#and obviously there was a big chunk of the winchesters scene and then the entire confession cut out but... you get the gist

[sunglassesmish]

SUPERNATURAL 15x18 / THE WINCHESTERS 1x07

[nancydfan]

In relation to the pre-RE8 ask. I assumed the mold was similar to an irl virus carrier - you don't know you have it until you test for it, which leads to the question 'why wasn't Ethan tested?'

I have two theories

1) They were more concerned with Mia who they KNEW was infected - this is terrible from a professional standpoint and if true those doctors/scientists should be fired, but this is also the most probable in my opinion

2) They did test it but through the power of how well Ethan took to the mold and/or because Ethan himself fully believed he wasn't a mold man (belief is a powerful thing) the test results came back wrong.

3) Someone on the inside was a spy and faked the results, which is how Miranda found out about Rose but Miranda seemed surprised by Ethan's return which hinted she didn't know the full extent of his powers so less likely but still possible.

On Mia's end, I think she knew longer than just after re7. My memory of re7 is a bit rusty but it makes sense to me that she either

a) knew he was a mold man/something was up and ended up trusting him when it became apparent his search for the cure was sincere (she fought through the boat to go get him, she 100% was fighting for Ethan and not what she believed was a mold man wearing his skin)

b) suspected something happened to him and noticed signs but didn't fully realize it until after re7

I say this with the thought that it would be way harder to test/confirm Ethan as a mold man when being monitored 24/7 and out of danger where there's less...let's say extreme evidence. So I think she knew something was off in re7 and confirmed it before the end of the game simply because of her 'special' comment to Chris. Who knows, maybe she woke up before Ethan and saw his dead body?

(Also, lowkey I was rewatching an re8 playthrough and I'm positive Ethan died with that old man in the beginning, that was our first BIG hint...but also how many times did this man die and we all just went ah yes, vibeogame go brrrrr hahaha) (as I am writing this i realized he also could have died with the squad in the escort car and I am Shook, ETHAN PLEASE STOP DYING)

Back to Mia (lmao sorry for the sidetrack), if she knew he died then there's a solid chunk of that game where she was having a crisis behind the scenes where this 'fake' Ethan is running around trying to find and make this cure and she's waiting for the other shoe to drop the entire time but no, he goes through with it and chases off Lucas and she gets cured. By the time they get to the boat she is convinced enough to go save him.

Or maybe she remembers he died through nightmares and her memory comes back slowly, which leads to her argument with Ethan that 'we matter, YOU matter' because he DIED because of her mistakes/for her and she just wants him to think of himself for once.

I have so many emotions and theories, I feel like the Pepe Silvia meme. You asked for this though, so now we're both in this mess hahahahaha :D

Have a nice night :)

I did ask for it and I love it! Pls feel free to send me msgs whenever because I love hearing people’s thoughts because I’m not the smartest person here so y’all always have me thinking! Also, I’m super about to respond in the most crazy all over the place sorry =o

Starting with Mia in RE7, I don’t think she knew Ethan was dead. I know the VHS tapes were more of a learning tool for the characters but I think they’re canon in they’re own weird way  lol. She talks to Ethan in a way even saying there’s much he doesn’t know but I think it’s in relation to evie and the bakers moreso then him being dead. I can see how it could be implied that way but she’s talking to him as her husband so that’s why I don’t see it. And as you said, in the boat, she was there for Ethan, her husband, no questions about anything else. She tells Evie not to hurt him. It just feels like she still thinks he’s human. But that’s just my take.  

That being said, I love love that concept. And since capcom can only give us like 15 minutes to even explain anything about Mia, I would love to see this explored in fan fiction (hint hint somewhere out there lol) BECAUSE can you imagine? Mia’s been trapped in Dulvey three years and her husband shows up so suddenly she has hope. Then she sees him murdered? And then he pops back up and she knows that’s just not him anymore. Oooof sign me tf up 

I imagine the more boring option is she put two and two together as she learned just a bit of what ethan went through. I imagine he has a leg scar? That had to come up eventually. And obviously once the crisis is over she might actually stop and think about how ethan has his left hand back. 

As for no one figuring out ethan was mold, yeah, you’re probably right about the most boring, lazy route. Did ethan just not tell them he reattached a limb or can they not see it’s not exactly fully there? Didn’t someone ask about this??? I agree that angry ethan can be persuasive but holy shit someone dropped the ball. And if they gave him something, did it not impact him at all? Wouldn’t he have some reaction to anything designed as anti mold? Or did they chaulk it up to it being removed? Mia is shown to be heavily medicated and they didn’t even give this man anxiety medication. 

It’s just so odd no one thought of anything in the course of three years. But maybe his mold condition and his belief is that strong. And like you said, his body is no longer in crisis. It doesn’t need to keep supporting physical abuse so it can support his human identity better. 

Also ethan is basically an honorary winchester with as many times he dies LAWL

[elizabethrobertajones]

12x21 watching notes

not proof read 

expectations: I was in fandom for 10x21

Here is the lowest bar ever

-

*buckleming crawl under the bar*

-

I took a few hours and I'm sure I have nothing to say that hasn't already been yelled about in great length by others, and I mostly just don't care about anything they ever do ever again but let's watch this for the plot because I'm a completionist, and this is going to affect 12x22 and 12x23 whether I want it to or not >.>

-

Oh the first scene is the promo one, which we already discussed a bit with all the parallels and such. The entire room and set and everything is yelling a ton of parallels and references, which I have already got a post on on my blog. Okay.

