Supernatural – Season 10 Episode 16 – The Gripe Review

Hi all, and welcome to the second review posted on a Sunday. I was happy to see so many of you show up and comment last week. It means the move didn't cost me readers. I really enjoy your comments here .They make the job of reviewing inane episodes a lot easier.

I was browsing the IMDB forum after the episode when a post caught my eye. Someone said they felt sorry for those tasked with recapping/reviewing this episode since they themselves almost fell asleep halfway through it. I didn't know what to think. This wasn't the worst episode I reviewed - that honor goes to episode 200 - but it did top last week's episode in snooze worthiness. The dreadful duo of writers in charge of it may have felt incapable of producing a script for the story they had in mind, so they decided to give the manuscript to the actors and ask them to read from it on camera. How else do you explain the existence of a journal that contains the entire backstory of the monster of the week, read by multiple characters in multiple scenes? That's lazy even by current Supernatural standards.

Let's get to the gripes because boy oh boy, are they plenty.

Gripe #1 - Do we have to sit through this every time?

We get it. Sam wants to find a cure. Dean thinks it's pointless. He is using these cases to forget about the mark and to give his life a purpose. They eventually take the case because how else can there be an episode? Does this have to be the opening to every MoTW story though? Do we have to sit through it every week? We already know where Dean and Sam stand with regards to the main plot. The writers aren't developing them any further by repeating the same banter. Why reiterate this parody sketch and make the boys look like amnesiacs? Does Sam have to deny the case being a case and be proven wrong every time? Does Dean have to stealth angst and guilt trip him into working it?

Gripe #2 - Who changed the channel and why am I watching Da Vinci's Demons?

We're barely ten minutes into the episode when we're thrown into a dream-filtered flashback about a woman who's name we don't even know. For a moment I thought a glitch happened and my DVR skipped some scenes.

There's no scenario that justifies showing the audience a flashback about a character they just met in that scene. This is bad writing 101. They teach this in creative writing in the 12th grade: Don't front-load your plot with backstory before the audience has a chance to know and give a damn about your characters.

But of course this duo doesn't care. They have a backstory to tell and they'll tell it one way or another. Perhaps they read my complaints about Show, Don't Tell  and thought a long-winded, under-cooked flashback sequence would be a brilliant idea. This is still telling though. Except this takes us one layer farther from the actual story and plunges us into a setting that suspiciously looks like our butt cheeks hit the remote control by accident.

This of course would have been slightly all right had the flashbacks been more compelling. Sadly they are tedious, have no story (other than lamenting an unrequited love,) and give away the only plot twist that could have saved this episode. How could the murderer be anyone but the character who roamed 16th century Florence, and is given more screen time than the heroes of the show?

Gripe #3 - Dean the blue-balled sleazeball

I've pointed a finger at this twice already, and am going to do so every time I see it on screen, because this is a bastardization of Dean's charming, flirty personality and I can't stand it. It's disgusting, out of character, and has no point. It raises the question what the writers themselves think proper treatment of women is when they write one of the most popular characters of the show this way. Is this is why they have failed to come up with a decent female character for ten years, because they have such a low opinion of women?

Dean's behavior visibly changes as soon as he sees the pretty nun. He takes on that wolfish look that makes most women uncomfortable rather than happy. He asks how someone "like her" ended up in a place like this, which begs the question, someone like what? A beautiful, sexy woman? I thought we were past the times when a woman's looks played the most crucial role in her choice of profession. Is Dean implying that good looking women need life altering reasons to become nuns while plain looking ones don't?

Since that conversation apparently wasn't enough to send the message of Dean undressing the nun with his eyes, they have him remind us again by telling Sam how hot she was in the next scene, after which Sam voices what I was thinking the entire time and we thankfully move on.

What amuses me is that, despite the writers' eagerness to show Dean as a man with sex on his brains on constant play, they give him little actual action in that line. When was the last time Dean had sex really? Season 7? Season 8? This repeated horn dog behavior only raises my suspicion that Dean is suffering from a colossal case of blue-balls which is why he is incapable of thinking about anything else when he sees a hot woman.

Gripe #4 - Dean's heartfelt confession is about what?

