HEAVY deadlines this month. I’ve been practically unplugged. Therefore I totally even forgot that we were back after holiday hiatus. I haven’t seen it yet. But those who have and want to discuss: open thread!!
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“I hate missing my favorite show.”
Me too, Chuck. Me too.
Dean’s prayer to Cas, asking for forgiveness. That was hard to watch.
I did like the Butch and Sundance twist, with S&D being vampires. That was a fun bit of sideways fan service. But not much else.
I think the Butch and Sundance reference felt slightly … I don’t know, I guess “on the nose” is the word I’m looking for. I’ve always been a fan of potential “blaze of glory” ending – although much of that has now been wrecked because of how the show has made Death irrelevant and not final. Y’know? It just doesn’t have the resonance it might have had.
Like Ellen and Jo’s deaths … my God, now that’s a “blaze of glory” ending that was earned and devastating – and nobody tried to bring them back because it wasn’t an option – and so that everyone just had to deal with those deaths, and grieve, and feel guilty, and suck it up.
That crucial element just doesnt exist on the show anymore.
But I agree – that pairing the Butch and Sundance possibility with the two of them going hog-wild as vampires was entertaining.
Nobody tried to bring them back, but we still got to see them again- Ellen in the Titanic episode in Season 6 and Jo in the Osiris episode in Season 7. Back when the show had creative ways of bringing back dead characters and didn’t just give us AU versions of Bobby and Charlie.
well, yes, because the relationship continued – as it does after death – and they had to go through a grieving process – and be confronted with guilt at not being able to save their friends, etc.
Imagine if they had actually dealt with Charlie’s death that way. God it would have been harrowing. Instead: she dies – they burn her – and never fucking mention her again – until she shows up in the AU.
so disrespectful. Other characters died – and they get talked about ALL THE TIME – references to Dad – to Mom – to Ellen and Jo – and Bobby – the ensemble continued albeit in a ghostly way – since they were all dead. There’s ALWAYS unfinished business when someone dies.
The choice to do the AU just baffles me. They must think we’re stupid? We just want to see Felicia Day’s face? We don’t care if it’s another Charlie that we don’t care about since we don’t know her?
I just don’t understand what’s going on.
They have made many choices I “don’t agree with” – but I can see the impetus, I understand the whys of it. But the AU … I feel like they all just wanted to nerd out in Harry Potter fantasy land – they don’t understand horror, they don’t get it, they don’t understand how horror is the perfect genre to explore unmanaged trauma – they do not understand. They just want spellwork and all the Harry Potter shit they imbibed as a child.
It’s pretty damning, that they don’t understand what it is that is actually good and different about the show that they are working on.
horror is the perfect genre to explore unmanaged trauma
What a perfect little note. This is going to be one of the things from this conversation and my whole wild Supernatural fling that I’m going to carry away with me.
I should learn by now not to get my hopes up with this show anymore. Keep expectations super low and every so often you can be pleasantly surprised. Alas, I was so excited about the return to purgatory and it turned out to be nothing but a glorified counseling session for Dean and Cas. Gone was the stark and harsh beauty. Gone was the constant sense of impending danger and fighting for life every single second. (One leviathan??? Dean was knocked unconscious for how long and he was fine??)
The prayer? Meh. Jensen’s acting was incredible, but I felt nothing but the opposite of what I think it was going for.
I did enjoy Sam’s trip through time and found Sam and Dean becoming vampires to be quite entertaining. Again, probably not what they were going for, but I’ll take my enjoyment where I can get it!!
I felt like Dean ending the prayer abruptly and quickly standing up to search for Cas was a bit of Jensen saying “well, now that that’s over with…”
I may be projecting.
hahahaha I felt like that too! And had to laugh over how both Sam and Dean had oddly unmotivated and unceremonious ‘drop to his knees’ moments this episode.
Purgatory was such a let-down. Even Dean having the TIME to go through this long lengthy tear-filled prayer didn’t ring true – like, 24/7 360 combat – that was how he described Purgatory back in the day.
