I considered leading this review by saying this was two very different reviews, but as I thought about it more I realized it’s many more than two. Watching the episode I found myself having a number of conflicting and very strong reactions to this episode, so I’m reverting back to my earlier format for reviews – segmenting into various subcategories – good, bad, huh? – because this episode cried out for segmentation. Except in this case I’m starting with The Bad, as opposed to The Good, because there are a few issues I want to address that just won’t wait. Just to warn you, if you offend easily, you might want to stop reading now (at least the next few paragraphs).
The Bad
Did they really just go there? – Man, they just keep stepping into this deeper and deeper. This has been the season of the show getting flack from multi-fandom-fronts about the insensitive dealing with sexual and gender topics. One of these complaints (this one mostly originating from the Sam portion of the fandom, although other fandom groups seem to have their own gripe lists) has been the whitewashing of possession – a topic that has been linked with rape. The connections early on were more metaphorical. The demon Meg dressing the real Meg’s body up like a “slut,” in the words of Meg’s ghost. Demon Meg in Sam’s body assaulting Jo. Tales of victims being awake while demons did “horrible” things while in their body. When angels were introduced in season 4, the idea that they needed to get consent was stressed, because they were supposed to be the good guys.In season 7, those connections between possession and rape became more direct. Sam, hallucinating Lucifer, was reminded by Lucifer of their time in the cage in a series of allusions to prison rape: “spooning” in the cage, “the rapier wit.” Whether the connection should be taken literally or just loosely symbolic is not the point. It was an the association that Sam made in his mind about his time being possessed by Lucifer back at a time when writer Ben Edlund still wrote for this show and treated possession as being a serious violation for the victim. Remember Repo Man? And this is the relevant point here – that Sam saw rape with his possession and incarceration with Lucifer – and his will was once again taken away.
And here we are with Sam, a character who has been possessed by both Lucifer and Meg and as a child was violated in a different way – his body was tainted with demon blood making him feel like he was bad and “unworthy.” This season he’s deceived into consenting (he doesn't understand that he's saying yes to possession) to being possessed by an angel and having his body used to do something Sam would find horrible – used as a murder tool of Kevin. Whether you agree with whether rape is a fair association or not, the fact is that the connection has been made on the show and has been a big topic of debate in the fandom. And the response this week was that Sam, when asked by Castiel about his time being possessed, seemed like it was just fine. According to Sam, he wasn’t even sure what he felt. He says his sensation was, “Maybe that I wasn’t completely alone,” and that Gadreel didn’t seem hostile. Whether Sam was conscious for it or not is beside the point. The point is that his body was taken and used against his will, and that point was minimized. The response seems to be along the lines of, well, if he wasn’t conscious for it, then it doesn’t matter, because everyone knows if someone is roofied and unconscious, or in a comma, while raped, it’s not really rape.
The irony here is that if the show had tactfully acknowledged the injury – they didn’t even have to linger on it for more than an episode or two – but just long enough to directly acknowledge the damage – then this would have blown over and they might have even gotten some recognition of having some quality on their show.
And then of course there’s the damage this does to the character – the aftermath which I’m sure is getting a lot of attention right now in the fandom. For the last few months, Sam has been taking a lot of heat from both Dean and in the fandom over strong words to Dean – the most notable being that they can’t be brothers because Sam can’t trust Dean. His response now makes it seem that Sam was being unreasonable. This development just whitewashed any credibility to the claim that Sam was justified in being angry because he was injured – that there is injury in having your body hijacked. The show has once again repeated a pattern of the past few years of treating Sam as a plot device – having something done to him and the dropping the story when it’s time to explore how the event impacted Sam’s character. I wish I could be surprised by this, but by the way the show seemed to be stepping around dealing with the issue all season, I can’t say I am.
Now for slighter lighter topics …. I promise.
And speaking of poaching storylines, we have Dean with the
The Huh?
I usually put this at the end, but this feels like it belongs with The Bad.Changing the past – "The lore all says the same thing. You change any one thing in the past, the ripple effect impacts everything that follows." Excuse me? Every now and then there needs to be a show check with the writing team of this episode: Eugenie Ross-Leming and Brad Buckner. I said in a review earlier this year that this writing duo has an annoying tendency of seeming to forget what show they’re writing for. Just so we get it straight – ripple consequences after changing the past is Charmed. "What happened happened" is Lost. Changes in the past don’t matter because destiny will course-correct is Supernatural. Yes, the role of destiny since the failed Apocalypse has likely changed, but this nasty possibility of changing the past didn’t seem to bother the Winchesters too much in season 7 when they traveled back in time to the Wild West. They messed with some things, but the outcome seemed to along the lines of "what happened happened." And how on earth is there lore about ripple effects from changing the past when angel destiny was in effect until only four years ago?
