S08.E05: Blood Brother

[Demented Daisy]

Dean assists the vampire, Benny, who escaped from Purgatory with him, as he goes after the vampire that bit him. Sam thinks back to his life before Dean returned.

 

 

In almost every season, there's a string of 3-4 episodes that I really dislike, are incredibly annoyed by, or both.  This is #3.  It had the potential to be really good, but it got the ball rolling to

Citizen Fang

.  Also, flashbacks.

[DittyDotDot]

Again, another episode I really want to like. I liked Benny, but really thought it was too much of his backstory here. Or maybe it was too much of the vampirates in this one. And the monologuing was out of control at the end. Sheesh. I do like some of the stuff with Sam and Dean early in the episode, but it just falls apart soon after Dean goes to help Benny, for me.

 

Also, I will always wonder how it was that Sam figured out Benny was a vampire with one handshake. But whatever.

[FlickChick]

@DittyDotDot, Benny's hand would have been cold, like dead cold, since he is.

[rue721]

Why make no effort at all to make Amelia likable? She has zero likable traits -- she's sullen, her life is in shambles, she has not a single person who likes her in the entire world (no friends, nothing?! RED FLAG, Sam! DO YOU NOT REMEMBER RUBY), she doesn't know to put squeezed citrus fruits in the garbage so she apparently has no common sense. Really *no* common sense, because I doubt a kitchen like that would even have a disposal. And her jokes were all about how Sam looked like a white supremacist because of his clothes?! (Which were totally normal clothes and also just what she was wearing -- jeans and a button-down). Off-putting, to say the least.

 

It also irritated me that apparently Sam is an HVAC and plumbing savant. And that he couldn't show even the amount of agency it would have taken for him to go looking for a job. What is the point of these flashbacks, I'm honestly not getting what they're even supposed to mean.

 

BUT OK for stuff I liked:  Amelia's hair and Benny's ex's hair looked really good. So apparently they had a good hair person on staff that day. Also, I liked that Dean put Sam on speaker during Sam's rant to use the phone as bait. And that he was irritated when the screen smashed. Invest in a case! ETA:  The farmer's market scene was also pretty fun. Nice to see Sam eating an apple!

 

Anyway, I didn't care about Benny at all. He doesn't make sense to me as a character. But I guess I'm kind of species-ist for this show, because I really only end up caring about the human characters for some reason.

Edited December 13, 2014 by rue721

[catrox14]

Well to be fair, I wouldn't know what to do with squeezed fruit either...

 

I didn't hate Amelia actually. I thought it was kind of refreshing to have a woman who was  not perfect, who was kind of obnoxious, who was also lost.  And if Sam had actually looked for Dean for 5 freaking minutes it would have made things a lot more palatable.

[rue721]

Well to be fair, I wouldn't know what to do with squeezed fruit either...

 

I didn't hate Amelia actually. I thought it was kind of refreshing to have a woman who was  not perfect, who was kind of obnoxious, who was also lost.  And if Sam had actually looked for Dean for 5 freaking minutes it would have made things a lot more palatable.

 

In theory, I completely agree that Amelia was a better character for having her own life stuff to deal with. But in practice, I was like, "who makes jokes about someone being a white supremacist?" etc. She just came off as so off-putting, like I couldn't figure out what was supposed to be appealing about her, other than she was at the motel and so was Sam. And she was pretty, but practically everyone on TV is pretty, so big whoop.

 

Another thing that bothered me about making her a supposed mess, is that she and Sam just didn't even have any "messed up people in a relationship together" problems. Like, we never saw her and Sam actually fight or either her or Sam have some weird problems/demons from the past that they had to deal with within the relationship. That's a lot of what made the relationship seem more like a dream/fantasy to me, that they didn't have to actually deal with any of the consequences of being the kinds of people who would have to cling to someone else to make it through at that point in their lives.

 

For example, that was ostensibly (though not actually, natch) Sam's first home -- he just randomly unpacks stuff, he doesn't have any feelings about setting it up as an actual home, or has any feelings about renting an actual apartment instead of staying the motel, or any insecurity over not knowing how to set up a "permanent" home generally? What was even the conversation when they decided to get a home together? That seems like a pretty major thing to happen that was never even vaguely explained. He and Dean are also always laying their weapons out everywhere and sitting on their beds to clean them and stuff like that -- all perfectly cool with Amelia? What happened to Sam and Dean's arsenal in the first place? They didn't really explain Sam's POV, and then in the present day, it didn't seem any more explicable, because he was just being kind of a ass (which Dean didn't call him out on for whatever reason? Dean sort of tried to lead Sam into warming up by opening conversations with statements like, "this is where I'm best, in the car beside you" but then Sam would be all weird and bitchy/cold in response, and Dean would just drop it. I would frankly have just started laughing at some of those times if I were in Dean's place because COME ON SAM! What was Sam even pouting about, Dean's miraculous survival?! So sorry he's alive, dude).

 

I guess what I find especially dumb is that they already dealt with like half this stuff with Dean when he also decided to do the "normal life" thing in S6, so they could have just copied some of that stuff if they didn't feel like using their imaginations at all (though this is a STORY so why not use their imaginations, but fine), but they didn't even bother to copy. Idk, just irritating. It's not like, "Dean got it, why not Sam!!1!" because I don't really care about that, but it's like, why make Sam being with Amelia so fakey-fake if it was supposed to be a real thing that mattered?

 

I couldn't even wrap my head around Sam wanting to play house with anybody, tbh, but they didn't even try to explain that and then Sam didn't seem to try and cling to it at all. I'm serious about Sam just taking his last five classes or whatever he has to take for his degree, why not at least have him struggle to have a "normal life" in the sense that he'd tried to before Dean came back for him at Stanford, or have him struggle to hold onto it once Dean came back from Purgatory? As boring and silly as the idea is, I'd actually have been happier if they'd had Sam go down the path at that point of trying to take some classes at KU, pick up where he left off when he left Stanford with Dean, and being lonely and struggling to get his head back in that game, because at least that would have seemed *slightly* more in character to me than that he's suddenly trying to play house and do handyman work (that I can't imagine he would have any expertise in. It's always Dean who was more mechanical and into engineering stuff, so even that bizarre HVAC talent seemed OOC for Sam). Also, I would have liked to see him legit missing Dean -- or Cas, or even (god help me) Bobby or somebody. Because come on, Sam has never been alone like that. Well, maybe like when John died, Dean decided to drop his voice and become John even more because he missed him, Sam was trying to "be" Dean (with playing house, trying to get engineering and mechanical stuff, etc) because he missed him. That he was even half able to carry it out seeing as he's never shown any interest or talent in most of that stuff before seems silly to me, but *shrug.*

 

But Idk, it's hard for me to even find meaning in Samelia -- and over-analysis is obviously something I usually have no problem doing -- because it's done in such a haphazard, fakey-fake way that I can't connect with Sam as he was previous to that SL, or really even after that SL. And it also still bugs me that both the Dean in Purgatory SL and the Sam with Amelia SL were all done in flashbacks. If you want that to be the beginning of their character arcs through the season, show, then start the season there! How is that complicated? Begin at the beginning. It would have made much more sense and had more impact imo.

 

The fruit thing I'm maybe being harsh about, because I used to be a super and have had dealt with my own share of stupid tenant problems. But juiced limes? I really doubt that you try to stuff your orange peels into the kitchen sink drain, because nobody does. So how impractical is this lady? And then instead of Liquid Plumber-ing it when her drunk self clogged it up, she just called the office? LOL. I wanted to see her bathroom after that, probably would have looked like a hurricane hit it -- covered in toothpaste, shed hair, and soap scum. Meh, not a big deal but it just made her even more irritating to me, like she was not only a jerk but also a brat. Sorry to hate on her so much! It wasn't that she was so terrible, imo, it was that there was just nothing about her that was appealing/interesting enough to outweigh what was bad about her.

