Supernatural Bitterness & Unpopular Opinions: You All Suck

trxr4kids · April 10, 2016

I thought they were setting up Dean to disrupt the natural order of well everything because he was a completely chaotic force because he was totally self-centered, volatile, unpredictable and literally couldn't care less what anyone wanted him to do.

That would have been fantastic which is why it didn't happen on this show not to mention how they would handle a redemption arc for him. It wouldn't happen, he still hasn't gotten redemption narratively for breaking the first seal or the Gadreel thing. I'm really not disagreeing here about DemonDean, it frustrates me to no end as well. The writers and showrunners have consistently dropped the ball with Dean in favor of what I consider less interesting storylines to the point that I know it's not so much a fumble as a bait and switch. I'm still mad about Dean's time in purgatory. I loathe everything about season 8 still and it's been years.

ETA I just saw your edit and second your BAH and add a GRRRR!

Edited April 10, 2016 by trxr4kids

DittyDotDot · April 10, 2016

IMO, the main reason--not necessarily the only one--Demon Dean wasn't more than three episodes was due to the show's inability to deviate from it's regular format of Sam and Dean hunting monsters together for more than a couple episodes. I think they thought it would be cool thing to do at the end of S9, jumped in without looking, and then sat down in the writer's room to work on S10 and realized they couldn't really do it do it unless they changed the show. So, they cured Dean and went back to the status quo.

This is a really good example of why one might want to look before they leap.

Aeryn13 · April 10, 2016

Demon Dean wasn't more than three episodes was due to the show's inability to deviate from it's regular format of Sam and Dean hunting monsters together for more than a couple episodes.

That wasn`t a reason for them to truncate either soulless!Sam or Gadreel!Sam. Likewise, for Demon!Dean, they could have found a way to make him work within the established format. It`s not like he was acting any more evil than soulless. All it would have needed was some interest in pursuing the storyline. But if that is not there, you get Demon!Dean as was. Or the current Dean/Amara "bond".

catrox14 · April 10, 2016

IMO, the main reason--not necessarily the only one--Demon Dean wasn't more than three episodes was due to the show's inability to deviate from it's regular format of Sam and Dean hunting monsters together for more than a couple episodes. I think they thought it would be cool thing to do at the end of S9, jumped in without looking, and then sat down in the writer's room to work on S10 and realized they couldn't really do it do it unless they changed the show. So, they cured Dean and went back to the status quo.

Eh, they managed to changed that status quo for Soulless Sam and Gadreel Sam and both hunted with Dean. And nope I don't buy the, "Well they did it with Sam twice so they shouldn't do it with Dean" because Sam has also had Purgatory and Hell which Dean had first. Just sayin'

And let me just continue with my bitterness about Fan Fiction.

I've said it before, said it last season and agreed with FlickChick that it was really Fan Fiction having to air as the 200th that derailed demon!Dean.

Point of No Return was 100th episode and was (IMO infuriating) part of the entire arc of s5. They didn't throw out the arc just for the 100th. They still had a big party to celebrate it with all the big wigs.

There was NO reason for Fan Fiction to be the 200th other than a big PR thing IMO that hurt a really great SL IN MY OPINION. And even worse, it served NO PUPROSE to the MoC SL at all. It didn't serve as the reunion of the brothers because they were already hunting together again in Paper Moon which was the episode right before Fan Fiction. Sigh

OH MY GODS. I'm even more salty about thinking about this.

BAH GRRRR AND NOW ARRGGGHHHH

DittyDotDot · April 10, 2016

IMO, the reason the show could have Soulless Sam and Dean hunting was simply because Dean kept Soulless Sam in check. I don't think there's any believable way Sam could've controlled Demon Dean enough to realistically be hunting. Plus, when they did Soulless Sam, the fans screamed that it was ridiculous Sam was hunting anyway. IMO, they learned their lesson and didn't wish to repeat their previous mistakes.

Sometimes making things even doesn't really make them even, IMO.

rue721 · April 10, 2016

There was NO reason for Fan Fiction to be the 200th other than a big PR thing IMO that hurt a really great SL IN MY OPINION. And even worse, it served NO PUPROSE to the MoC SL at all. It didn't serve as the reunion of the brothers because they were already hunting together again in Paper Moon which was the episode right before Fan Fiction. Sigh

Ultimately, it seems that Demon!Dean didn't fit in that well with the story that the writers wanted to tell, so they dropped it and didn't pick it back up again.

I think that the 200th episode occurring early in the season might have influenced the timeline somewhat, but if the writers wanted to work around that, they could have. I think the truth is that the writers weren't interested in delving further into a story about Demon!Dean, so they didn't. They didn't even bother explaining how he became a demon in the first place or how Crowley was involved in that, and their failure to go into explanations like that was clearly not dictated by the timing of the 200th episode.

I'm a little salty about it in that I think there was wasted potential there. Why even bother making Dean into a demon if he was going to be cured before we even really got to see what Demon!Dean was like as a character? If he wasn't going to do anything even that exceptionally different from regular!Dean? The answer is probably that they simply wanted to create a good season-ending cliffhanger (Dean waking up with black eyes) and for the shock value of it. Once they'd created the cliffhanger and capitalized on the shock value, they were done with that story.

Realistically, the core of the show is two brothers hunting monsters together and exploring their relationship, and anything that pulls the show away from that story is going to be pretty ruthlessly edited down or out.

catrox14 · April 10, 2016

IMO, the reason the show could have Soulless Sam and Dean hunting was simply because Dean kept Soulless Sam in check. I don't think there's any believable way Sam could've controlled Demon Dean enough to realistically be hunting. Plus, when they did Soulless Sam, the fans screamed that it was ridiculous Sam was hunting anyway. IMO, they learned their lesson and didn't wish to repeat their previous mistakes.

Sometimes making things even doesn't really make them even, IMO.

What worked or failed for one character should not pre-determine it's potential success or failure for a different character, IMO. That's flat out lazy writing IMO.

Soulless Sam had no discernment and he asked Dean to be his 'conscience.

Demon!Dean wouldn't need to be held in check because he had control over what he was doing. He made choices about who he killed. IMO if Dean wanted to hunt, he would do that. Demon!Dean didn't just slaughter indiscriminately. He had purpose to his kills that I saw.

I think as long as Demon!Dean could get his kill on he would have been just fine. He might have been disinclined to run into a building to save someone but if he could kill a demon and get his bloodlust on? I think he would have been a better hunter than MoC!Dean who did occasionally lose control.

Demon!Dean: Demon Hitman/Hunter. Man..I would have watched the hell out of that for 6 to 10 episodes.

Aeryn13 · April 10, 2016

Plus, when they did Soulless Sam, the fans screamed that it was ridiculous Sam was hunting anyway. IMO, they learned their lesson and didn't wish to repeat their previous mistakes.

They usually don`t show much awareness for the criticisms they get. Like the lol!canon kerflufles that keep happening when they could get a continuity person for probably basically five bucks an episode. But in this case I can see their thought process being "thank god, Sam already got his due, that`s all that matters." .

Even the actors have commented at conventions that Jared kept getting all the alternative character versions. And if the PTBs said it was because they have no faith in Jensen`s acting abilities, I would laugh in their faces. I think even they know them not giving him opportunities has anything to do wih lack of talent.

Edited April 10, 2016 by Aeryn13

DittyDotDot · April 10, 2016

What worked or failed for one character should not pre-determine it's potential success or failure for a different character, IMO. That's flat out lazy writing IMO.

And, that was my point.

catrox14 · April 10, 2016

They didn't even bother explaining how he became a demon in the first place or how Crowley was involved in that, and their failure to go into explanations like that was clearly not dictated by the timing of the 200th episode.

IMO, if they had placed Fan Fiction at 7 or 8 they could have ran with demon!Dean straight through. Gotten the answers as to why Dean was turned. What was Crowley's ultimate plan revealed in like episode 3. Show Sam doing more stuff to find Dean. Working with Cas or making a deal with a demon non-Crowley division.

I would have accepted the 200th as the episode in which Sam finally tracks down Dean and hauls him back to the bunker to cure him. That would have been 5 episodes of demon!Dean doing MORE than get drunk and sing karoake and get laid. But I figured we'd get demon!Dean until the mid season finale when Sam finally tracks him down and hauls him to the bunker for curing.

The crazy part is that Jensen said he was playing it that Dean was slowly turning back into a demon. Sigh.

catrox14 · April 10, 2016

And, that was my point.

Oh, I guess I took your comment differently. My mistake

AwesomO4000 · April 10, 2016

And if Dean is given a little story, then this is a trial run to later do it bigger and better with Sam. Dean suffered a measly 40 years in Disneyland hell and broke? Brace yourselves for Sam suffering untold REAL horrors in the cage for a billion years. Dean was a year in Purgatory? Sam hop--skipped through it in a day and that was part of a meaningful mission. Dean`s part in the previous mytharc gets thrown to the side like trash, Sam`s Lucifer-connection comes back even in Season 11.

But they've done a similar thing with giving "Sam" stories to Dean and Dean doing them "better." Let's take the demon Dean and mark of Cain stories for example. It's Dean getting power like Sam had with the demon blood, but was Dean arrogant as a result of his powers? Did Dean start an apocalypse? Nope he killed the bad girl and helped in the fight to get rid of Metatron using the mark, and as catrox mentioned above, was even mostly able to reign himself in as demon Dean. So even as a demon, Dean was able to keep himself together, while Sam couldn't even handle a little demon blood without betraying his brother, getting high on power, and causing an apocalypse. One way to interpret the narrative is that poor mark of Cain Dean would've handled himself fine if only Sam and Castiel hadn't screwed things up.

And a similar case can be made for Dean/Lisa vs Sam/Amelia... having Sam break up with Amelia before Dean even returned just showed that Sam couldn't do it and it was just delusional on his part if he was blaming Dean or hunting for the relationship failure. Whereas I thought there was a good argument made narratively that Dean was doing pretty well with Lisa and Ben, and it was soulless Sam who screwed it up.

Another case: Sam saving Dean when he didn't want to be saved at the end of season 10 results in Sam starting an apocalypse. Dean saving Sam when he didn't necessarily want it at the beginning of season 9 means that Dean helps to stop Metatron from trying to start an apocalypse, because Gadreel turns out to be helpful and critical to Metatron's defeat. Also to a lesser extent: getting Sam's soul back. Again: a good thing with no bad results.

