9.08, or, And this one had so much promise, too

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With a couple of significant exceptions (namely, Dean's sex talk in the church group--complete with orgasm!--and the end where Sam wonders if this is just the way he is now and Dean tries to fess up), I really didn't like this episode, and it all comes down to crappy writing. Klein has written or co-written only two episodes before this one, and both imo sucked.

Judging from these three episodes, she seems to be a fan of cheap gross-outs, pointless go-nowhere subplots (like the guy suggesting they offer up one of the other victims because she's already wounded, which literally had no bearing on anything else in the episode except to fill time ... or maybe to have Dean act righteous/chivalrous, which these days is pretty damn OOC), shameless shipping moments, other kinds of pandering (like, oh I don't know, getting Dean in bed ... with a porn star) and anvilesque plotting. It would have been cool if it had been a little bit of a surprise when Dean was dropped down the hole ... but there was absolutely nothing about this episode that wasn't plodding and predictable.

Actors should not have to work that hard to make the lines not sound stupid. Was there a single turn of phrase that was clever instead of somewhere between simply serviceable and downright awkward? I liked the "hippie from Bethlehem" line, and that was the only thing that struck me as even marginally clever.

So the SPN writers room is populated almost exclusively with men, and the female writers that remain on the staff a) get to write fewer than half as many episodes on average per years as staff writers as their male counterparts, and b) perhaps relatedly, also happen to be the worst writers on the staff. What's with that? Sorry, CW, you won't be able to convince me it's just that women can't write. Who knows what kind of politics may be at work behind the scenes, but for a show that hands us so many badass female characters who are actual, you know, characters and not just convenient love interests and what-have-you, this state of affairs is a bit troubling--especially considering that two of the best writers on the staff in the early days (Gamble and Tucker) were women.

Sam's hair wasn't even good! But that final scene did get me right in the Sam!girlie feels, so it wasn't a complete loss.

Comments

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One of my greatest dreads is the possibility of SPN going the way of Lost and ... well ... virtually every other once-great show, but I saw that Jensen said he and Sam are game to go on indefinitely AS LONG AS THE SCRIPTS ARE STILL GOOD, so it's my hope that we'd get at most one sucky season before it nose-dived onto that shark.

You are so right that it hasn't been the same since everyone left for Revolution and that we need some fresh blood, but truly, I have faith that it could be fixed ... although if it did keep going and going, maybe Destiel really WOULD be canon by, oh, say, S20. XD

... Because that's the other reason I want it to keep going forever: because no matter how great a show was, once it's no longer on the air, the fandom starts to dwindle, and I need my fandom!!

But I'm looking forward to the spin-off, too! It sounds like it WON'T involve lots of driving (it takes place in Chicago, I believe), so there's that. And hey, maybe we'll even have some actual female characters that stick around ...