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dotthings · 5 years ago

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Well that was traumatic.

Like last week, a very standard-feeling MOTW, almost pointedly standard, until...it wasn’t. Only this time it wasn’t a twist in the hunt, it was mytharc crashing into a hunt that was called out, in text, as “too easy.” How very very interesting.

So it seems the deep freeze on the part of pointedly not mentioning Cas is over. Sam’s been texting him. A lot. So many texts. Yeesh Cas, take pity on the boy and answer him. From the texts I glimpsed on screen it looks like Dean didn’t tell Sam anything, just some vague excuse about Cas needing to go off to do something or other on his own for whatever reason mumble mumble, oooh pie. So Sam doesn’t know what went down there.

Dean is still using food to not deal with his feelings. It’s the same demeanor we saw in 15.04--food humor, stuffing his face, and we see this facade throughout the episode. Dean has cultivated and built this I’m fine facade because he has to, just to keep going. He is genuinely relieved thinking Chuck is gone, but there’s still the doubt cast over his whole life and what was real about it and what wasn’t. Last week’s pep talk to Sam--fake it ‘til you make it. Dean trying to talk himself into that and cheer Sam up, and it is something to shoot for. As if Dean’s going to talk himself into it. If he says it enough, he’ll believe it. Jensen’s performance is just the right amount of believably forced. It’s not ostentatious, the pain is held just beneath the surface and I get the feeling of Dean walling things off, like he’s stuff all those doubts into a box and slammed the lid and it’s in there screaming and throwing things at the door, like AU Michael, but Dean’s going to keep motoring because what else can he do.

Why, why, WHY why did I have to see Dean shooting Samifer with the Colt, I can never unsee this. Oh now I have to see Dean burning up, consumed by flames at Samifer’s command, oh no WHY DO I HAVE TO SEE THIS. How many times will S15 make me witness Sam or Dean killing the other.

And as this ep makes abundantly clear, yet again, to show us the undesirable ending. Just to make it even more clear we’ve got codependent werewolf brothers one killing the other and then killing himself, we’ve got existential despair, we’ve got an incredibly pointedly standard drab MOTW where the ep noticeably improves once it turns out it’s not what it seems. This is all so pointed I’m going to get a paper cut. For those who missed it in the back: a narrative without hope and a miserable hopeless ending and codependency and no growth is the undesirable big bad here, the ending the actual big bad villain wants, and the goal of the heroes is to subvert and stop that. To make a better outcome.

Gosh it’s like dark narratives that offer a sense of hope and catharsis and a better outcome is a valid thing or something, not something that means you need therapy for wanting in your fiction, isn’t that just wild.

Also the degree that SPN is deconstructing its own MOTW routine, in text, is fascinating. It’s not a takedown on early MOTW, but it seems like a very meta-textual self-awareness of the role of MOTW in modern SPN, what SPN is now. And the same thing over and over just isn’t going to cut it.

I really enjoyed this scene with Dean’s understanding and compassion for this terrified girl. Demonstrating the comfort Sam and Dean can offer people, they go after the monsters. He’s not even trying to hide what they do as sometimes the Winchesters have, yes ma’am, rabid bobcat that escaped from the zoo none of that here. And Dean’s face watching the girl crying.

“Do you like your job?”

And Dean says “there’s a lot of bad but it feels good to help people. I’m where I’m supposed to be” -- which is a sad little callback to Dean’s self-assurance about his life and who he is in the middle of S14. The saddest part is he really did get there, or at least a start, and now he’s doubting his whole life because of Chuck’s plot manipulations and I’m sad, but I don’t think it’s all torn down. It’s still there, it’s being battered and torn but Dean got there and Chuck isn’t going to destroy it forever.

Dean’s FACE when Ashley says how everything is so random and awful and wouldn’t it be easier if it was all planned out “and decided for you.”

There’s several lines in here where characters point out the case is “too easy”--Sam says it and then Lilith and maybe a few other instances I didn’t jot down. It definitely felt that way before the twist, as I said, like 15.04...it felt a little too rote. But then it wasn’t.

The werewolf brother shoots his brother, a very obvious mirror to Sam and Dean killing each other in Sam’s visions. “He turned into a monster. And I’m a monster too” and then the poor guy kills himself yikes.

When Ashley fell on the antlers at first I thought Chuck was going to mess with them by having the victim they saved die due to a random senseless accidental death and that would be nasty af but Chuck had even bigger plans because WTF that’s LILITH. Oh ok.

Very very standard MOTW takes dark twist, then swerves even more darkly deep into mytharc territory.

OH NO ANOTHER VISION MOC DEAN GOING AFTER SAM

“This isn’t you”

In Chuck’s bleak endings, yellow crayons never work. MoC demon Dean kills Sam.

NOPE.

Also no Cas in the AU/ending again. I was kind of assuming demon blood Sam killed him in the vision in 15.04 or maybe it was a world without a Cas. But if these are possible endings to this Sam and Dean, then there was a Cas at one point, and so my theory that demon blood Sam killed him seems likely.

In the MoC Dean one, oh there was absolutely a Cas. Because MoC Dean killed him. Because “You’re living my life backwards.” Moc Dean killed Cas, his Collette, and then he killed Sam, his brother. It’s Cain’s prophecy about Dean’s potential dark path fulfilled.

“That was God too, right?” This line was so heartwrenching, Dean really is questioning absolutely everything they ever did.

Then Lilith mocks that Dean “bonding with the victim” scene. EXCUSE ME LILITH HOW DARE.

This is extra cruel, because it’s some of the best parts of Dean being played against him. Dean was being his best heroic compassionate self there, and Lilith was playing him the whole time. My heart is cracking.

A Cas mention, even Dean participates. This is a big enough crisis that he can’t just stay high top the thing not!mentioning Cas, much as Dean tried to do that. He’s not ready to deal with any of his Cas feelings.

Interesting though, Dean’s weapon of choice was an angel blade, even after that breakup.

“God was supposed to be gone.” YOU ARE BREAKING MY HEART. I KNEW THIS WAS COMING, AND IT STILL HURTS. “This was supposed to be over. We were done. We were free.” Oh Dean my poor bb.

So now they have flipped again. Last week Dean was holding it together while Sam found it hard to keep on, now Dean’s hope is gone and he loses his grip on his attempt to act okay as if acting okay can make him be okay. Which he could do for only so long, but could do it more and longer without the emotional horror of discovering Chuck isn’t gone and he’s still messing with them. Dean was trying to keep a toe-hold on purpose and meaning but that was a facade and this ep just rips that thin poncho of fake it 'til you make it violently away.

While Sam, because of the wound from the equalizer, apparently can see right into Chuck’s brain. Maybe Chuck doesn’t know, or is Chuck purposefully taking the opportunity to use that wound to inflict this emotional horror on Sam.

(btw how many times am I going to use the phrase emotional horror in my S15 metas. So many).

“Chuck only likes one kind of ending.” So these aren’t AU’s...these are Chuck’s endings for the story where Sam and Dean kill each other. Note again the lack of Cas in these scenarios. And why could that be. Because to get there, Chuck has to get rid of Cas. Cas has to stay out of the story. Let me point you back to my theory on the uniqueness of Team Free Will in this world and Cas’s importance in Sam and Dean’s lives. This still fits even if these aren’t AU’s but potential endings. Cas is the crack in the chassis. The spanner in the works. Really inconvenient for Chuck and his quest for the miserable terrible no good hopeless very bad ending for Sam and Dean.

#Sam Winchester #Dean Winchester #Sam and Dean: a work in progress #Castiel #Team Free Will #Destiel #spn #supernatural #supernatural spoilers #meta #tw: suicide

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venus-says · 5 years ago

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Kamen Rider OOO Episodes 01-16

I never expected a show aimed at boys would have THIS many scenes centered around male underwear.

The second series on my "watch all of kamen rider" madness! Yay!

The first word that comes to my mind when it comes to OOO is: weird. But it's not weird in a bad way, for the most of it anyway. I'll try best to not make many comparisons to either W or Zero-One, but just as a point of reference for this first statement, I'll mention them for a minute. W and Zero-One touch bases that I'm familiar with (detective stories, futuristic settings, etc.) while OOO is somewhat completely new to me so most of the time I wasn't ready for some of the things that were happening. But like I said, this is a good thing. I really enjoyed watching this first part, it had a few stumbles, but overall it was a great experience. To bring the comparison again, I didn't enjoy it as much as W's first part but I enjoyed it more than I'm enjoying this first third of Zero-One.

The plot of this season is quite interesting, it reminds me of Doki Doki Precure at some points (you can really draw the parallel of selfishness and altruism in both shows), though I wish some things had been established sooner and I feel like the thing with the core medals is a bit confusing, the plot is very engaging. They took a page from W's book, and most of the "weekly cases" are dealt in two episodes, but they also improve in this formula because even in the MOTW plots we can see the overall arc being formed and no episode was left without a hook for the next what makes the whole experience way better and more interesting to follow. If I was watching this weekly this structure would definitely make me excited to always get back to this season, and watching it now after the show is over makes me want to binge-watch everything in one sitting even though that's impossible. So, great stuff.

If there are things I don't like about the plot and the structure it would be, the weird commercial breaks, some of the weekly stories have characters that make them very weak, the many antagonist forces that make things feel overcrowded at times, and a problem I have with most shows when a new hero is about to come in that is when the show makes the protagonists weaker/less effective just to highlight how good the new member of the cast is. But that aside, I pretty much like everything. The comedy, the absurdness, the drama, and the action have had a very good balance so far so OOOs hold many positive points to its name.

Talking about characters, our main protagonist this time, Eiji, while not as charismatic as I would like is still a sweetheart. His lifestyle is a bit questionable, and he has a bit of the Aida Mana syndrome where he gives himself way too much sometimes, also the show doesn't make a good job on keeping his clothes on brand - I mean the dude apparently has only two underwear and one pair of pants but somehow he has many top options and we never know where he keeps all those shirts and tunics - but I really like him. I think what I like the most about him is that at first glance he could seem like the standard "dumb protagonist" but he's actually pretty smart and his smartness doesn't affect his emotional drive which is great.

Sadly his partners on the good side aren't as good. Ankh has a very difficult personality which makes him VERY hard to like, every time he opens up his mouth to babble about his medals I just wanna shove 30 popsicles on his mouth to make him shut up. My biggest problem with him is that we haven't seen him change not even for a bit in all of these episodes and I'm afraid that when they decide to make an emotional climax with him it won't work as well and it'll just ruin what could be a strong moment. Though I love how Eiji knows exactly how to keep him in check, that's another sign of how great Eiji is. Accompanying Ankh we have Hina who's just boring as hell, I don't know if this is a problem of the character or the actress but she really bores me to death, not even her quirk of being insanely strong that could be very fun works with me, which's a shame. And the last character of this group is the owner of Cous Coussier that is a very good minor character that helps to make Ankh and Hina bearable sometimes.

Moving to the antagonists, the GREED are the typical villainous team so I don't have a lot to say about them, their designs are cool and I like that each one has a very strong personality trait and their greediness makes for a very interesting plot point when Kazari decides to betray them. The MOTW are weird as hell, I'm very grossed out every time that coin slot appear on people, but I like that there are different types of them each one works on a different way and it is quite interesting to see how each type feeds on the desires of the population, my favorites are the parasite type and the Mezools' ones. It makes me sad that apparently Mezool and Gamel were the first ones to be defeated because they're my favorites, I think the group has lost a lot from their defeat.

The next antagonists are the Kougami Foundation, and I really love them. Kousei is just as charismatic (or maybe even more) charismatic as Ryuubei was and watching him is a true joy. Maybe it's just my love for baking that draws me to him, but I really think he's a great bad guy. Another great asset Kougami has is the secretary, I don't remember her name but the fact she seems completely apathetic to everything that goes on in that company to me is just hilarious, I'd love to be her friend (I'm sure she's amazing at throwing shade). The weakest link of this company is without a doubt Gotou, he severely lacks in personality and his turmoil of not thinking Eiji is suitable to be Os just because he's jealous since he wants to be the savior of the world makes him sound like an immature kid rather than an interesting character.

Coming as the (unnecessary) third antagonist we have Professor Maki who just makes me want to bang my head against a concrete wall. Like, I really don't know WHY they had to make him a villain, he makes me have war flashbacks of W when they changed the role of final villains from the Sonozaki family to that very boring, soulless guy from Foundation X. And it makes me even madder that they did this change WHEN THEY HAVE A PERFECT SET OF VILLAINS ALREADY IN GREED AND KOUGAMI. All this guy has going for him is that creepy ass doll that will definitely give me nightmares, but other than that he's just completely uninteresting.