And again: Sam trusts Ruby - disaster. Dean trusts Meg - good result, and Meg becomes an ally.

That`s why I`m still not quite discarding the possibility of Sam receiving the Mark of Cain, only this time he can use it for a super-heroic purpose and have ultra-special, never before seen powers and of course control it perfectly because he is just better in every way than sloppy, needy Dean.

We haven't heard about "sloppy, needy Dean" in a long time, and that was out of the mouth of a demon. What we've been shown (imo) is screw up Sam who can't get along without Dean... and Dean trying to shake him off since about mid-season 9 - first with the mark of Cain, then as a demon, and then with the mark of Cain again. The narrative has pretty much shown since that time a Dean who is saddled with having to clean up his brother's messes again and again just as demon Dean said in "Soul Survivor." The only deviation so far from that general theme was - finally - "Red Meat", where Sam actually managed to save himself for once. But until that point, it had pretty consistently been Dean and his mostly screw up brother Sam (and to a lesser extent his screw up friend Castiel) overtones since the beginning of season 8, in my opinion.

But what I finally figured out by the end of s10 was that demon!Dean was never actually about Dean at all.

Demon!Dean was a plot device for Sam's characterization and redemption.

That's not even bitterness. I think that was proven textually throughout the season. They spent most of Black showing us Sam looking for Dean and then half of the remaining two Demon!Dean episodes showing us the lengths Sam would go to save Dean.

Now whether that made Sam look like a hypocrite or not, doesn't change that it did affect Sam's arc and that is still being seen in s11. I also don't think they really intended for Sam to be a hypocrite but more that Sam was learning a lesson about himself.

IMO if demon!Dean was actually about Dean, they would have spent a considerable more amount of time exploring what that was like for Dean. We would have seen other characters talk about what it would mean for Dean to be a demon not just the facts of him being a demon and how to save him or maybe kill him.

But is this any different really from the Sam and Gadreel arc? We got a little of what Sam supposedly felt about being unknowingly possessed and it might have been interesting and insightful (in my opinion, especially when Sam was worried that he might be "wrong" again and how awful that made Sam feel), but ultimately in the end, that emotional arc turned out more to be a "lesson" for Sam about how Dean was right all along about everything. It was also a lot about Dean's guilt and angst and how Dean took on the mark of Cain and what that meant.

I'm also not really seeing how it is still Sam's arc in season 11 except for him to learn once again maybe that Dean is right. I am thinking this, because I am expecting that Dean will be correct that the right thing to do is to save Castiel, and the reason that they had Sam argue briefly for letting Castiel do what Cas chose is to show that Sam is once again wrong and should just listen to Dean on these matters, because he (Sam) always chooses wrongly, even when it supposedly makes sense. It's interesting that Sam's "lesson" last time was that he probably should have listened to Dean and not tried to save Dean, because look at the mess he made starting an apocalypse, but this time the lesson is probably going to be the opposite... because this time it's Dean's idea.

Also Sam's "redemption" and what he learned from demon Dean arc was that - surprise, surprise - Dean was right. It really is all about hunting with his brother no matter what and that this is what he (Sam) wants. Again. Too bad stupid Sam just didn't listen to his brother all along and maybe most of this stuff wouldn't have happened. Again. And why Sam had to learn that "lesson" all over again and it had to take over 2 seasons of his arc (because that's really the only arc Sam had pretty much for season 9 and 10) I'll never get and that pisses me off. Sam already knew he wanted to hunt with Dean since waaaaay back in season 5 at the latest. Even soulless Sam wanted to hunt with Dean. Season 7 crazy Sam wanted to hunt with Dean. That Sam got regressed in season 8 and we had to devote 2 seasons of Sam's arc in season 9 and 10 to him learning this all over again while Dean does a majority of the hunting, for me was annoying. That Sam had to learn it again so that Dean could be "right" was even more annoying. And that Sam had to learn it while at the same time Dean seemed to be trying to get rid of Sam a lot was... well you get the idea.

This has happened before on this show - see my above example of Sam saving Dean vs Dean saving Sam and the results. Sam generally has to "learn a lesson" a lot even when sometimes those "lessons" are contradictory.

Even the actors have commented at conventions that Jared kept getting all the alternative character versions. And if the PTBs said it was because they have no faith in Jensen`s acting abilities, I would laugh in their faces. I think even they know them not giving him opportunities has anything to do wih lack of talent.

This comment doesn't really make much sense to me - If you look over at the "Supernatural Survival" contests, there are actually more alternate Deans than there are Sams - 5 more actually. That does include 2 non-Jensen Deans, but still, that would still be 3 more alternate Jensen Deans than Jared Sams used on the show. And a couple more - like shapeshifter Dean and leviathan Dean weren't even counted, because it was a monster and not Dean's body. So I have no idea where that perception from the actors came from since it isn't even true.

catrox14 · April 10, 2016

Also Sam's "redemption" and what he learned from demon Dean arc was that - surprise, surprise - Dean was right.

I think the redemption came in the form of a "fixit" vs Dean being right, if that makes sense? It continued to be fixed in s11 with Sam apologizing for not even TRYING to look for Dean.

Edited April 10, 2016 by catrox14

catrox14 · April 10, 2016

This comment doesn't really make much sense to me - If you look over at the "Supernatural Survival" contests, there are actually more alternate Deans than there are Sams - 5 more actually. That does include 2 non-Jensen Deans, but still, that would still be 3 more alternate Jensen Deans than Jared Sams used on the show. And a couple more - like shapeshifter Dean and leviathan Dean weren't even counted, because it was a monster and not Dean's body. So I have no idea where that perception from the actors came from since it isn't even true.

I think what J2 means is that Jared has played completely different characters, like Meg, Lucifer, and Gadreel whereas Jensen plays variations on Dean for the most part.

Edited April 10, 2016 by catrox14

AwesomO4000 · April 11, 2016

I think what J2 means is that Jared has played completely different characters, like Meg, Lucifer, and Gadreel whereas Jensen plays variations on Dean for the most part.

Ah, okay. That makes more sense. I'm not sure why, but it seems to be a thing that Dean doesn't get possessed. Most of the other main characters have been except Dean. But Jensen did get to play a shifter and a leviathan at least, though, true, not a possessing other person in Dean's body.

I think the redemption came in the form of a "fixit" vs Dean being right, if that makes sense? It continued to be fixed in s11 with Sam apologizing for not even TRYING to look for Dean.

I think if that was the intention, it might've been better for me if the message maybe weren't so muddled. Yes, they had Sam save Dean this time in season 10, but then they confused that by having Sam start an apocalypse because of it, making it a bad thing. In contrast, the writers had started out season 9 with Dean's decision to save Sam supposedly being an iffy thing, but by the end of that season - which went out of its way in my opinion to make Sam look pissy about it and not much else* - not only was Sam agreeing with Dean ("I lied") and about to be on a similar journey of his own to save Dean against his wishes, Gadreel turned out to have a better redemption arc of his own and helped to defeat Metatron, making it look like Dean was right to do what he did.

The interesting thing was that not only was Dean proven right concerning Gadreel by the narrative, he didn't apologize, nor did he have to - because: right. But when Sam did a similar thing in season 10... oops he started an apocalypse, and so had to re-examine all of his flaws as to why he was such a screw up and then apologize to Dean. After also once again being wrong about his visions (more Dean was right), and screwing up again by getting stuck in the cage.

I see a lot of complaints about the crappy stuff Sam said in "The Purge" (some of them from me, but I blame the writers mostly), but Dean said a lot of crappy stuff too in season 10. Yes, he was under the influence of the mark, but still...

And because Sam started the apocalypse again, he is still in the position now of being the apologetic brother with Dean often dismissing his suggestions or outright ignoring his point of view just because Dean "said so." And then since Dean is right, Sam just has to take it. And that is pretty much his role now with the one exception of "Red Meat" - which was, for me, a nice change of pace in the current trend. Even in this past episode though, Sam is as usual expected to follow along... and he does as usual, because Sam generally does. It might be nice if Dean considered Sam's point of view for at least a moment though. Or maybe I'm missing something.

* Sam was pretty much useless otherwise, with a grand total of two episodes out of 23 with hunter kills - and one of those kills was in an episode which even though I liked it, had the main goal of Sam telling Dean that he was right and that they should go after Abaddon, pretty much validating Dean's decision to take on the mark of Cain.

So considering all of the above, I'm being serious when I'm asking exactly what was Sam's redemption arc that demon Dean's arc was servicing, because the fact that Sam started an apocalypse pretty much is a big neon sign to me saying "This was the wrong thing to do!" not really a redemption arc. So to have him do that just to set up this convoluted thing where he could apologize after yet again being wrong about something, seems a bit much to me. I think it could've been done without damaging Sam's character so much. And yes, Sam apologized and that was a good thing, but he is still being shown as "wrong" after doing it, with Dean still sometimes treating him like the puppy who chewed his favorite shoe and can't be trusted. So when does that end and Sam actually get to contribute positively to the mytharc again?

mertensia · April 11, 2016

It almost makes me understand how Sam just walked away from it all in season 8. I still think he should have tried to look for Dean, and that will always bother me, but I can fully understand why he couldn't continue to hunt.

I just pretend I watched a scene that has Sam explaining to Dean and Kevin that he had a breakdown and could barely look after himself let alone do anything to help them. Because apparently only Carver thought that was unrealistic.

Aeryn13 · April 11, 2016

And because Sam started the apocalypse again, he is still in the position now of being the apologetic brother with Dean often dismissing his suggestions or outright ignoring his point of view just because Dean "said so."

Sam himself has said several times now how "him AND Dean released Amara", that was even recently in the previouslies to drive the point home that both are to blame. So both the narrative and the character see that as a joint venture. But when Dean said he considered himself too weak for the redemption mission, Sam was also "I got it". Not "we" or "I think you`re selling yourself short" or anything like that.

And I don`t think he is acting exactly meek this Season. He argued his God visions and the plan in episode 9. That Dean asked not to do anything rash and not alone was IMO not bossy. Dean should be allowed a voice and an opinion as well without it being considered a dictatorship. But either way, Sam ultimately did what he wanted to do and had Rowena open the Cage. That led to an opportunity for Lucifer to get free. Due to a stupid decision by Cas? Yes. But Sam provided the springboard. And has either the narrative or Dean or anyone voiced one peep about this? No.