Cas encouraging Dean to torture – I know it’s going to be a bad night when I find myself getting irritated by the sneak peek, and it started early for this episode. The last time we saw Cas he was showing concern over discovering Dean’s Mark of Cain. He seemed to recognize it. This week he recruits Dean to torture for him – apparently because he’s become too much of a delicate flower to handle it himself. And also apparent is that none of his angel underlings can handle it either, even though angels are supposed to be the best torturers in the universe. Continuity people, continuity.
The Good
Dean’s story finally had some forward movement. Yes, we’ve seen it all before, but at least it’s moving. Yes, Abaddon had to be killed to get it going, and while disappointing, it’s certainly not the first time an interesting character was sacrificed to move a bigger story forward.
I found myself pleasantly surprised by a couple of parts:
Crowley and his son – They were actually not awful to watch, and I was rooting for them. How often do I root for the King of Hell? Not every day. And Alaina Huffman as Abaddon was awesome as always. She’ll be missed.
Sam and Dean were smart and used their brains rather than brawn to get a poorly written angel to talk. And they were funny doing it. Jared and Jensen are great comedic actors, and their delivery of good cop/good cop was perfect. And although I give the writing duo a lot of crap for other areas – especially mytharc - they sometimes do a good job in writing the more personal scenes for Sam and Dean.
Sound off below.
You're forgetting Balthazar and the Titanic, the ripple effect of that was huge. And yes, Fate showed up to try and clean things up with the people who shouldn't be alive, but the world was fundamentally changed after that.
ReplyDeleteAlso the thing with "Fronteirland," it was it was suppose to air before "My Heart Will Go On," but was switched because of post-production, which is why Sam and Dean's attitude on time travel is different even though they went through the whole Titanic thing.
I'll give you that the message has been inconsistent, but that still doesn't explain how there's lots of "lore" on something a state that's only a few years old, and which only a few select beings have the power to do (time travel). Besides, Dean wasn't exactly lying low when he was sent back to the Eliot Ness era in fear of changing something and setting off a ripple effect.
ReplyDeleteYou're forgetting that everything that happened with "Frontierland" goes in line with everything Samuel Colt said in his journal. The Phoenix died from the Colt. Nothing really extra happened from the boys' intervention in the past except for the boys interacting as cowboys in the path which wouldn't really do anything to change the future, imo. In "My Heart Will Go On", THAT was something that severely caused a ripple effect because it was so huge, and if Gavin lives past where he should have died, that could land Bobby's soul back in Hell because if Bobby didn't have Gavin's help, then all things would be the same basically, but Bobby would be taken to Hell by a hellhound and not a reaper.
ReplyDeleteThere can still be lore even if something's only been around for four-five years.
ReplyDeleteI didn't forget what happened in Fronteirland. There are a number of time-travel theories. I mentioned in my review that the events of Frontierland seemed to follow "what happened happened." I don't know if you ever watched Lost, but the characters find themselves in the past, and discover that they are instruments in creating the past that they had heard about when they were previously in the future. Time was a loop and predestined to turn out the same. This theory, while fun to speculate, is different from the theory that one small change to the past creates a butterfly effect and changes the entire future in unforeseen ways, which is what Sam seemed to be arguing in this episode. This is also different from the Supernatural pre-apocalypse angels' destiny theory, which is that there's a plan and no matter which path you choose, you will end at the proper destination (but no loop).
ReplyDeleteInteresting review. You delve into some strong points without making it all about your or shouting WORST EVER!! and WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO MY SHOW OH MY BURDEN!!!! for attention. If you'd done that you probably would have gotten more comments. I appreciate your restraint.