Talking about riders, when I saw it on W's movie I really wasn't into Os design, but now I've grown used to it. The medals gimmick is also pretty fun and it gives a good variety of forms the main rider can have, though I think this thing of each Greed having 9 core medals is more complicated than it needed to be, and I really dislike how arbitrary the system of getting core medals from the Greed/O's seem to be, it's also very hard to keep track of who has each medal with how easy the lose and get new ones. I really like the gadgets from this season, I love the idea of everything being on a vending machine, the bike looks really cool, and I LOVE the candroids to death, I'd love to buy a few of them if I wasn't so broke. XD On the other hand, the transformation belt I horrendous, and not even the "sixth ranger" could save it this time because that gashapon belt is just hilarious and I can't take it seriously.

And speaking of said "sixth ranger" here's probably the element I hated the most from these sixteen episodes. Much likely Doki Doki precure, they pulled a Regina/Cure Ace thing where they build-up for Gotou to be the new rider, but comes episode 16 and Kamen Rider Birth is actually A DIFFERENT COMPLETELY NEW GUY. Do I like Gotou or his "arc" that would lead to his possible transformation? Absolutely no. But having that would've been way better than seeing an unknown guy, who came out of the ether, become the new rider. I REALLY hate new members who come out of nowhere, and to top it off the milkshake of hate they made this new guy steal that spotlight of a guy they had been building up for at least 4 episodes prior.

I usually ended these with specific points of specific episodes, but I really covered everything I had to say and If I went on each episode it would be to just point out a few unnecessary nitpicks, so I'll skip doing it this time. I hate to end on such a salty note, especially considering that I genuinely like this show so far, but there was no way to escape from it, I'll try to watch fewer videos of the NerdECrafter before I write next week's post to see if I come here with less salt in my veins, I promise. XD

And these were my first impressions of OOO, thanks for sticking with me for another week and I'll hopefully see you, folks, very soon. Bye bye~.

#Kamen Rider OOO #kamen rider

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eisforeidolon · 5 years ago

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Episode: Ouroboros

Ouroboros is a fitting title for this episode. Not because it has a snake-creature. Not because of the symbolism of unity or the cycle of life and death. No, in the sense that it's such a clear, contained example of how Dabbernatural is eating itself to death through the writers' absolute incompetence at telling a compelling, coherent story. Or perhaps it’s in the sense of being a never-ending circle of making the same exact mistake over again: Supernatural is the Winchesters' story; making them incompetent fools to highlight your nonentity OCs is always going to read badly to a large portion of your audience.

It starts out okay. The previously seems really overlong here and I do have to wonder if they think our memories of what’s previously happened are as shit as theirs. The episode itself, however, begins well enough with a mysterious cold open involving a MotW who has really creepy new powers. Okay, cool!

Except instead of actually being hunted by Sam and Dean, literally everybody is along on this fucking hunt. Remember when Sam and Dean were allowed to be competent enough to track and kill a MotW themselves, because the writers knew they were meant to be clever, resourceful, and good at their job? Best hunters in the world? LOL.

Now not only do they have to drag Castiel and Jack along, fucking Rowena has joined the Hunters R Us club. Like, I love Rowena, but COME ON. Which doesn't even address how later in the episode, Sam can't even do his own fucking research – they call it out to fucking Maggie! Then Sam & Dean and Jack & Cas ALL get their asses absolutely handed to them … by some random one off MotW that we're not told any reason to expect has major fighting skills. Unlike all the things they've beaten which literally did. COME THE FUCK ON.

What do the Winchesters actually get to accomplish in this episode of their own goddamn show other than exist onscreen to con us into watching the Dabbernatural Gary Stu drama hour?

Blah blah blah, interlude of characters reminding us about Dean having Michael in his head interspersed with oh no, poor sad beige woobie still has magic consumption. [Insert totes concerned hand-wringing here, or don't, because LOL, so over it.] The most charitable thing I can say about it is that presumably Dean talks to Castiel about the box plan again here because Castiel will actually go through with it, unlike Sam.

Also, I'm not a vet or any kind of medical professional, but when they needed to get some antivenom, my immediate thought was, “Wait, what kind?” I figured maybe I was wrong because surely the writers would do the bare minimum of research, but apparently not, as Wikipedia does seem to corroborate that “the specific antivenom needed depends on the species involved”. Pretty sure that their local vet's office doesn't have Gorgon antivenom. Even if Rowena’s magic is involved, if she can just make it magically the right thing, why on Earth would they actually even need any kind of antivenom in the first place? Or not at least talk about getting a specific kind so it doesn’t look like they’ve got no idea what they’re on about? As such, I can’t see this as anything but the writers yet again not bothering to put in the basic minimum of care to explain how this thing that obviously shouldn't work will now work for reasons.

I did genuinely like Sam and Rowena's playacting in the vet office, that was great! Even Jack getting turned into a dog to lift the non-magical magical cure-all antivenom was fun. As well as Rowena chiding Sam about how what they're doing with Jack is doing exactly what she would – as she was until recently a villain. (Although again, putting aside why, if Rowena is their fucking hunting buddy buddy now, why exactly they aren't telling her what's up with Jack. Seriously, why?) Unsurprising that what I think actually works briefly in this episode is the character interactions powered by the skill and charisma of the actors, not anything the writers are doing.

Which brings us back to what Dabb didn't learn from Wayward: making the Winchesters (and Cas) entirely incompetent and helpless to facilitate ludicrously endowed super!kids like Jack stealing the show is insulting enough when it happens with the Gorgon, but it is straight out infuriating as the end of the whole AU!Michael arc. Seriously, I do not get this fetish of his.

Before getting more into that, as an aside, does it matter if Cas can breathe? I don't mean that in a “Die, Cas, die!” way, either. I mean, he's literally an angel in a human suit, even if he's paralyzed by the thing's venom (which I'll accept that the creature can't see him but its venom still works on him because the body is more or less human {sort of, considering it's been turned into a specially constructed vessel made to break all the angel rules for reasons [to not have a supposed good guy holding a human soul permanently hostage and that whole dumb special-vessels-lol-what Lucifer interlude]}) does it really matter? Especially in that moment? Like, if he's angel enough that the monster can't see him, he should be angel enough that mundane damage to a vessel should be nothing more than an inconvenience. Castiel is exactly as human or angels as the writers need in at any given second.

Speaking of which - Jack freaking out over it is another instance where he's dumb as an infant or competent as a trained adult from second-to-fucking-second to facilitate what passes for a plot, because Dabb & Co. apparently got bored and decided they'd rather go back to another round of What's Wrong With Jack, You Should Totally Care! rather than actually write a coherent story around AU!Michael. This infant/adult thing comes up again during the conversation with Cas about humans ultimately dying where Jack suddenly doesn't get death. Even though we had that whole. long. thing. about Jack wanting to know about his mother and talking to that therapist and her parents about her and seeing her in heaven? Yet now we're back to LOL what is death?? Maybe angels or part angels are literally incapable of learning anything. It would explain a lot about both Jack and Cas in recent years.

Also, I take back the points I mentally rewarded at the beginning of the episode for actually involving a new monster taken from mythology. It was at this point when we see that Jack kept the snake that I recalled spoilers about what happens to it and I became suspicious that literally the only reason they went to the trouble was to give Jack a pet that wasn’t cuddly enough that the audience would turn on him if he does something to it. I don’t mind planning ahead, but when the monster hunt was such a manufactured clusterfuck of stupid and the ultimate purpose of it seems this transparent? Sigh.

Oh noes, what if Dean doesn't wake up!? Well, for one thing, he'd be spared continuing to exist in this shitty parody of the SPN universe, so, I'm kinda thinking that might actually be a win...

Speaking of the writers just railroading the characters in random directions to get wherever they want to go regardless? Cas's ability to heal is useless again, because of course it is. Somehow a physical head wound is complicated by archangel possession, because sure, why the fuck not? Remember when angel powers weren't a fucking joke, as useful as a knife without the blade? Honestly, I might even accept that another angel was unable to do anything to a human who was playing vessel to a different angel if this wasn’t just one more in a string of so. fucking. many. instances of angel powers transparently and ludicrously existing or not exactly where the “plot” decrees they do.

Likewise, Rowena, the totally most powerful witch ever? Shrug, she can do nothing. Except, it turns out, get handed an idiot ball to make this railroading keep going on the same dumb track. Welcome to the club, Rowena, enjoy being half as competent as ever you were (or less!) now that you're an ally. Again, vessel rules? What vessel rules? Any old archangel can just pop into any old person they want to, don'tchaknow? Not to mention how goddamn fucking stupid Rowena would have to be to let Michael in so he “doesn't harm anyone in the bunker”. Are you fucking kidding me? The only thing letting him possess her is going to do is give him immediate faster access inside the bunker without any chance to prepare for his attempting to kill all the people he definitely intends to kill. Not to mention that they turned Rowena from completely self-involved to brainlessly selfless in this episode, suddenly, because because as if nothing exists in-between. This literally happens because the show decided it was bored and uninterested in Michael after half-heartedly playing with the character for half a season so it chopped everyone's brains out, including their own, to make him go away. I just cannot see any other explanation for Rowena both being that dead stupid and conveniently being able to house Michael.

The only worthwhile thing in this episode is the good riddance to bad rubbish of all the AU!hunters in the bunker finally getting wiped out. That the show actually expects me to be in any way upset by a bunch of people who don't even fucking have names and just keep milling around in the background taking up space biting it? Aside, from, of course, another Dabbernatural-style cardboard sue like Maggie who went from not even knowing how to hold a weapon to being the goddamn leader in a handful of episodes? Presumably because the Winchesters are? Yeah, no.

Even though when he actually had his powers it wasn't a foregone conclusion that Jack could effectively take on Michael? Now that Jack doesn't have his powers, suddenly he can burn up his soul and just completely overpower Michael with the total McGuffiness of his existence for reasons. If doing that is so powerful, and we’re stuck with this retcon about divisible souls, why can’t any old angel just burn out their vessel’s soul to get super-powered magic? If the powers that any individual or item has have no logical consistency, and every new idea that pops into what passes for the writer’s brains is introduced as TEH MOST POWERFUL EVAH? No conflict over supernatural powers in this show can have any legitimate narrative weight. If the audience can’t adequately gauge the threat, it all becomes a muddle of random events that happen rather than a coherent story we can actually invest in caring about.

Look, I’m not saying that no Supernatural plot before the current era was resolved by McGuffins or random powers. The issue here is the general issue with their use in Dabb’s era. Jack doesn't have to work for it. He doesn't have to figure out some complicated way to boost his powers to make it work against the most powerful archangel. There’s no buildup for us to invest in. There’s no sense of the characters actually working at an obstacle and earning a victory. He's just suddenly handed this level of power to make it happen right now, at this arbitrary moment, because the show decided it was done with this arc now and could not be fucking bothered. It makes no sense with anything we’ve been shown about the characters' powers, it makes no sense for the story actually feeling like the characters are meaningfully accomplishing anything by their legitimate merits. It sure as fuck makes no sense for the lore. That whole thing with Billy's books they've been harping on and on about as TEH ONLY WAY? Which Rowena even calls back to this episode? Nah, nevermind, tossed out the fucking window without even a goddamn handwave.

Seriously, the Michael arc is not resolved here because the Winchesters outsmarted destiny again, or that they found some way to cleverly subvert it. It’s not even that they worked to find a solution and finally the work paid off by them coming across something suspiciously perfect. It’s that they waffled around for several episodes being dramatic and making literally no progress until Dabb & Co. arbitrarily and literally handed the power to end the arc to their pet joke fake!Winchester “son” because they did not care. And yet they expect us in the audience to continue to care, even though I can not think of any other development in any other professional media I have ever consumed that was as unsatisfying and honestly infuriating as this pile of haphazard bullshit.

#negativity for ts #anti dabb #writer incompetence #what the fuck even was this episode?#long post #spn 14x14 #spn season 14

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emilywatchescursedshow · 3 years ago

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S2 Recap

This will be shorter than my s1 recap - I won’t scream and cry about the show like I did back then, I’m wiser and older. Also everything I said in the s1 recap in:re stakes is pretty much the same anyway.

