All Episodes Talk: Saving People, Hunting Things

[gonzosgirrl]

31 minutes ago, Bali said:

I still love that show. I will still love the early seasons of Supernatural. Because to me, the last couple of seasons are just crappy fanfiction. (Although is it fanfiction when it's written by people aren't fans of the original to begin with?) 

I'll still love it, too. Take the last couple minutes off of either 5x22 or 11x23 and I could have considered myself satisfied that I was told a complete story. I can look at the few decent episodes from 12-15 as one-offs, movies of the week checking in on the Winchesters. That's how the story will end for me.

[NougatJack]

The early seasons (1-5) are my favorites as well. They set the bar so high, that by watching the 6th season I was a little bit disappointed. The soulless Sam storyline was okay, but I hated the whole Campbell clan. The 7th has been an improvement, but the 8th season was my least favorite. I just missed Sam, and wondered who has been the guy who looked exactly like him?

Then I think since the 9th season the show has been improving, except for the BMOL storyline. Battling humans is boring.

[ahrtee]

14 minutes ago, NougatJack said:

Then I think since the 9th season the show has been improving, except for the BMOL storyline. Battling humans is boring.

Battling humans doesn't have to be boring.  Battling *those* humans was boring.  

Imagine "hunter wars" instead of angel wars? That might have been interesting......

[NougatJack]

18 minutes ago, ahrtee said:

Battling humans doesn't have to be boring.  Battling *those* humans was boring.  

Imagine "hunter wars" instead of angel wars? That might have been interesting......

Yeah, that’s right, they could have handled it better. Especially those BMOL humans were boring. Plus, I can only speak for myself, but I expect supernatural villains in a show called „Supernatural“.

 

 

[Aeryn13]

19 minutes ago, NougatJack said:

Yeah, that’s right, they could have handled it better. Especially those BMOL humans were boring. Plus, I can only speak for myself, but I expect supernatural villains in a show called „Supernatural“.

 

 

But the supernatural villains have been handled as horribly as the BMOL. AU!Michael? Wasted potential. They could have done so much with the character. They could have done so much more when he possessed Dean and yet zilch. 

And now Chuck and the endless meta that the writers obviously think is so clever? Horribly mishandled and show-destroying. 

Season 12 sucked. But so did Seasons 13, 14 and 15 so far. There is not one good Season among those IMO. You may have 1 decent episode per Season but not even a stretch of those Seasons that remotely had good writing.  

[Harleycat]

17 minutes ago, Aeryn13 said:

But the supernatural villains have been handled as horribly as the BMOL. AU!Michael? Wasted potential. They could have done so much with the character. They could have done so much more when he possessed Dean and yet zilch. 

And now Chuck and the endless meta that the writers obviously think is so clever? Horribly mishandled and show-destroying. 

Season 12 sucked. But so did Seasons 13, 14 and 15 so far. There is not one good Season among those IMO. You may have 1 decent episode per Season but not even a stretch of those Seasons that remotely had good writing.  

I agree. The mom from the Waltons said that she left the show because it fell in love with itself. That's kind of what happened to SPN as well. Instead of focusing on interesting stories about family and ordinary people being up against unusual circumstances it became about inserting odd new characters and then having the Winchesters react to them. It's worse now that they are pushing Dean and Sam as hero's and go on these tangents on what it means to be a hero. 

I get that they don't want to leave it as Dean and Sam wasted their lives when someone else could have saved the world instead, but the point never was that they were hero's to begin with. They were just people who had knowledge and skills that most people don't have. Instead of trying to make the show fit with other CW superhero shows they should have looked at other off beat quirky shows like the Magicians that tackle magical forces but are still grounded in the characters and real world issues that people have.

Edited February 18, 2020 by Harleycat

[NougatJack]

AU Michael could also have been better, right. He kills monsters right away, doesn’t even have to look at them while smiting them, but when he‘s confronting the Winchesters, he‘s only talking. He could have ended their lives so many times, but all he does is talking... but hey, that’s probably because the boy‘s plot armor, cos Chuck still wants to stalk them. 

Weird.

[Aeryn13]

1 minute ago, Harleycat said:

I agree. The mom from the Waltons said that she left the show because it fell in love with itself. That's kind of what happened to SPN as well. Instead of focusing on interesting stories about family and ordinary people being up against unusual circumstances it became about inserting odd new characters and then having the Winchesters react to them. It's worse now that they are pushing Dean and Sam as hero's and go on these tangents on what it means to be a hero. 

I get that they don't want to leave it as Dean and Sam wasted their lives when someone else could have saved the world instead, but the point never was that they were hero's to begin with. They were just people who had knowledge and skills that most people don't have. Instead of trying to make the show fit with other CW superhero shows they should have looked at other off beat quirky shows like the Magicians that tackle magical forces but are still grounded in the characters and real world issues that people have.