ReplyDeleteI actually thought that Sam's comments about Gadreel were in character for him. He was trying to help Cas out of a no-win situation, and he knew Gadreel intimately. He was focusing on what he thought would improve their problems, and not on his own pain, which was very Sam. I didn't take it as whitewashing what had been done to him, but I do wish that we could see HIM confronting Gadreel and HIM convincing Gadreel, as the Cas/Gadreel scenes were interesting but somewhat ponderous, there was a quasi-romantic undertone I don't think was intentional (?), and the closeups were so WAYNE'S WORLD! WAYNE'S WORLD! that I expected to see Dana Carvey and Mike Myers take over the roles at any second.
And speaking of poaching storylines, we have Dean with the psychic kid, demon powers. Dean should have an interesting story, as should Sam, but why does Dean’s story have to look so much like Sam’s storyline of earlier years? Dean has his own issues and the sky’s really the limit in what could be done with him. Could the parallels ofSam psychically moving the bookcase Dean psychically moving the blade and Sam Dean lying to his brother, saying he was fine and in control when he’s obviously not, be any more obvious?
It's tough for me to know what to say here, because I didn't really think of Sam and the bookcase. At that time we had no idea if Sam's powers were a bad thing. They were also used to help save Dean. Dean's powers were to kill an enemy, and were clearly dangerous, and have been built up as dangerous for most of the back half of this season.
For me this story tapes into issues Dean has had since the first season, involving being Sam's parent, involving his father issues, and his lack of self-worth and identity. Sam's story was much more about Ruby egging him on, and they didn't delve into the addiction side as much until late in the game. They made the mistake of focusing on the idea that he wanted to be the stronger brother, the tough brother, and didn't make it clear enough that he increasingly had no control over his actions.
This story is threading the needle a little better. We see Dean's darkness and his insecurities, but we also see the clear influence of evil over him.
Thanks for the comments. :)
ReplyDeleteI wasn't necessarily saying that Sam's response about Gadreel was out of character, so much as that my gut response was that this will be the last we hear of Sam's feelings about the possession (we may hear more on his feelings toward Dean, but that's different), and that this will stand as the official version of the effect the possession had on Sam.
On Sam/Dean, I guess I'm just spell out what I see as the parallels:
Sam:
- Grew up resenting being forced into a life of hunting and the sacrifices his family expected of him.
- Story arc is triggered by the murder of Jess and his thirst for revenge.
- Psychic powers are a little scary, but Sam's also curious about them and sees them as a weapon against YED (his target for revenge). He doesn't fully give in though, until season 4, because of his brother's wishes.
- Demons are able to use his emotional vunerabilities to get him hooked on using the powers (feeling of powerlessness, desire for revenge against Lilith for killing Dean, wanting to take some of the burden off Dean in Dean's post-Hell PTSD).
- At the tipping point, when Sam is almost lost, his eyes turn demon black and his body temperature skyrockets (according to Chuck).
- Sam is brought back through brother influence and through realization that he's been used.
Dean:
- Grew up resenting being forced into a life of hunting and the sacrifices his family expected of him (driven home in Bad Boys).
- Story arc is triggered by the murder of Kevin and his thirst for revenge.
- Physical changes/psychic powers are not so scary to because Dean is older and more hardened than Sam was then, but they're scary to Sam. Dean's becoming invested in them because they give him power.
- Crowley (and maybe Metatron if he has more of a hand in this than what we know) are able to manipulate him into venturing further and further down this path, using emotional vunerabilities (fear that Sam doesn't love him) to do so. He's slowly getting hooked on using the powers.
- Tipping point is speculative at this point, but there are all kinds of theories about him becoming a demon or knight of hell.
- Path back is speculative but it will probably be tied to Dean realizing that Sam really does love him and all this crap was just his insecurities talking.
I think of both Sam and Dean as having both good and darkness in them, so it's not uncredible that Dean would head down a dark path. It is starting to annoy me though how unoriginally this is playing out. Dean's a different person, and he used to have a different psychological makeup than Sam. I'd like to see them each have their own paths and stories, and not keep recycling each other's past arcs. And Cas, of course, had a similar arc in season 6.
I didn't view Sam arguing about the smallest things making big impacts because as we've seen in the past, it's only the bigger things that make impacts, such as what Balthazar did in "My Heart Will Go On" by making sure the Titanic didn't sink. And with Gavin coming back to the present timeline rather than dying in 1723, that is again another huge impact that could severely disrupt the timeline. Perhaps you're just taking account to what Sam said different than others, but I didn't view Sam's statement to meaning the little things as Sam and/or Dean have spoken to people in any time they've traveled to and that didn't do anything.
