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brightly_litActually, I loved it. (I think only one other person on my f-list did.) Sure, there were a couple of cringey moments--I was taken back to '70s shows like the Bionic Man with the cheesy "possessed" voices ... although I was pleasantly taken back to the '70s with Charlie coming back to life saying, "Merry Christmas"--just like Frosty the Snowman! And the wicked witch went a little over the top once or twice ("top"? what's this "top" of which you speak?), but hey, we needed a good evil witch cackle in there, I figure.
The part that got on my nerves the most was actually the whole "it's not sexist!!" speech--'cos if male writers put these words in the mouths of female actors, it MUST be true, right?? ("Well, of course it's sexy. What's the matter with being sexy?") Also, sadly, I have to agree with all the people saying Jarpad and Jackles were really phoning it in here--worse than I've ever seen them do before ... but I thought the direction was spectacular (I adore Singer's direction, in this case especially the shout-outs to old movies about intrigue, like the Men of Letters and their ritual at the beginning to turn on the bunker, the old lightbulbs and everything), some of the effects were cool, and the script had a beautiful symmetry. And, above all, props to Props!!
Recently I realized that one of the reasons I was so dissatisfied with S8 was because they seemed to completely throw the basic premise of SPN from ~1.05 through S7 out the window, which is, using the monster of the week as a metaphor for what's going on in the relationship between the brothers. When they started using it as a metaphor is when the show really impressed me and drew me in, and now that they barely do that anymore, it takes a really great story to make me feel fulfilled by an episode. This ep was the first time in a long time where you could say the MoW story was even in any way related to the issues between the brothers, so that pleased me.
Loved Dorothy, loved all we learned about the bunker and MoL history, enjoyed Charlie (even though I'm not the biggest Charlie fan), Sheppard was as awesome as ever, loved the clarity and precision in the way it was shot, love that Sam is getting suspicious ... I just loved it!
And next episode looks UTTERLY ridiculous ... but potentially awesome.
The part that got on my nerves the most was actually the whole "it's not sexist!!" speech--'cos if male writers put these words in the mouths of female actors, it MUST be true, right?? ("Well, of course it's sexy. What's the matter with being sexy?") Also, sadly, I have to agree with all the people saying Jarpad and Jackles were really phoning it in here--worse than I've ever seen them do before ... but I thought the direction was spectacular (I adore Singer's direction, in this case especially the shout-outs to old movies about intrigue, like the Men of Letters and their ritual at the beginning to turn on the bunker, the old lightbulbs and everything), some of the effects were cool, and the script had a beautiful symmetry. And, above all, props to Props!!
Recently I realized that one of the reasons I was so dissatisfied with S8 was because they seemed to completely throw the basic premise of SPN from ~1.05 through S7 out the window, which is, using the monster of the week as a metaphor for what's going on in the relationship between the brothers. When they started using it as a metaphor is when the show really impressed me and drew me in, and now that they barely do that anymore, it takes a really great story to make me feel fulfilled by an episode. This ep was the first time in a long time where you could say the MoW story was even in any way related to the issues between the brothers, so that pleased me.
Loved Dorothy, loved all we learned about the bunker and MoL history, enjoyed Charlie (even though I'm not the biggest Charlie fan), Sheppard was as awesome as ever, loved the clarity and precision in the way it was shot, love that Sam is getting suspicious ... I just loved it!
And next episode looks UTTERLY ridiculous ... but potentially awesome.
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Re: DABB - LOFFLIN ARE GODS AMONG MEN
Date: 2013-11-01 07:32 pm (UTC)YAAAAAAY, Wedding fans! WE ARE AWESOME. How'd you feel about S8, Bitten?
Re: DABB - LOFFLIN ARE GODS AMONG MEN
Date: 2013-11-02 02:24 am (UTC)(Of course, if they did a similar episode now, then it'd be a campaign to get Misha back on the show, and also to make Destiel canon. Ha!)
WE ARE INDEED SO AWESOME. FANBASE OF THREE. \O/
Tbh I thought 8x04 was boring, though I'd certainly be interested in hearing what you loved about it. Because it's a shame on my end, because I adore 3x13 to pieces, and I feel like it's a pretty similar style. (But the segment of Paranormal Activity 4 I saw was also very boring to me, so maybe 3x13's style is not actually as similar as I think it is, and it's a genre thing?) I felt like in order for 8x04 to really work, the dialogue would have had to have been a lot tighter than it was.
