Supernatural Bitterness & Unpopular Opinions: You All Suck

[Res]

42 minutes ago, mertensia said:

Or Marvin the Martian at this point.

LOL! I can totally picture this happening ala "Space Jam" and Dean high-fiving him afterward.

[sarthaz]

I'm watching Season 2 right now, and it's not lost on me how angry Dean is about zombie girl ("What's dead should stay dead!") and how much he hates the people who made crossroads deals, and now the show is basically just an exercise in bringing back every dead character ever.

[ahrtee]

18 minutes ago, sarthaz said:

I'm watching Season 2 right now, and it's not lost on me how angry Dean is about zombie girl ("What's dead should stay dead!") and how much he hates the people who made crossroads deals, and now the show is basically just an exercise in bringing back every dead character ever.

Well, in season 2 it was more about Dean feeling overwhelmingly guilty (and angry) about his dad making a crossroads deal to bring him back, not so much just the fact of zombies (which he'd probably enjoy hunting) or deals, which he generally just considered stupid.  And then once he realized he could do the same to bring back Sammy, I think he decided it could be a good thing. 

And of course now they don't even have to do anything--the writers bring back everyone without any kind of deal.  Or them even asking.  Or even *wanting* them back.   :)   and *sigh*

[flyinghigh]

My opinion given below is not unpopular ( I think) , but very, very and VERY BITTER.

In case I should be posting somewhere else let me know

Rewatch season 13 finale:

That fighting scene at the end - between Michael!Dean and Lucifer - is so .....unimpressive!! What was the director and the stunt coordinator and who ever else was involved - thinking? The epic fight - after eight long years - between Michael and Lucifer - and this what they could offer? 

And I was reading somewhere  - Lucifer will be back in season 14? So then what was this whole sequence - just a ploy to shut Dean fans? 

Dean!Michael made me so happy. Every time I  used to see The Swan Song topping the lists of Supernatural episodes in any category, I used to either turn away in disgust or, after a while, take a deep sigh of bitterness,  and move on. Finally we get Dean!Michael - and not just a vessel but Michael's sword. Even the stupid fight I would have swallowed after a while I suppose. But Lucifer' s return? NO.

So please, (begging everyone) do tell - how can we convince the show runners not to bring back Lucifer. 

I personally think they have #bringbacklucifer confused with SPN Lucifer.

SPN Lucifer is wayyyyyy past his expiry date. His return was planned in Episode one of Season 1 - with Sam being the chosen one to bring back Lucifer. He was sent back to his cage brought back again, possessed a few, including the president, was put in an oval thinggie and immediately resurrected and we have gone through whatever possible evil Lucifer could do. Are we going to be stuck with Lucifer for the remaining of SPN life??

[Bobcatkitten]

I haven't seen anyone who thought the flying fight scene was good. In the very beginning when they used the wires to throw them it looked cool. But just levitating while fighting was so weird. 

[SueB]

@flyinghigh I really don’t think Lucifer is coming back.  If he doesn’t come back, and the fight scene (which the execution is not in the control of the writers) is just how well they could do versus anything intentional — does that influence your perspective.  

[Myrelle]

2 hours ago, flyinghigh said:

I personally think they have #bringbacklucifer confused with SPN Lucifer.

I have no doubt that you're right. Hopefully, someone will set them straight before it's too late.

And this, IMO, highlights the problem of basing your writing and storytelling predominantly on social media reactions.

[catrox14]

1 hour ago, SueB said:

@flyinghigh I really don’t think Lucifer is coming back.  If he doesn’t come back, and the fight scene (which the execution is not in the control of the writers) is just how well they could do versus anything intentional — does that influence your perspective.  

If this was written by someone other than Andrew Dabb, the showrunner, and directed by someone other than Bob Singer, I would say the writer is off the hook, so to speak. But Dabb and Singer have control over everything that happens in this show, minus network interference.  

1) Dabb should have never put that idea on paper. That's on him. He should have known that less would be more in this case.  Someone needed to put their foot down and say no to him. 

2) The producers and network have the final cut and in this case Bob Singer is both EP and director.  So he and Dabb could have left out some of the cheesier elements and bad shots.  They didn't.
 

[sarthaz]

Apparently, I have an UO. I don't like Jack, and I thought AC's performance in the finale (combined with bad writing) was laughable.

[Etoile]

32 minutes ago, sarthaz said:

Apparently, I have an UO. I don't like Jack, and I thought AC's performance in the finale (combined with bad writing) was laughable.