ReplyDeleteThe line about ripple effects shouldn't have been about lore it should have just mentioned fates, science, hell even Bradbury and Aston Kutcher would have done but not the word ' lore'
ReplyDeleteGavin alive and kicking in the 21st century would actually be huge and it isn't as if we haven't seen Crowley bring people back from the dead before (hello Samuel Campbell). Gavin being alive means a lot of weekend at Bobby's couldn't have happened as Gavin was the link to Crowley's grave. Without him, we don't have the breaking of Bobby's deal and Bobby's soul doesn't become and 'innocent' that needed rescuing from hell because it didn't belong there, it would have been Crowley's to do what he wanted with rightly.
Though if it means we get to have rouge reapers being retconned to being what they are supposed to be, I'm for that. But seeing how Tessa is in the next one I doubt that.
As for Sam, yes I agree that the bit about Gadreel means that a lot of his anger seems unreasonable, but like always they never make him communicate too well,, especially seeing how they keep making it that he is the brother that needs words rather than actions. One minute he is angry about being violated, the next being protected, the next being kept out of the loop and then he blames his brother for 'talking' him into things when he is capable for asking the consequences. COMMUNICATE SAM THESE ARE NOT ALL THE SAME THING AND IT IS NOT HELPING WITH THE CRUMBLING RELATIONSHIP YOU HAVE WITH YOUR BROTHER!
At the moment the outcome of the finale feels like it is going to have Dean either walking away from his kid brother with a skip in his step or trying to kill Sam because looks of concern when your brother beats the corpse of an enemy into a bloody mush and a nonchalant 'it wasn't me' when a corpse was found ain't going to work to make Dean you care, to make anyone believe you have worked out your issues about Dean's actions. Hell I'd feel better about it if Sam was still visibly processing the actions with Gadreel but now he seems to be at a stage he has rationalised it and has gone back to Dean will just get over his reaction to it. At least in season 4 when Dean was concerned about Sam he was using that as much as a distraction to what he had gone through in hell as focusing to what was going on right in front of him.
Basically Sam needs to put more work in with regard to what is happening with the people around him to be a character again because Cas is going to be using Gadreel, Dean is going to walk away and Sam, well Sam will have no-one to blame but himself because he wasn't clear about anything.
I really hate this writing team. Every time I see their names I groan. My biggest issue is Gavin. He was a ghost in Weekend at Bobby's and told Bobby where Crowley's bones were buried, etc., etc. If he has now been plucked from 1700 and is alive in 2014, he can't be a ghost in 2010 (or whatever year that was). So the writers apparently watched part of the episode to get the name right and what Crowley sold his soul for, and then didn't watch the rest? Thought the viewers wouldn't notice the problems with this? Okay then.
ReplyDeleteThat still could be a part of the plan for the season. He never died when he was supposed to, meaning the natural order was altered. And yes, meaning "Weekend at Bobby's" happened differently.
ReplyDeleteGavin being alive disrupts the natural order, since he doesn't die, someone else will die, and will cause the effects to ripple through time.
ReplyDeleteThere are books/info on time travel and butterfly effect theories, Lore may not have been the best word to use, but it's that wrong.
ReplyDeleteGood post!
ReplyDeleteI was saving this for the Gripe Review, but I can repeat it there. Haha! My main pet peeve w/the whole Sam confession thing is Sam should have not been able to answer Castiel's question, which was about the type of being Gadreel is. Cas wanted to know if Gadreel was "evil" or had bad intentions. How can Sam answer that? As far as I knew, Sam had no idea he was possessed. He certainly never expressed a belief that he felt another being was sharing his body. The whole point of the arc was that Sam didn't know it was happening, but now he can positively state that Gadreel had no bad intentions and just felt misunderstood. Huh? How does Sam know that? In the episode after the mid-season break, Sam referred to Gadreel as a "psycho angel" but now he's just misunderstood!?!?! What!?!?!
I also think that it was bad that when Sam finally talks about the possession, he's not even talking about his own feelings about it but rather about his possessor. That's crazy.
I gotta say I didn't care for the Crowley/Gavin scenes. It felt too much like filler. I can't say I cared too much about their relationship or how it ended up.
Thought the viewers wouldn't notice the problems with this?
ReplyDeleteDidn't Sam address the problems with this?
