SPN 5.14

[darkemeralds]

I sort of...hated tonight's Supernatural.



vampirefan and I have been rewatching the entire series and have finally gotten to the beginning of season 5. I have to say that a lot of what seemed random and disconnected throughout season 4 turned out to be connected to the overall arc in S5.

So maybe "My Bloody Valentine" will turn out to work the same way. Maybe Cupid wasn't just another variation on the Trickster/Siren type of theme. Maybe reiterating Sam's blood addiction AGAIN (even though he supposedly never needed the blood in the first place) is meaningful, and his second stint in the iron room is good storytelling in service of somethin' we ain't seen yet.

Maybe that over-the-top, gross-even-for-SPN bloody gory violence was, I dunno, symbolic of the opposite of what Dean is, all empty and soulless and...WTF???

Maybe the repeat of one of the Winchesters saying "No" to being the vessel of one of the archangels after a really, really tempting set of manipulations is actually going somewhere. Maybe Team Free Will is still in motion on the field, and heading for some kind of goal line. But once again, I find myself doubting it.

Demons lie. Horsemen lie. Angels lie. Archangels lie. Everyone's manipulating Sam and Dean--except when they aren't. And those of us playing along at home can't tell. SHOW has given us one thing to hope for--Team Free Will--and ten thousand iterations of "You have to because it's your destiny" (including tonight's little--rather embarrassingly bad--Cupid excursion)...

Gah! I love SHOW. You all know I do. But I can't honestly say I love it because it's well-written.



Also? Jared, seriously. Is it steroids?

Comments

[inalasahl]

Heh. On it's own, I think it might be pretty good. But I had a sinking feeling that it's just not going to go anywhere, and I've never been the kind of person who enjoyed reading hurt/hurt. I need resolution.

Cupid was terrible. But I think that "humor" was meant to appeal to the 17-year old boys in the audience anyway.

Also, when shows start making a lot over how "special" a character is (in this case the genetics of Sam & Dean), it's never a good sign.

I did enjoy it, though. My Tivo lets me fast-forward through all the gore and still read the closed captioning, so I don't miss anything. And I love to watch Jensen and Misha ping at each other in an actorly way.

[darkemeralds]

Oh dear, you're exactly right about the retconning of Sam and Dean's specialness. It started when they re-did the demon-in-nursery scene to include the blood dripping into little baby Sammy's mouth, but that was early enough in--was it late S1 or early S2?--to be credible.

This mid-Season-5 development of the "bloodline" idea, with the implication of going all the way back to Cain and Abel WTFOMG, is really bugging me. The only possible way Dean can remain a hero (and to me, he's always been the hero of the piece) is not just to "deny his destiny" but to go on actively believing that the whole concept of destiny is a lie.

In short, Team Free Will is the only way this storyline can be redeemed (in my eyes, anyway--but I'm not religious).

Last week gave us that possibility. Last night seemed to take it away again. I just wish I felt more confident that Kripke and Co have a CLUE what they're doing, and that they aren't just catering to this or that interest group in the audience from week to week.