SPN 5x05: Fallen Idols
I was definitely ready for the light relief of a MOTW episode after a long string of mytharc-heavy stuff. Sadly however, I was hoping for another one I could love as much as "Monster Movie" rather than this, where the plot sounded considerably better on paper than in the execution. It may just be that Julie Siege's writing style doesn't do it for me. "The Monster At The End Of This Book" aside, I've never managed better than "eh" in reaction to one of her episodes.
Somehow it just felt flat. And accompanied by anvils. Though despite the unevenness there were definitely things that worked for me there as well.
Stuff that didn't work for me:
Dean sitting around and doing nothing while Sam worked. It just seemed horribly out of character for him, particularly as he was the one who initiated this hunt. He sets Sam to research - on car stuff that he was clearly more familiar with and could therefore have either done better, or simply shared the legwork on since he now does have a laptop of his own. While Sam's doing this he goes to a bar, and chats up the barmaid. In itself that's not unusual behaviour, but in the middle of the day and while they're on a job? Those are normally the occasions when Dean comes back with the barmaid's phone number AND some intel relating to the case. And if he needed a drink after his Christine moment, why not just pick up a six pack or a bottle of whisky and take it back to the room? Or make it explicit that Dean taking off at that point was a conscious choice to take an hour or so alone because after three weeks at extreme close quarters with Sam he's likely to do/say something he'll regret or that will make Sam walk out again otherwise?
Then there's the second occasion, when - even more bizarrely - he simply sits outside in the street doing nothing while Sam does his autopsy thing. He could at least have made himself useful by guarding the door so that someone didn't walk in unexpectedly on Sam's unauthorised digging around in the stomachs of corpses.
That he didn't, suggests to me that the writer just couldn't think of something productive for him to do. Or at least, nothing that didn't involve working alongside Sam and losing the effect they were working for where that wasn't going so smoothly. And that's just bad writing, whacking square pegs into round holes in order to lead the plot in a desired direction it won't go in otherwise.
Stuff that was okay:
"You ain't steering this boat."
I don't have a problem with the portrayal of Dean coming the heavy handed bossy older brother, hustling Sam along. He's done it, to varying degrees, since the very first episode, even if this is at the upper end of the controlling scale. I thought it was fractionally overplayed, but I could easily see how that could happen after three weeks of the boys being on top of each other again. Considering how bad things got before they split up, it's a miracle they're not back to wanting to kill each other. It's not just Sam that's on "double secret probation"; they're both doing it to each other. They haven't more than scratched the surface of the problems between them yet, though time and distance have enabled them both to reach the mindset where they're willing to start the process. But they're still at the one step back, two steps forward stage, and I imagine there'll be more misunderstandings and setting each other straight before we're done.
Stuff that did work for me:
Two laptops. Two! Laptops!
Dean sweet-talking the fake Little Bastard. I guess the Impala will forgive him. He was trying to get information out of a suspected criminal, after all...
That Sam was so alert to the offness of the "ghost" behaviour. I wonder if he's paying particularly close attention to such things because of his awareness that he didn't spot it when the demon death effect didn't happen with the teenagers he knifed in River Pass.
I like that in spite of everything, John is still Dean's hero. He might have taken him down of his pedestal, but he still believes in what John devoted his life to doing after Mary's death.
I'd always assumed that Dean had told Sam about having broken the first seal pretty much as soon as he learned it, because Dean generally either does spill the tactical information immediately, or it's so obvious that he's struggling with something that Sam keeps nudging him until he spills, but it's nice to know for certain.
I may not have liked the heavy handedness of the execution, but I do like that the boys are still talking out their problems. I like that Sam's guilt complex is still at such paranoid levels that he thinks that everything's about him, whether it is or not.
And this was definitely one of the points that they had to iron out quickly, because it relates to professional as well as personal issues. Dean's not wrong that they needed the training wheels. They needed to establish the ground rules of their renewed hunting partnership so that they don't get each other killed through the absence of teamwork. The lack of that was what prompted Sam to walk away from the hunt in "Good God, Y'All", so it's vitally important that they get that right first. Wounded feelings will keep. If they're still breathing at the end of the hunt, there'll be time for that later.