The stuff we didn't get was Jody calling to tell Sam about Eileen.

*pictured: the blogger taking about as big a step back to think about this as Sam just did to prioritise freaking out over Mary over grieving for Eileen*

(this is a thing - Sam compartmentalises so much, and he has done all season, and Dean's called him out on it, but it's practical when hunters are dying, and mom's in trouble, that you don't ditch everything, you help out hunters who are in trouble (12x20 - what if Tasha had been got by the BMoL? It only doesn't fit the pattern once they know what happened to her)... Sam says they know of another hunter who disappeared recently, anyhow. He links Mary to being the 3rd in trouble in the same way, and they KNOW the BMoL are with her and being sketchy. So. There's that.)

Anyway, Jody serves 2 purposes - we have the horror of Claire being on the BMoL's list so her call could have been about her, but we also know Jody has the APB out on Cas - Jody is becoming the nerve centre of the hunters because she's the one with all the links when it comes to looking out for them, it seems. Raising girls who have a foot in the life, and keeping an eye out on the official record for other hunters who might be in trouble, as well as occasionally bringing them cases in the same way.

So that call could have been to tell them Cas had been found dead in a ditch like Dean feared, or Claire had been found dead in a ditch like WE fear, but instead it's Eileen for Sam. It's a sort of last horrible hurrah for using Cas and Eileen parallels - that both are connected to Jody like this. And Sam gets his horrible news while Dean had been waiting for it about Cas.

Sam shuts down and goes all business like, putting a potentially still living hunter (and also their mom but HONESTLY his compartmentalising is that good I wonder if mentioning this was only to get Dean emotionally hooked) ahead of dealing with what happened to Eileen.

At this point I feel like Terrible Coffee AU has become his djinn dream where he gets to just fuck off from all his responsibilities and scream in the woods for as long as he likes and actually feel everything he's bottled up.

Also I am going to go write in a scene where Sam gets to go scream in the woods.

Also if you've been reading it, feel free to assume that between scenes where we've seen Sam, he has been off screaming in the woods. Or that it's canon Sam's djinn dream and starts some point immediately after this.

-

Hi yes I am now a bitter Sam girl, who knew.

-

So Mittens has helpfully explained the bad car continuity to me while I was blinking at Sam saying "2 hunter deaths" in the motel and "7" in the morgue. Possibly in all that driving time they reached out to others and found out more, but it really doesn't sound like it, it just sounds like he's repeating the exposition but with a higher number.

If they did spend like 50 hours in the car as she worked out, then I guess he would have had time to make a lot of calls.

-

*gif of the guy with the duct tape on the really big crack*

-

Things I like: Jared's acting of Sam at the morgue, anyway.

Thinks I hate: he's acting like that because Eileen is dead and it's the worst thing to happen to Sam in ages and he can't do anything about it, emotions-wise. And there are bigger problems than giving Eileen a hunters' funeral and getting shitfaced for a week.

-

But where *did*they get 7 monster related deaths? Last scene it was all 2 isn't a pattern and that seemed to be the point of the conversaion but now the point of the conversation is omg there's been seven.

I'd ask who proof reads this but the answer is clearly either no one, or Bob Singer.

-

ANYWAY I went out to get snacks for a party tomorrow, nearly passed out on the way home, and also in a separate incident got stung by a bunch of nettles and it was still more fun than watching this :P

-

Mary is one of the ones going around killing hunters, though they kept her away from Eileen. She's also being kept in a room one part Heaven parallel one part panic room parallel, being a sort of Sam in 4x21 and Cas in 8x17 mash up. She's being brainwashed to go kill hunters and Toni comes to mock her for not being able to tell reality from fiction.

Buckleming like little digs at fans so I'm just gonna ignore that because I am ignoring them.

It is also thematic for the problems they've all been having of dealing with their expectations about this that and the other, or in copious denial and so on. It's ALWAYS a relevant theme to this show but this year we don't have a strong meta character or plot, it's just in the characterisation.

We get a giant chunk of exposition that explains eeeverything. I was joking last night about the pie subtext being explained in the text and taking all the fun out of it... Obviously that was a lie and I've been really enjoying it (and also it's not strictly out of the subtext, it was just being heavily utilised to tell the story instead of passing jokes, which made it even more fun than normal) but this really does take the joy out of meta-ing it except that I guess it's the show telling us we were right to pick up on everything going on with Mary under the surface

So Toni takes a thin connection to start talking about all the Mary stuff, covering:

- the "illusion" she has about her perfect life as it stood before she died - well the concept of "perfect" in general which is something being challenged everywhere in the fact vs fiction stuff - her willful denial it was normal despite that fact she was a hunter and still hunting so it wasn't even like she was living totally normally - the fact it wasn't all based on her deal with Azazel, and that that was going to come for her at some point - despite reading his journal a zillion times, just like last week Mary didn't realise Ketch was a psychopath until massive lines were crossed, her willful denial that John went off the rails after her death - that Sam and Dean didn't TELL her this stuff - literally just saying that John abused them - that Sam and Dean are damaged because of what he did (and that he did it because it was her fault for the deal)

*And all pretty much in these words*

Like. Wow. This is obviously, like the same bulletpoints on the secret pinboard we don't see in the writer's room explaining everything about what's going on with each character. Buckleming copied down the bulletpoints and then somehow thought that was just their notes for what Toni was going to say here :P I disapprove of exposition like this, but it has now brought all of this into the main text for Mary to deal with. Whether she agrees or not, she has to consider that what John did was abuse, and that Sam and Dean aren't telling her everything about it. She can't know for sure whether it was or not without their explanation but she'll have to ask them for it and weigh their answers against the possibility of abuse... I don't really know wtf they're doing with all this but it's forced too much character stuff on Mary at once to even deal with.