The mid-Season opener was written as if Dabb created a story for every character but Dean and then thought "shit, I have to insert this dude into it somehow, well, I guess a filler scene here and there will do". Meeting with Billie and no mention about Dean killing Death. It couldn`t have less of a mytharc connection for the character if they tried.

Sam saved himself and the entire townsfolk in episode 2 as well. He finished the final sigil in the Safe House. And I do believe he was the one who actively finished other MOTW hunts. And in Red Meat he jumped up from a deathbed, killed two large werewolves easily and even had to rescue Dean. Meanwhile the depiction of Dean in this episode was someone pathetic and weak. Oh, and lets not forget the "selfish" part that harkened back to the Purge speech. The writers of that episode crowed how those were home truths so apparently that is what they think of the character, a weak selfish coward. But since this Season he reacts to "saving people" as the newest idea of Sam ever, no wonder.

Meanwhile Dean is so passive this Season, it`s as if his bond with Amara paralyzes him even in standalones. He also has to be saved quite a bit again now that the MOC is gone and apparently he can`t handle himself anymore.

Also, compare the show and tell with the Amara thing. The show had Dean being confused in her presence but twice breaking free rather easily. He did try to kill her but didn`t succeed due to the weapon in play. But in "tell", it gets hammered home how he "struck out" against her and how he absolutely is like her zombie slave without free will. And nothing, absolutely nothing got explained about their connection in 18 episodes. She kissed him instead of sucking out his soul? The writers go the "eh, think of it whatever" route. It doesn`t matter, it wasn`t a story point and they could not care less about the story. Message received.

And the hammering home about being just a witness and standing around. Sure, he "got" another time travel episode but seriously, he could just as well have watched an old home movie about the sub. Those crew were the heroes, Dean had nothing to do in that ep. And he returned with a useless artifact. The actual meat of that episode was given to Sam and Lustiel.

Not to mention the message of letting Sam go. Again, some more. This looks like Suck Song done beat by beat.

I also have to laugh how Dean supposedly has stronger emotional bonds with Cas etc. For the last two years Cas gets way more scenes with Sam. And they bond aplenty in those. Every 25 or so episodes they occassionally throw in a bone where Dean supposedly still has a relationship with Cas and then it`s just as easily ignored again.

Super-ironically, the few moments this Season I have seen people even talk about for Dean were ad-libs of Jensen, Like goofing around in the wrestling ring. So nothing that is scripted is actually noteworthy for the character this year.

Edited April 11, 2016 by Aeryn13

catrox14 · April 11, 2016

It seems to be typical under Carver that plot takes precedence over character unless you're Crowley, Cas and Rowena who had more character growth than either Sam or Dean, who were actively regressed.

iMO s8 was a Poor Man's S1. It was a redux of Sam going on his own, like he did when he went to college which IMO is why Carver thought Sam not looking for Dean was a healthy choice. Then we have the crazy older brother who shows up and drags the younger brother back to a life he never wanted to have. BUT that's a problem because it threw away 7 seasons of characterization to make it happen.

Then they frame bad characterization as "character change/"growth" for the sake of the plot. IF Carver was trying to get back to Swan Song then following the template of s4, Sam had to have a reason to be mad at Dean and that was Benny and then later being possessed by Gadreel, which puts Dean as the bad guy for being friends with a vampire and killing Amy and a bad guy for allowing an angel to possess Sam even if it was to save Sam's life.

So maybe it's more like they are taking a Mulligan. But the Mulligan was still about Sam's story.

Edited April 11, 2016 by catrox14

MysteryGuest · April 11, 2016

They've handled the Amara/Dean connection the same way they handled the Mark of Cain. While they keep telling us that there's this great bond between them, they've really shown us nothing. And with the MOC, everyone kept talking all season about how Dean was succumbing to the Mark, but you never really saw much evidence of that until the last handful of episodes. Maybe the writers just don't watch the show?

catrox14 · April 11, 2016

They've handled the Amara/Dean connection the same way they handled the Mark of Cain. While they keep telling us that there's this great bond between them, they've really shown us nothing. And with the MOC, everyone kept talking all season about how Dean was succumbing to the Mark, but you never really saw much evidence of that until the last handful of episodes. Maybe the writers just don't watch the show?

I think this is why I lament demon!Dean. It was tangible and it was heading to a dark place. We saw him DOING things, I know there is conventional wisdom that all demon!Dean did was sing karoake, get drunk and get laid, if all one did was watch Black. But like I said before IMO the path Reichenbach had set up was beyond that. It was an actual thing that Dean was doing that was totally separate from Sam. He was hanging with Crowley but it wasn't about Crowley. Just like the Purgatory SL was about Dean and his struggles.

When it lasted only 3 episodes and focused as much on Sam and Cas as it did Dean...I realized what was up because the rest of the SL was Sam saving Dean which he could have still tried to do but it would be demon!Dean who was interesting to me. Man...so much wasted frakking potential.

rue721 · April 11, 2016

They've handled the Amara/Dean connection the same way they handled the Mark of Cain. While they keep telling us that there's this great bond between them, they've really shown us nothing. And with the MOC, everyone kept talking all season about how Dean was succumbing to the Mark, but you never really saw much evidence of that until the last handful of episodes. Maybe the writers just don't watch the show?

Honestly, I don't think Bruckner and Ross-Lemming watch the show. There's always this bullshitty vibe to the character beats in their episodes. I get the feeling that they remember a few things from the very early seasons and/or they were given an "executive summary" of what's up with the characters now, and are trying to wing it based on that.

The most recent example of that "bullshitty character beats" thing that I can think of is the "It's his CHOICE!" argument between Sam and Dean in Hell's Angel.

I'm not even going to bother going into how terrible they are with canon, which is especially silly to me considering that they write practically all the big mytharc episodes themselves anyway. We probably all know/agree about that anyway.

ETA:

I think maybe the writers' room isn't very cohesive and there seems to be a real lack of communication between writers, which results in story beats falling through the cracks and the plotlines being kind of herky-jerky and uneven. But I think that everyone else on the writing staff (well, save for Carver, but it seems like he's got a foot and a half out the door anyway) seems to legitimately care about the show and take pride in their work.

Edited April 11, 2016 by rue721

AwesomO4000 · April 11, 2016

Sam himself has said several times now how "him AND Dean released Amara", that was even recently in the previouslies to drive the point home that both are to blame. So both the narrative and the character see that as a joint venture. But when Dean said he considered himself too weak for the redemption mission, Sam was also "I got it". Not "we" or "I think you`re selling yourself short" or anything like that.

I might be remembering it incorrectly, but I remember Sam saying once something like "we made this" - meaning the situation - which they did... and this goes back all the way to them trying to save each other no matter what which lead to where they are now, but Sam was very clear in his prayer that "I did this" - in that case meaning the Darkness situation. As for the narrative, I thought it was pretty clearly set up to be Sam's fault based on Dean repeatedly telling Sam not to mess with getting rid of the mark or the Book of the Damned and showing Dean with a plan and generally "managing" himself. Due to that, I knew 6 episodes ahead of time - and it's likely stated here somewhere in the spoilers thread - that something awful was going to happen because of what Sam was doing and that it would be his fault, because to me the narrative made that clear. I thought the narrative went out of the way to show exactly that it wasn't Dean's fault, but I guess miles vary.

As for the "I've got this," I thought that Sam was trying to be supportive and take the burden off of Dean so that Dean wouldn't worry. But that was just my interpretation.

And I don`t think he is acting exactly meek this Season. He argued his God visions and the plan in episode 9. That Dean asked not to do anything rash and not alone was IMO not bossy. Dean should be allowed a voice and an opinion as well without it being considered a dictatorship. But either way, Sam ultimately did what he wanted to do and had Rowena open the Cage. That led to an opportunity for Lucifer to get free. Due to a stupid decision by Cas? Yes. But Sam provided the springboard. And has either the narrative or Dean or anyone voiced one peep about this? No.

I agree that Dean should be allowed to voice his opinion, just as I think Sam should. I wasn't talking so much about episode 9 where there was some exchange of ideas. I was mainly talking about previously when Sam was talking about his vision in the beginning and Dean pretty much just said no it's not God, because I said so. It's just bad dreams or your sickness, etc. I wish they had discussed it, because they were visions, and if the both of them had considered the possibility they might've figured out who it actually was (like I did right away).

As for the narrative not pointing out that Sam was to blame... I disagree. I thought that repeatedly having Dean say no it isn't, Sam, was the narrative saying "this is going to result in Sam doing something stupid, because he didn't listen to Dean." I knew from the second episode that it wasn't God, because Dean said it wasn't and generally when the narrative sets things up that way, Sam is wrong. And he was. For me, it was the same with the Darkness being set up as Sam's fault last season.

Sam saved himself and the entire townsfolk in episode 2 as well.

Somewhat accidentally. After he hid behind a desk while the infected person was banging on the door trying to get to the innocent people. Which wth? That's not exactly heroic there, so what was that supposed to be showing us?

He finished the final sigil in the Safe House.

Mostly because he was slower than Dean though. Dean's was the important "killing" sigil. But I agree they did that together. I agree that this season has been better than season 9 (yeesh) and 10 in the Sam hunting department.

Oh, and lets not forget the "selfish" part that harkened back to the Purge speech. The writers of that episode crowed how those were home truths so apparently that is what they think of the character, a weak selfish coward.

Enh, this past episode had a character proclaiming Sam to be the lumbering and dim one or something like that. They all get their digs in one way or another. The way I see it is, if anything was done on purpose, "The Purge" speech was added to damage Sam's character, not Dean's, because in the end, not only did Sam say "I lied," he then did exactly what Dean said he would do in both the season 9 and the season 10 finales, and the narrative "punished" Sam by having him start an apocalypse. In my opinion, if the writers really thought Dean was the "weak, selfish coward" character for having Gadreel save Sam, they would've made Gadreel the bad guy period rather than giving him a redemptive arc and a larger part in defeating the bad guy than even Sam had and they wouldn't have had Sam proclaim "I lied" (they would've had Sam stick to what he said in "The Purge" and under the same circumstances let Dean go). But they didn't even stop there, because then they actually had Sam do what Dean had done previously in the next season's finale, too. So if Dean is supposedly a weak, selfish coward for saving Sam no matter what, that by extension makes Sam exactly the same thing. Plus he started an apocalypse.

Also, compare the show and tell with the Amara thing. The show had Dean being confused in her presence but twice breaking free rather easily. He did try to kill her but didn`t succeed due to the weapon in play. But in "tell", it gets hammered home how he "struck out" against her and how he absolutely is like her zombie slave without free will.