I watch nearly all the CW superhero shows and the old-school SPN fit FAR better with those than Dabbernatural. Even the more brightly-coloured, campy shows would not dream about disrespecting themselves as much as the current Chuck-story on SPN.

And while all those shows definitely had/have their own writing pitfalls, not one tore down its own source material like that via "haha, we are just a dumb story". So far Supernatural has tried "hey, remember that guest star" in its final Season and all that. Well, technically so did the final Season of Arrow, exact same thing, just, you know, they managed to make it work. 

I don`t know any show on the CW or any other network that went so meta, they deliberately took a sledgehammer to its own source material. Noone does that. Except Dabb and the current ego-crew.

[Aeryn13]

4 minutes ago, NougatJack said:

AU Michael could also have been better, right. He kills monsters right away, doesn’t even have to look at them while smiting them, but when he‘s confronting the Winchesters, he‘s only talking. He could have ended their lives so many times, but all he does is talking... but hey, that’s probably because the boy‘s plot armor, cos Chuck still wants to stalk them. 

Weird.

That is always a thing with the villains and the heroes, there are ways around that. Namely, you don`t have them personally interact too much or if you do, there is a contingency plan and/or the heroes have leverage.

The problem with AU!Michael was that they had no story for him. He took over in the AU world. How about exploring that some more, write in his backstory, give him some character motivations. 

Now okay, maybe that didn`t happen in Season 13 but once he possessed Dean - and that entire story on how that came about could have been so much better - that should have been on the agenda. Give him a better plan than "supermonsters", give him and Dean scenes like Michael and Adam had for an entire episode. Draw out the storyline while fleshing it out. And for the love of all that is holy, give the conclusion of that story to Dean, not to Jack, not to Rowena, not to the Easter Bunny.  

[Bali]

1 hour ago, ahrtee said:

Battling humans doesn't have to be boring.  Battling *those* humans was boring.  

Imagine "hunter wars" instead of angel wars? That might have been interesting......

Well, now I AM picturing Hunter Wars, only what I'm picturing is more in line with a really bad B-Movie type thing with 80's style sci-fi costumes and a deep voiced narrator saying, "AND NOW- The moment we've been waiting for HUNTER WARS" and really, it just gets worse from there. A competition. Losers are killed dead. Sam and Dean in Camo makeup. 

[ahrtee]

2 minutes ago, Bali said:

Well, now I AM picturing Hunter Wars, only what I'm picturing is more in line with a really bad B-Movie type thing with 80's style sci-fi costumes and a deep voiced narrator saying, "AND NOW- The moment we've been waiting for HUNTER WARS" and really, it just gets worse from there. A competition. Losers are killed dead. Sam and Dean in Camo makeup. 

Well, that's kind of what the angel wars had, except instead of camo the angels wore business suits.  😊

[Harleycat]

51 minutes ago, Aeryn13 said:

I watch nearly all the CW superhero shows and the old-school SPN fit FAR better with those than Dabbernatural. Even the more brightly-coloured, campy shows would not dream about disrespecting themselves as much as the current Chuck-story on SPN.

And while all those shows definitely had/have their own writing pitfalls, not one tore down its own source material like that via "haha, we are just a dumb story". So far Supernatural has tried "hey, remember that guest star" in its final Season and all that. Well, technically so did the final Season of Arrow, exact same thing, just, you know, they managed to make it work. 

I don`t know any show on the CW or any other network that went so meta, they deliberately took a sledgehammer to its own source material. Noone does that. Except Dabb and the current ego-crew.

They took the humor that came from the characters having self awareness that they are in ridiculous situations (like having an angel and a demon in their back seat) and stuffed it down the viewers throats over and over again. It just doesn't work, it's not enjoyable for anyone to watch.

Instead of the show being about the story they try to make the show about the show. 

Really for me the bunker was the beginning of the end, because it made the brothers world not grounded in reality anymore. I think my favorite time for them was actually when they went off the grid and couldn't even get motel rooms. It was a real world obstacle that they had to work around to contrast their monster hunting jobs.

[gonzosgirrl]

In my mind, the Winchesters have always been heroes, at least by my definition. Not superheroes, but every day heroes who are doing the best they can with what they have. Whatever their motivations (revenge, family loyalty), they did sacrifice a lot to save strangers and to keep them safe, largely without thanks or recognition. Bare bones: John gave his life to save his son, Dean gave his for his brother, and Sam gave his to atone for his mistakes. No matter how wrong-headed, that is pretty heroic in my book.

