“Bitch” Vs. “Jerk”: Where We Discuss Who The Writers Screwed This Week/Season/Ever

[gonzosgirrl]

Dean was taking on the vamps though. If the spike hadn't been there, he would've continued fighting. Lots of complaints about things, but he was not incompetent or weak in this fight. It was not his fault. 

[Castiels Cat]

4 hours ago, gonzosgirrl said:

 There is no story, only the speculation of those who see what happened with Dean's character under his tenure. 

There's a tumblr site devoted to hating Dabb. Surprisingly few posts. One claims to have a video of an interview with Dabb posted in which he says that he cannot stand Jensen. Apparently it just slips out. It's unclear whether he is joking or not. I didn't watch it.

1 minute ago, gonzosgirrl said:

Dean was taking on the vamps though. If the spike hadn't been there, he would've continued fighting. Lots of complaints about things, but he was not incompetent or weak in this fight. It was not his fault. 

Only an idiot writer puts rebar in a barn. I do not know when I will rewatch. Dean fights like the guy we saw in season 8... when is decapitation not his thing. That was not a Dean fight. 

[gonzosgirrl]

7 minutes ago, Castiels Cat said:

There's a tumblr site devoted to hating Dabb. Surprisingly few posts. One claims to have a video of an interview with Dabb posted in which he says that he cannot stand Jensen. Apparently it just slips out. It's unclear whether he is joking or not. I didn't watch it.

Only an idiot writer puts rebar in a barn. I do not know when I will rewatch. Dean fights like the guy we saw in season 8... when is decapitation not his thing. That was not a Dean fight. 

The Dabb video is posted here. I loathe the man, but IMO it was a sad attempt at humour,  that seemed to refer to something he said prior. 

We'll have to agree to disagree about the fight and the existence of the spikes/pegs in the barn (there was more than one). 

[ILoveReading]

On 11/22/2020 at 5:34 PM, Fireball said:

So I haven't been following the show in the media... What is the backstory between Badd and Jensen? 

Its not so much one specific thing, but it goes way back to the start of the show.  There used to be a comic book series that Dabb wrote.  Sam was the super special child would could do everything, while Dean was portrayed as a dummy who took up space.  There was this one scene were they had too shoot this ghost, and Dean whined and complained the rifle was too heavy than Special Sammy picked it up and with the aim of marksman hit the ghost right out.

Dabb's first ep was Yellow Fever where he promptly labelled Dean as a dick and made fun of his hell time and had Bobby and Sam act like Dean was annoying them.  If you look at his writing there is a history of protraying Dean as inferior.

There is also the comments like Sam is a natural born leader and should have been all along but Dean held him back, or that Dean needed to be off screen to give other characters breathing room.

 

[Lemuria]

And I'd read that before they started filming season 14, Jensen wanted to talk to Dabb about Michael--JA was having some trouble figuring out how Dabb wanted it to go and he asked for some direction.  Dabb basically blew him off and said, "Whatever" but he had time to sit down with JP and talk about how the season would go, and do the same sort of thing with AC.  So Dabb didn't like Dean--I remember that comic and that point that @ILoveReading mentioned was where I stopped reading, and it wasn't the only thing like that--and didn't particularly like Jensen.  

[Binns]

WOOF. 

 

 

[gonzosgirrl]

I'm afraid to click it. Should I?

Okay, I did. WTF? Is it supposed to be commentary on the vocal fans?

Is it about this? That's... a lot of tweets.

Edited November 25, 2020 by gonzosgirrl

[Aeryn13]

1 hour ago, Binns said:

WOOF. 

 

 

That guy shouldn't throw any stones either....

[Myrelle]

10 minutes ago, gonzosgirrl said:

I'm afraid to click it. Should I?

Okay, I did. WTF? Is it supposed to be commentary on the vocal fans?

Is it about this? That's... a lot of tweets.

He should have kept quiet.

If it was about that(and I think it was), he only exacerbated things with that tweet.

 

[Aeryn13]

Jensen should busy himself with the Boys Season 3 episode script and stay far, far, far away from any part of this fandom and especially this issue at this point.

[gonzosgirrl]

I'm kind of astonished at how many of the tweets on that hashtag are pro-Badd. They sincerely believe he gave them what they wanted and it's all on the network. Do they sincerely not see how Badd ruined the relationship between Dean and Cas over the last few years? Why any last minute declaration of 'love' from Cas rings SO VERY FALSE after two seasons of choosing Jack over him, of getting his mother killed, of betraying him at least twice? Ugh.

[Binns]

14 minutes ago, gonzosgirrl said:

I'm kind of astonished at how many of the tweets on that hashtag are pro-Badd. They sincerely believe he gave them what they wanted and it's all on the network. Do they sincerely not see how Badd ruined the relationship between Dean and Cas over the last few years? Why any last minute declaration of 'love' from Cas rings SO VERY FALSE after two seasons of choosing Jack over him, of getting his mother killed, of betraying him at least twice? Ugh.

