Supernatural Bitterness & Unpopular Opinions: You All Suck

[Idahoforspn]

7 minutes ago, gonzosgirrl said:

I just don't get this. Misha mentioned the support line in direct response to Jensen's reactions to meeting those women. The conversation was, for once, about Jensen, because Misha made it about him. He is unfailingly generous with his praise and attention to pretty much everyone else but himself, in almost every situation, and the one time he does focus on himself and his feelings, it's too much? He talked about his feelings, but made clear how those feelings were brought about by the wonderful thing these women were doing. And that's disappointing? I'm honestly baffled by that.

Ditto!

[gonzosgirrl]

10 minutes ago, CluelessDrifter said:

I agree.  I think hearing the numbers of people who have gone through the training is one thing, but meeting someone who has done it puts a face to that number and that number into perspective, as does knowing how many people those 11,000 volunteers will help in the future.  If you're down to earth, I think it would be a shock to the system to know that you, in part, helped to inspire that many people to volunteer that much of their time to do something good for others.  It's totally different than getting paid to interact with fans at con, and I'm sure a lot of what we see at cons is a 'parody or act' of who the real Jensen and Jared are with them saying and doing things to make fans cheer or whatever, but knowing that it goes beyond that, having walking, talking proof of it, and having spoken to some of the people it will help in the future (at previous cons), would be a very humbling experience if you're not prepared for it, and I think that's what we saw, but that's IMO.

I'll have to listen again, but I'm 99% sure that's exactly what he said happened.

[Idahoforspn]

12 minutes ago, CluelessDrifter said:

I agree.  I think hearing the numbers of people who have gone through the training is one thing, but meeting someone who has done it puts a face to that number and that number into perspective, as does knowing how many people those 11,000 volunteers will help in the future.  If you're down to earth, I think it would be a shock to the system to know that you, in part, helped to inspire that many people to volunteer that much of their time to do something good for others.  It's totally different than getting paid to interact with fans at con, and I'm sure a lot of what we see at cons is a 'parody or act' of who the real Jensen and Jared are with them saying and doing things to make fans cheer or whatever, but knowing that it goes beyond that, having walking, talking proof of it, and having spoken to some of the people it will help in the future (at previous cons), would be a very humbling experience if you're not prepared for it, and I think that's what we saw, but that's IMO.

This!

[CluelessDrifter]

5 minutes ago, gonzosgirrl said:

I'll have to listen again, but I'm 99% sure that's exactly what he said happened.

Sure is. I didn't want to change what he said too much, because he gave the reason himself, so it was all there, but I did want to put it in context.  :)

Edited May 24, 2017 by CluelessDrifter

[Idahoforspn]

Just now, gonzosgirrl said:

I'll have to listen again, but I'm 99% sure that's exactly what he said happened.

It is. I've seen it a couple of times.

[RulerofallIsurvey]

2 hours ago, Pondlass1 said:

It's jarring for viewers to have an episode like It's a Terrible Life follow on the heels of On the Head of a Pin.  I often wonder why they do this.  Episode placement never seems to get much consideration, especially when an MOTW is slipped in after a particularly heavy storyline and we're all gagging to know what's going to happen.  It stalls the momentum (for me anyway).  

I remember when I was binge-watching S4 on Netflix not so long ago.  The lighter eps were a welcome respite after a particularly heavy ep like On The Head of a Pin.  To each their own!  Maybe it's different when watching week to week and there's time to digest (and discuss online if so inclined) what has happened.  

[Pondlass1]

1 hour ago, gonzosgirrl said:

I know you pondlass,

I know right?  My claws come out anytime anyone says anything negative about Jensen the man or Jensen the actor.  So I’m surprised it’s ME saying this or feeling this way.

The SPN fandom is making a difference.  But it’s been making a difference for quite a while. I guess what we were witnessing was Jensen’s sudden realization of this fact.  It was suddenly right there before him in the form of a fan who’d donated 50 hours to help others and it hit him hard.  Those were real tears. He was truly blindsided by emotions. It wasn’t apple juice. 

Maybe I should watch the panel again.  Maybe my mood was wrong.  I'm  happy that no one is agreeing with me actually. 

Maybe I'm uncomfortable seeing an emotionally naked Jensen.  This is something we're rarely privy to.

Edited May 24, 2017 by Pondlass1

[SueB]

41 minutes ago, Pondlass1 said:

I know right?  My claws come out anytime anyone says anything negative about Jensen the man or Jensen the actor.  So I’m surprised it’s ME saying this or feeling this way.

The SPN fandom is making a difference.  But it’s been making a difference for quite a while. I guess what we were witnessing was Jensen’s sudden realization of this fact.  It was suddenly right there before him in the form of a fan who’d donated 50 hours to help others and it hit him hard.  Those were real tears. He was truly blindsided by emotions. It wasn’t apple juice. 

Maybe I should watch the panel again.  Maybe my mood was wrong.  I'm  happy that no one is agreeing with me actually. 

Maybe I'm uncomfortable seeing an emotionally naked Jensen.  This is something we're rarely privy to.

I think if you watch again, you'll see that Misha basically WANTED him to share why he was late all day -- because he had to take a knee.  Personally, I think Jensen DOES play the roll of "Big Brother" a lot. He shelves his emotional stuff to the side while looking out for Jared.  And Jared IS better so maybe he dropped his guard a bit, and he just COULDN'T work past the effort of the two volunteers.  It was more than a donation or a campaign. Training and then spending 50 hrs helping -- I think Jensen knows the emotional toll that takes on the volunteer (because part of why they set up the effort was recognizing that he, Jared, and Misha couldn't properly do the job with a 20-second autograph exchange) and was in awe at such tangible evidence/personification of their influence, their dream of helping people. These ladies took on a job they wish THEY had time to do essentially ON THEIR BEHALF. All as volunteers.  It really is beyond the doing good that the individual campaigns and outreaches have made. It's not transient 'random acts', it's now institutionalized.    

Edited May 24, 2017 by SueB

[catrox14]

Misha ENCOURAGED Jensen to speak about his experience.  Misha asked if it was okay if he told the audience about the encounter with the volunteer. I don't see that as being self-centered at all. 

 I get it what he meant. You can see things in an abstract way even if you are participating with raising funds and promoting things but to see and really FEEL what it meant to someone else to have someone help them with major life difficulties is why it became emotional for him.

I remember Jensen saying that if acting didn't work out he was going to go back to college and study sports medicine which is a healing profession.  Totally speculating here, but maybe that's where his emotion sprang, that he realizes now that he is actually materially helping people when perhaps before he didn't think he was for whatever reason. Maybe he's seeing that all the harassment  he got for working with Misha on YANA was all worth it because he sees there is a person that is helping another person possibly not harm themselves and even in his small way he did help that come to fruition. I  get it. I really do. 

[RulerofallIsurvey]

• I think One season is not enough to really judge Dabb as a showrunner - especially since he inherited several problems/storylines from Carver which he had to wrap up this season.
• I think a lot of the unhappiness which a lot of viewers seem to be noting about S12 is probably the result of a closed feedback loop.  When practically all you converse with is like minded people (and those who dare disagree with you are summarily shot down multiple times) it's bound to look like more people are unhappy than actually are.  And if you're looking for complaints on social media, then that's what you're going to find.
• I think a lot of the nostalgia for the early seasons is just that: nostalgia.  Which usually doesn't hold up under critical scrutiny.  I've been re-watching some of the early eps.  And many of the plots weren't really all that great - especially the big mytharc plots.  There were huge plot holes even back then.  The MOWs were mostly good, but also because in S1, S2, and S3 they were all New!  I think it was the novelty of it all that makes it seem so much better in retrospect.  After 13 years, it's probably pretty hard to come up with new 'creatures'.   Does that mean the writers shouldn't even try?  No.  I think they do.  And I think the last couple years they've done a good job.  But I think people are expecting to be WOWED in a way that cannot be repeated with a show about the Supernatural in it's 13th season versus its first season.  