I share this Unpopular Opinion. I think AC has a couple of faces and he uses them for everything. Coupled with the simplistic writing for a character that has no edges, no real personality, but is simply a trope, the effect is astonishing - in a bad way.

[BabySpinach]

26 minutes ago, Etoile said:

I share this Unpopular Opinion. I think AC has a couple of faces and he uses them for everything. Coupled with the simplistic writing for a character that has no edges, no real personality, but is simply a trope, the effect is astonishing - in a bad way.

I dislike the writing and characterization of Jack far more than I dislike Jack himself, and that's largely to do with the actor doing his absolute best with what he's been given. 

I hate how manipulatively they wrote him at the beginning. Every single time he did something wrong (which was often) he was always given a handy excuse to justify it. His character was stuck in perpetual woobie cinnamon roll mode, to FORCE us to like him. It was worse than making him evil, it made him boring. He never showed any inclination to do bad,  so there was no tension or ambiguity with his character. 

I also hate how they threw Dean, one of the actual main characters, under the bus for having reasonable reservations about the spawn of Satan. He wasn't allowed a single modicum of vindication for those reservations, because Jack was nothing but a flat, blandly "nice" little put-upon woobie. *barf*

I swear, he was tailor made for the Tumblr fangirls. He's the textbook definition of a Mary Sue, he's young, cute, childlike, and makes a lot of tragic facial expressions and angsts about his own existence as a monster. Didn't we already have Sam for most of those traits, at least in the beginning?

The finale did make him a little more interesting, as he finally did something that was objectively wrong and not immediately justifiable (attacking the kid). Wonder if they'll ever go anywhere with this. Probably not.

On a related note, the whole storyline with Kelly last season was, in my opinion, the worst story they'd ever done. Kelly was nothing more than an incubator for the ACTUAL important character, dontcha know? She had no distinguishing personality aside from her pregnancy status and her creepy, cult like devotion to an unborn child. Her only job was to keep the bun baking in the oven, get brainwashed by it, then willingly die with a vacant smile, as she's apparently good for nothing else but being a brood mare. And all that was somehow framed as heroic, rather than pathetic and creepy and severely mysogynistic. Hey, show, remember that little movie in the 70s that treated it like the horror scenario it actually was? No? Ok...

[gonzosgirrl]

2 hours ago, catrox14 said:

If this was written by someone other than Andrew Dabb, the showrunner, and directed by someone other than Bob Singer, I would say the writer is off the hook, so to speak. But Dabb and Singer have control over everything that happens in this show, minus network interference.  

1) Dabb should have never put that idea on paper. That's on him. He should have known that less would be more in this case.  Someone needed to put their foot down and say no to him. 

2) The producers and network have the final cut and in this case Bob Singer is both EP and director.  So he and Dabb could have left out some of the cheesier elements and bad shots.  They didn't.
 

Another of those posts I wish I could like more than once. Also one I wish would be made mandatory reading for Dabb and Singer. I can only say it again and again and again, in my opinion Andrew Dabb is the worst thing that ever happened to Dean Winchester.

Edited May 23, 2018 by gonzosgirrl

[sarthaz]

30 minutes ago, BabySpinach said:

On a related note, the whole storyline with Kelly last season was, in my opinion, the worst story they'd ever done. Kelly was nothing more than an incubator for the ACTUAL important character, dontcha know? She had no distinguishing personality aside from her pregnancy status and her creepy, cult like devotion to an unborn child. Her only job was to keep the bun baking in the oven, get brainwashed by it, then willingly die with a vacant smile, as she's apparently good for nothing else but being a brood mare. And all that was somehow framed as heroic, rather than pathetic and creepy and severely mysogynistic. Hey, show, remember that little movie in the 70s that treated it like the horror scenario it actually was? No? Ok...

All of this. At some point the writing started telling us she was this amazing woman and mother and WTF show were they watching?

[BabySpinach]

14 minutes ago, sarthaz said:

All of this. At some point the writing started telling us she was this amazing woman and mother and WTF show were they watching?

It would have worked much better as a horror scenario, which is what this show used to be. I'm so sick of "pure" woobie cinnamon rolls on a show that used to be cynical, harsh, and brutal.

Even Sam and Cas have often succumbed to woobification with their constant sad puppy eyes, noble suffering, and relentless victimization. For some reason or other, Dean is the only one who hasn't been woobified, at least in my opinion. I never look at him and think "poor baby" or "must protect my precious cinnamon son, he's suffered so nobly." Blech!

