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movietvtechgeeks · 6 years

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'Supernatural' Good Intentions aka paving that road to hell

I’m going to do something I never thought I’d do for a review. I’m going to give you a disclaimer with this Supernatural review: If you cannot separate any actor from the character they play (the main picture above is a helpful hint), then you’re free to go. Class dismissed. No hard feelings. Seriously. In fact, I’d rather you go. Still here? Okay, then. I’m going to start with a brief rundown of an episode I skipped reviewing last month, “Devil’s Bargain.” I skipped it for a very personal reason: because unlike some fans, I don’t hate Eugenie Ross-Leming and Brad Buckner. I don’t think they’re awful writers. I don’t think they’re misogynists or racists, in fact, I think the opposite. I don’t think “Taxi Driver” is that bad compared to a lot of other episodes we’ve endured. I think “Route 666” is unbelievably underrated and if possible more relevant now than it was twelve years ago. Finally, I think a lot of fandom screaming “canon fail” at them is a two-fold issue: one, we’re all very married to our head-canons and two, all the writers do it and alway have. Blaming just them is simply childish. And before you say it, no, I don’t care that they wrote the death of Charlie Bradbury. Seriously. I don’t care. The character was way past expiration, like a couple other characters that we’re still enduring. I digress. For now, a quick rundown of “Devil’s Bargain.” It was… okay. Danneel Ackles made her Supernatural debut as faith healer Sister Jo, but frankly, even before her first scene aired, we all knew she’d be revealed as an angel. Now, as someone in fandom, it’s hard to remove yourself from knowing that you’re watching Jensen Ackles’ wife onscreen, but since I’d watched Danneel on TV way before they even began dating I have a slight advantage, and there were definitely shades of her One Tree Hill character, Rachel Gatina, in Sister Jo. While, I would’ve liked to see a bit more comedy out of this role, because I think that’s where Danneel Ackles shines, the sultry selfishness of Sister Jo wasn’t unwelcome. In fact, it was refreshing to finally see an angel who wasn’t wearing a boring suit and acting like an office drone. Honestly, Supernatural, the angels and demons on your show have become so homogenous. One big blurry blob of maybe good, maybe bad, but all definitely bored, ad execs. Sister Jo and Lucifer were the actual highlights of this episode, separately and together. Their encounters were unsettling, but they were supposed to be, and the performances were there. Yeah, the dialogue was wordy, that’s Ross-Leming and Buckner for you, but a good actor can turn wordy into conversational. Danneel Ackles and Mark Pellegrino were able to do that. Was the sexual metaphor heavy handed? Oh, yeah, totally. That said, after the very literal hammers to the head in Steve Yockey’s episode “Various & Sundry Villains” we learned that it’s not a deal breaker for an episode. Misha Collins himself once said there was nothing subtle about the writing in Supernatural. You know what is a deal breaker, though? When your tertiary characters outweigh your primary leads and secondary regular. I spent every moment that Dean, Sam, and Castiel were on screen thinking, “can we get back to Lucifer and Sister Jo?” And it wasn’t the director, I can’t blame Eduardo Sanchez for the drag in momentum, because if anyone can build tension and deliver it’s the director of The Blair Witch Project. Sanchez is horror royalty, a tension king. I’m not going to blame the writing either because again, Danneel Ackles and Mark Pellegrino were engaging. I blame the show running and the editing. I know, I know, I’m not being subtle in where I’m going with this, but we’ll get back to that later. Anyway, “Devil’s Bargain” was passable. Not a top 20 episode, but not a bottom 20 one either. It existed. It’ll be mostly memorable for the fact that Danneel Ackles was in it. Her presence, whether it was because you know her from One Tree Hill, know her as Jensen’s wife, or just plain enjoyed Sister Jo, basically saved this episode from complete obscurity. What’s that you say? But what about the big reveal of Gabriel at the end? Well, if we hadn’t seen it coming, it might have been cool. Same with Bobby in the next episode. There’s no shock left because like with Ruthie Connell’s, between the cast, crew, and PR we know everything weeks in advance. Speaking of the next episode, let’s get into episode 13.14, “Good Intentions,” penned by Meredith Glynn and directed by P.J. Pesce. I’m going to get two petty things out of the way because they are the least of the problems with this episode; the camera angles were really awkward, and the use of the episode title in the dialogue during act one was, wow, hammers to the head again, anyone? I have one more issue that’s less about writing, directing, and acting, but I’m saving it for, you guessed it: later. Have you been filing away those “laters”? Hope so. What I am going to get into here is the overall writing of this episode, specifically the dialogue and characterization. First of all, can we stop asking how Castiel is all the time? I get that you are all struggling to justify the character, but no one, absolutely no one, gets asked about or talks about their feelings more than the soulless angel. It’s honestly preposterous when you think about it. We’re also going to have Castiel be the one both worried about and coddled over