I liked most of the MOTW episodes this season, and there weren’t any episodes that come to mind that were stinkers like in season 1 (although I wish they would stop using/misusing voodoo). I thought the myth arc plot was pretty low-key; it was sort of hard to tell the difference between the MOTW eps and the myth eps but some stuff from earlier in the season was important at the end.

I like Gordon and Jo as side characters, and I think having side characters is a good way to establish character traits about the brothers aside “brothers” and “daddy issues.” My main critique of the show so far is that I don’t really have a sense of who Sam is as a person. They don’t have a lot that establishes stuff he like; so far, he’s just been making fun of Dean passionately expressing his likes. I guess Sam’s straight-laced? A little stuck up? But that’s pretty boring. His depression about being involved with the demon isn’t really dwelt on. I guess I came away from the season with a very clear idea of what Dean wants or wishes were different, but I have none of those thoughts for Sam. Is this what watching a tabula rassa for men is like??? It’s so boring?? Am I as a man supposed to be projecting onto the character of Sam Winchester?????

On the other hand, I'm torn about Dean this season. I think the beginning season Dean characterization was great (although I also think Sam should have gotten the floor for the dad death but w/e). “My name is Dean Winchester. I’m an aquarius, I enjoy sunsets, long walks on the beach, and frisky women.” We see a lot of Dean being basic this season. The episode before the finale being What is and What Should Never Be is really interesting because we see that without the monster world Dean is kind of a scumbag (I’m taking this with a grain of salt because I’m not sure how accurate the lore is), but that he does genuinely take pleasure in being a basic scumbag. Dean getting tired of hunting after their dad dies and the life sort of threatening to kill Sam makes sense; he just wants to live a white-picket life.

The problem is that I don’t really understand Sam’s character motivation - I guess he wants to kill the demon? Maybe that’s my fault for not picking up on it - and Dean doesn’t want to keep hunting. So like, why are they hunting? I think season 3 might feel a little bit more motivated now that Dean is on his way to hell but after the paper thin “we need to find dad” thru-line of season 1 I was not expecting for the thru-line of season 2 to be as weak as it was.

I think my favorite episode was the clown episode. It had some good character beats for both brothers (Sam’s afraid of clowns), a creepy monster that gets set up in the episode, and a nice twist. I also really like the episode with Jo, mainly because watching Jo and Dean interact is very fun.

This season had a lot of episodes that reminded me very strongly of the X-Files. I wonder if that trend will continue. To that, and also Sam’s characterization being all over the place: there’s a moment in Tall Tales where, as told from Dean’s perspective, Sam is trying to sympathize with a student but ends up making him really uncomfortable. Dean says something like “Sam is so sentimental” when it comes to interacting with people on cases. But like, I thought Dean was the one who was personable? Sam straight up tells a guy on a case “you’re crazy” and then the guy stages a not-bank robbery. Again, maybe I’m missing something, but the perspective storytelling works best when each characters has definitive character traits and I feel like Sam just. Doesn’t. In my opinion.

Ok the only other thing I will say in this “short” season recap is: Why did the demon need to hand select a bunch of children 22 years ago and feed them his blood when all he needed them to do was cross some railroad tracks and use a gun to turn a lock in a door? He could have just paid someone $1,000 to do that.

#supernatural #season 2 review

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elizabethrobertajones · 7 years ago

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13x11 watching notes

I take back at least 5 of the recent snide comments about Sam's jacket. D:

... aaarghhh being non-US is a pain. For having to rely on downloads, anyway. Pretty much just that :P

well it's nearly 5 but I have a download which started with a bunch of static over Donna recap I don't need, and then in to a vampire recap...

I love that it shows us Dean being a vampire, and the time he was turned, just because it really ought to be more of a thing, even as a lighthearted "I got turned into a vampire once but I'm fine" like idk in 12x16 trying to reassure Claire or something :P Well, no, but you know what I mean. Typical Dean!girl complaint that they don't spend enough time harping on all the various traumatic things he's been through, even if some of them are 1 episode MotW things which don't earn mytharc "remember this?" nods 7 seasons later.

That was a very short recap, scratchy bit I skipped aside.

Well this is a horrifying open :D Nice serial killer basement you got there. The same playing music while doing something horrific thing as Athena in Davy's last episode, but she was just being an undertaker doing her job, and this is clearly the baddie of the week at work, with his serial killer wall and leaving blood splatters on all his dirty horrifying equipment.

Still, you gotta have music while you work.

I can't prove anything withthis level of CBA but the truck stop looks like the one Sam got snatched from in 2x21, just because it's small and single story and all. It's probably been a bunch of other things knowing this show, like, idk, 4x01 and 10x03 and no one's ever added it all up :P

Other thoughts: it's "manny's" but the Y is out turning it into "MANN 'S" which means once again I'm just gonna say toxic masculinity may be the bad guy and it's not exactly subtle :P

If this is Donna's niece I love her already because of her bumper stickers - anti-guns and "think globally act locally"... the anti-gun sentiment is especially amusing because of the jokes about Donna's arsenal... There's a social responsibility to actually advocate AGAINST guns, but the entire monster hunter subculture is indistinguishable from weirdoes in the woods with a stockpile of weapons, as Victor pointed out for us back in season freakin 2. As local law enforcement it's more likely Donna would have access to and comfort with weapons and an ideal scenario is that people know about monsters in general and are equipped to fight them, that is, the law enforcement like Jody and Donna and other hunter-cops who actually can turn it into a part of their regular job, with the emotional responsibility less about crazy revenge missions because no one else will do it... But you know, that and an anti-gun sentiment completely undermine the show's entire set up, which is why this show has a bizarre second face of being equally favourite of republicans and democrats, because the take-it-into-your-own-hands and collect guns for legitimate self-defence scenarios super appeals to them.

IRL there are no monsters except the ones we make, is all I'll say >.>

But in the context of the show, and especially as she's gonna get kidnapped, the fact this world has different rules aka legitimate danger to personal safety from monsters, means the show's social conscience is always going to be skewed and conflicted, and the fact she's against guns is potentially not going to look good given her status as an innocent civilian who has no idea of the irony of her stance being undermined by the existence of monsters and her aunt's legitimate giant gun and flamethrower collection being a lifesaving boon >.>

Oh, gross, close ups on eating, making it look really horrific, with red tomato soup (blood) and slicing into a steak with a squelch (self-explanatory).

This is gonna be an arty, violent, gross episode, isn't it? :P Mental note to try and catch the director. Because with this voice over about psalms or something there's definitely a sort of ~mood~ being set.

Christ, the population of this diner is basically the cast of The Adventure Zone's latest thing (which is playing some cryptids in the woods Supernatural D&D knock off literally called "Monster of the Week" and I'm gonna keep recommending it :P) - anyways if you've seen the fanart I've been reblogging there's literally a character people are headcanoning to look almost exactly like this person with the curly hair. Minus the bunny rabbit.

I like the Aliens Are Watching Us guy as well. There was a conspiracy guy in 12x15 (also Davy) so I guess he's not done with this concept of people enjoying the wacky stories without realising they're a shade off, Ronald Resnik style. (Perez is possibly competing to be the new Edlund, if Yockey is taking after Robbie in tone... aka gently petting existing characters on the head while introducing amazing one offs)

Anyways definitely feeling the vibe of Would Not Go In This Place Unless Truly Desperate they want us to get :P

Okay the cashier is super creepy up close, taking too much delight in his power over her ability to leave and his leisure to decide if her ID is valid or not and mocking her name.

(Pointing out that "Hanscum" is old English is asking us to go look it up and ponder how it relates, right?)

Oh boy and there's the request for her to smile that makes him a Grade A Creep whether he's the monster or not.

So many creepy trucks and vans, the "Jesus Saves" van looking anything but salvation, and probably ANOTHER fake out bad guy with the window washer, just here to scare her... Holding up the window washer thingy like an axe murderer.... Whether he is affiliated with the murderer or not, we get a lingering shot on him and a red STOP beside his head

Aaand someone slashed her tyre while she was there....

Oh no, caltrops. It's a trap :(

AAAAH scary masked guy!

not the same mask as in the promo pictures, just a bag over his head and goggles. This time referecing over to 13x05 and the plague doctor masks - the same huge dead eyed look they have without any of the style :P Theeemes for the season though.

Oh no, we start the episode on Sam trying to have a lie in... Already awake before his alarm then grumpily staying in bed another two and a half hours. #relatable

is he okay?

I mean I know in general he is Not Okay but I guess this is going to take some unpicking :P

...

OH NO he resisted PANCAKES.

Dean is up and about and enjoying being home with comforts around him, and Sam...

Is still in bed at 10. I may cry.

Oh thank god Donna is calling him to get him to move.

He's resisted food which means everyone narrowing their eyes at him not touching his lizard in 13x10 gets a cookie for pointing out his issues and how he handles them re: food. I know lethargy and not wanting to get out of bed are huge signs of depression but we rarely see that side of Sam manifest, and mostly just see him casually not eating or having much interest in food offered to him so I think it may be one of the first times the story is actually set up to genuinely call attention to him having a depression lie-in and refusing to come out and get pancakes that Dean is making to celebrate having a kitchen again.

Anyway, now we get Donna angst. Hearing her cry is the absolute worst.

It's such a sharp shock, tbh, to go from Wayward Sisters where she was shown off as the fun comic relief, and have her in the same coat and all suddenly speaking in such a tiny voice, and sitting helplessly in her great big D-TRAIN truck which was like the cavalry arriving and betraying a character that pretty much never DOESN'T want to make a fun entrance and lighten the mood...

Oh Donna. :(

(This is especially painful having watched all the WS episodes up to this point in the last few months)

"BREAKDOWN" appears over Donna pulled over to the side of the road, having her quiet breakdown over this, in an episode about serial killers engineering a breakdown on the side of the road, after we saw Sam having a silent breakdown this morning

Lovely.

Someone turned the angst dial all the way back up to 11 after the break it was taking.

The Impala rolls respectfully and quietly up to Donna.

She looks small :(

I'd guess she's apologising for calling them because it's pretty much The Next Day or thereabouts give or take driving time. Like, she'd be assuming they need their "Just back from a parallel universe" downtime.

Also because if we add any extra time instead of assuming it's been back to back since, like, 12x19, then the tension about Cas evaporates and they leave him for weeks.

So let's say they saw Donna like, 2 days ago max.

Oh no and she feels the guilt of inspiring her to go off on her adventure, because she had fun and talked about it. This is not how fault works, D-Train :( You did nothing wrong. It's the serial killer who took her, no one else.

Sam tells her to just focus on the case rather than think about it which is A+ coping methods and how you end up like how Sam was this morning

Ew, Doug is here

Oh no Dean is leaving Sam and Donna together. Dean, no, you're the chirpy pancake-making one today - you have to prop 'em up :P

Oh boy, this is the real FBI isn't it? They were in the promo...

"First off, I'm not your son." Dean straightening up and trying to fake-authority figure bluster past the confidence of real authority.

Doug diving in to rescue him may be the only way out he has?

"Company man. You should have told me." "Didn't get a chance."

I think Dean doesn't know the codes to pass as FBI with whatever they'd immediately say to identify themselves with casual ease - like in 12x06 where at the hunter party he doesn't know not to say wendigo? There's just some stuff he probably can't know without, like, literally being the FBI and having their specific swagger and way of talking.

e.g. I don't think Dean would say "Company man" without sounding like he got it from TV

Oh dear, he doesn't have the field office - yeah he just diiiives around that one.

Not here on official business, the victim is my cousin, I'm just here to get some answers.

Makes Donna on a close family level to them - or at least that she's another branch of the same family officially like what Doug might think watching this exchange, knowing Dean is not Donna's brother/husband/whatever else on the closest level would make them share a niece.

... Obviously also a lovely message about how Donna's business is family business for them

"You and Donna are related!?"

A COUPLE OF WEEKS AGO?

How long was Dean chilling and making pancakes and not calling Cas??? Asmodeus has HAD to have had an accidental "is Dean trying to sext Cas?" confusion over the texts he's been getting in this time period.

... the fact that Cas is back next episode and for all intents and purposes the promo pics and premise would make me think it's Buckleming but it's actually Yockey and BL have 13x13 is like the one thing keeping me going :P

I hope I have that the right way around... Literally panic-checking my 13x12 tag before I continue, just for Cas's sake

"Amanda Tapping directed the episode written by Steve Yockey" Mmmmmmmm

Okay, soul soothed, continuing to watch Dean blustering through pretending Wayward Sisters was a family reunion, which is also adorable that Donna used an emergency family reunion as the excuse to go.