The whole point of the arc was that Sam didn't know it was happening, but now he can positively state that Gadreel had no bad intentions and just felt misunderstood. Huh? How does Sam know that? In the episode after the mid-season break, Sam referred to Gadreel as a "psycho angel" but now he's just misunderstood!?!?! What!?!?!
ReplyDeleteI remember people here saying at the time that it would come back to him because of whatever Crowley did to him. I guess it must have.
Didn't Sam say he thought Gadreel was misunderstood but then he was obviously wrong because of what Gadreel did to Kevin?
That was never stated on the show though, right? I don't recall hearing any dialogue that Sam would suddenly remember the period when he was possessed. All Crowley did was possess Sam to alert him that he was possessed. Sam was completely clueless about the possession. It makes no sense for him to suddenly remember the possession when he wasn't aware of it when it was actually happening.
ReplyDeleteMy point is Sam shouldn't have any thoughts at all re: Gadreel or his intentions b/c Sam was not aware of Gadreel when Gadreel possessed. He doesn't know Gadreel and has only had one conversation w/Gadreel.
Also didn't Dean? Didn't he say 'who knew that Crowley had a son' or words to that effect?
ReplyDeleteYou'd think considering how big a deal it was that Bobby would tell them how he got a lead on the bones that got him out of his deal seeing how he sent them over an ocean to get them. If Dean now doesn't know that Crowley had a son doesn't that imply that Bobby couldn't have raised Gavin's ghost?
The whole sl has been bizarre very little thought for Sam but rather a sl to push Dean in a certain direction. I think the writers want the viewer to see Gadreel in a certain light and are using Sam to do it. Lines like 'He did not fully possess me but it was like a shared house' or something like that , the whole thing has been downplayed and a soft light put on the situation. It is like saying ' I was bitten by a crocodile but it felt like a bee sting'.
ReplyDeleteThe way that scene with Cas and Sam played out was muddy at best:
ReplyDeleteCas: Did you ever feel a presence?
Sam: I don’t know what I felt. Maybe that I wasn’t completely alone.
Cas: Did you ever feel threatened?
Sam: No (seems surprised). More that he wasn’t at rest. Like he had unfinished business. The more I know about him, I think he felt misunderstood.
Cas: But not a danger. Not hostile.
Sam: No, I was wrong obviously. He killed Kevin.
Sam starts by saying that he's not sure what he felt, only that maybe he wasn't alone, and then is able to describe the personality of the person with him. And to your point, Sam was written in the first half as being clueless that he was being possessed.
There were flashbacks after Crowley alerted Sam in Road Trip, and Sam remembered the times when Gadreel was in possession of his body. But the way he's talking here, he's saying he had these sensations of there being another being there with him before Kevin was killed, and the Crowley flashbacks didn't come until later. I can give them a little leeway in that sometimes people feel a presence, but can't define it, and brush it off as nothing. But then Sam has a history of being possessed. You would think he would be more suspicious and better able to identify the symptoms than most. This is an example of the show dumbing down the characters to fit the plot.
I was confused by this scene too watching the episode. I think I just didn't focus on it in the review because I had bigger fish to fry with it.
"It is like saying ' I was bitten by a crocodile but it felt like a bee sting'."
ReplyDeleteExactly
I'll admit, it's been a while since I watched Weekend at Bobby's, so I didn't track the timeline issues. I noticed the recast though, and that the dynamic of the Gavin/Crowley relationship seemed different. Good catch. I'll have to rewatch WaB.
ReplyDelete"Rule one: No Kutcher references." (My Heart Will Go On)
ReplyDeleteI agree that the communication from Sam has been very poor this season, but Sam's only as communicative as the writers allow him to be. But I'll add that this is a two-way street. Dean's also been notoriously poor over the seasons at communicating anything to do with feelings.
But yeah, I think a lot of what we're seeing can be tied back to communication and perception issues.
Well, he does begin to suspect something is up with him, but Dean shoots everything down blaming the trials.
ReplyDeleteI agree with most of this and think the execution of the two arcs are completely different situations. Sam's arc was spread out over four years, with probably several changes of creative direction inserted here and there, muddying things. We also had the occasional bits thrown in to leave us in suspense (season 2 ending with the hint that Sam had come back from the dead wrong or the mystery around what was going on with Sam in season 4 as examples). And finally, I think there was some rewriting of Sam's character when they decided to introduce angels and that they needed to draw parallels between Sam and Lucifer.