By Dean. He's an unreliable narrator, and he's telling everyone else this, and they have no way of knowing what really happened, because only Dean was there. We, the audience, know it's not true though. No one else that I've seen except Dean is saying that he can't fight against Amara. It's a block that Dean feels, and I think it's because being around Amara likely affects him negatively, because she is a negative force. I thought it was interesting that Amara mentioned that Rowena has no capacity for compassion. Since Dean does, he might be much more negatively affected by being in Amara's presence.

And nothing, absolutely nothing got explained about their connection in 18 episodes. She kissed him instead of sucking out his soul? The writers go the "eh, think of it whatever" route. It doesn`t matter, it wasn`t a story point and they could not care less about the story. Message received.

Enh. It took 18 episodes before we found out about Sam's blood drinking also. And exactly what the blood did and what its role is in Sam's powers has still never been explained.

The actual meat of that episode was given to Sam and Lustiel.

Where the Sam/Lucifer connection was transferred over to Castiel. Lucifer could now care less about Sam.

My prediction is that the whole "we have to do things differently" from Sam in the second episode is going to turn out to be a red herring. I think the answer is going to be rooted in what Dean said this past episode - saving Castiel and working together to defeat Amara. Though I suspect that the final act is going to have to do with something concerning Dean's bond with Amara and the information he got from Billie about The Empty. I think that weird "we should honor Castiel's choice" thing from Sam was put there because it is going to be proven wrong. Just my hunch based on how the show has rolled previously.

It seems to be typical under Carver that plot takes precedence over character unless you're Crowley, Cas and Rowena who had more character growth than either Sam or Dean, who were actively regressed.

iMO s8 was a Poor Man's S1. It was a redux of Sam going on his own, like he did when he went to college which IMO is why Carver thought Sam not looking for Dean was a healthy choice. Then we have the crazy older brother who shows up and drags the younger brother back to a life he never wanted to have. BUT that's a problem because it threw away 7 seasons of characterization to make it happen.

Then they frame bad characterization as "character change/"growth" for the sake of the plot. IF Carver was trying to get back to Swan Song then following the template of s4, Sam had to have a reason to be mad at Dean and that was Benny and then later being possessed by Gadreel, which puts Dean as the bad guy for being friends with a vampire and killing Amy and a bad guy for allowing an angel to possess Sam even if it was to save Sam's life.

So maybe it's more like they are taking a Mulligan. But the Mulligan was still about Sam's story.

This does make some sense, but it's still not quite right for me, because Dean didn't really drag Sam away from his new life in season 8, since Sam had already broken up with Amelia before Dean even showed up.

And Dean wasn't a bad guy for having Benny as a friend, because Benny was good and usually Sam is the one to give monsters a chance. As for Amy, previously Sam had even agreed with Dean that Dean was right about Amy and even reiterated that lesson when Dean was being reckless the same way Sam had been, so what the hell on that one? And Dean wasn't even a bad guy for the Gadreel situation, because as I pointed out up above Gadreel turned out to be helpful and Sam did the same thing. So they didn't really give Sam anything to be angry about, and as such Sam being angry did nothing but make Sam look like a jerk and/or like a hypocrite and throw his character under the bus - twice. Thanks Carver. Bah.

And the even weirder thing was that maybe Carver sees things differently - doubt it - but one of the arcs in the middle seasons for Sam was Sam learning that not going off on your own, but instead helping the family and "taking responsibility" - in this case hunting - was the mature thing to do. That's most of what "Afterschool Special" and "Jump the Shark" was showing, so even in that context, it makes no sense. Again, I say bah.

And as for it not having much to do with Dean - I'm not sure about that either. Dean did kill Abaddon, helped to defeat Metatron, and went through a bunch of emotional turmoil. And I'm still getting - or at least I was getting - "Dean wants to be more independent" vibes from those seasons. After the Gadreel incident, it was really Sam who was shown to be the more "clingy" of the two. And that vision thing in "The Werther Project" still had Dean longing for simplicity and being free of the crushing responsibilities - the implication there perhaps of being responsible for the one who "sucks the life out of his life" (i.e. Sam). So I don't know... maybe this is leading up to Dean seeing The Empty and taking Amara with him as a release?

catrox14 · April 11, 2016

This does make some sense, but it's still not quite right for me, because Dean didn't really drag Sam away from his new life in season 8, since Sam had already broken up with Amelia before Dean even showed up.

The only thing we know is that Sam drove to the cabin, we don't know why. There was no indication Sam intended to go back to hunting. Assuming he didn't know Dean was going to be there, then I figure he went to stay there since he broke off with Amelia. Once there, it comes to light that he bailed on Kevin. Sam seemed to have every intention of finding Kevin and then getting on with his life. He was stalking Amelia on the internet. He had the chance to go back to Amelia but said no and IMO that was because Dean made him choose. He said if you're gonna be in, be in. No half measures. The entire first half of s8 Dean was Mr. PTSD. extremely violent and was friends with a Vampire which made him a hypocrite and scary.

So to me the message in the first half was that Sam was wrong to not look for Kevin but looking for Dean was optional and healthy because it was letting his brother go, which viewers roundly disagreed with. So now they are giving it a "mulligan" by saying that Sam felt guilty for not looking for him. But Sam acknowledging that guilt is what helped him Say NO to Lucifer. So to me it's still plot driven more than character driven.

I think I'm rambling now.

MysteryGuest · April 11, 2016

Season 8 was so frustrating because of how they handled the Sam storyline. Just a few more lines of explanation, and a little better delivery from Jared on seeing Dean alive, and it could have been so much better. But as it played out, Sam just came off as whiny and not overly happy to see Dean back, which sucked. I'm chalking it up to a combination of bad writing and bad acting, because I can't believe it was their intention to show Sam in such a bad light.

Throughout the series there have been a number of times when it does seem like Dean is dragging Sam back into hunting. And it probably is because he doesn't want to have to do the job alone. That's what Dean says right in the pilot, and there's a recurring theme of Sam making noises about leaving the life throughout the series. But then there are just as many scenes of Sam saying how much he loves the life, so again, I think it's at the writer's discretion as to which Sam shows up in which episode.

AwesomO4000 · April 12, 2016

The only thing we know is that Sam drove to the cabin, we don't know why. There was no indication Sam intended to go back to hunting. Assuming he didn't know Dean was going to be there, then I figure he went to stay there since he broke off with Amelia. Once there, it comes to light that he bailed on Kevin. Sam seemed to have every intention of finding Kevin and then getting on with his life. He was stalking Amelia on the internet. He had the chance to go back to Amelia but said no and IMO that was because Dean made him choose. He said if you're gonna be in, be in. No half measures. The entire first half of s8 Dean was Mr. PTSD. extremely violent and was friends with a Vampire which made him a hypocrite and scary.

I missed the stalking Amelia part, because I admit that I missed a couple of episodes in early season 8 (I was pissed off). So I might have missed some things. I assumed that the only reason why Sam saw Amelia again was because of the text message that Dean sent and that without that text message, Sam wouldn't have gone back... which to me actually makes sense, because she was married. To me there was actually some more character damage because Sam did go back actually ... and purposely had sex with a married woman (so more character assassination there for me, since previously that wasn't something I thought Sam would ever do). I also didn't get that Sam intended to look for Kevin until Dean showed up, because he dry-docked his phones and forgot about them. If you mean after that, they found Kevin pretty quickly, so Sam could've left then.

I also missed the PTSD part, because I don't think that they played Dean as violent or disturbed enough if that was the intent - I didn't really see it actually except for when he was under the influence of something like the penny (I skipped parts of that episode - I hated it). Dean seemed fairly reasonable to me. It was Sam who they portrayed as irrational, in my opinion - especially when it came to "Citizen Fang" where they had Sam get a crazy person recently out of the psychiatric hospital and basically used him to put a hit on Benny, let that crazy person whack Dean on the head, handcuff him, and leave him there. It also didn't help that they made Benny fairly cuddly for a vampire and that he pretty much listened to Dean and wasn't very scary at all out of purgatory - no PTSD really for Benny either. Even Benny seemed more rational than Sam to me. Benny didn't even insinuate that he was going to go after Sam, or that he wished Sam were out of the way so Dean could hang with him instead.

So basically, I guess I'm saying that if the intent was to make Dean seem irrational and scary with a scary vampire friend, it was pretty much a miss for me, because I didn't see it. I only saw them portraying Sam as an irrational asshat who was being crappy to his brother for little reason. (And Sam was one of my favorite characters ever on TV. Instead, I pretty much started disliking him in season 8.)

So to me the message in the first half was that Sam was wrong to not look for Kevin but looking for Dean was optional and healthy because it was letting his brother go, which viewers roundly disagreed with. So now they are giving it a "mulligan" by saying that Sam felt guilty for not looking for him. But Sam acknowledging that guilt is what helped him Say NO to Lucifer. So to me it's still plot driven more than character driven.

I think I'm rambling now.

I get what you are trying to say. I think though that maybe there were much easier ways to get there plotwise. Also, I'll have to watch that episode again, because I was hoping it wasn't just guilt that made Sam say "no," but that he didn't want to let Dean down again. (I guess those things could be related.) And that he might actually have learned something for once and had some faith in himself.

Season 8 was so frustrating because of how they handled the Sam storyline. Just a few more lines of explanation, and a little better delivery from Jared on seeing Dean alive, and it could have been so much better. But as it played out, Sam just came off as whiny and not overly happy to see Dean back, which sucked. I'm chalking it up to a combination of bad writing and bad acting, because I can't believe it was their intention to show Sam in such a bad light.

I don't know why Jared would play Sam that way either unless that was the direction they were looking for, but I could be wrong, since I don't know the rational there. None of it made sense to me. I think also the lack of conflict on Dean's part didn't help. As I said above, if the intent was to show Dean acting shady with questionable judgement and with a scary vampire friend, they entirely missed the mark for me there.

And the reason why I sometimes question why the writers' intention wasn't to show Sam in a bad light was that they had so many opportunities to fix it, easily, and they chose instead to make it worse.* Like "Citizen Fang" for example. I'm not sure even better acting could help there, because for me there really wasn't a reasonable explanation for Sam's behavior in that episode based on everything we saw.