[DittyDotDot]

But Idk, it's hard for me to even find meaning in Samelia -- and over-analysis is obviously something I usually have no problem doing -- because it's done in such a haphazard, fakey-fake way that I can't connect with Sam as he was previous to that SL, or really even after that SL. And it also still bugs me that both the Dean in Purgatory SL and the Sam with Amelia SL were all done in flashbacks. If you want that to be the beginning of their character arcs through the season, show, then start the season there! How is that complicated? Begin at the beginning. It would have made much more sense and had more impact imo.

 

I've harped and harped on what a waste it was for them to do this all in flashbacks. These two stories could've held a lot of weight and been so much more if they hadn't skipped over the important stuff and then skipped it some more to show us these maudlin flashbacks of little import--and I include Purgatory in this statement. How awesome would it have been to have seen Dean learning how to survive Purgatory alone; praying to Cass every day; finding the strength to fight rather than give up and die. And how much more sense would've Sam's story made if we saw him fixing the car; coming to the conclusion that Dean was dead; driving aimlessly trying to think of his next move; trying to work a case on his own that just went to shit, so he decides to no work cases anymore. So much was just wasted here, IMO. It's really a shame because the ideas I think they were trying to explore weren't bad ones, just really poorly executed ones, IMO.

 

 

I didn't hate Amelia actually. I thought it was kind of refreshing to have a woman who was  not perfect, who was kind of obnoxious, who was also lost.  And if Sam had actually looked for Dean for 5 freaking minutes it would have made things a lot more palatable.

 

I don't know that Sam didn't look for Dean at all. Or didn't try to look for Dean anyway. There's a lot of story they just skipped over and never really explained here. Sam says he fixed the Impala. Did he do this by himself? Was he also trying to figure out what happened to Dean while he was fixing it? Did it take days, weeks or just hours? There's a lot we just don't know here and, again, I think TPTB thought they we'd get it and didn't need to explain it. Personally, I'm of the opinion that Sam did do some looking for Dean, but didn't find anything so came to the conclusion he was dead and resting in peace.

[rue721]

I've harped and harped on what a waste it was for them to do this all in flashbacks. These two stories could've held a lot of weight and been so much more if they hadn't skipped over the important stuff and then skipped it some more to show us these maudlin flashbacks of little import--and I include Purgatory in this statement. How awesome would it have been to have seen Dean learning how to survive Purgatory alone; praying to Cass every day; finding the strength to fight rather than give up and die. And how much more sense would've Sam's story made if we saw him fixing the car; coming to the conclusion that Dean was dead; driving aimlessly trying to think of his next move; trying to work a case on his own that just went to shit, so he decides to no work cases anymore. So much was just wasted here, IMO. It's really a shame because the ideas I think they were trying to explore weren't bad ones, just really poorly executed ones, IMO.

 

Samelia and Purgatory were *so* poorly imagined, and I think that if they'd had to start the characters out in those environments, at least they would have had to make those SLs at least *somewhat* fuller. Also, I agree that it would have held so much more weight to see Samelia *as it was happening* in contrast with Purgatory *as it was happening.* That would have kept it from being a weird "how bad are YOUR flashbacks?!" competition in the early part of this season -- no idea why they pretty directly pitted the flashbacks/old lives against each other the way they did. That would also have given at least SOME tension to the thing of Dean trying to pull two other people through the humanity-portal out of Purgatory, too, instead of the show blowing its wad with that story within the first five minutes of the season premier. It would have also give a smidgen of tension to the "are they going to make it?" or at least "what's going to break them up?" question w/r/t Sam and Amelia, instead of establishing in basically Sam's first scene that they were completely kaput and his life hadn't really changed at all. The show could also have paired the story of Dean trying to leave Purgatory with Sam trying to keep it together with Amelia and getting pushed out of her life, or something sort of thematically coherent, so that the stories felt more related. It was all done so sloppily.

 

Sam fixing the car never made sense to me anyway. Just like the handyman thing. HOW. He's never so much as changed the oil onscreen afaik, wtf is he doing with the car now? It's like the writers forgot that Sam was an individual character and not just a carbon copy of Dean. Maybe they were going for the idea of him trying to be a carbon copy of Dean, but they really needed to show him struggling a LITTLE more with that (like, struggling to fix the car, even!) to get that across imo. It's not like, just because he misses his brother, he suddenly has all the same skills and desires. Well anyway.

 

What makes me think that Sam seriously never looked for Dean for five minutes, though (which I agree, doesn't actually make sense), is that he didn't even bother to text Kevin or return any of his calls. And then they had Dean play all of Kevin's voicemails aloud and Sam not even get shamefaced about it, which was also bizarre. I really think that was a specific trashing of Sam's character. I don't think it was out of malice, I think it was to start his emotional arc for the season in this really cold/hateful place so they'd have somewhere to go with it. But it was still irritating because it was so OOC. And what's with the total inability to match where Sam is emotionally in a season finale with the next season's premier? They did it from S7 when he's standing there in the Leviathan building all alone and looking like his world just vanished in front of him, to apparently just dumping the phones and taking out a socket wrench or something and moving on in the S8 premiere, and then they did it again when

they had him decide he wouldn't die in order to finish the Trials in the S8 finale to being 100% at peace and wishing he could die in the S9 premiere

. I guess Carver just doesn't care about him as a character? Not that Dean's gotten any great shakes, either, but at least he's more coherent as a character than that! Like, at least the S7 finale had him going to Purgatory and then the S8 premiere had him getting out of Purgatory, and remembering Purgatory, ffs!

[DittyDotDot]

What makes me think that Sam seriously never looked for Dean for five minutes, though (which I agree, doesn't actually make sense), is that he didn't even bother to text Kevin or return any of his calls. And then they had Dean play all of Kevin's voicemails aloud and Sam not even get shamefaced about it, which was also bizarre. I really think that was a specific trashing of Sam's character. I don't think it was out of malice, I think it was to start his emotional arc for the season in this really cold/hateful place so they'd have somewhere to go with it. But it was still irritating because it was so OOC.

 

Fair point about Kevin and the voicemails, but wasn't the first one two weeks after "Sam ditched his ass?" I just wonder what Sam was up to those two weeks before he ditched the phones--maybe he did ditch them right away, but I'm holding out hope that Sam didn't. I agree that I don't think there was any malice in what TPTB did with Sam's characterization either. I just think they thought we'd know that Sam wouldn't have abandoned Dean if he had any clue that Dean was in Purgatory rather than Heaven and didn't think they needed to spend time explaining it to us. It's funny to me about the things this show trusts their audience to get and the things they feel we're too stupid to follow along with.

 

Okay, I have some stupid nitpicks about the phone messages in the first place. How the hell does Dean's numbers even still work? Did Sam ditch the phones, but keep paying the bills for a whole year after? This is a question I have for John and Bobby's phones the boys have been carrying around for years, too.  And, messages usually get deleted after a certain period of time--mine is 30 days--unless you tell the service to keep them; how the Hell are Kevin's messages still sitting there after a full year? I know it's just plot convenience, but still makes me side-eye it every time they trot this out.

[Demented Daisy]

It's funny to me about the things this show trusts their audience to get and the things they feel we're too stupid to follow along with.

 

Ain't that the truth?  ;-) 

[rue721]

Okay, I have some stupid nitpicks about the phone messages in the first place. How the hell does Dean's numbers even still work? Did Sam ditch the phones, but keep paying the bills for a whole year after? This is a question I have for John and Bobby's phones the boys have been carrying around for years, too.  And, messages usually get deleted after a certain period of time--mine is 30 days--unless you tell the service to keep them; how the Hell are Kevin's messages still sitting there after a full year? I know it's just plot convenience, but still makes me side-eye it every time they trot this out.

