Aeryn13

I`m not. If they do it like in this episode where he looks like he never won a fight in his life while the sun shines out of Sam`s ass, one episode is already ten too many for me. MORE episodes of that? Ain`t no bucket big enough. And since I don`t think they are going to play it psychologically but just as an excuse for Dean-bashing - in the ONE area where I figured we would be spared it - no thanks. They said before that Dean would have to "relearn" what it means to be a hero. Well, having him learn what it means to be a failure and Deansel in distress is not the way to go because look at the end of this episode he was right back to good old self-loathing Dean. And since Sam keeps quiet to that each time, I say we are also back to the one thing Dean needs is freaking successes. He needs to accomplish things, not fail at things. HE doesn`t get to blame-shift his failure or get pep talks from being like Death on how great he is, so it needs to just come from him.

So, is this something we have to look forward to then, Dean freezing up all the time now? Because with no storyline, I at the very least expected him to still be a badass but if it`s just loser hunter scenes from here on out with Sam being flipping onto the scene to take care of everything, gone is even the last miniscule reason to watch the show. Seriously, Dean being a badass is all I had left (or I thought I would anyway).

Crowley briefly possessed Linda Tran and his black smoke went into Sam last Season, didn`t it? So he is possessing a meatsuit for sure. However, I still think when Dean cut his hand and watched it heal, it was only meant to show him ruminating how he is a demon now. It wasn`t a big wound so it stands to reason it would heal quickly enough. I still think it`s not untypical for demons as seen but in the age of lol!Canon!Carver where Reapers are angels, Shifters don`t shed skin, werewolves can control themselves and Purgatory is just next door over, a little bit of demon-retconning is nothing. I`m pretty sure they would show any demon heal themselves just like this now. To me, the scene directly referenced Crowley`s challenge "are you demon or human still?" Dean mused on that question because he has knowledge of how demons usually are and he must have known that he didn`t quite fit in either world there. So he watched his body do something that a human body would not do and seemed to come to a conclusion there that if it talks and walks like a duck, it must be one after all.

I disagree that powers are shown as an all and all negative (or even mostly) on the show. Sure, the demon blood might have been bad but there wasn`t one single scene with the hand of Ipecac that I think the show didn`t play as flashy and "look how uber-cool and badass he is". I would have killed for Dean to get a bit of that. Just as I would have killed for the character to get a lot of stuff that Sam has had freely that I find is highly covet-able. Couldn`t find a single thing in reverse. I mean, I would have loved a reverse but it would just have been Dean getting the good stuff for once in my eyes. As for healing powers, all demons have them. We have seen permanent vessels of demons take major abuse and then bam, good as new afterwards. Who healed that but the demon inside? I don`t think so at all. At best I think they didn`t care how much Dean looked suddenly like a weak loser in that scene. If it was supposed to be an avil about him freezing up because of the Mark, well, this episode showed once again how the show does anvils when it wants to: with the heaviest hand possible. That leads me to deduce that this was never supposed to be a point in the writing. It is a fanwank to explain a scene that demeaned the character.

I disagree insofar as if it was a Sam-plot, I`m nearly 100 % sure the demon-thing would have gone on for longer for example. We would have seen powers in every episode. We would still be seeing powers and physical effects now. Including the fillers. There would be at least lip service paid to how important it all was etc. We`re not getting all that because it is a Dean-plot. So the writers just don`t bother. The emo-blather and how any one character "feels" about it, I couldn`t care less about. When this is what they gave Dean, how he felt about Sam and his latest supernatural condition/destiny/specialness it didn`t make things interesting for me so not giving that to him isn`t a big deal in my eyes.

