#and i like explaining myself in ridiculous detail even if i don't like lucifer or his idiotic storyline :P

[mittensmorgul]

(1) Did you just say Robbie Thompson created Eileen??? Is that why Eileen reminds me of Charlie!?? (2) I don't think Crowley is dumb in 12x17. I mean yeah, he was naive in 12x13, but I think in 12x17 Buckleming were trying to make Lucifer look smart instead, and when you have someone in chains and suffering from torture, that's not easy to write. I know you don't care about Luci, sorry to bring this up. (3) Who is your favorite S12 writer?

1) YES! Robbie created her (and Mildred) for 11.11 Into The Mystic, the banshee episode. (sorry I had major flails over that one, and wrote long meta about Patsy Cline and what that said about Mildred, and therefore what that meant about Dean; sunsets; what Eileen might mean for Sam and the parallels between their meeting and Dean meeting Cas… I mean it felt like a HUGE episode in a lot of subtextual respects.) I was THRILLED last week when we learned she would be in this episode, and also SUPER WARY because of what they did to Charlie. But they actually handled this really well. (plus SHE MADE SAM SMILE MULTIPLE TIMES. SHE CAN STAY. :P)

2) ohmygosh, I might not care about Lucifer’s story, but I’m always down for talking about it. I know that doesn’t make any sense. It was just dull in the show, and really he’s not adding anything interesting to the story except in vague “tidy up loose ends” ways. He is a huge loose end. I just kinda want to set fire to him already and move on. :P

But you’re right. I mean, Davy Perez managed to plant some pretty big seeds of doubt that Lucifer would have any sort of control in this situation. The problem for me is that I just don’t care enough about Lucifer to even make Crowley’s game with him even interesting. Like, we have no idea what Crowley’s ultimate motivations are for not having put Luci back in the cage in the first place, and dragging this out over SO MANY EPISODES without actually advancing the plot in any meaningful way is just… it feels like a pointless waste of screen time right now.

We could’ve been having interesting scenes with Rowena, we could’ve been focusing more on Mary, we could’ve had another episode or two with Jody or Alex or Donna… and instead we’re watching this pointless back and forth between Crowley and Lucifer (and also getting this really ick-worthy nephilim thing that just makes my skin crawl). And nothing is happening with Lucifer. At least nothing that merits the quantity of time he’s been occupying our screens.

Yeah, it’s hard to write someone having the upper hand when they’re in chains… but why was he even IN chains? I think Crowley’s little speech would’ve been FAR more effective if Lucifer hadn’t been in the chains. He’d told Luci in 12.15 (and then proved it) that he didn’t even need the chains to restrain him. It would’ve been a far more effective display of power to have Luci OUT of the chains. Unless they were trying to prove that Crowley was still “10 steps ahead” and therefore that entire SCENE was a show of some sort for the rest of the demons… but to what purpose? All we’re seeing is this long, drawn out power play between them… I get that Crowley may be trying to reunify his control of Hell after Lucifer destabilized things in s11, but sheesh. Locking him back in the cage would’ve had the same effect. WHY ARE WE HAVING TO WATCH THIS BS NOW?! At least give us a reason that makes sense. But no…

I mean, the fact we don’t know if it’s hubris for Crowley to believe he has the upper hand, when the other half of the storyline is focusing on the MoL who we CLEARLY see are being written as either ignorant or incompetent (aside from Ketch and this creepy new Dr. Hess), or inflexibly believing they know better when everything else in the narrative just SCREAMS the fact that they are oh so wrong, that they are the monsters, that they are evil… And that in large part it’s their unwillingness to see the TRUTH of the situation here (like Mick did in the end, which cost him his life, that their “Code” was wrong and their facts were wrong, and their conclusions were wrong…). So, which side of this equation does this put Crowley on, if his attempt to control Lucifer is being mirrored to the MoL vs Hunters thing? Is it an “old ways vs new ways” parallel? Is it about “TFW and their allies vs inflexible evil?” Because I can’t see even that narrative relevance to the larger plot.

It’s like a thematically different story altogether. If they wanted to continue telling his story, at least they could make it clearly relevant to everything else they’re doing this season, because right now, it just feels jarringly like the wrong story. Like it’s just filler, or tacked on as an afterthought. Because it doesn’t connect up with anything else thematically.

3) Who is my favorite s12 writer? Everyone else. I think they’ve all had some great episodes so far this season. Davy Perez, Steve Yockey, Meredith Glynn, and of course Bobo and Dabb. And next week we’ll see the first solo effort by John Bring, who co-wrote 11.15 with Dabb last year (aka, the wrestling episode). I’m really looking forward to it. :D

As for my favorite episodes, I’m going with the midseason triptych for now (10, 11, and 12), one each by the three new writers.