Think those are the Wincest people. I don’t really participate in the fandom too deeply, just here and sometimes on Reddit (that can even be too much for me with the fighting). And I follow the actors. It’s all so ugly. This thing about the Spanish dub is I think being blown way out of proportion. 
 

I just...why did they have Cas say that if they were then going to ignore it completely the next two episodes? They didn’t have to have him say that. Feels like they were hoping for a big ugly mess. I feel bad for JA. 
 

ETA I mean the Wincest people saw what they wanted in the finale and the Destiel people feel slighted. In case that wasn’t clear, lol. 

Edited November 25, 2020 by Binns

[gonzosgirrl]

Naw, it's definitely the Destiel people who are defending him, at least under that hashtag. The Wincest/Bronlie people are over the moon with the finale, for now anyway, so it doesn't surprise me that they are fawning over Badd, but not for this.

[Binns]

12 minutes ago, gonzosgirrl said:

Naw, it's definitely the Destiel people who are defending him, at least under that hashtag. The Wincest/Bronlie people are over the moon with the finale, for now anyway, so it doesn't surprise me that they are fawning over Badd, but not for this.

Oh, do you mean he wrote it the way they want (canon Destiel) and the CW took it away? 
 

he and MC are just fanning the flames at this point. Ugly. 

[tessathereaper]

56 minutes ago, Aeryn13 said:

Jensen should busy himself with the Boys Season 3 episode script and stay far, far, far away from any part of this fandom and especially this issue at this point.

I agree.  Jensen just needs to keep his down, his mouth shut and work on his new job.  Let everyone else take the heat.

[FlickChick]

1 hour ago, tessathereaper said:

I agree.  Jensen just needs to keep his down, his mouth shut and work on his new job.  Let everyone else take the heat.

That will be a lot easier if he forgoes any future conventions in person. If the questions are censored by someone in an online Stagit convention, he has a better chance. I say - move on completely from Supernatural and conventions.

[PAForrest]

22 minutes ago, FlickChick said:

That will be a lot easier if he forgoes any future conventions in person. If the questions are censored by someone in an online Stagit convention, he has a better chance. I say - move on completely from Supernatural and conventions.

Honestly, the chances of Jensen attending a con for a while, especially in the US, are slim while he's working on The Boys. He's going to be locked down in Canada for who knows how long. The border remains closed, and while I know Trudeau is thrilled Biden will be president in January, COVID isn't going to magically disappear then, so the border is likely to continue to be closed for a while until the numbers in the US drop dramatically.

Edited November 25, 2020 by PAForrest

[Binns]

27 minutes ago, PAForrest said:

Honestly, the chances of Jensen attending a con for a while, especially in the US, are slim while he's working on The Boys. He's going to be locked down in Canada for who knows how long. The border remains closed, and while I know Trudeau is thrilled Biden will be president in January, COVID isn't going to magically disappear then, so the border is likely to continue to be closed for a while until the numbers in the US drop dramatically.

Maybe in person but I would think he would be able to do virtual. Creation is advertising cons all next year with J2M and others. Aren’t those contracts?

[FlickChick]

13 minutes ago, Binns said:

Maybe in person but I would think he would be able to do virtual. Creation is advertising cons all next year with J2M and others. Aren’t those contracts?

No, they have a built-in line that basically says that any actor not available doesn't refund any money paid for seats; just for photos. In other words, good luck seeing who you paid to see.

[Aeryn13]

14 minutes ago, Binns said:

Maybe in person but I would think he would be able to do virtual. Creation is advertising cons all next year with J2M and others. Aren’t those contracts?

A contract to participate in a con always gives an actor an out for prior work arrangements. So technically he could "cancel" them all if it applies. Even virtual. Though I imagine he's gonna do the odd one. With heavily pre-vetted questions if he plays it smart.

 

[Binns]

For what it’s worth re the Spanish dub:

 

 

[gonzosgirrl]

20 minutes ago, Binns said:

For what it’s worth re the Spanish dub:

 

 

Insert popcorn emoji.

[gonzosgirrl]

This is episode related, but probably leans into  BvJ territory so I'll try it here. I've seen a lot of posts/tweets etc about how little time Dean got onscreen in the finale. The episode run time without commercials is 41:40 including the Then/Now and the pull-back to the RL cast/crew goodbye. Not including those two things, by my calculation, Dean and/or Dean/Sam (opening bunker montage, pie scene, casework, fight/death scene and heaven) was on screen for 26 minutes, 43 seconds. I was actually really surprised that it was that much. But a fair portion of that time had no dialogue (montage) and including him in the car in heaven, though after the first scene when Carry On Wayward Son begins, I only counted the time he got out of the car on the bridge at the end to meet Sam, not the random driving. So yeah, it was 26 minutes, but so many of them were basically empty moments, it didn't seem near enough.

[Pondlass1]

21 hours ago, gonzosgirrl said:

I'm kind of astonished at how many of the tweets on that hashtag are pro-Badd. They sincerely believe he gave them what they wanted and it's all on the network. Do they sincerely not see how Badd ruined the relationship between Dean and Cas over the last few years? Why any last minute declaration of 'love' from Cas rings SO VERY FALSE after two seasons of choosing Jack over him, of getting his mother killed, of betraying him at least twice?

