Is this really happening?
I won’t be able to watch until tomorrow.
As always, here’s a place where we can all talk things out as this goes along.
The final season! I have so many emotions!
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Is this really happening?
I won’t be able to watch until tomorrow.
As always, here’s a place where we can all talk things out as this goes along.
The final season! I have so many emotions!
No, it’s not really happening. The show ended after Season 11, what are you talking about?
(Kidding. I’m also feeling many emotions.)
Knock me down with a feather, I thought that had a lot to recommend it. It got off to a particularly good start with an entire act taking place in one location, pretty much in real time. Almost unheard of in this show, and a slow-dawning delight as it kept going on and on: 8 or 9 minutes!!! that is a heck of a lot of real-estate!! I have a great love for watching characters problem-solve, try something, fail, try something else. Not the most earth-shattering or emotional scene in the world but it was whole and complete, with small reversals and believable dynamics and objectives, and aside from the frantically-circling dolly shot nicely made. A choice so confident and almost relaxed that I am kinda shocked, and curious.
And then the second half of the episode was the same thing but larger; another problem to solve. I think the show has always struggled with scale, so the town scenes strained credibility and the decision-making and processes were rushed and forced. In the way it looked, I feel like they did pretty well for their capacity, but it wasn’t as effective as, say, the empty town in Croatoan. Those ghost-in-the-daylight scenes were rouuuuuugh. A bunch of people in costumes running around. Frankly, the whole idea of these escaped ghosts is nonsense to me, and the imperfect resurrection of the WiW and…Bloody-Mary-But-Different? are extremely distracting. Is the clown meant to be the Rakshasa from ELaC but as a ghost? I don’t understand these decisions, or that cringy ghost special effect.
But some delightful Sam stuff — the mysterious bullet wound intrigues! — and the conversations between Dean and not-Jack were fab. Calvert once again brought in a different energy that could have gone really wrong, but went right. I’m fifty-fifty on whether this new demon is who he says he is and I suppose we’ll get Jack back at some point, but I’m interested. He seemed very overpowered for who he said he was, and the magic frustratingly easy, but that is par for the course these days.
Cas felt part of it and had believable reactions; solid night-driving Impala scene; lovely brief ominous scene in the dark between S&D at the car crash; a full, characterful S&D conversation at the end (with some scandalous shirt-unbuttoning!). And while I’m very resistant to gratuitous self-referentiality and flashbacks these days, I can’t say that very very last cut didn’t make me feel viscerally the span of time.
Nothing extraordinary, no real bombshell feelings, but it was a focused and relevant start. What the hell! Thanks for putting up the post Sheila. Looking forward to reading others’ thoughts and going through it with you all!
The clown is the ghost of John Wayne Gacy……the “serial killer clown” they introduced in the episode “Lebanon”.
Totally agree about the ghosts in the daylight shots being rough….there is a reason that ghosts belong in dark, creepy episodes.
However, that being said I really did enjoy the episode. There were definitely some quibbles, but overall the episode felt focused and purposeful and they definitely have me intrigued with some of the possibilities they introduced last night!
Michelle, I get what you mean and I think you’re right about their intention, and I feel petty about the following longwinded nitpicking which is absolutely not aimed at you: so this is supposed to be JWG’s ghost, who manifests as his Pogo persona presumably as an expression of his innermost self, which innermost self also includes going around to fancy houses where live white brunette prepubescent girls and their parents and trying to stab them to death instead of luring, assaulting and strangling adolescent boys to his home; JWG’s ghost who is first introduced as someone outside the home waving at the occupant in the dark, like the very memorable first appearance of a clown in the show, in a montage and subsequent episode which only and prominently featured two of the very first monsters the show did, as part of a larger message about the end circling back to the start.
I know I’m being painful! But it is so distracting and messy and weird. Like the utterly miserable casting, costuming and makeup of the woman in white, and Bloody Mary appearing without being summoned and shifting around to any reflective surface including a shallow water feature (that also, on purpose? evokes Dead in the Water); and just, to be honest, the ENTIRE thing: ghosts are souls escaping from hell who can inhabit dead bodies and when they do that they want to kill alive people but mostly they prefer to be ghosts, especially (serendipitously) ones S&D have met before, and re-enact their ghost crimes but with significant differences, even those ones who were laid to rest or met ghost justice which would presumably indicate that they had forsaken their evil ghost ways and gone to a non-Hell place, and also there are three billion of them but most only headed to the next town over at a real leisurely pace, absolutely desperate, one can only assume from the lack of widespread murder and chaos, to wait around the town square and watch n thousand residents shuffle past them to central packed location five miles down the road, without following them there, all before ten in the morning.
I like the fact that the problem of act i was about escaping a locked room, and the problem of acts ii&iii was creating a giant locked room. But it was wretchedly conceived and executed, to the point where part of me wonders if the inconsistencies are intentional, as part of the God storyline. (still doesn’t excuse the way it was shot!)
Having said that the stuff around Sam’s injury was cool and has me excited to find out more, and the Belphegor and Dean conversations were excellent, and my hope is that this will just be one of those episodes with a mile-wide dodgy bit that eventually pales in the context of the season, and is not a symptom of its shaky foundations (a la Michael!Dean).