But I'd just come back from Russia at that point, and was very much not wearing my SPN pants at the time (IT TOOK SO LONG TO GET THOSE BACK), so maybe my feeling would be different now. It's the only episode of SPN I've only seen once!
Wait no, I've also only sen 8x15 once, but that's different. XP
Putting on our SPN pants one leg at a time
Date: 2013-11-05 07:45 pm (UTC)Re: Putting on our SPN pants one leg at a time
Date: 2013-11-17 03:14 am (UTC)Can I guess whine at you for a second? I'm gonna whine at you for a second, though you can opt out of reading through this at any moment, for sure. XD It was a very productive hiatus from LJ, if longer than I expected it to be. I think I've figured out why I'm so resolutely monofandom; I seriously couldn't transition from mindset to mindset adeptly enough to manage anything else. Because I boxed out LJ and SPN and all that from my life out of RL necessity, or "switched fandoms" so to speak, from SPN to RL (lol), but I did it so effectively that now I'm having trouble finding my way back all over again. WHICH MAKES ME SAD because fandom is one of those things where your level of participation determines how much you get out of it, so my wading around the edges thing I'm sort of doing really isn't doing a whole lot for me. But I can't figure out how to gettt baaaackkkkk sob.
THE MOST LAME OF ALL LAME PROBLEMS. This is, incidentally, what I meant about my SPN pants and not having them on. 'Cause right now I'm just like "BUT WHERE DID MY PANTS GO. BUT WAIT WHY DO I EVEN WANT TO WEAR THE PANTS." So frustrating!
Re: Putting on our SPN pants one leg at a time
Date: 2013-11-19 09:04 pm (UTC)I definitely relate! I was uninvolved for quite awhile myself, and had to learn that lesson of getting out of it what you put into it (except when you get back significantly less than you put into it). LOL, sometimes we all want to go pantsless for awhile, and WHAT'S WRONG WITH THAT? ;-)
But I do find that my level of happiness is often really affected by my involvement in/reaction to fandom, perhaps to an unhealthy extent. :-) When that happens, I try to take a step back and remember it's all only for my enjoyment, so if I'm NOT enjoying it, I should, oh I dunno, go do something else. :-) So anyway, I definitely understand, but you'll put those magically tailored pants back on when you're ready, and hopefully they'll give you yards of sartorial pleasure. ;-)
Re: DABB - LOFFLIN ARE GODS AMONG MEN
Date: 2013-11-04 02:48 am (UTC)Personally, I loved it, and I thought it was a great Sam episode. But like 7x08, I feel like I've mostly head people revile it for being insensitive to Sam's plight, and making Dean an unsympathetic dick who OOC-ly abused Sam by dumping him at Plucky's all the time. Which, idk, I guess I have trouble really seeing that (though I do keep reading reactions so I can try to figure it out). I think the Sam bit overlaps with 7x08; as for the Dean bit, I didn't find that terribly OOC?
Like, I don't think Dean is (saliently) an unsympathetic dick, and that's what it was IC. I just don't think occasionally finding alternative babysitting for your sibling is the unforgivable crime lot of people see it as. (And at 12, it's not like Sam was a baby?) I don't think that strategy would earn your glowing, A+ reviews from the Hypothetical Committee on Awesome Care-Taking, but hey. XP What's the life skills equivalent of "Cs Get Degrees"?
But then, I'm often not the most sensitive person in the world, so I always feel like I should double-back and figure out what other people think.