This awkwardly inserted scene that came out of nowhere spoke volumes— to me anyway— about the character of our ‘illustrious’ show runner.  Pandering to a small but rabid segment of fandom at the expense of a long established relationship is abuse in my book.

 

 

 

[Castiels Cat]

On 11/23/2020 at 6:58 PM, ILoveReading said:

Its not so much one specific thing, but it goes way back to the start of the show.  There used to be a comic book series that Dabb wrote.  Sam was the super special child would could do everything, while Dean was portrayed as a dummy who took up space.  There was this one scene were they had too shoot this ghost, and Dean whined and complained the rifle was too heavy than Special Sammy picked it up and with the aim of marksman hit the ghost right out.

Dabb's first ep was Yellow Fever where he promptly labelled Dean as a dick and made fun of his hell time and had Bobby and Sam act like Dean was annoying them.  If you look at his writing there is a history of protraying Dean as inferior.

There is also the comments like Sam is a natural born leader and should have been all along but Dean held him back, or that Dean needed to be off screen to give other characters breathing room.

 

He resented that Jensen's Dean stole the show. Dean had been doing that since s 1. Kim Manners recognized it and retooled the dynamics which made Supernatural a hit. Kripke went with it although there was that abrupt turnaround mid s 5 when Dean was thrown out of the storyline. Not as abruptly as Dabb did course.

There would not be 15 years of Supernatural without Jensen's Dean and Dabb killed ratings and the show quickly enough.

 

[Binns]

2 hours ago, Pondlass1 said:

This awkwardly inserted scene that came out of nowhere spoke volumes— to me anyway— about the character of our ‘illustrious’ show runner.  Pandering to a small but rabid segment of fandom at the expense of a long established relationship is abuse in my book.

 

 

 

Exactly. They shouldn’t have lit the match in the first place if they weren’t prepared to see it through- show Dean mourning or even talking through what happened with Sam, etc. Just to completely ignore Cas after something that monumental except a couple of throwaway lines was deeply stupid. I would much rather they didn’t have that line at all. 

[Myrelle]

I wasn't sure where to put this, but I think this thread will do.

So I just read somewhere else that Kripke had originally planned to kill off Dean at the end of the first season.

Does anyone here know of any source for that?

The poster said that she had a souce and would try to find it, but I'm impatient and I don't think I've heard that before...

 

[Casseiopeia]

3 minutes ago, Myrelle said:

I wasn't sure where to put this, but I think this thread will do.

So I just read somewhere else that Kripke had originally planned to kill off Dean at the end of the first season.

Does anyone here know of any source for that?

The poster said that she had a souce and would try to find it, but I'm impatient and I don't think I've heard that before...

 

I find that very hard to believe unless Kripke felt they weren't going to get picked up. In that case all three Winchesters would have died in the crash. He made it clear that the show lived or died with Jensen and Jared as early as the first season. At least that was what Jensen said.

[PAForrest]

17 minutes ago, Myrelle said:

I wasn't sure where to put this, but I think this thread will do.

So I just read somewhere else that Kripke had originally planned to kill off Dean at the end of the first season.

Does anyone here know of any source for that?

The poster said that she had a souce and would try to find it, but I'm impatient and I don't think I've heard that before...

I've never heard that before in 15 years, and it doesn't fit with everything Kripke has said over the years about the brothers' relationship making or breaking the series, and his whole On the Road, Sal & Dean premise.

Sounds like just another attempt to placate Dean fans who were unhappy with the finale.

[Aeryn13]

56 minutes ago, Myrelle said:

I wasn't sure where to put this, but I think this thread will do.

So I just read somewhere else that Kripke had originally planned to kill off Dean at the end of the first season.

Does anyone here know of any source for that?

The poster said that she had a souce and would try to find it, but I'm impatient and I don't think I've heard that before...

 

I think he said all three would have died if it had been the Finale but there was definitely never any plan to kill of Dean and have the show go on. Not at any point in 15 years.

If either Jensen (or Jared) had said they wanted out, it would have concluded the show.

And lest not forget, Kripke had tried pitching a show with a single lead, a Kolchak-like reporter solving mysteries, first and no network/studio wanted it. He only sold a show based on two brothers. So sure, after one Season, everyone was fine with going back largely to pitch 1 that noone wanted in the first place. Makes a lot of sense.    

 

Edited November 30, 2020 by Aeryn13

[Terese]

On 11/26/2020 at 9:58 AM, Pondlass1 said:

This awkwardly inserted scene that came out of nowhere spoke volumes— to me anyway— about the character of our ‘illustrious’ show runner.  Pandering to a small but rabid segment of fandom at the expense of a long established relationship is abuse in my book.

 

 

 

Castiel's speech was awkward in not only the vague wording, but also the atrocious acting. I could barely understand what he saying. That was the primary problem with the scene. Some half-assed attempt at being ambiguous, just came off as incoherent. At the time, it seemed like an expression of achieving a kind of humanity via Dean. But in retrospect, it was clearly a last minute effort to pander to those who have exaggerated convoluted and completely fabricated ideas. 