[Airmid]

9 hours ago, RulerofallIsurvey said:

I think a lot of the nostalgia for the early seasons is just that: nostalgia.  Which usually doesn't hold up under critical scrutiny.  I've been re-watching some of the early eps.  And many of the plots weren't really all that great - especially the big mytharc plots.  There were huge plot holes even back then.  The MOWs were mostly good, but also because in S1, S2, and S3 they were all New!  I think it was the novelty of it all that makes it seem so much better in retrospect.  After 13 years, it's probably pretty hard to come up with new 'creatures'.   Does that mean the writers shouldn't even try?  No.  I think they do.  And I think the last couple years they've done a good job.  But I think people are expecting to be WOWED in a way that cannot be repeated with a show about the Supernatural in it's 13th season versus its first season.  

The entire first five years were a mess IMO. Season Two was all over the place and Season Three got a major revamp and was probably the tightest due to the writer's strike making them decide to go a different direction. Season Four sunk Sam's character and Season Five had issues because they couldn't seem to decide how they wanted to deal with the apocalypse they've been planning until mid-way through. Having the change with them being vessels (though I did like the parallels they attempted between the boys and the archangels) in Season Five kind of made Azazel's plan not make sense unless Lucifer just never told him the name of his boy king, which I could see him doing just because. Or no one informed Satan and he just kept up the blood plan hoping that eventually it would find his vessel, which seems messy but I'll go with it. 

That being said, while there are some good episodes in the most recent seasons, if I want to watch a full season I go back to pre-season eight ones a lot more often. There's something about those that just strikes something in me that makes it better for me. I won't say heart because that's honestly unfair to the actors who put a lot into each episode. Simply that as a whole, those seasons are just better to me as a whole even with all their flaws.  

As for the wow factor, I think that's true in some ways. People want that same catch that drove them to watch in the beginning. I will say that for me though, I expect a good story. What made me sad is trying to explain the last two Season's plots to my father. He's visiting and noticed Season 12 was already on Netflix. He had stopped watching a few years back and asked me if I could summarize the last two seasons. Having to actually state out loud the highlights and that Lucifer and Mary were in an alternative dimension while the boys where with Lucifer's spawn made me wonder what the hell happened to my show.

And that, right there, is a problem for me and why I don't watch live much anymore and tend to catch up a few days after. 

As for the new creatures - There are so many cultural folktales in the US alone and so many ideas from Native American stories that they haven't touched on, let alone allowing some creatures to come from other countries like they have...well, while it may take research, there's a lot to work with. I won't say it's easy to make these creatures into something good for the show - God no - but there's ripe pickings for them. I think they often do a good job with this but at other times (like their penchant for making pagan gods human eating monsters, that whole Samhain concept, etc) not so much. 

[DittyDotDot]

49 minutes ago, Airmid said:

That being said, while there are some good episodes in the most recent seasons, if I want to watch a full season I go back to pre-season eight ones a lot more often. There's something about those that just strikes something in me that makes it better for me. I won't say heart because that's honestly unfair to the actors who put a lot into each episode. Simply that as a whole, those seasons are just better to me as a whole even with all their flaws.

I agree that the plotting and plots themselves were always a mess, but what held the show together was it was grounded in this blue collar, mid-Western work ethic that I feel is absent from the most recent seasons. So maybe it's not that they lost their heart, but lost their soul? In some ways, the show is sorta like it was for Soulless Sam, they know who they were, but don't understand who they were and are trying to keep up all outward pretenses they're still the same hoping no one will notice they've changed.

Edited May 29, 2017 by DittyDotDot

[Pondlass1]

I can appreciate their dilemma.  Demons and angels used to be something.  We moved to the edge of the sofa when they came on screen.  They could make Sam and Dean stick to a wall with a wave of a hand.  Now they walk about in suits with clipboards and, for some odd reason, remain corporeal while in heaven or hell (or wherever Crowley's dingy bunker is located).  My head canon in terms of demons is that the longer they're topside the more feeble they become.  (It's similar to TWD zombies - so scary at first, now they're swatted away like flies).

And  they went too big with the Leviathans' soylent green thing ,then we had falling angels, dying suns and the like.  It's too big and too 'global'.  

I don't want super heroes saving the world; they're all over movies & TV.  What makes Supernatural different and special is the 'smallness' of two street smart, blue collar hunters, riding the back roads of America saving us from monsters.  I hope they return to that concept in s13.  It'll be like coming home.

[Idahoforspn]

4 minutes ago, Pondlass1 said:

I can appreciate their dilemma.  Demons and angels used to be something.  We moved to the edge of the sofa when they came on screen.  They could make Sam and Dean stick to a wall with a wave of a hand.  Now they walk about in suits with clipboards and, for some odd reason, remain corporeal while in heaven or hell (or wherever Crowley's dingy bunker is located).  My head canon in terms of demons is that the longer they're topside the more feeble they become.  (It's similar to TWD zombies - so scary at first, now they're swatted away like flies).

And  they went too big with the Leviathans' soylent green thing ,then we had falling angels, dying suns and the like.  It's too big and too 'global'.  

I don't want super heroes saving the world; they're all over movies & TV.  What makes Supernatural different and special is the 'smallness' of two street smart, blue collar hunters, riding the back roads of America saving us from monsters.  I hope they return to that concept in s13.  It'll be like coming home.

I thought Dabb said something preseason about toning it down and said you couldn't go bigger than God and his sister. I must be remembering wrong because we got Lucifer back and now his all powerful son.

[Aeryn13]

Personally, I like the concept of the big mytharcs and bringing in the "bible stories" with a new twist, Cain, archangels etc was really right up my alley. Or the Mother of all Monsters. Or Leviathans. Purgatory. Heck, the Darkness itself as God`s sister. All in theory very intriguing ideas to me but the execution was lacking.

So IMO the smaller, more intimate stories of the first two Seasons hold together better because that was more in the wheelhouse of the writers. The bigger your concept, the worse you can screw it up after all. If you keep your story more grounded and smaller, that risk isn`t so high.

Problem now is you can`t really go back. These characters had the King of Hell on speed dial, God roomed with them so I`m not gonna take random demonic possession seriously. And while a good haunting can still make an effective episode, you can`t wring a Season from it. Effectively, they have written themselves into a corner for me.

The oh-so-evil-BMOL were just humans and it took like 7 people with guns to have them pack up their operation. Granted, it only takes Mary and some stupid brass knuckles these days to "defeat" Lucifer as well.

What has changed for me are the MOTWs. The mytharcs were never spectacularly done but the bulk of each Season were always the standalone episodes. And for the last two Seasons, I wanted to claw my eyes out for the lot of them. Even if I never read anything online, I would still hate them. And I don`t believe that is due to no longer intriguing monsters/concepts, that is not the problem, it is because I think the writing for them is godawful. Intriguing or at least likeable one-episodic-characters and interacting with them? Eh. Moments I can cheer for? Eh. A sense of fun and charme? Eh.

Some still manage to shine but the ratio went from maybe 75 % of them to 5 % for me.    

[RulerofallIsurvey]

51 minutes ago, Airmid said:

That being said, while there are some good episodes in the most recent seasons, if I want to watch a full season I go back to pre-season eight ones a lot more often. There's something about those that just strikes something in me that makes it better for me.