tl;dr I WANNA HEAR YOUR THOUGHTS ON ALL THE EPISODES. Or 7x14, whichever. XDD
Re: DABB - LOFFLIN ARE GODS AMONG MEN
Date: 2013-11-04 03:20 am (UTC)Re: DABB - LOFFLIN ARE GODS AMONG MEN
Date: 2013-11-17 02:46 am (UTC)I mean, I dunno, I don't really have particularly strong feelings about Dean in 7x18; mostly through that whole episode I just sort of deep-ended it into how amazing and adorable Sam is in turns, + love for the manager and the mother/child side characters. This is where the "I'm not the most sensitive person in the world" thing comes in, I guess; I don't have any phobias, in the true phobia sense (I have a lot of irrational fears, like of handling meat, mirrors in dark rooms, things in aggregate [like combinations of two repellant blood types under microscopes, macro images of molecules that make up things that appear smooth, finely minced garlic frying in oil, ants, baby spiders on the back of mommy spiders, etc.] but I fee like a phobia is different than that, and I... have a lot of trouble remembering to be sympathetic of them. Granted, my sister has a phobia of buttons, and I don't go around specifically buying her clothing with buttons on it, but I definitely laugh when the situation arises, because I lack the capacity to understand it. I think Dean's deal is not only does he lack the capacity to understand a lot of things about Sam (clowns being the least of these things, ha), but on top of that he does not understand, like at all, how to handle that. But--how would you even call that?--satirical behavior is fairly safe, in that it's superficial and distanced, and even if it's not the greatest response, it's also unlikely to be the worst possible response, so it's kind of like hedging your bets. (Even if lol it's probably closer to being the worst response than it is to being the greatest one. But I think Sam's fine with that, as people often are.)
I DON'T KNOW WHERE I WAS GOING WITH THAT, tl;dr I think a lot about Sam and Dean in ways that are not directly applicable or useful. LOL I think I just miss fandom and want to talk...regardless of whether I have anything legitimate to say. XD (You are welcome to let me know when you suspect this might be occurring at any point now or in the future, btw.)
Re: DABB - LOFFLIN ARE GODS AMONG MEN
Date: 2013-11-17 02:47 am (UTC)Plucky Pennywhistle IS magical!
Date: 2013-11-04 05:29 pm (UTC)I completely disagree that Dean’s using PP as a babysitter is OOC. Just the opposite—he was a kid himself, after all! Where would he have learned better habits? Because John would probably do that, too, and it would be far from the worst parenting he’d done. Yes, Dean is a caretaker by nature, but not a particularly great one; he didn’t have the tools to be. I thought the idea of him leaving Sam at PP was totally realistic, as was his not knowing, even into adulthood, that Sam hated it. Really, THIS is what people think makes Dean insensitive? He’s done so many worse things! Also… I dunno, I love this about his character. It feels totally real to me.
I find fandom interesting in this way. People have such opposite views, and I think some of it depends on your life experience. Anyone who was forced to take care of a younger relation while still a kid themselves will understand and sympathize with Dean’s plight. Dean doesn’t get enough sympathy, IMO, for having been forced into that caretaker role and feeling that was his only value. If anything, it rides the line of being unrealistic that he did as good a job as he did—but that, too, is very Dean. I can relate to his situation all too well—my sister had a baby at 17, when I was 8. She was, needless to say, not very interested in parenting, and then she wasn’t around. I shared a room with her and the baby, and ended up taking care of him more often than she did, and far more often than MY parents did after she was gone and they adopted my nephew. The situation recurred when I was 16 and she left another of her children with us. I loved my niece and nephew, but 8 and 16 year-olds don’t make good parents, and the situation naturally creates resentment. I look back on some of the “parenting” decisions I made and cringe. And Dean didn’t have the resources I had, and didn’t even have any idea what a normal childhood was like, so how could he be held to any kind of parenting standard? He did pretty damn well, all things considered, but as brightly-lit pointed out, he’s kind of a dick as an adult. So what would be OOC, exactly? I also agree with her that the most dickish thing was giving him the damn clown doll, when Sam got him something nice that he actually wanted. But again, that’s so Dean!
Anyway, I loved the episode. As for being a sensitive person, who can say? Sensitivity can take many forms. I consider myself VERY sensitive, and I didn’t have a problem with Dean’s characterization in this episode.
Glad to give you my thoughts, and get yours, on any and all episodes! I’ll be interested to see what you think of Bitten if you re-watch it. I think it’s a great stand-alone, outside the S8 context. Funny that it’s the only one you’ve watched only once (8.15 totally doesn’t count- UGH). I would have thought you’d like it, since it focuses on minor characters and I know you generally dig those. But I’ve never seen a found/video footage film like Paranormal Activity, except Chronicle, which I think might have sort of inspired Bitten and which was a very well-made movie. I didn’t end up exactly *liking* Chronicle, but I did think it was a great film, if that makes sense.