[Pondlass1]

On 11/30/2020 at 4:28 PM, Terese said:

but also the atrocious acting.

I wouldn’t have dared agreed with this while the show was in production. But, as much as I respect Misha, he cannot act for turnips. He is most fortunate that Castiel was a big hit with audiences especially in terms of two ‘pretty boys’ in scenes together which spawned the ever annoying Destiel... the bane of Jensen’s existence (and mine).

Jensen is so talented and worked so hard to make Dean Winchester the complex character he is... trying to wedge the bi angle into a character so obviously straight — well, it’s frustrating as hell. And Misha encouraged it IMO

And don’t get me started on Rob Benedict as God.... nice man, very mediocre actor. 

I wonder what Kripke would’ve given us had he somehow been given the green light to come back and write the final episode. I remember seeing lots of tweets to this effect.

[Aeryn13]

11 minutes ago, Pondlass1 said:

I wouldn’t have dared agreed with this while the show was in production. But, as much as I respect Misha, he cannot act for turnips. He is most fortunate that Castiel was a big hit with audiences especially in terms of two ‘pretty boys’ in scenes together which spawned the ever annoying Destiel... the bane of Jensen’s existence (and mine).

Jensen is so talented and worked so hard to make Dean Winchester the complex character he is... trying to wedge the bi angle into a character so obviously straight — well, it’s frustrating as hell. And Misha encouraged it IMO

And don’t get me started on Rob Benedict as God.... nice man, very mediocre actor. 

I wonder what Kripke would’ve given us had he somehow been given the green light to come back and write the final episode. I remember seeing lots of tweets to this effect.

I don't think either Misha or Rob Benedict are terrible actors. However, they can't really go against a certain type. Benedict was perfectly fine for the squirrely Chuck, just not for a menacing villain. Misha was perfectly fine as Cas the angel IMO, just not for things other than that.

I guess that is a problem of range but in this case I blame the writers more because making God the villain in the first place - for the sole reason to elevate your own Gary Stu OC insert? Was the terrible idea to end all terrible ideas.

And the Cas character suffered from revolving door syndrome and what-do-we-do-with-him writing in the extreme after Season 5.

Both things could have been avoided if some talent and care had been applied.

[DeeDee79]

1 hour ago, Pondlass1 said:

I wouldn’t have dared agreed with this while the show was in production. But, as much as I respect Misha, he cannot act for turnips. He is most fortunate that Castiel was a big hit with audiences especially in terms of two ‘pretty boys’ in scenes together which spawned the ever annoying Destiel... the bane of Jensen’s existence (and mine).

Jensen is so talented and worked so hard to make Dean Winchester the complex character he is... trying to wedge the bi angle into a character so obviously straight — well, it’s frustrating as hell. And Misha encouraged it IMO

And don’t get me started on Rob Benedict as God.... nice man, very mediocre actor. 

I wonder what Kripke would’ve given us had he somehow been given the green light to come back and write the final episode. I remember seeing lots of tweets to this effect.

Like Jared I've always felt that Misha was most compelling in the earlier seasons and somewhere around season 10 or 11 he just seemed to be phoning it in. It could be because of the worsening scripts or the fact that Castiel was written as more and more asinine as the years go on. I would give him a pass seeing how his character was pretty much destroyed after Kripke departed but in comparison Dean was shit on over and over by the writing staff in the later years and Jensen still gave it 100% because he loved his character. Misha could've done the same but instead he chose to encourage his fans in their Destiel enthusiasm which ended up affecting Jensen in a way that he didn't deserve in the slightest. With that being said I somewhat agree with your assessment of Misha but not totally because he does have the ability to be a good actor but maybe the motivation just wasn't there anymore. 

Regarding Rob Benedict I also feel that they should have left Chuck as a prophet. I enjoyed the reveal of him being God in season 11 but when the writers turned him into a villain I was so disgusted that it makes it hard to watch the earlier episodes with Chuck that I enjoyed. 

TLDR; what @Aeryn13 said only much briefer than I did.

Edited December 12, 2020 by DeeDee79

[Castiels Cat]

Hmm... I just scrolled a bit through that Adam guy's twitter. He is like a cat battling mice around.

Misha can act when the writing is there. Jared typically can too 

Jensen carries the writing and fills in the holes.

[gonzosgirrl]

31 minutes ago, PinkChicken said:

There was a Facebook live panel & apparently 'rogue translator' was actually the entire LATAM team reading the scene, thinking it just made sense and deciding to make it less ambiguous. (I've linked a 'lower' tweet because it threads the above ones better this way, if you actually click to open it) 

 

Translation (yes, I see the irony): My director is an unprofessional fanboy who should lose his job.

[ahrtee]

39 minutes ago, PinkChicken said:

There was a Facebook live panel & apparently 'rogue translator' was actually the entire LATAM team reading the scene, thinking it just made sense and deciding to make it less ambiguous. (I've linked a 'lower' tweet because it threads the above ones better this way, if you actually click to open it) 

 

Sheesh.  To me, that would be like someone adding an extra line to the final scene in Gone With The Wind:  As Rhett is walking away, he calls back over his shoulder:  "I'll be home on Thursday.  Love you, Scarlett!"  

