#because we’ve been getting hints and small scenes telling us how unhinged he can be

[abigail]

seeing pedro pascal as joel miller being violent,.,…. please look away I am experiencing .

[nellie-elizabeth]

okay, bear with me because this is kind of an unhinged ramble, but one of the things that’s sort of been driving me bonkers in the back of my head is that the finale was terrible... but that I honestly think it would have been quite easy to change just a few little things to make it... well, maybe not good, but certainly less rage-inducing. I don’t think any version of the story as presented to us would have left me thrilled by this ending, but I can actually think of a few very easy changes that would have had me walking away maybe a little irked, certainly disappointed in what we didn’t get to see, but ultimately more at peace.

Let’s pretend this is a world in which they couldn’t/didn’t want to have Misha in the finale, couldn’t get a big ol’ group of returning stars... and we basically had to work with a bare-bones structure like what we saw in the finale. So this isn’t pie-in-the-sky, what I would do if I could have what I wanted... This is down to earth, pragmatic, simple things they could have done to make it better, if we’re constrained to the basic shell we were provided.

Ready?

1) This is the big one: flip around the "Sam’s domestic life with his son” montage so that it starts BEFORE the vampire case and Dean’s death.

So basically, the montage at the beginning, we see the boys living normally in the bunker. We get the pie scene (which I’ll touch on in a second). But then, instead of segueing straight into the hunt where Dean dies, we see a flash of the next 5 to 10 years of their lives. We see them living in the bunker, but it gets slowly more homey, more lived-in. Vitally, for Dean’s character specifically, we see hints of him picking up new hobbies, maybe he’s playing the guitar, we see him in the kitchen, maybe he’s playing D&D, I don’t know. Something to show that Dean is living life and enjoying it, getting to find out who he is without the weight of the world on his shoulders. He’s not totally settled, you get the sense that the lingering sadness of his losses, the trauma of his life, is always going to weigh on him... but he’s doing what he can to enjoy the little things, and he’s taking pride in his continued work as a hunter.

Eileen moves in, and if we can’t see the actress, fine, we can have Sam saying “Eileen called, she’s getting home late, we should start dinner” or whatever. It’s implied that the three of them are living there together. We see that Sam has a son, we see that Dean is an active part of the kid’s life, a great uncle, totally spoiling his nephew. Maybe we see shots of Sam and Dean on other hunts, we have phone calls, mentions like “hey, Jody has a lead” or “Charlie called, she wants us to back her up on xyz.” Basically, through a montage or through a short sequence of scenes, we see that Sam and Dean have continued on, life as usual... but there’s a peace to it now without big cosmic forces standing in their way. Maybe Sam and Eileen semi-retire and move out into the suburbs, and we get shots of Dean-as-the-new-Bobby, a role I always imagined for Sam, but it works for Dean, too.... the bunker is central station, he’s coordinating things, he’s finding new skills within the life of hunting, he’s mentoring people and still getting to save people and hunt things.

And then, Sam and Dean, who don’t always hunt together anymore as Dean often goes off with other hunters, and Sam and Eileen are less active in the field now that they have a kid, decide to take a case together, just a routine hunt. Cue Dean getting impaled on a nail (or maybe he dies in a less awkward way so he doesn’t have to lean against a wall and make his big death scene looking completely unhurt? Which I thought was really strange).

But basically, we could have a version of the death scene as stands. I do not hate the idea of Dean dying in a relatively “mundane” way... literally just the idea that he lived for a handful of years after defeating Chuck makes the idea of his death SO much less empty and devastating for me, because this time Dean didn’t get cut down before he got to enjoy his life at all. It’s still sad that he’s dying younger than he should have, but he died doing a thing that he loved, he found love in the hunting lifestyle without the pressure of other’s expectations, and we got to SEE that, we got to see him making it his own, and making it just one important slice in a more robust and happy life.