They lost me when they started having boys literally tell me they are the guys that save the world. Let the story tell me that. Dabbernatural has all the subtlety and nuance of a grade school primer.

[ahrtee]

5 minutes ago, gonzosgirrl said:

Dabbernatural has all the subtlety and nuance of a grade school primer.

More like a paint-by-numbers coloring book.  Not even enough depth for a comic book.

[Aeryn13]

3 minutes ago, gonzosgirrl said:

In my mind, the Winchesters have always been heroes, at least by my definition. Not superheroes, but every day heroes who are doing the best they can with what they have. Whatever their motivations (revenge, family loyalty), they did sacrifice a lot to save strangers and to keep them safe, largely without thanks or recognition. Bare bones: John gave his life to save his son, Dean gave his for his brother, and Sam gave his to atone for his mistakes. No matter how wrong-headed, that is pretty heroic in my book.

They lost me when they started having boys literally tell me they are the guys that save the world. Let the story tell me that. Dabbernatural has all the subtlety and nuance of a grade school primer.

I wouldn`t even have minded if the story progression came about more naturally. I did enjoy the irony that in Season 1 the Winchester brothers encountered stunt demon nr. 37 (in Phantom Traveller on the plane) and to him, they were basically also stunt hunters nr.43 in return. And yet several Seasons later despite their enmity (and my misgivings) about Lucifer, there was a scene when he was in rockstar form and he bitched how God had ditched him right away, looked straight at the brothers and said "and you, too, btw".

To me that was, for that one moment, a strangely endearing sentiment of looking at the as equals in some little clubhouse of "cosmic beings" and why weren`t they also mad at God for being ditched. 

Yes, they made a name for themselves, among hunters and among cosmic beings. They are known and others know them. Because the show itself went bigger and bigger on the cosmic scale, there was no real going back at a certain point. 

However this current "pat yourself on the back" meta is just obnoxious. Every other second they lampshade not only the fact that I`m just watching a story but a dumb, poorly-written story by a crappy writer. Gee, really? It makes nothing better if you put that in the text on top of everything. I can see it for myself. And it`s not a good thing and certainly nothing to proudly proclaim in the text.       

[AwesomO4000]

22 minutes ago, Harleycat said:

I think my favorite time for them was actually when they went off the grid and couldn't even get motel rooms. It was a real world obstacle that they had to work around to contrast their monster hunting jobs.

I loved season 7.

Season 8 was where it went wrong with me. I like to skip over it and huge chunks of season 9 in my head (except the Metatron parts) and go straight to season 10 and 11.

I took the rest of this over to "Bitch vs Jerk" to be on the safe side.

The basic gist: for me the story works better when it focuses on Sam and Dean.

[Castiels Cat]

On 2/17/2020 at 9:42 PM, SueB said:

Because Free Will.  It really DOES exist.  He violated Eileen’s Free Will and she was a crude instrument for him.  That’s not what Chuck wants.  He likes to be a puppet master but more by creating circumstances, not direct control.  

Which is exactly what he described to Sam. Chuck stacks the deck to get the outcomes he wants... he doesn't literally yank strings a person's strings. That's where the choice demon deal, death or possession comes in handy though and that's why having Death annoys him. She doesn't like having the strings of fate toyed with...

The writers chose to do 2 back to back episodes with a gambling them. I will keep using these metaphors to describe Chuck's manipulations or the "hand" of God.

Eileen was not his usual method. He did that to brutally make a point and to crush Sam's spirit to make him fold.

[Whodunnit]

Where did the boys burn a funeral pyre for their father?

I can't find it anywhere...

[catrox14]

5 minutes ago, Whodunnit said:

Where did the boys burn a funeral pyre for their father?

I can't find it anywhere...

It was at the beginning of  "Everybody Loves a Clown" my guess it was in the town of the hospital wherein John died.

[gonzosgirrl]

6 hours ago, catrox14 said:

It was at the beginning of  "Everybody Loves a Clown" my guess it was in the town of the hospital wherein John died.

I always assumed that they burned John's body at Bobby's place. In reading the transcript, it's dark while the pyre is burning, and then daylight when the title card says 'one week later' and Dean is under the car in Bobby's yard. So that could imply it was a different place, or, it was just to note the passing of time. But Sam says, "We've been at Bobby's for over a week now...".

[catrox14]

1 hour ago, gonzosgirrl said:

I always assumed that they burned John's body at Bobby's place. In reading the transcript, it's dark while the pyre is burning, and then daylight when the title card says 'one week later' and Dean is under the car in Bobby's yard. So that could imply it was a different place, or, it was just to note the passing of time. But Sam says, "We've been at Bobby's for over a week now...".