[gonzosgirrl]

7 minutes ago, PinkChicken said:

I'm just trying to imagine how much less sense it makes when you know they barely mention Castiel ever again
 - & I think he also said they hadn't done 15.20 yet which is probably why the dubs aren't up on netflix, but that he hasn't been asked to change 15.18 back (yet)

Hey, maybe Dean isn't dead in Spanish. He just has to translate 'Goodbye Sam' into 'Call an ambulance,  asshole' and boom! 

Seriously though,  they should fire everyone responsible. 

 

[Aeryn13]

6 hours ago, gonzosgirrl said:

Hey, maybe Dean isn't dead in Spanish. He just has to translate 'Goodbye Sam' into 'Call an ambulance,  asshole' and boom! 

Seriously though,  they should fire everyone responsible. 

 

So they Persuader-ed the show in LatAm? Hahaha. 

It's not that unusual in German dubbing to change lines but usually for the reason to keep lip synchronicity because viewers are really, really sensitive to that here  And it is attempted to keep the meaning intact.

[The Companion]

57 minutes ago, Aeryn13 said:

So they Persuader-ed the show in LatAm? Hahaha. 

It's not that unusual in German dubbing to change lines but usually for the reason to keep lip synchronicity because viewers are really, really sensitive to that here  And it is attempted to keep the meaning intact.

Given how much I hated the finale, I say we lean into it. Can we edit and dub something more satisfying? Cause I speak French, but I will learn Spanish for a better ending. 😆

[Airmid]

On 11/30/2020 at 1:28 PM, Terese said:

Castiel's speech was awkward in not only the vague wording, but also the atrocious acting. I could barely understand what he saying

Honestly, I really disliked the acting in this scene also. It seemed way over blown and didn't help the scene at all since it already seemed to come out of left field and wallop us over the head.

The other major problem was that wording, while claimed to be vague, really isn't in context. Given that this whole speech is about how wonderful Dean is and about how he taught Cas to love everything, it seems pretty implied at this point that the one thing he can't have is Dean. The giant sticking point is that they felt like they couldn't have Dean really respond with anything useful. They can't let Dean tell Cas he loves him too, because that will just rev up the Destiel more. They also can't have him talk about Cas being his best friend [which I would argue hasn't really been a thing in recent episodes] because then that would be seen as lampooning Destiel. Instead of building up a scene basing it on things both characters want [such as Cas having wanted in the past some kind of relationship with his brothers, Dean and his want for a family that stands behind/loves him and wants him around], they decide to walk a line, step over it and then promptly erase the line and pretend the whole thing never happened in the first place

I mean, seriously show? MC couldn't even record a couple of lines for Cas like they're seeing each other in heaven or something? Viewers would have understood the Covid limitations - all you would have had to do was imply they were near each other. If you aren't comfortable dealing with a scene you wrote/filmed to this extent, maybe it shouldn't be done in the first place. 

I don't think Dabb realizes what an utterly depressing scenario he's created for these characters. Sam always felt like he was in Dean's shadow and often tried to prove himself only to end up living the life he wanted while being miserable. Dean took care of his whole family and sacrificed his own wants/needs over and over, essentially was fridged for motivation for Sam, and ends up sitting in heaven waiting for Sam instead of ever getting to be his own person. Cas, who loves him eternally, couldn't be bothered to bop on by to tell Dean 'Hey, I'm alive, you don't have to grieve anymore', and Jack is just off dicking around without much consideration outside of digging Cas out of The Empty - which probably only happened in that throwaway line because fans would have rioted at that point given everything else. 

Sam & Dean suffered horrendously and fought to save the universe multiple times, but they didn't even really have anything to do with all of creation getting free will and never enjoyed being free. What a terrible message.

What amazes me is that the CW let Dabb run with this train as it crashed into the station. SPN is a huge money-maker to them but they basically signed off on ever getting further projects [well, there's creative ways to do it] with the characters fans would actually come to see. At the very least, I would have thought that those up the food chain would have put their foot down and said 'no, you can't kill off the main characters, figure out something else.' 

 

Edited December 13, 2020 by Airmid

[ahrtee]

14 minutes ago, Airmid said:

What amazes me is that the CW let Dabb run with this train as it crashed into the station. SPN is a huge money-maker to them but they basically signed off on ever getting further projects [well, there's creative ways to do it] with the characters fans would actually come to see. At the very least, I would have thought that those up the food chain would have put their foot down and said 'no, you can't kill off the main characters, figure out something else.' 

Just to play devil's advocate here, maybe the CW higher-ups intended the train wreck (or at least, by the time it was obvious that there was no way that train was going to go nicely into the station, they decided to let it crash and burn.)  Even if they still had hopes of a good sendoff, after the first few episodes of season 15 they must have known it was time to cut their losses. 

