#anyway fake s15 ending aside

[julie-finlay]

Finlay Friday

13x07: "Fallen Angels", script extracts

[ananke-xiii]

i know that ruby and cas are often compared in their "love interest" function but to me there's just so much more than that. they're basically opposite characters (not just in the literal sense of hell vs heaven): ruby seems to be rebelling against hell while she's secretly acting in its favor; cas starts off as a soldier following heaven's orders and ends up rebelling and working against it. they both die for their own personal cause, although ruby was not granted the possibility of resurrection. and aside from the problematic fact that death is more permanent for women than men in spn, i wonder if it's also because ruby totally failed at her "friend/support" function (because she was sort of faking it or, if she wasn't, she was manipulating sam) while cas manages to create a real connection with the human in his charge and it starts changing him. don't get me wrong, i actually love that her "reveal" was an evil one, and i generally don't like when the show offers us weak redemption arcs consisting in monsters falling in love with one of the winchesters (ugh). i'm also not a fan of redemption arcs in general but anyway. but i do wonder if the cas/ruby parallel is way more interesting in light of their "friend/support" function. i might be wrong but these two are the first non-family characters interacting with the brothers for extended periods of time. and having someone outside of your family with whom you spend time, who supports you, and that you generally like is important. not great news here but what i'm saying is that for sam and dean to have someone else was a big step. so while i like ruby as a character, i'm a bit saddened by the fact that they didn't give sam someone to establish this type of bond with. that he was being manipulated again. and this state of affairs stays exactly the same for many seasons. sam has 0 friends/support figures outside of dean, which is just plain tragic. with ruby out of the way forever, cas' "opposite/dark mirror" function is given to crowley (it's not a case that, again, the two died on the same episode, just like with ruby and just like her crowley, too, was not granted permission for resurrection). which, okay, for all practical purposes i like crowley (although i suspect i like mark sheppard more, tbh), but i mean, bad bad bad women who die die die must stay dead dead dead so ruby had to stay as such, but what about meg? we were so close to having her as cas' mirror :"(. i'm a fan of homoeroticism as much as the next person but i do find that in spn it sometimes dims the light on other characters, especially female presenting demons (don't even wanna talk about abbadon grrr). cas cannibalized anna and then crowley cannibalized all other demonesses, it's not fair okay? i loved them! :( *me: shouting at chuck: now you bring her back! ruby, meg, even lilith!* *puches the wall* **chuck actually brings them back in s15** *me: not like that, chuckdammit! clenches her fists at heaven*.

[twdmusicboxmystery]

TWD Flagship Series Ending and How It Might Affect Beth/TD

I’m sorry I didn’t get my thoughts out sooner. I woke up to like three fires I had to put out (figurative, of course) so it too me longer than usual to get these written up. But, here we go:

Okay, so I know everyone is freaking out about yesterday’s news. I feel ya. I’m obviously very sad that the flagship series will be ending.

But having said that, it doesn’t entirely surprise me. And it doesn’t really bother me, at least not in the way everyone seems to think it will.

I have lots of thoughts about this, so bear with me. I’ll try to keep them succinct and organized.

I Still Think Beth is Returning

This is probably the most important thing for everyone to know. This announcement doesn’t affect my beliefs about Beth’s return. You’ll understand why as we go along and I explain more. It also doesn’t negate all the clues Emily and other actors have been dropping over previous months. Just keep that in mind.

It Doesn’t Surprise Me That The Show Might End Not Long After Her Return

Now, I’m gonna say that I realize now my original thinking about this was a little flawed, but I’m gonna say it anyway just to throw it out there.

As it’s taken longer and longer for Beth to return, I’ve come to realize that there would be a lot less of the show to go after her return than there was before it. If she’d have returned in S6 or S7, we would have had many seasons to go. But that hasn’t been the case, right?

I firmly believe that Beth represents Daryl’s happily ending. But that does imply it will be an ending of sorts.

And don’t get me wrong. I wouldn’t have predicted the show would end in S11. You all know I’ve harped on the 15-season thing quite a bit, and I have more to say on that, which I’ll get to in a minute. I’m just saying that after Beth returns, I never thought we’d get another 10 seasons of TWD. A few, sure, but not double the amount or anything.