ReplyDeleteDean's story, in constrast, seems very condensed and focused. And although we don't know where it will eventually end, we have a pretty good idea how the overall shape will form because we've seen it twice before (with Sam and Cas).
"As a result, when the writing said it was just the demon blood addiction, not Sam, or that it was Dean's fault for not being supportive enough, it took away so much of Sam's agency and left the story as very confusing to me."
The lack of clarification on how much of this was demon blood powers and how much was Sam may be my biggest gripe with Sam's story and bothers me to this day. I'd prefer it always being about the characters because that makes the story stronger, IMO. I disagree though that the show ever suggested that the demon blood addiction was Dean's fault. When you deal with psychological reasons behind why characters do what they do, their relationships with the people closest to them are always going to come into play. But that doesn't change that the person is ultimately responsible for what they do with that situation. I don't think Sam was saying that Dean was responsible for him going with Ruby. I think he was saying that Dean's dismissive attitude toward him was a contributing factor in Sam's feelings of wanting more autonomy and power, and that the dynamic needed to change moving forward for Sam to be able to change. And I think that's fair. But Sam also took responsibility his actions, because although you can't choose how you feel, but you can choose how you act.
I thought Bobby's message to Dean was (my own words obviously), "you're right to feel hurt and angry, but there's a bigger picture, and you're going to lose your brother if you don't be the better man here." It was what Dean needed to hear, and it prevented the situation from getting worse - which Dean in the end would have regretted most of all.
On the current situation, I wasn't saying that I think the fault here lies with Sam. Like you said, Dean has deep-rooted insecurities that go back to childhood, and he's not hearing what Sam is actually saying. For example, Sam never actually said he didn't bother to look for Dean. He also never said he wouldn't save Dean under normal hunting circumstances. It's all being skewed by Dean's perceptions and his insecurities.
With all of that said though, I'm really starting to get the feeling that what we're seeing here now with the angel/demon wars and the MoC is a red herring - that this isn't real or that their perceptions have been altered - and that there's something else going on. I have a few theories that I'm working on that I might publish after the season wraps as a follow-up speculation article.
I read the comment as saying that any changes to the past can have unforseen consequences, but we can agree to disagree here.
ReplyDeleteIn our world, and in the part of Sam and Dean's world that doesn't know about the supernatural, books on time travel are all theoretical because it hasn't happened. Lore to me implies learning from past experiences collected over a period of time. I just don't think four years (considering how few supernatural creatures have the power to time travel) is enough time for that. Plus, wouldn't Sam and Dean's world constantly be changing if people were going back and changing the past? But then again, maybe that's the point with all of the changes in the mythology.
ReplyDeleteConsidering Sam and Dean have experienced time travel multiple times, for them it's less theoretical and more factual. But it's right there in the definition, lore is knowledge gained from study or experience, and I'd say they have enough experience in time travel.
ReplyDeleteThoughtful review, and unique. I liked it.
ReplyDeleteI am not going to comment on the rape thing. I don’t get worked up about the implication of social issues in the story, so I ignore all fan rape, misogamy, the concern over alcohol usage, or the use of “bitch” comments as the viewer’s issues, not that of the writers intending to make some kind of statement. IMO, all of the current writers have far more pressing and elementary writing things to worry about; i.e., story structure, a through-story, plotting, pacing, and characterization. That said, I am scratching my head over Sam going from disowning Dean as a brother to the recent worry about Dean changing. Until there is some explanation about Sam’s hurtful words, I am not buying into Sam’s worry over Dean. Besides, despite Sam’s supposed worry, he still wants Dean to use the Blade on Crowley and Metatron.
Same situation with Cas. Cas saying, “Dammit, Dean,” to asking Dean to torture for him and
reminding Dean of his time in Hell (something that I think continues to deeply affect Dean), to showing no worry for Dean is richly hypocritical.
What I do agree strongly with is your comment on story poaching. Sam’s demon blood thing,
choosing Ruby, and his motivations were very different than Dean’s decision to take on the Mark. As you say, two different characters with very different motivations. I don’t think this current bunch of writers understand these two characters enough to realize that, though, and that is why there have
been major problems with Sam and Dean’s story this season.