Lucifer being free? The dude who let Lucifer free? I know you’re fairly new, Meredith, so hey, let’s give you a break, I mean no one expects you to understand twelve years of canon. Who can? Except millions of fans who aren’t paid to do so. Let’s also discuss how you’re going to have characters that are “sometimes referred to as brothers” and then send Castiel and Dean off to fight them? Meredith, Meredith, Meredith. No ma’am. That’s just bad narrative symmetry. A rookie move, honestly. So is using “migraine” and “headache” interchangeably, but that’s a pet peeve puddle I’d don’t have the patience to play in, not when there’s an entire pond of “what even is going on here??” to paddle through. Actually, no, I’m going to address this a bit further; if I’m so removed from your storyline that I have the ability to focus your very common, yet annoying, medical inconsistency then something is very wrong. And what’s wrong is that this episode is an Everlasting Gobstopper of info dumping. It’s all exposition. No heart, no soul, no characterization. All tell and no show. This episode felt feature length and not in a good way. Actually, the only one in character is Mary. Her caring about six-month-old manchild, Jack when she can’t seem to genuinely care about her six-month-old baby turned hero of a man; Sam was very spot on. Although, I somehow don’t think you intended that bit of irony. Speaking of Mary and Jack, let’s get into a bit about the alternate world. It’s a cool idea, Andrew Dabb. In theory, it really is. I mean, apocalypse AUs have never been my personal preferred fanfic trope, but I get that it’s popular. In execution, however, if you’re going to retread the characters of Michael and Zachariah in new bodies then you need to have writers that can keep the characterization consistent with the season 4 and season 5 characters we knew. These two dudes aren’t that. Don’t get me wrong, the physical casting for Michael is superb, very nice eye candy, and hey, I’ll even allow the argument that we saw so little of Michael in SPN 1.0 that you and your writers have room to play. But Zachariah? Kurt Fuller’s performance is what brought Zachariah to life, the combination of determination, manipulation, and exhaustion all delivered with smug sarcasm. This Zachariah, he’s a generic second in command character. He could literally be anyone. You’ll notice I’ve barely mentioned Sam Winchester. Yeah. That’s because you forgot to write him and the director forgot to focus on him and yo, I’m so tired. So let’s talk about all the “laters”, shall we? I said I wasn’t going to blame director Eduardo Sanchez and honestly, I have very little blame for P.J. Pesce aside from some dubious camera angle choices. I blame the writing and the show running. Now if you’re someone who preaches Team Free Will, that door from earlier is still open, please, walk through it, because there is nothing more tedious than a scene with Dean, Sam, and Castiel or Dean and Castiel. I’m not here to debate that; it’s my opinion in my opinion piece. Not one single writer can keep the dialogue in these types of scenes flowing. It’s forever awkward, stilted, and redundant and very clearly existing because it’s required by the showrunner. Every season for the past few years has been Castiel screwing up, then storming in thinking he knows better, then screwing up again. Maybe that’s a sign the character has overstayed? Perhaps. Fact is, it’s become so boring. The only consistent thing about Castiel is his hubris followed by his pouting and moping. Another I later implied was editing. I have so many issues with the editing in this episode. Listen, horror genre is my thing. Good horror movies, bad horror movies, slasher flicks, torture porn, psychological thrillers, ghost, monsters, all of it. I love it. Often times what makes or breaks a horror movie isn’t the acting or the writing, it’s the editing. It’s the way scenes are put together. It’s the sound mixing. It’s practical effects versus reliance on CGI. This episode failed on each of these points. The thudding steps from the “giants” Gog and Magog sounded comical, not to mention the fact that we suddenly had subtitles for an ancient language. Oh, I get it, Meredith had jokes. Anyway. The other editing failures were the cut from Zachariah tossing Jack into his cell to Jack landing and several other POV switch edits that were equally as awkward and choppy. Not to mention the random moments of surprise!shaky cam. This episode felt cobbled together out of several other things. Not other episodes, actual different projects. As for the CGI, the lighting in the AU world was very near animated in appearance. The reveal of Zachariah pretending to be Castiel felt like funhouse horror editing, which can work… if you’re watching The Houses October Built. Not to mention the beheading of the giant was pretty bad, especially for a show that has had amazing beheadings in the past. And Jack turning the angels into missiles was just… I don’t even have words. Again, I come from a horror background, so these things matter a lot. But finally, my last, and biggest gripe is this: what even are we doing? Season 13, what is your thesis statement? We are fourteen episodes into this season, and there’s no story. Not really. We spent the first half setting up a spin-off that may or may not happen, and now we’re just throwing spaghetti at a wall. Michael, Mary, Jack, Lucifer, Asmodeus, Bobby, the AU world, the real world. It’s all a hodgepodge. The only thing I know for certain is what this season isn’t about. Sam and Dean Winchester.