And if there was even a sort-of resolved ending that fans would accept, I think most would shrug and move on.  But because it was *so* bad to so many people, they're much more likely to sign up if Jensen or Kripke comes up with a short-form fix-it or do-over, at least to get the bad taste out of their mouths.  I know if Jensen said he'd redone the last season to give it a better ending, I'd sure watch.  I wouldn't trust the CW if they just tried a reboot or spinoff, taking over where this one left off.  Maybe that was part of the deal Jensen has with WB for some time in the future?

ETA:  Though if I were Jensen (OR  the network) I'd give it enough time to let the fighting over episode 18 settle down, or a section of the fandom will be expecting any kind of re-do to be nothing but Destiel-ever-after and be even angrier if it's not.  *sigh*  

Edited December 13, 2020 by ahrtee

[DeeDee79]

35 minutes ago, Airmid said:

Sam & Dean suffered horrendously and fought to save the universe multiple times, but they didn't even really have anything to do with all of creation getting free will and never enjoyed being free. What a terrible message.

This is incredibly depressing and an apt way to sum up how their story ended.😭

[Airmid]

14 hours ago, ahrtee said:

And if there was even a sort-of resolved ending that fans would accept, I think most would shrug and move on.  But because it was *so* bad to so many people, they're much more likely to sign up if Jensen or Kripke comes up with a short-form fix-it or do-over, at least to get the bad taste out of their mouths. 

I mean, I can actually see a studio being this stupid, but given that the viewership was 1.38 million for the series finale of a really long running show [especially given that a  meh episode in early seasons drew twice this amount], it wasn't a great gamble on it. Yes, people stream more now-a-days, but a lot of beloved shows ending can do better than that for live viewing especially with this show's fanbase. It was on par with the final episodes of s14 to give a reference guide, so only slightly higher then the usual ratings of the later Dabb years. And this is factoring in the past months with people at home far more then they typically would be.

The CW also marketed the shit out of it. I don't watch TV much anymore but man, did I know when this show came back for the final episodes due to the radio campaign, at least in my area. Ads in the middle of the night driving to clinicals, during the day driving around where ads played at any point in time, hearing the ads if I was by a delivery truck that had the radio on. I don't know how much the CW spent on their campaign to help bolster viewership of the split season but it had to be a lot since I was far more aware of the series then I have been in years. But the consensus among people I ran into that watched this show who mentioned hearing these ads was, 'meh, might stream it but not real interested'. 

If the studio didn't already know how the show was going to end before filming, let alone airing any episode of S15, they deserve backlash for not being on top of it. They may have had some kind of misplaced hope for Dabb due to him bringing in a much younger audience [which jived with trying to bolster viewership of their other shows] but me, I would of personally been worried about the ever declining numbers and the growing discontent among fans. Despite the saying, not all publicity pays off and if people feel more and more alienated by your show, the less money you're going to rake in. Especially if they feel they aren't even watching the same show they started off with anymore. 

I'm also saddened by the fact that I realized I wrote a fanfic a few years back that starts out with Dean being aware that something's not right and keeps getting into all these weird situations that look like fanfic tropes, with Michael being the only one who ends up believing him at some point. In my story, it turns out that Chuck is low-key God and is combining fanfiction plots and watching all the characters live them out for his amusement.

I don't like the piece and the last thing I wanted to see happen was for it to become some sort of reality on a long running show. I doubt I'm the only one who wrote something like that, it just makes me wonder how much the writers just half-assed things.

[ahrtee]

I started to put this in the Carry On thread, but it was turning into BvJ so I thought I'd play it safe.  Hopefully, this will be my last post in this thread.  

Oddly enough, after several weeks of stewing and cursing and complaining to everyone I know, I think I've finally found peace with the ending.  

Sam was alone.  Dean was happy.  (Maybe I am still a tad bitter....)

This comes from watching We Happy Few on TNT this morning; specifically, the scene where Sam tells Dean that he and Chuck have agreed that he has to take on the mark, and Dean will have to send him to wherever to deal with it. When it first aired, it had me fuming, and even more today, because it struck me (again) how hypocritical Sam was:  that he wanted Dean to do for him what he had refused to do for Dean.  And that started me thinking about all the times Dean had saved Sam, and all the times Sam had refused to let Dean sacrifice himself. 

Here's the thing:  Yes, Dean saved Sam only for himself.  Sam dying wouldn't have affected any outcome in the storyline.  The only time Sam's death was "to save the world" was jumping into the Pit--and that was the one time that Dean accepted it.  (Even with the trials--Sam had already agreed to stop before Gadreel's interference became necessary.)

But Sam kept stopping Dean from sacrificing himself *for the world.*  He stopped him from saying "yes" to Michael back in season 5, only to insist that Dean allow him to accept Lucifer.  He stopped Dean from using the Malak box, even after Death told him it was the only way.  He stopped him from quarantining himself with the Mark (the same thing Dean had just agreed to for Sam).  (Yes, he was willing to sacrifice himself that time, but he still wouldn't have been left behind.) The only time he accepted that Dean had to make the sacrifice was to stop Amara, and only after Chuck and everyone else told him it was the only way, after they'd exhausted all other options.   

