Pete Martell

Silas has always been a wuss, unless you count the time he was callous about dying children. Laura Wright really is not very professional these days. Stone's death makes one of those clickbait "saddest death" articles. Some of the rest bothers me but his section was decently written. http://www.thefrisky.com/photos/8-tv-deaths-that-totally-crushed-me/devastating-tv-deaths-stone/

I think some of the "everyone's favorite" and "gets the ladies" tends to be surface. Dean had a lot of sex, but that wasn't because women preferred Dean to Sam - it was because, in the early seasons, Dean was more interested in casual sex than Sam was. There was never any real indication that women disliked Sam. Being everyone's favorite is also up in the air, because, yes, he was close to Ellen and Jo than Sam was, but they were both relatively short-lived presences in the lives of the brothers, and this closeness Dean felt ended up leading him to blame himself for Jo's death. I thought Bobby treated Dean like garbage, so this "favorite" status wasn't much of a gift. There are others, like Benny, Cas, Charlie, and I do think they had a positive impact on Dean, and I wish Sam had strong friendships/bonds too, but ultimately all of these characters except Cas left, or were killed, or were sacrificed. In the end the narrative always goes back to Sam and Dean being alone and having no one but each other, and they don't really have each other either. Maybe that will change in the show's final season(s), I don't know.

I think if you take out Kit's comments (which are to be expected, given the importance to Jon's story) the hype isn't too heavy, but they really made a mistake in shelving the wildlings for about 5 episodes. As a result there is little sense of urgency. The pacing this season has confused me. They may have been better off saving Oberyn's fight to episode 9 and having the Wall battle as episode 8. In a way this is a test for the show, because they've already had to see whether viewers will still tune in with the Starks having an increasingly minor role. Now they will have to see how viewers will react to less and less of the Lannisters (whose roles have already been whittled down over the course of the season anyway). The critics and watercooler types always tend to pooh-pooh anything that isn't about Tyrion, Dany, or Arya. I guess we'll see how this episode affects the ratings for the finale, or if viewers won't mind it as much.

I guess I'm assuming his body will be destroyed before Melisandre has any chance of getting to it. I realize I'm just talking out of my ass, since I've heard nothing about him being killed off. I suppose I was trying to figure out if they're going to write some of the Wall characters out now to simplify future stories. I guess it depends on whether or not they want to still have that relationship between Jon and Melisandre.

Shireen seems to have that role now, unless it's misdirection.

If Littlefinger's offhand comment to Robin means that Tywin is going to die on the toilet, then I am trying to figure out how they will manage to do that in a way that is going to have any dramatic impact. I haven't read the chapter yet - is it presented as dark comedy? Or is it treated seriously? Charles Dance has always added such gravitas to the role of Tywin...while I can see where a man as obsessed with appearances as Tywin would deserve such a fate, I hate to see him go out as some sort of big joke.

I have mixed feelings about "It's A Terrible Life"...Dean Smith reminds me a little too much of scared/drunk "Yellow Fever" Dean. I prefer the Dean Smith in fanfic. But that whole episode feels oddly unfinished to me. I really needed to see more of the early stuff with Dean Smith schmoozing. I think Jensen's best work varies and isn't tied down to any particular season. I actually feel like this past season had some of his best work yet, and extremely nuanced, difficult work, because he was acting by himself much of the time, since Sam was often gone (via possession) and then when Sam came back full time, they were at odds. I've always said that "Pac-Man Fever" has some of his best work, because he's in a completely supporting role, yet his reactions are the lynchpin of the entire episode. The scene where Charlie asks him if he's ready to give up on his crutch, and he says, "Never," is heartbreaking to look back on, because that sets up so much of the deal with Gadreel and the aftermath. I think Jared's best work was "Houses of the Holy," "Born Under a Bad Sign," and "Sacrifice." More Misha photos for Whose Line? http://www.allabouttvnews.com/2014/06/whose-line-is-it-anyway-photos-supernatural-misha-collins-guest-stars.html

I agree, but it just bothers me because when I hear lines like that I feel like it's about gender. I don't believe they would have a line like that if Morgan was talking to, let's say, one of Sonny's old mute bodyguards (if any are still around). It's time to give up those awards. They actually had an offer and chose to turn it down waiting for something better. Oops! They have been shit for years anyway, and for a number of years almost seemed ashamed of daytime drama.

I'm uncomfortable with lines like Morgan telling Sonny to keep Ava on her leash. For all the surface melodrama of Morgan "hating" Sonny, it signals the true nature of the story - this is all about the men, Morgan will in time forgive manly man Sonny, and Ava is going to be left on the roadside.