* All the writers really would have had to do was say that Sam tried to find Kevin and couldn't and tried to find Dean and couldn't... or even decided that it was a bad idea because he had been contemplating some dark things... or even show flashbacks of him contemplating some dark crap, and then shaking his head "no, I can't do this again. I can't go down this road. Dean wouldn't want me to." There you go... Sam being "mature" without damaging his character... but the writers couldn't be bothered.

Throughout the series there have been a number of times when it does seem like Dean is dragging Sam back into hunting. And it probably is because he doesn't want to have to do the job alone. That's what Dean says right in the pilot, and there's a recurring theme of Sam making noises about leaving the life throughout the series. But then there are just as many scenes of Sam saying how much he loves the life, so again, I think it's at the writer's discretion as to which Sam shows up in which episode.

I guess that I can agree with that. And they do it with Dean also. Sometimes Sam drags Dean back into it as well - see "Meet the New Boss" for example. Or "Faith." So I guess Dean also flip flops.

I think the annoying thing about season 8 for me is that it had been a long time since we'd had Sam go the "I want to quit" route and it seemed like a weird time to do so when Crowley had Kevin and a potentially dangerous tablet and Dean was missing.

MysteryGuest · April 12, 2016

Well, they must have realized they screwed up, or have seen enough complaints from the fans, or possibly even from Jared himself, because they made a point of trying to fix it this season with Sam's apology and admission of feelings of guilt. It's a little late in the day for that though, and it really doesn't help make those first few episodes of season 8 any more palatable, at least not for me. The season 8 opener still pisses me off every time I watch it.

catrox14 · April 12, 2016

missed the stalking Amelia part, because I admit that I missed a couple of episodes in early season 8 (I was pissed off). So I might have missed some things. I assumed that the only reason why Sam saw Amelia again was because of the text message that Dean sent and that without that text message, Sam wouldn't have gone back... which to me actually makes sense, because she was married. To me there was actually some more character damage because Sam did go back actually ... and purposely had sex with a married woman (so more character assassination there for me, since previously that wasn't something I thought Sam would ever do). I also didn't get that Sam intended to look for Kevin until Dean showed up, because he dry-docked his phones and forgot about them. If you mean after that, they found Kevin pretty quickly, so Sam could've left then.

Sorry I was joking about him stalking her. He was internet stalking her though. He even made a joke saying."Not stalking...just....concerned" In Blood Brother. He knew where she lived and she was on his mind. It's a total fanwank but I think at some point Sam would have sought her out on his own. Dean sent the message but it wasn't so Sam could see Amelia with Don, it was to get Sam away from Benny. Him seeing Amelia with Don was happenstance. I'm not even sure Dean knew about Amelia and Don but I don't remember.

I thought they did a somewhat decent job with with Dean's PTSD (for SPN that is). Could it have been more in depth? Sure. I thought they were showing Dean's state of mind in that he was shutting down, on edge, had flashbacks and rage issues. Every time they used the flashbacks it was Dean was having a memory or some kind of zoning out. He went crazy on a prisoner in custody. He was pretty much a dick to Sam most of the time.

I have wondered if Dean would have been less angry with Sam if Dean didn't have PTSD. I think given that Dean spent a year in combat essentially and trying to find Cas that it pinged Dean's own survivor guilt and enraged Dean more than usual because Dean couldn't save Cas. I think he was projecting some of his guilt and anger onto Sam. Not that Dean didn't have a legitimate beef just that Dean might have been more forgivin if not for his own shit.

Sam sleeping with Amelia didn't bother me because for a year Sam and Amelia believed her husband was dead. They lived together and were in a committed relationship. So even when Don came back it's not like Sam was being a "homewrecker" and Don was willing to go with whatever Amelia wanted so. Sam gets a pass from me on that one given how it all came down. I felt bad for all of them actually.

I wasn't upset with Sam for having a hunter track Benny..it shouldn't have been Crazy Martin though that's for sure. Again that was stupid plot over characterization...

Edited April 12, 2016 by catrox14

AwesomO4000 · April 12, 2016

Sorry I was joking about him stalking her. He was internet stalking her though. He even made a joke saying."Not stalking...just....concerned" In Blood Brother. He knew where she lived and she was on his mind. It's a total fanwank but I think at some point Sam would have sought her out on his own. Dean sent the message but it wasn't so Sam could see Amelia with Don, it was to get Sam away from Benny. Him seeing Amelia with Don was happenstance. I'm not even sure Dean knew about Amelia and Don but I don't remember.

Oh I knew that part (I unfortunately did watch "Citizen Fang".) I meant that I didn't think that Sam would have gone to see Amelia except for the fact that Dean sent the text - which I entirely understood why Dean did. Sam + Benny would've been too explosive and ended up with likely one of them dead.

I thought they did a somewhat decent job with with Dean's PTSD (for SPN that is). Could it have been more in depth? Sure. I thought they were showing Dean's state of mind in that he was shutting down, on edge, had flashbacks and rage issues. Every time they used the flashbacks it was Dean was having a memory or some kind of zoning out. He went crazy on a prisoner in custody. He was pretty much a dick to Sam most of the time.

Interesting that you paired Dean's flashbacks with his PTSD, because for a while there I thought Sam's flashbacks were also indicating some mental problem - in that I thought Sam's Amelia "memories" weren't actually real, but something he had made up to cope. But once Sam's memories were just memories, I think Dean's flashbacks lost some of their power for me and just seemed like memories also. I guess it also didn't help for me that when Dean was being a "dick" usually Sam was a worse dick back to Dean - some of those early season 8 "talks while leaning against Baby" BM moments were brutal - so again that sort of diminished the "something is wrong with Dean" moments when Sam also seemed wrong... which again would've made sooo much sense to me if those Amelia flashbacks weren't real, because then they both would've been messed up, and I would've gone "Ohhhh, so that's what's happening." But once they were shown to be real I was "huh? Wait a minute. Sam's not crazy? He's just acting this shitty normally? WtF?"

So yeah. A fail on my part, but I swear I had an excuse. Your interpretation makes things better though - wish I could see it that way.

I have wondered if Dean would have been less angry with Sam if Dean didn't have PTSD. I think given that Dean spent a year in combat essentially and trying to find Cas that it pinged Dean's own survivor guilt and enraged Dean more than usual because Dean couldn't save Cas. I think he was projecting some of his guilt and anger onto Sam. Not that Dean didn't have a legitimate beef just that Dean might have been more forgivin if not for his own shit.

Heh. I think Dean would've been less angry and more forgiving if (the writers) Sam hadn't been a jerk. Actually Dean doesn't have many faults, but not letting it go easily* when he has a legitimate beef is - for me - one of them. See season 5 for example, or even his continued "you're the one who left the family" beef. So I didn't pick up on Dean's (legitimate) anger with Sam here being too much out of character for him, which is probably why I missed it as a PTSD clue. Again - failure on my part to see the clue.

* That was Sam's thing to forgive fairly easily - one of the positive character traits Sam had left post season 4. Until season 9 that is when Carver and the writers threw that canon out the window, too. *sigh* (It never made sense to me that Sam was pissed at Dean for the Gadreel situation for practically a whole half season and said those awful things, when he not that long ago forgave Castiel for pretty much breaking his head and leaving him with freaking Lucifer hallucinations and hell memories and still believed/said stuff like "deep, deep down, I know you're still one of us." I really dislike Carver's LoLcanon and change character for plot stuff sometimes.)

I wasn't upset with Sam for having a hunter track Benny..it shouldn't have been Crazy Martin though that's for sure. Again that was stupid plot over characterization...

Track Benny would've been one thing and fine, but unfortunately Sam - rather out of character in my opinion - made it clear that he expected to find Benny as guilty and to be killing him rather than not, and hinted or maybe he would kill him just because. Again, in my opinion, the writers went just that much out of their way to make sure Sam sounded very unreasonable, so that Dean's reaction seemed plausible and not really all that irrational or out of the ordinary - again why I missed the potential clues that Dean was acting irrationally, because the situation seemed to be pushing him that way to me. I guess the description would be that for me they were burying the lead?

Whew. I think I'm done now. This discussion actually did make me feel a little better - thank you. I still don't like how Carver wrote for Sam during season 8 and 9 especially (hard to believe he wrote three of my favorite episodes for Sam ever), but I might begin to see things a little less pessimistically... of course this opinion might change back depending on what happens the rest of the current season, but at least there's hope.

Who knows, maybe one day I might get you to see "Point of No Return" (One of the above mentioned episodes) in a better light? No?

Edited April 12, 2016 by AwesomO4000

catrox14 · April 12, 2016

Who knows, maybe one day I might get you to see "Point of No Return" (One of the above mentioned episodes) in a better light? No?

Well, I'm glad I could help a little.

But yeah...good luck but I'm really never going to be able to see PoNR as anything but the end of Dean's arc of 2 fucking seasons. But I'm certainly willing to listen...but Adam's existence....will always be...GRRR ARGGGHHHH

Aeryn13 · April 12, 2016

I might be remembering it incorrectly, but I remember Sam saying once something like "we made this" - meaning the situation - which they did... and this goes back all the way to them trying to save each other no matter what which lead to where they are now, but Sam was very clear in his prayer that "I did this"

In the previouslies for the last episode, Sam to Dean "Lucifer was the worst monster (or thing, can`t quite recall) ever released until YOU and I hatched something worse". And stuff like that is included as shorthand to get viewers up to speed. The show itself wants to send this message. This prayer moment was supposed to be an "aww, Sam" moment but what the audience is supposed to remember is how DEAN AND Sam freed Amara.

They weirdly had Amara cite this as a reason for their bond even couple times.

Basically, you are not supposed to remember what and how it happened in Season 9. This is what they are telling us now and Dean gets equal share of the blame. Period.

Just as in Season 8 you were supposed to forget any snippiness and coldness towards Dean on Sam`s part. You were supposed to forget that he never actually explained himself and you were supposed to forget his part in the Martin/Benny situation. Basically, after those episodes aired you were supposed to forget what happened in them, Because in the second half of the Season the narrative told you what ACTUALLY happened and you were supposed to remember those events. Namely, only Dean`s voice message was to blame. And Dean was a great meanie who made Sam suicidal.

They do this kind of stuff all the time.

was mainly talking about previously when Sam was talking about his vision in the beginning and Dean pretty much just said no it's not God, because I said so. It's just bad dreams or your sickness, etc. I wish they had discussed it, because they were visions, and if the both of them had considered the possibility they might've figured out who it actually was (like I did right away).