For me it was the humor.  Even when the I had to close my eyes and turn my head away because I was squicked out due to some gore, there was usually some humor in an episode that helped lighten it up a bit - even if it was dark humor.  Imo, the show lost a lot of that in S8 and S9.  I know some people think SoullessSam was funny, and while on first watch I enjoyed many of the first eps of S6, I really have no desire to go back and watch them again.  Something about knowing that Sam is soulless takes whatever fun was in them at the time out.  Fwiw, I think the show has started to incorporate more humor again in S11 and S12.  

56 minutes ago, Airmid said:

What made me sad is trying to explain the last two Season's plots to my father. He's visiting and noticed Season 12 was already on Netflix. He had stopped watching a few years back and asked me if I could summarize the last two seasons. Having to actually state out loud the highlights and that Lucifer and Mary were in an alternative dimension while the boys where with Lucifer's spawn made me wonder what the hell happened to my show.

To be fair - if he hadn't watched Supernatural at all, trying to explain S2, S3, and S4 plots probably would have been even more difficult.  I think the last two seasons (11 and 12) have had a pretty straight-forward plot arc.  But 2, 3, and 4 with all the different factions of demons?  I can't remember now who was on what side and what they all wanted.

1 hour ago, Airmid said:

As for the new creatures - There are so many cultural folktales in the US alone and so many ideas from Native American stories that they haven't touched on, let alone allowing some creatures to come from other countries like they have...well, while it may take research, there's a lot to work with. I won't say it's easy to make these creatures into something good for the show - God no - but there's ripe pickings for them. I think they often do a good job with this but at other times (like their penchant for making pagan gods human eating monsters, that whole Samhain concept, etc) not so much. 

Good point about all the different creatures available out there.  Maybe it's just my (mis)perception, but I feel like lately they rely on vampires and werewolves a little too much.  

Here's the thing: I was taught that if you were unhappy with the way things were, then do something about it.  And while the writers probably couldn't use any overly specific ideas (copyright issues), maybe a well worded message with general encouragements (such as "Gee, I really liked "The Chitters" in S11.  I'd love to see more MOWs based on Native American lore!") would help to get the writers to look in new and/or different directions for ideas.  (You know, there's that whole 'attract more flies with honey than vinegar' thing to keep in mind too.)  

4 minutes ago, Pondlass1 said:

What makes Supernatural different and special is the 'smallness' of two street smart, blue collar hunters, riding the back roads of America saving us from monsters.  I hope they return to that concept in s13.  It'll be like coming home.

To be fair, it was really only that 'small' in Season 1.  After that, it started getting bigger and bigger: The Apocalypse ain't exactly small potatoes.  I also think Dabb is trying to go 'smaller' with the introduction of the BMoL and that S12 was a transition period.  I mean, you can't just go from God Versus His Sister Universe Ending Darkness to 'two street smart, blue collar hunters riding the back roads of America saving people from monsters' in one season.  There had to be fall out from S11 first.  Otherwise people would have been calling foul on that.  

1 minute ago, Idahoforspn said:

I must be remembering wrong because we got Lucifer back and now his all powerful son.

Except that Lucifer is not as Big as God.  And is son (so far as we know) is not All Powerful.  Also, Lucifer was still out at the end of S11 - again a loose end that had to be addressed.  

[Pondlass1]

I guess instead of 'small' maybe more 'personal' quests.  The Levi's were affecting all the countries of the planet, angels were falling and inhabiting human vessels ... yet we only saw Sam and Dean's tiny corner of the world.  I mean... is tractor angel still riding that tractor to save them?

Earlier stories were 'big' in terms of celestial but they were also often up close and personal.  I guess Amara was that too, and I'm not explaining myself well.  But that's what I'm trying to say.

A 13 year old show has to be difficult to write for.  I do appreciate that.  Everyone's died, it's all 'been there, done that'. And I agree they need to dig up some new more intriguing monsters to feature.  Geez there's got to be a shitload of them in American lore alone.

Writers - get me excited again. You've got the actors, you've got the Pandora's box of supernatural waiting to be opened.  Season 13 may be it.  

[MysteryGuest]

56 minutes ago, RulerofallIsurvey said:

I also think Dabb is trying to go 'smaller' with the introduction of the BMoL and that S12 was a transition period.  I mean, you can't just go from God Versus His Sister Universe Ending Darkness to 'two street smart, blue collar hunters riding the back roads of America saving people from monsters' in one season.  There had to be fall out from S11 first.  Otherwise people would have been calling foul on that.

I certainly wouldn't have called foul, since this is exactly what I was hoping for.  Once God's been hanging out at your house eating Chinese food in his underwear, there really is nowhere else to go but backwards.  But I was good with that.  I had myself all set for some really good MOTW episodes.  Add in the potential of Mary's return and the BMOL, and at least on paper, it sounded like an interesting season.

They had acknowledged that they'd pretty much exhausted the God themes, and said they were getting back to basics.  Lucifer may have been a loose thread, but rather than tie that up, they turned right around and made him the star of the show.  I couldn't have been more disappointed.  And now we have Lucifer and Lucifer, Jr. to look forward to for season 13, so it's gone from bad to worse.  Add in the unnecessary killing off of Crowley and Rowena, and I'm finding it difficult to muster up too much enthusiasm for next season.  

Edited May 29, 2017 by MysteryGuest

[catrox14]

I'm pretty active on Twitter. If one reads the #Supernatural hashtag, there is a wide cross section of fans i.e. Sam fans, Dean fans, Cas fans, TFW, bi-bros, Bros Only, Crowley fans, you name it and they are on Twitter. That's not an echo chamber of opinion, in my experience.  Tumblr has a tendency to be more of the echo chamber because folks can curate their TL to follow certain other users. That said, if a user searches the various  Supernatural tags then you'll find more variety and more cross section of criticism/praise of the show. I can't speak to Facebook because I don't follow the Supernatural page, so I don't know how closed loop/echo chamber it is. If it's anything like Twitter or Tumblr, I'd argue it's more varied than closed loop.

Even in our little corner of the world which is just a small slice of the pie that has MILLIONS of slices, we have cross section of viewers that have their various preferences.  I've seen complaints/criticisms/concerns from each and every faction of the audience.  Not being inclined to change an opinion doesn't necessarily mean one is only thinking from the echo chamber.  Maybe they just don't find the other opinions or rationales convincing enough to alter their opinions. JMHO

[companionenvy]

5 minutes ago, MysteryGuest said:

They had acknowledged that they'd pretty much exhausted the God themes, and said they were getting back to basics.  Lucifer may have been a loose thread, but rather than tie that up, they turned right around and made him the star of the show.  I couldn't have been more disappointed.  And now we have Lucifer and Lucifer, Jr. to look forward to for season 13, so it's gone from bad to worse.

ITA. I thought this season was OK, but what baffled me is that they had a perfect template for seguing into a more human-level show and then wound up taking the BMOL off the map and ensuring that the Lucifer plot would continue. 

A bigger problem, IMO, than the continuance of hell and heaven intrigue is the execution of it. I can't remember the last demon or angel who was an interesting character with a distinct relationship with our leads. There's also too much resistance to even slightly altering the central dynamic. Not that I want Sam and Dean split up, but maybe it would have been nice to have more than one episode where Cas or Mary was hunting with the boys outside of the arc-plot. Maybe instead of a war in heaven between largely interchangeable angel-suits, we could have done a plot in which Sam, Dean and Cas had to track down a much smaller group of fallen, de-powered angels and help them integrate. Maybe Dean could have been a demon for longer than five minutes (yes, still bitter). Maybe rather than having the boys react to a new Big Bad, we could have had them proactively work to restore the American MoL. Maybe we could have a time-travel arc that lasted longer than an episode, or even an arc in which the boys had to make multiple trips back in time on a quest to find something that would help them in a present-day crisis. 