They seem to me to still be making headway, for all that Sam lapsed into his tunnel vision nag Dean until he caves and tells you what's on his mind mode, and Dean lapsed back into overprotective big brother.
I noticed that even when Sam's doing his usual bug-Dean-till-he-caves thing he's taking an extra breath before each new comment, bringing it down to the level of the debate-not-argument thing they were doing in "The Monster At The End Of This Book". And Dean's doing that typically Dean thing where he doesn't say much when the point is first made, but goes away to think about it and then comes back and brings it up again once he's had time to process.
They're trying. And the honesty is painful, but at least they aren't shying away from the difficult moments.
The problem of the fake Little Bastard:
The real Little Bastard ended up as crumpled wreckage, to the point where it was only good for spare parts. (And the engine was sold off as one of them.) I guess we have to assume that in the Supernatural universe it was possible to repair it and make it good as new, since an opening teaser of a haunted tyre wouldn't be nearly so dramatically effective. But even if you handwave that, there's a certain amount wrong with this picture.
Would it really be necessary to get underneath the car to check the engine number (and the part VIN that's presumably stamped right next to it)? On my car I can just open the bonnet (hood) and peer inside, since engines are usually stamped somewhere visible at the front or side for just that purpose. If I wanted a closer look I could get down low to the ground and look up, but I'd be in no danger of it dropping on me.
So locating the engine number under the car is clearly a contrivance so that they can have Dean slide underneath and wince while the jack makes ominous creaking noises while they still believe it to be a cursed car. Granted, we see a number under there, but eh. It'd have made a heck of a lot more sense if he were under there looking for signs of tampering (like someone having welded in a new panel with the appropriate VIN under the driver's footwell) or appropriate car age, with the aid of that flashlight Sam offered him.
Five minutes on Google can get you the Little Bastard's serial number, engine number and gear box number. Looking for the VIN led me to a site advertising a replica Porsche 550 Spyder customised to look like James Dean's car. That being the case, I find it somewhat surprising that Cal wouldn't have checked everything carefully, including the multiple places the VIN is repeated in/on the car apart from that little embossed plaque in the dashboard.
But maybe he always knew it was a fake and hadn't been duped at all? Look at his garage; the first thing the camera focusses on, before panning over to the car about to be unveiled, is a spare steering wheel and other car junk on a set of shelves. Cal's not just a James Dean buff, he's a car buff too. It wouldn't surprise me at all to know that he bought the car in the full knowledge that it wasn't the real thing, as part of the game of one-upmanship with his friend. He refused to say what he paid for it, after all.
Timeline stuff:
The last known date is 23 August, part way through episode 5x03. Which took a week, unless you blend the starting montage into the offscreen time elapsed from the end of the previous episode.
The 2009 section of 5x04 took place in a single night, plus however long it took Sam and Dean to both drive to their meeting point. Sam started from Garber, Oklahoma, but was already on the road when he called Dean. Dean was in Kansas City. From the information given in "Salvation" their meeting point has to be somewhere between Salvation, Iowa and Lincoln, Nebraska; probably not far from Salvation. Even if Sam had started off in a completely different direction, to shake the demons who might be trying to find him, it's likely that they would have both been able to meet there the following day. So by this point it's no later than the end of August.
3rd week of September (approx) - at the start of 5x05 the boys have been looking for the Colt for three weeks. It's reasonable to assume unless other evidence comes to light that they started hunting for it immediately after their reunion. Alas, the date field on Cal's coroner's report has been left blank, but the episode takes place over 5 days.
Day 1 - night, as they travel to Canton, Ohio
Day 2 - they investigate Cal's death and visit police headquarters and the impound garage. Hill gets killed by 'Lincoln'
Day 3 - investigation of Hill's death, visit to the wax museum, night time break-in return visit to the wax museum
Day 4 - back at police HQ and the morgue after discovering that the case isn't solved, another night visit to the wax museum
Day 5 - checking out of the motel
That takes us close to the end of September. The actual air date of 8 October would be possible with a little handwaving.
