Review | 9x09 | Holy Terror

[galathea_snb]

Sorry, this review is so late, again. To tell the truth, I felt little motivation to write about Holy Terror, mainly because I barely managed to stay awake during the episode. The majority of the plot consists of angels posturing, scheming, torturing or killing each other, all of which does not exactly constitute as exciting TV for me. There is

Comments

[de_nugis]

I'm honestly not sure that the writers really see the violation of Sam that's going on with this storyline, that it even occurs to them that Sam being locked down while Dean chats with Gadreel is disturbing as all hell. I don't know. If the consent issue, and the mind/body autonomy issue, and the controlling someone's capacity to consent through repeated memory wipes issue, if none of these even really come up in the aftermath of all this, I may be squicked out of the show and fandom. I don't mind fucked up and disturbing -- I actually like that they went this dark with this aspect of Dean -- but fucked up and disturbing that's not visible to its creators, ugh.

[galathea_snb]

To be honest, I don't think the writers have any awareness for the more disturbing aspects of their storyline. We only need to look at how they write Dean this season. Dean clearly knows that possession = bad, but it seems to be a very abstract version of 'bad' for him. He doesn't seem to get the highly abusive character of it or he would not be able to act so casually around Gadreel. Similarly, the fact that the writers never explicity thematised consent, autonomy or abuse this season really highlights the fact that they either don't care or think about these implications of their possession storyline. So, no, I don't have much hope that these aspects will ever be addressed this season. I agree that this could be a highly fascinating storyline, but with these writers at the helm, the potential of this storyline will never even be in sight.

[bowtrunckle]

I'm there with you on pretty much everything down to your feelings about watching current and past episodes, Dean's "emotional evolution" or lack thereof, neglecting Sam's POV, and my concerns about how the writers will handle the fallout of the last 9 episodes. I've pretty much given up hope for canon continuity regarding laws/rules that govern the SPN universe and instead I'm just focusing on the emotional story of the characters I care about (Sam and Dean) and how their plot hangs together. But the frustrating and disappointing thing is that even after lowering the bar to just that, I'm still annoyed that I can't find very much to hang my hat on as far as faith that the writing team can pull any of this off in a marginally satisfying, original, and surprising way. My mourning over this show really stems from a mourning over my faith that we'll get an ending that will be meaningful, something that to me is so, so important for these characters that I adore. I feel like I can forgive and forget a lot, but THE END is something so

[galathea_snb]

It is very frustrating to see something that has been a meaningful part of your life for so long go bad. It really can ruin the experience as a whole, I've made that experience with other shows that meant something to me. I wished I could just stop, but I am still too invested in Sam and Dean. If the ending of their saga is not to my liking, I'll just pretend S8-10 never happened. I am good at that. In my universe Matrix sequels and Star Wars prequels simply do not exist. LOL