 

I think it's because they're burner phones? My parents still use those and I used one back in the day, and you don't have to pay a monthly bill or anything with them. You just buy the phone and a phone card with some minutes on it, and it's basically pay-as-you-go, except you have to pay by getting new phone cards, not by paying a bill. People can call into your phone or text you even when you don't have any minutes, too, you just can't call or text out. The only problem is that if you never buy a new card, you lose the phone number eventually. It takes a long time for that to happen, though. I think it used to be that you had to buy one phone card a year, now I think it's even longer than that. Even if you pass that limit, you can just buy a new phone card and start calling/texting from the phone again, you'll just have a new number.  The old voicemails are saved onto the phone itself somehow, so you could have those sitting there even after losing the phone number or without any minutes on the phone, though. I still have old phones (like one of those old brick 2.0 phones from 2003 or 2004) with ancient voicemails and texts sitting on them, though tbh I haven't tried to actually listen to those voicemail messages since the phone broke and I had to stop using it, so maybe I couldn't actually get to them.

 

Fair point about Kevin and the voicemails, but wasn't the first one two weeks after "Sam ditched his ass?" I just wonder what Sam was up to those two weeks before he ditched the phones--maybe he did ditch them right away, but I'm holding out hope that Sam didn't. I agree that I don't think there was any malice in what TPTB did with Sam's characterization either. I just think they thought we'd know that Sam wouldn't have abandoned Dean if he had any clue that Dean was in Purgatory rather than Heaven and didn't think they needed to spend time explaining it to us. It's funny to me about the things this show trusts their audience to get and the things they feel we're too stupid to follow along with.

 

Maybe -- it's just that they really seemed like they tried to make a point of Sam being so over it. That whole reunion with Dean when Sam is bizarrely grumpy, Dean playing the voicemails aloud and castigating Sam, Sam being all [aggravated sigh] for at least the first few episodes...I don't honestly know what they were trying to tell us with all that? Dean miraculously returned and Sam was still moping about a breakup that had nothing at all to do with his brother, to the point that he wasn't all that happy that his brother had come back from the dead somehow?! Maybe at the time, he had something against people who come back from the dead, after Amelia's husband ruined his relationship by doing just that :P.

 

It's not hard to handwave plot holes imo, because it's a fantastical show and it doesn't all have to make logical sense. But handwaving inconsistencies in character or handwaving holes in emotional SLs is a lot harder imo. Because even though the world they're in is fantastical, the characters *are* supposed to be people and so imo their emotions/behavior do have to track pretty closely with the reality of how people feel and behave.

[catrox14]

I've really been thinking more about the start of s8 and the more I think about it the more I really think Carver was trying to show that it was actually healthy for Sam to not look for Dean in juxtaposition with how Sam's obsession with getting Dean out of Hell and trying to save him in Mystery Spot so negatively impacted Sam's life and nearly took him to ruination.

 

I think they were trying to push the sympathy towards Sam by making Dean a scary guy who shouldn't be trusted once he came back from Purgatory with a secret vampire friend and that he was out of line for being upset with Sam not looking for him because Sammy was so broken.

 

I think they underestimated that Jensen would play Dean so well with PTSD and that it would garner sympathy for Dean but it really backfired when they put Kevin into the mix that got conflated with Sam not looking for Dean and it became worse and having Sam being kind of glib about the whole thing. I'm not sure if that was an acting choice by Jared to show Sam's annoyance with Dean for not understanding that it was okay for him to have gone on with his life or try and tell us that Dean was wrong for being upset with Sam.  I think having Amelia be this annoying woman certainly didn't help garner sympathy for Sam.

 

But here in this episode I think they were trying to course correct with pushing sympathy towards Sam by showing that Dean was putting a monster friends' welfare over Sam's objections but again because they had already been shown the connection and WHY Dean was working with Benny that they screwed the pooch on the course correction.

 

I think largely Carver just didn't understand that no matter what Sam did before and how badly that worked out for Sam that him just not looking for Dean would be unacceptable to the audience as a whole. I don't think I really buy that he was trying to show that the boys just couldn't have the life they wanted.  I think that is some tap dancing after the audience got so pissed off.

And to the point in this episode, I think they also underestimated how much fans would like Benny and his friendship with Dean.

[DittyDotDot]

I don't think I really buy that he was trying to show that the boys just couldn't have the life they wanted.  I think that is some tap dancing after the audience got so pissed off.

 

I don't think they were showing the boys couldn't have the life they wanted, but were showing how lives in that year apart weren't what they thought them to be. Dean had found purity in his fight across Purgatory and imagined he failed Cas and Sam imagined Dean was dead and his life with Amelia was more perfect than it appeared to be. TPTB said, before the season even started and anyone got pissed off, it was all about perception. They never changed their tune on that one.

 

Actually, this episode was probably well on it's way into production when the first ones were airing. And, the fans didn't get pissed off right away. I remember there still being optimism surrounding the show and the changing of the guard up until Citizen Fang. Fans were annoyed with Sam, but also assumed there was more to Sam's story that would be revealed at some point.  I don't think there's any course correction here. I think that came after the hiatus. But that's probably better suited for another thread.

 

 

I've really been thinking more about the start of s8 and the more I think about it the more I really think Carver was trying to show that it was actually healthy for Sam to not look for Dean in juxtaposition with how Sam's obsession with getting Dean out of Hell and trying to save him in Mystery Spot so negatively impacted Sam's life and nearly took him to ruination.

 

Oh, I agree they were trying to show that Sam learned something from his experience in Mystery Spot and after Dean went to Hell, but I don't think they were saying it was healthy he didn't look for Dean, but healthy he didn't try to bring Dean back and instead let him rest in peace.

[supposebly]

 

I think about it the more I really think Carver was trying to show that it was actually healthy for Sam to not look for Dean

 

If that's what they wanted, they needed to show that. Not a dysfunctional "relationship" and a Sam who is all of a sudden a handyman. He can barely change the oil for the Impala.

 

There is not-looking, which is an ass move and there is looking and then giving up and getting over it. Or possibly trying to find Kevin. They should have shown Sam looking and then giving up and grieving. That's all that it would have taken. Instead they show me a weird story about a woman who bitches him out and makes him keep a dog.

 

Amateur hour.

Edited December 15, 2014 by supposebly

[catrox14]

Well, I wasn't suggesting it was successful.  I just have a hard time buying that Carver was intentionally writing Sam to be a jerk, especially when IMO he's always written Sam more sympathetically than not in most of the episodes he's written that featured a lot of Sam pre s8. 

[rue721]

There is not-looking, which is an ass move and there is looking and then giving up and getting over it. Or possibly trying to find Kevin. They should have shown Sam looking and then giving up and grieving. That's all that it would have taken. Instead they show me a weird story about a woman who bitches him out and makes him keep a dog.

 

What I found most bizarre isn't so much that Sam didn't launch a crusade to save Dean, Cas, and Kevin, it's that he didn't seem to feel compelled to find out where Dean and Cas even *were.* Last time he himself disappeared, it was to go into the Cage -- and Dean and Cas were the ones to *rescue* him from it. You'd think that he'd be haunted by the idea that they'd disappeared to a place as horrible as that. At least he could have double checked where exactly they were in the first place before writing them off.

 

The whole idea/execution was *so* half-assed. I mean, I dislike that Sam abandoning everyone he loved and had a duty to with apparently just a shrug of the shoulders because I think that it trashes him as a character in a way that is both obnoxious and unbelievable. But I dislike at least as much that I can't even take the idea seriously because the show didn't seem committed to it in the first place. What happened, they had to start filming twenty minutes after they'd started breaking the story for the season, and went with the first idea that came to mind?