Okay, so let me make some broad statements here.

1)      Gimple said he had until S15 planned, and I believe him.

2)      I still think he has plenty of material so that they could have gone on through season 15.

3)      I don’t think any of that content is being scrapped, curtailed, or cut short in any way.

So how can all of those things work together? Well, this is my biggest belief about this whole thing:

I don’t think they’re changing any of their original plan. I think they’re just shuffling and restructuring the way they’re going to give it to us.

A lot of things have changed over the past few years: technology, the fact that people stream-watch much more often than live-watch, CoVid, etc. So basically, I still think they’ll continue to tell the story through what would have been season 15, but they’ll be doing it through alternate series, spinoffs, movies, etc., rather than keeping it all to the main series.

Now, some of the skeptics out there are bound to think my beliefs about this are awfully convenient, and I’m just holding out hope that Beth will still return.

But I’m not JUST talking about Beth story lines. There are other things to consider here that we can prove. And I’ll get to them.

But the next question is:

Why Would They Continue the Story in Other Spinoffs, Rather Than Just Keeping to the Main Series?

I wasn’t sure about this at first, either. The only thing I could come up with on my own is that there are certain business/monetary/logistical concerns behind the scenes that make this a better model for AMC to make use of, rather than continuing the flagship series. And really, we’re never going to totally understand all of that because for legal/privacy reasons they’re never going to give us the details.

But then, the always-insightful @wdway said some things that really helped light bulbs go on in my head.

We were discussing this and she said something about how, since Daryl isn’t a character in the comic books, and Carol died very early on in the story (at the farm, I think?), with this spinoff that will focus on Daryl and Carol, they’re heading into territory that has absolutely no comic book source material.

And that really made sense to me. So, here’s my underlying belief about WHY they’re ending the flagship series after S11, even though they still have more story they’re planning to tell.

I Believe They’re Ending the Story after the Commonwealth Arc, Specifically Because the Comic Books Ended.

Because here’s the thing. Even with the extended S11, I still don’t think that will be enough time to cover the two major story lines they’ve been hinting at and slowly uncovering over recent seasons: the Commonwealth and the Helicopter People.

The only way to cover BOTH of those so quickly is to REALLY short change one or the other of them, and I think we have ample evidence and foreshadowing that that won’t be the case.

So, here’s the jist of it. Back when Gimple took over and planned his 15-season arc, they couldn’t have predicted a lot of what’s happened since. They couldn’t have predicted technology, COVID…or that Kirkman would suddenly, without any warning, decide to end the comics. So, even though they’ve always put their own spin on things, and have definitely done things that weren’t in the comics at all (i.e. Beth and Daryl), they’ve still always stuck to the major arcs from the comic books. (The Farm, The Prison, Alexandria, AOW, Whisper War, and now The Commonwealth.)

I think they decided to pivot and change formats as soon as Kirkman ended the CBs. They just haven’t announced it until now. So, I think season 11 will focus completely on the Commonwealth, but they’ll end it and switch to something entirely new to continue telling the story of the Helicopter Group. And even though they’re advertising it as focusing on Daryl and Carol, keep in mind that Rick and Michonne are also still out there. We’ll have them to look forward to in the Rick Grimes Films as well. And of course they still have FTWD, TWB, and these other spinoffs they’re talking about.

Do you see what I mean? I don’t think they’re changing or curtailing the story they’ve always planned on telling. They’re just changing formats. So the main series will end with the source material from RK’s comic books. The rest will be a new series that is 100% AMC’s own.

I hope that makes sense. This is why it doesn’t really worry me and I don’t think it negatively impacts Beth’s story or return at all. 

Okay, let’s switch gears and talk about the spinoff.

When I read the press release, the first thought I had was, “Well, that’s vague.” The press release really doesn’t tell us much. It’s hard to draw many conclusions from it. And it doesn’t say other characters (like Ezekiel, for example) won’t be in it. Just that it will focus on Daryl and Carol.