To me, Dean has always walked a fine line between turning into a monster and doing the right thing for the right reasons. When Dean took the Blade, was an issue of Dean risking turning evil himself to save humanity (killing the remaining Knight of Hell). The dramatic struggle should be Dean’s inner struggle to kill evil, while not turning evil, not a rewrite of Sam’s S4 story. If Dean’s story was
about his inner struggle, instead of gaining TK powers when Dean dropped the Blade, he should have used his will-power and inner strength to pull the Blade by the Mark through himself to kill
Abbadon. Using Sam’s psychic powers the force convinced me this is a poached story.
No interest in Crowley and his son’s story, so that part and Cas’ angel story were not interesting (although Mark S. gave another excellent performance). Crowley and Cas were both created as foils to the Winchesters, and that’s all I need to know about them. The angel angel I have any interest in is Gadreel, and I feel certain that we’ve seen as much about him as we are going to get. He will be killed off by the end of the season. Gavin’s timeline thing is a mess to past canon, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we heard no more about that. Gavin, I suspect will go the way of the Thule Society and the thousands of years old “respository” of everything supernatural.
Overall and despite some very big problems with this episode, I did enjoy the mytharc portion of it very much.
Thank you for the reply.
ReplyDelete"Until there is some explanation about Sam’s hurtful words, I am not buying into Sam’s worry over Dean."
And that's exactly what I was getting at with the damage to character part that whitewashing this does. There's no real comparison in our world to possession because possession isn't real. But when you look at when we've seen in the show, a being (often hostile) is able to not only take over control of another person and access not only their body but their most private thoughts. They can then use that person's body to harm or kill others, can use that person's thoughts to hurt people they love, and can use those person's thoughts and vunerabilities against themselves. All of that has been done to Sam through possessions by Meg and Lucifer in the past. And Gadreel used Sam's body to kill Kevin. Sam has reason to consider what Dean did a huge betrayal, but by whitewashing this, that perspective is not being adequately shown and too many people are left not understanding the reasons behind Sam's words and anger.
"What I do agree strongly with is your comment on story poaching. Sam’s demon blood thing, choosing Ruby, and his motivations were very different than Dean’s decision to take on the Mark. As you say, two different characters with very different motivations."
Yes. Sam and Dean both have rich character histories. If what we're seeing is real (I say this because I have a theory there's something else going here), then there's no need to try to make Dean fit Sam's history just for parallelism, or whatever else is going on here. While I sort-of accepted the "Dean wanted a normal life" in Bad Boys because we have seen resentment from Dean in the past about what he had to give up, I also feel that Dean really did admire his dad too much for the way this was presented. It was too much blending of Dean's and Sam's pasts and personalities. And I've had criticisms of the same issue in reverse. I thought Sam's "my greatest fear is disappointing you" speech was too much Dean/John and not true to Sam/Dean. Which isn't to say Sam doesn't have plenty of demons. They're just different demons than Dean's.
I don't think that's how it works. Someone not dying doesn't mean another person has to. Look at "My Heart Will Go On" where only the descendants are the ones that die and I don't think Gavin will have any children this quick. I actually had an idea that I think zilch will change. If Gavin hadn't died, then Bobby wouldn't have leverage to get his deal with Crowley taken off the table, but Bobby would have still died and would have been sent to Hell, which he was anyways in the events of "Taxi Driver" and that would still give Sam the idea to use the second trial on Bobby and send him to Heaven. If anything, Gavin's appearance in the present changes the events in "Weekend at Bobby's", "Death's Door" and "Taxi Driver". The same sort of events could have still taken place, but Bobby could have relied more on his drinking than ever before if he was able to get out of his deal and the bond between that flask would have been more prominent for Bobby's spirit.
ReplyDeleteI know, it's something you have to wrap your mind around with, haha.
True, but you gotta admit that it wasn't the little things that changes future events as Sam and Dean have spoken to people in the past. If were to get very in-depth with how time travel works, then even speaking to someone in the past should change the timeline and it didn't.
ReplyDeleteWhat I am hoping against hope is that this isn't a time warp thing and nothing since the end of Swan Song has been true. That will tick me off to no end.
ReplyDeleteWhile Bad Boys was a pretty well-put together episode, I hated it. While I can understand Dean as a teenager questioning his life, I thought it was actually an author insert thing with no consideration given to Dean's character. Now that you mention it, though, it was an insert Dean for Sam rewrite.