I’m not sure how I was supposed to feel about the vampire possibility – I haven’t read other comments to see what others say – and I will … but …
I feel like we’ve seen then become monsters in the past and it’s always been devastating. Any time they have “lost themselves” and “turned” – even back to Born Under a Bad Sign – it’s tremendously frightening, and calls into question all of the boundaries they have tried to set up – Dean’s black eyes – Sam’s black eyes when he was doing his demon-blood stuff – I mean, I remember the first time watching the series and feeling tremendous anxiety with these things, like “Oh god, please just turn back into yourself!”
So … something has been lost along the way here … Maybe Rowena has something to do with it, the easiness of her spell-work, the “let’s just call Rowena” thing that has dominated over the last 4 years … it has ruptured the finality of death/transformation – and when you don’t have finality, you lose so much tension.
I don’t know … just speaking out my first impressions here.
Was I supposed to be horrified by them as vampires going crazy? I feel like 6 or 7 years ago it would have been devastating. But now … to quote Chorus Line … I felt nothing.
And that makes me feel really sad.
I too found the prayer painful to watch; Castiel has not acted like a “best friend” in years, and I hated his self satisfied expression later when he told Dean that he heard his apology. (ALSO. If Cass can still hear prayers, then why couldn’t he have rescued Sam and Dean way back in Season 12 when they were stuck in that federal prison?)
I found the Sam/Chuck visions entertaining, especially Sam and Dean as over-the-top vampires or werewolves or whatever they were.
Bye Eileen, wish they could have developed your relationship with Sam more.
Why does Andrew Dabb have to destroy everything good? Why couldn’t he let me believe that Benny is still alive and fighting somewhere in Purgatory?
Don’t just mention that Cass got into this huge fight with Leviathans and Eve- show us!
I don’t know if it’s because my expectations are so low, but I found this one fun to watch, at least (minus the apology part). And it was touching to see Dean have complete trust in Sam at the end.
I don’t know, guys, it’s rare for me to come out of the gate so blatantly positive, but I thought this was one of the better episodes of the whole season. The scene where Eileen cuts into Sam while Chuck idly plays the guitar and Sam reassures her that he knows it’s not her – that was a great set-up. I would have liked to see a little more panic and horror from the actress playing Eileen, but I thought Sam’s journey through time was compelling and Chuck was gently villainous in a way that shot me back to old-school Lucifer. “It’s not my first time on the rack” really came through from Jared as well – it’s thrilling to me whenever the writers bother to remember that and write to it. The vampire ending was shocking and meta and wickedly fun, and gave us what we want but NOT IN THE WAY WE WANTED IT, and of all the potential endings for Sam and Dean that is one that I have NEVER envisioned. (If only for the reason that…don’t we have a vampire cure now? Hahaha whatever.) And there was no “THAT’S WHAT WE DO, WE SAVE THE WORLD” to temper the despair in the last two minutes.
I never had much affection for “slap a sepia filter on it, now it’s Purgatory,” so I didn’t feel any big loss from that plotline going nowhere. This episode kind of reminded me of the one with Christian Kane, where Cas & Sam’s plot was nonsensical, but Dean’s plot was revealing and opened up some space for reflection – but this episode was flipped, with Sam’s plot riveting and Cas & Dean’s plot kind of meh. Funny how whoever is with Cas is getting the boring end of the plot. The prayer felt like blatant fan service, but Jensen was still DOING something with it. The discussion of Dean’s rage, still bubbling under the surface even after the Mark of Cain has been removed, is interesting to me, regardless of how they want to spin it to suit Destiel purposes. Overall, I think this one opened more doors than it closed, in a way that made me contemplate the themes of the show and the driving arcs of the characters.