For me it`s entirely the opposite.`Because he wasn`t duped by Crowley. Dean took on the Mark without asking about any kind of consequences because of the headspace he was in at the time. This had bubkis to do with Crowley. Sure, Crowley fascilitated the meeting with Cain but Dean could have stumbled upon the dude for any old plot-contrivance reason and taken on the Mark just the same. It was about him, Crowley was just there for the happening. And once he had taken it and gotten the Blade, it was a foregone conclusion that he would die (eventually, somehow) and the Mark would work its magic. So Crowley didn`t share his knowledge and pushed it along a bit. That doesn`t fit my definition of "duped" in any way. Cain wasn`t secretely evil and Crowley wasn`t working for him and he didn`t really fool Dean about his supposed wonderful goals. Or how he only had Dean`s best interests at heart. Meanwhile the palling around, yup, that would be embarassing. And nope, I don`t think Dean is the guy who would go literally "ew" to a bed partner after a drunken night. But I meant it more as a metaphor. Because Crowley is not just a "guy he doesn`t like". It`s unfeasible to spend fun times with him. I`m betting if Demon!Dean had happened the same time as Leviathan!Cas and for some reason the two would have found themselves together being pals in "evoldom", Dean wouldn`t be embarassed afterwards. Heck, if it had been an unhinged hunter like Gordon (obvious difficulties there for the pal-relationship),, he wouldn`t either. It`s Crowley specifically. They shared a room and everything. I can easily see Dean wanting to scrub his skin off and burn of his retinas if he saw the guy naked or something. Not because of dudeship but again, Crowley.

I don`t think he meant it as embarassed because Crowley fooled him in any way - he didn`t really. Human!Dean never trusted him and him taking on the Mark because of nihilistic despair had little to nothing to do with believing in Crowley. Heck, he figured out Crowley`s play at the end of the First Born episode. But Crowley is someone Dean regards as filth, not someone he would share a hotel room with. Or beers. Or take goofy pictures with. Now even Demon!Dean, I don`t think ever cared about Crowley. Once Crowley got on his nerves, he shoved him aside - literally. But as long as Crowley proved to be a suitable companion for fun, Demon!Dean hung out with him. That is what I believe back-to-normal-Dean would be embarassed about and I think it makes sense. It`s basically a supernatural version of rolling over after a drunken night and going "ewww, how drunk was I?" As a demon, Dean was so out of it, he spent fun times with a guy who wouldn`t qualify for that under normal circumstances in like ever. I would feel embarassed about it, too.

This one was boring and lackluster. Dean morphing into a Deansel in distress made no sense to me. The writing didn`t even remotely touch on reasons for that. Sure, it might have been because he was scared off himself and held back physically but that was neither said nor shown. Meanwhile Sam becomes the one-armed superhunter. The only thing missing was him doing backflips into the room - with one arm, mind you. That entire scene looked clumsy and idiotic. The anvils were hard and fast and I have no idea what they were supposed to be. They were laying it on super-thick with Kate and Dean what with the saving a sibling and it turning to crap. Yet said sibling became a killer. Dean has just been a demon, still has the MOC and despite another boring Lester flashback, there is no, absolutely no plot-reason to start a freaking dark arc for Sam where Dean revolves around Sam again. The brother conversations? Eh. At least it wasn`t the groveling and pimping that I expected (this time, anyway, it`s probably still coming) and I like that Dean didn`t seem to take the responsibility for getting Lester involved in the deal. Killing him. sure, but not for that. That at least means he makes a distinct choice between his actions and Sam`s actions. If he keeps that mindset, it would be good. ,

For me it`s without a doubt the one the story is about. A narrator is just that, a narrator. Is a voice-over narrating stuff in a show an important part of the story? Not for me. And it`s this very notion that is so insulting to me, that apparently one character is so awesome and important, that their and only their story needs to be told. Meanwhile the other character is what, apparently so boring and unimportant that the only thing they are ever good for is cape-hodling for the other one? And how they feel about said cape-holding? I have to question the writers why they think a Mary Sue at the center of everything is so infinitely interesting and why another character is good for nothing but sidekick duties. A bigger insult doesn`t come to mind. So yeah, white-hot-rage to the notion that this needs to be all Dean ever gets and that this would make him remotely as an important part of the story as Sam. To clarify, not white-hot rage at you for looking at the show a certain way,but at the writers.

Yup, miles vary greately on this point.