 

The "it's all about perception" thing could have held some water, except that they never contrasted Sam's perception of the events with any actual truth about them afaik, and also because what was going on with Sam seemed so OOC that the whole ~love story~ with Amelia and his dead brother/her dead husband didn't even seem like something that Sam would tell himself or perceive to be true.

 

Oh, I agree they were trying to show that Sam learned something from his experience in Mystery Spot and after Dean went to Hell, but I don't think they were saying it was healthy he didn't look for Dean, but healthy he didn't try to bring Dean back and instead let him rest in peace.

 

Dude didn't even know Dean was dead! He didn't even have a body to bury! Sam has seen Dean killed about a bajillion times and he's always at least checked to see if there was anything he could still do. This one time, when he doesn't even see Dean die, just go POOF! along with a couple supernatural beings, is the time that he's like, "ok, I'd better just accept his death and move on." LOL wut?

That doesn't seem healthy to me (albeit, that might have been what they were going for?!), though to be fair I'm not sure *how* I would classify it. It made it seem to me like he was just waiting to be able to write them all off, which is the complete opposite of how I would expect Sam to feel or how he seemed to feel at the end of S7.

 

Kind of reminds me of that S6 episode about the faeries, when Dean vanishes and soulless!Sam goes to the alien-believers' campsite and mentions that his brother was abducted, but that he's not upset about it because it was a while ago -- about half an hour previous. And later on, Dean has that whole convo with soulless!Sam about how he was offended that Sam hadn't spent the evening mourning for Dean, and soulless!Sam argues that banging some woman from the campsite counts as mourning, since at least the room was dark while they were doing it and that's sort of mournful in a way. The whole Samelia storyline is basically soulless!Sam banging that random woman while Dean is vanished, but played up as soup opera treacle and revisited for episode after episode. And in flashback form for some reason. SO BIZARRE.

 

I think they were trying to push the sympathy towards Sam by making Dean a scary guy who shouldn't be trusted once he came back from Purgatory with a secret vampire friend and that he was out of line for being upset with Sam not looking for him because Sammy was so broken.

 

That's interesting, I think you might be right. What I think really undermined that from the word go, was that one of the first things that Dean did was open up his arm to do right by Benny, and then give him an oddly sweet hug and tell him to call if he needs help. Then, one of the next things he did was make a beeline for Sam at the cabin, but insist on putting Sam's mind at ease that he's really himself before even going in fully or giving Sam a hug -- despite Sam himself being basically like, "meh, I'm really lackadaisical about supernatural stuff now, so no need to even bother." I mean, how do you hate on the guy after that?

 

Maybe they were trying to convey specifically that Dean was unstable? He did seem unstable when he got back from Purgatory, imo, though why that would make it *less* of an issue that Sam had apparently written him off and decided not to try to rescue him, I don't know. Also, by S8, it's not like it was a mind-blower that Dean was struggling somewhat. From pretty early on it was clear something was up with him -- this was a man who sold his soul because he thought that eternal torment would be *a better option* than losing his brother. I wasn't ~shocked~ that he would pick up a partner in Purgatory, I actually find it much more shocking

that he apparently wanted to go it alone once he was a demon, because it's shocking imo that *any* incarnation of Dean would want to go it alone.

It didn't even occur to me to find it sketchy that Dean would want to help his friend or that he'd want to do that on his own. How is that sketchy in any case?

 

Maybe, just like with Sam's story, the show was trying to do a reboot, or (re)introducing the character as someone (significantly, on a basic level) different than who he had been? Tbh, the show seemed to be trying to do a reboot altogether. (If it ain't broke, though...!). Also, even if the show was supposed to be rebooted that year, pretending that the previous seven seasons don't exist, or at least only some alternate reality versions of those seasons (rather than the ones we actually saw) exist, is so strange/frustrating. I really don't understand why they were trying to do a reboot right then, if the surprise "didn't die on Friday night!" season was S7, so the show was evidently stronger and had a more loyal fanbase than the producers/network had thought.

[DittyDotDot]

rue721, on 15 Dec 2014 - 12:03 AM, said:

Maybe they were trying to convey specifically that Dean was unstable?

 

That's what I was trying to get at when I was talking about the Dean/Benny stuff came off in an unintentional way to the audience. I think we aren't supposed to like Dean having a vampire friend anymore than Sam having a normal life with Amelia. I think Dean was supposed to be more off kilter and I think we were supposed to think Dean's judgment as suspect, especially concerning Benny. Jensen did a lot of pre-season interviews where he talked about how Dean was supposed to be a lot like Jeremy Renner's character in The Hurt Locker and he also said a lot of Dean's story back from Purgatory was going to be about this messed up relationship with Benny.

 

I think the point was supposed to be they found other things to fill the space the other held in their lives when they were separated, but those things weren't what each thought they really were. Sam thought he and Amelia it was the perfect life he'd never gotten a chance to have with Jessica, but in reality Amelia was using Sam to help ease the pain of losing her husband and I think Sam was far more into the idea of a normal life than Amelia herself.  With Dean he'd thought he'd found this brother in arms working towards a common purpose, but in reality Benny's entire purpose was in using Dean to get out of Purgatory in order to exact revenge on his maker. Dean didn't even know Benny's real reason for getting out of Purgatory until Benny needed his help and Dean had to force Benny to tell him and then forced himself in on Benny's revenge quest too. I think Dean saw Benny more as what he wanted him to be than who Benny actually was, IMO.

 

Unfortunately, that's not the way it came off in the end, though.  I think the big problem was the imbalance that was created when people glammed on to Benny and TPTB seemed to drop Dean's PTSD after the first episode back. So, we not only don't understand why Sam thought Dean had been dead, but we also don't understand why Sam's questioning Dean's judgment and being a total pissypants at the same time. If they'd been consistent with Dean's PTSD for more than one episode and shown us why Sam thought Dean was actually dead, this could've worked a whole lot better.

 

 

rue721, on 15 Dec 2014 - 12:03 AM, said:

Dude didn't even know Dean was dead!

 

But he obviously thought that was the case. One of the first things he says to Dean is "Dude, you're alive."  I didn't say they showed us why Sam thought this, but he obviously thought that was the case. He says it to both Amelia and her father too, as I recall. This was the big fail of this storyline for me, they never explained why Sam thought Dean was dead. But it's also not really all that surprising considering how the show rarely shows how Sam gets to a certain point, but they always love to show him at that point anyway. This show's never been particularly deep, IMO, so I just can't believe they ever intended Sam would give up on Dean without thinking he was really dead and resting in peace. Maybe I'm giving TPTB too much credit here though.

Edited December 15, 2014 by DittyDotDot

[rue721]

I think Dean was supposed to be more off kilter and I think we were supposed to think Dean's judgment as suspect, especially concerning Benny. Jensen did a lot of pre-season interviews where he talked about how Dean was supposed to be a lot like Jeremy Renner's character in The Hurt Locker and he also said a lot of Dean's story back from Purgatory was going to be about this messed up relationship with Benny.

 

They liked to lean on that war metaphor so hard, and I don't really get why. Not that it's the worst metaphor, but it's still just a metaphor. Also, one really obvious reason why I would think lots of people would be uneasy about it is because the "enemies" in the metaphor are literally dehumanized, they're literally monsters. Why would the show be so married to an idea that's so...meh. Anyway.

 

If they were going for the "messed up relationship" thing, then I think they needed to go somewhat darker with Benny, because as it is, Dean's trust in him seemed basically justified. Benny actually did help him get through Purgatory and out of Purgatory, and what he asked in return was really pretty basic and fair imo. I mean, Dean had some leverage based on him being the "humanity" required by the humanity-escape-portal or whatever it was, but Benny was still holding a lot of the cards in Purgatory since he was the one who actually knew how to get out. He could have been much more of an asshole than he was.