  I was wondering when they got to Bobby's  place.  Given that Bobby and John didn't get along back then or ever, seems weird they would have done it at Bobby's place, though.

[gonzosgirrl]

25 minutes ago, catrox14 said:

  I was wondering when they got to Bobby's  place.  Given that Bobby and John didn't get along back then or ever, seems weird they would have done it at Bobby's place, though.

Yeah, but Bobby would do it for Dean and Sam, if not for John. Them not being particularly friendly would account for Bobby not being out there with them as they burned the body though.

Edited February 22, 2020 by gonzosgirrl

[catrox14]

45 minutes ago, gonzosgirrl said:

Yeah, but Bobby would do it for Dean and Sam, if not for John. Them not being particularly friendly would account for Bobby not being out there with them as they burned the body though.

Fair points! I can see that now.  Thank you!

[ahrtee]

1 hour ago, catrox14 said:

  I was wondering when they got to Bobby's  place.  Given that Bobby and John didn't get along back then or ever, seems weird they would have done it at Bobby's place, though.

No one said *how* they got to Bobby's place.  They didn't have a car.  Bobby came out to get the Impala before John died.  I suppose he could have turned around and come back for the boys, but putting John's body in the back of the tow truck?  Probably not.  It doesn't really make sense to haul a body several states away just to burn it (not to mention the questions if they got stopped--or stopped for breakfast).  If they wanted a grave to visit, that's something else.  

I can see Bobby coming back to help them with the pyre, waiting back at the car or motel until they finished, and then driving them back to his place.  

 

[gonzosgirrl]

3 hours ago, ahrtee said:

No one said *how* they got to Bobby's place.  They didn't have a car.  Bobby came out to get the Impala before John died.  I suppose he could have turned around and come back for the boys, but putting John's body in the back of the tow truck?  Probably not.  It doesn't really make sense to haul a body several states away just to burn it (not to mention the questions if they got stopped--or stopped for breakfast).  If they wanted a grave to visit, that's something else.  

I can see Bobby coming back to help them with the pyre, waiting back at the car or motel until they finished, and then driving them back to his place.  

 

Bobby has a lot of vehicles though. To me it makes more sense to burn a body on private property, where there is less chance of being observed/caught. It makes more sense to me that he picked up the boys and John's body and brought it back to the salvage yard. It seriously never occurred to me it was anywhere else.

[Katy M]

54 minutes ago, gonzosgirrl said:

Bobby has a lot of vehicles though. To me it makes more sense to burn a body on private property, where there is less chance of being observed/caught. It makes more sense to me that he picked up the boys and John's body and brought it back to the salvage yard. It seriously never occurred to me it was anywhere else.

Maybe. Maybe not.  It's over 500 miles away.  That's a long trip with a rotting corpse in the back seat.  Also, they appeared to burn Charlie and Mary on random ground.

[ahrtee]

1 hour ago, gonzosgirrl said:

Bobby has a lot of vehicles though. To me it makes more sense to burn a body on private property, where there is less chance of being observed/caught. It makes more sense to me that he picked up the boys and John's body and brought it back to the salvage yard. It seriously never occurred to me it was anywhere else.

Except in ELAC they had to take the soccer mom van because it was the only vehicle Bobby had running.

Besides, as @Katy M said, it's a long trip back.  And while IA that it's probably better on private property, the cabin where the YED did all the damage was pretty far off the grid (and only 10 minutes from the hospital).  Besides, with all the salt & burns they do, I don't think they're that concerned about being caught.  

[7kstar]

1 hour ago, ahrtee said:

Except in ELAC they had to take the soccer mom van because it was the only vehicle Bobby had running.

Besides, as @Katy M said, it's a long trip back.  And while IA that it's probably better on private property, the cabin where the YED did all the damage was pretty far off the grid (and only 10 minutes from the hospital).  Besides, with all the salt & burns they do, I don't think they're that concerned about being caught.  

It's the magic of TV, we shoot this wonderful scene and let the fans figure it out.  I would agree the cabin would be a perfect place and close enough.  I also agree that Bobby could be waiting to take the boys to his place because he respected the boys. 

But the fun of the early seasons is the things you can wonder about make sense.  I wish the current seasons did too.

[gonzosgirrl]

There's a case to be made either way, it seems. For me, it was just never a question.

[ahrtee]

On 2/22/2020 at 4:53 PM, gonzosgirrl said:

There's a case to be made either way, it seems. For me, it was just never a question.

Bobby didn't even try to take Sam or Dean back to his place when they died.  Of course, we know the boys had their own plans, but Bobby did say "isn't it time we buried Sam?" (and/or "torched his corpse") where they were.  And why would Sam even want to bury Dean in Indiana?  