Somehow it just felt flat. And accompanied by anvils. Though despite the unevenness there were definitely things that worked for me there as well.
Stuff that didn't work for me:
Dean sitting around and doing nothing while Sam worked. It just seemed horribly out of character for him, particularly as he was the one who initiated this hunt. He sets Sam to research - on car stuff that he was clearly more familiar with and could therefore have either done better, or simply shared the legwork on since he now does have a laptop of his own. While Sam's doing this he goes to a bar, and chats up the barmaid. In itself that's not unusual behaviour, but in the middle of the day and while they're on a job? Those are normally the occasions when Dean comes back with the barmaid's phone number AND some intel relating to the case. And if he needed a drink after his Christine moment, why not just pick up a six pack or a bottle of whisky and take it back to the room? Or make it explicit that Dean taking off at that point was a conscious choice to take an hour or so alone because after three weeks at extreme close quarters with Sam he's likely to do/say something he'll regret or that will make Sam walk out again otherwise?
Then there's the second occasion, when - even more bizarrely - he simply sits outside in the street doing nothing while Sam does his autopsy thing. He could at least have made himself useful by guarding the door so that someone didn't walk in unexpectedly on Sam's unauthorised digging around in the stomachs of corpses.
That he didn't, suggests to me that the writer just couldn't think of something productive for him to do. Or at least, nothing that didn't involve working alongside Sam and losing the effect they were working for where that wasn't going so smoothly. And that's just bad writing, whacking square pegs into round holes in order to lead the plot in a desired direction it won't go in otherwise.
Stuff that was okay:
"You ain't steering this boat."
I don't have a problem with the portrayal of Dean coming the heavy handed bossy older brother, hustling Sam along. He's done it, to varying degrees, since the very first episode, even if this is at the upper end of the controlling scale. I thought it was fractionally overplayed, but I could easily see how that could happen after three weeks of the boys being on top of each other again. Considering how bad things got before they split up, it's a miracle they're not back to wanting to kill each other. It's not just Sam that's on "double secret probation"; they're both doing it to each other. They haven't more than scratched the surface of the problems between them yet, though time and distance have enabled them both to reach the mindset where they're willing to start the process. But they're still at the one step back, two steps forward stage, and I imagine there'll be more misunderstandings and setting each other straight before we're done.
Stuff that did work for me:
Two laptops. Two! Laptops!
Dean sweet-talking the fake Little Bastard. I guess the Impala will forgive him. He was trying to get information out of a suspected criminal, after all...
That Sam was so alert to the offness of the "ghost" behaviour. I wonder if he's paying particularly close attention to such things because of his awareness that he didn't spot it when the demon death effect didn't happen with the teenagers he knifed in River Pass.
I like that in spite of everything, John is still Dean's hero. He might have taken him down of his pedestal, but he still believes in what John devoted his life to doing after Mary's death.
I'd always assumed that Dean had told Sam about having broken the first seal pretty much as soon as he learned it, because Dean generally either does spill the tactical information immediately, or it's so obvious that he's struggling with something that Sam keeps nudging him until he spills, but it's nice to know for certain.
I may not have liked the heavy handedness of the execution, but I do like that the boys are still talking out their problems. I like that Sam's guilt complex is still at such paranoid levels that he thinks that everything's about him, whether it is or not.
And this was definitely one of the points that they had to iron out quickly, because it relates to professional as well as personal issues. Dean's not wrong that they needed the training wheels. They needed to establish the ground rules of their renewed hunting partnership so that they don't get each other killed through the absence of teamwork. The lack of that was what prompted Sam to walk away from the hunt in "Good God, Y'All", so it's vitally important that they get that right first. Wounded feelings will keep. If they're still breathing at the end of the hunt, there'll be time for that later.