Toni goes on to say they're restoring her to being Mary Campbell, stripping away all her life after things got messy with cupids and kids and all... She's a born hunter, and to the BMoL they clearly see it in her blood (just like they see being a BMoL legacy in people's blood). Anyway nature vs nurture stuff, and they're going for raw nature as a killer (which Ketch firmly believes in about himself even if it's possible he was just programmed to be this way from such a young age he never got a chance to think he was anything else)... It fits into the wider discussion of the season which also relates to the nephilim.

And by stripping away her life, it's reducing her to a person without choice in what she is - "interesting choice. soon you won't be making any". It's blatantly just cramming in themes of the season, but I guess this is what Buckleming episodes are often for: laying out on paper everything that has been hidden more carefully and subtly in the juicy parts of the season :P This is the bare bones, look at what this story is about, explanation.

-

Oh I guess the cut on Mary's palm also parallels Sam's in 7x02 which was his link to reality. She's having her own reality issues but this reminds her that she's being made to kill hunters, not monsters. And hunters who seem to know her, even to be friendly when they find her in their house (that whole scene seemed weirdly out of character for a dude I'd never met to be chill about that but whatever, he kept his still-bloody machete in the umbrella rack, maybe he was just sloppy)

-

Crowley comes to cross over some storylines at the very last moment of the season, after basically living in a bubble for the entire season since 12x08. He greets Dr Hess by name, and I had some speculation he was somewhat connected to the way the Winchesters got the tip off to kill Ramsay in 12x15... Earlier they were talking about hellhounds and it cut to Crowley to suggest he was involved, so this seems to be confirming a connection, especially for the messing around with Hellhounds between the BMoL and Crowley.

Yep, he loaned out the hellhound to Ketch, anyway. >.>

This conversation finally confirms what I suspected since 12x01 - the BMoL have a deal with Crowley that crossroad deals go uninterrupted as long as there's no other demonic scheming in the country, just the humans idiotic enough to summon demons to sell their souls so it's all their own fault. This shows corruption in the BMoL that they let this happen anyway - a line drawn that they can't keep the demons out so they just pretend to go along with them like they had a choice in the matter. I suspect this deal with the BMoL is more symbolic than anything that they don't harrass a percentage of demons that they come about in the course of things, because there is no way to police humans choosing to do this without like, a Minority Report level awareness of what they're about to do. There's no saving people who made the deals, though the Winchesters have intervened several times on behalf of people they felt didn't deserve the punishment for the deal they made. The BMoL have opinions about that.

-

Crowley is also, predictably, challenged about his relationship to the Winchesters, which is a sort of as per usual thing - and he's saved them an awful lot lately. He pretends not to be conflicted about it to Dr Hess, but the close up on his poker face is still a dramatic close up after challenging him about something or other. There's been some speculation he might come to a decision about them but the Lucifer thing has been really throwing him off for me and any speculation I might speculate, by keeping him out of the way. His interactions with them in 12x12 and 12x15 showed his loyalties pretty clearly but that was a 2 times is a pattern that could be broken sort of thing and here he is finally being put to that test (his earlier interactions helping them find Lucifer, despite some mild self sacrifice gestures in 12x07, were really more about them solving a joint problem with some character stuff on the side... he begins being put to the test in the second half of the season)... It SEEMS pretty clear that his loyalties to being the big bad evil dude are fucked when it comes to the Winchesters despite himself, and he stands with Mary on the screen behind him, almost like a faction, or picked side, in this conversation, but that could just be because it was there on the wall to show they're monitoring Mary so closely they have her blood pressure and everything on display and Crowley's involvement is incidental.

Anyway I'm not sure which way he'd go, because everything suggests he'd pick protecting them but if it happens this episode, any amount of fuckery can intervene and if it happens later, I'm still not sure wtf the point of this Lucifer stuff is for him and what it means for where he's going

it's just... messy and weird and I don't get the point of it yet because it feels more like they need this thing happening on the side because they gave the Marks contracts to be in this season and this is how they've been killing time, because neither character has that much left to offer the Winchesters because Sam's arc with Lucifer ended in season 5 or 7, and Dean's with Crowley in 10 or 11. Sam might not LIKE finding out Lucifer is still alive but they haven't been connected since 11x10, and Dean might be pissed off at Crowley's choice but aside from lol we're exes jokes, nothing has happened between them all season, and even Cas working with Crowley wasn't an arc so much as just showing the current state of politics between them.

-

I type all this ignoring another scene in Crowley's lair, this time the Lucifer and his minion who is almost 10000% not going to survive because he's acting as a shifty demon, a black actor, and talking to Lucifer, in a Buckleming episode, and we cut our losses with caring about this stuff. >.> I'm done since the cold open.

-

Sam phones up Crowley, which is rare enough, but he has a reason to be pissed off at him, and that's because Sam already suspects that Crowley's at least half-responsible.