[catrox14]

11 minutes ago, sarthaz said:

All of this. At some point the writing started telling us she was this amazing woman and mother and WTF show were they watching?

IMO, they started with Saint Kelly to justify their HORRIBLE choice. I've written arguably ad nauseum here and in other threads  about what a shitty fucking SL that was to begin with and all the reasons why IMO, so I won't rehash them here.  I think Buck Leming are hacks who think they are still writing 70's style schlock but forget that times have changed and they can't do it.  Again, someone needed to put their foot down on that SL OR call it for what it was, a forced pregnancy that Kelly wanted to end until Spawn didn't let her end his life.  How much more interesting would it have been if it was MADE CLEAR that it was Lucifer's power that forced her to remain alive and give birth to his spawn. I mean that would have been true horror.  

 

[Etoile]

1 hour ago, BabySpinach said:

On a related note, the whole storyline with Kelly last season was, in my opinion, the worst story they'd ever done. Kelly was nothing more than an incubator for the ACTUAL important character, dontcha know? She had no distinguishing personality aside from her pregnancy status and her creepy, cult like devotion to an unborn child. Her only job was to keep the bun baking in the oven, get brainwashed by it, then willingly die with a vacant smile, as she's apparently good for nothing else but being a brood mare. And all that was somehow framed as heroic, rather than pathetic and creepy and severely mysogynistic. Hey, show, remember that little movie in the 70s that treated it like the horror scenario it actually was? No? Ok...

I can't even deal with the level of mysoginy that Jack's origin story entails and the treatement of Kelly. I'm NODDING forcefully at everything here and I wish more people were willing to call Dabb and the showrunner out on this. 

[gonzosgirrl]

37 minutes ago, Etoile said:

I can't even deal with the level of mysoginy that Jack's origin story entails and the treatement of Kelly. I'm NODDING forcefully at everything here and I wish more people were willing to call Dabb and the showrunner out on this. 

Head bobbing along with you.

And also in agreement with those who lament what could've been with Jack's character if they'd given him any shading at all. It's too bad that they forgot cinnamon can be made savory as well as sweet.

[BabySpinach]

6 minutes ago, gonzosgirrl said:

Head bobbing along with you.

And also in agreement with those who lament what could've been with Jack's character if they'd given him any shading at all. It's too bad that they forgot cinnamon can be made savory as well as sweet.

Ha, exactly. Pure sugar can be pretty sickening and unpleasant after a while.

[Aeryn13]

I think the writing for Jack is overly simplistic and manipulative. Have no qualms with Alex` acting, though. Jack is an entirely different character than what he played on Arrow so he is versatile. And it`s not his fault the material was like that. I believe he played it exactly like he was supposed to be, can`t fault him for that. Fault lies entirely with Dabb, Singer and the other writers IMO.     

[Katy M]

1 hour ago, Etoile said:

I can't even deal with the level of mysoginy that Jack's origin story entails and the treatement of Kelly. I'm NODDING forcefully at everything here and I wish more people were willing to call Dabb and the showrunner out on this. 

I disagree with this.  When Kelly found out that she was pregnant with Lucifer's child, She decided to not have an abortion when everyone else watned her to.  Then, when Sam and Dean wanted to extract the grace, which I'm not clear on, but if they did it in utero, that probably meant she might not have died, She decided that she didn't want to do that. Kelly got to make all the decisions affecting her life (except not knowing that she was having sex with the devil). So, I wouldn't call it misogynistic at all. It was actually very feminist.

[gonzosgirrl]

20 minutes ago, Katy M said:

Kelly got to make all the decisions affecting her life (except not knowing that she was having sex with the devil).

And except ending it.

[BabySpinach]

25 minutes ago, Katy M said:

I disagree with this.  When Kelly found out that she was pregnant with Lucifer's child, She decided to not have an abortion when everyone else watned her to.  Then, when Sam and Dean wanted to extract the grace, which I'm not clear on, but if they did it in utero, that probably meant she might not have died, She decided that she didn't want to do that. Kelly got to make all the decisions affecting her life (except not knowing that she was having sex with the devil). So, I wouldn't call it misogynistic at all. It was actually very feminist.

Did you forget when Kelly tried to kill herself because she didn't want to let Lucifer's spawn into the world? Then when Jack saved her (not for her to live, but for her to die AT THE RIGHT TIME) she turned into a complete Jack devotee. If Kelly had actually been allowed a choice, she would have died in that bathtub.