I think the show was relatively even-handed in how funny or smart or well-liked Dean and Sam were in the first two or three seasons. Dean was more extroverted, but Sam had fun too. This was often based on him taking the piss out of Dean, or in silly things happening to him (which was mostly a theme in early season 3), but it was still some type of happy moment. I don't think Sam became an excessively dour character until season 4. Other than a few bits here and there, which I'm pretty sure are from Jared, not from the writing, he's stayed that way ever since. I also think the writing stuck to the idea that both Dean and Sam had strengths and weaknesses until season 4, which is when, after a rampup of this in late season 3, we got the full beginning of the brothers being toxic for each other. I think that's what hurt Sam the most as a character, because if he's not good for Dean, if he's Dean's "weak spot," then what else is he in the narrative? Instead of addressing this, season 5 went into overdrive implying or outright stating (in my opinion) that Dean's only real value was in supporting Sam and helping Sam save the world. So it wasn't enough that Sam's role was atoning for past sins/saving the world, they had to make sure we knew Dean's main role was in being subservient to this plan. Their relationship has been almost 100% toxic ever since, mostly with focus on whether or not they are saving each other. I am hoping this season will finally be something different, and not just about Sam saving Dean to make up for the last season's conflict. Dean has had more bonds with other characters than Sam ever has, but it's a double-edged sword, as most of these relationships will always come second to Sam. And some of the relationships were unpleasant and damaging, if not outright abusive, like the way Bobby treated him. I always thought Sam was lucky to not be Bobby's "favorite." What I wish we got more of for Sam was him saving the day not in contrast to Dean, but just on his own abilities and history. "Mother's Little Helper" did so well in showing this, putting Sam in his own plot, one that was somewhat personal for Sam, given his past soullessness. I think there was a certain clarity in Sam's characterization, a purity to it, that was lost after season 3. Sam's motivations were pretty clear in those first three seasons. His move toward a darker edge was relatively gradual, and still kept the characterization of the Sam we knew. Once they sacrificed that for noir or mystery or whatever in season 4, they never got it back.

Unfortunately I'm not even sure if brutally murdering Shae would make viewers think he has become a dark character. A lot of fans would likely claim that she deserved it (which I don't agree with). I guess they could have the big blowup with Jaime as some type of start of a darker road. The thing for me is I feel like they've already had a rift this season. I don't know if it's intentional or not - I have absolutely no idea what the show is trying to say about their relationship, as it was poorly handled in the first 3 episodes and then dropped in the rest - but I haven't seen any love or affection or even interest between them since that awful sept scene.

I think part of the problem is we've barely seen her interact with Jorah most of this season (or even most of last season). I wish they'd had a longer scene here, and we'd seen more of her reaction. I'm not sure why it was so truncated and perfunctory, even if the brief bit we did see was powerful. I agree that I'd rather they not have him kill off Shae. I'm so wary of people cheering because she got what she deserved or she was just a "ho."

I keep wondering if we're going to even hear about Tysha. I know they brought her up a few seasons ago, but they could have done so during the trial, or in the lengthy jail scenes,but haven't. I also wonder how they're going to deal with Varys, as this should be his exit for quite a while. Since testifying against Tyrion he hasn't had much to say or do, other than look sad when Tyrion was sentenced to death in this past episode.

Not just you, definitely. He's a very handsome and charismatic man. I first noticed it in the Red Wedding episode, which made me feel horribly ashamed... The show's casting people seem to have some sort of daddy fetish, as they repeatedly cast men who are much more attractive than the characters likely should be.

I wonder if the reason they brought up Cousin Orson was so Tyrion could use his name, rather than Moon Boy's, to taunt Jaime. I feel like it's risky to have Tyrion turn against Jaime after this season. Sad to say, most fans likely won't bat an eye at him murdering Shae, but going against his "bro" after Jaime's done so much to support him is going to be a tough sell, unless Jaime turns against him first. One of the problems with the writing for the Jaime/Cersei relationship this season is that they seem to have so little interest in each other. If Tyrion tells him that Cersei has been fucking the entire Kingsguard, I don't know if Jaime would blink.