I"m not saying all of these plots would have worked, either. But at least the show would have been trying something new.

[Idahoforspn]

12 minutes ago, companionenvy said:

ITA. I thought this season was OK, but what baffled me is that they had a perfect template for seguing into a more human-level show and then wound up taking the BMOL off the map

And they had made Mick (IMO) AN interesting character that could have been utilized. Instead, they killed him off just like every other character that shows promise.

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and ensuring that the Lucifer plot would continue. 

A bigger problem, IMO, than the continuance of hell and heaven intrigue is the execution of it. I can't remember the last demon or angel who was an interesting character with a distinct relationship with our leads.

 

I can't stand the corporate America no personality theme for demons and angels. 

Quote

There's also too much resistance to even slightly altering the central dynamic. Not that I want Sam and Dean split up,

It is possible to write the boys physically not together without viewers feeling like they are. Separate..not separated if that makes sense. Probably not.

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but maybe it would have been nice to have more than one episode where Cas or Mary was hunting with the boys outside of the arc-plot. Maybe instead of a war in heaven between largely interchangeable angel-suits, we could have done a plot in which Sam, Dean and Cas had to track down a much smaller group of fallen, de-powered angels and help them integrate. Maybe Dean could have been a demon for longer than five minutes (yes, still bitter).

I am too and always will be.

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Maybe rather than having the boys react to a new Big Bad, we could have had them proactively work to restore the American MoL. Maybe we could have a time-travel arc that lasted longer than an episode, or even an arc in which the boys had to make multiple trips back in time on a quest to find something that would help them in a present-day crisis. 

I"m not saying all of these plots would have worked, either. But at least the show would have been trying something new.

It would be nice if the showrunner/writers had some original thoughts.

[Aeryn13]

They had the perfect opportunity to wrap up Lucifer in Season 11. Amara was so powerful, she could mortally wound God and yet she didn`t blow Lucifer to smithereens when she basically cast him out of Cas. I figured that moments was curtain call for Lucifer. But nope, they kept him around because they wanted to and drag it out. So if the character has become stale and the story a drag, they got nobody to blame but themselves.

One idea they introduced in the Finale - alternate world(s) - would IMO have been a neat new trick for a little arc. There didn`t have to be a Spawn to open a portal, any random plot thingamagic could have managed that. Fringe made a goldmine out of that concept.  

Also, I thought other shows have done well for themselves this year by splitting their Seasons in mini arcs, like Agents of Shield. Personally, I found that a fresh idea and neatly executed. SPN could try that for a change. You can go smaller with the stories, you can still have standalones within that construct, the pacing is much improved and a mini arc has much less chance of boring a viewer.

So many things still could be done but even if they pick stuff I recognize from other shows, it`s usually the "geez, that was the things that didn`t work" stories. 

Right now I consider Season 12 to be the single worst Season of the show and I put the blame fully at Dabb`s and Singer`s feet. I don`t feel they get a "test drive" year either. A few episodes maybe but not a full Season. Besides, I think Dabb was semi in charge for most of Season 11 already and Carver was there in name only.   

[DittyDotDot]

34 minutes ago, companionenvy said:

I thought this season was OK, but what baffled me is that they had a perfect template for seguing into a more human-level show and then wound up taking the BMOL off the map and ensuring that the Lucifer plot would continue. 

Or did they? I mean, it could be they have no plans to bring Luci or Mary back....maybe they locked them in the alternate universe permanently? ;)

[SueB]

52 minutes ago, companionenvy said:

I"m not saying all of these plots would have worked, either. But at least the show would have been trying something new.

To clarify, are you saying the Heaven/ Hell stuff was old AND the BMoL was not "new" or just the Heaven/Hell plots?

[ILoveReading]

29 minutes ago, companionenvy said:

Maybe Dean could have been a demon for longer than five minutes (yes, still bitter). Maybe rather than having the boys react to a new Big Bad, we could have had them proactively work to restore the American MoL. Maybe we could have a time-travel arc that lasted longer than an episode, or even an arc in which the boys had to make multiple trips back in time on a quest to find something that would help them in a present-day crisis. 

They didn't even need to make Dean a full fledged demon.  Since his body was dead, they could have added the element that Sam couldn't do the full cure. So, like Crowley, Dean is a half human/half demon hybrid.  In Death Takes a Holiday when Sam and Dean were ghosts they had to play by he ghosts rules.  Dean having to play buy the rules of a demon, like not being able to cross a Devil's Trap or use salt.  Or Dean just completely disappears in the middle of a hunt because he was summoned to a crossroad for a deal. 

I wish they had made the curse from Regarding Dean last more than one ep.  42 minutes wasn't really enough to do the concept justice.  I would have liked to see more of the dark side of the curse.  Instead of Sam joining after he sees what a screw up the Brits actually were, tie it to trying to save Dean.  He finds a reference in this bunker to a magic spell the brits have.  He calls Mick, goes undercover to try and get spell.  Mick helps him.  Sam joins for real when Dean is cured. 

I ended up liked Mick and Ketch far more than I thought I would.  You could have had a cat and mouse game with Dean and Ketch.  After the event of Ladies Drink Free, have Mick turn traitor and he'd feeding Sam and Dean intel and their saving other hunters.  Instead Sam and Dean just looked dumb, and amateur that they missed the huge, giant red flags that the Brits were not what they said they were.

5 minutes ago, Aeryn13 said:

Right now I consider Season 12 to be the single worst Season of the show and I put the blame fully at Dabb`s and Singer`s feet. I don`t feel they get a "test drive" year either. A few episodes maybe but not a full Season. Besides, I think Dabb was semi in charge for most of Season 11 already and Carver was there in name only.   

Agree.  Dabb has been around since s4.  He should know the characters and the world they live in.  Plus, he wrote the finale.  He was the one that set up the arcs for this season.  He could have easily dispatched Lucifer, or sent him back to the cage in ep 8 and spent the rest of the season developing the British Men of Letters story.   But nope, he chose to keep him around.   I don't think follow up is Dabb's main priority when there was zero consequences for Dean killing death and none for Cas taking out Billie and the Darkness was back burner ed and only given the absolute bare minimum attention. 

Dabb wrote the scene of Toni grabbing Sam.  Given the set up I thought they were after them because the Brits blamed Sam and Dean for the apocalypse and decided they were more dangerous.  But then, nope, they want Sam to work with them.  Why kidnap and torture?  There was a huge plot hole right from the start, and both those eps were written by Dabb. 

IMO, the biggest problem aside from laziness, (I would bet money on Jack being lost and confused and not knowing if he's good or bad or both and an imprinting on Sam= Amara 2.0).  is the lack of communication.  It wouldn't surprise me if we found out the writers don't read each others scripts.  I think they meet, come up with a general concept, like the Darkness is released and each writer decided what that means.   I still don't really understand what was going on between her and Dean.   Even Jensen talked about how as far as episode 18, he was still confused as to how he should be playing it. 

Carver can't answer whether Amara couldn't or wouldn't take his soul.  That was a major moment, but nope it wasn't important enough for the writers to care about.  (I'm one that believes Dabb was in charge at this point).

Then again this season, Jensen mention he was still off balance as far as ep 22.  It shows how little thought went into the arc, other than Mary is struggling.  I can see how it worked for Jensen in that moment, but I don't think forgiving Mary even crossed the viewers minds until Jensen mentioned it. 