In a classic move reminiscent of seasons 3, 4 and 5, after Dean finishes fooling the ghost with his cheater act, he goes into a serious-face mode and, remembering his true woes, decides to confess to the priest. It's a rare and precious moment when we get to see Dean without his tough guy mask, and glimpse into his fears, pains and desires. In the past, these scenes were important junctures in the developing story of the elder Winchester and some of the best moments of the show. In the hands of the current writers however, it becomes a WTF moment.

Let's recap Dean's current dilemma. According to Cain he is destined to kill his nemesis, then his best friend, then his brother, before turning into a cursed being and walking the earth for all eternity. Why on earth is he then scared of death? Where in Cain's prophecy was anything said about him dying? Or is he anticipating someone will kill him before the prophecy comes true?

Even if that's the case it raises another issue: why is Dean afraid of dying in the first place when every time it has happened he has come back without a hitch? Didn't he die at the end of last season? Didn't he come back as a demon, have a jolly good time, and get put back together in the original format by Sam and Cas? Didn't he go to Hell in season 3, to Heaven in season 5, to Purgatory in season 7? How many times does it have to happen before the Winchesters and their feathered friend realize theirs is a two way ticket?

The reason this irks me is that Dean could have said so many things in that scene that would have made it memorable and important. He could have talked about the actual prophecy and its implications, or about his guilt over the massacre he committed under the influence of the Mark, or he could have revealed whether or not he truly doesn't care about a cure. Instead he says he doesn't want to die, then spits out a line that launches a thousand ships and a truckload of nonsensical reactions from a fandom doped up on meta and tag and fanfic.

Gripe #5 - This is why we can't have nice things.

During my research for this review I went to Tumblr, among other social media outlets, to gauge fan reaction toward this episode. What I found made my jaw drop. Instead of talking about the actual episode, nearly everyone talked about this line from Dean's confession:

I don't know. I mean, you know, there's -- there's things, there's...people, feelings that I-I-I want to experience differently than I have before, or maybe even for the first time.

The whole site was abuzz with people quoting that line and interpreting it the way they liked. Destiel shippers were claiming the line was a first step toward Dean realizing his true sexuality while some Wincest shippers swore it meant something involving Sam that I don't care to repeat here.

This is the reason we can't have good scripts. This is why the writers know they can get away with garbage as long as they include a vague yet suggestive reference and get all the fans drunk on the supposed meaning. Instead of viewers tweeting TPTD about the heck that's going on with the writing, everyone is hyper crazed because Dean said something that could mean any number of things, including trying out cow testicles at a diner in Nepal and dancing cheek to cheek with a cross dressing Hells Angel.

As for the individual factions and their claims, I have a few words for each of you:

Wincest shippers, I hope you can see how highly hypocritical and silly it is to constantly wave canon pitchforks at the opposite faction for daring to suggest Dean might be gay or bi, then turn around and claim he secretly wants to screw his own brother. Please check your self-righteous outrage now.

As for you Destiel shippers, could you please stop seeing canon Destiel in the pattern of bird poop on Dean's leather jacket? How many times do you have to go through this until you realize the show runners aren't up for it? Perhaps the CW gods are allergic to making the front man of one of their mostly male oriented shows LGBT, or perhaps they just don't like that storyline. Either way, they've said it loud and clear, on multiple occasions, that it's not going to happen. The only effect your constant demanding and crystal ball readings of the future has is to increase the risk of losing whatever friendship Dean and Castiel have left on the show.

Gripe #6 - Snark under torture and the Rowena b-plot of endless exposition

The writers also had a b-story on the side, about the Men of Letters destroying the coven Rowena had her sights on. As a way to include it in the episode, and due to lack of any other ideas, they decided to have Crowley kidnap the head of the coven and make her tell the story to Rowena while being tortured.

The result is a series of long and unconvincing dialogue scenes in which a character has the snot beaten out of her yet oscillates between throwing insults at her captors and narrating the backstory between splutters of blood. She acts like a complete sociopath with no sense of danger or survival skills, who gives up her secrets - the only bargaining chips she has that may help save her life - to her nemesis free of charge. I couldn't decide which was more painful to watch: flashbacks of a nameless woman whining about lost love before she became a ghost, or a bloody faced witch sniping at Rowena before she was turned into a hamster.

If you managed to get through this episode without falling asleep like our good friend from the IMDB forum, please leave a comment below. Next week looks like a mythology episode. I'm crossing my fingers we'll have more to talk about than writers turning episodes into script read-throughs and my endless grief over Dean.


Tessa

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