 

Same thing with Amelia, tbh. There didn't actually seem to be any bad consequences for either Dean partnering up with Benny, or Sam partnering up with Amelia. I think that was a big reason why I just didn't care very much whether Dean kept up a relationship with Benny, or Sam kept up one with Amelia -- there weren't any obvious costs to being in those relationships so it felt kind of like, "meh, why not?" in terms of them deciding whether to keep those relationships going or not. When Dean went off to help Benny, it just didn't seem like a big deal. Benny didn't seem dangerous, and Dean had worked with Benny tons in Purgatory, so what's one more vampire nest, tbh? Maybe if the show had made the relationships actually messed up or Benny/Amelia shittier, that kind of thing would have felt like more of an issue. Sam wasn't even with Amelia by the time that Dean got back, though, so I don't really know how they could have salvaged that SL.

 

The show did a pretty good job of conveying that Dean was struggling when he got back from Purgatory, imo. I don't know why they thought that people would expect him to be a worse judge of character because of PTSD, but *shrug.* I do wish they'd continued with it if only because it would have created a more organic conflict between him and Sam. A sort of sadder version of the whole "dead things should stay dead" conundrum that supernatural shows always have to deal with, you know, with people "coming back wrong." Also, paranoia and his own related hangups have isolated Dean before, it would have made a lot of sense if that had caused a problem in terms of him trying to reconnect with Sam, imo.

 

I didn't say they showed us why Sam thought this, but he obviously thought that was the case. He says it to both Amelia and her father too, as I recall. This was the big fail of this storyline for me, they never explained why Sam thought Dean was dead. But it's also not really all that surprising considering how the show rarely shows how Sam gets to a certain point, but they always love to show him at that point anyway. This show's never been particularly deep, IMO, so I just can't believe they ever intended Sam would give up on Dean without thinking he was really dead and resting in peace.

 

That this show usually telegraphs what's happening as simply and straightforwardly as possible is why I think that they *didn't* mean for us to fanwank a backstory about Sam trying to find Dean and getting information that made him think he and Cas were dead for sure (instead of just making the assumption). Because the show went to some lengths to show that Sam had also written off and abandoned Kevin, even though he *knew* Kevin wasn't dead. And when Dean turned up alive again, Sam still didn't tell him why he thought he'd died, and seemed just really nonchalant and not that excited/relieved/ashamed or anything about it. He seemed relatively indifferent, imo, which matched up with the story that he basically just gave up on Dean and basically everything supernatural once he was on his own. That story itself is unbelievable/OOC, but it seemed to be the one that they went with and stuck with.

 

Anyway, yeah, Sam believed or at least assumed that Dean and Cas were dead, my point was that it didn't even make any sense that he would, and the show didn't make an effort to explain why he did. Sam had never even thought all hope was lost when he literally saw Dean die, why would he just drop it this one time when things actually even seemed relatively hopeful since he hadn't seen any bodies and Dean vanished at the same time as some supernatural being(s)? Maybe it was some half-hearted attempt at a character reboot, or...Idk, I have no idea why they went in that direction tbh.

Edited December 16, 2014 by rue721

[DittyDotDot]

Anyway, yeah, Sam believed or at least assumed that Dean and Cas were dead, my point was that it didn't even make any sense that he would, and the show didn't make an effort to explain why he did.

 

I guess that was my actual point. Sam drinking demon blood in S4 was no better explained than Sam thinking Dean was dead, in my mind. How Ruby got him to take that first sip in the first place is still mind boggling, not to mention how it seemed so very OOC for Sam to even do it. The show tends to like to explore ideas whether or not they make sense in universe and/or for their characters, they just shove their characters in there anyway. I think they wanted to explore this idea of perception, but didn't know how Sam got there, they just needed him there, so they plunked him in there. I'd say the same thing about Dean's side of things too. Like I said, at the time the whole thing threw me for a loop, but after two years of whack-a-do, I've started just rolling with it.

[rue721]

I guess that was my actual point. Sam drinking demon blood in S4 was no better explained than Sam thinking Dean was dead, in my mind. How Ruby got him to take that first sip in the first place is still mind boggling, not to mention how it seemed so very OOC for Sam to even do it. The show tends to like to explore ideas whether or not they make sense in universe and/or for their characters, they just shove their characters in there anyway. I think they wanted to explore this idea of perception, but didn't know how Sam got there, they just needed him there, so they plunked him in there. I'd say the same thing about Dean's side of things too. Like I said, at the time the whole thing threw me for a loop, but after two years of whack-a-do, I've started just rolling with it.

 

IA, after all that drama over the psychic kids and the YED, I would think that Sam would be the last person who'd drink demon blood for fun and profit. Why not just start at the beginning and show how Sam started with the demon blood in the first place, since that would probably have been one of the most interesting parts of the SL. It's like how they slid over Amelia and Sam deciding to move in together -- why skip all the meaty parts and show us the boring, slack parts in between? Anyway, not that the execution of the demon blood SL was great overall, but one thing that imo made it better than the "hit a dog" thing was that the show did at least commit to it. Also, at least it went somewhere during the actual season instead of just being random flashbacks from an SL that apparently started and finished before the season even started. And I could handwave more about the demon blood SL than about the "hit a dog" SL because at least part of it was about Sam being out of his right mind (because of the demon blood).

 

The basic themes of how perception impacts reality or how people lie to themselves are good ones, imo, and could have really worked for this show in particular. Too bad they never did anything much with them. I feel like that's weirdly a common problem on this show -- lots of good ideas, but half-assed execution. Idk why, really.

[DittyDotDot]

I can't wrap my head around this being penned by Edlund, I just can't. Where's the clever use of language; the twisted and the warped?  It's not that I think every episode Edlund wrote was a masterpiece, but usually the dialogue is super fantastic, but it feels very maudlin here, for the most part, iMO. I guess everyone can have an off day, right?

 

Anyhoo. Ugh...so much monologueing and sad looks at the camera and so very much melodrama. Yuck. I realized when watching this episode, Benny's really only interesting to me in Purgatory--the whistling and the fighting and the knowing about the portal--outside of Purgatory he's just another rather boring monster, IMO. What's with the Leviathans being bombs in Purgatory? And the flashbacks are just too many--have I mentioned how much I hate flashbacks? Well, I do. Although, I think the only part of this episode that's worth watching are some of the Purgatory flashbacks even if I think they're totally unnecessary at the same time. At least the chemistry between Jensen, Ty and Misha is interesting to watch.

 

Couple thinky thoughts: What do you think would've happened to Benny's soul if Dean had just drained it into a ditch somewhere? Would he be a ghost vampire or would it get released and sent back to Purgatory? I'd like to see what a ghost vampire looks like, myself.  I'd also like to know how one can kill a monster in Purgatory considering that monster is already dead to get to Purgatory. This is what happens to me when an episode doesn't engage me properly, I start pondering things that I'm sure the writers wish no one would think about.

[Demented Daisy]

Couple thinky thoughts: What do you think would've happened to Benny's soul if Dean had just drained it into a ditch somewhere? Would he be a ghost vampire or would it get released and sent back to Purgatory? I'd like to see what a ghost vampire looks like, myself.  

 

 

I wonder if maybe it wouldn't have left Dean's body.  

Bobby's soul had a place to go when Sam brought him back from Hell

, but Benny couldn't go up or down.  If he didn't have a body to go into, presumably, he would have gone back to Purgatory.

 

I think, in this universe, monsters can't be ghosts.  They die, they go to Purgatory.  No hanging around, trying to decide if they want to go.  Probably don't get Reapers, either.  

 

Otherwise, would any of them choose to go to Purgatory?  They're already monsters; would becoming a ghost be undesirable at all?