I was confused about the clown too. It’s creepiness made it seem like the rakshasa from season 2, but it looked like it was supposed to appear like JWG, but, as you said, he didn’t murder random families at birthday parties. of course, all the inconsistencies can just be explained away by saying God is breaking all the rules.
You definitely pointed out the weird inconsistency with the world ending implications of 3 billion evil souls back on Earth and the reality of five spooky ghosts chasing Castiel and Sam down a deserted road in the middle of daylight.
Please excuse grammatical errors. I’m blaming my phone.
Oh Jessie, thank God for this second comment of yours. Ghost fist fights are hard enough to bear (not to mention the fact that we’re supposed to buy three ghosts as a credible threat – didn’t Sam and Dean take out an entire sanatorium of ghosts on their own in the last episode of S11?) – but the part that pushed me over the edge was when the ghost cosplayers physically RAN after Sam and Cas. RUNNING? ON FOOT? Not only was it painful to watch (I thought that sad Bloody Mary might have to pick up her skirts at one point), but also…have we ever seen a ghost RUN instead of doing their flickery disappear-then-manifest act? I have to admit, I was beside myself, if only because it seemed as if someone who had never watched the show decided to film an episode.
That being said, I do really appreciate the positive notes you mentioned above, some of which I hadn’t caught. I did pick up on Castiel’s responses, and I like how he has consistently been Jack’s truest “Dad.” When Dean asked Cas how he was holding up, I braced myself for a big “YOU’RE OUR BROTHER AND OUR BEST FRIEND, CAS” speech, but was pleasantly surprised by his pivot to emotional lockbox, which is patented Dean Winchester behavior. I thought Alex Calvert did very well for himself, and that was a clever way to keep him included in the action if Jack is (temporarily?) off the board. Though I have to say I was a little surprised at the lack of reaction from Jensen when Belphe-guy mentioned his works of art (!) – that’s normally the kind of space that he would fill with a reaction, even when the script decides to go with “YEP THAT WAS A WHILE AGO, SO HOW ARE THINGS IN HELL?” instead.
Anyway. It’s nice to be with all of you, here at the end of all things. :) I know that the Show is emotionally manipulating me when they give me a scene of unabashed wound-cleaning, but I will accept it!
Aslan’s Own, “five spooky ghosts” made me laugh. God breaking all the rules — I wonder how often we’ll be using that one by the end of the season.
Bethany —
Quite a few lovely things to enjoy about the episode! JP’s face is made for dramatic lighting. Some great rearview-mirror shots in that first Dean-Belphegor convo and I love how he was the demon over Dean’s shoulder in that scene. Calvert seems to throw in a New Jersey inflection every now and then which amuses me. It’s just hard still to forget how excruciating those other scenes were! No one else is allowed to write scenes that will force them to film ghosts in daylight from now on.
Have to agree on the ghosts in broad daylight. I think I get what they were going for, the ghosts being literally out of the shadows and running amuck, but it didn’t quite work. There is a way to do daylight horror (think of the giverness’ ghosts in The Turn of the Screw)–I think the key is to keep the ghoulies ambiguous, in the corner of the eye, or something that the viewer only understands for what it is after it’s gone.
That said, I quite liked most of the episode, especially for what it may be setting up! I’m very intrigued by Demon!Jack, as I’ve seen some chatter online about the name he gave, Belphegor. I know they don’t always make use of the potential lore behind the names and creatures they pick, but a few of the things that Demon!Jack said in his conversation with Dean suggest that this is, in fact, the guy they had in mind. I hope they play with him some more!
Fingers crossed, right? (PS. I’m happy to be back here again! Thanks for this post, Sheila)
After binge watching all the episodes last spring and reading through all of Sheila’s recaps this summer, this was my first time watching Supernatural live. It was weird! Commercials! Not being able to pause to rant to my sister or rewind and rewatch a good Dean facial expression. I’m still processing my thoughts but just wanted to say one thing: I am soo happy Jack isn’t back yet. When I saw Calvert in the promos, I was so upset- what, Jack gets to kill the boys’ mother and then go back to being buddy-buddy with them one episode later? Phew, it’s Calvert, but not Jack in this episode.
Other initial thoughts:
– Yay to Michael coming back, although I still don’t get why he was absent when they were dealing with Amara and alt-Michael (I know, I know, too many showtunes and he’s not exactly a good guy, but still)
– Yay to remembering Dean’s time in Hell and Alistair?
– So not looking forward to Ketch (ugh) next week. Remember way way back when the Winchesters had allies who weren’t murderers?
– Remember when Sam and Dean and not just Cass knew how to defend themselves against ghosts?
– Anyway, I’m not sure whether it will be more enjoyable to viciously pick this season apart or to just try to find the good in it. I think I should try to go easy on it until I can binge the whole thing. So far nothing terrible.
– That last scene with the cut back to the Pilot got to me, I’ll admit. Made me immediately want to rewatch Season 1 after I’m done rewatching Season 9 (which will be in 50 minutes, thank you Sheila for that impulse).
