Episode 7.20 reaction post - she doesn't love Dick!
Points in no particular order!
- Okay, first, I rather enjoyed Charlie. It was rather a pleasure, after Strong Female Character Who Epitomises 'Hunters Have It Hard' To Such An Extent That She Actively Seeks Oblivion last week, to have someone who can know the risks and the darkness out there and still remain bright. And I saw those couple of little smirks at Dean's expense when he was talking you through flirting with that security guard, girl. Not that I didn't enjoy last week's Strong Female Character too, but we aren't getting too many of those cheerful moments this season. And I doubt we'll have any in the next three episodes - gearing up for the endgame, here.
- On the note of Comparing Strong Female Characters. Supernatural generally, though it has trouble writing (and keeping!) women relative to the generally good standard of its writing, doesn't fall into the trap of making women stereotypes so often as many action shows do. If it were just being lazy, it would only contain two kinds of women: the Dispensable One-Night Hottie, and the Woman Who Is Strong (You Can Tell Because She Carries A Gun), aka She's Almost As Good As A Boy. Jo, I have to say, almost becomes this last in places, though not invariably. In other words, there are usually two kinds of power available to women in lazy writing: the power of having girl bits, and the power of proving that women can kill things too. This is why Ellen was and remains my favourite female character - sure, she's absolutely gorgeous (and hot), and sure, she can kill things with the best of them, but that's not the centre of her power, or her strength as a character. Ellen can reduce our boys to uncertain stammering messes, because she's just in charge - and because, poor motherless lads, they don't know how to relate to an older woman, one who doesn't fit into either of those categories.
WIth that in mind, I found it interesting - and I'm undecided as to whether it's a positive or a negative interesting - that they chose to assert both Charlie and Annie's strength by asserting their sexual independence. Charlie wants sex with none of our boys - Annie had sex with all of them (and, by implication, is still her own person [althoughapparentlySam'spenisofdoomstillworkswhenhehasnosoul,coughcough]). Not quite sure whether this counts as protesting too much, but it's interesting either way.
- And following on from that thought, I think I saw some people being peeved that Dean has to compartmentalise Charlie as a little sister (the sort of categorisation he'd never feel the need to do with a male colleague, eg, Garth). But for me, precisely because of the previous point, this makes perfect sense - Dean does have to categorise women. It's the way he works. For Dean the other gender still remains, to a certain extent, the other, in all senses. This is why he had to be the one to be the subject of the Amazon episode (among other things).
- Hm. Charlie is an expert at Vanishing, and an expert at Hacking who can defeat Frank. The boys have a new consulting guru! Never mind that she never wants to talk to them again. We all know that's just a cheery friendly goodbye in supernatural-verse.
- Still waiting for the Leviathans to become scary. :( Sorry, show, but I do think that storyline has just been so disjointed that I haven't really followed it and am not very invested. Except for how I am waiting patiently for Gabriel to burst in and go CAN'T WE ALL GET ALONG? and then (NOT YOU) and smite them all.
- Awww, Hermione-love. *pets her* And of course she was about to go on a rant about Hermione getting stuck with Ron as a way of calming her nerves. Why wouldn't you? I do note, though, that while Dean must roll his eyes dutifully at Sam knowing enough about Harry Potter to talk her through that panic attack, Dean himself knew enough to cap it with the Dumbledore reference.
- I don't usually pick plotholes. I know our boys are ninjas of awesome doom who can source anything from anywhere at a moment's notice while driving across country in a stolen vehicle with absolutely no resources. Possibly they keep GabrielBot in their back pockets for precisely this purpose. But surely it's at least a little weird that, with less than half an hour to spare (as she got them that much time after they said 'the time we have is not enough' presumably any free time they had was 25 minutes at most), they managed to source a matching suitcase AND turn it into a borax-bomb?
- Bobby, Bobby, Bobby. Is it just me or would he be finding it a lot easier to resist the whole vengeful spirit thing if the boys weren't cutting him off so much? Is this familiar to anyone? Come on, guys - remember what happened to the last close friend you started leaving out of the loop and treating with suspicion? Or, hey, the last brother either of you did that to?
- Why would the Leviathans kill Frank rather than copying him to get the information? Is it implied that he, like Charlie, has 'that little extra spark' that makes him uncopyable? Which, incidentally, neither Winchester has. Interesting that for once Dean is not THE ULTIMATE AMAZINGNESS OF HUMANITY. Clearly Cas was not consulted in the writing of this plotline.
- And finally, I am so very glad they resisted making a joke about the lesbian being terrified of / hating Dick.
(Not that I think they would. But that doesn't mean I can't be relieved. It must be several episodes, after all, since we've had a real Dick joke!)
(Which of course is why I did precisely that for the title of this post. To save anyone else having to. Taking one for the team!)