And just because Kelly made her own (stupid) choices doesn't mean she was a feminist character. Her only act of "nobility" was to die for a baby and then fuck off, because there was literally nothing else to her. It's not about what she did that wasn't feminist, it's about what she represented as a character and the sickeningly positive way she was framed as a saint, for dying from a pregnancy she didn't originally want.

Edited May 23, 2018 by BabySpinach

[companionenvy]

I mostly agree with BabySpinach. The thing to remember is that Kelly isn't a real woman, she's a character being written on a TV show. So even if we assume it was totally her free choice to die for Jack, I think writing a narrative in which a woman's choice to accept certain death to bring life to a potentially dangerous baby she was betrayed into conceiving is presented as a saint-like action and the height of nobility has unfortunate implications, to say the least. Especially as she's not a rounded character with a pre-existing narrative role who makes that choice; she's a character created purely as an incubator for Jack. 

[BabySpinach]

3 minutes ago, companionenvy said:

I mostly agree with BabySpinach. The thing to remember is that Kelly isn't a real woman, she's a character being written on a TV show. So even if we assume it was totally her free choice to die for Jack, I think writing a narrative in which a woman's choice to accept certain death to bring life to a potentially dangerous baby she was betrayed into conceiving is presented as a saint-like action and the height of nobility has unfortunate implications, to say the least. Especially as she's not a rounded character with a pre-existing narrative role who makes that choice; she's a character created purely as an incubator for Jack. 

She was the horrible stereotype of a walking womb whose entire existence centered around her baby. Every word out of her mouth was about Jack. I guess she never had any dreams or aspirations of her own, given that she was totally ready to throw it all away for a child she'd never even meet. What about her own friends and family? Nonexistent, because her only purpose was to incubate. It's just gross all around.

[Katy M]

30 minutes ago, gonzosgirrl said:

And except ending it.

I disagree.  Because like I said, I think if she had let them extract the grace from Jack she may not have died.  So, yes, she made that choice.  Unless you mean when she tried to kill herself and Jack brought her back.  Eh, saving a life is never werong.

 

28 minutes ago, BabySpinach said:

Did you forget when Kelly tried to kill herself because she didn't want to let Lucifer's spawn into the world? Then when Jack saved her (not for her to live, but for her to die AT THE RIGHT TIME) she turned into a complete Jack devotee. If Kelly had actually been allowed a choice, she would have died in that bathtub.

I did momentarily forget about that, but she changed her mind about it after.

 

28 minutes ago, BabySpinach said:

it's about what she represented as a character and the sickeningly positive way she was framed as a saint, for dying from a pregnancy she didn't originally want.

She wanted it all along. When she was in bed with Jack/Lucifer she said that she wanted his baby.  When given the opportunity to abort at the beginning (I'll admit we don't know if it would have worked), she rejected it.  Because she loved her baby. That's not anti-feminist to love your baby.

[catrox14]

7 minutes ago, Katy M said:

She wanted it all along. When she was in bed with Jack/Lucifer she said that she wanted his baby.  When given the opportunity to abort at the beginning (I'll admit we don't know if it would have worked), she rejected it.  Because she loved her baby. That's not anti-feminist to love your baby.

Say what?  She never said that. She only said that she thought the person she believed to President Jeff would be a good father.   And since she only learned after the fact, that Lucifer was controlling him, and tried to strangle here, she decided she wanted to still have the spawn until she changed her mind and DID try to end her own life TO END THE PREGNANCY but she wasn't allowed to die because either Lucifer or Jack himself made sure she remained alive to give birth to him. 

Just because she found some way to frame her shitty situation as "hopeful" doesn't mean she had any say so about any of it. 

That is not feminist at all.

Edited May 23, 2018 by catrox14

[SueB]

5 hours ago, catrox14 said:

If this was written by someone other than Andrew Dabb, the showrunner, and directed by someone other than Bob Singer, I would say the writer is off the hook, so to speak. But Dabb and Singer have control over everything that happens in this show, minus network interference.  

1) Dabb should have never put that idea on paper. That's on him. He should have known that less would be more in this case.  Someone needed to put their foot down and say no to him. 

2) The producers and network have the final cut and in this case Bob Singer is both EP and director.  So he and Dabb could have left out some of the cheesier elements and bad shots.  They didn't.
 

Typically the writing literally says ‘they fight’.   J2 have said this repeatedly.  Maybe Dabb wrote: ‘they have an AWESOME fight with flying and everything’ but he certainly didn’t give them blow by blow.  That’s really on stunts and Singer.  And there have been plenty of times Prouction told the show runner (example Kripke and Manners) that what they want is un-doable.  So, IMO, this is primarily on Singer.   Dabb could have pushed back but I’d be surprise if he has veto power over Singer.   