Well at least the FBI already seem to have done most of the work with having a map with red string, names and other victims. This parallels directly to the serial killer's collection, the red string mirroring the blood splatters that guy was leaving on it.

Pretty much gonna assume Mr FBI is the serial killer, or else as much of a problem as him.

Donna looks so tiny in this room full of men.

"Troopers got an anonymous tip" aka there's something fishy about it being called in - if Mr FBI is the killer, it makes his job more effective than waiting around for someone to find the car so he can get his rocks off on chasing himself around in circles :P

Bleeech Doug putting a hand on Donna's back to reassure her.

If you hadn't gathered I'm super not a fan of Doug being back because I think it's ridiculous to inflict another Doug on Donna, and especially when you're doing a dark episode actually doing emotional stuff with her for once, it's dragging out a joke that was from her first episode when we didn't know anything else about her. Defining her by her Dougs

Oh yeah her niece is called Wendy - I think that name was made up for Peter Pan? Or else boosted its popularity through the stratosphere to the point that you can make up a fake fact that the name was invented in Peter Pan. Either way, Wendy Darling associations - growing up, but doing the gap year before college is essentially putting off becoming an adult aka having a Peter Pan year...

If Mr FBI is the serial killer, calling himself "the Butterfly" is the most inconspicuous way to go about it, than "yeah I named him myself he's The Badass Slaughter Man" :P

It makes sense, as well, the way he migrates for the winter and back.

The pause before describing what happens to the victims and Donna saying "go on", not wanting to be talked down to or having her feelings saved just because she's personally invested/female and prone to hysterics/both

He's been chasing him for TWELVE YEARS without catching him

Aka this is the easiest thing ever: just get paid to suck at doing your job to find yourself :P

If he turns out not to be the killer this was at least a hilarious diversion imagining this

Oooh they've re-used the yellow panels for the motel screen which have a serious pedigree of being the yellow panels in the motel - but almost always in crosses or inverted crosses in the empty spaces between them. The new pattern doesn't really have any negative space image I can see.

Dean knows trucker lingo.

I assume this is something you pick up if you literally grow up routinely visiting truck stops and being exposed to truckers as the other wandering workers you'd find on the road most often as a hunter.

There's plenty of headcanons out there about Dean and truckers and picking things up as well.

He calls Wendy "Alice in Wonderland" which might be trucker lingo but also overlaps with the whole Wendy Darling then when talking about Victorian kids literature

Sam says it's stupid to use the trucker radio and then starts trying to argue down the case because he wants to go home and not-sleep some more. (ARGH it being a couple of weeks means Sam has spent a couple of weeks not sleeping)

He has a point about being fugitives and wanting to stay off the radar, but I kinda think he's just finding reasons and yelling about them because he's irritable (depressed, angry, no sleep) and wants to stop even though he couldn't say no to Donna to start with, now they're here it's time to start looking for exit ramps.

Dean says "Dad used it all the time" re: the radio so we're also invoking his ghost with some point to make on top of everything else :P

"So what do you want to do? Call up Donna and say 'sorry about your niece, these things happen! Later!' and head back to the bunker to mope some more?"

OH NO I mean of course Dean has noticed but holy crap he's actually calling it out immediately.

(Reminds me of season 1 when they had so little else going on they were constantly side-eyeing each other's nightmares and grumpiness levels and commenting on it - Dean especially while trying to work out what was wrong with Sam before he came out with the visions thing.)

Anyways we have it established in the same episode that Dean calls it out that Sam is moping around the Bunker, which honestly should not impress me as much as it does, except that they have had a very passive-aggressive last... 11 years :P

Dean thinks it's weird that Sam got up at 10 because he's Mr Rise and Freakin' Shine, and tbh there were people last year bitching about Davy's characterisation of these guys, but he has a very very direct way of exposing them and picking which bits to show up to catch them at their worst angles and I LOVE IT from a meta perspective, but perhaps it comes off weird to people who aren't primed to think of the characters in certain ways. Especially that they may act out of their normal patterns. In 12x15 Dean started the episode disgustingly dirty and not caring about the car or their home environment, which is obviously out of character. Sam "sleeping in" is out of character but this time we see it unfold and at least immediately have a clue that it's because something is wrong and have it called out far more obviously than in 12x15 where it was left for us to interpret, and some people wildly missed the mark by assuming it was just bad characterisation, instead of identifying past characterisation and playing with it as an exposure of something new

Also... Dean made pancakes because he knew Sam was upset. My heart.

I mean Sam didn't go for them, but again, 13x05, Sam trying to make Dean feel better, 13x11, Dean trying to make Sam feel better.

Uhoh. I am scared to see what Dean lists... "I know you're in a dark place. We lost Jack, Mom is... I think about 'em too. All the time."

He doesn't know Caaaas is lost tooooooo

my heart.

ALSO it's dramatic irony again, as it was at the beginning of the season - Dean not knowing about Cas's current state, in which we are wildly more equipped to tell him how he should be feeling...

I mean look at bisexualdemondean's inbox over Christmas with all the jokey needling from people reminding him to check on Cas or coughing into their sleeves about seeing what Asmodeus is up to, and obviously demon!Dean casually being like pfft whatever and paying it no heed because the very in character RP is savvy to this plot that Dean has no clue and seems to think he has no reason to worry, even if he hasn't seen Cas in a while. The show is making the same reaction as the anons who want him to look and the show Dean is obviously completely in the dark, minus the wink wink fourth wall break from the blogger behind the demon!Dean blog that they know full well what the anons are implying because they've seen the show...

why am I using this as an example? Because the show's been incredible with the dramatic irony this season and as a way of creating an emotive response from us it can not be overlooked as an element of the season, but also has a knife edge from causing a BUNCH of wank from people who don't get it that this is something Dean doesn't know, that the pain of watching him not knowing all this stuff is basically permanently setting up SOMETHING at his expense this season and constantly using what he doesn't know about what's happening to Cas as the lever to boot.

And idk I find it totally fascinating, and awesome, and really clever, but when the show is super clever the fandom as a mass entity seems to struggle, for whatever reasons.

Non-judgementally, it's like that MIB meme about panicky mobs of people aka fandoms, just as a mass entity. If you're reading this I assume you've been reading the other posts I made per episode where I've talked about this literally every time it comes up so as individuals you're probably not part of this :P

Oh heck I should not have pressed play. "You can't let it eat you up. Look when I was broken up you were there for me. Well I'm here for you now."

I love SalmonDean in the exact right quantities and this is the sort of thing that makes my stomach hurt with affection for them

Dean gives Sam the same message of putting your head down and focussing on the work.

Repress repress repress!!!!!!!

I think the radio is going to put an end to this - yeah

lol Dean is midnight rider

sounds like a woman on the other end? the static makes it hard to tell but the dudes all laugh off Dean's request like it's a hook up request for Wendy or just don't care, then this woman radios in with info

score one vs toxic masculinity

"it's a date"

Dean says he'll go check it out and tells Sam to hang back, I think to enforce his obligation to Donna while also giving him a chance to rest until needed, which is a nice arrangement.

Sam does the "Look obviously I'm here for Donna" and doesn't have a "but" - though it's left hanging that he's struggling. Whatever else is going on, he is saying he doesn't intend to bail, despite his earlier attempt to argue to go home

aaaaand back to the serial killer basement.

More masks, and Wendy with her eyes covered too

Wendy screaming and getting screamed back at, and mocked silently with the serial killer miming tears at her - not using his voice, definitely falling into this persona of the monster with a disregard for her feelings... the "Boo hoo" attitude again takes me back to toxic masculinity as the bad guy

And he tells her to smile (again if it's the UFO creep from the Truck Stop although honestly he looked too small to be this guy) - if it's not him it's once again just men being creeps.

"Sorry I'm late," Sam says, showing up after reluctantly dragging himself into work

my heart is breaking for this guy

Donna has been handed credit card history for Wendy so they'll probably be at the creepy truck stop soon - if that's not where Dean arranged to go already (I didn't catch where they arranged to meet)

Huh, Mr FBI called in Bible Guy who I assume had the Jesus Saves van, of all the potential suspects in that truck stop.

He's suuuuper creepy but I assume at this point, probably not the bad guy, if he's already here 15 minutes in.

Although he did have Wendy's bloody shirt so who knows... Doesn't look good.

He's called Pastor Diamond something or other which goes with how there's a diamond motel neeext episode... or 13x13. Yeah. Anyways, theeemes

He's already called out for having a history of lewd behaviour, then we add being creepy enough to keep a bloody shirt even if he isn't the killer.

(I assume the killer wouldn't be dumb enough to be caught with it)

OMG Dean's dressed as a trucker.

Which is to say, his normal plaid with a puffy vest over it.

And yaaaay it is mowhawk lady from the diner aka one of the main characters from TAZ Amnesty I mean what no she isn't a magician with a bunny. I'm so confused :P

Oh no, she didn't stop to pick Wendy up, and she made excuses to herself for why she couldn't stop and help out another woman in distress, and now feels the Guilt. Everyone feels very bad about what happened to Wendy but it's not helping her >.>

Donna has to stop to gather herself when they pull out Wendy's picture and start talking about how great she is.

Pfft and then Diamond whatever fuckhead is super racist about a guy with a Mexican-sounding name. Well he may not be the serial killer to be brought in so early but this is very much a story of how all the humans can be monsters if they try hard enough.

(I love the "Humans are the real monsters" stories and this one is great because who can you trust in that scenario, and it focuses on all sorts of things, like the trucker's responsibility to help and being a bad Samaritan etc is a lesser evil and she's definitely one of the nicer-seeming people, because she said Manny's gives her the creeps as well so she's on our side about it, but at the same time she's still mixed in with the social responsibility for allowing evil to happen... this probably isn't social commentary about current America at allllll)

Dean enlists Doug's help which is... great... and Doug shows up trying to be all shady in a hooded coat. Donna's adapting to the grittiness well... Doug sticks out like a sore thumb

I like that Dean's already staking out Manny's anyways.

Ewwww Doug just saying "I love Donna" blech

He's asking if Donna will be okay after never seeing her sad before but almost the first proper interaction Dean had with Donna seeing her as more than local police but as a person was seeing her deep dark pit of sadness about how Doug1 treated her, and told her she deserves better. He KNOWS Donna has a lot of sadness and self-worth issues she doesn't let on, and if Doug doesn't know about them after a year, he's not someone Donna opens up to. She opened up to Jody immediately, in contrast :P

"Not sure what you mean."

Doug lists some really superficial things they talk about as talking about "everything"

"I think she's hiding something from me"

Dean is like... hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

He tells Doug he's going to be there for Donna and to trust her.

Maybe I just really hate Doug more and more but Dean's starting to remind me of the Lester conversation in 10x02 but just in bafflement about how Doug could possibly ~get~ Donna.

Meanwhile Donna looks like she's about to school Pastor Dickhead

He's sitting there with the lighting giving him a halo while playing butter won't melt in his mouth

And she's playing friendly cute Donna facade while telling him he's gonna be had for dinner for 2 days in the cells while getting him to talk

She's awesome.

Well that's super suspicious that the cashier closed early and chased after Wendy... We're halfway through so allowing for monster nonsense to get added in...

At this point because it took so long to get to a download, my mum insisted we watch the episode together while we ate so I now know everything that happened. D:

Ugh creepy pastor. ugh. the least he deserves is being reduced to crying by Donna while interrogating him.

Mr Totally Not The Bad Guy being like "But the shiiiirt" and Sam and Donna are too smart to think it makes sense for a moment. Sam says almost exactly what I would have done - hurr blurr I evaded capture for 12 years but here I am with a bloody shirt in my van

I mean the pastor is probably someone they were sizing up as potential eating and just hadn't got around to him yet, so he also worked as a fall guy

Anyway blatant "but if it isn't him who is it" cut to the cashier

The plot makes mores sense with hindsight that he cracks and shows Dean the video because they'd recognised the Winchesters' car and so he wasn't just playing dumb that he happened to know the website but his albi was being over here while the live cutting up was going on but that he confidently had the reassurance they didn't know he was a vampire so he could go along with whatever while leading them into a trap, and thinking that his day ended with packing up bits of Winchesters to go.

