BabySpinach

But this isn't just about Jack's passive nature as a nephilim, it's also about the fact that this super-special powerful being, by virtue of his age and inexperience, is a gullible moron who has already hurt multiple people and almost brought on (yet another!) apocalypse just because he was told to. Not to mention that, even in utero, he brainwashed both Cas and his mom into protecting him and was indirectly responsible for the former's death and directly responsible for the latter's. He's been surrounded by death and chaos ever since his conception. I think that sweet words are a little lower on the priority list at the moment. Being called names by a grieving and angry man (unintentionally overheard, not even directly to his face), after all that fallout, is getting off easy IMO. But of course, the show then makes the guy who lost his best friend and his mom look like the mean bully for having reservations about this arbitrarily powerful being who has the reasoning skills of a naive child. They intentionally push Dean's actions and words a little too far so that his reasonable emotions are invalidated and seen as excessive, all to make us feel sorrier for poor, cute Jack, the newest writers' pet. Add on a generous serving of Infinite Wisdom Sam lecturing Dean on Doing Feelings Wrong, and it's typical of Dabb-era SPN. Admittedly, I also LOATHE the super-powered baby trope, especially the instant-grown kind. I don't enjoy watching coddled manchildren with unearned, world-breaking powers who also need help tying their shoes or wiping their butt. And because they're babies, the most interesting thing about them is usually their shiny power rather than their personality or motivation. Jack's one character trait is "cute." And having to watch the main characters babysit and tiptoe around a nuke toddler also didn't do much for me.

Ok, so my one comment on this thread got deleted? What the hell?

Personally, I'm not sure that 15.11 is necessarily going to resolve with them finding a Big Shiny that somehow restores their "luck" against the will of God Himself. Maybe the whole "Dumbo never needed the feather to fly" is being reserved for next week. Sam and Dean are definitely going to restore their mojo at some point, the only question is how. But since the writers care squat about the basics of story progression, I'd say maybe a 10% chance of them not shitting the bed in round 2. The canon and story rules right now are looser than the bottomless orifice that Dabb pulls his terrible ideas out of.

It hurts my heart to think that all of Dean's best fights (Bloodlust, First Born, The Prisoner, Funeralia, etc.) have now been retconned to have been divine luck rather than skill and experience. Seriously, FUCK DABB. How. Fucking. Dare. He.

To think that the one time they give me something I want, a cage fight scenario starring the Winchesters, it's in an episode where they've lost all skill and formidability! Cursed luck! I was cautiously reserving my judgement throughout the episode, despite it consistently pissing me the fuck off, because I had a feeling that the final message would be about how it truly was the Winchesters who'd earned their own wins and talents all along, rather than Chuck's meddling. Otherwise, it would have taken a blatant steaming dump on all fourteen years before it. Well, I guess that super-obvious and thematically coherent ending wasn't what it went with. As such, fuck this episode. I don't care enough about Garth to cheer him being the only useful one while the protagonists just bumbled around impotently. I mean, the whole thing about Sam and Dean is that their lives SUCK, yet they pick themselves up and fight back on their own terms every time. Now, we learn that they've been enjoying this cosmic favoritism all along? It couldn't be more disrespectful of previous seasons if it tried. And why the hell did we have the nonsense with Garth naming his twins Sam and Cas? Why leave Dean out so blatantly? Why not name brothers after brothers? There was no follow-up, it just seemed like a petty "fuck you" to the character that had no bearing on the story. Is it funny because, teeheehee, Dean's being put in his place? Again, FUCK YOU. One bright spot? Jensen's tap-dancing. The man truly can do it all, and he's at least been allowed to create his own opportunities and show off his myriad of talents. Hopefully it lands him a good gig far away from this steaming shitpile.

I love that we can have civil back-and-forths here, and even concede to an impasse without any feelings hurt (hopefully!). This discussion has honestly been making my head spin. Does the Jus in Bello scenario compare to the Apocalypse scenario? I actually find myself waffling back and forth on that. Perhaps if Jus in Bello had taken place over a longer period of time with a larger cast, and every passing hour ended up with another person dead, Nancy's sacrifice would have eventually seemed more reasonable as the only possible solution to save whoever was left. There's also the fact that the situation in Jus in Bello was indirectly the Winchesters' fault, in that they were the sole "cause" of the problem, while the Apocalypse had been intricately orchestrated over eons and Dean and Sam were only the essential final pawns in the Great Divine Plan(tm). And there's the pure scale to consider: thousands of people killed by Lucifer vs. the <100 at the station. I think those factors count for something, too. Overall, I think that sacrificing Nancy to save Sam and Dean's (and whoever happened to be with them) skins would have been less sympathetic than Dean letting Michael have his fight and at least, for certain, keeping half the planet alive while smoking the Devil for good. But I'm not sure I could adequately defend that impression if truly pressed on it. 😵

If sacrificing your life/soul for another can't be considered selfless, what CAN????