[catrox14]

16 minutes ago, DittyDotDot said:

Or did they? I mean, it could be they have no plans to bring Luci or Mary back....maybe they locked them in the alternate universe permanently? ;)

Doubtful, since they've left the loophole that as long as Sproutifer lives he has the power to rip open space and time. Also the BMOL seem to know how to open a portal and typically,  in the world of sci-fi/fantasy, a portal means travel through space and time. They can keep them on the shelf until they want to open it again.   But this won't be permanent at all. IMO

If the show picks up right from the finale, which if it doesn't that is a lot of hooey, Sam is likely going to ask Sproutifer to try and heal Cas and open another rift so they can save Mary. But because Sproutifer seems to be an actual man-child, he'll not know how or he won't trust Sam or he'll be angry because Dad!Cas is dead. Maybe he'll think Dean and Sam killed him and he'll unleash his man-child!Sproutifer rage on them and tear open new rifts.

[catrox14]

17 minutes ago, ILoveReading said:

They didn't even need to make Dean a full fledged demon.  Since his body was dead, they could have added the element that Sam couldn't do the full cure. So, like Crowley, Dean is a half human/half demon hybrid.  In Death Takes a Holiday when Sam and Dean were ghosts they had to play by he ghosts rules.  Dean having to play buy the rules of a demon, like not being able to cross a Devil's Trap or use salt.  Or Dean just completely disappears in the middle of a hunt because he was summoned to a crossroad for a deal. 

This would have been AWESOME.

Or the reverse, demon!Dean didn't want to hunt and he'd keep being summoned by Sam LOL. They could have put demon!Dean into Fan Fiction by having Sam summon him right when he's in the middle of singing karoake. This could have been the best running joke in the entire series. 

[DittyDotDot]

7 minutes ago, catrox14 said:

Doubtful, since they've left the loophole that as long as Sproutifer lives he has the power to rip open space and time. Also the BMOL seem to know how to open a portal and typically,  in the world of sci-fi/fantasy, a portal means travel through space and time. They can keep them on the shelf until they want to open it again.   But this won't be permanent at all. IMO

If the show picks up right from the finale, which if it doesn't that is a lot of hooey, Sam is likely going to ask Sproutifer to try and heal Cas and open another rift so they can save Mary. But because Sproutifer seems to be an actual man-child, he'll not know how or he won't trust Sam or he'll be angry because Dad!Cas is dead. Maybe he'll think Dean and Sam killed him and he'll unleash his man-child!Sproutifer rage on them and tear open new rifts.

It was a joke...hence the winky-smiley face.

[catrox14]

18 minutes ago, DittyDotDot said:

It was a joke...hence the winky-smiley face.

Oh sorry, I don't always know that a winky face = joke at all times. I will take it that way henceforth!

[companionenvy]

5 hours ago, SueB said:

To clarify, are you saying the Heaven/ Hell stuff was old AND the BMoL was not "new" or just the Heaven/Hell plots?

Just the heaven hell plots. I actually did like the idea of the BMOL plot, although I thought they made the villains way too cartoonish for the arc to be as compelling as it might have been. Although it did make it satisfying to see Ketch and Hess get offed :)

[Airmid]

11 hours ago, companionenvy said:

A bigger problem, IMO, than the continuance of hell and heaven intrigue is the execution of it. I can't remember the last demon or angel who was an interesting character with a distinct relationship with our leads

I think one of my biggest problems with the angels is that most are presented as pricks. The ones that aren't are murdered horribly.

- That little angel Cas met while looking for Amara after the heavenly smiting? She's sweet, sees herself as expendable and then proves it like thirty seconds later. 

- Alfie. We met him at the start of season eight. He's non-hostile and is apparently forgiving of Castiel's actions to a degree at least. Gets kidnapped and is later murdered by Castiel on Naomi's orders.

- Joshua. Kind angel who rescues the Winchester's on the orders of God and gives them a terrible truth. Later turned into a white dude and killed. 

While the prick angels do die a lot that's pretty much the variety we normally get. Metatron actually came to a good end when he rallied for humanity to Chuck and died defending it, which is surprising.

But then we have:

Naomi actually gets a revelation after seeing Metatron's brain or whatever angels have and comes to Dean and Castiel crying. Gabriel comes to defend the boys and rescue them from Lucifer. Balthazar realizes the error in Castiel's plans and comes to their aid. 

All of them end up dead right after doing the right thing. Naomi with her wake up call would have been interesting with the fall of the angels and her actually leading the faction of angels that were trying to help humans. Balthazar would have been interesting as a liaison for the boys in the whole Levi invasion and helped make it feel more world wide if he was the one that tried to fill them in on what was happening overseas to fix Cas' mistake and his unwitting role in it. He also could have filled in gaps about why heaven could just not GAF about primordial monsters running loose that snack on angels, like mentioning everybody regrouping from Cas' purge. Gabriel, I don't know. I believe he was pretty much slated to die really given his arc, it was just an unsatisfying death.

At least Hannah had some kind of character arc from start to finish even if at times it wasn't well done. 

Killing characters off is almost a fetish in this show. So that leaves angel number #3,569 as the bad guy with a name we don't care about and an attitude that's all asshat with no middle ground. They become kind of a blur to me and it's unsatisfying to see them fight with their fists instead of with their powers. They are just another type of monster now, powerful but killable and everyone's got a blade. It should be near impossible to for a human to stick a blade through an angel but in now it's just a thing and even powerful princes of hell, never before seen, can kill an angel without breaking a sweat.

Which of course makes Dean's kill of Zach even less of a feat which is sad, especially with such a satisfying death on the show.

Lucifer has had the same treatment. Before he was manipulative. He worked in underhanded ways to break his victims. He gaslighted his first vessel that was almost insane with grief. He tried empathy with Sam and slowly took away his sleep so that Sam would be more likely to break. He captured Castiel when they came to stop him but didn't kill him (the lighting in that section of their meeting is pretty intense due to the holy fire). He wanted to break Sam after Sam refused to fall to famine and disappoint his brother so he broke Sam's allies by sending Death. And that's not including all the massively sneaky things demons did to Sam throughout his entire life.

Starting towards the end of season five he got whiny. He was upset over not being the number one object of adoration, that something he saw as unworthy got that instead. No wonder Michael didn't take him up on his offer at Stull, it's not like he apologized or actually thought he did wrong in any way. 

It's just gotten worse and the writers seem to confuse pride with stupid. Lucifer leaving Sam awake while beating Dean to death was hubris, he thought he had won with Sam and wanted his vessel to suffer. That was his downfall. Simply not killing the Winchesters on sight, or at least using his powers to restrain them at all in order to make them hurt is stupidity. Wandering into unverified time portals when what he really wants is in the house right next to him is stupidity. Breaking all of God's toys but only doing it with small acts of violence is stupidity. Burn down a couple of cities Luci. You're going to get a whole lot more attention and admiration/sheer terror/hate that way then whatever you were doing before. 

For me, Lucifer doesn't work now because he's been so depowered that he isn't a real threat. He's almost on the same level as vampire, something to keep at arms length but there's always a handy dandy way of dispatching him at the end. There's no real sense of danger to him, he's just a lost child who wants to smash things.  Just because that small child is Satan doesn't make it anymore interesting or threatening. 

Hopefully that all makes sense in that long rant that I didn't mean to be so long. I'm really tired right now. 

[AwesomO4000]

14 hours ago, Pondlass1 said:

I guess instead of 'small' maybe more 'personal' quests.  The Levi's were affecting all the countries of the planet, angels were falling and inhabiting human vessels ... yet we only saw Sam and Dean's tiny corner of the world.  