Makes a lot of difference. The supernatural tie meant that Sam and only Sam and noone but Sam had the special role at the center of that story. Everyone could have been his travel companion. The reverse isn`t even remotely true for Dean and the Leviathans. Where everyone and their dog could have gone after them. Same with killing Dick Roman, who did it was happenstance. Meanwhile for Lucifer, again, everyone and their dog pointed out how Sam was "the man". I`ll never see that as equal, never. As for Dean potentially "starting" it in the past, that would be even more horrifying. Because he gets nothing but the blame part but none of the redemption, Then again, it was the same thing with breaking the first seal - apparently the blame that falls on him for "starting" it but he is completely taken out of finishing it. However, as you say, this has been a very disputed theme. Personally, I`ll never believe Dean had any kind of role in Suck Song, I`ll never stop hating it for that very reason and I`ll never forgive that lousy storytelling. If at least they would make it up even a little by giving the character his due now but heck, not even crumbs from the table.

With how much insult to injury there was, it comes pretty close. But okay, I will count it. The Leviathans, however, I don`t. In fact, I`d say the Leviathan storyline was weirdly about the Leviathans and while Dean and Sam were randomely video-bombed into it, it was by no means the storyline of either of them or them both. The "largest" mytharc of the Season was maybe Ghost!Bobby - and that I consider a Bobby-storyline. If Dean or others were supporting in it is another matter. Same goes for Soulless!Sam. That is a bonafide Sam-plot. Dean sidekicked in it but that makes it more an "insult to injury" anti-storyline for Dean. Just like the Trials. Sidekick duty in another characters storyline is not what I look for - at this point, it is what I hate. And what makes me so terribly bitter because they can come up with stories for characters who joined the show years into its run and bam, they get something I would have killed for for Dean over years and years of nothing. I honestly don`t get it. If he had always been a character like Xander Harris on Buffy, the sidekick, mostly comic relief with an occasional moment to shine but overall completely unimportant and with just Buffy as the declared Chosen One, then yes I would understand it. With the set-up the show had, I never ever expected the character to mean something beyond sidekick. But that`s IMO not how the Dean-character overall was introduced. Going by the Buffy parallel, he was a mixture of lots of characters from that, including Buffy herself. Or, the Star Wars analogy the show went with to establish the premise: sure, Han was the sidekick as well and it was only feasible like this because it was just three feature films. Over the course of a show, they would have needed to broaden his role or write him out. Which is what I think happened with Dean. They realized that keeping him the pure sidekick didn`t work. Or even more so, Jensen was too strong an actor to meekly make that work. Dean would in my eyes be strong enough as a character to carry his own narrative. If he had been part of a larger ensemble, they might have spun him off even. But with just a two-lead show, that would have been ludicrous. But to not really broaden the narrative and work the character to the full potential was for me equally as ludicrous. Season 4 when he was brought back from Hell and supposedly had a real Chosen One storyline was in my opinion the first (and only) time the show excelled and reached its potential. Some stuff before it was good, most stuff after it was atrocious but I`ve never been as interested in a storyline in the show as back then. Not before and not since.

I`m talking storylines as in actually something more than parts of a one-off episode. That means vision!Sam, demon-blood-Sam, Soulless!Sam, Lucifer!hallucination!Sam, Trial1Sam and Gadreel!Sam all qualify, covering each at least half a Season if not a full one or more than that. As for Dean, I guess I can count the Mark of Cain as one but Demon!Dean with only three episodes also doesn`!qualify. As for the first half of Season 8, I don`t think it was perfect and Purgatory was a wasted opportunity - it should have been real-time action vs. flashbacks - but I thought the scenes were dynamic and fun. And while Jensen didn`t play "other" there, I did enjoy the badass aspect of it. Compared to the second half which was the biggest character-demeaning pile of shit the show ever released IMO, it was golden. I guess the acting challenge during 8.2 was to not completely fade into the scenery in the absence of any valid material whatsoever. Maybe if it were Downton Abbey, that would have been one of the servant storylines but this being SPN? Nah. Maybe in that regard, I have to give Jensen the highest credits there. Misha is facing a similar albeit slightly different challenge now. He has a storyline but it is so godforsaken boring, I think it even affects the actor.

Are the trials really be something you can put on hold and then randomely finish a year or so later? Òr whenever you feel like it? That would be seriously lame. To me, if you made a conscious choice to abandon, then the whole thing should be invalid and you would have to start anew. Heck, maybe they can put Cole on it, This guy seriously needs some other focus in his life.

