I’m really enjoying season five; I love how meta this show is

[rusty_halo]

"The problem's not the demon blood. The problem's me. How far I'll go."

Dark Sam is totally Dark Willow done right. Man, it's like this show exists to fix the mistakes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Which makes the misogyny extra frustrating. :(

"You got wasted by a teenage mutant ninja angel?"

I love it when Dean says the embarrassingly juvenile things that I'm thinking.

Are they writing Dean/Castiel on purpose? Cause with the "I defied heaven for YOU," and the lack of personal space boundaries and the way they keep making eyes at each other, I was pretty sure Dean wasn't going to let Castiel die a virgin in ... a more direct way.

This is the only show I've ever seen that's used the word "slash" correctly, in canon. I think they are writing Dean/Castiel on purpose.

5x04 made me cry. Imagine being able to tell your past self not to make the same mistakes you made, to not push away the people you love. It was effective, moving, written surprisingly well--I guess I should stop being surprised at this show being written well.

5x06 - You can't seriously expect me to believe that people wouldn't at least raise their eyebrows when Sam and Dean go around introducing themselves as Agents Page and Plant. Led Zeppelin is not obscure.

5x08 was awesome. Four comments: 1) This show is so incredibly meta; 2) I can't believe they actually called Castiel a "pretty boy angel" in canon; 3) The question to Dean about whether his mom and dad would still be alive if his brother had never been born was... wow, intense in a way that I'm surprised and impressed that the show went there, especially in an otherwise absurdist scene and 4) Sam as Kit from Knight Rider literally sent me into hysterics.

5x09 - This is the most meta show I've ever seen. How come no one told me about this!? That was the most accurate depiction of a sci-fi convention I've ever seen in mainstream media. I liked its recognition of how many fans are women and how much fandom is driven by ho!yay. And I loved that when Dean pulled the whole "get a life" critique the fan response was to point out how much fandom had made their lives better. Also, the fans pointing out to Dean that his life is actually pretty awesome feels once again so like a comment on Buffy the Vampire Slayer (and all those angsty self-pitying hero shows). And "It's really not jumping the shark if you never come back down"? I LOVE THIS SHOW.

5x10 - Look at that! Actual awesome female characters, actually passing the Bechdel test! Show, why can't you do this more often? (While I thought these deaths were moving and effective and so don't really want to complain about them, I will point out that this show would be far more successful portraying awesome female characters who actually pass the Bechdel test if it didn't, y'know, kill them right afterward.)

5x11 - Hee, they just had a shrink diagnose the brothers as codependent IN CANON. This is a good example of a show using a MOTW episode as a vehicle for exploring its main characters. Though it was a bit goofy at the end, when Sam stops in the middle of their escape to have an emo moment--escape now, emote later, boys.

So far, so good. On to the rest of the season...

Originally published at rusty-halo.com. You can comment here or there.

Comments

[elz]

Dark Sam is totally Dark Willow done right. Man, it's like this show exists to fix the mistakes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Yeah, the show is very meta both in the sense that it references its own fandom a lot and in the sense that it's an obvious riff on a bunch of other things: The X-Files, Buffy, the collected works of Neil Gaiman, etc.

Are they writing Dean/Castiel on purpose? Cause with the "I defied heaven for YOU," and the lack of personal space boundaries and the way they keep making eyes at each other, I was pretty sure Dean wasn't going to let Castiel die a virgin in ... a more direct way.

One sometimes gets that impression. Maybe the writers find it a refreshing change from Wincest?