How many times had Sam stopped Dean from doing something and then insisted that he do literally *the same thing* and Dean had to allow it?  How many times had Sam called Dean selfish and suicidal instead of sacrificing?  Blamed him for giving up instead of acknowledging that it was a logical answer?  The fact that they usually did find another way doesn't negate the fact that, all too often, the "other way" was worse than just letting Dean go.  

TL: DR:  So I think it was actually poetic justice that Sam wound up the one alone (and apparently miserable) for decades.  And that Dean was happy in heaven--he had all his loved ones he could visit if he wanted to, and he *didn't have to worry about Sam at all,* because the worst that could happen would be Sam died, and then would join him in Heaven.  

So Dean actually did get his happy ending, even if it's not what we would have expected (or wanted--at least, not so soon).  And Sam got payback for all those times he accused Dean of being selfish and not wanting to be alone.

See?  A (rather bitter) silver lining for me, at least.  

[Myrelle]

19 minutes ago, ahrtee said:

I started to put this in the Carry On thread, but it was turning into BvJ so I thought I'd play it safe.  Hopefully, this will be my last post in this thread.  

Oddly enough, after several weeks of stewing and cursing and complaining to everyone I know, I think I've finally found peace with the ending.  

Sam was alone.  Dean was happy.  (Maybe I am still a tad bitter....)

This comes from watching We Happy Few on TNT this morning; specifically, the scene where Sam tells Dean that he and Chuck have agreed that he has to take on the mark, and Dean will have to send him to wherever to deal with it. When it first aired, it had me fuming, and even more today, because it struck me (again) how hypocritical Sam was:  that he wanted Dean to do for him what he had refused to do for Dean.  And that started me thinking about all the times Dean had saved Sam, and all the times Sam had refused to let Dean sacrifice himself. 

Here's the thing:  Yes, Dean saved Sam only for himself.  Sam dying wouldn't have affected any outcome in the storyline.  The only time Sam's death was "to save the world" was jumping into the Pit--and that was the one time that Dean accepted it.  (Even with the trials--Sam had already agreed to stop before Gadreel's interference became necessary.)

But Sam kept stopping Dean from sacrificing himself *for the world.*  He stopped him from saying "yes" to Michael back in season 5, only to insist that Dean allow him to accept Lucifer.  He stopped Dean from using the Malak box, even after Death told him it was the only way.  He stopped him from quarantining himself with the Mark (the same thing Dean had just agreed to for Sam).  (Yes, he was willing to sacrifice himself that time, but he still wouldn't have been left behind.) The only time he accepted that Dean had to make the sacrifice was to stop Amara, and only after Chuck and everyone else told him it was the only way, after they'd exhausted all other options.   

How many times had Sam stopped Dean from doing something and then insisted that he do literally *the same thing* and Dean had to allow it?  How many times had Sam called Dean selfish and suicidal instead of sacrificing?  Blamed him for giving up instead of acknowledging that it was a logical answer?  The fact that they usually did find another way doesn't negate the fact that, all too often, the "other way" was worse than just letting Dean go.  

TL: DR:  So I think it was actually poetic justice that Sam wound up the one alone (and apparently miserable) for decades.  And that Dean was happy in heaven--he had all his loved ones he could visit if he wanted to, and he *didn't have to worry about Sam at all,* because the worst that could happen would be Sam died, and then would join him in Heaven.  

So Dean actually did get his happy ending, even if it's not what we would have expected (or wanted--at least, not so soon).  And Sam got payback for all those times he accused Dean of being selfish and not wanting to be alone.

See?  A (rather bitter) silver lining for me, at least.  

I hear you.

I also have been trying with everything that's in me to find some kind of a silver lining in this mess of an ending, too.

And FWIW, the small one that I came up with is not that different from yours.

For me, Sam losing Dean for years finally gave Sam a better perspective on how much Dean's life truly mattered in Sam's own.

I never felt that Sam really and truly appreciated Dean's presence enough in his life, but being without Dean all those years?-well, hopefully that did the trick.

And yes, Dean in Heaven, and not having to suffer that particular lesson was not only poetic justice, AFAIC.

I would also call it Grace-which Dean so well deserved, IMO, and had earned 10 times over in his short lifetime, again, AFAIC. And this, even though Grace is sometimes deemed by humans to be something that is not always thought of as being deserved or earned, but only God-gifted and given.

And that sort of fits in with the roots of this show, in a way, too.

 

 

[Airmid]

24 minutes ago, Myrelle said:

I never felt that Sam really and truly appreciated Dean's presence enough in his life, but being without Dean all those years?-well, hopefully that did the trick.

A few weeks ago I read a fanfic that had this kind of story. Only after Dean's final death did Sam fully figure his shit out. Though in the fic, while struggling, he strove to have a good life that he could share with his brother to show that the sacrifice made was worth it if he saw him again [remember Sam wasn't privy to Dean being in heaven and may have actually thought they were still going to The Empty, which really changes the way I see Sam's behavior in the finale when I view it through that lens]. During the story he does hold onto the hope that he'll be able to see Dean at some point which does happen and he's able to honor his brother.

