As I was drifting off to sleep last night, I realized something about my dissatisfaction with s6 of SPN so far. It's a matter of genre and expectations. ( tl;dr with vague spoilers for what's aired )
i'm not a huge fan of noir - it's too cynical and hopeless for me - and i've been saying since s4 that spn is no longer the show i signed on to watch. so what you say makes sense to me in a "that explains it!" lightbulby kind of way. and yeah, if this was the first season of a new show, you could take it on its own terms as kind of supernatural noir/neo-noir, and settle in for a nice dark story with an older brother who distrusts his younger brother, and a younger brother who is working against his older brother. and as much as the boys were at odds in previous seasons, a lot (possibly all) of their choices were made out of love for and an attempt to help/protect/save each other (ok, and a lot of other people), and that's no longer the case
( ... )
See, despite the heartbreak of s4, I always felt like it was still about Sam and Dean's relationship. The disintegration of it, sure, but still, everything they did was for/about each other, despite the show dropping the ball on Sam's POV. But now I feel like they are actually on two separate sides, instead of just having opposing views on how to steer Team Winchester.
i don't care what sam's motivations are, i don't care if he came back wrong or just came back different or if he's a hellspawn creature wearing sam's skin or what. i don't care about his and dean's relationship any more. if the whole show, by sera's own admission, is the love story of sam and dean, what the hell is up with this season? because there ain't no love there, not anywhere near like there was.
Yeah, that's how it feels now to me, too. Except I still do care about their relationship and it hurts me that it's been gutted like this.
I definitely questioned *exactly* this because the feel of noir is completely opposed to the feel of SPN. You just can't have the relationship that Sam and Dean have in the center of a noir. It's pure and straightforward at its heart.
You just can't have the relationship that Sam and Dean have in the center of a noir. It's pure and straightforward at its heart.
EXACTLY. It doesn't fit at all. (Well, maybe if they added some actual, textual incest... *cough*)
I mean, if Sam had stayed dead, he could have been the Archer to Dean's Spade, but meh. Right now he feels more like Mary Astor's character. Or possibly Peter Lorre. (Okay, not really Peter Lorre, but the mismatched imagery amuses me.)
Yeah, exactly. This is not the show I signed up for. It's not about two brothers; it's about Dean as he's plagued by his (duplicitous, disingenuous, double-faced) brother. Again, it's all about POV and for a long time now it's been The Dean Show (sometimes with a side of Sammy). Meh.
it's all about POV and for a long time now it's been The Dean Show (sometimes with a side of Sammy).
Yeah, this is why I have no real confidence in them pulling anything awesome of out this - they've fallen down too many times on providing any kind of strong storyline for Sam or even giving us more than occasional Sam POV.
Apparently, Sera Gamble said she wanted this season to be noir in tone and I think they've done a good job with that so far - looking at this season's episodes so far with that lens makes a lot of sense (more sense, perhaps, than they make otherwise) - but the thing about noir (and neo-noir, which is even more cynical) is that it's about one man (occasionally, it's a woman [see Veronica Mars], but most often it's a man) alone and in over his head fighting to bring some truth to light while working against corrupt systems that will grind him down to nothing in the end...But see, that's not the show I signed up to watch. It's not the first season of a show with that premise. It's the sixth season of a show that had at its core the relationship between two brothers, and how their love for each other saved the world.YES. EXACTLY. I kinda came to the same conclusion with last week's episode, though I didn't get to think it out quite this far, but YES. I LOVE noir, and I LOVE SPN no matter what stupid shit the throw at me. But combining
( ... )
Even on it's most depressing days, SPN has never been emotionally cold. The connections have been what has made the show such an emotional rollercoaster. Take that away and, well...
Exactly. As small as the support network was, Sam and Dean always had each other, and when they didn't, we could still see that each was working for the other's best interests, despite how things worked out. now, Dean is basically cut off from everyone else because they're all lying to him (or they did, in Bobby's case, and I wouldn't be so quick to forgive that, either). Now he doesn't even have the small comfort of Lisa and Ben, and he knows Sam no longer has his best interests at heart, even if he isn't quite actively working against him yet. It's very different. And it makes me sad.
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i don't care what sam's motivations are, i don't care if he came back wrong or just came back different or if he's a hellspawn creature wearing sam's skin or what. i don't care about his and dean's relationship any more. if the whole show, by sera's own admission, is the love story of sam and dean, what the hell is up with this season? because there ain't no love there, not anywhere near like there was.
Yeah, that's how it feels now to me, too. Except I still do care about their relationship and it hurts me that it's been gutted like this.
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EXACTLY. It doesn't fit at all. (Well, maybe if they added some actual, textual incest... *cough*)
I mean, if Sam had stayed dead, he could have been the Archer to Dean's Spade, but meh. Right now he feels more like Mary Astor's character. Or possibly Peter Lorre. (Okay, not really Peter Lorre, but the mismatched imagery amuses me.)
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Yeah, this is why I have no real confidence in them pulling anything awesome of out this - they've fallen down too many times on providing any kind of strong storyline for Sam or even giving us more than occasional Sam POV.
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In a bitter, betrayed sort of way, I mean.
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Apparently, Sera Gamble said she wanted this season to be noir in tone and I think they've done a good job with that so far - looking at this season's episodes so far with that lens makes a lot of sense (more sense, perhaps, than they make otherwise) - but the thing about noir (and neo-noir, which is even more cynical) is that it's about one man (occasionally, it's a woman [see Veronica Mars], but most often it's a man) alone and in over his head fighting to bring some truth to light while working against corrupt systems that will grind him down to nothing in the end...But see, that's not the show I signed up to watch. It's not the first season of a show with that premise. It's the sixth season of a show that had at its core the relationship between two brothers, and how their love for each other saved the world.YES. EXACTLY. I kinda came to the same conclusion with last week's episode, though I didn't get to think it out quite this far, but YES. I LOVE noir, and I LOVE SPN no matter what stupid shit the throw at me. But combining ( ... )
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Exactly. As small as the support network was, Sam and Dean always had each other, and when they didn't, we could still see that each was working for the other's best interests, despite how things worked out. now, Dean is basically cut off from everyone else because they're all lying to him (or they did, in Bobby's case, and I wouldn't be so quick to forgive that, either). Now he doesn't even have the small comfort of Lisa and Ben, and he knows Sam no longer has his best interests at heart, even if he isn't quite actively working against him yet. It's very different. And it makes me sad.
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