This is not going to be very helpful in keeping you off LJ until Thursday. Good luck with that. ;-)
Re: Plucky Pennywhistle IS magical!
Date: 2013-11-17 04:04 am (UTC)And like, I mean, even in the most normative childhood situations--at least, I consider my childhood pretty damn normative? I grew up with responsible middle-class parents, both highly educated, with one working and one stay-at-home parenting; and I dutifully went to school, did extracurriculars, and exited childhood when my parents were in the middle of the most sedate, vanilla divorce proceedings of all time--I feel like other people's normals were different than mine are. Even from my sister, for instance, who had basically the same childhood. I DISCOVERED, in our 8x23 blowout (more crying, fewer life-ending trials) earlier this year arguing about what was and was not acceptable behavior, what was and was not traumatic about growing up, what could and could not be considered "words of encouragement" (I basically told her that the best thing anyone had ever said to me was "you can do better than that" so she should suck it up, and then she told me that the best thing anyone had ever said to her was "thank you" because it made her feel valued and I had never valued her and SHE CERTAINLY DIDN'T VALUE ME, AND HAD NOTHING TO THANK ME FOR, etc.), exactly how variably people can process things, and derive norms from them. I've since determined that if my parents' child-rearing practices lacked for something, I guess it would've been emotional support. Because for me it was like, well, I guess that's not really important wevs, and my sister went off and found it very strongly elsewhere (and joined a cult--our 8x23 argument I mentioned earlier had originally been about said cult, which is how these things tie together). Haha thanks parents. XP
But I digress. As far as perceptions of Show go, and fandom's perceptions go, I really do try to be sensitive to the reality of these different vantage points in fandom, and the impressions of people coming from backgrounds much less adjacent than mine to my sister's. But I think a part of me will always think, at the back of my mind, I do not understand what the big fucking deal is. /O\ Hence the "not very sensitive."
Anyway, Weechesters and Plucky Pennywhistle. I'm kind of like, man, if I find some act incredibly mundane, even with my normative, vanilla upbringing, I can't imagine such a thing would even rate for the Winchesters. Like when we were little, my siblings and I would lie cylindrical wooden poles across an empty planter box, mount them while wearing tomato cages, and then whale on each other with fennel (basically, long-ass licorice-scented switches--that perfect combination of stiffness and give to make it really hurt, haha) until someone fell off the cylinders and into the mud. SO I MEAN, IF THIS IS WHAT WE WERE DOING. Surely Plucky was one of the more reasonable activities Dean could have thought up? It was indoors, there was (bad) food, and it was light and well-supervised, even if it could not possibly be farther from anything Sam seems like he'd enjoy. And I mean... Sam was 12; it's not like he was helpless. I was shepherding all of my siblings by that age, and my brother now (he just turned 13) has definitely been going about his business, managing alone at home, and doing whatever for quite some time. And I can assure the entire world that my brother is nowhere near as perceptive, resourceful, or worldy as Sam was at any age. XD If my brother is grown-up enough to manage himself, I'm sure Sam was fine. If PP was seriously as deeply traumatic for Sam (thereby making it extremely irresponsible of Dean), I don't think Sam would have stood for it. So idk I guess I just think it's more likely it was one of those things where it's like, man, that really fucking sucked, I am never going to get over how much I hated it like I REALLY HATED THAT but ultimately... s h r u g???
Re: Plucky Pennywhistle IS magical!
Date: 2013-11-19 08:58 pm (UTC)anyway... love hearing your thoughts, thanks for the chat! <3
Re: Plucky Pennywhistle IS magical!
Date: 2013-11-17 04:05 am (UTC)Which, granted. And I do think that these things tread uncomfortably close to really damaging issues that people face in real life particularly as the series goes on. (I listened to a TedTalk recently about patterns of domestic abuse, and felt uncomfortable parallels to Sam's various situations--and I am hardly the first--even though I am not of the group that finds Sam's storyline out and out that of someone caught in a terrible, abusive relationship to his family.) And I realize that it's not adequate to just say "but the Winchesters' situation is different." And I do think it's important and worthwhile to keep these other factors under consideration.
