supernatural 7x04 'defending your life'
Oct. 15th, 2011 03:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
janie_tangerineOkay, let's do this a bit differently.
The good:
1. JO! :DDD I was so glad to see her back. And I'm really, REALLY happy that she wasn't really harboring bad feelings. And the whole being dead brings a perspective thing. And while I never was that much into Dean/Jo... UGH THAT LAST SCENE when she touched his face. AW. . ;________; and he would have died more or less the same way she did? Well, would've been fitting. Still. THAT LAST SCENE. *weeps*
2. SAM WINCHESTER. COME HERE AND LET ME LOVE YOU. I don't know what the heck was with my surplus Sam love this week but... SAM. <333 first: he looked pretty good and it was nice to see him looking good. Two: LAWYER!SAM, OMG. (And I lol-ed that he watches The Good Wife. Quality TV, Sam Winchester is your fan. Oviously Dean went with Ally Mc Beal instead which just makes me think that we'd be bffs in RL if Dean was real.He obviously started watching it because of Jon Bon Jovi. *cough*)
3. DEAN IN CHAINS. NNNNNNNNNNNNNGH.
4. The flashbacks. OH S2 I MISS YOU.
5. Osiris was good fun. The trial itself would/could have been done better/have been longer though.
6. That Sam let the baggage go. SAM, YES, AT LEAST SOMEONE GOT IT. He's right - you can't go bring around baggage forever or it crushes you. I'd just like it if Dean got the memo.
The bad:
7. I honestly feel bad for Dean's liver. If he doesn't quit that kind of drinking and if he doesn't get killed by a leviathan, the series finale will end up being Dean dying of cirrhosis or liver failure...
8. The lying. Ugh. Maybe it's the vampire porn having spoiled me, but if Dean keeps it a secret that he killed Amy until the mid season finale I'm going to punch a wall. We went down this road in... uhm. S2, S3, S4, S5 and S6. Okay, it was Sam keeping secrets in half of that, but seriously, having Winchesters keeping secret isn't the key to keep this show fresh. I hoped that it'd get out but.. yeah. I obviously shouldn't be that kind of optimistic.
9. Dean, I love you, I really do, but either you have a good, cathartic cry or you have to destroy some other car. Also while I never had a problem with Dean's angsting, this round I'm just wishing he'd fess up. He's wrong. He should own to it. And avoid drowning himself in alcohol while he does the repressing deal.
The ugly:
10. Okay, this is probably something that will be ugly just for me, but... while I had the vague impression last episode, this one really gave me serious S3 flashbacks.
Meaning: S3 is my least favorite. It had some awesome individual episodes, but as a general thing I was ready to quit if S4 didn't start good. Point is, Dean & Sam themselves have never been my individual favorite character. I always liked Dean better, but my favorites used to be John first and Ash later. After the S2 finale, S3 for me was basically Dean being a jerk, me deciding that I was liking Sam a lot better and wishing that they'd just cut the whole not saying things to each other crap, if Bobby wasn't in and we weren't talking about the Christmas ep., the finale or Jus in Bello my attention span got pretty short, and the one reason why S4 really grabbed me was that they dropped the formula and changed it enough to renew things while not losing the original focus completely. Oh, and I got a new Favorite Character that wasn't a favorite just because the original one had died and the favorite had become the second.
So, this episode for me was: me wanting Dean to just quit with the angst and own to his crap (beginning of S3: identical), liking Sam a whole lot better even if in theory my favorite Winchester is his brother (entirety of S3), DEAN KEEPING SECRETS (worked in S2, in S3 I was ready to be done with it), conversations in a field by the side of the road where Dean keeps his mouth shut about his problems (aka: most used trope in this entire show for the first thee seasons). Aka: total S3 flashback.
Problem: if Sera's deal is doing this entire season bringing the show strictly back to basics and go over ALL OF THAT ALL OVER AGAIN... er. It might be a problem for me because I got tired of that by mid-S3. I love Sam and Dean, I really do, but if they bring this show back to they hunt a monster, they angst, they don't talk about it, everything goes to shit in the midseason finale/the last five episodes, then I'm not so sure that I'll like it that much. I loved S2 HARD (a lot more than 1 or 3) because while they had the MOTW scheme, they had a mytharc and they had a bunch of supporting characters. I'm not seeing that happen here. I don't want to go negative when we're still at episode 4, and overall this is being a lot better than that terrible pacing at the beginning of S6, so I'll just see what happens, but I can't help hoping that this is not the general feeling that will stay this season. Because if the S6 finale/S7 premiere meant closing the door to all of the things that made me go from liking this show to LOVING it from S4 onwards... I was hoping that it didn't mean THAT. I really wasn't. I'm also mostly unspoiled so maybe I'm worrying for nothing. Ugh. It might also be that I had expected that they'd go in a certain place and they didn't so maybe it's just me being disappointed, so whatever. I'm not disliking anything per se right now, so I'll just wait and see where it goes.