Oh, I don`t disagree that it is IMO far more difficult to play the same character with nuance than to play several different characters - which is actually what an actor is supposed to do in various projects. I think Jared is good at mimicry, i.e. picking up mannerisms of other actors if he plays "their" character, like Meg!Sam and bringing in Nikki Aycox tics. Wasn`t a fan of Gadreel or Soulless on any account. Jensen, I can`t recall if he ever had a role that picked up another actor already playing that role? So, I can`t judge any such performance yet. It shouldn`t. But I freely admit that I personally watch genre shows for genre material. My favourites tend to be Supernatural characters with powers, CGI and the works. Unless, they are unfeasible to me as characters. Even "human" characters without that I want to see in larger than life "unrealistic" plots and not deal with mundane, human problems. The loss of a loved one? Can have that from any old dime a dozen soap/drama. Loved one staying as ghost, returning as a zombie or being vampified? I`m there. . Ironically, I think with Jensen, I have the Michael Rosenbaum conundrum. The latter could do both comedy and drama but I personally vastly prefered him in drama whereas he said multiple times he prefered comedy. Jensen has often said he prefers lighter as well yet I love him in dark drama. Oh well. :)

From a show like Supernatural, you expect flashy "supernatural" storylines. So when an actor isn`t given those opportunities, like EVER,, they do seldom get noticed. In a reality-based drama where everything is (mundane) human problems, it`s that material that gets noticed. In comedy shows, it is obviously comedic stuff. Sure, there is some overlap but in genre shows you can play "other" in big flashy ways so this stands out. In terms of playing different roles, I think Dark Angel offered Jensen a far better opportunity in two episodes than Supernatural did in nearly 200. Ben and Alec were like night and day different. In SPN he remains hobbled - three measly episodes for the only "other" thing ever vs. what feels like 700 hours for Jared`s ten thousand variations of "other" - which is why it can`t end soon enough for me.

Something that bothered about 1994!Stefan`s rant, I could see him blaming Damon for "turning him into a ripper". Even though neither of them knew that Stefan would go "rip their heads off" crazy once he fed on a human. He might have been in the throws of serious bloodlust back when he first turned but that was a first. You could tell from Damon`s "WTF, dude" reaction. I think Lexi actually created this dichotomy in Stefan where he couldn`t acknowledge his darker impulse, pushed them away and bam, once they came out, it was worse than other vampires. But the 1942 flashback, Stefan blamed Damon for pushing him over the edge again by being needy. Um, when was Stefan (nearly) pushed over the edge in that one? He seemed fine when he was standing at that train platform. If something DID push him over I think it was the insanely stupid plan to send him to be an ambulance driver in a war zone, you know, the guywho couldn`t be around human blood. If he meant that he felt a crushing disappointment when Damon didn`come with him as promised, well, did Lexi not make up a good enough excuse for it? She made sure Damon let Stefan go, could she not invent something? Or heck, the truth would have done nicely too. Which Stefan didn`t know until Season 4. I would put that down ti Lexi-fail over Damon-fail. But more mportantly, Stefan`s responsibility in the end.

I will just laugh when, in their next encounter (we all know it is coming) Cole does stuff like throwing holy water on Dean and be all "hahaha, I know everything about demons now" and Dean will be like "yeah, not a demon anymore". In fact, it would be hilariously funny if Dean was a different kind of supernatural entity each time he met Cole, bested him, send Cole packing to the library to study up on that particular monster and then boom, all was for naught because Dean is something else again.

You are right, the Mindy part is sketchy. At least if you use someone as bait this way and don`t give a crap about them, at least try and keep the hit from happening. How ironic that Demon!Dean migitated that part of it but not killing her.

He was still a demon and as such his actions were not entirely of his own human volition. I would find it deeply annoying that whenever Sam strays off the path, the whitewash and supernatural "it wasn`t really him" excuse is immediately grabbed (even Sam on demon blood got pawned off on Dean for being mean) yet human Dean gets pinged as 100 % demon Dean, no wriggle room whatsoever. I agree that whatever happened with Lester wasn`t all that much to write home about in terms of villainhood. In terms of evil acts Dean could have commited as a demon, he never did anything that I wouldn`t categorize as a 0,5 on the evil scale. He was a demon, I would have given him a few slaughters without raising a fuzz since Cain had centuries of them. Sam acted as a human, not altered in any way this time so morality-wise, I would hold him to a higher standard than any demon but even so, they have each done worse before.