– Can’t believe that this is it- the beginning of the end! I might have only started last watching last April but in my head it’s been 15 years.
Overall, the ep had more things I liked than disliked, so I’m cautiously optimistic about this season!
//Yay to Michael coming back, although I still don’t get why he was absent when they were dealing with Amara and alt-Michael (I know, I know, too many showtunes and he’s not exactly a good guy, but still)//
Iirc, he was locked in The Cage the whole time, and was too out-of-it to hitch a ride out the way Lucifer did.
//Yay to remembering Dean’s time in Hell and Alistair?//
Yes! Also, the way Belphegor (the Calvert-demon) described Hell…is it just me, or are they retconning 7ish seasons of bureaucratic Hell in favor of pretending it stayed a vaguely scary Torture-Realm? Because I’d be VERY ok with that.
//So not looking forward to Ketch (ugh) next week. Remember way way back when the Winchesters had allies who weren’t murderers?//
I genuinely don’t understand why they keep trying to make Ketch happen. Whose favorite character is he?
//Remember when Sam and Dean and not just Cass knew how to defend themselves against ghosts?//
I wonder if they’re trying to make sure Cas is useful, as opposed to his usual getting knocked around. If so…dammit, they’re so close! They should (in theory) be able to let Castiel hold his own without nerfing Sam.
//I genuinely don’t understand why they keep trying to make Ketch happen. Whose favorite character is he?//
Right?!! The one good thing Mary did was kill him, but then, nope, he’s back
//I wonder if they’re trying to make sure Cas is useful, as opposed to his usual getting knocked around.//
I did appreciate that! I didn’t spend the episode questioning his continued existence, so that’s always a plus
welcome to the party Fortune, it’s cool to see the show is still grabbing people!
Ketch is like Rowena for me: I am entertained by the actor but can never escape my wish that the character wasn’t there in the first place. Ketch is too entwined with the BMoL and how tacky and off-brand and show-breaking that whole Council of Watchers/Evil Hogwarts mess is. It will be frustrating if Ketch is only there to be snidely and slightly adversarial and provide some BMoL gadgetry/knowledge. Fingers crossed he can bring something that will shine a new light on some aspect of S&D or get some good behaviour out of them.
I am completely perplexed by Ketch’s popularity too! For me it’s less about BMoL b/c I never even think about them anymore, and more about how he murdered Eileen, Sam’s sorta love interest and the show’s only disabled character. Considering the vitriol we got after Charlie was killed, I just cannot understand how the character of Ketch has gotten a pass after the death of Eileen, which I honestly thought was a lot worse than Charlie’s. At least in Charlie’s case the man pain was real, Dean DID something about her death. Sam just looked constipated and then NEVER mentioned Eileen again. But apparently she’s back this season, just like every other dead person on SPN. *eye roll*
Hello, fellow SPN watchers. Prayer circle for season 15.
I wasn’t enthusiastic about the premiere and am not looking forward to the brothers and limp-dick Cas running from ghosts everywhere and dragging demonJack around casting spells to get them out of trouble. He’s hanging with the Winchesters and popping out the snappy patter like a new younger version of Crowley. Though I agree with newJack – Dean is gorgeous. I know the brothers need all the help that they can get but I don’t think I want four of them in the Impala, saving people and hunting things.
PLEASE, no more Lucifer!
I am VERY EXCITED about that vision or whatever it was that Sam had when Cas tried (but failed) to heal his God-given bullet wound. Over on Tumblr, that brief flash has been slowed down and analyzed, and it appears to be mighty juicy stuff IF it comes to pass. Even if it doesn’t, I’m good with just SEEING it onscreen.
Anyone here interested should go to YouTube and search for the account “Shaving People Punting Things,” which is run by the production and editing team behind the scenes. They’ve been putting out some fantastic work in the form of trailers, some funny, comprised of outtakes, and some artfully suspenseful—more than the show has managed to ever be—over the last few years, and yesterday they released their latest, “The Last Ride.” HIGHLY RECOMMEND. It’s all scenes from the first half of this coming season. Dean with a full beard! Sam in the Lucifer suit! I can’t wait, and it’s been FOREVER since I said that about this show.
I am in total agreement with everything Jessie said above, re: resurrected ghosts in the daylight and the inconsistencies in the writing/execution. I have found myself repeatedly wondering during the last couple of seasons, is the writing really bad or are they doing this on purpose but I won’t understand until later??? I’m afraid to say I think it’s more commonly the first one….
BUT I am excited for evil Sam! I always like Jared best when he’s playing something evil, Lucifer!Sam or Meg!Sam or soulless Sam. I don’t know why they’ve made Sam into this bloodless, stammering, nice guy, in many ways he’s much more ruthless and blood thirsty than Dean.
Alex was a treat as that new demon! I sort of wonder if he was so enjoyable b/c in contract to him, I was getting a real “last week of senior year” vibe from the other 3. Did anyone else get that? Parts of it felt a little phoned in, I think someone above mentioned Jensen not really reacting to the hell torture mention, and then I dunno some of Sam’s reactions seemed a little off as well. Am I imagining things? Did anyone else get this feeling?