10b. Okay, I guess this goes too. Dear Sera: if you're aiming for the Butch & Sundance feeling, I'd just like to remind you that 80% of that movie was made of Butch, Sundance and a certain person named Etta Place. It was three of them, not two. And B&S wouldn't have lasted half of the time they did without her. Think about it.
10c. No, it's not just about Cas. If I had made reaction posts during S3, you'd have heard me complain about Ash/Ellen/Jo/the Roadhouse/John Winchesters every ten seconds. I need secondary characters. Also Cas isn't dead, so whatever. I live in believing that he's still around somewhere until the finale arrives and I'm proved wrong for good.
Aaand that was it. Meh, from this it seems as if I hated it. But I really didn't. It was a good episode and I loved parts of it. And the ugly it's just me having impressions which I hope are totally wrong. I'll just cross fingers.
The good:
1. JO! :DDD I was so glad to see her back. And I'm really, REALLY happy that she wasn't really harboring bad feelings. And the whole being dead brings a perspective thing. And while I never was that much into Dean/Jo... UGH THAT LAST SCENE when she touched his face. AW. . ;________; and he would have died more or less the same way she did? Well, would've been fitting. Still. THAT LAST SCENE. *weeps*
2. SAM WINCHESTER. COME HERE AND LET ME LOVE YOU. I don't know what the heck was with my surplus Sam love this week but... SAM. <333 first: he looked pretty good and it was nice to see him looking good. Two: LAWYER!SAM, OMG. (And I lol-ed that he watches The Good Wife. Quality TV, Sam Winchester is your fan. Oviously Dean went with Ally Mc Beal instead which just makes me think that we'd be bffs in RL if Dean was real.
3. DEAN IN CHAINS. NNNNNNNNNNNNNGH.
4. The flashbacks. OH S2 I MISS YOU.
5. Osiris was good fun. The trial itself would/could have been done better/have been longer though.
6. That Sam let the baggage go. SAM, YES, AT LEAST SOMEONE GOT IT. He's right - you can't go bring around baggage forever or it crushes you. I'd just like it if Dean got the memo.
The bad:
7. I honestly feel bad for Dean's liver. If he doesn't quit that kind of drinking and if he doesn't get killed by a leviathan, the series finale will end up being Dean dying of cirrhosis or liver failure...
8. The lying. Ugh. Maybe it's the vampire porn having spoiled me, but if Dean keeps it a secret that he killed Amy until the mid season finale I'm going to punch a wall. We went down this road in... uhm. S2, S3, S4, S5 and S6. Okay, it was Sam keeping secrets in half of that, but seriously, having Winchesters keeping secret isn't the key to keep this show fresh. I hoped that it'd get out but.. yeah. I obviously shouldn't be that kind of optimistic.
9. Dean, I love you, I really do, but either you have a good, cathartic cry or you have to destroy some other car. Also while I never had a problem with Dean's angsting, this round I'm just wishing he'd fess up. He's wrong. He should own to it. And avoid drowning himself in alcohol while he does the repressing deal.
The ugly:
10. Okay, this is probably something that will be ugly just for me, but... while I had the vague impression last episode, this one really gave me serious S3 flashbacks.
Meaning: S3 is my least favorite. It had some awesome individual episodes, but as a general thing I was ready to quit if S4 didn't start good. Point is, Dean & Sam themselves have never been my individual favorite character. I always liked Dean better, but my favorites used to be John first and Ash later. After the S2 finale, S3 for me was basically Dean being a jerk, me deciding that I was liking Sam a lot better and wishing that they'd just cut the whole not saying things to each other crap, if Bobby wasn't in and we weren't talking about the Christmas ep., the finale or Jus in Bello my attention span got pretty short, and the one reason why S4 really grabbed me was that they dropped the formula and changed it enough to renew things while not losing the original focus completely. Oh, and I got a new Favorite Character that wasn't a favorite just because the original one had died and the favorite had become the second.
So, this episode for me was: me wanting Dean to just quit with the angst and own to his crap (beginning of S3: identical), liking Sam a whole lot better even if in theory my favorite Winchester is his brother (entirety of S3), DEAN KEEPING SECRETS (worked in S2, in S3 I was ready to be done with it), conversations in a field by the side of the road where Dean keeps his mouth shut about his problems (aka: most used trope in this entire show for the first thee seasons). Aka: total S3 flashback.
Problem: if Sera's deal is doing this entire season bringing the show strictly back to basics and go over ALL OF THAT ALL OVER AGAIN... er. It might be a problem for me because I got tired of that by mid-S3. I love Sam and Dean, I really do, but if they bring this show back to they hunt a monster, they angst, they don't talk about it, everything goes to shit in the midseason finale/the last five episodes, then I'm not so sure that I'll like it that much. I loved S2 HARD (a lot more than 1 or 3) because while they had the MOTW scheme, they had a mytharc and they had a bunch of supporting characters. I'm not seeing that happen here. I don't want to go negative when we're still at episode 4, and overall this is being a lot better than that terrible pacing at the beginning of S6, so I'll just see what happens, but I can't help hoping that this is not the general feeling that will stay this season. Because if the S6 finale/S7 premiere meant closing the door to all of the things that made me go from liking this show to LOVING it from S4 onwards... I was hoping that it didn't mean THAT. I really wasn't. I'm also mostly unspoiled so maybe I'm worrying for nothing. Ugh. It might also be that I had expected that they'd go in a certain place and they didn't so maybe it's just me being disappointed, so whatever. I'm not disliking anything per se right now, so I'll just wait and see where it goes.