Dean said he didn`t believe it was God. He was simply sceptic. But it`s not like being sceptic can physically stop someone else from being a believer. Maybe Sam didn`t wanna argue the case anymore but he was free to think what HE wanted still. Dean can not "say so" what Sam does or doesn`t think. Sam is not a toddler and even for those it doesn`t work. I do not see how that is Dean forcing something on Sam here. That is IMO just having an opinion. And just as Dean can`t make Sam change his beliefs, it`s not as if Sam was entitled to have Dean believe that it was a vision. If he didn`t buy into it, he didn`t.

In the end, they did what Sam wanted so I do not see the problem.

As for the narrative not pointing out that Sam was to blame... I disagree. I thought that repeatedly having Dean say no it isn't, Sam, was the narrative saying "this is going to result in Sam doing something stupid, because he didn't listen to Dean." I knew from the second episode that it wasn't God, because Dean said it wasn't and generally when the narrative sets things up that way, Sam is wrong. And he was. For me, it was the same with the Darkness being set up as Sam's fault last season.

Same case as I described above. That was before. After it happened, you were supposed to forget this, it was never brought up again. If they wanted to do that, they would have done it like with the voice mail of doom in Season 8. We would have at least gotten two or three pointed scenes hammering home in dialogue and berating Sam by a mouthpiece character how Sam believing it was God screwed them over. They didn`t so there wasn`t any hammering.

This is what I mean by show and tell. This show will show you one thing for 10 episodes straight and then tell you it was actually another thing in episode 11 and what the viewer is meant to take away with is the thing they told you in episode 11. It`s so transparent.

So if Dean is supposedly a weak, selfish coward for saving Sam no matter what, that by extension makes Sam exactly the same thing. Plus he started an apocalypse.

But when Sam does it, he is supposed to be seen as strong, caring and saintly. When Dean does it, it is supposed to be clingy, selfish and pathetic. It doesn`t matter if they do the same thing, it is good when one character does it and bad when the other does. That`s how they have operated since Season 8 at least.

I`ve always believed Carver hates the codependency and wanted for Sam to be in the right in Season 8. That was why Sam didn`t seem very apologetic or guilty or anything back then. But fandom backlash has led him to cave and he retroactively adressed it later on as a "my bad".

By Dean. He's an unreliable narrator, and he's telling everyone else this, and they have no way of knowing what really happened, because only Dean was there. We, the audience, know it's not true though. No one else that I've seen except Dean is saying that he can't fight against Amara.

After episode 6?, the one where Dean and Teenage!Amara talked, Cas and Sam were all kinds of suspicious afterwards when Dean said he couldn`t kill her. As if they suspected he purposely didn`t instead of reasonably thinking well, no shit, she is probably way too powerful.

And the only thing they have played with Dean/Amara so far is this supposed "bond" that apparently means Dean is defenseless against her. I think the writing is meant to be genuine here, that this is the truth. It was an easy way to explain why Dean is useless and has to be taken out of the mytharc action, therefore it is really literal. And most of the audience DOES take it at face value from what I`ve seen.

That`s why the showing one thing for 10 episodes and then telling you another in ep 11 thing actually usually works like a charm.

trxr4kids · April 12, 2016

My bitter opinion is that I've been fed up or at least bored with the heaven vs hell dynamic since as early as season 6 although I wasn't truly bitter about it until season 8. I'm still unclear as to why Sam or Dean or both are blamed for anything they did, however well intentioned or misguided it may have been.

Heaven and hell had gone so far as to force John and Mary together ensuring that the true vessels would be born and manipulated countless other aspects of their lives afterward all so Michael and Lucifer could have their apocalypse. Gabriel's part in it really bugs me because he said he didn't want the death match but Mystery Spot is probably the biggest reason Sam went off the deep end psychologically, so was he trying to help and just too angelic to get human nature or was it on purpose. We'll never know I'm assuming but his last appearance was also pretty ambiguous motivation wise, assuming it was really Gabriel, which I think it was.

Now we find out that Amara is God's sister that he trapped in yet another dimension, probably purgatory adjacent ( a back door in or portal out will be installed at a later date I'm sure) so it's heaven vs hell all over again and again and again. The narrative still blames Sam and/or Dean for another apocalyptic situation when in reality, yeah mistakes were made but again they were manipulated. Do I think they should know better, sure but then again I wasn't genetically engineered, influenced and coerced by all powerful forces or there minions at least to my knowledge and since I've never been blamed for an apocalypse seems reasonable.

I think that's the main reason season 6 didn't work for me, I wanted a new arc and was disappointed it was more of the same, not that the episodes were bad or even the storyline itself but I had already seen Sam have hallucinations and an archangel determined to have an apocalypse.

While I was typing this rant I came up with a new theory about the void and/or the empty, it's where the PTB get their mytharcs from. I also strongly suggest the show's unofficial theme song be changed from Carry On My Wayward Son to Heaven and Hell by Black Sabbath because it's definitely more in keeping with last 5 seasons.

Edited April 12, 2016 by trxr4kids

AwesomO4000 · April 12, 2016

In the previouslies for the last episode, Sam to Dean "Lucifer was the worst monster (or thing, can`t quite recall) ever released until YOU and I hatched something worse". And stuff like that is included as shorthand to get viewers up to speed. The show itself wants to send this message. This prayer moment was supposed to be an "aww, Sam" moment but what the audience is supposed to remember is how DEAN AND Sam freed Amara.

It isn't like Dean didn't have a small part in this. He did take on the mark of Cain without finding out the consequences, he wouldn't give up the First Blade at first thereby fueling his bloodlust, then went recklessly into battle after declaring he was calling the shots ("this is a dictatorship"), and got himself killed and turned into a demon. If he hadn't taken on the mark of Cain recklessly, there wouldn't be the Darkness, so in that regard, yes he was a part of it. However, it seems rather odd to me to show and tell, because Dean was telling Sam over and over "Don't do this" (shades of season 4.) and then think viewers are going to just forget that. It doesn't make sense to me. Why show it in the first place?

Dean himself says that he believes what he can see. Then it is real. So why would the show show us something, multiple times, unless they wanted it to be real? If they want us to see that Sam saving Dean against his wishes is not clingy, needy, and pathetic... then don't show the consequence of Sam saving Dean as starting a freaking apocalypse... which interestingly for me, when Dean saved Sam, there was no apocalypse. In fact, Gadreel helped stop the apocalypse. I am sorry, but no amount of "tell" is going to change something like that.

If they want us to believe something wouldn't it be much easier to show that thing in the first place rather than contradict it a couple dozen times and then "tell" with "um, forget all of that, this is what we really meant?" Seeing is believing and most times if it quacks like a duck, it's a duck.

Dean said he didn`t believe it was God. He was simply sceptic. But it`s not like being sceptic can physically stop someone else from being a believer. Maybe Sam didn`t wanna argue the case anymore but he was free to think what HE wanted still. Dean can not "say so" what Sam does or doesn`t think.

I never said that Sam couldn't believe what he wanted or that Dean couldn't be skeptical. My point was that Sam was trying to provide information. Dean generally shut it down rather than discuss it. That Sam didn't push was partially his fault, but I can understand, because he was in the "guilty" role at that point. But that doesn't change the fact that Dean's hunter instincts should have been pinging all over the place, in my opinion. Since when is a dream like that "just a dream" in Winchester-world?

In the end, they did what Sam wanted so I do not see the problem.

In my opinion, the problem was the dynamics between Sam and Dean. It was showing that they weren't working together at full capacity at that point. They were not fully sharing and comparing notes.

Same case as I described above. That was before. After it happened, you were supposed to forget this, it was never brought up again. If they wanted to do that, they would have done it like with the voice mail of doom in Season 8. We would have at least gotten two or three pointed scenes hammering home in dialogue and berating Sam by a mouthpiece character how Sam believing it was God screwed them over. They didn`t so there wasn`t any hammering.

A mention from whom? Sam isn't really associated with any main characters anymore except Dean, and Dean has his own self-imposed guilt. And I think Lucifer pretty much covered what a loser he thinks Sam was for falling for it. I think he may have also been the one to call Sam plodding and dim or whatever the equivalent was he said this past episode - or maybe that was Crowley (who also used to have some association with Sam, but who is almost all about Dean now.) Point is I think they've covered that pretty well already.

But when Sam does it, he is supposed to be seen as strong, caring and saintly. When Dean does it, it is supposed to be clingy, selfish and pathetic. It doesn`t matter if they do the same thing, it is good when one character does it and bad when the other does. That`s how they have operated since Season 8 at least.

I've not seen - or heard - any evidence of this, myself. Actually, if anything it would appear to be the opposite. As I said above: Dean helps Sam against his wishes = stop an apocalypse. Sam helps Dean against his wishes = starts an apocalypse. One result was (mostly) good; one result was bad.* If they are going for a message, to me that's pretty basic (or maybe a coincidence, but I'm not so sure, since I predicted it would happen.) Also all of the other recent arcs seem to be pointing to the same conclusion. All of mark of Cain Dean's and demon Dean's "Sam let me go"s and "I've got this on my own"s with the end result being that when Sam didn't listen, bad things happened (apocalypse) to me seems to be showing the opposite. We'll see what happens with the Castiel situation. My guess is that Dean will be right - helping Castiel will be the right way to go and it will end at least semi-positively.

* (And notice also that Dean killing Death to save Sam in the same scenario even didn't really result in much "bad" happening except a pissed off Billie - which I think even in the end the Empty stuff might work in their favor. And I'll chuckle if it does, because I'll have called it.)

I`ve always believed Carver hates the codependency and wanted for Sam to be in the right in Season 8. That was why Sam didn`t seem very apologetic or guilty or anything back then. But fandom backlash has led him to cave and he retroactively adressed it later on as a "my bad".

Then why the thing with Benny? If the message was supposed to be less codependency = good, then the "it's me or Benny" crap from Sam made no sense. Nor did the verbal lambasting from dead Bobby. I just didn't see it, myself, so miles vary.

After episode 6?, the one where Dean and Teenage!Amara talked, Cas and Sam were all kinds of suspicious afterwards when Dean said he couldn`t kill her. As if they suspected he purposely didn`t instead of reasonably thinking well, no shit, she is probably way too powerful.