He's hated him since they met but if Crowley's gonna die, Sam should do it, and this is a good motivation, at least. If Cas gets to vaporise Lucifer with nephilim power (I hope although like anything this season I'm not putting money on it :P) then Sam deserves a big kill of his own >.>

-

Anyway Crowley just called Cas "the Winchesters' love slave"

The old refrain of using them plural to talk about Cas's investment in them, the suggestion there is something sexual about his devotion to them missing the point entirely about why he cares for them, but also hinting at a truth underneath that Crowley knows full well the situation with Dean n Cas, and tbh Lucifer has possessed Cas so he probably knows Cas's side too... A sort of awareness from both parties in the room that Cas is bananas for Dean but using it in a mocking way, and making it a general moral failing.

-

BMoL scene - no one has any nuanced characterisation that makes a great deal of sense in context, e.g. Toni trash talking Ketch in front of their superior, but we get some exposition that Hess thinks Ketch is cruel enough to take control of the BMoL one day and would do well as a test run as head of the American operation. Toni is also up for the job out of the blue because why not.

-

For some reason Dean goes to check their junk mail. They have a letter from Eileen! More expotion in the form of a letter. I hope she explains why she was still in America, but I've paused on Sam's face when Dean says Eileen because I like hurting myself, and look at poor broken little Sammy in there :<

Of course, making it aaaall about Sam and Eileen and making it clear he was the one more emotionally connected to her.

He's wearing a tan coat and blue shirt which makes me nervous casting him as a Cas mirror while dealing with this

-

Nice montage of Sam and Dean checking for bugs.

I am assuming they go to their trap, and Mary comes to kill this dude they made up, and Sam and Dean are like D:

-

oh wow gosh there's a design flaw in Crowley's control on Lucifer and it can be reversed so Lucifer can control Crowley who would have ever thought........

(I mean maybe not this exact scenario but that things were potentially going to flip between them at some point and Lucifer would be in charge...)

I hate that they used the "reverse the polarity" line because it didn't deserve that :P

I would wonder if there's some meta application to this theme though - especially with Mary AND Cas being controlled, Lucifer being controlled has been the least interesting or well-used part of this, barely even serving as a mirror to this, but it's not too late :P

-

Toni asking how Ketch knew the hellhound sat when she told it to and basically says better not to disagree with it even if you can't see what it's doing. Can't work out what level this commentary works at.

They ARE about to be duped by the Winchesters via a transmission they can only hear without seeing what they're doing. I wouldn't *mind* Ketch being mauled by the hellhound although I do think one of the Winchesters should kill him

Sam owes him 2, Mary would get a hell of a lot of satisfaction but I still suspect Dean will do it anyway for meta purposes, dark mirrors, etc.

-

oooh ketch and mary scene. Please be as interesting as these two characters generally are regardless of writer

-

Oh no her face when she sees Ketch. I don't think she can credit her memory of fighting him enough to know if it was real or not, and after spending so much time with him he's a familiar face >.> And he's soft on her, which is a whole other problem, but whatever happened with Ketch, I think Mary finds him weirdly comforting. But his idea of comfort is that he's happy for the transformation she's going through - mostly because she'll be like him and they can have lots of sex while killing things together

Then Mary uses the "world without monsters" line as the lie falls away and she realises how badly this has turned on her and her dream.

It's sort of the realisation I wanted her to have ~12x14 when I wrote my "a world without monsters" fic but oh well better late than never - she is going through the exact mental process I wrote which is always fun to watch on screen :P

And now Mary is feeling betrayed - "we worked together" and she mentions how she knew him. She uses that "closeness" even when he denies it to get near enough to grab his gun and *nearly* repeats how she nearly killed herself in 12x09 before Cas stabbed Billie and shocked her out of it. Ketch grabs the gun to protect her from herself, despite putting her through what makes her want to kill herself >.>

(This scene is brilliant by the way)

Mary now honourary member of Team Free Will - all she ever had when it came down to it was her free will... except she never even had that. What Toni mentioned about her deal was coersion from Heaven and Hell because she doesn't know about the cupids, that the only reason she had her family was because her free will was taken away. But actually FEELING its loss immediately hurts her spirit so badly. (And she didn't ask to be brought back and wouldn't have chosen it)

Anyway that was an incredible performance, and Ketch was okay too, showing his weird half-concern where he kind of likes her and wants her to be what he thinks will help her - to take away the pain not by killing her but by removing her will to feel upset by this.

Mary is left sobbing on her knees and I just love that she was allowed to messy cry and hiccup her lines like... that was brilliant. I love Mary okay.

-

Although Sam and Dean seem to be going to their trap already so I now doubt Mary will come

there's a flickering light by the warehouse which makes it look like ghosts are around.

Just them!

Dean gets kicked in the nuts, which is a reverse mirror of Mary kicking Ketch in the nuts - he the light mirror to the dark kicker, vice versa to Mary etc. Dean makes a quip about how they'll have to start dating if she keeps doing that, which in a Buckleming way solidifies this. I'm just, not gonna poke that.

-

Oh but it's a Crowley and Lucifer scene next.