[gonzosgirrl]

3 hours ago, ahrtee said:

Bobby didn't even try to take Sam or Dean back to his place when they died.  Of course, we know the boys had their own plans, but Bobby did say "isn't it time we buried Sam?" (and/or "torched his corpse") where they were.  And why would Sam even want to bury Dean in Indiana?  

I'm not sure why this is such a point of contention, but in the case of John, the boys are at Bobby's in the the light of day after burning John,  and Sam says they've been there five days. That's good enough  for me to conclude they brought his body there.

[ahrtee]

1 hour ago, gonzosgirrl said:

I'm not sure why this is such a point of contention, but in the case of John, the boys are at Bobby's in the the light of day after burning John,  and Sam says they've been there five days. That's good enough  for me to conclude they brought his body there.

Sorry...I've been cranky lately (neighbor's dogs barking nonstop all day for months now and the stress has kicked up my librarian-have-to-verify-everything OCD).  

But actually, we see the boys burning the body; the next scene, which is at Bobby's, says "one week later"; and Sam says that it's been over a week and Dean hasn't mentioned Dad yet.  This doesn't have anything to do with how long they've been there.   *shrugs*  It just doesn't make sense to me, based on everything else they've done with bodies (including Sam and Dean's) over the years, but to each his (or her) own.  Sorry to bring it up again, but today was a long, boring, snowy day (and the dogs were still barking).  I'll be quiet now.  😊

[Katy M]

Quote

 

He wouldn't have been much of a hunter if he didn't find out at some point, especially when he hung out at the Roadhouse and with other hunters.  (And remember he was "a master" at putting together patterns.)

He did know about the YED and his plans for Sam.

 

Brought over from The Foundry regarding whether or not John knew about the Campbells and Mary being hunters.

If John found out about that from the Roadhouse gang that means that Ellen, maybe Jo, Ash, and Bobby, had been deliberately keeping this from them.  And at a time when they needed all the info they could get because of Sam's impending "destiny."  And what with Ellen giving them that whole speech about "this isn't just your war," that would make her close to the worse character in the whole show.  And I refuse to believe that.

[ahrtee]

1 minute ago, Katy M said:

Brought over from The Foundry regarding whether or not John knew about the Campbells and Mary being hunters.

If John found out about that from the Roadhouse gang that means that Ellen, maybe Jo, Ash, and Bobby, had been deliberately keeping this from them.  And at a time when they needed all the info they could get because of Sam's impending "destiny."  And what with Ellen giving them that whole speech about "this isn't just your war," that would make her close to the worse character in the whole show.  And I refuse to believe that.

I don't think Ellen, Jo or Ash knew anything.  Jo didn't even know about John and her father, and Ash seems a fairly new addition to the group.  But there were plenty of other hunters who came and went (and John seemed to know an awful lot of them) so I can't believe someone didn't know about the Campbell family (who were chopping the heads off vamps on the Mayflower).  Maybe they didn't make the connection between Mary and the family (or even know anything about Mary except that she was dead), but John certainly would.  You know how learning one missing piece can suddenly make an entire story make sense?  I imagine John went through that at some point, and didn't want to spoil the boys' memories of their mother.  

I don't see how Ellen saying "this isn't just your war" makes her a bad character.  She was pointing out that the war affects everybody and he should keep the big picture in mind instead of going out for revenge (or redemption).  But maybe I'm misremembering the speech.  

[gonzosgirrl]

I don't think John ever knew, and what's more, I think it would be a retcon to say that he did.

What I never understood is why Yellow Eyes never mentioned it (apart from the idea that Kripke hadn't thought it up yet prior to John's and then Azazel's death). Or any of the other demons for that matter. They totally would've gotten off taunting John, Dean and Sam with the knowledge that their whole lives were determined by Mary's choice to bring John back.

[ahrtee]

1 minute ago, gonzosgirrl said:

I don't think John ever knew, and what's more, I think it would be a retcon to say that he did.

I don't think it's any more of a retcon than anything else they've done. 😊 

We know John did a lot of research about the YED and he knew that it was after Sam.  We know he knew about the visits to others in and around Lawrence (John had them listed in his journal  in In the Beginning)  I imagine he figured out about Mary's deal.  And even if others hadn't told him about the Campbells, if he started digging a little deeper into the family, it would be pretty easy to figure out.  As I said, John was supposedly one of the best hunters (at least in terms of seeing patterns).  Maybe he wanted to ignore it, or didn't see what he didn't want to, but it's more likely that he knew and kept it to himself.  Who would he feel comfortable telling it to?  (Well, maybe Pastor Jim.) 