Singer, OTOH, was in over his head on that fight.  Perhaps Rob Hayter convinced him he ‘had this’ but to me it screamed ‘old school:’.  Surely Singer had wire work with Lois and Clark.  But the effect looked so 90’s. Not Avenger- class.  

But when I look at the fight, it’s when Dean gets pushed away and is suspended - THAT’s the moment they should have cut to upper body or face only IMO.   It was like ‘Look! Dean is flying!’ was what they were trying to convey but it wasn’t necessary and undermined the rest of the shot.   

But that moment also follows another cheesy (IMO) moment - when Dean shows his wings.  It looked ‘staged for .gifs’ to me - not a natural moment.   Compare that to when AU Micheal comes out of the ditch he showed up in AU world.   There the wings seemed like ‘casual power’ with him putting them away once used.   What really IS the in-show purpose of the wing-display? When Cas did it in 4.1 it was ‘I’m an angel, see I have wings.’   When Gadreel!Sam did it, the story-telling point was ‘broken wings’ and ‘Gadreel is running the show’.  But IN-show?  Does it help with powering up?   Was it to frighten the Abbadon demons?   I couldn’t come up with a good reason.   Same for Cas re-powering.   But when Gabriel did it, it felt even less story connected and more like another ‘cool .gif’ moment in the staging of it.  And sadly, the same with Dean’s IMO.  Plus too loud of a ‘pay attention to me!’ music cue. Beautiful visual, but it took me out of the scene - just like the suspended moment did.  

In sum, I put most of the blame on Singer for the fight and blame Dabb for stopping the action in both the finale and ‘Bring ‘en Back Alive’ to have a fan-squee moment. So I understand the temptation - and Carver did it too - but that, IMO, is ultimately root cause: the desire to have a ‘cool shot’ over storytelling.   They can usually get away with it, but not when they include some shots that don’t play well.  

[BabySpinach]

7 minutes ago, Katy M said:

I disagree.  Because like I said, I think if she had let them extract the grace from Jack she may not have died.  So, yes, she made that choice.  Unless you mean when she tried to kill herself and Jack brought her back.  Eh, saving a life is never werong.

 

I did momentarily forget about that, but she changed her mind about it after.

 

She wanted it all along. When she was in bed with Jack/Lucifer she said that she wanted his baby.  When given the opportunity to abort at the beginning (I'll admit we don't know if it would have worked), she rejected it.  Because she loved her baby. That's not anti-feminist to love your baby.

If Kelly were a real person, I would've been like "you do you, if you want to die for your baby, go ahead!" But Kelly was a fictional character written in a very specific (and offensive) way. The fact that she made choices (wow, what a low bar) doesn't automatically make her a strong or admirable character. I hate what she represented as a whole and I hate that her death was framed positively, as I adamantly reject the notion that a baby is worth more than its mother, an adult with friends, family, and a developed personality and memories.

[SueB]

45 minutes ago, BabySpinach said:

(not for her to live, but for her to die AT THE RIGHT TIME) 

A+ HP shout out! OR, nice coincidence,

[Katy M]

7 minutes ago, catrox14 said:

Say what?  She never said that. She only said that she thought the person she believed to President Jeff would be a good father.

Well, if you're in bed with someone saying you think they would make a good father, the most likely reason you are sying that is because you want to have their baby.  But, my main points were she chose not to abort when she knew what she was pregnant with and she chose not to degrace Jack.

3 minutes ago, BabySpinach said:

as I adamantly reject the notion that a baby is worth more than its mother, an adult with friends, family, and a developed personality and memories.

I don't. I would die for my baby in a heartbeat.  So, I don't find the notion offensive at all.  Other than the fact that it was Lucifer's child.  If I were pregnant with the devil, I'd have other feelings on the matter.

[BabySpinach]

Just now, SueB said:

A+ HP shout out! OR, nice coincidence,

There's one (1) thing that Harry Potter and Kelly Kline have in common....

[catrox14]

2 minutes ago, SueB said:

Typically the writing literally says ‘they fight’.   J2 have said this repeatedly.  Maybe Dabb wrote: ‘they have an AWESOME fight with flying and everything’ but he certainly didn’t give them blow by blow.  That’s really on stunts and Singer.  And there have been plenty of times Prouction told the show runner (example Kripke and Manners) that what they want is un-doable.  So, IMO, this is primarily on Singer.   Dabb could have pushed back but I’d be surprise if he has veto power over Singer.   