- Okay, first, I rather enjoyed Charlie. It was rather a pleasure, after Strong Female Character Who Epitomises 'Hunters Have It Hard' To Such An Extent That She Actively Seeks Oblivion last week, to have someone who can know the risks and the darkness out there and still remain bright. And I saw those couple of little smirks at Dean's expense when he was talking you through flirting with that security guard, girl. Not that I didn't enjoy last week's Strong Female Character too, but we aren't getting too many of those cheerful moments this season. And I doubt we'll have any in the next three episodes - gearing up for the endgame, here.
- On the note of Comparing Strong Female Characters. Supernatural generally, though it has trouble writing (and keeping!) women relative to the generally good standard of its writing, doesn't fall into the trap of making women stereotypes so often as many action shows do. If it were just being lazy, it would only contain two kinds of women: the Dispensable One-Night Hottie, and the Woman Who Is Strong (You Can Tell Because She Carries A Gun), aka She's Almost As Good As A Boy. Jo, I have to say, almost becomes this last in places, though not invariably. In other words, there are usually two kinds of power available to women in lazy writing: the power of having girl bits, and the power of proving that women can kill things too. This is why Ellen was and remains my favourite female character - sure, she's absolutely gorgeous (and hot), and sure, she can kill things with the best of them, but that's not the centre of her power, or her strength as a character. Ellen can reduce our boys to uncertain stammering messes, because she's just in charge - and because, poor motherless lads, they don't know how to relate to an older woman, one who doesn't fit into either of those categories.
WIth that in mind, I found it interesting - and I'm undecided as to whether it's a positive or a negative interesting - that they chose to assert both Charlie and Annie's strength by asserting their sexual independence. Charlie wants sex with none of our boys - Annie had sex with all of them (and, by implication, is still her own person [althoughapparentlySam'spenisofdoomstillworkswhenhehasnosoul,coughcough]). Not quite sure whether this counts as protesting too much, but it's interesting either way.
- And following on from that thought, I think I saw some people being peeved that Dean has to compartmentalise Charlie as a little sister (the sort of categorisation he'd never feel the need to do with a male colleague, eg, Garth). But for me, precisely because of the previous point, this makes perfect sense - Dean does have to categorise women. It's the way he works. For Dean the other gender still remains, to a certain extent, the other, in all senses. This is why he had to be the one to be the subject of the Amazon episode (among other things).
- Hm. Charlie is an expert at Vanishing, and an expert at Hacking who can defeat Frank. The boys have a new consulting guru! Never mind that she never wants to talk to them again. We all know that's just a cheery friendly goodbye in supernatural-verse.
- Still waiting for the Leviathans to become scary. :( Sorry, show, but I do think that storyline has just been so disjointed that I haven't really followed it and am not very invested. Except for how I am waiting patiently for Gabriel to burst in and go CAN'T WE ALL GET ALONG? and then (NOT YOU) and smite them all.
- Awww, Hermione-love. *pets her* And of course she was about to go on a rant about Hermione getting stuck with Ron as a way of calming her nerves. Why wouldn't you? I do note, though, that while Dean must roll his eyes dutifully at Sam knowing enough about Harry Potter to talk her through that panic attack, Dean himself knew enough to cap it with the Dumbledore reference.
- I don't usually pick plotholes. I know our boys are ninjas of awesome doom who can source anything from anywhere at a moment's notice while driving across country in a stolen vehicle with absolutely no resources. Possibly they keep GabrielBot in their back pockets for precisely this purpose. But surely it's at least a little weird that, with less than half an hour to spare (as she got them that much time after they said 'the time we have is not enough' presumably any free time they had was 25 minutes at most), they managed to source a matching suitcase AND turn it into a borax-bomb?
- Bobby, Bobby, Bobby. Is it just me or would he be finding it a lot easier to resist the whole vengeful spirit thing if the boys weren't cutting him off so much? Is this familiar to anyone? Come on, guys - remember what happened to the last close friend you started leaving out of the loop and treating with suspicion? Or, hey, the last brother either of you did that to?
- Why would the Leviathans kill Frank rather than copying him to get the information? Is it implied that he, like Charlie, has 'that little extra spark' that makes him uncopyable? Which, incidentally, neither Winchester has. Interesting that for once Dean is not THE ULTIMATE AMAZINGNESS OF HUMANITY. Clearly Cas was not consulted in the writing of this plotline.
- And finally, I am so very glad they resisted making a joke about the lesbian being terrified of / hating Dick.
(Not that I think they would. But that doesn't mean I can't be relieved. It must be several episodes, after all, since we've had a real Dick joke!)
(Which of course is why I did precisely that for the title of this post. To save anyone else having to. Taking one for the team!)