[DittyDotDot]

That's a good point about choice...if someone knew they were going to Hell, wouldn't they just choose to stay as a ghost? Maybe you can only choose if you're Heaven bound? It kinda makes sense in a way, angels also need permission to possess a vessel. Maybe getting into Heaven also needs permission? Interesting.

[7kstar]

 

@ Dittydotdot Although, I think the only part of this episode that's worth watching are some of the Purgatory flashbacks even if I think they're totally unnecessary at the same time. At least the chemistry between Jensen, Ty and Misha is interesting to watch.

When you don't have much to get excited about, sometimes you pay attention to the parts you like.  I really liked the moments with Ty, Misha and Jensen.  Plus I liked seeing Dean being productive and clever.  So I know I'm in the minority...so I only choose to remember the few parts of Sam that sort of works.  Sam freaking about Benny is actually funny with his line, I see you two have a lot of talking to do.

 

I remember when I watched this, I still didn't know if Benny was friend or foe, but he did seem to like Dean. 

 

I think it would have been better to show a lot of the stories live, but TPTB seem to really be afraid of keeping Sam and Dean apart.  Of course their reasons do suck...but I agree that once again Jensen's acting skills mess things up and Jared just wasn't able to overcome the bad writing. 

I'm more upset with the direction they took Dean's character in the second half, that the only parts I have to enjoy is the first half. So since part of me has seen Sam be selfish it didn't feel totally off. I don't think it was the best choice at all.

 

I could buy that Sam just couldn't be alone, that he needed to latch on to something, because Crowley does tell him your all alone...no one left.  So maybe we were supposed to buy that Sam being all alone meant he was too stupid to think of a course of action and then he is aimless without any drive or direction until he hits the dog.  The dog is the reason he stays and then he sees something in this woman...I think it was the plan that just didn't worked.  If it had happened live I think it would have helped. 

 

Maybe the writers just don't really understand conflict and how to really paint a good conflict story.  I can deal with the show's measure of soap opera, as it isn't really a triangle....Maybe someone above the writers really wanted a woman relationship and this was their attempt to add more strong women.  But the seem to suck at this.

 

Of course one problem the actors have, is that they play the part as it is written and they don't know the big picture coming so they may not play it correctly which is why we feel like it doesn't make any sense when we see it play out over the season. 

 

But I like Ty and Jensen a lot...so for me I can fanwank some of the mess so I can enjoy the parts I like.  Of course, that means I've skipped the stupid parts and totally pretend they never happened.  JMV  :)

[Goldmoon]

Liked this one overall, but wished Dean had trusted Sam with the information on Benny in the first place.  I wonder if his secrecy contributed to Sam's feeling that Benny couldn't be trusted.  I knew Benny's woman wouldn't be copacetic, though.

[GirlyGeek]

I like this one. Season 8 is sucking, so there's a low bar, but this one is pretty good. I liked Benny from the jump, hate Amelia with a fiery passion, and knew the vamp chick was bad news, of course. Purgatory flashbacks are all kinds of pretty and fun. Cas, Dean, and Benny jive really well together.

Now I'm kinda dense, but we're they trying to make some kind of parallel between Benny leaving his packs mission to stay with Andrea vs Sam dropping he and Deans mission to stay with Amelia? If so... I don't like where that thread goes with painting Dean vs the vampirate sire, coming back to 'ruin the new life'. That's all I'll say about it, cause maybe I'm, for once, being too literal.

I don't get why Sam is in such a tizzy over the monster deans working with. I mean, they spent all last season working with Meg and Crowley (to some extent). They've worked with monsters before, and not one episode ago they let a monster go and 'hoped for the best' and hoped she didn't start a killing spree with nothing more than her videotaped word that she wouldn't kill.

So to see him practically fuming over it was a little over dramatic, especially considering

how bent out of shape I recall him getting about Benny in future episodes

.

[supposebly]

There is a lot I don't like about this one like the cliched Benny story but Sam the plumber? Who fixed the car? When did he learn that?

 

Even only listening with one ear, this season is just awful. I have no idea who these characters are.

 

And it's really funny when you just listen to those two scratchy world-weary voices....talking and talking and talking.....maybe I should skip to the next.

[RulerofallIsurvey]

I watched this last night, but was seriously distracted by a dog.  And not the one on the show.  The one begging for my dinner.  (sigh)  Anyway, I'm going to have to rewatch it, just because I know I missed a lot - especially with the Benny storyline.  I couldn't quite keep up with that and other conversation I was having at the same time (no, not with the dog)  But random, sometimes snarky, observations ahead, from what little I DO remember:

• Whew boy!  There were a lot of flashbacks this episode, huh?  I didn't mind most of them.  Just seemed like an awful lot though.  I thought I was going to get whiplash.
• It was nice to see Sam being friendly to the young man at the desk and trying to be kind of flirty with Angry Lady (totally going to call her that now.)  We don't often get to see the boys having normal interactions with normal people outside of a hunt, so I really like those glimpses into their personalities.  And I don't remember seeing Sam being cute and flirty with a normal (okay, non-demon anyway) woman in a while, so I liked it.  That is to say, I liked Sam.  Sam, of course has an overload of Chemistry.  In fact, he should have majored in Chemistry, not pre-law.  He could have graduated in 3 years.  Or less.  Unfortunately, Angry Lady does not have any Chemistry.  At least not with Sam.  She just fell flat.  I think Dog had more charm.  And that's not because I'm one of those fans who don't want to see the boys with any woman (except Me! Of Course!).  I liked Bella and was disappointed when she was killed off.  Thought her character had a lot of potential, and she had loads of chemistry with both guys.  I also liked Sam with the werewolf chick (before she became a werewolf, of course) and the art lady.  And I adored Ellen and Jo (especially Jo and Dean).  So I really think it's the actress - not that she might not be a good actress.  I'm just not feeling any attraction between her and Sam.
• Sam named the dog Dog?  Really?  I thought it was Everett.  (I wasn't paying real close attention)  Then I realized Everett was the kid's at the desk name.  Oops.  Everett would make a good dog name though.  Eh...on the one hand I get it.  When you name an animal, then it becomes a pet and you get more attached to it and maybe he was afraid/didn't want to get too attached to it because of the last dog he had to leave behind. On the other hand...sheesh, couldn't you have at least called him Roy?  Spot?  Lefty?  Everett?
• Sam the handy-man.  Yeah, I don't quite know what to think of that.  I guess he and Dean could have learned some mad fix-it skills through sheer necessity over the years.  Dean already has the mad car mechanic skills, and we've seen him teaching Sam at least once.  And Dean has mad carpenter skills.  So...maybe...if I close my eyes and squint hard enough into the sun it makes some sort of sense.
• How did Angry Lady know Sam shopped at the Army/Navy surplus store?  And why was she dissing him for it?  Takes one to know one. 
• I was mostly confused by the Dean/Benny storyline in present time.  I understood the flashbacks.  I think.  And Benny was incredibly hard to understand sometimes. I'm going to have to turn on closed captioning upon rewatch.  Now, I realize he was supposed to have a New Orleans/LA accent.  But he really just slurred his words too much sometimes.  And I'm from the South too, so it's bad when I can't understand your accent.  

[DittyDotDot]

1 hour ago, RulerofallIsurvey said:

Whew boy!  There were a lot of flashbacks this episode, huh?  I didn't mind most of them.  Just seemed like an awful lot though.  I thought I was going to get whiplash

I know, right! ;)

1 hour ago, RulerofallIsurvey said:

It was nice to see Sam being friendly to the young man at the desk and trying to be kind of flirty with Angry Lady (totally going to call her that now.)  We don't often get to see the boys having normal interactions with normal people outside of a hunt, so I really like those glimpses into their personalities.  And I don't remember seeing Sam being cute and flirty with a normal (okay, non-demon anyway) woman in a while, so I liked it.  That is to say, I liked Sam.  