The show has become like Walking Dead in that the individual scenes often feel stronger than the story as a whole. I think part of it is that a lot of characters just haven't been doing anything. They wander around in comedy (Brienne) or musing on life (Arya), waiting for something to happen. And some story choices make characters who should have been doing things all season long (like Jon and a buildup of the fight at the Wall) instead twiddle their thumbs. I don't understand the choice to have Ygritte pop up early and then vanish for 5-6 episodes. I appreciate the choice to have something big happen early in the season, but I sometimes feel like the season ended after that episode, and the horrifically done aftermath in Breaker of Chains. The Tyrells in particular have all but vanished. It's weird, because Dany's story is the one most often criticized for nothing happening, yet if I look over this season, I can see a clear progression from first episode to last. I can't say that for a number of other stories this season.

I don't necessarily think it was a mistake either - I think it was a very difficult decision all around - but Emilia saying it was a mistake makes me wonder if that's where the material is going to go. That this is the start of Dany's downfall. I hope not, as I'm not comfortable with blaming her problems on her not keeping Jorah around (and things like out of control dragons have nothing to do with Jorah...), but I don't know. I don't see it as a mistake in of itself as much as a mistake in where it will lead to for Dany if she becomes more paranoid and shuts everyone out. I just hope they won't cut down Stannis' role as they often tend to do. I'm dreading Ygritte's death. I know it's coming but Rose Leslie always breaks my heart in those emotional moments. I hope they will give the scene room to breathe and not cut it too short, as they have several times with emotional moments this season. I liked the Missandei/Grey Worm material, mostly just because the show has such misery and this is a brief respite, and also because the show has so few POC characters that I am glad they aren't just using Missandei and Grey Worm as Dany's servants. I do think this material would have been suited to another episode.

I agree with both of you about Sam, but I do think the show was better at defining him in the first three seasons. His characterization in season 3 was probably the most consistent part of the season. I think there were various sides to Sam that were lost after season 3. I think it was a grievous mistake giving him a "dark" arc, as the show never knew how to bring him back from that. I also think there was some effort to remind us of what a stud he was, which never entirely made sense to me, because, obviously, Sam enjoyed sex, but I thought the show exploited this well enough in the first two seasons. The whole sexual relationship with Ruby and then the sex with the doctor - I've never understood those choices. I'm not trying to be sex negative, or whatever the term may be, it's just that there seemed to be this implication that we knew Sam was a bad boy now because he was getting some tail.

I hope so too, especially Rickon. I'm so in need of seeing Osha and Rickon again before the season is over that I actually had a dream about them (a bear was protecting them and the bear was killed by random farm people, because, well, this is Game of Thrones). I thought they were supposed to be in this season at some point. Maybe a glimpse in the finale, at least, surely. I will be surprised if they don't have Tyrion kill Shae, although I don't know how they will sell Shae/Tywin. It just doesn't make sense to me, even as Tywin needing to show his dominance. I suppose they will just go for the shock. I wonder if they will keep the bad parting with Jaime or not. Unless they are going to show Tyrion having a complete break from reality, there's nothing at this point that would make him turn against Jaime.

The show barely lets Dean and Cas interact, but I would like to see them talk about some of the distrust between them, which Dean brought up in Stairway to Heaven, much to Sam and Cas' shock. I think they don't have Dean dwell as much on season 4 because the time that Cas was most actively involved in manipulating Sam and Dean was when he was being tortured and brainwashed. For everything in season 4 up to that point (episode 21), he was generally trying to help Dean.