And I get that, again, that may sound convenient, but that’s why I explained everything above first. Knowing that this is probably just switching formats to continue the same story, it doesn’t sound quite as convenient anymore, does it?

The second thing I thought when I heard this (and my fellow theorists said they had the exact same thought, which kind of validates it in my head) is that this whole Carol/Daryl thing is probably tied to the New Mexico symbolism.

If you remember, starting in 10x01, they started randomly referencing New Mexico a lot, in conjunction with the idea of the two of them taking off on Daryl’s bike and just leaving. I know that idea isn’t our fandom’s favorite, but it was obvious to me that this was a foreshadowing and that it will happen at some point. So I’m relatively sure that this spinoff about Daryl and Carol will be them going to New Mexico together.

Here are some posts where I talked about the NM symbolism: X, X, X,

The thing is, guys, I’ve also always believed that it will be a Beth thing. That it will mirror them taking off together to search for Beth in 5a. So either way, I think Beth will be involved in that spinoff series.

@wdway told me she’s believed for a while that S11 will be another “Daryl searches for Beth” season. TD has believed for a LONG time that there will need to be another search on Daryl’s part. That there may even be something of a replay of events in Coda, but that it will end differently. In a good way, rather than in the disaster that was Coda.

So, either Beth and Daryl will get a reunion sometime in S11, but then something will happen and she’ll be taken again. Probably by the helicopter people. And Daryl will need to go look for her.

Or.

Maybe they won’t get a reunion at all in S11. That would definitely suck more, but maybe, while the audience, and various characters in the show *coughs Eugene* know about Beth, maybe Daryl really doesn’t find out until the end of the season, and he’ll just be busy dealing with the Commonwealth situation. But then, at the end, he finds out she’s alive and jumps on his bike to go find her. And, as in 5x02, Carol goes with him.

I also think Ezekiel will probably figure heavily in this. I’ve harped on and on about his death fake out, right? I do think it will happen some time in S11. And I think it’s possible that the season (and series) will end with Carol still not knowing that he’s really alive. Or maybe she’ll find out he’s with Beth and that will be part of the reason she goes with Daryl too.

Now, obviously this is all conjecture with a liberal splash of head canon. But given the symbolism and foreshadowing we’ve identified, especially these past two seasons, and how often TD has been right about this sort of thing, I really think there is a VERY good possibility that this, or something close to it, is what’s really happening here.

So yeah. I think I’ll shut up, now. The short of it is, I think they’ll continue the story line after S11, just in different story vehicles. I think Beth will still return and be a big part of the story moving forward. And I think S11 (and the series) will end with a lot of unresolved story lines that will move to other parts of the franchise. Therefore, aside from being sad to say goodbye to the flagship series in principle, this really doesn’t worry me all that much.

At the very least, we know we’ll be getting more Daryl after the series officially ends. Which is a good thing.

Thoughts?

[coinofstone]

14x20 Notes

I just wanna preface this by saying, while watching live I kept making predictions and I was wrong. Every. Single. Time.

First time seeing this 'Then' I immediately went OMG IT'S ALL MICHAEL STUFF MICHAEL IS BACK THIS ENTIRE SEASON HAS BEEN DEAN'S DREAMSPACE WHILE MICHAEL WEARS HIM LIKE A SUIT THEY ARE GONNA RETCON THIS ENTIRE SEASON OMG and that is not even remotely - BUT like, now I can't help but think that was a deliberate goddamn fake out. Dabb's revenge for us calling Michael predictable af? Maybe.

Cas 100% should've punched Dean in the face there.

Sam calling Dean out on his nerdiness

The "I hate everyone" guy is my spirit animal

"A demon deal he made with someone named Crowley" - too real

I can't believe they brought Chuck on so early. Rob looks GOOD tho. Love the jacket.

(It's what I was thinking)

I really expected Chuck to pull out another guitar after Dean smashed his.

"I built the sandbox you play in it." - you bout to get kicked out your own sandbox there Chucky

"BMoL? Little weak, but okay." 😂😂😂

What is it with this show and the finger snaps?