God, watching the end of season 9 so recently really makes me hate this even more because remember when Crowley won everything?? After he lost Dean all the oomph went out of him - Dean shoving him in 10x02 and Crowley realising he's fucked and hastily manipulating himself to safety - when he makes that bargain with Sam, he loses his threat and cred to them and on a narrative level. There's nothing Crowley can do to the Winchesters now that's as bad as demon!Dean, and he's had no motivation to really get in their business and they don't fear him. It's not just a Buckleming problem although they've written most of Crowley this season it feels like (or these scenes are all individually 1000 years long) - they introduce Rowena immediately to give him another reason to be relevant and in scenes, but she quickly discovers he's whipped by the Winchesters, and he spends season 11 messing around being invested in main plot stuff just because he happens to live in the same world as them, not because he's out to get them or doing anything they urgently need to stop him doing. Even him harbouring Amara was only tangential to giving them a way to discover where she was - Crowley was nothing really to do with that particular confrontation. And then he got mired in the Lucifer stuff...

Now this season he has not only lost his edge but he's genuinely only being portrayed as protecting the Winchesters or being an idiot. And now Lucifer has managed to take control of him, but not even through his own cleverness, just getting a random demon to help, and being told he could do it.

There's really nothing of interest in these scenes because it's all.. blah.

I mean I wouldn't mind Crowley going soft so much because it's been interesting in other episodes (12x12, 12x15, and the season 11 episodes where it was interesting or even 10x14 or 10x17) but that's not really being explored as a character thing - now Buckleming are just exploiting that Crowley's been off his game for seasons by doing this to him.

-

But I suppose the loss of agency thing is sort of relevant with Mary and Cas also in trouble - it's like everyone but Sam and Dean is being controlled or is controlling >.>

-

I assume Crowley did just get some karma from Olivette and he's now possessing that rat, especially since they made such a big deal out of cutting Crowley with an angel blade = loud demon burny sounds, and then like in 11x01 when Cas stabbed Crowley's much shot and stabbed meatsuit, there was no sound effect.

Honestly at this point it sounds much more fun to have him stay as a rat, and also I guess his meatsuit is compromised

i would like someone else to play Crowley for a short period just like in 11x01 but without the orgy murder, and not because I dislike Mark S because he's made Crowley's long endurance since season 10 much more worth it than I guess it could have been with a less charismatic actor. But because it would be interesting and shake things up...

-

Wait I completely forgot to talk about the toni in the car scene... I mean that was all predictable and she was winding them up with the truth/half truths, and of course Mary is the sorest sore spot to push. The reveal she and Ketch had sex has a predictable reaction.

I finally figured out what's bothered me all episode - the Brits don't use ANY euphemisms for sex. IDK if Buckleming are particularly verbally creative anyway but they didn't spend any time giggling at some sort of list online of ridiculous British euphemisms and then go out of their way to use it, so there's now a drinking game for every time someone says "sex" in a pained British accent.

The real crime is they haven't seen Austen Powers because using "shagged" is at least the most obvious one to use if you're scared of being imaginative.

-

shoot out in the Bunker!

-

Dean gets some really improbable headshots but it's cool because I love him

-

"how many more guys you have in here?" "our mom! where is she!?"

lemme guess she's the other guy in here

*mary emerges with a gun*

oh lookie at that then

I suppose the 8x17 and Naomi parallels are about to do something. Mary's already on the crypt scene graph a few times. I'm laughing because 10x03 has another "I know you're in there" that I have totally blanked on since it aired, mostly because the failed ones really just kind of stack up in a little sad pile in the corner, but I did literally just watch it.

Interesting that Toni is ~more~ of the Naomi and Mary is basically here to free her... Ketch gets out sooner because Mary makes a shot just to scare Dean and Ketch gets his gun. Toni is the only one in peril now but she's the one who seems to have been doing the hard work on Mary.

-

elizabethrobertajones oh cripes it didn't work what the hell did Robbie DO he must have blackmail material on Singer and killing off all his faves is payback

mittensmorgul >.> wait, what didn't work?

elizabethrobertajones the crypt scene failure with Mary

mittensmorgul oh, yeah. well, did we expect it to?

elizabethrobertajones I mean I know he played the game hard to establish only romantic love breaks it in his episodes

mittensmorgul The crypt scene was supposed to be founded on mutual love and understanding

elizabethrobertajones but... like... did that get engraved permanently in the show's rulebook?

mittensmorgul the whole "YOU KNOW ME" but Mary really... doesn't//

elizabethrobertajones I know :P But it doesn't work on Sam and Dean??? they have at least 3 failures between them

mittensmorgul sam broke through in blade runners... adn after he killed abaddon

elizabethrobertajones yeah but he wasn't in danger and Dean was only sort of thinking about killing him

mittensmorgul but it took cas intervening in 10.03

elizabethrobertajones not overtly :P it wasn't a staged crypt scene it was just Sam breaking through Dean's murder fugue state caused by murdering someone else

mittensmorgul yeah...

elizabethrobertajones but 10x03 "i know you're in there" has no effect, and Robbie's parting one in 11x16 seemed mostly to be there to prove the rule

mittensmorgul nobody's ever really broken dean free in true crypt scene fashion

elizabethrobertajones I mean you have a point about Mary not knowing them and it being a miscommunication thing but in the wider picture I'm actually stunned that it works every time :P

mittensmorgul yeah

elizabethrobertajones I'm guessing she gets reclaimed some way or other but it seems they need to find another way than just appealing to her like that which means even if they break through it's going to be a subversion of sorts and has a past failure

mittensmorgul yeah

elizabethrobertajones while Dean nailed it first go on Cas :P although! they never told her to kill them and leaving them to die is different from making the shot

mittensmorgul yep if they'd ordered her to fire on them... that might've broken their hold on her It's like Doctor Who and the Big Red Button

elizabethrobertajones but the important thing is that's not what they showed here :P

-

Anyway that's pretty ominous about the Bunker being their tomb - yet more stuff about it being less and less like their home - it's always being threatened but every couple of years it seems really like it's going to permanently happen. I spent this equivalent area of season 10 convinced they were going to torch the Bunker. With it being Dabb era, and the 5th year of the Bunker, bets are off.