Oh, I understand. That scene just stood out for me b/c it was a complete 180 from what was previously written. The whole point of the first half of the season is that Dean has done this terrible thing to Sam of which Sam is completely unaware. He didn't know an entity was "sharing the house" w/him. He didn't know he was possessed at all. IIRC, not much was made of Sam "losing time" as much as he did. I found that odd, but that's the way Carver told the story. So, I was shocked to hear Sam express all these feelings and opinions about Gadreel and his intentions. I watched that scene thinking, "Sam, how do you know how Gadreel felt about anything?"
ReplyDeleteI know Crowley helped Sam remember what Gadreel did, but in remembering those events, did Sam also suddenly remember how Gadreel felt or what he was thinking? To me, that would be like gaining a whole new set of memories so when Sam told Dean he felt better than he had in a long time, he really felt there was an another presence there inside him too? And he never said anything? Really?!?!
At the end of that episode, Sam called Gadreel a "psycho angel," but in this episode, he says Gadreel was not malicious and just misunderstood. If that's how Sam feels, then why is he so angry w/Dean? They both thought Gadreel was a good guy.
The whole thing is off to me. This is what happens when there is no solid leadership in the writers' room. Each writer does whatever he/she wants regardless of established canon.
I agree! The writing is awful. They have Sam tear into Dean about this possession but now he's all like, "We just shared the same space. It was all good." I'm left thinking, "Huh?"
ReplyDeleteI'm thinking about "Appointment in Sammara," Dean doesn't reap the little girl, so the nurse ends up getting in a car crash, which led to her husband getting drunk and trying to kill himself, etc.. Gavin not dying in 1723, means someone else that wasn't supposed to die took his place on the ship, which takes you into the "My Heart Will Go On" territory, with the effects reverberating through time, what those effects are, we don't know.
ReplyDeleteGavin not being a ghost for "Weekend at Bobby's" just means that it possibly went down in a different fashion. Bobby got Crowely's real name and place of birth from Rufus, so any number of scenarios could have happened, in which Bobby gets his soul back.
The consistency among writers has been all over the place since season 7. It may be my imagination, but I think I've seen some improvement recently in this area among other writers, but this pair still seems to always be off, doing their own thing. Apparently they didn't think Sam had a good reason to be angry, so they just removed any justification for Sam's anger from the story.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I'm personally suspecting reality has been altered in some way - particularly since the end of season 7 - I doubt they would go as far as wiping out all the story since Swan Song. Fans would hate that. It's possible to have reality or perceptions altered through some supernatural manipulation, but the events still have happened - that's what I'm hoping for anyway. If Dean turns into a full-blown demon, all bets are off though. I don't see how they could come back from that and maintain the show.
ReplyDeleteYeah, but one of Sam's defining personality traits is that he always questions things. It's out of character for him not to poke this further if he sensed something was off.
ReplyDeleteWhile I agree with you that there should be a natural order consequence, I don't think Death's message was that there's a one-to-one ratio in those who lived/died. I'm a little fuzzy on the details, but I believe there was more than one person who died in the end after Dean's interference in AiS. He set off a ripple effect of death and destruction. However, the lore of reapers in Faith seemed to suggest that if one person lived, one person had to die.
ReplyDeleteI don't consider personal experience lore. And with the exception of their experiences with the Titanic storyline, their actions with time travel didn't set off a ripple effect. But we can agree to disagree on this.
ReplyDeleteThe entire ship went down in 1723, so unless they decided to get someone else on board, I don't see that as a possibility. I do get what you're saying, but I feel that this is a different situation where I don't think they had to get someone else to replace Gavin and I doubt that without Gavin there, the ship went on a different path and didn't sink into the ocean floor.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I like to think of how Bobby's timeline changed a bit if Gavin were to not have died myself….makes it more fun for me to think how the smaller things could have changed with Gavin now being in the present, lol.
"Appointment in Samarra", I felt, really changed up the lore of a reaper's job, imo.
ReplyDeleteHow so?
ReplyDeleteThe idea that multiple people have to die if one person doesn't, and it's something I never understood. Look at way back in "Faith" or "In My Time of Dying", only one person needs to die to save another, wether it be the minister's wife or John Winchester even if through other means besides just the reaper taking part of taking the life.
ReplyDeleteHaha! Yes, that seems to be what happened! Do these writers consult each other or at least look at each other scripts before they pen their own?
ReplyDelete