Yeah, I wish the show would do more of these simple character beats more. These are the little moments that help ground a show that's pretty out there at times.

1 hour ago, RulerofallIsurvey said:

Sam named the dog Dog?  Really?  I thought it was Everett.  (I wasn't paying real close attention)  Then I realized Everett was the kid's at the desk name.  Oops.  Everett would make a good dog name though.  Eh...on the one hand I get it.  When you name an animal, then it becomes a pet and you get more attached to it and maybe he was afraid/didn't want to get too attached to it because of the last dog he had to leave behind. On the other hand...sheesh, couldn't you have at least called him Roy?  Spot?  Lefty?  Everett?

Heh, take heart, I believe the dog does get a real name. I don't who gave him a name, but I believe that flashback in Heartache had Sam calling him Rebel. However I kinda buy Sam just calling him Dog right then simply because I think Sam was trying not to get attached to anything right then. Every time he does get attached it seems to get taken away from him. But Sam being a Winchester, he can't help but keep making some mistakes over and over and over again. ;)

1 hour ago, RulerofallIsurvey said:

I was mostly confused by the Dean/Benny storyline in present time.  I understood the flashbacks.  I think.  And Benny was incredibly hard to understand sometimes. I'm going to have to turn on closed captioning upon rewatch.  Now, I realize he was supposed to have a New Orleans/LA accent.  But he really just slurred his words too much sometimes.  And I'm from the South too, so it's bad when I can't understand your accent.  

It's funny, the present storyline made sense to me--in my mind, Dean just doesn't fit in this world right now and is trying to recapture some of that "purity" he felt in Purgatory by forcing himself into Benny's hunt. It's really too bad they weren't more consistent with this soldier-returning-from-war thing they started at the beginning of the season. I get it intellectually, but I just don't feel it like I would like to. 

As to Benny, I didn't have a problem understanding him, but his backstory is a bit, I don't want to say confusing, but seems conveniently convenient somehow. Really just feels like they hadn't worked out his backstory when they introduced him in the premiere, just knew he was a southern good ole boy, and had to work really hard to make things line up here. I'm not saying they don't line up, just not entirely smoothly in my mind.

[catrox14]

The dog is named Riot.

[DittyDotDot]

56 minutes ago, catrox14 said:

The dog is named Riot.

Eh, I've heard it both ways. ;)

Sorry bad Psych joke there.

[catrox14]

Just now, DittyDotDot said:

Eh, I've heard it both ways. ;)

Sorry bad Psych joke there.

Sorry? I never watched Psych LOL

[RulerofallIsurvey]

I rewatched this last night - and I was right above: I did miss a lot of the conversation between Dean and Benny the first time around.  A couple extra thoughts which occurred to me this time through:

On 6/3/2016 at 9:01 AM, RulerofallIsurvey said:

 So I really think it's the actress - not that she might not be a good actress.  I'm just not feeling any attraction between her and Sam.

Upon second watching, it's definitely the actress.  Her delivery when she walked in on Sam fixing her sink was worse than cringe worthy.  Granted, the lines weren't the best, but her acting was horrendous.  It was like she didn't quite know how to play it.  And it showed.  

On 6/3/2016 at 9:01 AM, RulerofallIsurvey said:

Sam the handy-man.  Yeah, I don't quite know what to think of that.

Yeah, okay - on the one hand I really like that Sam is not just a braniac, because I dig guys who know how to fix things (and have little to no respect for ones who don't at least know a flat head from a philips head.)  So at first blush, this seemed pretty cool.  But then I took a closer look - and being an engineer, I notice things like this.  Sam had his hands inside the ice machine motor while it was still plugged in.  (because he immediately flipped the switch to make sure it was working right.)  So Sam-the-dumb-ass-handy-man just lost points.  Really.  You don't work on anything while it's still plugged in.  Ask a real repair man.  Idjit.  

Vamp-pirates.  Dean is so funny.  "That's the third thing your mind goes to."  "Uh, no it isn't."  Only your mind, Dean.  But I love that it does.    

[DittyDotDot]

1 hour ago, RulerofallIsurvey said:

Vamp-pirates.  Dean is so funny.  "That's the third thing your mind goes to."  "Uh, no it isn't."  Only your mind, Dean.  But I love that it does.    

I kinda wish the Jefferson Starships had stuck too! ;)

[RulerofallIsurvey]

1 hour ago, DittyDotDot said:

I kinda wish the Jefferson Starships had stuck too! ;)

Me too!

[catrox14]

I really want a full on vampirates episode. Like on a boat with Sam, Dean and Cas fighting vampirates or they have become vampirates because of reasons...just because I want to see them all as pirates

[GirlyGeek]

I could watch the Purgatory flashbacks or Dean and Benny hunt all day long.  I liked that about this episode.

Unfortunately every single scene with Sam just pissed me off.

Amelia is a bitch.  There is nothing redeeming about her character and not one bit of chemistry between her and Sam.  I just don't get what the writers were trying to do??

You know when, in AHBL2 there was some wonkiness with the shooting schedule and the weather and the ending got a little hacked up and green-screeny?  I can forgive that.  I still love the episode.  Want to know why?  Because Sam and Dean were still Sam and Dean.

This wasn't the case with these episodes or Season 8 in general.  A new head-honcho should have meant fresh, new, well-thought out storylines.  Not this mess.  The writers were handed so much potential on a freaking silver platter, and still screwed it up.  There wasn't issues with the shooting schedules or actor schedules or weather problems or blah blah blah... nope, they just sucked.

Dean in Purgatory- WOW could have been great.  A year is a long time to be in a daily war with monsters.  Think of the potential storylines.  Even if they didn't show him in Purgatory, just him coming back could have been great.  PTSD and difficulty coping with being back and the real world, etc etc.  I mean, they just didn't even bother to try.

Sam left alone, not sure where Dean is.  Everyone he trusts and cares about is dead?  WOW could have been great.  What I wouldn't give to have seen Sam leave Dick Roman's building.  Alone.  walking out to the very broken Impala, getting in and trying to start the car and it won't and Sam loses it.  That is compelling and interesting and moves the character along.  Having him look for Dean for a day, a week, hitting dead ends.  Trying to call Meg or Crowley or Garth or Charlie or heck even Jodi Mills for help.  Or, even showing where he was going/where his head was at when he hit the dog.  What he was doing in between the time Dean died and when he met Amelia.  Giving Amelia a personality.  ANY of those things would have made this better.

I come away from the first part of S8 wondering if they were writing these characters so poorly on purpose?? With the wealth of storylines and threads they could have followed... its just blatant piss poor writing and direction.

Makes my head hurt.  Luckily I like my TV too much to throw things at it.

Edited October 19, 2016 by GirlyGeek

[Demented Daisy]

1 hour ago, GirlyGeek said:

I come away from the first part of S8 wondering if they were writing these characters so poorly on purpose?? With the wealth of storylines and threads they could have followed... its just blatant piss poor writing and direction.

I had a theory at the time (unfortunately, it was at that other place so I can't quote myself) that Carver had been away from the show too long.  That all he remembered about the characters was Dean doing anything to survive (and occasionally being a dick to Sam over his bad choices) and Sam wanting to give it all up.  He didn't do any research about what had happened, and how the characters had grown, in his absence.

S8 was like a very, very, very bad version of S4/S5.  Dean returns from Hell; Dean returns from Purgatory.  Sam was drinking demon blood in Dean's absence; Sam gave up hunting (and Kevin) in Dean's absence.  Sam had to redeem himself by taking on Lucifer;

Spoiler

Sam had to redeem himself by taking on the trials.

Blah, blah, blah.