-

Mary talking about it being easier to hurt the people she loves, like there aren't only 2 people and she just left them to die and doesn't expect to see them again

-

"How do you feel?" "Fine. I'm fine"

I think she might take the cake for one of the worst "i'm fines" ever on this show.

She's now successfully been transformed into the Mary I wrote in A World Without Monsters and I never wanted to see that on screen despite kinda writing it assuming it would happen.

*shoves my fic far away from me because it's done nothing but cause me pain* :P

-

oh thank god that's over. I'm going to go to bed and spite-write Sam and Eileen's relationship accelerating dramatically faster than I meant it to in Terrible Coffee AU.

[idontneedasymbol]

12x23: All Along the Watchtower

If my thoughts on 12x22 were confused, then this was even moreso? (Though 12x22 I like more upon reflection -- even if my criticisms still stand, there were things I really loved. This one had less of that.) So if you're looking for squee, this isn't the best place; but I didn't hate it either. I don't think it was their best effort, though. (Which seems to be a shared sentiment, judging by how my dash has been 80% 12x22; minus the occasional upset, it's like the finale hasn't actually even aired yet?)

Things I did like -- Andrew Dabb actually can write, at least individual scenes. Kelly Kline felt like more of a real person here than in the entire rest of the season (admittedly she was a Bucklemming character for all but one other ep, so. Poor woman.) I was still generally bored with the scenes with her and Cas, but they had some cute moments.

...I do wonder if Dabb might be a Steven Universe fan. Kelly's video to her unborn son is...well, that's a pretty standard cliche, but the circumstances are still awfully familiar. (If you have any interest in the idea of a mother who has to sacrifice herself to bring her child into the world -- but who decides to do so completely willingly, from the start, as an entirely free choice for so many complex reasons -- look, I'm not saying Steven Universe is one of the best scifi/genre shows I've ever seen...except for the part where it is, and it explores so many intense themes so beautifully that it kind of spoils you for a lot of TV and, uh. Anyway!)

(I am positive that Dabb (or someone) was a Buffy and Angel fan. Though why they would crib from Angel's unspeakable 4th season I cannot imagine. "Jack" has all the hallmarks of Jasmine v.2.0, and no one needed that. No one!)

Bobby's return -- Jim Beaver, you troll! He was on Twitter bemoaning not being in this season. @owehimeverything had the thought when we were first starting the episode, that maybe he was punking us -- and lo! there Bobby was! Loved that. While I was not particularly bereft that Bobby died when he did (he'd served his mentorship role, it was time to move on) I appreciate the continuity of his return every season. And this Bobby especially, with his angel-killing hobby, who doesn't know the boys at all or share their history, that's got a lot of potential.

The whole post-apocalypse AU could be a lot of fun -- how it was introduced was ridiculously deus ex nephilim, but now that it's here I'm excited for it. And not just because I am all about AUs (though there is that. And Dean's memory of "French Mistake" was my favorite line of the ep by far -- of course what stuck with Dean is Sam being Polish. And not related to him.) It also ties into what, as far as I can tell, was Andrew Dabb's theme for the season, which is that the Winchesters really are important and do do more good than bad -- that they are the heroes their universe needs. And they're actually aware enough of it to be proud of it. And what better way to prove that than to show a universe where they didn't exist!  

(So presumably Lucifer and Michael got different vessels, who both said yes and the showdown happened? Did Michael defeat Lucifer, and then Hell went to war? Or did they kill each other? What's the deal? With Mary stranded there it seems likely we'll find out. Poor Mary, though. Comes back to life for a year, just reaches an understanding with her boys, and now, Mad Max! And she probably hasn’t even seen Fury Road.)

If the Winchesters' importance was Dabb's intended theme, though, it would've been nice to see it played out the rest of the season. And in this episode, for that matter -- because ultimately Sam & Dean don't do a hell of a lot here. Their plan to take out Lucifer was okay, but it was more action than character-driven. They didn't sacrifice anything for it (not deliberately, anyway; the sacrifices were made by others, but most unintentionally) and it didn't hinge on their brotherly bond in any respect, unlike the set-ups of most other finales.

Speaking of sacrifices -- boy howdy that was a lot of character death, huh? Which I'm not sure how to feel about, because I'm not sure if any of them (save Kelly Kline's) are going to stick? All of them being characters who died have died before and come back. So it's harder to trust. (And that's not even to point out that their shiny new AU is a chance to bring back just about any character in the show if they feel like it, albeit as a mirrorverse version.)

Of all of them, Crowley's felt like the most possible permanent death. He got to go out a hero in the end, farewell and all. And it's not a death I'm disappointed by; I'm a big fan of Mark Shepard, but the character had largely worn out his welcome for me. Or, well, I still liked him with the Winchesters. But I was rarely more than anything but as painfully bored as Crowley himself with all the Hell bureaucracy stuff. Will be happy to have that gone...if it is gone? (Please???)