Vitally, instead of saying “it’s always been you and me” during the goodbye speech, and making it all about how Sam is the center of Dean’s world, it would be framed more like “I’ll be okay, Sammy, and so will you... go home to your family, to our family, tell the kid to be good, but not too good, okay? And I’ll go be with our family that’s already passed on... we’ll see each other again. We’ve got Jack looking after us.” When Sam says “I can’t do this alone,” Dean doesn’t answer “yes you can...” Instead he says “you’re not alone, Sam.” Because he’s not. He has a family already at this point, and Dean is his family, but he’s not the only person left in Sam’s world that he loves. Dean can still say he was scared to get Sam at Stanford, that he didn’t know what he’d have done without Sam... but he’s so glad they got to be family, got to share so many amazing years, got to be best friends and be there for each other through so much craziness. This time, Sam’s “don’t leave me” isn’t quite as soul-renderingly tragic, because Sam has a wife and a kid already. The death scene would emphasize the tragedy of this separation, but acknowledges that they’ve grown to have more to live for outside of each other.

Then, we see more of Sam growing old, but he seems less utterly miserable, had more years with his brother before the end, knows that Dean got to be a part of his kid’s life, and feels confident that Dean is at peace and that he’ll see him eventually.

2) The second change is even more simple, it’s literally just adding in a couple extra lines of dialogue to... fix the Castiel situation a bit. So. Ahem. Again, this is imagining a world where Misha can’t be in the episode, where we’re keeping the basic structure. There are just two small changes that fix this, for me.

One, before the montage and Sam having a kid and all that, at the pie festival scene at the beginning... when Sam says “I miss Cas and Jack,” we get a slightly more robust response from Dean. He talks about how they fought so hard to break free of their unhealthy cycles, to escape the influence of fate, and that as much as he wants Cas back, he can’t risk making things worse again and betraying Cas’ sacrifice... but THEN, IMPORTANTLY, he says “Jack’s gonna be hand’s-off, but we know he’ll look after Cas no matter what.” This could be just a faith thing, or if we’re allowed to stretch back into 15x19 and fix that too, Jack could even say that as part of his goodbye, like, “I’ll make sure Cas is at peace.” So now, even though it’s annoying that Dean isn’t rushing to rescue Cas from the Empty, it could be more akin to the later decision when Dean tells Sam not to try and bring him back. Sam knows Dean is going to a peaceful afterlife when he dies, and Dean and Sam let Cas go because they know he’s safe with Jack and also given his rest/peace. (Instead of what we got, which was just... they knew Cas was in the Empty and didn’t even bother checking if Jack would like... handle that?)

Second, when Dean goes to Heaven, at least having lived a decade or so of the life that Cas sacrificed himself to provide for him, he sees Bobby, Bobby gives him the spiel, says that Jack and Cas helped make Heaven better (in this version, Dean would be less surprised by this; he would have known even as he was dying that Jack was going to look out for him and all of the other deceased souls). And then Bobby says, “what do you want to do?” and Dean says “I want to see my family... gotta get some good quality time in before Sam shows up and hogs all the attention.” So it’s like a balance of the fact that he’s waiting for Sam and can’t wait to see him again, but it’s implied that he goes and hangs out with his mom (and dad, ugh, John is the WORST, but maybe he went through The Good Place afterlife and he’s learned to be a good person lol), with Bobby, with Cas, and even with Jack, maybe, as perhaps the new God doesn’t mind chillin’ with the already-dead humans, or at least the ones who raised him.

It would be dealer’s choice as to how Destiel-ish Dean’s final line here could be... he could say the thing about waiting for Sam but going to reunite with his family, first, and throw in something about “there’s a conversation with someone that I really need to finish.” Something vague enough that the homophobes would let it fucking air on TV, but promising enough to put a smile on at least some people’s faces.