For me, I thought season 7 did a pretty good job, because the season did sometimes show the effects on other people as well - they just used Sam and Dean as means tell the other people's stories. I actually liked the dark humor way the season showed or told the bigger picture. Even from the start, we saw the leviathans affect the high school swim team and the hospital and the little girl. Later we had episodes that focused on the leviathans' "smaller" effects - like "Out With  the Old" where we saw people being affected by the real estate deals in Oregon. We had "How to Win Friends..." where we saw people being affected by the Biggersons Turducken sandwich. And later on there was the stories of Charlie and Kevin and how they were affected. Also we had Frank throughout the season drop all sorts of generally amusing details on where leviathans were, what they were doing, and who they were taking over - like Fred Savage - hee and Dean: "No Frank, I don't care that the leviathans have taken over the luxury yacht industry." Again hee. But in general, I appreciated the dark humor of season 7. And one of my favorite inclusions was the guy who Sam and Dean needed blood from to make their "vamptonite" who they were just able to talk into giving blood "For hurricane Katrina" (or something like that), so we saw that people were still being affected by the leviathans machinations in their "test areas." I thought season 7 did a pretty clever job of including those little details without going too big.

As for season 9, there were a few mentions for the angels possessing people, and I think one episode that focused a bit on it, but in that case, I don't think there was as much effort made to include the information. I will admit I could be missing quite a bit though as season 9 doesn't tend to be one that I genrally rewatch.

Edited May 30, 2017 by AwesomO4000

[Demented Daisy]

18 hours ago, catrox14 said:

This would have been AWESOME.

Or the reverse, demon!Dean didn't want to hunt and he'd keep being summoned by Sam LOL. They could have put demon!Dean into Fan Fiction by having Sam summon him right when he's in the middle of singing karoake. This could have been the best running joke in the entire series. 

As a Dean fan, I would have absolutely HATED that.  Making a joke of Dean being a demon, his greatest fear?  Makes my stomach turn.  Talk about disrespecting the character....

[Airmid]

6 hours ago, AwesomO4000 said:

I thought season 7 did a pretty clever job of including those little details without going too big.

I thought they went two small in some ways during that season and the problem was two fold -

1) The writers, while dropping hints of a world wide Levi problem, really kept the problem America centric. What I mean by that is that what they used as their basis for poisoning wouldn't work in many countries. Their whole HFC thing wouldn't work in Europe which has a large restrictions on that and uses cane sugar.* They talk about creamers to kill off the undesirables when actually putting things into food that would fatten up their victims unwittingly regardless of how much exercise etc. would have a) worked a lot better to ensure their food supply/good breeding later on and b) assumes that the target audience even drinks creamer. 

Even in the end, where they're negotiating with Crowley or talking about the future slaughterhouses or even in the conference, it all seems very America orientated with Canada just thrown in because, eh, Canada. Tossing in throw away lines about world wide activities didn't work so much for me when their entire main focus seemed to be on American culture and attitude, instead of a more international one. 

2) The Levi's themselves not being that threatening in the end for me. I mean they started out with just simply finding a hospital to take over and start eating. It was understandable about them laying low if they had a grand master plan to quietly subjugate humanity before humanity even had a clue. and guarantee themselves a long and plentiful supply of food. Something dangerous and lurking that was about to destroy everything before anyone could really fight back outside a handful of people who did it as a living. Really, telling people there's monsters wouldn't have done a damn thing unless Dean got fed up and just decapitated Dick on live television which would have caused a mass panic and world wide issues. 

They also went after Dean and Sam in a creative way. Can't find your targets but can shape shift? Make their lives a living hell by going on an unstoppable murder spree and draw them out in the process. Good call.

At the end though, they were just a bunch of corporate shills and it just wasn't interesting for me like it should have been. I'm not saying that they needed to go way big and start showing world destruction but at the same time Dick wasn't threatening to me. He didn't even come off as that clever. Edgar with one line about the slaughterhouses, made them cold, terrifying and hungry for the first time in several episodes.

YMMV though and that's just my take on it. I actually still liked large portions of season seven, especially the relationship of the brothers. I dislike how they portrayed Becky though and the fact that they once again introduced a hunter that wasn't a dick (female too) and she ended up stupid and dead in the first five minutes. At least she got to ghost it around for a bit, but yeah, still bitter over that and how they had her sleep with all the main male characters. I don't mind a woman who likes her men at all. I do kind of mind that she's portrayed in the way she was as it came off squicky and not funny to me. 

*Europe uses sugar over HFC corn syrup because of the lobbying cane sugar industry, it's not some noble health concern. What's interesting is that there are some conspiracy theories about Coke: Original used caned sugar and then came Coke's big debacle with New Coke. People demanded Classic back and that's what they got, only with the switch over to HFCs (High Fructose Corn Syrup). Enough time had passed that people didn't notice that change unless of course you went to Mexico, where once again uses cane syrup because big business. It's why some people claim Coke from Mexico is much better and gives an interesting perspective on what big businesses due which is why I think the Levi's plan was actually rather clever, just American centric due to writing which did it no favors.

Edited May 30, 2017 by Airmid
Still waking up and used ban instead of restriction

[Idahoforspn]

52 minutes ago, Demented Daisy said:

As a Dean fan, I would have absolutely HATED that.  Making a joke of Dean being a demon, his greatest fear?  Makes my stomach turn.  Talk about disrespecting the character....

Creative writing could have kept DemonDean in fanfiction without making HIM a joke. They could have kept the storyline if they wanted. We have seen the gymnastics TPTB go through to keep something they want.  It was obvious they had absolutely no desire to keep the storyline.

[Demented Daisy]

8 minutes ago, Idahoforspn said:

Creative writing could have kept DemonDean in fanfiction without making HIM a joke. 

I was responding to catrox's suggestion that they make Sam summoning Demon Dean into "the best running joke in the entire series".  So, yes, IMO, it would have made Demon Dean into a joke, which I find highly distasteful.

I am grateful that the storyline was kept to 3 episodes.  Always have been, always will be.

Edited May 30, 2017 by Demented Daisy
To get quote correct.

[Idahoforspn]

3 minutes ago, Demented Daisy said:

I was responding to catrox's suggestion that they make Sam summoning Demon Dean into "the best running joke in the entire series".  So, yes, IMO, it would have made Demon Dean into a joke, which I find highly distasteful.

I am grateful that the storyline was kept to 3 episodes.  Always have been, always will be.

Ahhh.OK. I would have liked it to continue but not with  Demon Dean being a joke.

[Pondlass1]

1 hour ago, Demented Daisy said:

As a Dean fan, I would have absolutely HATED that

I'm a Dean fan and I would have enjoyed it immensely.  The show goes to the edge but never jumps off.  You have to knock socks off in today's world of television and playing it safe and not taking risks usually transfers to ratings decline. 'Bland and lame' is how I'd describe season 12.

A half and half Dean?  Mind tickling.  How delicious. They could have run with it for a few episodes at least.  We'd never really know which Dean we were getting and Sam frantic & confused, trying to complete the cure.  What an entertaining idea!  (I think I feel a fanfiction coming on.)

Of course Dean would suffer even more guilt, but Jensen's so brilliant at that too.  

The PTB should be visiting this site for ideas.  We're brimming over with them. The writers (who I agree never network or read each other's scripts) seem to have misplaced their imaginations and sense of adventure.

