Supernatural: Season 7 reaction and hopes for Season 8

[rusty_halo]

Biggest disappointments of season 7:

* God!Castiel went nowhere. Leviathan!Castiel went nowhere. They built up these two amazing possibilities and COMPLETELY FIZZLED ON THEM.

My vote would've been for Leviathan!Cas instead of Dick. In that 5 seconds we got of him at the end of 7x01, he was so amazing and scary and funny. Imagine how awesome it would've been to have Misha Collins running wild like Heath Ledger's Joker for half a season. And how the Leviathan leader using Cas's body would've made the situation personal for Sam & Dean, and what an interesting redemption story could've come out of Cas eventually coming back somehow and using the possession experience to help defeat the Leviathans.

* Dean's absolute non-story, that built up to nothing and went nowhere. Dean is a depressed, post-traumatic alcoholic who longs to settle down with a family but believes he never can. I thought it would at least build to a breakdown, but no, he just struggled along and got bad advice from everyone and nothing happened. The theme is apparently... that Dean just needs to suck it up, except repressing his trauma won't work long term, but he needs to stop whining, but he needs to allow himself to be human...? How much more muddled and incoherent could a storyline get?

* They wasted so much screentime on Sam's hell!trauma/wall and then magically erased it. First of all they shouldn't have gone there, because Jared Padalecki can't pull off the depth and suffering as an actor, but once they did they shouldn't have lingered on it, because as an arc it had literally nowhere to go except away. Just, what a waste of time.

* They've apparently forgotten all the character traits. Remember how Sam was really smart and went to Stanford? Remember how Dean was raised as a hunter and is supposed to be really good at it? Remember their struggle over wanting to live meaningful lives that don't involve hunting monsters all the time? Remember when Sam was driven and passionate and not this zombie non-character? Remember when Dean was charismatic and hid his manpain under Han Solo attitude? Remember how John raised Sam and Dean to be warriors, and Dean based his entire sense of self-worth on John's opinion of him, and how pretending Bobby freaking Singer was their "adopted father" or whateverthefuck completely wipes out years of nuanced and amazing characterization that this show actually did well!?

* The pacing, the writing, the complete lack of investment or tension, the filler episodes, the offensive nonsense, the lack of build up to the final arc, the utter laziness and wasted potential.

Re: the finale, I am just glad this boring and pointless season is over and am very much hoping that the creative team will get their shit together and make an awesome season 8. My wishes for season 8:

* No quick fix in the first episode. Keep Sam and Dean apart and make the story of them getting Dean out of purgatory the first arc of the season, so that we can be invested and feel the tension of the situation.

* Take advantage of the purgatory setting! Bring back some of the good characters from earlier seasons and have some of the best monsters going after Dean in revenge for him and Sam sending them to purgatory. Think of all the great characters who might be there... Gordon, Alistair (PLEASE ALISTAIR!!),
Gabriel, Hendrickson (he was a ghost, would it count?), the Monster Movie shape shifter, Casey, Azazel, Lenore, that pervy vampire who vamped Dean, Ruby, maybe even John or Mary?

* Give Dean purgatory-related ~issues~ (woobie issues, anger issues, whatever, just something) and don't gloss over them. Use the opportunity to give Dean an arc that isn't unresolvable (wanting a family that, if he got it, would equal the end of the show is not ever going to be a satisfying arc) and is more interesting than "Dean is a depressed alcoholic, rinse and repeat."

* I know this is fannishly unpopular, but focus on the relationship between Dean and Cas, which actually has new areas left to explore, and stop retreading the same boring old Sam & Dean ground.

* Cas can still be fucked up, but please stop making him so boringly/annoyingly "TV crazy."

* Stop wasting our time with pointless filler episodes. Or if there has to be a few, at LEAST concentrate them in the first half of the season. Don't waste your finale arc on meaningless interruptions.

* Take risks. Don't go for the obvious, predictable narrative choices. (Egregious examples this season: Bobby asking them to burn the flask in the finale; Becky as Nasty Fangirl Stereotype; Cas magicing away Sam's hell!trauma.) Remember when this show used to be surprising? The truck crashing into the Impala in the S1 finale, John dying in the S2 premiere, Dean actually going to hell... do more of that.

* SHOW, DON'T TELL. This is my #1 request for next season. Do not take the lazy path of telling us what we're supposed to be feeling instead of drawing us in and making us feel it. Whatever the arc is next year, for the love of god, put in the damn effort to write and direct it well.

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

Comments

[kalliel]

Yes.


Words cannot describe how upset this makes me. ): And fandom's ficcing approaches aren't doing anything for me, either.

[rusty_halo]

I am hoping that Dean in purgatory will be the set up for a summer of Dean-centric angst and h/c.

[yourlibrarian]

In that 5 seconds we got of him at the end of 7x01, he was so amazing and scary and funny. Imagine how awesome it would've been to have Misha Collins running wild like Heath Ledger's Joker for half a season.

Exactly -- and they would have FINALLY had an idea of how to use MC for an entire season, which has apparently been beyond them since S4. I can only hope this decision is about money and not a complete lack of sense.

Just, what a waste of time.

Yeah, pretty much. It's a pity we couldn't have gotten more RoboSam in exchange because at least THAT was doing something different with the character and just as a concept it would have been interesting to explore what being soulless means in the SPNverse.

And just yes about forgetting what these characters were ever about.

Plus 100 times yes to your first suggestion about S8. But it will never happen. Nor, I suspect, will they do something with Dean & Cas which WOULD have more to develop in another team's hands. For whatever reason they don't seem to want Misha around for more than a few episodes a season.

Though I was expecting them to end up in Purgatory this season, and to find John and Mary in it, I'd hope they would do something useful with the idea next season. Instead, I suspect it's Bobby that Dean will find there.

[rusty_halo]

Oh, please no, not more Bobby. We just finally, finally, finally got rid of him after they dragged him out seasons longer than he should have existed and then wasted half a season on his bland and inane death arc. Please don't even joke that they might inflict him on us AGAIN!