The "how they do it in the FBI" pathetic slap and then the Look that Donna gives Dean and the shifty look he gives back before turning to Doug and giving him another "but yeah it is" nod to back it up is an amazing silent exchange

Whoops Doug finds out about monsters. Dean has another "awkward" look caught between them

At this point Wendy being auctioned is really just bait to make them come

I will forgive Sam for not being more suspicious of Mr FBI on account of him having a very bad day but the point where he shows up and helps them investigate and Sam, now knowing it's monsters, doesn't fob him off harder but just says "alright follow me" is where I call impaired judgement

The caged halo lights are back and the creepy mask guy doesn't get to stand under one but one is directly behind Wendy in the video clip of her screaming

The trick with the radio is good because it works on us too knowing the torture is currently going on with that music playing.

And then we go to Doug being roughed up and turned because it's time to do all the reveals now we have the fake out, so Sam gets knocked out and Doug left as a distraction and the cashier to hold them up.

Oops Doug is a vampire. Doug growling is weird

Pfft and he just immediately attacks Donna. Dean is very quick thinking to immediately grab dead man's blood as soon as things start going.

"Well thanks for making it easy for me."

The vampire comes back to gloat and tell Dean that Sam's been got.

I love that Donna has no patience and just shoots the guy's knee out because we need to sort things out and Dean's showy machete waving ways aren't her style :P

"No no no get further back. He's a big boy, we need a wiiiide lens" I know it's terrible but I laughed SO HARD

"Hell soon as I saw that fancy car I knew who you were"

... we do always say is it a good idea that they keep driving it around? no. but will they stop? Never. :P

"The Butterfly" giving Sam a rough estimate of how many monsters there are - 100s of thousands - says the ones Sam and Dean see are too mean or stupid to "pass" which does lend itself to a double-edged fear of every day people being monsters... I think the implication with a corrupt FBI guy and the monsters we see all being white peeps is not a racist implication but more commentary on society being awful and so on, and I think using the racist preacher as the absolute scum of humanity is a good way to avoid too much weird implications about monsters - the BMoL had that creepy Brexit parallel which sort of cast monsters as immigrants which of course, considering they might well eat people, wasn't the neatest message.

I think this is a bit more tuned to 2018 anyway :P My concerns about the social commentary from earlier have mostly evaporated.

He thinks he's saving good honest American lives by feeding only people who won't be missed to the monsters - and he mentioned that the Mexican guy had a family which means he WOULD be missed - he's just racist too.

He's good at the whole auction voice thing though.

They really toned down the vampire cure thing because Dean barfed his guts up with it and now he's letting Donna give Doug the cure in the car as they drive.

In the *car*

"Let's begin the auction for Sam Winchester's HEART"

lemme tell you, even coming in at like 500k that's still not as much as it's worth. That is a priceless artefact there.

I absolutely adore the "you had no idea your aunt could do that" fight sequence :D

Like, she knows Donna's a cop, but having her just bust in and kill the guy...

What an aunt.

"There are many pieces to Sam Winchester but only one heart"

Honestly, devoid of context, I wanna see that on like 8 different artsy Sam edits.

Fake out Sam getting shot. "Since Dean's out there, quick and dirty."

Not quick enough.

Sam having a "huh, I'm not dead," moment. After we see the close up gunshot and that's why Sam and "The Butterfly" were both down to their white shirts, because there's just a mo where we aren't sure which one of them we're seeing even though it was aimed at Sam's head so it's clear just from seeing a shot to the heart that it wasn't Sam.

Also he wouldn't just randomly die, I say in a season where Dean randomly died already :P

Dean does those quips just for Sammy's benefit

I think Donna and Doug maaay not have been dating but she kinda realised she might like him now they've had a sort of adventure together...

"I was a vampire!" "For a couple of hours"

Ah well, bye bye Doug, thanks for breaking Donna's heart, don't let the door hit you on the way out.

This was a bit drawn out but I think it was important for Donna even if Doug is really annoying so I don't like watching him struggle on screen.

I think Donna really hoped she'd found someone in the life

Sam just sees it as completely inevitable and good for Donna that she doesn't have someone she cares about in the firing line.

Ow.

Ow ow ow ow.

Oh Donna as well... :(

I'm just in so much pain for Sam and Donna. Dean needs to hug 'em both.

He just gives Donna the pat on the shoulder while she cries.

Buuut now she's Doug-free for Wayward Sisters, hurrah!

She and Jody can bond and discover something in each other they didn't even know they were missing :3

That Jody's name isn't "Doug" for starters.

Dean's still harping on what Sam said to Donna, both telling her to get used to having no one close to you and just in general, yikes it's never good to hear someone you care about talking that way about caring about people and he should know he's BEEN there.

This is like the dark opposite of 11x04's optimistic Sam and "someone in the life" stuff.

Sam angrily stands his ground because he's a grumpy goose today "Was I wrong?"

it seems like Kaia set off his latest mood but also in losing Jack in the process of looking for Mary, who, also, is still gone and not seen for weeks before that, presumed dead... I would guess the fact that he was miserable in The Bad Place was the start of this, before Kaia died, and losing her really just symbolised how shitty everything is, the cherry on top of losing all the people they care about over and over.

After Dean spent the first part of the season his terrible way, now Sam's got his overdue depression and breakdown (tiiitle drop) that has been lurking below the surface...

... if we're lucky, as Sam fans, this might not just be a one-episode thing but actually, like, something that's going to happen in an ongoing way for Sam??

Sam denies he's in a dark place because everything he's saying is true, but Sam normally does repress and get optimistic about finding ways to research their way out of whatever hole they get themselves into this time.

Which ain't healthy but is how Sam manages to skim over the top of being in a dark place most times, meaning this is really hitting him hard now.

He also mentions Cas in his list of having mom and cas back and helping jack, accidentally playing into the dramatic irony in another way, of not knowing Cas is currently in trouble now as well but still listing him among the ones they've lost and that he's lost hope over...

"This ends one way for us, Dean."

And with that, the ginormous, grimy, rusty cog behind the entire mechanism, finally clunks around a slot, turning it from Dean as the dying bloody mindset Winchester to Sam, for the first time in a long time, and in a very curious way that Dean, who states it all the time, is now forced to evaluate and to think, do I really agree with it? I say it all the time but WOAH THAT IS HORRIFYING TO HEAR COMING OUT OF SAMMY'S MOUTH WHAT THE HELL WHO BELIVES THAT?

I'M CARVING THAT FUCKER A SLICE OF THE APPLE PIE LIFE AND HE'S GONNA SHUT UP AND EAT HIS DAMN LIZARD. PIE. I MEANT PIE.

Anyway then we end of that awful shot of Sam from the outside of the impala looking in on him which just makes us feel helpless about not being able to hug him, in my scientific opinion of what that shot is implying.

#13x11 #season 13 spoilers #my stuff

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furederiko · 7 years ago

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"I won't let you... suffer the pain alone!" Kyuranger's 28th episode, conveys the tale of broken bond, and lost friendship...

- Let's get this right off the bat: POOR Balance!!! T_T... He wasn't around when Naga first succumbed into the darkness, so imagine his utter shock upon witnessing how his partner-in-crime (we'll get to this later) has become an evil, ruthless, brutal, and plain messed up person. Dark-Naga is completely different from his regular self, and this is the first time we get to see Balance gets deeply depressed. Even more so than that stolen-Birthday story... - Sure, the episode starts in a carefree and casual way. We see Balance utilizing the #43 Camelopardalis Kyu Globe to become a 'mechanical giraffe' and scout the area, while Dark-Naga is having fun with his newly found emotions through a practice fight with the Indavers (again, the actor is definitely having a blast). I also personally enjoy seeing Akyanba and Kukulga get along with one another, mirroring the bond between Ikagen and Madako nicely. But everything turns sour just 4 minutes in, and the cheerful mood has completely dissolves into a somber and melancholic tome. - Balance clearly arrives on scene with a belief that he could easily persuade Naga to the good side. That's how they've always been, right? But nope. If this is another show, the whole 'turning into evil' trope would be done and over with in just two episodes. This is Kyuranger we're talking about, and that's NOT how the show works. After declaring that the BN Thieves has now been disbanded, Dark-Naga doesn't pull any punches on his (former?) friends. He shoots Balance on the spot, intentionally injures his left thigh, and then tortures him with sheer glee. Balance refuses to react, resulting in an abusive scene that... well, rather disturbing to watch. I wonder how TV Asahi even allows this on a morning show? - It's a neatly choreograph, but devastatingly desperate fight scene. Once again, Dark-Naga is soooo close on killing the other Kyurangers with his 'Dark Galaxy' attack. This time around, a mysterious woman steps in to save the day. And it's a... female Naga! Hold on, I mean, a Naga-esque female individual from the Ophiucus system. She introduces herself as Echidna (obviously portrayed by Taiki Yamazaki, voiced by Ayumi Tsunematsu), and reveals more details about the same-faced inhabitants of her system. Trivia: In Greek mythology (nope, not the ant-eater one, nor... Sonic the Hedghehog's rival) Echidna is a half-woman half-snake 'She-Viper'. She's the mother of many mythical monsters such as Orthrus (that gave birth to Sphinx and Nemean Lion), Cerberus, Hydra, and possibly Chimaera. There's a 'mother angle' in her story. So can we assume this is just pure coincidence? Or is she actually Naga's mother? Hmmm... - Echidna's appearance is... well, a bit awkward to watch. Not because of the female voice coming out of Naga's lips, but mainly because it looks a bit out of sync. This is a common occurence in Tokusatsu, but I wonder why they don't just alter his actual voice with a sound editor? Also, design-wise, I think the production team made a minor miscalculation. IMO, they should've enclothed a 'female Naga' with a high-neck dress that fully covers the neck area. At least, give him a choker or something. The actor is what many generally calls 'pretty boy', so he CAN look and showcase Echidna's feminity just right. Yet it's also clear his adam's apple is still immediately noticeable in this dress style, and that would likely attract questions from audience. Especially observant nitpickers like yours truly LOL. With that said, her inclusion is still a much appreciated decision. It gives a good excuse to keep Naga's actor among the non-suit ones, without the need to hire a new artist. And similar to Dark-Naga's messed-up sassy gestures (that is always a delight to see), he's able to make us believe that Echidna's an entirely different character. - Echidna's exposition, leads to a deeper backstory for both Balance and Naga. And that's good. We FINALLY get to see how Balance met Naga for the first time! True to his trickster reputation, not only Balance ran into Naga when he was stealing a treasure from his planet, he also made use of Naga's pure desire for emotions to get away. On a whim! Yep, turns out things didn't actually start out in 'real' good terms for them. Back then, Balance was merely using Naga, turning him into a partner for his own selfish benefit. Not unlike Akyanba, huh? Nevertheless, it's a fated meeting that managed to change him for the better. Balance now actually cares for him and others in general! That's why Dark-Naga's berserking frenzy isn't just hurting Balance physically, but also scars him emotionally (if not all of us in general, of course). Balance is going to do anything to bring his BFF back, even if it forces him to engage in an intense heartbreaking duel with him. We've seen it teased in the preview, right? - I was initially pretty disappointed when Akyanba revealed that the key to bring Dark-Naga back to his senses, is to hurt him so badly. I admit, it IS a common thing for a Tokusatsu antagonist to foolishly state their Achilles heel. Even Kyuranger have done it before with a lesser MotW. I guess, I kind of expected more from this cunning villainess. Turns out, more is certainly what I'm getting. Televi's scans have already spoiled about this 'solution' before, along with the Gold-Silver fight, and Echidna's arrival. But what a pleasant surprise when those report (probably... intentionally?) left out the powerful twists that come as part of the actual package. - Contrary to popular assumption, Echidna isn't here to help Naga. She is sent to... eliminate him. Apparently, obtaining emotions is considered a massive threat in the law of Ophiucus system. OUCH!!! Echidna also blames Balance for 'swaying' him out of his planet. This is what I meant earlier by 'turning him as partner-in-crime'. Second, the Gold-Silver fight? Intense, but heartbreaking. I expected a Mexican Standoff-esque battle, but nope... Libra Gold doesn't want his BFF to suffer alone. So when he launches that rain of arrows using the #35 Sagittarius Kyu Globe, he's taking the fall WITH HIM. Aaaaawwww, the chills!!! But the episode saves the biggest twist of all. Hurting Naga badly to save him? LIES. That was nothing but lies. It's all Akyanba's trick to pit the Kyurangers against each other. She's merely toying with her enemy, trying to make them hurt one another. So disappointment is gone, because Akyanba IS a dangerous antagonist INDEED. - Worse thing is... according to her, Dark-Naga is beyond help. There's NO way he can be cleansed from darkness once he gains back his emotions. That means...? Aaaaaw!!!! T_T. I can already hear those devastated outcries reverberating throughout the Naga fanbase. Not to mention, Naga have always wanted emotions to make Balance happy! Putting the burden and guild on the Golden robot even more. If I didn't know any better, it seems the only ways to save Naga now are: defeat Akyanba to remove her curse/spells that unlocked Naga's emotions, and seal back the emotions he's been longing to have all these time. Those are NOT easy feats! Things aren't looking good in the present time. Fun fact: Can't believe it took me this long to realize one thing. Naga Ray's name is clearly a pun for either the Japanese word 'Nagare' which means 'to flow/washed away', explaining why he's easily persuaded; and also 'Nagareboshi' which means 'Shooting Star'. And we know how a meteor is called a shooting star, right? When it FALLS down on Earth. Suffice to say, Naga's fall to darkness has been written on his name. This character was already doomed from the get-go. And that rain of arrows is another really good metaphor to this too... - What's happening in the past doesn't fare better! 'Time Travel' team exits the time hole (healing Commander's Xiao's back in the process), and goes directly to witness Tsurugi's final fight against Don Armage. And it plays out exactly like Tsurugi's story, confirming several things: One, Tsurugi has been telling an honest truth all these time. As in, he's not dreaming or seeing illusions or alternate reality like some fans have theorized. Two, Kuervo sacrifices himself to protect Tsurugi from Don Armage's blow. So yeah, I think he's genuinely really dead, as we can only see Orion (who now has a face, more on this later) carrying Tsurugi to safety afterwards. Three, Don Armage is defeated... for REAL. Phoenix Soldier strikes him down (here's hoping we get to see that cool flaming winged attack again soon), blowing up his planet along the way. So HOW is Don Armage still alive till the present time? That side of truth is still shrouded in mystery. As if that's not enough, all of a sudden the ORION is under mysterious heavy attacks! Forcing Raptor to quickly warp off towards Earth. With Don Armage gone, WHO is attacking them then? - Before you dismiss that this time travel side is removed or unrelated, do remember one thing. Kyuranger had always run several plots in parallel, but they generally still share the same theme (examples: Stinger's route of vengeance crosses path with Champ, and the brotherhood parallel between Scorpio and Kotarou). Considering the current theme is about heroes/good person turning to the dark side, could it be foreshadowing the true identity of the new Don Armage? If we observe how Naga is Balance's best friend, we can see there's a parallel running in the past: Orion or Kuervo are Tsurugi's closest comrades too! Who do you want to bet as the real Don Armage, then? - Anyway, we're back in the present time. Akyanba walks away with a severely wounded Dark-Naga, leaving the fight to the giant Indavers. Since Ursa Minor SkyBlue has to tend for Balance, Leo Red uses Gemini Kyu Globe to duplicate Lupus Blue and Chamaelleon Green, so they can form a three-colored RGB Kyuren-Oh. What a NEAT trick! Even SkyBlue is surprised to see that this is possible. I don't think we actually need a mecha battle, but at least it's unpredictable. - Despite Echidna's firm statement that the only option to the Ophiucus Metal situation is to eliminate Naga, obviously 'Save Naga' team isn't going to give up just like that. Balance personally refuses to obey, and will do anything to rescue Naga. Even if he has to face Echidna for that. But that's when something unexpected comes up. Well, duh? This IS Kyuranger, so obviously it's one thing after another. Our present team senses an odd surge of time-paradox, and notices a distress beacon from the ORION. Has the spaceship really returned? - This is where the two time-crossed storylines come together in a shivering and shocking way. Because what Lucky and friends see, is NOT the ORION they've known all these time. It's a broken and aged ruins of the spaceship! Dang it, the goosebumps. Don't forget, there's a price for trying to break the rule of nature. A small alteration in the past will affect the flow of time and reality in its future... and this must be one! Does this mean, the real one is destroyed in the past?! Oh good heave, I hope not! But the scene that slowly shifted back in time... only confirms that concern. ORION has indeed crashed down on Earth, and its passengers are on the ground, wounded and unconscious. And standing in front of them, is none other than... Sir Orion!!! Fun fact: Orion is played by actor Kai Shishido, who is the son of legendary actor Joe Shishido. He's not new to Tokusatsu, having played DASH Captain Shigeru Hijikata in the 2005's "Ultraman Max". Looks like Shishido was added to the cast later on, because I don't think he was the actor we saw in Eris's story. That one was younger, smaller in figure, and has much lighter skin! Something that obviously a nitpicker like me would've noticed... LOL. It's a tad disappointing, because having felt familiar with his face, I've been really curious about that mysterious 'temporary' actor. Guess I won't be getting my answer anytime soon. But at the same time, I'm not complaining about Shishido. He DOES has a powerful presence worthy of an important character. Beside, if my theory of Orion being Lucky's biological father pans out, his surname would make for a perfect pun! The kanji means another, but 'Shishi' is 'Lion' in Japanese, right?