[Idahoforspn]

20 minutes ago, Pondlass1 said:

 

A half and half Dean?  Mind tickling.  How delicious. They could have run with it for a few episodes at least.  We'd never really know which Dean we were getting and Sam frantic & confused, trying to complete the cure.  What an entertaining idea!  (I think I feel a fanfiction coming on.)

Such a wasted opportunity. Wish you could have given them writing tips.

[catrox14]

As a fellow Dean fan, I found it more disrespectful for show to go through all the trouble of making Dean into an asshole who allowed Gadreel to possess Sam without Sam's informed consent and continue to lie about it; by giving him bloodlust and made him a murdering murderer who murdered humans via the Mark of Cain; by having him murdered by Metatron and being resurrected by Crowley via the Mark of Cain which turned him into his worst nightmare, a demon, and then did fuck all with it in the end. 

I couldn't stand them putting Dean through all THAT and breaking my heart and he didn't even get to use teleportation, flinging someone across the room with a flick of the hand nor the power to possess someone.  Not letting the character be fully empowered as all other demons were, especially when he had the Mark of Cain too, IMO, made the character into a bit of a joke.  The show itself made a joke of it with Sam referring to Dean's time of being a demon as Dean's 'Summer of Love" with Crowley, which I hated BTW.

What I, and I think @ILoveReading, was suggesting was situational humor, which does not turn a person into the joke, but rather the humor is derived from the situation the person is in, like demons being summoned at really inconvenient times. Some viewers thought Dean being turned into a dog was funny and not disrespectful. Others felt it treated Dean being ripped apart and murdered by hellhounds as a joke because he was turned into a dog.  I miss the days of dark, quirky situational humor like a suicidal giant Teddy Bear or lines like "I have something in my throat....I think it's my throat" during a really dark episode. As always humor is in the eye of the beerholder...(or something like that LOL). 

Edited May 30, 2017 by catrox14

[Aeryn13]

Quote

I couldn't stand them putting Dean through all THAT and breaking my heart and he didn't even get to use teleportation, flinging someone across the room with a flick of the hand nor the power to possess someone.  Not letting the character be fully empowered as all other demons were, especially when he had the Mark of Cain too, IMO, made the character into a bit of a joke.  The show itself made a joke of it with Sam referring to Dean's time of being a demon as Dean's 'Summer of Love" with Crowley, which I hated BTW.

I agree. They really undermined the whole story. And he was captured ridiculously easy. And afterwards, they picked right up where they had left off in Season 9 pre-demon with the MOC. When becoming a demon should have been the climax of that storyline, not an interlude. 

OR they should have revealed the Mark being a seal for a "terrible primordial evil" early on (and not just pulled it out of their asses at the 11th hour) and have that be the hindrance to remove it.

Both options would have had lots of potential if written with care.

I agree in not wanting to make a joke out of the character but that hasn`t stopped them in Season 12 either. So the Demon!Dean idea with some well-placed humour might have been workeable. Soulless!Sam was all over the place in terms of drama and comic relief. He was something different in each episode, depending on the writer. 

[Idahoforspn]

5 minutes ago, catrox14 said:

As a fellow Dean fan, I found it more disrespectful for show to go through all the trouble of making Dean into an asshole who allowed Gadreel to possess Sam without Sam's informed consent and continue to lie about it; by giving him bloodlust and made him a murdering murderer who murdered humans via the Mark of Cain; by having him murdered by Metatron and being resurrected by Crowley via the Mark of Cain which turned him into his worst nightmare, a demon, and then did fuck all with it in the end. 

I couldn't stand them putting Dean through all THAT and breaking my heart and he didn't even get to use teleportation, flinging someone across the room with a flick of the hand nor the power to possess someone.  Not letting the character be fully empowered as all other demons were, especially when he had the Mark of Cain too, IMO, made the character into a bit of a joke.  The show itself made a joke of it with Sam referring to Dean's time of being a demon as Dean's 'Summer of Love" with Crowley, which I hated BTW.

What I, and I think @ILoveReading, was suggesting was situational humor, which does not turn a person into the joke, but rather the humor is derived from the situation the person is in, like demons being summoned at really inconvenient times. Some viewers thought Dean being turned into a dog was funny and not disrespectful. Others felt it treated Dean being ripped apart and murdered by hellhounds as a joke because he was turned into a dog.  I miss the days of dark, quirky situational humor like a suicidal giant Teddy Bear or lines like "I have something in my throat....I think it's my throat" during a really dark episode. As always humor is in the eye of the beerholder...(or something like that LOL). 

OK. Thanks for explaining.

[catrox14]

19 minutes ago, Aeryn13 said:

I agree in not wanting to make a joke out of the character but that hasn`t stopped them in Season 12 either. So the Demon!Dean idea with some well-placed humour might have been workeable. Soulless!Sam was all over the place in terms of drama and comic relief. He was something different in each episode, depending on the writer. 

Although, sadly, Ben Edlund who was the King of Dark Humor is gone now, I guess the best chance we have for that kind of humor of that ...is maybe Steve Yockey or Meredith Glynn?  I thought he had some of it in the Asa Fox episode and she had some in the Regarding Dean episode. I thought there was some decent dark humor in Riechenbach and even Soul Survivor but I'm less sure about Dabb's ability to deliver that now with being the showrunner. 

[MysteryGuest]

I agree that if they went to the trouble of making Dean into a demon, they should have actually allowed him to embrace the dark side for at least a little while.  Lots of drinking, bad karaoke and picking up women sounds like just a typical Friday night for Dean.  Ok, maybe not the karaoke.  But they played most of that arc for humor.  He killed Lester/Chester (can't remember?), but Sam's encouraging him sell his soul in exchange for killing his wife was just as dark, IMO, and Sam wasn't a demon.  There were a few glimpses of what could have been...the exchange with Crowley after he's killed Lester/Chester and the last scene he had with Ann Marie.  That was definitely not our Dean talking to her.  I would have loved for them to explore that persona more.

[Pondlass1]

8 minutes ago, MysteryGuest said:

 Lots of drinking, bad karaoke and picking up women sounds like just a typical Friday night for Dean.

Yeah, it's Dean on a weekend bender. Dean being a demon should have been tragic - not a joke.  It could've been must see TV.  That chase through the red-lit bunker with a hammer ........ EPIC!!

Dean still having remnants  of demon in him is enticing for me.  I think at this late stage the PTB could take a chance and stop being so safe and predictable and cartoonish. Ratings have dropped and the show moved to 8pm is the result.

[Airmid]

33 minutes ago, Pondlass1 said:

Yeah, it's Dean on a weekend bender. Dean being a demon should have been tragic - not a joke.  It could've been must see TV.  That chase through the red-lit bunker with a hammer ........ EPIC!!

Dean still having remnants  of demon in him is enticing for me.  I think at this late stage the PTB could take a chance and stop being so safe and predictable and cartoonish. Ratings have dropped and the show moved to 8pm is the result.

Jesnsen himself directed that episode with the bunker, right? I'm lazy, I could look it up but I'm 99.9% certain he did. And it was epic, scary and we didn't know what was going to happen. Sam's conflicted feelings on cleansing his brother, that whole "I know best act" and then when he turns away looking defeated because it's hurting Dean and doesn't seem right. The interesting thing for me about that whole episode was how Sam viewed Dean. He kept his room as it was, looked at old pictures. It was like he wanted what he thought was his brother back, not what Dean really was and the reality of hurting, almost to the point of torturing him, to get that is an interesting one. Shame they kind of dropped that thread, or maybe it was through Jensen's directing. I dunno on that one. 