But I think it's doing him a disservice to think he was so blind after 22 years of hunting.  *shrugs* JMO.  It's another thing we'll never know.  

[Katy M]

13 minutes ago, ahrtee said:

don't see how Ellen saying "this isn't just your war" makes her a bad character.  She was pointing out that the war affects everybody and he should keep the big picture in mind instead of going out for revenge (or redemption).  But maybe I'm misremembering the speech.  

Because she said "No secrets or half-truths" right after that, so if she was keeping the secret that their mother and grandparents were hutning royalty, after demanding their secret family info, well, I'd be pissed to know that if I were them.

13 minutes ago, gonzosgirrl said:

What I never understood is why Yellow Eyes never mentioned it

We learned in The Kid are Alright that YED was killing everyone Mary ever knew (probably a bit of an exaggeration), so it doesn't seem odd to me that he wasn't later adding to their knowledge.  Yes, he did show Sam that Mary knew him, but he was mainly showing him that he dripped demon blood in his mouth.  And, he did cut off right quick after that, so maybe he he was covering up a quick convo. 

[ahrtee]

7 minutes ago, Katy M said:

Because she said "No secrets or half-truths" right after that, so if she was keeping the secret that their mother and grandparents were hutning royalty, after demanding their secret family info, well, I'd be pissed to know that if I were them.

I still don't understand that, but YMMV. 

There would be no real reason for Ellen to know Mary's maiden name unless John told her, and no reason for him to do that.  He always did keep things on a "need to know" basis.  So I can see him making the connection but not telling anyone else (especially if he was hurt/embarrassed to find out that she'd been lying to him through their whole marriage.)**  

But again, we'll never know what John knew, how or when he found anything out, unless there's an infodump at the end of the show. (which, ugh.)

 

**ETA: Hmm, sounds like a fanfic idea to me.....

Edited February 24, 2020 by ahrtee

[ahrtee]

59 minutes ago, AwesomO4000 said:

*** I can't recall any other show that seems to have shown this kind of dog "fetish." I swear, the Carver years introduced some new lows for this show, but that was one of the worst.

(Caveat: I'm perhaps chagrined to say that I did find "Dog Dean Afternoon" to be one of my favorite episodes of season 9, but in my defense it was season 9, so...)

To be fair, I can't blame Carver for the dog fetish eps.  All Dogs Go to Heaven was Gamble;  and, as you said, Dog Dean Afternoon wasn't that bad.  And I don't think any showrunner (especially a new one) would be able to stop Buck-Lemming from writing whatever they wanted.  I put the blame for Man's Best Friend squarely on the nep duo, and probably Singer for enabling them.  

Edited March 3, 2020 by ahrtee

[AwesomO4000]

1 hour ago, ahrtee said:

To be fair, I can't blame Carver for the dog fetish eps.  All Dogs Go to Heaven was Gamble;  and, as you said, Dog Dean Afternoon wasn't that bad.  And I don't think any showrunner (especially a new one) would be able to stop Buck-Lemming from writing whatever they wanted.  I put the blame for Man's Best Friend squarely on the nep duo, and probably Singer for enabling them. 

Oh ugh, I forgot about "All Dogs Go to Heaven." (I try to forget most Adam Glass episodes.) But that was more a "dog" being interested in a person... true related to the "dog fetish" genre, but "Man's Best Friend..." moved up to a "dog" being the object of the fetishism. That's the part I was focusing on (due to The Companion's joke).

But point taken.

Sadly B&L seemed to really go off the leash (heh) in Carver's era, though. It wasn't just the weird stuff either. The canon really took a beating, too. Even later when they were a little better with canon - like season 10 ("Soul Survivor," for example, was really good) - they still had some questionable character stuff. (Charlie's manner of death, for example, was just lazy and infuriating.)

I guess Gamble was lucky that she was in her second year while B&L were just restarting again when they came back on board, and so maybe she was able to rein them in a bit.

It's amazing to me that they haven't been reined in more by now. Their sometimes disregard of show canon is completely annoying. ("Taxi Driver" was a travesty. So much canon destruction in one episode.)

I so hope that they aren't involved in any of the final episodes writing.

[Castiels Cat]

11 hours ago, AwesomO4000 said:

Oh ugh, I forgot about "All Dogs Go to Heaven." (I try to forget most Adam Glass episodes.) But that was more a "dog" being interested in a person... true related to the "dog fetish" genre, but "Man's Best Friend..." moved up to a "dog" being the object of the fetishism. That's the part I was focusing on (due to The Companion's joke).

But point taken.

Sadly B&L seemed to really go off the leash (heh) in Carver's era, though. It wasn't just the weird stuff either. The canon really took a beating, too. Even later when they were a little better with canon - like season 10 ("Soul Survivor," for example, was really good) - they still had some questionable character stuff. (Charlie's manner of death, for example, was just lazy and infuriating.)