Then, instead of the montage being just Dean driving around, we get something a little different, but still very simple. We see Dean maybe hanging out in a house in Heaven, playing with Miracle the dog, maybe a callback to a hobby we saw him have on Earth, playing music or cooking, implying a full afterlife even if we don’t get to see the other people... he’s setting a table for like a dozen people who are coming over soon for dinner, or he’s shouting out “hurry up, my parents are hosting” to an unseen occupant in another room, we see Cas’ trench coat slung over a chair, general signs of habitation and home.

We’re cutting between this Heaven montage of Dean, with the montage of Sam on Earth, growing older (and in my version, someone who knows what they’re doing makes Jared’s wig and age makeup look less like the stuff of nightmares, oh holy hell....). We see Sam letting go, dying of old age, going to his rest...

And in Heaven, Dean suddenly freezes in the middle of playing fetch with the dog, or frying up some bacon for breakfast. He gets a look on his face... a hopeful smile. He’s just realized that Sam is coming. He can sense it. This is what he’s been waiting for, the last thing he needs to make Heaven truly perfect. He gets in the impala (which isn’t literally the spirit of his car, it’s just that everything he loves from Earth gets to be with him in Heaven), and he drives off to the bridge while “Carry On Wayward Son” kicks onto the radio. He gets out of the car, reunites with Sam, says “hey, Sammy. Everyone’s going to be so excited to see you.” They hug, they look out over the bridge... The End.

SO. Just to reiterate, this is NOT my version of what the “perfect” finale would have been. This is more just a way for me to process my feelings about the fact that the episode was pretty much entirely awful in my opinion, and it would have been relatively easy to fix it so that it was only... medium awful. Like, with basically no huge changes, just letting Dean be a part of his nephew’s life, getting to be a part of Sam’s life as Sam started a family, and then still having the poignancy of him dying before his time, but also as a hero, as the best version of the thing he always thought he needed to be but now has chosen to be, has taken ownership and pride in. And then by just buffing up some dialogue in a couple of spots, we could have had an episode that still centered primarily on Sam and Dean, still ended on just the two of them (which, frankly, I’m not mad about, it’s their show, and it has been from day one...), but still honored the message of “family don’t end in blood.” Still honored the idea of found family and community and belonging and living for more than just each other.

And if that’s what I had walked away with... well, I would have had some complaints. But I think the whole thing would have felt a lot less... empty to me. And it would have been doable, within the constraints of COVID, and limited actor availability, etc.

There have been some finales that I’ve hated so truly and thoroughly that there was simply no way to engage with them without it tainting the whole show for me. This finale was so weird, because I feel like just a few band-aids, some punch-ups to the script, would have made me feel SO much better about what we got. They didn’t need to reinvent the wheel with this one. Even given the constraints, they could have been a little more creative, a little more thoughtful, and pissed people off a lot less.

[ivegotsomethingtosay]

Ingrid Goes West (movie review)

Go see Ingrid Goes West. I’m not going to wait for the end of the review. I’m not even going to give you a definitive rating first. Just go see Ingrid Goes West. I don’t care if you have to drive to the arthouse theater halfway across town. I don’t care if you have to wait till it comes out on Amazon. DO NOT read this review until you have watched Ingrid Goes West, so go see Ingrid Goes West.

Seen it? Good. Pretty crazy right?

Ingrid Goes West was inevitable. We were going to get the Instagram movie whether we liked it or not, and if that statement doesn’t sit well with you, you’re not alone. Despite living half of our lives in front of some sort of screen (like you’re doing right now), we don’t really like to watch movies about technology. It’s not entirely our fault; Hollywood has a notoriously hard time representing social media without the final product being written off as didactic (see Men, Women & Children) or self congratulatory (see The Emoji Movie). But perhaps we shoulder some of the blame. Perhaps watching movies about technology is too uncomfortable for casual audiences because we see a part of ourselves that we’re not very proud of, that we don’t like admitting exists.