Not a single "plot pretzel" in Dean's favor has ever compared to the monstrosity of contrived Sam-pimping that was Swan Song. Dean gets the shit beaten out of him for wanting to say yes to Michael and saving half the world, but Sam gets praised and lifted up for wanting to say yes to Lucifer and risking the entire world. Dean says that he needs to "grow up" and let Sam do the same, implying that THAT'S been the problem all along. Sam couldn't even take control back from Meg, yet believes for some reason that he has a chance against Lucifer, and is willing to bank the whole planet on it. No one brings up this extremely obvious point. Sam drinks gallons of demon blood for no clear reason except for a "badass" shot of him killing demons with his mind. No mention of Dean saying yes to Michael and wrestling back control so that he can throw Lucifer into the cage. It's exactly as far-fetched as the original plan, but with a far superior "worst case scenario." And in the unlikely event of success, the only one going into the Cage would be one evil archangel and a rotting meat suit, possibly Michael!Dean as well. No Adam as collateral. Michael, the strongest archangel, happens to get pulled into the Cage like a stumbling toddler, conveniently wrapping up Sam's Big Hero moment, without any additional problems or casualties, in a neat little bow. The ENTIRE POINT of the Impala's long-winded backstory is to ensure that Sam gets his ill-conceived, highly improbable win. Talk about twisting the plot in a character's favor! Dean's consistent instinct for sniffing out people's true intentions/trustworthiness is small potatoes compared to all that. And regardless of how often he wins or he's right, it's not like it usually sticks or counts for anything. Just recently we've had Cas whining about missing Jack and Dean not forgiving him quickly enough, Sam protesting and batting his puppy eyes when Mean, Unreasonable Dean was "forcing" him to help lock up Murderous Nougat Boy. Meanwhile, the hare-brained Cage plan has never been ridiculed or contradicted by anyone. Sam's story in seasons 6 and 7 was all about his noble suffering following that heroic sacrifice. Hell, he was even praising himself for "saving the world" via Fake Bobby in 9.01. Dean killing Eve, Dick Roman, Azazel, on the other hand? Not a single word of acknowledgement or appreciation after the fact. WARNING: BARELY-RELATED TANGENT, NOT DIRECTED SPECIFICALLY AT ANYONE I've mentioned before that, these past few years especially, Sam has suffered from too much Tell and not enough Show, and Dean has suffered from too much Show and not enough Tell. Most of the circular discussions on this thread are rooted in this fundamental disparity. For instance, if someone expresses anger over how Dean is being treated by the writers and the characters in the TEXT, the response would likely concern all the instances that Dean was SHOWN as being in the right. If someone is pissed that Sam is SHOWN to be constantly screwing up, the likely rebuttal would be that the TEXT is praising/validating/whitewashing him. These are two separate lines of argument that will never intersect. IMO, an angle that might be more substantial is the writers' intentions. And to that, I do have a thought: we already know that the majority of them are woefully incompetent, so what is more likely for incompetent writers to do? Purposefully contradict their Tell via their Show for absolutely no reason, OR spell out their agenda in the Tell and not give a shit about whether the Show/canon lines up with it? That's why the writers' treatment of Dean pisses me off so much. No matter how many times he happens to be right or gets a cool scene once in a while, he still consistently gets treated like shit by the writers' mouthpieces. And knowing their ineptitude, I can't bring myself to believe that they're secretly trying to prop Dean up. They've demonstrated time and time again that they don't know what subtlety is. So I know that most of them either dislike Dean themselves or have fallen in line with Dabb's "vision," and that the majority of textual sympathy/praise lies with Cas and Sam, regardless of how they actually come across on-screen. Dean Winchester deserves to be appreciated for the wonderful character he is, and that is not what's happening under Doofus Dabb. They're not doing a stellar job on Sam or Cas either, but at least that's due to pure incompetence rather than a lack of trying. Writers' intentions DO matter; it's the difference between a lucky crumb that doesn't lead anywhere and an important and foreshadowed story. So far in this final season, Dean's gotten nothing but crumbs.

Just seeing that scene transcribed is pissing me off all over again, lol. What. An. Asshole. "I already apologized to you." O...kay? Good for you? You're clearly really broken up about it, huh? You and Dean should automatically be sunshine and rainbows again just because you said, "my bad," right? Let me just reiterate: Cas shielded Murderous Nougat Boy, opposed the Winchesters' attempt to lock him up, heaped all responsibility for his heinous acts onto Duma's barely-there "manipulations," grieved more for Mary's murderer than Mary herself. Dean's big crime, meanwhile, was getting angry over it. That's it. Yet who gets the big, weepy apology conveniently absolving the other of all wrongdoing? Yup... This was scarily like the infamous Fallen Idols.