I really wish they'd stop playing safe too. Killing off a whole bunch of characters isn't being risky and just makes me more blah to the whole thing. These where characters that I was invested in and now they're gone. So long, farewell, oh and Crowley's death is watered down by Mary having to shove Lucifer back in because he had the slowest spell on earth? Oh well, he'll just lie there as worm food while everyone else makes sure it's done because he still couldn't have that one good win. 

As I said in the spoilers thread - his 'bye boys' should have been a 'run boys' with an undertone of this is it. They're confused, see him stab himself and make a bee line out. The rift is closed, Lucifer is all by himself and that's that for right now at least. Mary punching Lucifer, a frigging archangel of the Lord fallen or not, in the face and it having any kind of impact was just so bad to me. Everyone wants to punch Satan in the face but enchanted brass knuckles pulled out of the writer's ass shouldn't save her from a broken hand. One can fanwank how it works all they want, I just found it extremely stupid. But that's just my opinion. 

[Airmid]

From the Speculation and Spoilers thread (no spoilers)

Quote

Possible UO alert!  I don't think Sam needs to forgive or accept Dean any more than he already has and does.  Their relationship seems to be in a good place right now.  I'm happy for that to stay as it is.  

While their relationship is in a better spot than it has been in a long while, my UO is that Sam has never really accepted Dean like he really is. I doubt he knows what Dean went through raising him, not really, nor does he care to know. Like I said in the speculation thread, if they make Sam and Sproutifer some kind of mirror to what Dean went through with Sam it's going on my 'I hate this list'. 

It does cut both ways though and I do think that Dean has never really forgiven Sam for some things. I think he knows his brother uncomfortably well but at the same time has a lack of trust in him. Sam once again going with the BMOL without telling his brother, than working cases that they sent him without a peep kind of gives an insight into both of them. Why Dean probably will never trust Sam fully like he should as his brother to have his back and Sam not seeing Dean in a light to be able to just tell him things. 

It's glossed over but once again Sam goes behind Dean's back, was once again wrong on the people he was following and then got a hero rally speech at the end of the season about how he was wrong and now they all got to fix it.

Instead of you know, telling Dean about the BMOL offer, both of them discussing it, Sam realizing it's not the best way and maybe they aren't trustworthy, joining for intel, taking it down from the inside while getting Mary back on track. 

I'd take one season, just one, where one of them doesn't lie to the other, at least about something that isn't plot important.  

[catrox14]

I can believe that on one hand Sam intellectually understands all that Dean sacrificed for him, but I'm also not sure that Sam internalizes it so to speak.  I'm not bashing Sam here. I think Sam is empathetic at a distance like with the VoTW but IMO for him to really FEEL what Dean felt, he would have to have a baby shoved in his arms when he was a child himself.

So even if Sam was faced with raising Sproutifer there is just no good way to ever make that something Sam can ever understand much like Sam can't really internalize what Dean's hell experience was like because Dean  tortured others.

So for me, I'll be fine with Sam not saying anything about Dean's sacrifices to Dean. It will always be insufficient to cover exactly what Dean gave up to save Sam from the time he was 4 years old.  But the narrative can have Dean express it to Mary and maybe even a resurrected John himself. Maybe have Sam there listening to what Dean is saying but I kind of don't want him to say anything.

[Airmid]

I can understand that Catrox. I think what I'm trying to say is that they need to stop lying to each other. And on this one Sam really gets the short end of the stick. Trying to think of all the lying that goes on and normally, when Sam lies it turns out bad, always. Even with the happy ending of Chuck and Amara they don't fix anything before they leave earth. It just leaves a broken world that Sam actually caused because he was hell bent on saving Dean.

In fact ,I still see the season ten finale more as a manipulation of Sam trying to buy time for Cas more than anything. I think he really cared for Dean, don't get me wrong, it was more he thought he was right and refused to see anything else, even when his brother told him removing the mark was universe ending. Otherwise, why not call Cas, have him yoink the stuff from Rowena and then lay down his life?

That's not even going back to Sacrifice where Sam starts off his speech about letting his brother down and then goes into a rant about how Dean's hurt him by being buddies with other people/creatures/whatever.

Then this season where they have him lying, being naïve (of all things) about BMOL motives when they clearly wear name tags stating "Hello, my name is ______ and I'm totally evil" and then for some reason rallying hunters who wouldn't have been in so much danger if he had talked to his brother and they had done that months earlier.

/facepalm

Poor Sam. I truly mean that.

23 minutes ago, catrox14 said:

So for me, I'll be fine with Sam not saying anything about Dean's sacrifices to Dean. It will always be insufficient to cover exactly what Dean gave up to save Sam from the time he was 4 years old.  But the narrative can have Dean express it to Mary and maybe even a resurrected John himself. Maybe have Sam there listening to what Dean is saying but I kind of don't want him to say anything.

See, I don't think it can be Dean that tells Mary. I don't think Dean's capable of being able to express the sacrifices he's made simply because he may not see them as anything more than part of his life, not to mention his feelings that he has little worth. I think it has to be Sam that tells her, that directly states the horror his brother has been through and that he's proud of him. Sam doesn't have to understand it all to able to feel compassion. No one is going to be able to understand Dean fully because he's been to hell, tortured souls and enjoyed it, been to Purgatory and actually grew to like some aspects of it, become a demon and offered himself as bomb to save all of creation while God was dying on his couch. We watched it as viewers but if we knew someone who had literally done this we'd have little understanding for any of that. 

But Sam can show compassion and empathy, he can see how screwed up his brother is and love him anyways and express his pride that Dean is his brother even through his faults.

And the best way to do it is to stop lying or at times treating Dean like he's a moron. Stepping back and actually letting Dean take the lead, since that normally works out in the end, would also be a good plan.

[catrox14]

22 minutes ago, Airmid said:

In fact ,I still see the season ten finale more as a manipulation of Sam trying to buy time for Cas more than anything. I think he really cared for Dean, don't get me wrong, it was more he thought he was right and refused to see anything else, even when his brother told him removing the mark was universe ending. Otherwise, why not call Cas, have him yoink the stuff from Rowena and then lay down his life

I don't understand why Sam was buying time for Cas?

IMO Sam just didn't even think about the spell IMO. Because he was so caught up in the Death and Dean thing that he forgot. I mean it makes no sense otherwise really LOL except PLOT PLOT PLOT

24 minutes ago, Airmid said:

See, I don't think it can be Dean that tells Mary. I don't think Dean's capable of being able to express the sacrifices he's made simply because he may not see them as anything more than part of his life, not to mention his feelings that he has little worth. I think it has to be Sam that tells her, that directly states the horror his brother has been through and that he's proud of him. Sam doesn't have to understand it all to able to feel compassion. No one is going to be able to understand Dean fully because he's been to hell, tortured souls and enjoyed it, been to Purgatory and actually grew to like some aspects of it, become a demon and offered himself as bomb to save all of creation while God was dying on his couch. We watched it as viewers but if we knew someone who had literally done this we'd have little understanding for any of that. 

But Sam can show compassion and empathy, he can see how screwed up his brother is and love him anyways and express his pride that Dean is his brother even through his faults.

I disagree that Dean has so little self worth anymore.  Dean has been through literal Hell and back but he's also not IMO as broken as he used to me. (Well we'll see what happens at the beginning of s13. 

IMO Dean really stepped up for himself this season much like he used to in s1 through 4. He spoke his mind when he wanted to and talked about things when he wanted to. Not just on another person's schedule. He did express himself and he's always been emotionally demonstrative IMO.  He was speaking his mind all season and even found a way to admit that he hated Mary (that's a rant for another time).  So for me, for Dean's continuing development, I need him to continue speaking up for himself like he did years ago and IMO like he did in s12.