Really wish I had bookmarked that thing [was on my phone at the time] as it came out during the big fanfic push of people writing their own [and at times much better] endings to the series and haven't been able to find it again, but I like to think of the finale in that way.

Or just not existing and the whole series ended with Dean watching Chuck and Amara float up into the atmosphere in S11. That also works, at least for me. 

[tessathereaper]

That doesn't really work for me because it's still making it about Sam, and what Sam deserves, even if it's negative, rather than what Dean deserves.  Dean deserved life.  It wouldn't have been perfect, life never is, but it would have been his and I'm pretty sure he'd have been happy with it.

Edited December 15, 2020 by tessathereaper

[BabySpinach]

I do think that what comes across on the screen is at least somewhat different to what was intended. 

For one thing, Dean dying in the series finale pretty much ensured that both the episode and the show's ending would mostly revolve around him. After his death, the entire next half of Sam's life, which looked to be around forty years, was sped through in a minutes-long montage. The show that we cared about died along with Dean; Sam's remaining years were pretty much irrelevant to it. I can guarantee that a good portion of the viewing audience were just waiting for Sam to finally croak and rejoin his brother while the montage ran, which doesn't come across as a particularly favorable framing of the top-billed and supposed "main character".

Dean was the one who got the speech about Heaven's reformation and how it'd mostly been done on his behalf (the Heaven he "deserved"). He was ultimately more connected to the cosmic side of things than Sam, who puttered through a Regular Joe life and apparently accomplished nothing significant again. 

Now that I've gotten some distance from the finale, I realize that Dean going out memorably and impactfully is at least preferable to lingering on as the normie husband of Blurry Wife and father of Sam Jr. who is never as happy as he deserves to be because he misses his brother too much. Imagine poor Dean, who's only ever wanted his family together, suffering decades of grief and pain that he doesn't remotely deserve, becoming stagnant and irrelevant until he gradually fades away. That may have actually been more depressing and insulting to his character, if his and Sam's places had been switched. Not to mention all the eye-rolly Saint Sammy nonsense that would have inevitably accompanied the switch.

And this is just me working with what we've got. Obviously, a finale I actually liked would have turned out way different for both Sam and Dean (and I will never get over how Dean was cruelly cheated out of a long life of freedom and being loved and finally loving himself). But at this point, I'm glad to examine alternate perspectives to the garbage we were served.

[Aeryn13]

3 minutes ago, BabySpinach said:

I do think that what comes across on the screen is at least somewhat different to what was intended. 

For one thing, Dean dying in the series finale pretty much ensured that both the episode and the show's ending would mostly revolve around him. After his death, the entire next half of Sam's life, which looked to be around forty years, was sped through in a minutes-long montage. The show that we cared about died along with Dean; Sam's remaining years were pretty much irrelevant to it. I can guarantee that a good portion of the viewing audience were just waiting for Sam to finally croak and rejoin his brother while the montage ran, which doesn't come across as a particularly favorable framing of the top-billed and supposed "main character".

Dean was the one who got the speech about Heaven's reformation and how it'd mostly been done on his behalf (the Heaven he "deserved"). He was ultimately more connected to the cosmic side of things than Sam, who puttered through a Regular Joe life and apparently accomplished nothing significant again. 

Now that I've gotten some distance from the finale, I realize that Dean going out memorably and impactfully is at least preferable to lingering on as the normie husband of Blurry Wife and father of Sam Jr. who is never as happy as he deserves to be because he misses his brother too much. Imagine poor Dean, who's only ever wanted his family together, suffering decades of grief and pain that he doesn't remotely deserve, becoming stagnant and irrelevant until he gradually fades away. That may have actually been more depressing and insulting to his character, if his and Sam's places had been switched. Not to mention all the eye-rolly Saint Sammy nonsense that would have inevitably accompanied the switch.

And this is just me working with what we've got. Obviously, a finale I actually liked would have turned out way different for both Sam and Dean (and I will never get over how Dean was cruelly cheated out of a long life of freedom and being loved and finally loving himself). But at this point, I'm glad to examine alternate perspectives to the garbage we were served.

They could still have done the rough beats of the Finale but with a much better execution.

Like, make it clear some time has passed, like a year or two where both enjoyed life. Shoot Dean's death in a better way. Like actually protecting one of the children. Cut/change a lot of "I'm so inferior to you" speech. Then make a real funeral where you acknowledge that Dean has a legacy and will be missed. Show him do something in heaven other than being shelved till Sam arrives. Make the reunion a better scene, instead of the meh "hey".

Give the freaking show a legacy and acknowledge the people saved and the world made better. This was missing entirely. Not 1 % of the Series Finale did that. And nope, that's not the task of any episode prior. Not that any did. The penultimate didn’t either.

It wouldn't be as bad if Badd himself hadn't retconned this Chuck story/ they never mattered or did anything nonsense because now everything is questionable. And the first episode afterward happened to be this garbage Finale.