Quick Reaction: 8x22 Clip Show

[hells_half_acre]

Okay, so this episode was soul-crushing....

(Once again, I'm rewatching while I type this up, thanks to house-sitting at a place with a PVR. Next week I'll be back in my own apartment though and doing my quick reaction from memory.)

Comments

[missyjack]

When i saw that cafe with that gorgoeus view I thought - mmm must ask hells-half-acre where that is! Wonder if it was a CGI backdrop?

tbh - i think Dean is going easy on Cas. I am not as kind as him and would've cut Cas off - although that would probably be strategically stupid. Not that i dont empathises with the impossible choices Cas gets faced with, but NOT walking to Dean (and Sam) has blown up on him more than once. Cas might be a warrior, but damn he makes stupid decisions about - life!

Glad to finally have a nephilim. man I remember all the hours fandom spent speculating Sam was a nephilim back in S1 and S2...Of course the question may be w- who was her angelic father?

[afastmachine]

I agree about Dean. I love Cas, but he never seems to learn from his mistakes.

[hells_half_acre]

It definitely looked like a Vancouver view. I'll have to take a closer look and see if I can figure it out. My gut says Deep Cove, but I've got nothing to base that on.

Yeah, I completely understand where Dean is coming from. And as much as it'll make me sound like a shipper, I also understand why he's going easy on him - you tend to make excuses for those you love, after all. But that being said, I don't see Dean reacting well when he finds out that Cas is doing the Heaven trials without talking to him first.

Nephilim could also be human-father, angelic-mother! Just to mess with our assumptions! I wasn't around for S1-S2, so I didn't even realize that was speculation at one point! Funny. But yeah, it was really neat to introduce the Nephilim, too bad they said she was the only one.

[missyjack]

Here's an essay from October 2006 on Sam and Nephilim. Note that she picked Azazel (albeit in a different form) long before the show reveal! And long before angels were on the show it was commonly thought that Sam was either angel spawn or demon spawn. John had an article on his motel room wall in the pilot about cambion.

And i totally agree - Dean loves Cas and thats why hes resuced him and kept him round. If he didnt the betrayal (from Dean's POV) wouldn't hurt so much. I think it was jemermy Carver who said that betrayal by family was Dean's kyptonite.

[afastmachine]

I haven't rewatched it yet, so I'm still going off my gut reaction, but...I wasn't very fond of the episode. Like, I understand what they did and why, but it doesn't make me less upset or frustrated with how they dealt with Cas and the Nephilim(SHE WAS DEFENDING HERSELF SERIOUSLY SHE DID NOTHING WRONG FFS) and the people they've saved and just...well, in general. While I'll agree that Sarah's death, once introduced, was inevitable, and the scene was pretty much flawless, I just...I didn't like it. It didn't feel like a nessisary pain, it felt like it shouldn't have happened. And I was already pissy for them killing so many women and...idk. I just came out really frustrated in the end. It wasn't like the solemn impactful deaths of other characters, it just felt so wasteful and unnecessary.

/rant

[hells_half_acre]

And my argument is that that's all the stuff we SUPPOSED to be feeling, so it was actually an effectively written episode - you might not happen to like it's goal, but you can't argue that it didn't achieve it. The deaths weren't supposed to be impactful, they were supposed to be wasteful and unnecessary, the nephilim was supposed to be a morally-questionable kill, etc. It's all horrible and we hate everything, because it's all horrible and we're supposed to hate everything.

[afastmachine]

I know that was the intent, it just...it bugged me. It came at the wrong time for me personally I guess. I can appreciate it from a storytelling POV but not from a fan POV.

[raloria]

I found the street Metatron & Cas walk down! It's in Deep Cover, North Van. I believe the restaurant is right there, too...maybe Arms Beach Bistro, but I can't confirm it.

I was also looking back through my Favorited Tweets & found the filming notice for when they shot the church scene in New West. *g*

Anyway...*ahem* Loved the episode. Some folks might not like what Crowley did, but it was really quite brilliant. How do you hurt the Winchesters, besides going after one or the other? Hurt innocents. That's their Achille's Heel. Crowley knew just where to hit them the hardest.