I summon Jessie to discuss Robo-Eileen, re: unforeseen consequences of the too-simple resurrection spell, as we crossed our fingers for months ago. *Throws blood and bones into summoning bowl* Oh wait, I forgot we’re in the later seasons… *Calls cell phone instead*
Be careful with those summoning calls Bethany, you never know who will arrive :D
I did appreciate that something troubling came out of Eileen’s resurrection but (believe it or not) I’ve got a lot of issues with the execution and choices made. Sure, Chuck nudging things explains how they found the spell, and maybe even the fact of such a spell’s existence, but it doesn’t make more compelling or retrospectively fascinating that bizarre and deeply offputting bathroom sequence. Even more frustrating, what does her being a spy mean? Why didn’t they take the opportunity to activate that possibility? Give those Sam/Eileen scenes some life, some unease? What, thinking back, did it gain Chuck, and what does it gain us as viewers? Did it make Sam particularly vulnerable? Did he reveal something of himself that hurts, or has consequence for him as a character? Did it make him worry, or feel repulsion, or shame? No. Ultimately it was just used as a weak excuse to get Eileen out the bunker. As for Robo-Eileen, I struggle with the actress, who seems lovely but who I found weak in those torture scenes and that was distracting :(
There were a couple of moments that I liked in that storyline — firstly, in the flash forwards of Chuck’s vampire future, that shot of Dean where he said said so coldly and passive-aggressively that he supposed he had no choice but to join Sam on a hunt, which gave me something between the brothers to hold on to, something that made me lean in and think oh this is something different at least; and, in the same ‘this is something fresh’ vein, Sam and Eileen’s kiss goodbye, mostly for the effect of his huge hands on her face! Oh my gosh. I swooned. I’m shallow.
So, like an inverted pearl, I found a couple of specks of beauty in here, absolutely buried in grit and irritating decisions of craft and narrative. There were so many awkward stage punches in this episode! The music, again. The edits between plots, especially at the start — really showed up how divorced the narratives were and how pointless Dean’s was. One of the more appalling sentences ever spoken out of Dean’s own mouth: “The monsters are winning.” The lack of blood in Sam’s torture, and when Dean ripped out Jody’s throat. Those teeth and all the hissing! Maybe all the embarrassing hissing was what disturbed Becky so much when she read this ending.
Dean’s line about his anger did perk up my ears and was a pinpoint interesting moment, that didn’t justify or redeem the pristine and artificial Purgatory Apology Tour in my eyes. But it was, well — it was there! That’s something.
Were I more charitably inclined towards this season, its performances, and its conceits, I could probably get over myself a little more easily, and enjoy it more, and feel like it was going somewhere meaningful. I’m really glad there seem to be a lot of people in that boat! It seems like a much more fun place to be haha. But I have never been able to really get a grip on Chuck as the bad guy this season, or what peril he holds, specifically, for Sam and Dean (that they would kill each other? but in his ‘true’ new ending they were united and both killed by hunters?), or how now it apparently has something to do with monsters on the rise (but not Michael’s monsters? or maybe?), or, to be honest, why we should care, because even though they have each been individually forced into limp pseudo-dramas with Cas & Eileen, for me the only parts of the season that have been about Sam and Dean are the visions of other Sams and Deans, and that’s a bummer.
I can’t argue with any of this, especially confusion with Chuck and the lack of Sam and Dean. For me it’s an expectations game, so I must have had very low hopes going in!
haha, that’s the way to do it, Bethany!
Dean’s prayer to Cas. I watched it without the sound so I couldn’t be manipulated by the music and to be honest I didn’t care about the motivation or reason behind the scene. I just wanted to enjoy a professional do his job and I did. All the acting was fun and it’s not their fault that the writing and story telling isn’t up to their caliber of acting. The writers are on their own weird journey; no one seems to be listening to the fans. So, to compensate, I’ve been binging on the The West Wing and Justified and reminding myself that as brilliant as they were, neither one lasted for 15 years.
Carolyn – I like the idea of turning the sound off. I’m going to try it. No denying the man knows how to pull it out.