Again, unreliable narrator. Later on Sam figured it out. He stated very plainly and sincerely that he didn't blame Dean nor was he going to judge him and that Dean never had a choice in the matter or even a chance against the sister of God. Dean still fretted and blamed himself, so Sam went with "I've got it Dean," until Dean figures it out for himself. (Because Sam telling him anything isn't going to work right now or just sound like platitudes. It would probably just piss Dean off or make him question himself even more. And/or that's likely what Sam would've wanted to hear from Dean (as in "Playthings"), so he thinks that will also work for Dean.)

And the only thing they have played with Dean/Amara so far is this supposed "bond" that apparently means Dean is defenseless against her. I think the writing is meant to be genuine here, that this is the truth. It was an easy way to explain why Dean is useless and has to be taken out of the mytharc action, therefore it is really literal. And most of the audience DOES take it at face value from what I`ve seen.

I'm not so sure. I suspect this will more likely turn out to be that Dean is the key to all of this - based on what I've seen that makes the most sense to me - and it will be a big surprising and triumphant moment when it happens. (Sort of: since I kind of said it would happen like that from the beginning, but... *shrug*). I will actually be pleasantly surprised if I'm wrong, because I'm a little worn out by the Sam the goat theme Carver has going.

That`s why the showing one thing for 10 episodes and then telling you another in ep 11 thing actually usually works like a charm.

It's never worked for me that I've seen, but again, miles vary.

The only time when I think it has been somewhat effective is when it came to the first apocalypse where the narrative since season 5 has told us that it was Sam's fault. However, the "show" with Sam's decisions seems to also back up that narrative so it is more of a reinforcement than simply a "tell." It did kind of bug me though when part of the "tell" consisted of Castiel accusing Sam of not making the right decision, when Cas' doing the same thing (making a bad decision by letting Sam out) also contributed to what happened (but Castiel forgot to include himself). But the fact that I didn't forget Castiel's screw up despite the "tell" also shows that, for me, the "tell" alone isn't entirely effective. Again, miles vary.

Edited April 12, 2016 by AwesomO4000

Aeryn13 · April 12, 2016

However, it seems rather odd to me to show and tell, because Dean was telling Sam over and over "Don't do this" (shades of season 4.) and then think viewers are going to just forget that. It doesn't make sense to me. Why show it in the first place?

I think the answer for me is quite simple: the writers aren`t very good. They do one thing becausea shocking amount of time. I just f they may think it looks cool and then think "huh, course-correct, we`ll throw in one or two lines of dialogue to fix this". Their attempts to do so just are much less skilled then they think. And even then, it works to some degree. Hence, they keep doing it.

But that doesn't change the fact that Dean's hunter instincts should have been pinging all over the place, in my opinion. Since when is a dream like that "just a dream" in Winchester-world?

Sure. But that just means Dean was written like he was incompetent for the sole reason of having a mini-fight in that patch of the Season.

Again, unreliable narrator.

Who? I was talking about the reactions of Sam and Cas when Dean wasn`t in the scene anymore. I didn`t get the impression they were supposed to be unreliable narrators. Since the audience already knew Dean didn`t say all, they were invited to pretty much go with the characters being suspicious. If the logistics WHY they were suspicious made sense or not. I mean, at that point Sam knew that Amara had had a friendly chat with Dean previously. So that could explain why he left the encounter alive. Why he couldn`t kill her with a little butter knife really needed no further explanation.

I'm not so sure. I suspect this will more likely turn out to be that Dean is the key to all of this - based on what I've seen that makes the most sense to me - and it will be a big surprising and triumphant moment when it happens. (Sort of: since I kind of said it would happen like that from the beginning, but... *shrug*). I will actually be pleasantly surprised if I'm wrong, because I'm a little worn out by the Sam the goat theme Carver has going.

I will be utterly shocked if Dean isn`t ten times more sidelined then in Suck Song. And if Sam isn`t getting an even bigger hero`s role here. He has gotten the Jesus hints all year. Meanwhile, there is no build-up for Dean than to be a witness, useless against Amara and let Sam go at this point. Back in Season 5 he had a two year build-up for a storyline and they threw that in the trash in the most vindictive way possible. Handing it off to a tertiary character.

Not to mention Jared raved about the final episodes and Jensen has not pointed out ANY episode this Season as one he loved but the one about the car.

I know we`ve had this conversation before but I was and am still at the place where I think Sam already won Olympic Gold whereas Dean didn`t and this is the final year Dean can compete but Sam will win again. I doubt they will do another big apocalyptic "a Chosen One saves the world" story like that again, this time probably God-appointed. This is most likely the final chance ever and I`m so utterly disheartened in what I think Dean gets to do, I couldn`t be in a lower place.

I`m dreading beyond the telling of it a possible appearance by actual God because I can only speculate he is gonna go the way of Death. Telling one they are an amoba and telling the other he is honored to be in their presence. That will be the final nail in the coffin of driving home what you should think about the brothers respectively.

AwesomO4000 · April 13, 2016

Who? I was talking about the reactions of Sam and Cas when Dean wasn`t in the scene anymore. I didn`t get the impression they were supposed to be unreliable narrators. Since the audience already knew Dean didn`t say all, they were invited to pretty much go with the characters being suspicious.

Sorry for being vague. This is what I meant - that Sam and Castiel didn't have the whole story. They only had Dean's telling of it, and if he made it sound like he hadn't tried hard enough or that he felt like he had failed (it's been a while since I've seen the scene, so I don't remember if this was the case or not), then I'm not going to chastise Sam and Castiel for wondering why Dean is saying it that way.

If the logistics WHY they were suspicious made sense or not. I mean, at that point Sam knew that Amara had had a friendly chat with Dean previously. So that could explain why he left the encounter alive. Why he couldn`t kill her with a little butter knife really needed no further explanation.

Probably because Dean did try to kill her. Their previous "talk" where she let Dean go, if I'm remembering correctly, did not involve him trying to kill her, so in Sam and Dean's mind, the kill attempt could've been a game-changer. Sure Dean couldn't kill her, but he tried. That Amara didn't get angry at that and potentially strike back, to me, is a legitimate thing to wonder about, but that's just my opinion, and I'm not remembering exactly how the conversation went, so I could be wrong if that was part of the discussion.

Nonetheless, Sam later figured it out and assured Dean he wasn't judging Dean or was suspicious of Dean's motives, so in the end, it got worked out. As I said, I earlier thought that Sam and Dean weren't entirely on the same page - the miscommunication with the visions and the above conversation you mentioned to me are parts of the same thing. Emotionally they were starting to connect again - as in "Baby" - but strategically the weren't. They fixed that, and now Sam is on board and supporting Dean now. As you said, that's what matters and the rest doesn't matter so much.

Sure. But that just means Dean was written like he was incompetent for the sole reason of having a mini-fight in that patch of the Season.

I just thought it was just Dean letting his emotions get in the way. Like you said, in the end it didn't matter anyway, and Sam and Dean figured it out.

AwesomO4000 · April 14, 2016

While posting on another thread, I thought of an unpopular opinion of mine...

I think season 4 is overrated. There, I said it.

Season 4 was mostly good for me until what I thought was an abrupt and - to me - poorly explained shift in tone and plot somewhere in the middle. My best illustration is comparing what happened in "Heaven and Hell" where we had Sam and Dean working well together and showing confidence in each other vs what happened in "Sex and Violence" only 4 episodes later. What happened in between those episodes to cause such a marked difference? Hell if I know. The episodes in between didn't provide me with a good explanation (and some even contradicted each other in terms of motivation, especially "Chris Angel..." and "Afterschool Special"), so my main explanation is that plotonium affected characterization of both Sam and Dean, and those are generally my least favorite seasons when that happens.

So for me, those inbetween episodes failing to provide the necessary motivation and the seemingly unrelenting grimness and inevitability of the ending (in that it seemed inevitable that Sam and Dean couldn't fight the result the angels and demons were manipulating them into, and so then they couldn't) makes season 4 overall a less satisfactory and less effective season. For me.

And it also bugs the crap out of me that Sam never found out that that message on his phone was not actually what Dean said. That is just cruel, and it exacerbated a lot of the conflict in early season 5 between them that might've been lessened if Sam had found out.

shang yiet · April 14, 2016

Regardless of the writing, I think most fans think both Sam and Dean are heroes - strong, brave, kind and wonderful. I've never watched a scene and came away thinking 'Ugh, Dean is so cowardly and weak. ' So if the writers are trying to tell me this, they missed the mark by a mile.

And while I have lots of love and sympathy for Sam, I've never once thought he was supposed to be saintly and perfect.

Yes, the writers are not very good. So if they didn't do the demon!Dean story justice, it's because of the constraints they faced, not because they all looked down on Dean and are in love with Sam.

By the way, the episode is called 'SWAN Song', right?

Edited April 14, 2016 by shang yiet

Diane · April 14, 2016

Regardless of the writing, I think most fans think both Sam and Dean are heroes - strong, brave, kind and wonderful. I've never watched a scene and came away thinking 'Ugh, Dean is so cowardly and weak. ' So if the writers are trying to tell me this, they missed the mark by a mile.

And while I have lots of love and sympathy for Sam, I've never once thought he was supposed to be saintly and perfect.

Yes, the writers are not very good. So if they didn't do the demon!Dean story justice, it's because of the constraints they faced, not because they all looked down on Dean and are in love with Sam.

By the way, the episode is called 'SWAN Song', right?

I agree and yes it's called Swan Song.

Aeryn13 · April 14, 2016

Since I read a couple of things now how Season 11 is such an improvement, my UO is that in no way, shape or form do I see it as an improvement.

Were Seasons 8, 9 or 10 good? Nope. They all had epic writing fails. But Season 11 has the same ones IMO. And the same ones the show always had, just in the earlier Seasons the themes were fresher and the whole thing had more charme, fun and wit. I don`t think Season 11 suddenly brought that back.

The pacing is still atrocious. Lots of pointless fillers and even mytharc episodes that tread water. A potentially interesting villain or a potentially interesting story is underwritten. and unused. Character repetition and character regression. It`s largely a re-do of Season 5 and I didn`t care for Season 5 that much to begin with. Depending on the Finale, I might hate this one even more. Which shouldn`t be possible because in the history of TV I never hated something as much as 5.22.

There are three episodes I outright loathed this Season vs. none I loved. I wouldn`t even say none I liked. Some were okay-ish and some were meh. Ultra-passive Dean sidelining through the Season so far sure held no entertainment value for me. The uber-pimping of Sam just made it go down like a lead balloon.