Ingrid works, in part, because it embraces this discomfort. The titular Ingrid Thorburn (Aubrey Plaza) is the human personification of every bad quality we associate with social media: she’s obsessive, she’s narcissistic, she’s a pathological liar, and she expects other people to give her all of the love she stubbornly refuses to give herself. One of these “other people” is Taylor Sloane (Elizabeth Olsen, who between this and Wind River is having a phenomenal summer). Sloane is an Instagram “Influencer,” a term I had to look up after seeing the movie. We all know these people are; rich, beautiful (usually white) young women who’s social media profiles are plastered with tasteful pictures of them wearing expensive clothes, eating expensive foods, and traveling the world on an endless budget of smiles and rainbows. Their job, it seems, is being friendly, so Ingrid travels to Venice California to become Taylor’s best friend.

From then on, Ingrid plays with the beats of a standard romantic comedy (girl meets girl, girl looses girl, etc.) which only makes Ingrid’s abrasively strange behavior all the more uncomfortable. The obvious comparisons are obvious: Ingrid is acting out all of our own fantasies about the people we idolize on Instagram, and is meant to be a dark reflection of our obsession with social media blah blah blah. You’ve heard that schtick a thousand times, you were probably able to figure it out from the trailers, and while Ingrid is so well executed as a character study that it would have succeeded in it’s own terms, it’d have been disappointing if this unoriginal idea was the only thought the movie had on its mind.

Fortunately, it’s not. Ingrid Goes West is a character study in which the audience is the character, a deep, detailed examination into how we as viewers connect with the people we see on screen, whether those screens are big or small. This isn’t to say that Ingrid isn’t trying to get us to examine our own behavior, it just accomplishes that goal in such a clever, amusing way.

First, it’s important to understand how Instagram works. Sloane, like most influencers (or average Instagram users for that matter), is putting out the best image of herself, one that is kind, friendly, adventurous, etc. She wants us to believe that she’s a genuinely good person. She is, in a sense, telling us exactly what to think of her, and in the case of Ingrid, she succeeds. So much so that Ingrid is willing to stalk and harass her until the ugly—and much more authentic—side of Sloane comes out.

But all while this is going on, the movie is doing the same thing to us with Ingrid. Despite her unhinged antics, her devious manipulations and downright criminal tenancies, we keep rooting for Ingrid to succeed. Why? Because she’s a “real” person. The movie keeps dropping hints at her tragic past, her positive relationship with her late mother, her deeply human need for love and affection. We are, in a sense, being told what to think of her. We’re willing to excuse, or at least understand, her inhumane actions because the movie keeps telling us that there’s a real human standing behind that screen.

This all climaxes in a botched suicide attempt which Ingrid posts on her Instagram account (which you obviously know about because you totally saw the movie when I told you to… right?) This results in an outpouring of support from people all across the web. A shot of her phone shows us inspiring messages like “you can do it” and “we believe in you.” Ingrid has gotten exactly the love and compassion she wants… but what does that mean? Does that mean she won’t go on to stalk and obsess over more people? Does that mean she’ll try and seek professional help? Has she really learned anything?

The movie places the question squarely in the audience’s hands. But if we’ve learned anything from Ingrid’s journey with Sloane, isn’t it not to believe what you see of a person through a screen? Who are we, as viewers, as followers, as audience members, to support or criticize Ingrid, when our entire experience with her has been a carefully curated series of scenes and shots? What would a critical audience think of us, were they to be subjected to 97 minutes of our most shameful online activities? What would we say to them?

These are the real questions that Ingrid Goes West poses, and the answers are not pretty. Still, writer/director Matt Spicer deserves praise for finding such an interesting way of asking them. He brings the audience on one hell of a journey, toying with our relationship to the images up on screen for maximum emotional and dramatic effect. You don’t merely watch Ingrid go west; she literally takes you there, constantly turning back to ask the audience: are you sure you want to keep going?

Yes, Ingrid. Yes we do.

OVERALL RATING: 9 / 10 SEE IT OR SKIP IT: See it (but of course, you already have... haven't you???)