I love that we all thought it was Dean's regular gun based on the promos cuz his daily driver is so extra it looks like it's got special sigils engraved on it 😂

"If I say it'll work, it'll work!" -Chuck, and also, every engineer ever.

When I realized Billie was in this episode I thought it was gonna come down to her vs Chuck but I guess that's the plot of S15. "Ugh I liked the old Death better." is a genuis attempt at making SURE we know Chuck is not on our side now. Is this subtly also speaking to Chuck's internalized racism & misogyny? Maybe.

"Either get on board, or walk away." *Cas walks away* the facial expressions in this scene. Dean telling Cas to choose between him and Jack and trying to mask his pain when Cas didn't even hesitate. Chuck's evil little smirk like he's enjoying watching this play out. It hurts so good.

"Isn't that the point of everything we've ever done, that we always have a choice?" - literally the show's entire through line since S4. Also remember Angel, "you don't have a good choice, but you do have a choice"

Fuck J2 were really good in that Broment scene.

Sam with the hooptie! And looking at Chuck like where the fuck did you come from 😂

Seriously tho who bought Cas a damn pick up

Jack uses puppy eyes! They're super effective!

"When does it end? Tell me!" At this rate, late April 2021, Sam.

All jokes aside the characters screaming at the writer for putting them through the ringer over and over again in the name of entertainment, because they're his favorite show, instead of letting them live their lives in peace and leaving them alone, is way too meta for me to even think about right now. Is this Dabb trying to tell us he thinks the show's gone on too long? Like what

Seriously someone go rewatch the whole series and count how many times people snap their fingers to make something happen.

The least believable part of this entire episode is that Sam would miss that shot.

Stop. Hold up. Is Chuck's "That's the way you want it?" a direct reference to Rob singing 'Any Way You Want it' at the J2 panels? Cuz seriously bravo if so.

Chuck literally just pulled a Cartman. 'Screw you guys, I'm going home'

Cas kneeling over Jack's body mirroring Dean kneeling over Cas' and that's when you know Dean knows he fucked up. You see that little look he gives Cas?

There is absolutely no excuse for zooming all the way in to Jack's burnt out eye sockets. None.

Also the Empty's creepy ass smile was not okay who approved this?

Literally Chuck: we're in the Endgame now

Motorhead: God was never on your side

Bout as subtle a brick to the face 😂

This is a super interesting set up for next year. First of all, it looks like Sam might actually get a storyline FINALLY, so that's nice. Second, it seems like Billie is teaming up with the Entity (I know they gave that fucker a name at one point but it was a stupid name and I don't remember it) to utilize Jack's heretofore untested powers to take control of our world and restore it to some semblance of order and kick Chuck out of his own sandbox. We know Jack can manipulate reality, we know he can open doors to various pits of hell, we know he can walk in heaven. It's not unreasonable to think he's gonna be the one to undo the shitstorm Chuck just released cuz Sam ruined his new jacket. The Empty's smile is really bugging me. Not just cuz it's needlessly creepy, but because it's familiar. My gut is screaming Gabriel but I've got no evidence for that, nor does that make a whole lot of sense. One reason it's bothering me is, simply, why isn't it taking a form of any kind to speak to Jack? Two, when did it develop a personality that smiles at people? That felt like a reassuring 'I come in peace' smile. Anyway. Pumped for S15.

[calliecat93]

RvB17 Episode 8 Review: Finally

Well guys, after so many years, Donut finally gave the Reds and Blues a piece of his mind. While I felt that last week had the weakest episode so far, I can forgive it because it gave us Donut telling everyone off. It’s a week later and I still get so much satisfaction from that scene alone. With Wash sending everyone to apologize, and Huggins in Season 1 with Caboose, what’s going to happen now? Well, lets lake a looksie shall we?