I'm pretty sure I read in an article with EW that someone said when they got the script the producers said it was un-filmable. So someone wrote that fight to be in the air.  I'll see if I can find that article.

 

1 minute ago, Katy M said:

I don't. I would die for my baby in a heartbeat.  So, I don't find the notion offensive at all.  Other than the fact that it was Lucifer's child.  If I were pregnant with the devil, I'd have other feelings on the matter.

Okay but this is the devil's spawn....so.....

[BabySpinach]

10 minutes ago, Katy M said:

Well, if you're in bed with someone saying you think they would make a good father, the most likely reason you are sying that is because you want to have their baby.  But, my main points were she chose not to abort when she knew what she was pregnant with and she chose not to degrace Jack.

I don't. I would die for my baby in a heartbeat.  So, I don't find the notion offensive at all.  Other than the fact that it was Lucifer's child.  If I were pregnant with the devil, I'd have other feelings on the matter.

I don't like it when characters in media push saving the baby over the mother. It minimizes the value of the grown woman with an established life, who is not just a walking womb to be discarded if necessary. Therefore, Kelly's soppy, one-note, baby-obsessed character type was extremely unappealing to me.

ETA: I think what's happening here is that you're defending Kelly as if she were a real person, whereas I'm talking about her as a fictional construct in the larger context of what she represents. That's what I make of it, at least.

Edited May 23, 2018 by BabySpinach

[catrox14]

ETA: Here it is. It was Misha's comments, which I don't think were hyperbole. Now he could have been talking about Alt Cas....but I'm willing to bet it was the finale. 

http://ew.com/tv/2018/05/17/supernatural-season-13-finale-jensen-ackles/

To me the only thing that would be "un shootable" would be the wire work.

I can't fathom them saying that filming in the apocalypse world be un shootable. 

 I don't believe that Singer just decided 'Michael and Lucifer" fight let's do it in the air! The cheesy freeze frame is right up his alley though.

I like to think that Jensen was being a smartass and saying "Dabbled" for Andrew Dabb.  But that's just my head canon. LOL

 

Quote

 

Supernatural finales are known for delivering big action and even bigger twists, and season 13 will be no different as things come to a head with Michael and Lucifer. And according to star Jensen Ackles, this year’s finale will introduce “elements that we have never dabbled with in all 13 years of the show.” One of those things being stunt work. “Let’s say we elevated it this finale,” Ackles says of the stunts.

Misha Collins weighs in on the finale, saying, “The last three episodes of the season were pretty epic by Supernatural standards. When the scripts came in, the producers were saying they were un-shootable. It was just really, really big and we tied up those storylines and then we’ve set ourselves up for some really big challenges going into the next season.”

 

[SueB]

14 minutes ago, catrox14 said:

ETA: Here it is. It was Misha's comments, which I don't think were hyperbole. Now he could have been talking about Alt Cas....but I'm willing to bet it was the finale. 

http://ew.com/tv/2018/05/17/supernatural-season-13-finale-jensen-ackles/

To me the only thing that would be "un shootable" would be the wire work.

I can't fathom them saying that filming in the apocalypse world be un shootable. 

 I don't believe that Singer just decided 'Michael and Lucifer" fight let's do it in the air! The cheesy freeze frame is right up his alley though.

I like to think that Jensen was being a smartass and saying "Dabbled" for Andrew Dabb.  But that's just my head canon. LOL

 

I’d say it was challenging to get all of 13.22 in 42 mins.   But it does show that the writers still push for a lot and producers have to balance effort/skill/money.   So if Dabb said he wanted a flying fight, it was up to Singer to say ‘it’s not going well’.   I think Singer thought it was good and nobody told the Emperor he wasn’t wearing any clothes.   

[companionenvy]

18 minutes ago, Katy M said:

don't. I would die for my baby in a heartbeat.  So, I don't find the notion offensive at all.  Other than the fact that it was Lucifer's child.  If I were pregnant with the devil, I'd have other feelings on the matter.

Without wading too far into dangerous ground, I think a lot of people still draw at least some distinction between an infant and a baby who has not yet been born. Hence the fact that the vast, vast majority of people, regardless of their views of abortion in other circumstances, think that if a fetus is threatening the life of the mother, she should be permitted to end the pregnancy. I would wager that the vast, vast majority of women faced with that wrenching choice do precisely that - even if they would willingly die for the child once born. And in most cases, the risk of harm to the mother would be somewhat lower than the near-certain death Kelly was facing.