Overall: Oh wow, one surprise after another huh? Thank goodness we got a lighter episode last week, otherwise I don't think my heart is ready for such intensity to come every week. This episode left me with a bitter taste, which was both sad but good. Realizing that Naga can't actually be saved, felt like swallowing a bitter pill that refuses to go down the throat. It made me feel... hopeless. But such uneasiness could only land if audience deeply cares about him and Balance as characters, which is a really good thing. So call me hypocrite, but I'm glad the Dark-Naga arc isn't resolved too quickly. Otherwise I'd be quite disappointed. Thumbs up to the writers this time for a strong focus episode for Balance. Much needed praises also goes to the sound department, because once again, GREAT use of fitting BGM to amplify the scenes. The melancholic ones during Naga and Balance's heartbreaking moments worked gorgeously by adding shade and tint of sadness. I might have some minor nitpicks about this episode that affects my score, but overall, a truly excellent episode... Next week: Orion, oh ORION... PS: We're back to "Kyutama Dancing" as the ending theme, but this time Tsurugi has been added to the equation. Also, alongside teaser for the first Bluray Box set, the official trailer for V-Cinema "Episode of Stinger" has been aired. It's available online if you're curious about it.

Episode 28 Score: 8,3 out of 10

Visit THIS LINK to view a continuously updated listing of the Kyutama / Kyu Globes. Last Updated: September 5th, 2017 - Version 2.13. (WARNING: It might contain spoilers for future episodes)

All images are screencaptured from the series, provided by the FanSubber Over-Time. "Uchu Sentai Kyuranger" is produced by TOEI, and airs every Sunday on TV-Asahi. Credits and copyrights belong to their respective owners.

#tokusatsu #SuperSentai #kyuranger #uchu sentai kyuranger #uchuu sentai kyuranger #review #melancholymoments #friendship

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idontneedasymbol · 8 years ago

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@chiisana-sukima

Oh! @idontneedasymbol, I don’t know if it will end up working for you, but I have such a happier textual interpretation of S12 to offer you! I think it’s quite well supported, although we’ll have to wait over time to know for sure. I *love* Dean this season (with the exception that I think all of the characters, including him, are being written somewhat inconsistently and flat), and I think what’s going on isn’t that he’s being written as one-dimensionally violent, but that they’re trying to fix his issues with violence without acknowledging explicitly exactly what those issues are. Which is a complicated endeavor, and so it’s coming out uneven and choppy at times.

(my no doubt overly-copious mounds of thinking on this below the cut)

Keep reading

New post because my stupid, stupid tumblr won’t allow Keep Reading cuts in reblogs! (and I definitely need a cut for this, it got REALLY long (even by our standards ^^;;;;))

I like and agree with most of this reading -- at least subtextually; am not convinced it's deliberate on the part of the writers, but there is an argument for it (in particular I totally agree that Dabb is much more invested in writing them as more standard heroes in regards to killing/violence, rather than Carver's dark, borderline anti-heroes, and I've been a fan of that from the start.)

At the same time, it doesn't address my major issues with Dean's characterization this season. The problem I'm having with s12 Dean is that, while the writing may be exploring his relationship with violence and improving it, at the same time the writers are opting not to show the bulk of good traits the character has always had. (And fair warning, this is a very ungenerous reading of the season. The last ep really got to me; I wasn’t nearly this negative a few eps back, but as the trends I’ve noticed seem to be worsening rather than improving, I’m getting increasingly cranky. Please argue me out of it if you have counter-evidence; I want to be enjoying the show again!)

I don't protest Sam getting the big kills; as pointed out, there's always been an imbalance there, with Dean taking out the majority of the big bads. A lot of this was necessitated by the story. Like you say, Dean's story has always been much more steeped in his complicated relationship with violence, and therefore it was more needed to show that his violence could be heroic; it was always played as a two-edged sword, one of his strengths as well as a weakness. So it makes sense that as his worst issues with violence are reduced, and it's less important to show him being violently heroic, Sam should get more of his share of the kills.

But at the same time they're reducing Dean's heroic kills, they're also reducing all of his other heroic actions as well. He hasn't been given a single scene alone with any innocent victim to bond or show sympathy or offer emotional support. He has been less involved in researching hunts (e.g. going off to have sex in 12x18 while Sam stays up doing research, apparently not helping with the nephilim hunt in 12x19) and more dismissive of Sam's work (along with a new inability to understand computer searches. Dean has been downright stupid a lot this season, which has never been true of him before; he's got random knowledge gaps and he likes to play the idiot, but this season it feels like he really doesn't understand what Sam is talking about a lot of the time.)

It’s not just Dean; the season (second half especially) seems to have been trying to show the Winchesters as not very good at finding hunts or solving them, apparently to justify them joining the BMOL (since information seems to be all they're getting from them?) And by and large, both of the Winchesters have been superfluous to the main story this season; it feels like the majority of what has happened in the arcs would have happened with or without them, and even in MotW eps they've managed to save only a single person most of the time (if even that.) But with Sam they’re at least giving him a little -- being a researcher has always been a fundamental part of Sam's character, so they've kept that up nominally, and he’s gotten to be badass. Dean doesn’t have that much going for him; he has no role in their partnership now, when Sam can do everything.

Except damsel in distress, I guess? But damsels are usually the gentle ones, the heart of the team. And along with not getting the kills, and not helping with the research side of hunting, Dean also hasn't been showing much in the way of positive feelings like compassion or empathy. Emotional vulnerability at times, yeah; but not kindness. That, too, has been left up to Sam.

Dean has been unusually unsolicitous with Sam himself. This, I think, is partly a result of Sam's s12 characterization, which is definitely tilted more toward Big Damn Hero, strong and unneeding of assistance or comfort in the face of torture or monsters or anything else. Dean has not once asked Sam if he's okay this season, even casually after a fight; but neither has anyone else. There has been atypically little light h/c of the sort of the boys getting tossed around and one of them helping the other up, and what there has been has been entirely Sam helping Dean. On the multiple occasions Sam has gotten in trouble, Dean always gets there too late to be of any help, and doesn't show concern when he does arrive. This was at its worst in 12x02, that travesty in which Dean fails to exhibit any concern for Sam whatsoever, even when witnessing him tied up and bleeding (despite vowing to take Toni apart if Sam is hurt in just the previous episode.) At the time I blamed it on Bucklemming, but given later episodes (12x04, 12x14, 12x15) it seems to be the trend, that Dean is not given to showing caring for his brother anymore, either by threatening those who hurt him or worrying over his condition.

(I admit, Dean caring for Sam is my favorite thing in the whole damn show. So the near total lack of it this season, even in minor moments, has stood out to me.) (Meanwhile Sam repeatedly expresses concern for Dean's physical and emotional states. Which I love, don’t get me wrong; but I like it going in both directions? I miss eps like “Mystery Spot”...)

Even with other characters, while Dean can express worry for family/friends (always initially expressed as anger, then walked back to a grudging apology; the Dean who would express worry through humor or supportive gestures or asking to talk is nowhere to be found) his caring is always matched and usually overshadowed by Sam's (except arguably for a couple times with Cas, for the sake of Destiel). And Dean is the one who doesn't understand what Mary's going through, Dean is the one who is mean and petty to Cas, Dean is the one who overreacts to Claire’s decision. Dean's role is to be Goofus to Sam's Gallant, showing, over and over, what not to do.

And yes, they've always had a measure that Dean is the more volatile and emotional one while Sam is calmer and more rational. But it's more extreme now, to the point that Dean can't be calm and rational EVER -- while Sam only gets emotional for brief moments and then calms, without it ever clouding his judgment or decisions.

That Dean has had no time with the innocents this season really bothers me too, because it’s always been one place the show has been quite even -- Sam & Dean have different ways of dealing with the victims of monsters, but they're both effective.