Even if Cas had properly apologized, which I could see myself agreeing with, that doesn't excuse him acting like Dean owed him forgiveness and basically being a catty little bitch until he finally did. Not to mention how he wouldn't STFU about Jack, the soulless psychopath who murdered Mary (whom he sided with). Cas' attitude has basically been "Will you just get over it, already?" ie. he doesn't actually care about Dean's grievance. If one felt genuine remorse for their actions, they wouldn't be such a snippy asshole to the person they wronged. How can you get angry at someone for not forgiving you quickly enough and not see the ass-backwardness of that? Dean had no obligation to stop being angry, and Cas should have been grown-up enough to let him be (or leave without blaming Dean for "letting him go.")

Oh wow, Cas was predictably insufferable in this ep. I just LOVED how he treated Dean like a dumb, misbehaving child and was always framed in the right. No matter what, he's just a woobie sweetheart bullied incessantly by big mean Dean, whose constant screw-ups are never as bad as whatever unpretty emotion Dean is feeling as a response to those screw-ups. And FUCK him for demanding forgiveness, and apparently giving no fucks about Mary in comparison to her literal murderer. What a petty, self-centered, entitled bitch. But hey, at least all the Destiellers got to cream themselves over what they've always wanted to see: Dean literally on his knees, crying and grovelling to Cas. No matter how good Jensen's acting, it made me want to hurl. Somehow CAS became the wronged party in all this, and he was never forced to grovel like that in regards to Mary and Jack. The rest of it was pretty damn boring. Vampire Winchesters were so fucking cringey, though. Poor Jensen. One bright spot was Dean punching God. Another was Dean "Free Will" Winchester shit-talking him to his face. BOOO! to Jack returning. I can't think of another character I want to see less. His absence had been one of the few positives of this season, and now it won't even have that going for it.

And don't get me started on the tonguebath that every other character slathers on her because she's just the most special little nerd/hacker/sharpshooter/LARPer/street kid genius/sexually-irresistable messiah that ever existed. Calling her the "smartest person in the room"? Having her treat Dorothy's real life like a fairy tale that is "ruining her childhood" because the truth of it is less magical? Treating hunting like a fun little hobby? Fucking gag me. I've long been of the opinion that Charlie is just a bundle of cutesy stereotypes and quirks rather than a real, authentic person. Who the fuck makes a pop culture reference immediately after waking up tied to a chair (a la 8.20?). And she's simultaneously supposed to be both a sassy badass who outshines everyone else AND a self-insert Little Sister character for the brothers to constantly hug and rescue and praise. These two qualities just end up creating this impenetrable barrier of constant coddling and validation for her. I never felt that Oz fit as part of the Supernatural mythology. Too cutesy, cartoony, cheesy, shallow... much like Charlie herself.

That still doesn't explain why the demons are so terrified of her now. Making them miserable through manipulation isn't the same thing. We didn't get any sort of explanation as to what kind of power her naked soul wielded (if any), and we've seen many times that only raw strength gets demons to obey.

I'm not sure how to feel about Rowena, Queen of Hell. It wasn't a surprise, of course, but I'm still not sure how she managed to gain power as nothing but a soul. Can she still do witchcraft without a body? What exactly is she wielding to keep the demons in line, and why is it never explained? It just (once again) minimizes the horror of Hell, to see a destined subject of it somehow avoid eternal torture and become supreme empress offscreen. I guess Dean, Bobby, Kevin, Eileen etc. were just too weak to escape, then? And of course TFW, who've killed legions of demons by now, get utterly, pathetically laid out within two seconds just to make another character look better. It's a little too late to course-correct, writers. If TFW have already proven themselves to be more than capable against demons, then levelling up the latter at the eleventh hour just makes TFW look suddenly, inexplicably incompetent. Every moment of Michael!Adam just made me furious over the absolute butchering of Michael!Dean. I couldn't bring myself to enjoy the performance, which honestly wasn't bad; it's just all too bitter. No mention of Dean's role as Michael's true vessel, of course. Why the fuck would I ever expect that? Lots of blather, minimal action, side characters completely took over, unforgivable "Achilles heel" moment, and the carnage of Michael!Dean got rubbed in my face. Just what I wanted for the midseason finale...

So not only does Sam get the main mytharc, he also gets a romantic interest. Meanwhile, Dean's only got his now-nonexistent connection to Michael and the big hanging question of his death books that may never actually be addressed. I'm so. Fucking. Bored.