I guess Gamble was lucky that she was in her second year while B&L were just restarting again when they came back on board, and so maybe she was able to rein them in a bit.

It's amazing to me that they haven't been reined in more by now. Their sometimes disregard of show canon is completely annoying. ("Taxi Driver" was a travesty. So much canon destruction in one episode.)

I so hope that they aren't involved in any of the final episodes writing.

They wrote 3 episodes. The Slice Girls featured graphic violence, sex and nubile girls. Of Grave Importance trampled ghost canon. Shut-Up Dr. Phil "added" to witch canon in new ways and inexplicably the witches were more powerful than the velveeta Leviathan. Wtf.

Oh and Sam killed Dean's daughter before she even attempted to kill him as payback for Amy who was killing and would to continue to kill... ???

So pretty par for the course.

Edited March 3, 2020 by Castiels Cat

[AwesomO4000]

27 minutes ago, Castiels Cat said:

Of Grave Importance trampled ghost canon.

I surprisingly didn't have much trouble with this one. The one ghost being able to get power from the others was sort of weird, but the semi-explanation as to why ghosts go "crazy" differently was actually something I appreciated.

27 minutes ago, Castiels Cat said:

Shut-Up Dr. Phil "added" to witch canon in new ways and inexplicably the witches were more powerful than the velveeta Leviathan. Wtf.

I also didn't have much trouble with this one either (except for the fact that I didn't think it was a very good episode). The "a wizard did it" (i.e. a spell can do almost anything) spell Don used for me wasn't any worse than a little holy oil fire being able to contain an extremely powerful archangel***... which happened at least a couple of times in this show by that point.

Castiel may have explained it as trying to use a (paraphrase) "butterfly net to capture a hurricane," but the actual process really wasn't all that difficult actually and contained Raphael fairly well for a while.

So I didn't have much problem with a spell that was temporarily able to semi-hold a low level Leviathan for a few days. And despite being "held," he was still conscious and almost indestructible, able to read minds, etc.

For me, those weren't anywhere nearly as bad as "Taxi Driver" which pretty much destroyed not only reaper lore, but rendered almost moot the entire Castiel / Crowley plot of season 6, because apparently all Crowley had to do to find Purgatory was go through the back door in the hell that he was king of, and there it was all along. (There might have been more canon destruction than that, but I haven't watched that episode since it happened and don't intend to any time soon.)

*** Even one who can alter reality at will.

Edited March 3, 2020 by AwesomO4000
Grammer - it's a thing.

[Katy M]

7 minutes ago, AwesomO4000 said:

I surprisingly didn't have much trouble with this one. The one ghost being able to get power from the others was sort of weird, but the semi-explanation as to why ghosts go "crazy" differently was actually something I appreciated.

I don't think it's weird.  Ghosts are souls.  Souls are power.  This guy clearly did some research before dying.

[AwesomO4000]

2 hours ago, Katy M said:

Ghosts are souls.  Souls are power.  This guy clearly did some research before dying.

I get that part, and yes that makes sense. That he was able to do so was the sort of weird part, for me. Not that it wasn't weird when Castiel did it before, but he had a vessel to keep the souls and power in. I guess that was my only question, and it was a relatively small one.

But for the most part, no, I didn't have a problem with the idea really, and I don't think it was changing too much about ghost canon. Maybe just adding on to it a little that one ghost/soul had figured out how to take the power of another without a vessel.

Definitely not anywhere near the canon ignoring level of Buck and Lemming's later episodes, in my opinion, especially the aforementioned "Taxi Driver." Speaking of which, in addition to the backdoor portal from hell, apparently Crowley or Castiel could have hired a "rogue reaper" to open a portal to Purgatory for them. And considering reapers were now just some sort of angel hybrid... why wouldn't Castiel know that? *sigh* (season 8, moving on... and trying to forget it ever happened.)

[AwesomO4000]

3 hours ago, Castiels Cat said:

Oh and Sam killed Dean's daughter before she even attempted to kill him as payback for Amy who was killing and would to continue to kill... ???

I didn't see it that way at all, actually.

Sam saw her face changing, and he already knew what the Amazons were capable of. I saw intent from her, and I didn't see "payback" in Sam's motivation,*** so miles vary and we'll have to agree to disagree on that one.

*** Sam explained his motivation later on, and his frustration was that Dean - who had explained the reason why he had killed Amy was because she was dangerous - was not seeing the amazon as dangerous, and was not valuing his own (Dean's) life. Sam didn't want Dean to get killed, and the close call scared him.