The Reds and Blues have caught up to Donut and apologize, but he's not willing to accept it since... well saying your sorry and showing it are two different things. Considering that Donut went through all of time and space to fix what he did and make it right... yeah, point. Carolina asks if they can prove it by fixing the timeline, which he agrees with. So... that was resolved quickly. Everyone naturally has questions about the time travel, Doc's being about what's going on with Caboose right now. Donut explains that while their Caboose is somewhere else, the one with them is a different timeline Caboose, aka Season 5 Caboose. When Simmons questions how reliving their history is going to correct anything, Donut decides to jump them all ahead ten minutes. Since they'll lose Wash and Carolina, he instructs them to meet up and for Wash to give Carolina the explanation.

Donut jumps them all back ten minutes, where he's still crushed by Sister's ship and Tucker is recovering from childbirth. Church is understandably confused, but at this point, Caboose has returned and he sends Church to take a nap. But Caboose did not come alone. Huggins arrives, much to Grif's glee. Like... he sounds happier than I think he ever has. He's so happy and missed Huggins so much that her still being angry at him, to the point that she goes red, doesn't even phase him. Donut proceeds to explain about how they have to stop Genkins from creating paradoxes... but since they don't know where he's going to be, they have to relive their lives and make sure it goes exactly as it happens.

Huggins, however, points out that there's another way... just as Lopez has already jumped. Whoops. Anyways, since Huggins is made of light, she can go forward on her own, find alternate timelines, report back, and the guys can jump ahead to that point and make the event go as it's meant to. Sarge things that's too convoluted and will take too long... but Huggins proves it by going to and from the moon in a blink, plus she already did it with meeting with Caboose and it sounds like they already did it once. Grif is outright tearful that this means less bullshit before apologizing to her for fucking time up. Huggins... doesn't forgive him, but she can't stay mad at him right now due to time being fucked up. She therefore just tells him to fix reality before going off to get her scouting underway. Ouch.

Simmons repeats his question about exactly why they need to relive their lives to begin with. Caboose, therefore, proposes this analogy to explain it. You know how you can sometimes get a gap in your zipper? Apparently, it happened to Simmons in 6th Grade during Debate Class, but to the point. To fix the gap, the zipper has to go all the way down and then zipped back up to fix it. So that's what they have to do, go back through their lives to undo the gap and fix it again. Even Donut admits that the analogy makes things clearer. Yeah, the two former rookies are the ones figuring out how to fix shit. Who knew? Tucker is questioning if this will even work, to which Donut replies that the only way that they'll be able to find out all depends on them.

From there, we get a montage of the guys going back to events where Genkins is trying to strike. Sarge ends up at the day that they deleted the Blues, aka the best day of his life. When Genkins tries to interfere by hacking the computer, Simmons simply reboots it to get rid of him. Which keep in mind that isn't present!Simmons, that's Season Six Simmons doing it nonchalantly. Anyways, Sarge proceeds to relive the moment several times to make sure that ti worked... aka to relive the moment cause he can. We also get to see the end of Season 5, where Andy blows up the ship, which is where Grif ends up. Genkins tries to prevent the explosion and reveal the truth to Church, so Grif simply goes off, gets a rocket launcher, and does the job himself. He also makes it clear that this is him getting payback on Tex for the beatdown his balls got in Season 8. Hopefully, he jumped out after, since Church is understandably angry and ready to give Grif a beatdown.  

Our episode ends at one more moment. Tucker arrives at Crash Site Bravo in Season 11, the day where they lost and half their forces were captured... and when Felix was still faking being an ally. Well, shit.

Review

This was better than last week, but still not the best. Not to say I didn't like it though. As I kinda said in the overview, it felt like Donut... kinda forgave them all far too easily. I mean I guess something can come up later, but after how much last week's moment was built up and the payoff being amazing, this kinda felt like we were sweeping it back under the rug. Though to their credit, they listen to him... kinda hard when he's under a Pelican, but hey they're listening. And to his credit, Donut's not letting the emotions control his decision making, which really displays a lot of emotional maturity on his part. I really like that about him. I feel it's always been there, but now we can actually let it be on display. Bless Jason Weight for making Donut a character. Bless him so much.

