediately followed by some of the most boring dreck there's ever been on television. It was weird. I wasn't sure what to expect from one episode to the next. This was also particularly obvious to me since I watched the whole season in the space of a couple days over the weekend. I imagine watching it while it was on the air would be even more tortuous. At least I knew that I had a decent finale to look forward to.
And it was. Decent, I mean. Better than S2's, not quite as spectacular as S1, but close. The final image, though... Guh. Break my heart, will you. All season long the boys are talking about Dean going to hell, but it's all abstract, and even they don't quite believe it will happen. Because, duh, LOVE THEY WILL ALWAYS FIND A WAY to save each other. And then it happens, and poor Dean is stuck, and stuck bad. Owie.
I think the most brutal episode, though, was "Mystery Spot." It starts out so light-hearted, and I'm laughing at the silly boys and Dean's death montage, and especially the ax! Oh, the AX. It was so horrible and funny. And then, you know, Wednesday, and Sam holds his dead brother and closes his eyes and opens them again, and Dean's still dead, and ow ow ow ow ow. You know, as the viewer, that it's a TV show and of course Dean is going to be back in the next episode, but Sam can't know that. You just want to put a hand on his ginormous shoulder and be all "Oh, Honey, it'll be okay, I promise."
And the ending. Somehow that was the worst, the most brutal part of it for me, because Sam just asks, "Don't go down to the car without me," and Dean steps out into the hallway, momentarily out of sight. And I'm just thinking, and I can see it on Sam's face, that no, that's too far away, you have to stay there, Dean, where Sam can keep an eye on you, because you could still...you could...anything could happen to you! Stay there, Dean. Please. Then, SHOCKER!, he doesn't get killed in any way, and fade to black, but I still hurt. I'm sure that there are a ton of fanfics about the aftermath of that episode, with Sam traumatized and clingy and Dean not quite understanding but trying to be sympathetic, but I feel a tremendous urge to write another, because DANG. Don't think I didn't notice that Sam didn't tell him everything, too. (Sheez, what a tortured sentence that was.) Anyway, I already have a plot and everything. ::whimper:: Stop me, I don't need anymore bunnies!
Also "A Very Supernatural Christmas." So Sam was all, "I don't get it--why again do you want to do Christmas THIS YEAR when never before, huh?" And Laura goes ::dramatic eyeroll:: DUH, Sam. But then but then, oh really nasty cellar, and creepily hilarious pagan gods, and "If you fudgin' touch me again I'll fudgin' kill you!" That scene was so perfectly balanced, funny and terrible at the same time, like "Mystery Spot." Not to mention the flashbacks. As soon they seep in, you know, I'm thinking, "I WILL NOT be manipulated. I WILL NOT be manipulated." Have I mentioned that I don't like emotional manipulation? I was completely certain that wasn't going to cry. And I didn't, not at Tiny!Sam and Tiny!Dean, anyway, though the amulet did make me smile and go all soft and fuzzy.
But the end. Awwww. Good glory and ham knuckles, they were so friggin' desperate and sweet at the same time. I freely admit that I did tear up at that, despite my determination not to. They were trying SO HARD. Skin mags and shaving cream! Motor oil and a candy bar! Dean's eyes when those presents appear... "Really?" Fair ginshu! I was undone, completely and utterly undone. At that moment they were real people, not characters in the TV box, just a couple of working class men trying to make it through life, with the crap of the world raining around them while each tries to hold a flimsy, make-shift umbrella to shelter the other one. ::sniffle, honk, sob:: I also admit that I rewatched that scene several times.
Also Bus in Jello, or whatever that one was. (Okay, I know the real title, but I typed that by accident and I like it better.) Dag shnepke, that would have been a great season finale, if there hadn't been the whole deal with the devil (complete with dancing in the pale moonlight) and everything. Fantastically satisfying conclusion to the FBI hunt. Or at least I HOPE that was a conclusion, because nothing could be better than that.
You know you were thinking it, like I was, that you really freakin' wanted Henricksen to just SEE A GHOST or something so he would finally get that the boys were telling the truth. Didn't you just feel like shaking him? Or slapping him? Just so unreasonable, unwilling to listen to evidence that contradicted his own beliefs, like the witnesses who said that Dean and Sam saved them and the fact that they didn't follow the pattern of true serial killers, that the deaths STOPPED when they showed up at a location, not started, and just, you know, that sort of thing. Stupid detective. So it was awesome when he got demoned and they saved him with the use of holy toilet water and Sam's massive brain.
(Incidentally, it totally made sense to me that Sam had that entire thing memorized and also was good at grabbing people through bars. After three months of fighting on his own, even though those three months don't exist anymore, I definitely expect him to be much, much better at this stuff. In fact, I'll be really disappointed if he suddenly backslides and starts sucking at hand-to-hand fighting again, because how did he survive without Dean, then, huh? I guess we'll see in Season 4.)
And Dean was hilarious, with his insistence that they don't kill the poor virgin. He was just so horrified, that anyone over the age of consent could not know the joy of teh sex yet. I'm sure he would have been happy to help her out, too, if she showed any inclination.
The ending was depressing though. Worse than a lot of the other downer endings this show has pulled on us, because it was like they fought this huge battle, they won, and it was so cool to see the demon smoke disappear, because YAHOODLE THEY KILLED THEM! And then all the nice people die. Henricksen totally could have been an ally, too, and our boys just don't have enough allies. None with authority, in any case. Now that's all chopped off, destroyed, and it sucks. I don't think it's bad writing, really, but it made me unhappy.
Speaking of, did the whole Lilith arc seem a little rushed to anyone besides me? I think this was because of the writer's strike more than anything else, though. It was just weird, that she was introduced so late in the season, and then without any build-up she's suddenly the big bad now. I know she'll be back in S4, and that's cool, but it still detracted from this season.
And that's about all I have to say about that.