Edited March 3, 2020 by AwesomO4000

[BabySpinach]

Since the first 13 episodes of season 15 have hit Netflix, I've rewatched them in 3 to 4 episode chunks over a few days. Some thoughts...

(I really missed Jensen's face and Dean's utterly unique, super-sized personality, so I may be a bit favorably biased, lol.)

Definitely a more enjoyable watch than the first time around. Bingeing it was wayyyy better than getting just one episode a week. Season 11 only became my favorite late-era SPN season after subsequent rewatches, when I could track seeds of the eventual finale planted in the very first episode and watch them unfold over days rather than months. Season 15 is nowhere near as cohesive and still sucks pretty hard, but it benefited from consecutive, uninterrupted viewing all the same.

With that said, episode 10 is still a crime against humanity, flagrant in its egregiousness to the fifteen-year legacy of the show. Its central premise still makes no sense, and the following episode is all about damage control that still makes no sense because of the idiotic predecessor it was forced to follow up on. Despite their complete incompetence in every other area because they apparently never earned any of it themselves, Sam and Dean's pool skills are somehow unaffected???? WAT. 

I noticed that they brought up Dean's death books again in episode 12. They left it open-ended and gave us no answers as to why Billie was "wrong," but if the writers had planned to completely drop that thread they wouldn't have brought it up. Fingers and toes crossed that it's... something. Eventually.

And Jack... oh dear, sweet Jack. He really is just an amalgamation of every Chosen One trope ever conceived, isn't he? He's the Crown Prince of Failing Upwards. He gets special quests and shiny items handed to him on a silver platter all because he happened to be born powerful through no merit of his own. The most interesting things about him are his arbitrary divine abilities, whereas his personality is still stuck at Level 1 complexity after three goddamn years on the show.

At least he (finally) apologized sincerely for Mary, and for once no one rushed to coddle him and reassure him that it wasn't his fault. He took responsibility, and Cas was even the one to remind him that he killed her. (Though when Cas was gloating about being "right" about Jack like some brainwashed cultist, as if Mary and the other innocents' deaths were acceptable sacrifices to his precious Nougat Boy fulfilling his "destiny," I dearly wanted to smack him). 

I'm officially sick of all the convoluted magic mumbo-jumbo. I swear, every episode introduces some new spell or concept to conveniently solve all their problems, big and small. I used to prefer the mytharc eps for their higher stakes and larger story, but at least the MOTWs are somewhat grounded in the rules of reality and the conflict doesn't usually get fixed by random magic shit that springs up out of nowhere.

They're really laying it on thick with Jack's Super Special Quest to Kill God, and I think (hope) that it's a misdirect. Ideally, it'd be the reverse of the dumpster fire of season 14, when the promising Michael!Dean story that started out the season and gave us some of the best mytharc stuff in years got chucked in the garbage for (apparently) excusable mass murder and torture of innocents perpetuated by Slightly-Beige!Nougat Sue. Guess we'll see in the fall!

Edited June 8, 2020 by BabySpinach

[ILoveReading]

35 minutes ago, BabySpinach said:

I think (hope) that it's a misdirect.

I keep thinking about Jack in the Box and how literal it was.  

So I'm not really expecting anything else.  There hasn't been a single swerve all season.

[BabySpinach]

9 hours ago, ILoveReading said:

I keep thinking about Jack in the Box and how literal it was.  

So I'm not really expecting anything else.  There hasn't been a single swerve all season.

I'd say that the whole God bullet "story" qualifies as a swerve. It ended with Sam giving up, Chuck regaining his former power, and it played no part in defeating him even though Chuck's "weakness" was laid on thick in the first half of the season. Jack's super special mission feels the same to me. But I also learned the hard way not to waste my time speculating with these writers. That's another big advantage that bingeing has over weekly watching, lol.

[Bali]

I've been rewatching the whole series since I'm on a temporary layoff. Seasons 1-5 were so much better. That said, "Clap your hands if you believe" is on. The fairy episode NEVER ceases to make me laugh. 

[AwesomO4000]

2 hours ago, Bali said:

The fairy episode NEVER ceases to make me laugh. 

I can't hear "Ground control to Major Tom..." on the radio without smiling. "A Space Oddity" has taken on a whole other level of enjoyment for me now.

The whole scene - the website complete with spelling and grammatical errors, the chase around the room, Dean's triumphant "Hah!" when he toasts the fairy - it's all great. But somehow one of my favorite parts is when Dean is so indignant and then disappointed after proudly showing Sam the "blech" that Sam can't see. "It's right there!" Which is even more funny, because instead of being concerned - like real Sam would've been - Soulless Sam's just all "nope, don't see anything."