Add in the fact that this is, in fact, Satan's child, conceived via an act of deception, and I think Kelly's choice becomes more unrepresentative, to say the least.

Adding on to what I and others said earlier, if you're going to have a woman make that choice, you at least have to give some realistic sense of who she is other than a walking womb in order for the full gravity of that decision to sink in. Instead, we know nothing about Kelly, other than that she was apparently in a reasonably highly placed job and was sleeping with the President - the President who survived possession by Lucifer, by the way. Does she want to talk about this with her lover? Does she care that this means she's never going to see him again? Does she have other loved ones? Did she like her job, and feel she was making a positive impact in the world through it? To have her make this choice without weighing any of this misrepresents what is at stake.

This plot would have been problematic if it had happened to, say, Claire, but at least Claire is a character with an acknowledged existence other than Lucifer's (unwilling) Baby Momma. If that individual character wrestled with her options and chose sacrifice, maybe I could see it as an organic and even noble character decision. Kelly being a cipher is a large part of what winds up making it offensive. 

[gonzosgirrl]

50 minutes ago, Katy M said:

Unless you mean when she tried to kill herself and Jack brought her back.  Eh, saving a life is never werong.

In real life, perhaps. But at that moment, Kelly chose to die to prevent Jack from being born, believing she was saving the world from a possibly great evil. That was her choice and IMO, the only heroic one she made, and the spawn kept her alive so that he could be born, not out of concern for her. So no, I don't agree that saving a life is never wrong - not in this case.

39 minutes ago, SueB said:

Typically the writing literally says ‘they fight’.   J2 have said this repeatedly.  Maybe Dabb wrote: ‘they have an AWESOME fight with flying and everything’ but he certainly didn’t give them blow by blow.  That’s really on stunts and Singer.

How, as showrunner, is this not also on Dabb? Unless he's literally a split personality, he knew what shooting his little wet dream would entail. And if nothing else, they had to screen this at some point before calling it done. Are their egos so big that they couldn't see what it looked like? And if so, could nobody have told them the truth?

[catrox14]

5 minutes ago, SueB said:

I’d say it was challenging to get all of 13.22 in 42 mins.   But it does show that the writers still push for a lot and producers have to balance effort/skill/money.   So if Dabb said he wanted a flying fight, it was up to Singer to say ‘it’s not going well’.   I think Singer thought it was good and nobody told the Emperor he wasn’t wearing any clothes.   

 That would be an editing concern to get in the 42 minutes of 13.22. 

Unfilmable implies something they cannot figure out how to put on camera.  I'm not sure what the reluctance is to call out Dabb on this one as both the showrunner and the writer on the episode. 

[gonzosgirrl]

43 minutes ago, SueB said:

But that moment also follows another cheesy (IMO) moment - when Dean shows his wings.  It looked ‘staged for .gifs’ to me - not a natural moment.   Compare that to when AU Micheal comes out of the ditch he showed up in AU world.   There the wings seemed like ‘casual power’ with him putting them away once used.   What really IS the in-show purpose of the wing-display?

IMO, pure intimidation - to show Lucifer he was not just going to walk off with the world. Same way a bird ruffles his feathers.

[catrox14]

47 minutes ago, SueB said:

But that moment also follows another cheesy (IMO) moment - when Dean shows his wings.  It looked ‘staged for .gifs’ to me - not a natural moment.   Compare that to when AU Micheal comes out of the ditch he showed up in AU world.   There the wings seemed like ‘casual power’ with him putting them away once used.   What really IS the in-show purpose of the wing-display? When Cas did it in 4.1 it was ‘I’m an angel, see I have wings.’   When Gadreel!Sam did it, the story-telling point was ‘broken wings’ and ‘Gadreel is running the show’.  But IN-show?  Does it help with powering up?   Was it to frighten the Abbadon demons?

My head canon is that Dean just wanted to show his wings to Lucifer. And I am 100% okay with it also just being for the cool shot of it.  I mean let's be real, much of the dumb things they do in this show is for the sake of the "cool shot".

If Dean showed up without flexing his AU Michael muscles aka wings, Lucifer might have been disinclined to bother with the fight.  He wanted the fight IMO as much as AU Michael.

[SueB]

11 minutes ago, catrox14 said:

 That would be an editing concern to get in the 42 minutes of 13.22. 

Unfilmable implies something they cannot figure out how to put on camera.  I'm not sure what the reluctance is to call out Dabb on this one as both the showrunner and the writer on the episode. 