Reading over your analysis of Dean and violence, I wonder if this is all related -- that because the show is softening him in terms of violence, it sees less need to show his caring side otherwise, which has always existed in contrast to his capacity for cruelty. Or even that to preserve his nominal 'tough guy' appearance, when he's not as violent, he has to be harder in other areas.

I really hope that's not the case. I really hope the kind Dean, the Dean who tried to comfort Michelle at the end of "Red Meat" and told Sam he wasn't leaving him in “Don’t Call Me Shurley”, who managed to save the universe by empathizing with Amara, isn't gone for good.

(Even in "Regarding Dean," Dean is sweet and cute, but he's not especially kind. And while I do love that ep, it's probably my favorite of the season, I hated how at the end, once Dean's back to 'himself,' he teases Sam, and there's no sense that he realizes that Sam was genuinely hurting. That's mostly in the editing, they could've easily played it as teasing but also sympathetic. But they don't; he's just a smug jackass. Likewise in "Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell" Dean's fussing over Baby would've been fine if there had been any hint that he was actually concerned about Sam or the innocent and blustering over it with his worry about the car -- like way back in the pilot, asking if Sam was okay, then covering his concern by saying that he'd kill him for damaging the car.)

It's touches like that I'm missing. And as you say, the characterization has been flat this season, and these are some of the details that are getting flattened out. I am hoping that’s all it is, and not that they’ve just decided Dean’s not like that anymore.

And I do hope you're right about the season's general arc. The decrease in violence, especially from the boys and between the boys, was one of the things I most enjoyed about s11, and one of the things I am glad about s12. (I admit I was a little concerned about that -- Dabb wrote one of the worst moments of domestic violence in the show, in that it was played as no big deal, in Dean punching Sam in "Girl Next Door" -- but that hasn't come up; Dean’s being written as a jerk, but at least not an abusive one.) If that is a deliberate choice, it’s one thing to celebrate!

#spn meta #season 12 #meta #dean #my meta #my post #wank for ts #so much wank #i have been stewing on this for a while #now it's all coming out everywhere!#sigh

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venus-says · 5 years ago

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Kamen Rider Zero-One Episodes 01-09

The biggest gag of this whole thing is that I don’t have a punchline to talk about a show with a comedian as the main character.

⚠ ⚠ Warning! Very long post ahead, be prepared. ⚠ ⚠

Yes, I’m bringing something weird, kinda unrelated, and very random again to the blog, but seeing that precure is taking a break this week and that I had some free time I thought, why not?

Kamen Rider was something I always wanted to get into but I never did just because of the huge amount of things in this franchise (much like what keeps me away from Idolm@ster, and pushed me from Doctor Who for so many years). But I was babysitting in the weekend and I had to sit down through 5 hours of power rangers on netflix, and that kinda revived this flame on me. And seeing that he newest season of Kamen Rider is still in its early days I thought it was a good time to start.

I’ll go back and watch the older seasons (at least the ones from the Heisei Era) because *spoilers* I enjoyed Zero-One quite a lot, and it also would fit with a project I’m planning for next year, but I won’t give much detail on that just yet. For now, let’s just focus on the task at hand and talk about Kamen Rider Zero-One.

Since this is a review/first impressions post instead of talking specifically about each episode I’ll talk about some specific topics. Starting by the plot.

This setting is very entertaining, I don’t know if it’s the future, or if this is some kind of alternate reality where humanity has progressed faster than our reality or whatever, but I like the futuristic vibe. The concept of Humagears isn’t anything new, it’s what you expect from a futuristic show, but it is somewhat decent. I don’t know if talking about machines getting conscience is a concept that’s easily palatable to kids, and I have a feeling that the show will lack in this discussion, but I’m okay with it.

I’m okay because this show does an amazing job when it comes to being emotional. In every episode, they make us sympathetic to at least one character and when this character gets caught between fire or is turned in the MOTW we feel for them. I was especially touched by Mamoru in Episode 2, the kid from episode 4, the seiyuu Humagear played by Karen Miyama and her father in episodes 5 and 6, and especially the coach and the basketball team from episode 7. In a very short amount of time, they made me feel attached to these characters and I was really invested in their stories and that’s a huge plus for me.

The plot regarding the company is probably the least interesting and the less believable IMO. Maybe it’s just me being dumb, after all this is a show where dudes transform in mecha armors with animal motifs using belts, but I find hard to believe that in any parallel world a successful and respected businessman would hand their very important company in the hands of someone unprepared for the business. Yes, the protagonist being the head of the company gives him an interesting plot point in episodes 8 and 9, but that was really the only time I saw it as being used in an interesting way in all of these episodes.

A.I.M.S. is a thing I have mixed feelings. First they seem to be the police, then they seem to be like a third (shadier) private organization, still they seem to use things as if they’re the government, they seem like they can play a very interesting role but this beginning is just so confusing I don’t know what to think of them. Though I have a major problem being that they seem to be huge, very important, smarter than the other, above everyone else, Still on episode 8 they let themselves be invaded without offering that much resistance resulting in loss of equipment and valuable data, and after all shit is done, they didn't run any kind of scan in their giant robots to see if nothing happened to them. That was really dumb.

The part I like the least is the villains' plot, they are boring as hell and I can’t care enough about them. The reveal on episode 8 that they’re also humagears is very rushed and very dumb because it shows that the protagonist has been wrong all of this time. I genuinely would like more if this was a revolution created by a maniac with a god complex rather than another story of machines rebelling against humans.

I can’t talk about Plot without talking about Characters. While this is a show that does one-off characters wonderfully, the majority of the main cast I have issues with, at least for now.

Aruto is the regular protagonist of any sentai show, I feel, so I don’t have strong feelings about him so far. Though, the characteristic that is supposed to differentiate him from the others makes me not like him as much. I don’t know if it’s because his jokes are lost in translation or if it is the style of comedy that doesn’t resonate with me personally, but to me he’s not funny he’s just very cringe. I also don’t like how this is overused and more often than not it ruins beautiful, touching or emotional moments. Though Aruto has something great in his favor that is his companion Izu. Izu is a delight and she makes Aruto be way more bearable as a character. Yes, her gag when she has to explain Aruto’s jokes is overused and after nine episodes I don’t think it’s very funny anymore, but I still enjoy her a lot and episodes 8 and 9 showed a lot of potential for her.

A.I.M.S flagship characters once again show my mixed feelings about the organization. While I love Yua (she’s probably my favorite character), I hate Fuwa to death. Yua is very interesting, she shows signs of humanity but she’s not afraid of using the resources she has at hand to fulfill her missions, she’s the gray character in the sea of blacks and whites and I love this, it’s still very shallow but it gave her character some level of complexity that put her above the other to me. Fuwa on the other hand… I may be wrong about him, he may pull a Bakugou on me and make me sympathetic towards him later on, but for now his hot-blooded, hard-headed, stubborn personality gets under my skin and seeing him loosing in Episode 8 was probably my favorite moment of him so far. (PS.: I know Fuwa’s first name is Isamu but I don’t think he was ever referred by his first name so far so I’ll stick to calling him Fuwa)

Like I mentioned before, I don’t care for anyone in MetsubouJinrai.net. Jin had something going on for him in episode 6, but instead of using that to build him as a character the show just threw that away by revealing that he’s not actually Horobi’s son, he’s just a Humagear he made and they took away all the things that made him interesting. Horobi seemed like just the generic villain, then he raised his status with the whole “I made you Jin” thing, but once again they lost any kinda of dept to his character when they made him another Humagear instead of a human going against society.

Tied in with the characters talk there’s the Rider aspect of the thing. I can’t judge them in level of efficiency or anything since I don’t really have some reference point to compare them to, but I can talk about designs!

Zero-One has a pretty efficient design, when you look at it you can immediately recognize that this is from Kamen Rider yet it’s still unique enough to differentiate from its predecessors. His power-up forms are also very decent, though I wish in some of them we had less of the grasshopper design and more of the animal the power-up is evoking. My favorite forms are Flaming Tiger and Freezing Bear since these are the forms that keep less from the original design. I don’t know if he giant mammoth mecha is considered a power-up but I’ll mention it here, that thing is very goofy I can’t take it seriously.

Vulcan and Valkyrie are pretty similar and bland in their basic forms, though I enjoy the touch of half of them being more mechanized and the other half share more similarities to their animals. In terms of power-ups, Vulcan’s Punching Kong isn’t very imaginative and there are not enough changes for me to like it. Valkyrie’s Lightning Hornet, however, is my favorite form of all of them, I love how it feels like a completely different design from the original and the colors work pretty well together.

I don’t know if they’re also considered Riders but I’ll talk about them anyway. I love Jin’s Flying Falcon, the shade of pink is very pretty and to me it has a better design than Zero-One’s form. Horobi is basically just a recolor of Jin, but it works I feel, maybe it’s just my love for purple and the fascination for scorpions and poison-related powers but I enjoy it. Talking about the Magias I feel that their designs are very hit or miss, more misses in my case, but I can’t deny that some of them are very funny.

The transformation devices all look kinda silly, if I was a kid I wouldn’t see myself interested in any of them. Though I’m all here for the progrise keys designs, it’s simple, it’s colorful, it’s fun, they look like cassette tapes and I love them. The briefcase weapons I also dislike, they seem like a very fun design for a toy in scale of a figure, but in the show hey seem way too big and don’t work as well for me, though I like Horobi’s arrow version. Zero-One has a very cool looking bike, but I gotta admit when it falls down from sky looking like a cellphone I can’t help but crack at it because it just looks way too goofy.

The last thing I have to comment on is production. Though I don’t have the knowledge to give a proper analysis I gotta say the show looks very well produced.

The locations are very pretty, the action, for the most part, is very impressive, the soundtrack is decent, and sometimes they take some styling decisions that are very impressive – like the “attacks animations” and when they’ve put these comic borders during a portion of the fight in Episode 5 to seem like it was part of a manga. The characterization is also pretty spot-on, we have the futuristic elements yet there are this similar present days vibe that makes things more relatable and easy to connect with this world, I especially love the earphone thing the Humagears have, is such a nice touch.

The actors are all pretty good as well. Yes, there are some moments where they go way overboard IMO, but overall they do very well with what they’re given to work with. Props to Noa Tsurushima for being able to pull out an amazing Izu that is very robotic but still has this very human aura to her. I also checked them out in their social media and it seems that the cast get along very well and they always seem to be having a blast in the backstage pictures. Also, did you know Fuwa’s actor has a youtube channel and he apparently does lives every single day? I was very shocked when I found out about that.

And the biggest thing that deserves praise is the special effects and CGI that, aside from a few moments like the giant mechas fighting in Episode 9, are amazing and a delight to the eyes. It’s very rare for me to find a show that is heavily dependant on CGI that doesn’t tickle me off and this one managed to pull it off wonderfully and I can’t wait to see more of it.

And these are my thoughts on the first nine episodes of Kamen Rider Zero-One, I really enjoyed the show and this is now part of my fixed weekly schedule of shows to watch. Have any of you seen it, what are your thoughts about it? One of the things I liked the most during the symphogear season was interacting in the comments and discussing the episode and I haven’t seen much of that recently so please leave a comment and let me know your thoughts as well. In any case, thank you so so much for sitting through this very long post, and I’ll see you a next time. (guess is finally time for me to aikatsu again after an entire month)

#Kamen Rider Zero One #kamen rider

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eisforeidolon · 7 years ago

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The thing is, I liked season eleven after finding nine and particularly ten overall mediocre and forgettable with some decent stuff mixed in. I actually really liked the whole idea of Amara with the show making mythology of its own, and I liked the actress that played her. The only real problem was that they should have done more to show rather than tell us how great of a threat she was, but they even did a pretty decent job of showing her as a consistent presence across the season. I loved that they tried to inject some actual stakes into the Winchesters life and death merry-go-round again with quasi-antagonist Billie and the Empty, and I thought a lot of the MotW episodes were really good. If the overall storyarc was a bit rushed and messy, and it had an unfortunate Lucifer tumor in the middle of it, well, it was the transition season. When the conflict ended with not the big confrontation but a big family reunion, I was so pleased and I had high hopes that SPN might be going back from a fun show to one that was more qualitatively good.

Starting season twelve, there was a lot of talk about dialing things back and having the Winchesters have to deal with a purely human enemy. That was a great fucking idea. Mary was back so the show had a whole new emotional dynamic to explore between the two Winchesters separately and together with her, and how they dealt with her as an actual person. Again, that was interesting new territory to explore. Except ...