Stefan and himself, yes. Zach, also, though he couldn`t remember. But the town would have had people vigilant to vampire attacks. Which need not only come from a Salvatore. I`m guessing the town enjoyed a couple years of peace and tranquility back ten.

I don`t think so, I could see anger and guilt more clearly. He didn`t end up a demon through stupidity but through nihilism. If he had taken on the Mark in good faith with Cain promising him it was just gonna be a-okay and would have no negative connotations, Dean had bought that and then Cain had shown back up with a "psyche, I worked with Crowley all along, I`m awesome", then yes, he should feel like a fool. But I don`t think he ever did for a second think good things would come from Crowley or good things would come with the Mark. He just didn`t care enough. It`s a very dangerous mindset - and hopefully the time as a demon gave him some perspective on that - but it wasn`t naivety or anything. And as long as he was consciously human, he didn`t want any of it. He fought it. Afterwards, it kinda played like the vamps on Vampire Diaries who have flipped their off-switch. One thing I did like (a tiny thing) was Dean not looking particularly happy to be back. Not because his human self necessarily wanted/wants to be a demon but because the absence of pain has to be preferable. At least now that the character has felt how it can be, he is not so much of a masochist that he welcomes the suffering back. i

Did I get it right and did Stefan list "migrant worker" as one of his previous occupations? Was that by any chance in Monterrey because BURN. Even Klaus back in the day fangirled over that time the Ripper ate an entire migrant village and it was repeated often enough in the show that I thought it was either the writers have forgotten or some deeply black humour.

I don`t know, the only storyline I feel invested in is still Damon, Bonnie and evil Kai in 1994. They are golden. The flashbacks were a bit overdramatic with the "worst thing ever". Seriously? The teenage members of our gang, the ones who don`t share Damon and Stefan`s past as mass murderer, have done things that would qualify for me. And I think Damon did worse. Just as Stefan did. Didn`t expect Elena to know about the compulsion. However, I can`t give her points for her "I choose me" thing. Right now, it isn`t difficult, it doesn`t take strengths. She knows about the feelings, she doesn`t FEEL them - that makes a world of difference. The compulsion was a coward`s choice and continuing to use this as an easy out is just more of the same to me. Every single character is supposed to go on with their grief on their own, with no magic do-over. Even Jeremy is supposed to show more strength than is expected of Elena. A woman choosing herself and find herself, not be defined by guys - good thing. But if you have to magically zombify half your brain to make that happen and are otherwise not strong enough? Pfft. Did Stefan imply in his speech that he loved Damon because Damon made him own the darkest parts of himself? Since he said that is what Damon did for Elena and they loved him for the same reason? Because honestly, that has always been my biggest problem with Stefan`s character, that I don`t think he ever owned the darkest parts of himself. He named that part "ripper" and "him" and detached from it and I never once saw him putting that mindset to rest. It`s why I thought him and Elena never fit because her personality is such that she enables that mindset. They drove me bonkers with feeding that attitude I disliked in them both. Ivy being a vampire? Don`t know, the character was so blank slate before, I didn`t exactly have a burning desire to see her back. To be honest, I don`t care much for Sarah and her soon-to-come vengeance quest either. Poor Alaric, back from the dead and back to taking care of the super-high-maintenance Gilberts.

SoullessSam was all over the place: he is funny, no, he is scary, he is naive about the world, no, he is murderous. So, it "worked" because they were`t conistent. I agree that Demon!Dean as just a hedonist wasn`t going to be workeable for the crappy filler hunts but there would have been numerous ways, like simply supressing the demon with the added bonus to do something with it later when a mytharc episode rolls around and the creatively bakrupt writers once more have no idea what to fill it with. It just bugs me because when it is a Sam-storyline, they move hell and high water to stretch it out for at least half a Season. Even Castiel`s boring story of boredom gets played endlessly. Yet the single one storyline I was interested in this year, over in three episodes. And to be honest, it was somewhat gratifying to see Sam for the first time ever in the pure "brother`s keeper" sidekick role. But I guess they `wouldn`t demean the character with that for more than 3 episodes whereas for Dean it was no problem for about 95 % of the show.