I’m not sure how I feel about the vision of Dean being like “Let’s give up, we lost.”
I have a lot of thoughts on this, not quite formulated yet.
I am thinking of the great hotel scene in Shadow, when Sam says – “when this is all over I’m going to go back to school” and Dean is like “It’s never going to be over.” With this grim commando vibe.
It was never a question of “winning” for good. Like, for all time. The idea of good conquering evil comes from the world of YA fantasy NOT horror – and Supernatural started as a HORROR show … and so this “let’s try to win for good” thing doesn’t fit well – it doesn’t fit together, it’s from the world of super-heroes where everyone bonds together and Wonder Twin powers activate and … voila … you have obliterated the villain for all time and saved humanity.
Supernatural did start to stretch its wings (metaphorically and literally) once the angels arrived – once Apocalypse was introduced – and yet they did so in a way that felt really logical. And Dean has that great line – “this is way above my pay grade … this is too big … ” with tears rolling down his face as he’s lying in the hospital.
THAT I can get behind. And THAT is what I don’t feel anymore.
I think moving out of case-to-case reality into Apocalypse and Angels and Lucifer, etc., was a natural progression – after all those demons running around in early seasons, it makes sense there would be Angels too. But Kripke et al always kept the characters intact – and the horror-like atmosphere, gritty, dark and dirty, a little bit insouciant – NOT earnest. My God, this team is so EARNEST now.
And so now we have Mary – completely betraying her character and her sons – to “get rid of monsters forever” – we have Dean “giving up” in this latest future vision – whereas … if anyone, Dean understands the gig the most. He understood it in Shadow back in the beginning of the series. It’s never over. It ends bloody. There will always be something else to fight. Dad taught us this. Even if you get rid of Yellow Eyes there will always be more to do. And now I’m not fit for anything else, so what the hell, let’s go out swinging.
Completely different attitude than a mournful defeated shrug – “Listen, Sammy, we lost.”
But … it was NEVER about winning. It was never about winning for all time, at any rate. You had minor wins, you got rid of a vampire nest, you handled a wolf pack, you saved some people, and that was the gig.
I just don’t believe in what this new team believes in – their vibe of “ultimate fight between good and evil – will good triumph??” That’s not the horror genre. That’s YA fantasy. And I get a lot of people love that shit – they love it in their comic book movies, they love it everywhere else – I find it simplistic and I’m not into it at all. I’m not saying everybody else is wrong – I’m just saying I don’t like it. And I REALLY don’t like it in Supernatural.
I have no idea if any of this makes sense.
it’s a systemic issue – much larger than this recent episode – which wasn’t bad, all things considered. I actually dug a lot of it. Although I think the Chuck thing isn’t working at all. The “other Sams and Deans” out there, the admission in the TEXT that this story is no good and not exciting – Chuck SAYS that. And it’s like – why have you put yourself into this bind, writers? Why have you created a BORED creator?
There are just so many more interesting ways this could have gone.
I was just replying this on the McCabe interview post but thought it was probably more appropriate here, and in response to your reply to Fortune, above!
Regarding acting and suspension of disbelief, you said: And now they seem determined to just say “Oh fuck it none of it was real.”
The key thing with this show — at least for the way it was, and the way I watch it, which I accept is not the case for scads of fans — is Sam and Dean. If you don’t believe what they’re going through, if there’s no grounding for the emotion the actors are generating, if there’s no unified tone that supports that suspension of disbelief, your boat is scuppered. One thing I feel with the YA/hero sensibility that has taken over under Dabb’s tenure is that the show presents itself as a fan artifact first: the talk of heroism and the self-celebration; the guest stars we’re meant to be excited about by virtue, apparently, of recognition; “badassery”; “magic” and “monsters” being so unspecific because the genre/viewer is supposed to fill in the blanks; the pursuit of plots that seem designed to please or thrill without regard to the actual characters; in this final season, Becky, and the endless talk of stories and fans. So much of the show is directed outwards and relies on a specific fannish perspective to unify and justify its elements rather that unifying and justifying them within the screen. The texts the show is in conversation and continuum with now are contemporary fantasy texts, not horror or drama or myth. So it’s not actually requiring a suspension of disbelief. They’re not agonising over reality in the same way as Gamble and Edlund did over The French Mistake.