All the potential of Mary was wasted in her taking off immediately; the only way she could have been less invested in the Winchesters' lives was if she turned full villain – and at least that would have been unquestionably deliberate and not just incompetent writers inflicting their cardboard version of a “strong female character” on the audience. By the time we reached the end of the season I felt there was no reason to brainwash her except to pretend she was still “good”, I could easily see the Mary they gave us all season locking Sam and Dean away to die without it. Meanwhile, the BmoL were in turns either so hyper-competent and prepared it was unbelievable or so incompetent and unprepared it was also unbelievable. Which was at least not as terrible as the climax, where the writers had Sam and the disposable hunter gang zoom past a fundamental moral horizon that has always been emphasized as important on the show (not killing humans on purpose) without even seeming to fucking notice. So much for having to deal with a human enemy being any different than the same old same old crap! It only got worse with Lucifer hanging on like a bad smell in a way that turned into a cringe-y abortion-skirting death-is-worth-it-for-my-baby-even-if-it's-evil storyline with another bonus consequence-less Cas betrayal of the Winchesters. That in retrospect the writers were such juvenile pissbabies as to write a Cas death they intended to take back immediately to overshadow Crowley's permanent one only leaves even more of a sour taste on the season. Still, there were some great moments in decent episodes and there had been some good ideas to start with – and the whole AU world was promising! I didn't have much interest in Jack, but what happens in the season finale has so little bearing on where the next season will necessarily go these days it wasn't enough to tune out.

Which brings us to season thirteen. They tried to sell helpless woobie Jack way too hard, but the casting department did them a good turn with Calvert and it actually kind of worked. The Scooby crossover was pretty fun. Unfortunately, they fucking ruined the Empty – both in terms of whatever the hell Misha was doing while whoever was directing was apparently in some kind of coma and in terms of it utterly ruining bringing peril for the main characters back into the show. Beyond that, it felt like they wasted half the season on the spin-off where the usually more coherent and enjoyable MotW episodes would have been – which instead of at least being about Jody and Donna, was a whole new cast of cardboard teen stereotypes whose abilities and interpersonal bonds were so awesome like Sam and Dean's!!! Even without any training or having known each other for more than five minutes! Yeesh. The rest was split between making Lucifer even more of a joke (possibly at least partially on purpose this time, which actually makes it worse in a way), flubbing all the potential of the AU universe by giving it no depth or real history in favor of all the random fanservice AU versions of dead characters they could squeeze in, ruining Gabriel's actual redemption arc because ???, and a wee bit of Jack & the Winchesters and Rowena & the Winchesters that was actually enjoyable. Oh, and all that crap with Asmodeus which was so forgettable I almost literally forgot it happened just now. Setting up for the finale? Heaven is falling, oh noes! I don't care. AU!Michael is coming! I don't care. The season hasn't bothered to take the time to actually give me any reason to, and the only thing this show needs less of than more brother lying plots is yet another angel-centric snorefest. Stick a fork in that shit, you nerfed it good at least six seasons back.

I've always found the seasons more enjoyable watched in a binge, and maybe on a rewatch (if I actually get up the interest to do one this year) I'll remember there were actually some good parts in there I liked. At this point, though, it feels like too long since I genuinely enjoyed anything in the distracted clusterfuck of half-assed recycled plots and I'm not sure tuning in next season is the right choice for me, even though I expected to be in 'til the end. I am sort of interested in the idea of Jensen playing a different character – but I have no faith that the so-called surprise reveal of the character will not be either the most predictable possible entity (an idea I've always hated), the most ridiculously out-of-nowhere soap “twist” the writers hit with a dart, or both. Not to mention the intrinsic conflict between the show having adequate Dean time and having the character last more than another disappointing three episodes that go basically nowhere.

#writer incompetence #negativity for ts #wank for ts #anti mary winchester #anti empty!Cas #anti Lucifer #anti wayward

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elizabethrobertajones · 8 years ago

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Honestly I'd rather have Sam, Dean and Cas have a conflict than being what they are now :( It's nice but it feel more like lipservice cause they arent adapting their format around them being team, it's just makes me angrier when Cas gets excluced now, when Sam and Dean contact others to work with instead of Cas, when they working on what Cas is WITHOUT HIM (Kelly). Giving them some issue would explain the sporadic seperations but still a shared emotional B plot with future resolutioon

I’m sorry it’s making you angry :( I can’t exactly say I’m super optimistic that 12x17 is going to do very well with this because it’s Buckleming and they’re becoming brilliant at writing episodes Cas should be in but isn’t, and not mentioning him - the only saving grace is he’s spared from being involved in some of their episodes, and contributing to the bad decisions :P After 10x21 and him fading out into the void to make way for bad decisions, and 11x09 where he was off idk getting his car tuned up or something after reclaiming it from Metatron, it’s always nice for him to have low culpability for their plot twists…

Which makes it really hard for me to judge all this fairly because all these Dagon and Kelly sightings are happening in Buckleming episodes, and they’re the ones who are full steam ahead on the Lucifer’s baby thing while the other writers are giving it a wide berth, but it also unfortunately seems like the sort of plot Cas would be attached to with his lingering Lucifer guilt, the angel connection, etc etc and they always need a reason to punt him into the void for MotW episodes… Just now we’re getting 2 in a row Buckleming episodes where after they connected Cas to this arc, they’re not using him for it… Normally I’d have some positivity about the writers doing this that or the other, but this whole subplot is happening in like, an alternate dimension, and I’m starting to feel like rescuing Cas from it is a secret side agenda from the other writers :P

What DOES feel positive to me is that the episodes Cas is in HAVE been really good to him, especially the 12x10/12x12 stuff where they were absolutely all working with Cas and he was a part of the team, and everything was happening exactly as it was supposed to. To me this feels so much more like what Dabb era is supposed to be, and all the promises that seemed to be made and things we were hoping as far back as the middle of season 11 when it started to seem like Dabb of all people was about to take the Iron Throne… In all the OTHER episodes the season has absolutely delivered on everything I wanted and thought would happen, to the point where I’ve been kind of just sitting here stewing peacefully in season 12 like I’m in a hot bath, without a great deal of an agenda or much to say about it because I’m so content to just see what happens and enjoying the character development and so on.

I mean, ignoring Buckleming, and the Kelly stuff, we have had a whole arc about Cas’s belonging and where he calls home, and Cas finally being firmly embedded in the family, and then, with some random background reason for it to happen, Cas now going to meet the angels and have some sort of reckoning with his old family. Whatever nephilim stuff is powering it, the real importance of all that is going to be whatever Cas and Joshua say to each other about Cas’s belonging in Heaven and how THEY see him, with the nephilim just as a reason for Cas to be there, and some random external thing to motivate their actions and choices. In the overall examination of Cas’s arc when it’s all said and done, I think this will be the lasting impression.

And I’m really genuinely happy for that, and enjoying where they’re taking Cas with all this because it all feels like finally paying off stuff that was set up in season EIGHT or season NINE. That’s, like 2 seasons of Cas’s arc just being teased and teased and drawn out before we get back to actual work on it, and from 11x23 onwards Cas has been making genuine progress forwards in pretty much every episode he’s in (12x02 and 12x08 notwithstanding because Buckleming where it was more like they were pushing the food around on their plate with Cas) on his personal arc.

I don’t know, I’ve not found any of the reasons Cas hasn’t been in an episode actually to be unbelievable except for 12x13, obviously, where he SHOULD have been there because it was his thing at this point in the story. But 12x15 at least has him covered now that as long as the heaven drama pays off when we catch up with Cas again; these absences are explained by him being on his personal quest to find belonging and in this case, work out where the hell he stands with Heaven after finally managing to confess how much he loves the Winchesters and considers them family, and having that reciprocated.

The stuff at the start of the season made sense that if they were going to keep Lucifer alive, Cas WOULD have a stake in finding him, and in that case working with Crowley was used to, as you said, put some tension between him and Dean to create something interesting in the way they WEREN’T together, and the unity at the start of the season was challenged. Then that was all resolved and Cas spent a while hanging at the Bunker and quickly moving through a lot of personal stuff; if he wasn’t in 12x11 it was because Sam and Dean went to deal with a seemingly small matter, and then Dean didn’t want to worry him when it all got too real. Then 12x12 was incredible, and 12x13 breaks the streak, sends Cas out into the cold and there’s nothing to work with in 12x14 and he’s not meant to be in that one, and 12x15 manages to salvage him back onto his arc. 12x16 once again he’s absent but kind of watching over things (in 11x12 he was also sneakily present in details like grumpy cat and without a Gas n Sip, other sun imagery, and Dean was kind of mocked by the set people for not noticing Casifer yet, which I thought was great :P) and while I don’t like no one mentioned him in 12x16, I do think there’s pleeenty of room to headcanon that Dean went and prayed to him when he stepped outside, since once again Cas is out of reach, and he always seems to be now when we have Claire stuff, like, she comes up as a reminder of that >.> kinda sucks, but ALSO kinda points out the massive hole here made by Cas missing. Which is then a story element, since I don’t think they DID forget him, just wrote him as not in the episode, in the empty spaces.

This is all just really weird having basically rogue writers on the staff who are somehow writing a completely different story, charging recklessly ahead with it, and their own subplots, and somehow being on a completely different level to all the rest of the writing staff. I still think Perez intentionally wrote circles around them with the 12x12/12x13/12x15 Lucifer stuff; that the pay off only worked so well because there was a godawfully obvious amount of lousy exposition and surface level Crowley characterisation crammed in between the reveal. It’s like a magic trick and I don’t reference the Prestige lightly but he literally used them to do the middle part of the magic trick, where the magician’s assistant walks around and around the curtain distracting the audience, while he’s waiting on the other side for the big reveal - the pay off only works with the frivolous bit in the middle because if you went from 12x12 to 12x15 there wouldn’t be enough tension that Crowley was being a colossal idiot, and revealing that Crowley has been ten steps ahead, and the Buckleming part was just part of the trick, that it actually is the prestige :P

This is kind of off-topic to Cas by now, but, I guess, I’m waiting to see what other rabbits they can pull out of a hat to work around the bizarre plot Buckleming have introduced, and I feel like the *rest* of the writing team are genuinely the best set of writers the show’s ever had in terms of solidly written stuff, when you average it out between them (and ignore the spiders georg of rapey badly paced episodes writers - in other seasons I sometimes feel like you’re hanging on for the spiders georg who writes, like, 6x20, and is an outlier adn should not have been counted for overall season enjoyment because wow 1 episode can make or break a season, she says scowling at 10x21 again)…

Anyway, so nothing else about what’s going on with Cas being left out of episodes has actually bothered me, and I actually like where he’s going so MUCH better than other seasons, like season 10 when he drifted sadly around in the background for most of the time, and when Crowley rightfully mocks him for doing so, Cas’s only retort is, well, so are you (in that 10x14 deleted scene, which if you ignore the Cas/Dean/Crowley love triangle stuff, is an absolutely depressing portrayal of Cas and Crowley’s role in the season :P)…

This time Cas might not be around but he’s had a really good arc and I feel like everything makes sense, except for the fact Buckleming introduced this plot, attached Cas to it, and for 2 episodes haven’t utilised him in it after all, leaving him trailing after it to pick of clues of what he missed 2 episodes later or whatever. Basically as long as I separate what *everyone else* is doing with Cas from what Buckleming are doing I have genuinely got no complaints with what’s up with Cas. And in a way everything Buckleming do that annoys me, from bad pacing to rapey scenes and killing off faves pointlessly and insensitively, to leaving Cas out, all gets scrunched up and dropped in the recycle bin together in my head, so as an individual complaint about the season, I don’t actually mind in a weird way, where I’m now trying to be as zen as possible about having these rampaging writers in the middle of what’s otherwise the most fascinating attempt to fix something that was almost indescribably knotted up and broken that I’ve ever seen :P 12x15 gave me the confidence that perhaps on top of dealing with everything else historical, maybe the rest of the writing will ALSO manage to deal with Buckleming as they introduce new nonsense into the season?

I mean, this is just how I’m dealing with it, but I hope my perspective helps. I’m very tired and don’t really have the energy to stress and wank about the show in a big way aside from acknowledging what bothers me. So here’s my peace with it >.>

#Asks #12x17 #season 12 speculation #Caaas #12x15 #12x13 #etc #buckleming appropriate wank for ts #Dabb vs cars

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