So... let's do something a little different. We're gonna talk about Grif, and consequently how he's... kinda gotten the shaft, sadly. So last season and even S15, Grif got a lot of character development and focus. He realized he needed his friends, began to commit himself more, confronted his issues with the constant adventures, started to focus more to the point that he confronted Genkins and gave up on wanting the pizza he wanted the whole time to try and prevent the paradox. He failed, but the fact that he tried and that he became a more focused, more mature person was great... and that has been ignored so far. Mind you he spent half the season with his memory wiped and so far not a lot of time to show that development and I'll give them credit when I get to the positive side, but it still really feels like all the build-up and development that Grif got last time is just... gone. I mean you'd think he'd be more angry about Genkins considering, especially since Genkins outright told him everything right to his face just because he could, and that hasn't come up at all. It's just frustrating to a huge Grif fan like me. Is this how Tucker fans felt last season?

But with that said... I'm gonna be fair here. I think the reason why we can't do a lot with Grif, and probably others who could use development, is the 12 episode count. While the count is good for advancing the plot at a good pace and has a main focus to work on (in this case Donut, Wash, and the time travel) it sadly means a LOT of character opportunities get wasted or shafted as a result. Since those things need the focus for this story, those have to gain the focus and everything else falls by the wayside. Kinda like how in S12, Tucker got the majority of focus while others aside from the Freelancers and Church didn't get much. And that season had the standard 19 episodes, but the plot needed to advance so there just wasn't really time to do other things that I myself would have liked, like more focus on Grif, Simmons, and Caboose as Captains and not just Tucker. But that's a discussion for another day, but the point is the plot, as it is now, sadly means that Grif doesn't get the focus that I feel he should be getting. Which Simmons, Tucker, and even kinda Carolina are getting the short end of the stick too. Lopez is getting it really bad in comparison so... yeah. Production can suck sometimes.

Even with me feeling that Grif's focus is lacking after the build-up, I don't at all feel like his development is being outright forgotten though. Sure he's confused about what's going on and the time travel... but honestly I am too because GDI I don't understand time travel. So I can't get mad at something I don't get either and have kinda just resigned myself to. His reaction to seeing Huggins again was really, really cute. I don't think he's ever sounded that happy at any other point in the show. Sure Huggins is still angry at him, and it's not hard to fault her, but the fact that Grif was so happy that he wasn't even phased by it until near the end... it was really sweet especially compared to how volatile he was to her at first last season. And then once Grif understood, he committed to it, figured out rather quickly how to take Genkins down in S5, and blew them up with a rocket launcher with zero hesitation. The fact that after nine seasons he finally got payback on Tex for the brutal beat down was also satisfying as Hell. Sorry Tex, but Grif earned this moment. And even during the mindwipe, he was the only one who even considered believing DOnut and was weirdly motivated, even in places he normally wouldn't have been like during S13. So yeah, I wish that more was done after all the build-up prior, and I hope the next story arc will allow it, but I'm still enjoying Grif. I just wish we had more.

I'm not sure what else I can say really. Some funny moments, like Sarge's utter glee at reliving deleting the Blues. Part of me feels like he should be past this by now... but hey, it was still funny. Also, the link that appears on the Delete Blues screen? Type it in. Trust me, you will NOT regret it... or you will and cry, but do it anyways. The fact that Donut could give a coherent explanation while being crushed under a ship is impressive... although shouldn't he have landed in the cavers by then? Meh, maybe he's just really good at throwing his voice. Simmons just rebooting the computer to get rid of Genkins, which again it wasn't present!Simmons who did it was an underrated badass moment imo. And of course, the ending. Tucker is with Felix again, back when he was still pretending to be an ally. And Tucker has to let the event go as it's supposed to, so not only does he have to deal with Genkins... but he's got to keep his own feelings in check. Because if he can't and tries to kill Felix here... that may very well be the kick that Chrovos needs to be set free.

Final Thoughts

Good episode. Nothing major happened, and I'm starting to see some cracks in the structure, but I still enjoyed it. We have a clear directive for now and we have a pretty damn promising lead-in for next week. With four episodes left, there's a lot to still do and not a lot of time left. How will it play out? Not sure, but it's gonna leave one Hell of an impression. In that, I have little doubt.