The main thing I'm upset about, if Crowley is really dead, is that it might mean Rowena actually is as well, since so much of her story involved her son. And Rowena I really do not want to see gone. I especially did not want to see her gone without so much as a heroic stand or a heel turn or a moment of snark or anything. If she's really dead -- killing two popular female characters two weeks in a row without even giving them a last line, what the everloving fuck, show? But Lucifer thought he killed her before and that didn't take. So until proven otherwise I am going to assume Rowena weaseled her way out of this one as well...

(If she is really gone, then that's also all three of my favorite Sam pairings torpedo'ed, come ON show. :/)

(Or else Rowena is dead...and in Hell and becoming a demon queen! I could go for that...)

And then, Castiel -- is not dead. I know that Misha's contract hasn't been confirmed, but I will be astonished if they just let him die...like a female character, with no last line. Besides it's practically a tradition for Cas to bite it in finales.

I admit, if he is really dead...I won't be as sad as maybe I should be? I do love Team Free Will. And I adore Misha Collins; I don't know him, obviously, but everything I've seen of him, he's a stand-up human being of a kind that we could use more of. And Cas pushes a lot of my rebel-angel-loving buttons, along with my AI-learning-to-be-human buttons (he is the grouchy Data of SPN). But this season especially they didn't seem to know what to do with his character, to the point that a good chunk of his scenes bored me.

(And they seemed to be trying to make up for it by pushing the Destiel angle, which the harder they push, the more it turns me off it. I love Cas and Dean as friends. But as a TFW fan, they were putting so much more weight on Cas & Dean than on Cas & Sam in these last few eps. And you don't have to read it that way, I know -- Sam dragging Dean back to save him, that's not because Sam doesn't care about Cas but because Sam can be the more rational one, when he has to be, to save his brother. But still...and a lot of it is the fandom; I can't help but be thinking in scenes like that, that the Destiel fans are going to take it as 'proof' of the ship, and that annoys me more than it ought to.)

But I think this is moot anyway, because I seriously doubt Cas is going to stay gone. Though hopefully we'll get some good grief from both the boys before he makes it back!

Before that, though, I am hoping the first few eps might be just Sam & Dean on their own, depending on only each other, vs the nephilim (however that shakes out) -- return to the show's roots, as they keep eternally promising and never delivering. While season 12 had its bright spots, overall it is my least favorite of the show, and I'm really hoping for season 13 to pick up. A lot of that depends on what actually was the problem with season 12 -- there were so many different things wrong, and enough changes in the staff (not to mention actor availability), that it's really hard to say. And it also depends on whether the producers actually feel there is anything that should be fixed?

A lot of us seem resigned to season 13 being the last, though as far as I know there's been no confirmation of that one way or another. And it would be tragic for them to come so close to 300 episodes and fall short. But maybe the show has run its course? I don't know if that's so -- I only know that I do want more; but I want more of what I love, and maybe that's not what they want to make anymore. And that’s TV. So it goes.

[elizabethrobertajones]

Why do you think Dean never prayed to Cas when he was in lockup? I mean, I get that he couldn't possibly tell Cas where he was held, but he still could have prayed, I mean Cas was worried sick.

Since it’s late on Thursday night already a week after this aired, I feel like I’ve seen every possible version of this discussion on my dash. My very boring answer which I gave after reblogging some character-based stuff was just that this is where they wanted Cas (worried sick) and so Dean didn’t, and it’s up to us to interpret why but to me the episode was MORE about Cas and Mary and in general what happens in the Winchester’s absence, and so it was definitely working backwards from there. Sam and Dean got a little action sequence at the end and literally in the last 5 minutes any emotional stuff, because with a delayed reveal on the deal they were not really emotional POV characters UNTIL the bridge, therefore the episode was not ABOUT them so much as what else happens in their orbit when they’re not around. Even the guys holding them down there got way more personality and interesting character writing than the Winchesters did in prison…

And this is NOT a criticism, because I am assuming you don’t write an episode where your 2 main characters aren’t “really” characters in it until the last 5 minutes unless you’re doing it deliberately and want to explore something else. Which in this case included Cas being miserable about Dean being gone, which therefore meant Dean could not be in contact with him giving him any hope or something to swing at, because that wouldn’t get Cas to where he needed to be. And would have not removed Dean (or Sam if he prayed) from the story properly either, to maximise on a Winchester-free Supernatural episode. Or as far as you can go to pull that off within the constraints of needing to have their faces in the episode on and off throughout. Same formula as 6x04 or 6x20: keep them around but they only really get involved in one emotional moment at the end aside from general standing around having a face in between :P

I also think that it’s not plotholes or deliberate laziness or stupidity to leave gaps like this all the time if they can be explained, although I feel like fandom as the part of the audience that spends a lot of time thinking about the show and gets really complicated about their questions and expectations, can end up feeling like we’ve been short-changed or the show isn’t thinking hard enough about something we crowd-sourced an answer for weeks ago… We often move immediately to much heavier or deeper territory and come with pre-loaded expectations that make everything seem to fall short… 