Aaand that was it. Meh, from this it seems as if I hated it. But I really didn't. It was a good episode and I loved parts of it. And the ugly it's just me having impressions which I hope are totally wrong. I'll just cross fingers.
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no subject
Date: 2011-10-15 01:19 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2011-10-15 03:14 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2011-10-15 06:18 pm (UTC)Oviously Dean went with Ally Mc Beal instead which just makes me think that we'd be bffs in RL if Dean was real. He obviously started watching it because of Jon Bon Jovi. *cough*)
Okay, so I DID hear an Ally McBeal reference! \o/ I'm not going crazy, yay! (But wait! Jon Bon Jovi was on Ally McBeal?! Admittedly, I saw only a handful of episodes, but . . . I MISSED THIS?!? NOOOO!)
And I totally agree that Dean needs to let the Amy secret go. The longer he holds on to it, the worse things are going to get. :(
Finally, I so, so, SO agree with everything you said in 10c. Show gets a bit . . . claustrophobic . . . if it's JUST about the boys. We need the secondary characters to open up that unhealthy vacuum the brothers have going. Also? Cas is definitely still alive -- as you say, I'm believing it until something happens to prove me wrong.
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2011-10-15 08:27 pm (UTC)Me too! Given the premise, I was afraid she was going to come back as more vengeful (like a manifestation of Dean's guilt), but I'm glad it was actually just spirit!Jo with her own perspective on things.
The trial itself would/could have been done better/have been longer though.
Oh good, I'm glad I'm not the only one who felt that way. I really liked the concept but its execution was a bit odd. Like, a little too light-hearted somehow even though the subject matter of the trial wasn't. Idk how to explain it.
I honestly feel bad for Dean's liver. If he doesn't quit that kind of drinking and if he doesn't get killed by a leviathan, the series finale will end up being Dean dying of cirrhosis or liver failure
Seriously, that is totally coming to a head soon because holy crap, dude, you have a serious dependency going on there. o_o
I'm am all for this Dean-needs-a-big-cry business. I was really hoping that we'd get to see final witness!Amy (even though I knew Jewel Staite wasn't going to be in this ep, but maybe we could see the back of her head or something and Sam's reaction, idk) and that all of this would be out in the open. It kind of negated the whole "you should let go of your guilt" thing when he's still harboring that secret. =\ Plus, that would have been the perfect catalyst to exposing how fucked up Dean really is inside right now, and how much he needs some kind of help to deal with everything. Seven seasons and everyone still bottles everything up, why don't they learrrrrrn. x__x
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2011-10-15 08:41 pm (UTC)2. my love for Sam is sky-rocketing this season, trufax (also, for the 1st time ever... his hair looked good - that baby of theirs is going to have some major fucking hair)
6. Dean is NEVER going to learn that one (until after he dies for good, probably)
7. I did like that they really addressed his serious drinking problem, though
8. THIS.
9. AND THIS.
10. Apart from "conversations in a field by the side of the road where Dean keeps his mouth shut about his problems (aka: most used trope in this entire show for the first thee seasons)" (which, AHAHAHA SO TRUE!) we are opposites, b/c I really liked s3... it might be my favorite.
Although, I do agree, they can't go back to how it was in s1,2,3 - the characters need to have grown just a little! PEOPLE CHANGE!
I got accidentally spoiled for a later episode - which I am UPSET about. But upset about getting spoiled, not the actual spoiler. So I'm holding out hope still for this season.
Secondary characters FTW! Please stop killing them all off? PLEASE?
(PS I love your ep reviews, b/c I don't really discuss this show with anyone else, save Blue in emails)
(no subject)
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Date: 2011-10-15 10:14 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2011-10-16 06:30 am (UTC)I hear you re: them rehashing old storylines. I really don't want them to do that, either, and I agree that I enjoy the show more when there's supporting characters, etc. I love that Sam and Dean are the focus of the show, and Dean's my favorite character, but I like having other characters, too.
And I really don't want Dean to lie to Sam again, because as you said, they've done this already. Personally, I feel that they should be past it by now.
The thing for me is, though - that Dean has never really dealt with all his crap. He's just buried and buried stuff. And I feel like he really needs to deal with all that ASAP, and there were hints this ep that maybe he will - and I would like nothing more. So if that's Dean's storyline for this season, I am all for it. I don't want them to repeat themselves, but I don't think they've ever really gone there with Dean and resolving all his issues. (Not that I think they'll resolve ALL of them, but some progress in this regard would be welcome.)
So that's kind of where I'd like it to go. Focusing on the brothers is good, and the MOTW eps are okay, but - yes, I would definitely like it to move forward and not just repeat old storylines we've done a hundred times.
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