SPN 7x6-7x10
7x6
I think it’d be hilarious if something good killed the leviathans. Like, you can poison it or blow it up or whatever, but they die from ice cream!
This is a pretty clever way to give us perspective on their minds. It’s like Satan-vision 24/7 in here. And with that line, the show reminds us that Sam’s version of real and okay is fundamentally fucking different from it would’ve been otherwise, and he’s hanging on by a thread. And after all that, after Lucifer crawling inside of him and then abusing him for all those months, something else using his body in a way he would never want? And then cuffed, and a demon comes to threaten him and wave all his crazy in his face? It’s cracky and awesome, but also fucking horrifying.
OH. And. No, Dean, you don’t have a right to a phone call. You have a right to SHUT THE FUCK UP. God, I hate it when these two talk to the cops. “Oooooh, I didn’t do anything wrong! I can explain! I know my rights!” Yes you did, no you can’t, and no you don’t. SHUT YOUR GODDAMN MOUTH.
O HAY Michael Hogan, I didn’t recognize you with your whole face attached! The fandering has gone right into overdrive this season, I completely approve. But then Crawley comes to play too! (GLUTEN-FREE ORGANIC BABY UVULAS) Show, you can’t put all these BSG alums up in my face and not give me Mary McDonnell. You can’t. It is cruel cold-hearted cruelty.
Sam finds out about Dean killing his friend, and he feels betrayed, sure, and lied to, but he also understand exactly what that was - it was an explicit rejection of Sam himself. And then Dean lets him go no matter how much he thinks (correctly) that Sam is hanging on by a thread, it’s about My Little Brother, Me Me Me, rather than what Sam needs.
The Mentalists
Oh, this town. Orb of Thessulah, HOLLA! And Ellen is concerned! Hey, SAM, when was the last time you saw an actual psychic? Yeah, Sam, HARNESS THE POWER OF YOUR MIND. And then the ghost sister, yelling out for Sam because he can’t - listen to me, why isn’t anybody listening to me? He’s so going to snap. I cannot wait.
Especially because UGH. Dean overrides Sam’s judgment, AGAIN, and Sam tells Dean how right he is, AGAIN, and Dean goes on being Daddy Knows Best, AGAIN. Aside from all the MAN PAIN making me hate him generally, this is a really grotesque thing he has going on with Sam. If this dynamic was occurring in a heterosexual romantic relationship, instead of a familial one, it would be a RUN GIRL RUN Code Red. And I get that we accept more from family because in our day to day lives we have to? But that doesn’t mean we have to make excuses for it. It might be what there is, but that doesn’t make it good.
I see enough clues that at least half of the writer’s room know that this is wrong and intend to problematize it. I’m intellectually pretty blown away by the way we’ve seen this relationship be somewhat co-dependent but mostly really heartwarmingly good, and how it’s slid from that into this sick dynamic with one person controlling the other, and for the controlled party to be convinced he deserves it. And it comes from this place where he’s hanging on by a thread emotionally himself, so you can’t demonize him about it, even as it’s excruciating to watch. That is so real and I appreciate the complexity we’re seeing in their relationship. I do think the show knows that’s what it’s doing and I don’t expect it to go on forever. But in the meantime he’s being such a controlling-verging-on-abusive dick to Sam, who I’m feeling particularly protective of at this point, and as much as I like characters being awful generally, there’s only so much of this I’ll be able to watch before there’s no coming back for me with Dean. I’m getting kind of impatient waiting for that tension to actually snap, rather than an incremental call-out here or there that gets walked back almost immediately.
I was, probably predictably, less than thrilled with Time for a Wedding. YOU CAN’T ROOFIE A RAPE VICTIM, SHOW. FOUL BALL. I mean, real-world, DON’T ROOFIE ANYONE, obviously. But in terms of this story, there’s no way that can be handled well. Oh, and the slightly awkward lady who expresses herself sexually and the gay black dude? RAPISTS. Yeah, there’s no good here. NEXT.
How To Win Friends and Influence Monsters
HAHAHA, this one was the cracktastic awesomeness I’ve come to expect from this show. The Donald is the Big Bad! I AM SO THERE. Some sloppy thinking from either the script or the boys in the cabin with the monster - I think they’re facing Bobby when they all start open firing at the zombie, and then they don’t tie it down before cutting on it which strikes me as a foolish lack of precautions. (But what did I even expect out of NEW JERSEY!!? HEYO.)
Sam continues to stomp all over my heart while being clearly and hugely flawed, and I wouldn’t have him any other way. He’s made as much peace as he can with being as screwed up as he is, because with that trauma all over his brain, he can’t remember anything else. And that’s okay; I’m not one to moralize some unrealistic “getting back to ‘normal’/over it” goal for survivors. But he gets there via some very questionable reasoning. At least all my crazy’s under one umbrella, I kinda know what I’m dealing with. Oh, I’m sorry, as opposed to before when he were a compulsive liar with anger issues even before getting hooked on demon smack? Lucifer might be his main issue right now, and that’s a fair prioritization, but he’s externalizing all his damage in a way that will probably come back to bite him in the ass. (Again.)
Death’s Door
So, here’s the deal. I’m not anti-Bobby. It’s just that I’m not a particularly huge fan of him, either. He’s a serviceable character, useful for and entertaining at exposition, but nothing particularly special. It’s fine for me that he got a big send-off episode. But it’s a frustrating pattern in the story, that the show overestimates my interest in Bobby as compared to the way it underestimated my investment in Anna, and Ruby, and Ava, and Bela, and Jo and Ellen, and and and, who dropped dead as afterthoughts in episodes in which they were ultimately pretty much peripheral. I can’t think of a better illustration of the difference between a secondary character dying and a secondary character being fridged. Not only does Bobby get shot in the line of duty while being awesome and get to die a hero, but we actually get inside his head. We see what he thinks about dying. None of those ladies above got anything close to that.
Kids, the depths of my not-caring about Dean’s MAN PAIN. I can acknowledge intellectually that this is all part of the deconstruction, that we’re supposed to be able to tell that he’s in denial and the guy from the hospital is just doing his job and that he’s so cruel to Sam (and ugh, the look on his face when he presses into his palm, it kills me every time, but HERE) because NO LOSS IS LIKE HIS LOSS. And he throws Sam’s “because it’s real” back in his face as touchy-feely girl stuff, which is bad enough, but when Sam talks about something being “real” it is not, like, in the J-Lo sense? Because his sense of reality is being fucked up by all the Satan flashbacks? So, you know, not being a dick is also an option even if YOUR PAIN is so much worse than his pain at losing the exact same uncle? Ooooh, you have other stuff, you know who also has other stuff? Everyone else in the world, ESPECIALLY SAM.
And speaking of the MAN PAIN, really? Bobby KILLED his father? And that never came up? His father being a drunk makes perfect sense and I wasn’t surprised by that reveal. And that shit does happen. But it’s a totally out of nowhere manipulative retcon meant to make him look like a big man badass. And oh, what was that snotty little quip, “people almost never say thanks when you save ‘em.” Yeah, that SILLY WOMAN, being absolutely terrified that now she has another violent psycho in the house who’s judging and scrutinizing not only her every move, but her every reaction to his every move? I bop along, enjoying this show, and then it smacks me in the face with just how unwelcome I am in this treehouse. It's so sad.
Whatever, that was way too many words for an episode I could hardly bring myself to care about even though it killed off a character I guess I didn’t mind?
Anyway, I’ve figured out why I love this show so much throughout all the fail: because I watched BSG in its entirety, which taught me a Very Special Life Lesson about expectations. Specifically, NEVER HAVING THEM. LA!