Supernatural 7×17

[rusty_halo]

The Bad:

1. Sam's Hallucifer Story Arc

THE ~DEVIL HIMSELF~ (or the memory of him) is mindfucking Sam, and the best he can come up with is a loudspeaker and some taunting? Seriously?

Someone on my flist compared the Hallucifer storyline to Harvey on Farscape and it's true--look to Farscape for an example of this same time of story done 5,000,000x better. Not just Harvey (though Harvey is ♥♥♥) but the way that John Crichton was repeatedly mindfucked and became increasingly unstable over the course of four seasons, in ways that were fascinating and complex and had no easy fixes.

Meanwhile on Supernatural, they give us ~Sam's hell issues~ as his character arc for a season and a half, and they basically do nothing except ignore it, address it in trite, isolated ways that don't effect Sam's overall behavior or narrative role, and then magic it away when it becomes too obviously played out.

Plus Farscape was just so clever and creative and twisted and funny in the ways it came up with to screw with John's head. Remember the whole re-created earth where his friends got dissected? Or the muppet S&M? Or Scorpy's horrific torture devices? Or Harvey forcing John to kill Aeryn? I mean honestly, and we're supposed to be so horrified by Mark Pellegrino with a loudspeaker?

2. The Inanity of the TV!Cliche Ending

They left their newly recovered best friend/vulnerable, possibly insane, powerful angel, who is being hunted by demons and is potentially a leviathan target... alone in a mental institution with Meg? What? "For his own good," aka the last resort of the lazy TV writer who needs a character out of the way for narrative convenience and can't be bothered to put any effort into a good reason why.

It doesn't even make sense--Castiel doesn't need to eat or sleep, so what is Lucifer going to do that's so bad? Make snarky comments at him? Not to mention that Cas still has his angel!powers and could zap out of there at any moment. ???

3. I WANT MY DEAN!WHUMP

Why does Sam get all the good hurt/comforty whump these days? Remember when Dean was the one suffering all the time? What's the last good Dean!whump we got, the vampire episode in early S6? :( Yeah Dean got tossed around a bit this episode (*g*) but it was nothing like the woobie!Sam-on-a-silver-platter treatment that Sam's been getting all season. This show used to be full of Dean!whump; what happened?

4. Meg's line delivery

I was so distracted by her odd enunciation that I understood maybe one line out of three. I like her voice, and wasn't bothered in previous episodes, but she was doing something overly weird here.

Also MEG GOT ELLEN AND JO KILLED. And did a lot of other nasty stuff, but that's the main one that I really cannot get past Dean forgiving enough to work with her, no matter how dire the circumstances.

Don't get me wrong, I like having her around, but Dean calling her "a friend" was too much.

5. The general blahness of this show

It's season seven. The people who make this show are clearly over it. They continually make the safe and obvious choices and don't bother with much that's innovative, creative, unexpected, or moving. :(

The Good:

1. Jensen Ackles

He's the only reason I'm watching the show, but even I will admit that the dude has been phoning it in (along with 95% of the cast/writers) for most of the past two seasons.

But when Castiel comes back, hey look, Jensen's actually acting. He's so good when he tries! I loved watching him portray the complexity of Dean's reaction to Castiel's return--the vulnerability, the hope, the anger, the wariness, the longing to have his friend back, the mix of protectiveness and manipulation in his refusal to tell Cas the truth about himself.

2. Dean/Castiel

Whether you see it as shippy or platonic, the chemistry between these two is still off the charts. I wish this show would stop giving it out in tiny amounts and just admit that this is by far the best thing they have going and it should take center stage.

They should have eliminated that whole pointless ghost plot and replaced it with more/longer Dean/Cas scenes. *sigh*

3. Castiel

I will never get sick of the jokes they mine out of his peculiar combination of innocence and gruffness. I also adore the complexity of a character that is so well-meaning (awwww he reverts to a healer who just wants to help people) and yet so self-righteous (still jumping right into doing whateverthefuck to Sam without explaining himself first).

4. Dean

I have so much love for the scene where Dean pursues Castiel telling him that what he did was understandable, and Cas argues back that Dean shouldn't forgive him. It's a reversal of the end of 7x02, where Cas apologized and Dean refused to forgive, and it's so utterly true to Dean's character. Dean gets angry, lashes out, and forgives quickly. (Whereas Sam's resentment builds over time and isn't as easily forgotten.) It ties right in with Dean's dialogue at the end of the episode where Rufus died, in which he preemptively forgave his loved ones.

Also Cas telling Dean it's okay to be human? AWWW. I loved that it came from Cas, who's usually the one looking down on/not understanding Dean's human vulnerabilities. Plus, that's exactly the advice Dean needs to hear, not "suck it up and pretend you're fine."

5. The Trenchcoat

OMG the fanservice! :) :) I love that the thing that got Cas to stay and help and accept Dean's forgiveness was this token of the fact that Dean never stopped caring about him and missing him.

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