Dabb bears responsibility in general as showrunner but he relies on Bob, his co-EP for production.  It’s why they had to have Singer around.   

So, it’s not that Dan doesn’t bear partial responsibility, but I simply put more on Singer for this particular point (IMO).

 

8 minutes ago, gonzosgirrl said:

IMO, pure intimidation - to show Lucifer he was not just going to walk off with the world. Same way a bird ruffles his feathers.

I like that answer.  It fits well with what we’ve seen. 

Edited May 23, 2018 by SueB

[trxr4kids]

On 5/23/2018 at 8:32 AM, sarthaz said:

Apparently, I have an UO. I don't like Jack, and I thought AC's performance in the finale (combined with bad writing) was laughable.

I agree so much with this, here's why:

1) Jack's origin story, just so much nope.

2) Dean was made to look mean/wrong in order to woobify Jack.

3) I've never seen the actor on anything else but I find his acting very one dimensional. It could be a result of:

a) the ongoing "pranks" onset.

b) shitty writing.

c) shitty directing.

Or some combination of any of those things. The end result is, for me,  I DGAF about Jack.

[ILoveReading]

My unpopular opinion is that none of the writers aren't talented enough to take on a complicated story like Lucifer's spawn and should never have gone there in the first place.

[FlickChick]

14 minutes ago, ILoveReading said:

My unpopular opinion is that none of the writers aren't talented enough to take on a complicated story like Lucifer's spawn and should never have gone there in the first place.

I assume that you meant "none of the writers ARE talented enough..." And I agree with that statement.

[MysteryGuest]

Now that Jack is here, I like him fine, but the entire story leading up to how he came to be was ridiculous on so many levels.  And that's being kind.  

The flying battle was an unfortunate choice.  Did they not look at the dailies and see that for themselves?  And Jensen even talked about how physically grueling it was.  The scene where Dean comes flying back toward Lucifer, a la Superman with his arms stretched out in front of him, was just silly.  As was the one of them just hanging around in the air.  When you don't have the budget to make these types of scenes actually work, it's much better to stick with simple and just let them duke it out on the ground.  They're pretty good at choreographing fight scenes, and Jensen and Mark are both especially good at it, so why not go with your strengths?

[gonzosgirrl]

What pisses me off so much is that Jensen seemed genuinely pumped about the finale. I'm certain that it seemed like it would be very cool when they were filming, and I have zero doubt that he, Mark and the stunt people gave 100%. But they have no control over the end product. It makes me genuinely angry that a story Jensen has waited so long for and was so excited about has been overshadowed by Dabb and Singers' shitty decisions in writing, direction and showrunning. I swear sometimes it seems personal. I despise them both.

[trxr4kids]

1 hour ago, gonzosgirrl said:

I swear sometimes it seems personal.

That's possible, are either of them affiliated with or related to Michael Weartherly? J/K /sorta/kinda

[catrox14]

I wonder if they were short in the episode so they couldn't edit the bad stuff out. They already filled with flashbacks for Jack, which were unnecessary because they were recent. Dean's were necessary because it was going back to S5.

[Aeryn13]

Quote

What pisses me off so much is that Jensen seemed genuinely pumped about the finale. I'm certain that it seemed like it would be very cool when they were filming, and I have zero doubt that he, Mark and the stunt people gave 100%. But they have no control over the end product. It makes me genuinely angry that a story Jensen has waited so long for and was so excited about has been overshadowed by Dabb and Singers' shitty decisions in writing, direction and showrunning. I swear sometimes it seems personal. I despise them both.

Yes, I felt very bad for him. He always works very hard to make fight scenes good but obviously, he can`t just magically give the show a better budget AND a more competent director/editor who could make that work. 

That said, I do not think this was intentionally bad. Back in the Season 11 Finale with Amara, it was intentionally as lame as possible and Dean`s role deluded as much as possible with bird-feeding lady. This one, they had the epic entrance and that was supposed to signal an epic following fight. That they made it so one-sided, that was probably intentional again but I believe the fight scene was supposed to look epic and badass. 

Just that any director worth their salt should have tried a couple of takes and immediately phoned to the writers (in Singer`s case, he could probably make such a production call on his own) that this was unworkeable with their restraints and tried to shoot it another way. Instead they put the actors in harnesses for what, roughly 2 days of shooting? And it looked so bad. A ground fight with even minimal effects would have been better.      

[Bobcatkitten]

Yeah, I don't think it was intentional for the fight scene to look lame. They tried something. It didn't translate like they thought.