(Can you tell I have read a lot of negativity this week about an episode I thought was great fun and actually proclaimed 3/4th of the way through that I was pissed off with Dabb for not giving me any plotholes to bitch about for once? :P People were @ ing me expecting me to have issues with the car continuity but I hadn’t noticed any and when I re-watched I realised that Mary saying “I drive fast” before the driving had explained everything I needed to know to completely keep my immersion in the story so it hadn’t even occurred to me to question it because I thought the story had pandered to my need to know these silly details? No one gave any numbers and who knows what the maths is on driving from the Bunker to Colorado via Mary and stopping to chat to the BMoL that would give us a total drive time for Cas but that one sentence just *magic wand ding* made it all go away :P To me this was Dabb’s most solid episode ever in terms of writing, except perhaps 8x08 which I think lands a perfect score on all fronts when normally sloppiness like that lets him down (loses points for Billie though…))

Anyway, sorry, slightly ranty because it’s late and I’m tired and in pain and this really has not been bothering me at all, which makes my response to the fact people ARE disgruntled unfortunately disproportionate, because basic maths about gruntlement proportions. :P 

The very obvious practicalities that you mentioned give a basic emotional surface text version that I think honestly does adequately cover it about as obviously as “they showed Dean shaving to explain why his hair was the same length when he came out as when he went in” - that is, if you take away any character dynamics and look at it like, Dean could tell Cas where they are if he knew where they were, but when he phones Cas he says he has no idea where they are ergo he’s had no reason to contact him, then you have what passes for a very very boring answer that might not satisfy US but tbh I suspect for anyone NOT overly invested in this relationship would be the sort of answer they get to if they wondered and be satisfied with it.

 I feel like I’ve read a lot (or in my head it has stretched out in fever dream ways to feel like a lot) of rambling over the last week about all the praying and why Dean wouldn’t, and the history of their prayers, their entire relationship since like, season 4, and so on and so on to try and make a coherent story arc to explain why Dean has stopped praying to Cas and I think they’re all great even if I’m now pretty hazy on them (see above: fever dream). I think my favourite slant of the argument (but not the only or main interpretation, just one I like that I’m picking on here :P) is just Dean’s self-worth, that he wouldn’t feel like he deserves to pray any more (and this is tracked back to when he last prayed and pointing at the Mark of Cain arc in the middle). Cas’s trauma in 11x06 was clearly linked to damage going back to Dean beating him up in 10x22, and once the Mark of Cain stuff was all thankfully over, Dean also felt like complete shit about it. Cas is still suffering from an ongoing arc of the same trauma from the start of season 11; why not assume Dean is following after him still feeling like shit about that? It severs their connection they had back in, like, season 8 when things were last somewhat resembling factory settings for them, at least on the surface. The window between Cas getting grace back and Dean getting the Mark is like, 2 episodes if you push it, and we have one “I came as soon as you called” of ambiguous suggestion if Dean phoned or prayed, and after that there are literally no more opportunities.

I am feeling like with at least Cas’s side of stuff clearly back on the table now hopefully to be addressed, that at least by the end of the season Dean and Cas might work some stuff out so perhaps in the long run he’ll start again or the way they relate to each other and how Dean used to treat Cas with Faith as in literal religious faith, and now what it is instead, will get discussed… or not. But something will presumably happen pushing this in one direction or another, and I’m still thinking worse before better >.>

Honestly at the moment I’m starting to feel like if it seems weird that Dean isn’t praying to Cas, maybe it’s something we ought to be noticing and not something the show is just forgetting to do out of neglect. Though we don’t have any proof they’re not idiots, it seems really easy these days for chunks of fandom to immediately decide that they are, and that they’re writing Cas badly by making him weak and unable to deal with vampires instead of exploring why they’d show Cas doing that. Or people asking other questions like it in an accusing way instead of a curious way, because accusing doesn’t get us anywhere and doesn’t really seem to be looking for an answer… I’m working on the assumption that the show can fuck up (… Billie… or like, Lucifer’s baby. Or Buckleming still writing in general :P) but not that they’re in a constant state of fucking up, and that not everything that happens IS a fuck up…

I am still enjoying watching a lot of episodes that other people really hate so idk :P I recognise that a lot of people are too disappointed or hurt or attached to a character to do this, but back at the end of season 10 I took a huge step back and decided that I still loved the most part of this show, and went and rewatched it to find the stuff I did love, and I’ve felt annoyingly well-balanced about it ever since.

It also helps I don’t watch live, and every time something kinda weird happens I pause the show and think for as long as I need about what just happened before I continue watching instead of leaping to conclusions or to get my ducks in a row before dealing with scenes. And I have the luxury of rewinding to check dialogue, and not watching a shitty stream so I get the whole episode first time, so things that get blown out of proportion in the immediate aftermath of the episode are like 99% wanky things I don’t get involved with :P 

… And yeah I know none of this is answering your question but it is explaining why I’m answering your question like this >.> Sorry. I’m wildly over-emotionally invested in everything but for anything that isn’t a fairly objective reason to be wanky (like… Billie :P) I’d rather give the show a big old benefit of the doubt about killing reapers or Dean not praying… or even Dabb’s freakin’ car continuity :P Your tone sounded complain-y about this to me (or at least like it was bothering you) so rather than just answer with one of multiple random interpretations that explain it from a character POV that would only either smooth over 1 plothole or leave you unconvinced and still grumpy if you didn’t really like the character interpretation (and answering on that level unless you hit on a real nugget of a thought generally does not really seem that convincing on a bigger scale to make it OKAY that people were upset about this), I thought I’d get a bit meta and explain why I am not grumpy >.> Possibly still not convince anyone but the simple answer just seems so pointless when people are upset about bigger problems.