There’s more to be said here — or, at least, because I’m interested in textuality and genre, I at least am interested to explore more how the textuality and mixed genres of earlier seasons differs from the more recent seasons — but I only have scattered thoughts atm. Because those early seasons do foreground their own textuality! With homage, reference, trope usage and subversion. You don’t call your main characters Sam (Sal) and Dean, or cast Linda Blair or Robert Englund or write Hollywood Babylon or Monster Movie without wanting to be richly textual. Not only have all those influences fallen away in favour of YA/Hero/Fantasy, but as you’ve said in your recaps, Sam and Dean’s emotions, intimate or operatic, can only play and be felt as real and worth watching when the whole of the show is grounded and believable in its place and texture and narrative.
This also comes back to attaining a level of craft at all stages of production — as we’ve discussed before as well, the show is so superficial now, there’s no shadow or withholding or repression or complication, so we are not leaning in — we are not detectives — it’s all pushed out at us. We are not involved in the generation of meaning. There is no space for the spectator in this text except to consume.
These are still-developing thoughts, and I should be more specific. There is little space for me as viewer any more, in terms of the kind of viewing I enjoy. This is a transition I see in the fundamental perspectives and operations of show and I wonder if fans who have always engaged with it from a Buffyesque perspective (no knock on Buffy or Angel, which I always enjoyed) have weathered the change much better; or fans who can be drawn in via identification and representation eg Wayward Sisters, or fans who are in it for Destiel and Emotional Growth, or fans who just don’t take it as super goddamn seriously as I do and are capable of moving on with their lives!
I remember when Buffy went to a different network from Charmed, the Charmed sisters finally faced some vampires. One of them asked why they had never dealt with vampires before. The answer was that vampires were on a “whole different network” from the sorts of creatures they had dealt with on Charmed before. A nice in-joke. The network didn’t want two shows with separate vampire mythologies – so they kept them off Charmed until the change in networks.
I wonder if the CW has the opposite approach. With all of their comic book shows, does everything need to achieve a Marvel multiverse ridiculousity? I know, they have DC shows, but same point. It would be nice to blame someone farther away from the show than the writers and showrunners.
It really would! I am not sure. We have heard a great deal about how Pedowitz is more supportive and hands-off than Dawn Ostroff was — but the show has also become floppier under him. Would things have been better if the network (and production team, and stars) was willing to do reduced seasons, so J2 could condense their shooting schedules and not need so much time off for families? Why was it Dabb lifted up — did the network think he had the right CW sensibility as well as continuity with the show? Where is my bloody tell-all book!!!!!
I think the problem is that the fans have been too loyal and the CW has decided that they can throw any kind of schlock at us since Season Five and we’ll watch it. And to a certain extent they are right. While J2 have been and continue to be rock solid (and the only reason that I’ve stayed with the show this long), we’ve seen less and less of them each season, the writing is more juvenile and clearly not written for adults. The visuals are uninspiring and much as I love the style of the bunker, I can’t wait for to.blow up or burn down or something. I am going to stick it out to the bitter end though because like most of us, I remember the Kim Manners/Sara Gamble version of SPN, and out of respect for that, I’ll watch it until they turn the lights off.
I was just thinking that there will be some interesting stories told by those from behind the scenes in a few years! I’m looking forward to lots of “bloody tell-all books”!
I can’t wait to hear what you all think about episode 10. I’m actually really upset at what the writers appear to be claiming about the Winchesters and about the show. I wish I were wrong. I don’t believe it. I won’t believe it. But I won’t elaborate until I see if you post an entry for that episode.