Kripke is overrated. To me he proved that with Revolution, where all of his flaws at SPN (gay-baiting, inability to write for women, inability to plot, etc.) were there to see, without any of the help he had at SPN, like Kim Manners, or some of the cast who helped elevate SPN. Kripke created all of the problems that the show currently has. The hostility toward women and apathy/hostility to POC. The inability to pace storylines. The long, slow rot of the brother relationship. Sam having no POV and drowning in his own past actions that the show never knew how to address. The inability to create frightening or interesting long-term villains. The inability to properly regulate between comedy and drama. Smugness and bizarre fascination with his own cleverness. Overbaked, overexposed meta commentary. Shock value deaths of any and every recurring character. I still can't believe he spent 4 seasons getting to a season full of sitcom cliche smarmy boss Zachariah, and sad panda Lucifer, who was about as menacing as Darlene Connor on Roseanne in her "goth" phase. Kripke managed to create two very solid seasons and then went off the rails. For all the talk of the good old days, he did more to destroy Sam, and the Sam and Dean bond, than anything I have seen since (although I thought the writing for Sam in early season 8 was pure garbage). If we're really being unpopular, I don't think season 3 is all that much better than what we have now. The good episodes are certainly better, but the main flaws are still there - they bungled Dean's story very badly in the early episodes with sledgehammer writing (Dean would never interrupt the middle of a conversation about a case so he could do sexy talk with a woman on the phone), they bungled Bela, they had huge tonal problems, they had no idea how to do comedy. There is too much empty gore and misery with no payoff, which ruins even some potentially great episodes, like Jus in Belo. Looking back, I'm still awed at how they took such an emotional, dramatic end of season 2 and pissed it all away in "Magnificent Seven," which I would probably still put as the worst season premiere. Season 4 is better in terms of a coherent story arc, but it's one of those that doesn't hold up as well in repeat viewer, as it drowns in grimness and once again Kripke seems to have no respect for the intelligence of the viewer (all the awful strained analogies to brother conflict - I still cringe at Barry Bostwick's "he was like my brother!" wailing - and Dean literally giving the same speech about torture in Hell in two back-to-back episodes, muddying the power of the original scene). For me the best part of season 4 is the buildup of the angels, although after Uriel dies and Zachariah comes along, that is severely tarnished. Carver has many, many flaws, but I do think he at least sees the importance of a coherent arc for Dean's character beyond "save Sammy!" and emo porn. Kripke did his best to make Dean irrelevant in any way beyond Sam's crutch, and Gamble clearly had no idea what to do with the character (or any character). Carver I think has given Dean a lot of fascinating and layered material, and he's the one who has come closest to writing Dean as something beyond a tear in Sam's eye, although I don't know if that will last. I hope it does. My other UO would be that I really don't think Sera Gamble "got" Sam at all. I think she had her idea of Sam, but it veered so closely to superhuman stud and uber-hunter, which is never what Sam was about. The only person who has ever been in charge of the show who understood Sam was Kripke, which is bitterly ironic, since he's the one who destroyed the character. I tend to blame Singer for most of the show's problems, as he's been there while various showrunners have come and gone, and some things never change.

Curtis Armstrong's TBS show, King of the Nerds, has been renewed for a third season. http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2014/06/02/king-of-the-nerds-renewed-for-third-season-by-tbs/269538/

My problems with season 3 mostly involve tonal issues (way too much time spent in the early episodes on forced comedy), ill-fated attempts at showing us how "edgy" the writing was going to be (yay, more women being called bitches and sluts and whores...and let's throw in a homophobic remark too), and the very confused writing for Bela, where they seemingly had no idea whether she was a sex object, a smart schemer, a smug and silly twit who was in over her head, a lost little girl, or a nasty thing who was mean to "our boys" and therefore deserved to burn in hell. There are certain episodes that hold up well ("Mystery Spot," "No Rest for the Wicked," most of "The Kids Are Alright," "Long Distance Caller," "A Very Supernatural Christmas"), and I think they did a great job with Ruby, and with the arcs for Sam and for Dean, but overall I see season 3 as the start of most of what has significantly hurt the show since that time. Pointless misogyny. Rushing through interesting concepts and tarnishing them in the process (Seven Deadly Sins). Excessive gore (the hunter's death in that episode). Pointless deaths of interesting characters (Victor Henriksen). Pointless misery. Meandering tone (I think "Bedtime Stories" is the worst at this...to me it's just a huge mess and is very uncomfortable to watch). For me it's not really so much about season 3 being bad as it being the death of what Supernatural could have been.

Something Wicked -- Dead in the Water ++ Pilot -- 51 - Pilot 51 - Scarecrow 23 - Faith 19- Something Wicked 18 - Dead in the Water 16 - The Benders GANKED: Route 666 Bugs Provenance Dead Man's Blood Hook Man Nightmare Asylum Wendigo Hell House Bloody Mary Home Salvation Shadow Phantom Traveler Devil's Trap Skin

My UO for this thread would be that I feel like the show has been heading toward demon Dean for years and, while I'm wary of how it will be handled, I am also compelled by it, for now. If I'm being honest, I'll say that Dean's ties to Hell are far more believable to me than Sam's - the show was all over the place in his season 4 demonic powers story, and season 5, with emo Lucifer, was ultimately a huge waste of time. My other UO would be that I don't miss Bobby, and I grew to almost hate Bobby after season 4. I don't think he was a father to Sam and Dean, and if he was, he was a terrible one. For the most part I thought the Walking Dead finale was pretty good, so I guess we'd have to disagree there. Carver had few ties to Bloodlines. If it had been picked up he would have helped get it off the ground but had no real involvement, IIRC. I think they did that with Garth mostly so they'd have a reason not to bring him back. They wrote out all the recurring characters this season, aside from Jody. Kevin died. Charlie was human and had a happy ending. Garth became a werewolf and had a happy ending.