Edited October 19, 2016 by Demented Daisy
Since it happened later in the season, I decided to spoiler tag. Better safe than sorry, right?

[catrox14]

1 hour ago, GirlyGeek said:

I could watch the Purgatory flashbacks or Dean and Benny hunt all day long.  I liked that about this episode.

 

Me, too. I was so disappointed that we didn't have more of that.

[DittyDotDot]

16 hours ago, GirlyGeek said:

I come away from the first part of S8 wondering if they were writing these characters so poorly on purpose?? With the wealth of storylines and threads they could have followed... its just blatant piss poor writing and direction.

I got the impression Carver thought he was "fixing" the show with all this nonsense. I think they thought they were being dark and gritty with the writing and the tone--which is rather funny since S8 is brighter and cleaner than any season previous--but somehow came off as childish and obnoxious to me. 

[Hanahope]

So I like that Dean comes to Bennie's aid, but it's still hard to see them act like long time bffs.  I thought the whole vamp-pirates idea pretty good,  but wouldn't there be more news about rich people disappearing at sea?

 I don't like Amelia either, she just seems like a bitch, and I don't mean dog.

[bettername2come]

"I was trying to kill Crowley, okay? Who happened to be wearing Kevin's mother at the time. Well, there's a difference!" How did Dean, say "step one find Kevin Tran" and not "Step one, prophet"? Vampirates. Is that a show on Syfy yet? It needs to be a show on Syfy. Why did Amelia put limes down the disposal? What kind of monster is she? I do like that she questioned the sideburns, I'll give her that one. "Dean, you don't have any - all your friends are dead!" "That's not what I called to talk about!" That should not be funny, but it is. Heh. Vamp said "wayward son." I can't argue with Amelia on Sam being a potential drifter serial killer, given that he has the face of one. You know what, I would've liked her to recognize serial killer Sam and freak out. That would've made the storyline more interesting. The leviathans appearing in purgatory looked cool.

[Pondlass1]

9 hours ago, bettername2come said:

The leviathans appearing in purgatory looked cool.

I wish they'd gone with the Purgatory type Leviathans for earth side too.  Them dropping like ink blots from the sky and transforming into humans - not necessarily  copy-catting a human form complete with memories etc. (which made zero sense).  

[Wayward Son]

This episode was as terrible as I remembered! Vampirates was a terrible concept (the name made me chuckle, but the actual concept is stupid), Benny got a ridiculous cliche backstory about going good for the girl - I also saw that written with a hundred times more depth over on Buffy, Castiel got to be demoted to damsel in distress so super Benny could shine, there was terrible acting from Ty Olsson and even Jensen was off his game here and too many Samelia flashbacks.

 

The only thing I liked was the first few flashbacks of Sam’s (before Amelia came into the picture) I liked handy man Sam. I also enjoyed proud present day Sam when he succeeded in fixing the air vent.  

 

Re: Putting aside the debate on whether Sam should have double checked his suspicions (that’s probably better in Bitch vs Jerk) I’ve never found Sam reaching the initial conclusion Dean was dead as unfathomable as everyone else seems to. Maybe I’m just as big a Dumbass as people seem to think s8 Sam was ;)

My reason being, we are told in Reading is Fundamental, the tablet describes the bone of the righteous man washed in the blood of the three fallen as a means of “slaying” a Levithian. It isn’t described as a teleportation spell, but a spell to cause death. Therefore that’s what Sam (and Dean and Cas) went into the battle expecting the bone to do i.e. kill Dick.

Therefore, with that in mind, the thought of Dean and Cas going to purgatory would have never caused my mind had I been in Sam’s position. I’d have thought of two other options. 1) The essence of all three were obliterated entirely or 2) All three died and went to their natural destination i.e. Dick went to purgatory, Dean went to heaven and Cas went wherever it is angels go after their death. Since it wasn’t described by the tablet as a teleportation spell the thought of Dean and Cas hitching a ride with Dick never crossed my mind. The lack of bodies wouldn’t have raised my suspicions either because if the resulting explosion was strong enough to obliterate the body of Dick it’s hardly surprising it’d be strong enough to do the same to those nearby. 

Ive also seen people go like “Oh but he knew that Dean wasn’t dead during Time after Time” and I see those as two different situations. In the first they both randomly disappear in a ball of red light, while there is an explosion emenating from Dick’s body when Dick dies. 

[Hanahope]

On 10/18/2017 at 9:41 AM, Wayward Son said:

Therefore, with that in mind, the thought of Dean and Cas going to purgatory would have never caused my mind had I been in Sam’s position

I agree with what you said.  However, I still think Sam would have made some efforts to find out exactly what happened to Dean and then to "resurrect" Dean or have him return to earth in some way (or at least confirm Dean was ok wherever he was - seance, etc.).  Apparently (S12) its not necessary to actually have an intact body to bring someone back from the dead (yeah, yeah, took them a few seasons to come up with that).

[DittyDotDot]

3 minutes ago, Hanahope said:

Apparently (S12) its not necessary to actually have an intact body to bring someone back from the dead (yeah, yeah, took them a few seasons to come up with that).

Well, actually they set the precedence for that with Adam back in S5. We saw Sam and Dean give Adam a hunter's funeral in S4, but that didn't stop the angels from resurrecting him a year later.

[Hanahope]

6 minutes ago, DittyDotDot said:

Well, actually they set the precedence for that with Adam back in S5. We saw Sam and Dean give Adam a hunter's funeral in S4, but that didn't stop the angels from resurrecting him a year later.

Oh yeah, that's right.

[Iju]

"vampirate". dang dean, that was actually pretty good. and no, no-one would have come up with that name other than you, no matter how obvious it was.

ugh, another 0 chemistry relationship. SPN's casting of women have always been problematic.  don't know why, though. it's sad because bennyxwifey was way more interesting and had tons more chemistry than sam and his potential "wifey". now that's just sad, writers. be ashamed for that, tsk tsk.

i told my mother that sam would go purple in the face when he found out about dean cheating on him. and i was right lol. the mind read moment at the end (literally just staring and slight head movements) was cool as well. 

oh and unlike how i felt in S4, the flashbacks are not needed. they need to stop. i don't think anyone cares about sam's boring adventure with boring women and we already got the gist of things on what happened to dean. besides with dean being so ominous in the first ep you would expect his flashbacks to be rarer and not be connected as much to add to the mystery. 

Edited August 17, 2018 by Iju

[The Companion]

"This universe is a period of despair, nothing else." Perhaps we should just replace universe with "season so far." 😆

Great Dracula on a Moped! Stop monologuing and get to the damn point. How do you have vampire pirates and only show them wandering around a house trying to talk the ear off of anyone who will listen?

I could not care less about Sam's relationship. I did laugh when she basically said he seemed serial killer adjacent and Sam proceeded to drill her about whether she had any family that might miss her when he cut her into tiny pieces. Okay, so he was connecting with her theoretically, but she didn't know that. I feel like even the editors were bored by the "love story." That cut when he says he is fixing the sink is so weird. And I don't think I have ever seen less chemistry.

The purgatory flashbacks are better but they are so choppy, and it is hard to let go of how great the concept could have been in non flashback format

I have thought over and over that these two need to figure out how to send a text. Something like: going into an creepy  abandoned building with that person we met earlier today. Here is the address! Dean almost did that and then deleted it. 

Honestly, I hate when the brothers lie to one another. I hate all of this manufactured drama. I did love the end when Dean gave a shake no and Sam trusted him.

[Katy M]

10 hours ago, The Companion said:

Great Dracula on a Moped! Stop monologuing and get to the damn point. How do you have vampire pirates and only show them wandering around a house trying to talk the ear off of anyone who will listen?

I think that's what makes monsters monsters.  They talk too much.  If the monsters ever shut up and just got down to business, S&D would be dead by now.