What I did like were a couple minutes in the Season Opener because those were a nice surprise. Since then 17 more episodes aired and those couple minutes are the still the only thing that stands out to me as good.

For me, the last good Season overall was Season 4. I still hated two episodes in it but loved a couple and liked a couple more. Since then I think the show has gone downhill and more or less stagnated at a certain flatline.

Diane · April 14, 2016

Since I read a couple of things now how Season 11 is such an improvement, my UO is that in no way, shape or form do I see it as an improvement.

Were Seasons 8, 9 or 10 good? Nope. They all had epic writing fails. But Season 11 has the same ones IMO. And the same ones the show always had, just in the earlier Seasons the themes were fresher and the whole thing had more charme, fun and wit. I don`t think Season 11 suddenly brought that back.

The pacing is still atrocious. Lots of pointless fillers and even mytharc episodes that tread water. A potentially interesting villain or a potentially interesting story is underwritten. and unused. Character repetition and character regression. It`s largely a re-do of Season 5 and I didn`t care for Season 5 that much to begin with. Depending on the Finale, I might hate this one even more. Which shouldn`t be possible because in the history of TV I never hated something as much as 5.22.

There are three episodes I outright loathed this Season vs. none I loved. I wouldn`t even say none I liked. Some were okay-ish and some were meh. Ultra-passive Dean sidelining through the Season so far sure held no entertainment value for me. The uber-pimping of Sam just made it go down like a lead balloon.

What I did like were a couple minutes in the Season Opener because those were a nice surprise. Since then 17 more episodes aired and those couple minutes are the still the only thing that stands out to me as good.

For me, the last good Season overall was Season 4. I still hated two episodes in it but loved a couple and liked a couple more. Since then I think the show has gone downhill and more or less stagnated at a certain flatline.

And this is why it is so nice that there is such a variety on television for the viewer to watch. I have really enjoyed this season. The MOW episodes have been really good and I have enjoyed the slow build up of the the mytharc of the season. I really wish we would have more MOW episodes instead of the season long mytharc, but this season's has at least been good. I am excited about how it will come to a conclusion and to see what we are going to have next season.

Aeryn13 · April 14, 2016

And this is why it is so nice that there is such a variety on television for the viewer to watch.

I do watch lots of other shows but to my great misfortune Jensen keeps signing on for this one. Hence, the bitterness. Other shows have bitterness threads as well. Probably even ones I truly enjoy but others only hate-watch at this point. Is what it is.

MysteryGuest · April 15, 2016

I'm all for less mytharc and more MOTW episodes. And really, after God blows through town, where else is there to go? Maybe all the monsters will be running wild after the threat of the Darkness is removed, and they'll need to hit the road to deal with the aftermath.

catrox14 · April 15, 2016

I'm all for less mytharc and more MOTW episodes. And really, after God blows through town, where else is there to go? Maybe all the monsters will be running wild after the threat of the Darkness is removed, and they'll need to hit the road to deal with the aftermath.

I like the mytharc and the motw mixture, but they need to really start being more clear on the mytharc and not let it linger or disappear altogether. A little movement each episode...like back in s2

MYFAKETVBOYFRIEND · April 15, 2016

I guess my UO is that I LOVE this season. The pace for me was fine. I loved all the MOTW episodes (the more the merrier) Im not a fan of the Amara storyline so I don't care that it was a slow build (if you took Amara out of the story I would love this season just as much maybe more) Sam and Dean are pretty much on the same page, there's barely any lying to each other and angst between them (see Carver you don't need that angst/lying crap to have a successful season!)

I hope that Chuck IS NOT God but that God sent him to help the Winchesters. In my mind there's no way to show God without it being cheesy or a let down. And if He's shown, where do they go from there? To me Chuck is a loveable a-hole that just happens to hear the future (because he was chosen to be a prophet) and he chooses to help the Winchesters.

I can't wait for these coming episodes but I am sure the finale will be a killer (oh the feels!).

Demented Daisy · April 15, 2016

I suppose my UO is that Chuck is God and I don't have a problem with the show going that route. It's completely acceptable to me if He helps the Winchesters in the fight against Amara and then goes back to playing skee-ball in New Jersey. ;-)

I suppose that's because I never bought the idea that Sam and Dean would run to Cas every time they had a problem. I don't think they'd do it with God, either. I think they're stubborn enough that the last thing they'd want is help from God, especially Dean.

Diane · April 15, 2016

I guess my UO is that I LOVE this season. The pace for me was fine. I loved all the MOTW episodes (the more the merrier) Im not a fan of the Amara storyline so I don't care that it was a slow build (if you took Amara out of the story I would love this season just as much maybe more) Sam and Dean are pretty much on the same page, there's barely any lying to each other and angst between them (see Carver you don't need that angst/lying crap to have a successful season!)

I hope that Chuck IS NOT God but that God sent him to help the Winchesters. In my mind there's no way to show God without it being cheesy or a let down. And if He's shown, where do they go from there? To me Chuck is a loveable a-hole that just happens to hear the future (because he was chosen to be a prophet) and he chooses to help the Winchesters.

I can't wait for these coming episodes but I am sure the finale will be a killer (oh the feels!).

The only part of this that I disagree with is that it is a UO. I love this season and I am really enjoying them back to working together and without all the angst for the most part.

Aeryn13 · April 15, 2016

Im not a fan of the Amara storyline so I don't care that it was a slow build (if you took Amara out of the story I would love this season just as much maybe more)

I`m the exact opposite. The Amara storyline is the only thing that interests me because it is the only thing Dean has this year. Without it, I would literally have nothing from this Season.

(oh the feels!).

I guess this is a problem I have had for several Seasons now. I simply find it hard to get invested in "feels" in this show. Mostly they are the dreaded "brotherly bond" moments aka a relationship that just makes me shake my head. Dean and Cas rarely interact anymore and are mostly strangers. Because of that the occasionaly fanservice episode with them feels out of place too.

So while I thought Jensen acted both his scenes in the terrible Red Meat episode and in the much better last episode well, in terms of feeling the loss of and concern for Sam and Cas respectively, I personally felt nothing. Even the best actor can`t make me (re)-invested in something where the writing has disenfranchised me from.

Their predecssors several years ago in the Season 2 Finale or "The Man who would be King", those tugged at the heartstrings. Of course back then those themes were fresh and original. IMO you can`t redo pretty much step by stept the same beats and still elicit the same reaction.

I do not enjoy contrived angst and "secreths and lieths" either but if their relationship is supposedly good, I`m still not forgetting the ugly things it does to the characters for the most part. The way Dean acted in Red Meat? Yikes. So they don`t have a big ball of wangst between them but the character still acts in horrible ways. Well. what difference does it make then? I`m not getting a positive portrayal out of him either way.

Dean seeing Bobby in that house for a second, that was a tiny feels moment because it wasn`t a complete repeat of a moment I had seen a thousand times before.

Other than that, I loved Amara in the Premiere telling Dean in that black swirly cloud that it felt peaceful and she liked it there, with him. Like uh, intriguing, a mytharc character that likes Dean and finds him important. That was another novelty.

Edited April 15, 2016 by Aeryn13

DittyDotDot · April 15, 2016

Sounds like the actual unpopular opinion would be: I have no feelings one way or the other about this season. Definitely not the best, IMO, but not the worst either. I've appreciated the less bicker/more banter approach, but nothing has really gotten my attention either.

It's cool though, I know I'm in it till the end and made my peace with that a long time ago.

catrox14 · April 15, 2016

Azazel: I like you

Death: spared Dean not sure if he likes him or not I think he dies.

Alastair : oh Dean you had such promise.

Abaddon: I've loved this vessel from the moment I saw it. I want to do all kinds of nasty things and make you watch.

Crowley : likes Dean but turned him into a demon for his purposes. Realized that was a threat to him gave him up to Sam.

Zachariah : claimed to like Dean but not so much just using him.

Amara: I like it here with you, it's peaceful. Oh here let me control you and zap you wherever I want as it suits my needs.

; I'm waiting for that other show to drop with Amara. I'll b shocked if Dean gets to kill her or dispatch her

Generally in fiction if the villain likes or admires or identifies with the second lead or the Co lead isn't that like a bad thing meaning the audience is supposed to doubt the morality of the protagonist and its used to diminish his status as a hero? Typically if there is only one main character that would maybe lead to the protagonist being an anti hero, but here since we have Sam as the main character and all of the villains basically hate him and he hates them it's clearly adversarial at all times(despite any misbegotten alliances). I mean I might think Sam is an idiot or a dick at times but he is always the hero in the end.

I mean I think Dean is a Big Damn Hero but I'm not sure that villains liking Dean helps the audience see Dean as the big damn hero. I figure it's meant to make us question Dean's character and is he really not a hero anymore. I dunno just musings.

Aeryn13 · April 15, 2016

I think you misunderstood me, I don`t mean so much like-like. Even Amara seems intrigued, not feeling twu wuv or something.

What I meant by loving that scene with Amara was because it - supposedly provided a mytharc tie for Dean. She "liked" him in the sense of she focused on him. Azazel was focused on Sam, naturally. Lucifer was all about Sam. Lilith was a Sam-mytharc-character. The Leviathans focused on noone. The Mother of all monsters didn`t either, not really. Abaddon may have expressed some appreciation for Dean`s looks but that is not what I`m referring to. And sexualized violence is a big thing with Dean and demons.

Lazarus Rising is my favourite episode of the show because of Castiel`s entrance that also supposedly brought Dean into the mytharc. And in that episode Cas was bewildered but friendly. One episode later he threatened to throw Dean back into hell. I loved both scenes regardless because Dean had plot-importance in them and Cas was a big wig to communicate that to the audience.

I have no problem if the villain is antagonistic towards the protagonist. What I don`t want though is any variation of "you are not a part of this story". Love or hate is fine, indifference, not so much.

It`s basically the same as Azazel going "you`re my favourite" to Sam. It was clear that this was not a good thing, it was creepy and Sam neither liked it nor he could help it. That didn`t put his hero or lead status into question. It just communicated to the audience that in the story of all the special kids, Sam was just a tad bit more special than anyone else which is why the story was about him and not all those other characters.

Edited April 15, 2016 by Aeryn13

catrox14 · April 15, 2016

Ah...okay I did misunderstand you. I was just leery/wary that the writers were going to send Dean and Amara down a creepy love interest path, so I did misunderstand your point, most definitely. Sorry!

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