[ramblin_rosie]

And Crowley's done this before, when he nabbed Lisa and Ben to (try to) make Dean stand down. He really ought to know that he's signed his own worse-than-death warrant by doing so, because Dean does not take kindly to blackmail.

[hells_half_acre]

Yay! I hoped you'd come through for me. And double-yay! Because I had a feeling that it was Deep Cove, and I was right!

Anyway...*ahem* Loved the episode. Some folks might not like what Crowley did, but it was really quite brilliant. How do you hurt the Winchesters, besides going after one or the other? Hurt innocents. That's their Achille's Heel. Crowley knew just where to hit them the hardest.

Indeed indeed. Though, if there's something else that Crowley should know, it's that hitting them the hardest means that they're going to hit hard back... the Winchesters have never backed down from a plan.

[borgmama1of5]

Emotionally the episode left me with a knot in my gut about the impossible situation the boys were left in. I was actually really happy for a change that the preview gave away a big scene because otherwise I don't think I would survive this week from anxiety.(And really, I don't need to spend my week tied up in knots over a TV show

[percysowner]

I agree with all of these, especially the making the nephilim the aggressor so that Cas wouldn't be seen in as bad a light. They didn't give Sam that excuse with the nurse at the end of season four, but Cas gets an out.

Your other points are all good ones as well. This season has had massive problems for me and this episode really had so many of the things I dislike in it.

[hells_half_acre]

I really don't think the Nephilim was made the aggressor. I think she legitimately defended herself. Yeah, she was AGGRESSIVE about defending herself, but they still attacked her first after she told them not to - and then she was a bad-ass. I don't think that vindicated Castiel's decision at all, since she wouldn't have been choking Metatron if Castiel hadn't decided to go along with the plan.

So, no, Cas didn't get an out. He still killed a completely innocent girl. Just because she used her powers and angry-words when she defended herself doesn't make her bad.

[hells_half_acre]

I was actually really happy for a change that the preview gave away a big scene because otherwise I don't think I would survive this week from anxiety.(And really, I don't need to spend my week tied up in knots over a TV show!)

This is why I actually don't mind people spoiling most shows for me. Supernatural is my exception, but because it's the exception it's the ONLY one. Every other show I watch, I prefer to either be a comedy or to be enough seasons in that I'm playing catch up and already know vaguely where the characters are going to end up.

-Set up a terrible moral quandry for Cas and then give him an easy out in making the nephilim go bad after all, so what was the point in making her sweet and innocent initially?I don't think they made her bad at all. Yeah, she defended herself angrily, but who wouldn't? If you had attacked the Winchesters, they would have appeared to be just as "bad" in their angry defending. Maybe it's the sexism thing, where she's just supposed to roll over and die? Or scream and whimper if she's

[katsheswims]

I really enjoyed this episode! Which you know because you already commented on my reaction :)

I loved your thoughts.

There were a couple things that bugged me in the episode, but Crowley's monologue and that scene...it just was so awesome.

I'm glad Dean hasn't just forgiven Cas because Cas really hasn't learned from his mistakes--which we can see already playing out again in this episode!

I'm also wary of Metatron now. Sam convinced him that he shouldn't ignore the real world and read stories all the time, but now he's determined to create his OWN story (he even said to Cas that this will make a great story). And you know you can't trust authors not to hurt their characters and make sacrifices to make a better story...

[hells_half_acre]

I'm also wary of Metatron now. Sam convinced him that he shouldn't ignore the real world and read stories all the time, but now he's determined to create his OWN story (he even said to Cas that this will make a great story). And you know you can't trust authors not to hurt their characters and make sacrifices to make a better story...

Indeed. Just because he's a runaway angel, doesn't mean that he's not just another manipulative angel with his own agenda. He's been to heaven, he's seen the chaos, and he sees a way to improve his own station - get more power for himself... or at least, that's one cynical way to look at it. I just don't trust him.