But honestly, I don't think that that's the way Sam reads this. (To which the opposition says, well, Sam can be wrong! He can be deluded! And yes, absolutely. But he's also allowed to be right.) And it just didn't seem like PP was really that much of a Big Fuckin' Deal to him, just like Becky's whole plan in 7x08 didn't seem like a big fuckin' deal.
tl;dr I think part of this is actually responding more to S9 arguments I've seen floating around elsewhere than anything else but idek; if Sam thought something was an issue, I trust that he would take the time to address it. Historically, he's been pretty good about that. So idek idekkkk.
Also, Yellow Fever
Date: 2013-11-05 04:29 pm (UTC)Because OH MY GOD, they ROAD DRAGGED A MENTALLY CHALLENGED GUY TO DEATH, when he was THE GOOD GUY WHO WAS WRONGFULLY MURDERED. Hmmm, he was killed in a horrible way and that’s what created all this horror and fear? LET’S SOLVE IT BY DOING IT AGAIN! It’s funny; in my memory the ghost was a black man, I guess because that would be the only possible way it could have been more offensive. I looked on the Superwiki page and saw that he was white. Frankly, I don’t know how the hell that got away with that ending. Did other fans object? I get that Sam and Dean didn’t LIKE doing it, but… wow. Really one of the worst moments on Supernatural ever. It left me with a terrible feeling. Also, the writers could have come up with a better solution. Would it not be possible to… OH I DON’T KNOW—make his fears BETTER in some way? Find some other way to put him to rest? The episode tried to say that road-dragging him was their only option, but didn’t do a good job of it IMO. JUST NO. There should’ve been a better solution.
Too bad, because the earlier part of the episode had some absolutely hysterical moments. Getting to see Jensen really explore comic acting was really fun. It started off as a potentially great episode! There was even some good serious stuff, too; explorations of the brothers’ relationship, a view into Dean’s fears. Then the end ruined it for me, so I couldn’t watch the episode again.
What did you think?
Re: Also, Yellow Fever
Date: 2013-11-17 03:08 am (UTC)(Dean) fandom is divided and fervent about this episode because on one hand, people thought it was really funny, and Eye of the Tiger, and H/C, etc. But then other people found it really upsetting because it was making light of the trauma Dean experienced in Hell by pairing it with something to silly and offering him zero sympathy from Sam and Bobby. (Sam and Bobby don't know at that point, no, but I guess it was more that fans took issue with the writers for not having them give something, I guess. I don't have any issues with that, though.) Or really with Dean's trauma not being addressed, or being treated flippantly--I guess this is similar to me in terms of Sam fandom and Sam's clown phobia in 7x18. I honesty think a lot of what happens to the Winchesters is a bigger deal to fandom than it is to them--or I guess, a different deal, processed very differently than fandom seems to assume it must. I'm not sure if anyone else had an issue with the treatment of the ghost!
But personally, I didn't see a whole lot of difference between 4x06 and the way the Winchesters deal with most of their cases--even ghost cases. Gay love may have saved the day in 3x13, but even from the pilot I think a pretty large proportion of their ghost handlings have tended toward the more gruesome side. Sure, the Woman in White was actively going around killing people and the ghos tin 4x06 wasn't actually doing anything but propagate a virus, but when it comes to vengeful spirits, I feel like questions of agency really aren't on the table any more--not having any control over what they're doing is the definition of a vengeful sprit, right? So Constance Welch's ghost wasn't any more evil than the man in 4x06 was. I mean, in the end it comes down to exigency, and that's played out ugly for the Winchesters probably more often than not--especially if there's a definite time limit they need to play against. Their track record with these things is disturbing to say the least--I mean, in the first handful of episode alone they terrorized a ghost by forcing her to face her grief and guilt in the form of the ghosts of her drowned children, burned to death something that used to be a scared, hungry, desperate human, eliminated an evil spirit by letting it exact revenge on a dude, and terrorized yet another ghost by forcing her to face herself in the mirror.
Not that I don't think there are different nuances to these things--7x03/7x07/7x13 harp on this pretty sharply (...finally, XD) but for me I didn't really feel like it was off their norm. Not that that absolves what happened, I mean. But I do think that the way SPN handles these things has made me a lot more conscious of the higher moral accountability of lots of other "crime" fighters in other shows, aha. Which is sometimes lovely and refreshing and other times just feels far too manicured to be likely. There's definitely an ambivalence to contend with, absolutely.