They seem to me to still be making headway, for all that Sam lapsed into his tunnel vision nag Dean until he caves and tells you what's on his mind mode, and Dean lapsed back into overprotective big brother.
I noticed that even when Sam's doing his usual bug-Dean-till-he-caves thing he's taking an extra breath before each new comment, bringing it down to the level of the debate-not-argument thing they were doing in "The Monster At The End Of This Book". And Dean's doing that typically Dean thing where he doesn't say much when the point is first made, but goes away to think about it and then comes back and brings it up again once he's had time to process.
They're trying. And the honesty is painful, but at least they aren't shying away from the difficult moments.
The problem of the fake Little Bastard:
The real Little Bastard ended up as crumpled wreckage, to the point where it was only good for spare parts. (And the engine was sold off as one of them.) I guess we have to assume that in the Supernatural universe it was possible to repair it and make it good as new, since an opening teaser of a haunted tyre wouldn't be nearly so dramatically effective. But even if you handwave that, there's a certain amount wrong with this picture.
Would it really be necessary to get underneath the car to check the engine number (and the part VIN that's presumably stamped right next to it)? On my car I can just open the bonnet (hood) and peer inside, since engines are usually stamped somewhere visible at the front or side for just that purpose. If I wanted a closer look I could get down low to the ground and look up, but I'd be in no danger of it dropping on me.
So locating the engine number under the car is clearly a contrivance so that they can have Dean slide underneath and wince while the jack makes ominous creaking noises while they still believe it to be a cursed car. Granted, we see a number under there, but eh. It'd have made a heck of a lot more sense if he were under there looking for signs of tampering (like someone having welded in a new panel with the appropriate VIN under the driver's footwell) or appropriate car age, with the aid of that flashlight Sam offered him.
Five minutes on Google can get you the Little Bastard's serial number, engine number and gear box number. Looking for the VIN led me to a site advertising a replica Porsche 550 Spyder customised to look like James Dean's car. That being the case, I find it somewhat surprising that Cal wouldn't have checked everything carefully, including the multiple places the VIN is repeated in/on the car apart from that little embossed plaque in the dashboard.
But maybe he always knew it was a fake and hadn't been duped at all? Look at his garage; the first thing the camera focusses on, before panning over to the car about to be unveiled, is a spare steering wheel and other car junk on a set of shelves. Cal's not just a James Dean buff, he's a car buff too. It wouldn't surprise me at all to know that he bought the car in the full knowledge that it wasn't the real thing, as part of the game of one-upmanship with his friend. He refused to say what he paid for it, after all.
Timeline stuff:
The last known date is 23 August, part way through episode 5x03. Which took a week, unless you blend the starting montage into the offscreen time elapsed from the end of the previous episode.
The 2009 section of 5x04 took place in a single night, plus however long it took Sam and Dean to both drive to their meeting point. Sam started from Garber, Oklahoma, but was already on the road when he called Dean. Dean was in Kansas City. From the information given in "Salvation" their meeting point has to be somewhere between Salvation, Iowa and Lincoln, Nebraska; probably not far from Salvation. Even if Sam had started off in a completely different direction, to shake the demons who might be trying to find him, it's likely that they would have both been able to meet there the following day. So by this point it's no later than the end of August.
3rd week of September (approx) - at the start of 5x05 the boys have been looking for the Colt for three weeks. It's reasonable to assume unless other evidence comes to light that they started hunting for it immediately after their reunion. Alas, the date field on Cal's coroner's report has been left blank, but the episode takes place over 5 days.
Day 1 - night, as they travel to Canton, Ohio
Day 2 - they investigate Cal's death and visit police headquarters and the impound garage. Hill gets killed by 'Lincoln'
Day 3 - investigation of Hill's death, visit to the wax museum, night time break-in return visit to the wax museum
Day 4 - back at police HQ and the morgue after discovering that the case isn't solved, another night visit to the wax museum
Day 5 - checking out of the motel
That takes us close to the end of September. The actual air date of 8 October would be possible with a little handwaving.