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#Dannell Ackles #Featured #Good Intentions #Jared Padalecki #Jensen Ackles #Supernatural

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mittensmorgul · 6 years

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Paving the Road to Hell

After 13.14, an episode whose title even deliberately prompts us to question the actions and choices of Team Free Will, I’ve seen a lot of backlash over the moral dubiousness of some of those choices and actions. It’s rather frustrating that the distant past is being used as a comparison for why their current moral quandaries are somehow condemnable. But Sam and Dean Winchester, going all the way back to s1, have always operated in this wide morally grey area. Even Castiel has struggled with this since the start, despite his initial conviction that his orders were just and beyond moral reproach because they came from Heaven. It took uncovering the extent of Heaven’s corruption for him to reject those orders, but even that choice didn’t come from a standpoint of Lawful Good intent. Siding with humanity (and Dean) simply became the less morally objectionable choice in Castiel’s opinion.

This goes right back to season one, and Dean telling Sam and John that he was appalled at what he was willing to do to protect them. He shot and killed what he knew to be an innocent human being possessed by a demon in order to save John and Sam in 1.22, and he didn’t regret it one bit. Tell me how objectively heroic that was?

(in the sense of “When in doubt, when none of your choices are good, save what you love,” yeah, it’s entirely understandable.)

And that’s just one instance out of hundreds. For anyone who truly believes that Sam and Dean (and now Cas, as well) haven’t always occupied this moral grey area, I invite you to rewatch the entire series. I rewatched 4.16 today, and I think this episode is a particularly excellent example of this for all three of them.

S4 had been gradually revealing the extent of Sam’s involvement with Ruby and just how “darkside” he’d gone under her tutelage. We learned right up front in 4.01 that he was lying to Dean about her and in 4.04 that he was lying to Dean about using his powers. We (and Dean) learn even more about Sam and Ruby’s relationship in 4.09, and we (but NOT Dean) learn about the blood drinking power up in 4.16. Dean only discovers that bit of trivia in 4.20, and he takes immediate steps to “detox” Sam from Ruby’s influence and the demon blood in 4.21. All of that fails because Cas frees Sam on Heaven’s orders, but the big dramatic irony of the entire season was that they’d all been lied to and manipulated into doing exactly what Heaven (and Hell) wanted them to do.

They were told all along that they needed to kill Lilith because she would start the apocalypse, when all along KILLING LILITH was the key to freeing Lucifer and STARTING the apocalypse. All their fraught moral compromises were for naught, their squabbles over who was strong enough or destined to kill Lilith were a distraction. The entirety of s4 was about setting the board for the actual prize fight in s5.

Knowing the futility of all their actions through the power of Hindsight™, it makes their moral corruption (Sam’s conviction that his self-sacrifice was for the greater good, and Dean’s conviction that Heaven’s path to killing Lilith was morally just) is where the dramatic irony of the entire season comes to a head.

But let’s explore some of their morally questionable choices and actions just from within the context of a single episode, and specifically a single episode that directly addresses what is right and what is objectively wrong, and pits them against their current beliefs and their good intentions.

The episode begins with a woman in white, lying dead on the ground as car alarms blare. That was the episode’s version of the Kill Bill Siren going off here. Cas silences the alarms-- ignores the alarms, essentially, over his sister’s body. He disappears in a flap of wings as we see the dead angel’s wings imprinted in charcoal on the ground.

What he doesn’t know, but will by the end of the episode, is that her murder was arranged to convince him to agree to support Uriel’s “orders,” to recruit Dean to torture Alastair. The entire situation was a setup to further Heaven’s corrupt agenda, to keep Dean under their thumb, to encourage Sam to continue his self-corruption drinking Ruby’s blood in preparation to kill Lilith as it was prophesied.

In this episode, Anna was the wild card. Her position as a fugitive from Heaven, who’d rebelled against her orders, who cared so much for humanity that she’d fallen and become human and only recovered her grace to save her own life and continue working to undermine Heaven’s agenda, allowed her to act as both the metaphorical angel on Cas’s shoulder, as well as his literal savior.

At the beginning of the episode, Sam and Dean are returning from Pamela’s funeral. Yet another character killed because they thought they were doing the right thing asking for her help. Saving a seal was more urgent, so they brought her in to help despite her clear objections in 4.15:

Pamela: Yeah, I do. And guess what? I'm sick of being hauled back into your angel-demon, Soc-Greaser crap.

She also delivered the coup de grace of this entire point leading into 4.16. As she lay dying because she’d agreed to help and been caught up in the line of fire, she whispers this warning in Sam’s ear:

Pamela: I know what you did to that demon, Sam. I can feel what's inside of you. If you think you have good intentions, think again.

But of course he doesn’t… his inability to save Pamela only drives him further into Ruby’s confidence, doubling down on making himself “stronger” by drinking her blood and intensifying his psychic powers. But Pamela’s dying words, now made the title of 13.14, set up some of the biggest examples of Good Intentions paving superhighways to Hell.

While torturing the demon who’d literally trained Dean to torture, put into this position by angels of Heaven, Dean learns that his own personal self-ruination through his moment of weakness in Hell had been the singular act that broke the first seal and ushered in the apocalypse. Talk about a demoralizing blow.

Cas fought against what he’d always believed was wrong. He may have doubted Heaven’s orders, but Anna’s suggestion that they were on the same side was a bridge too far for him to cross yet. At first he was receptive to her council that forcing Dean to torture was wrong, because he felt similarly ambivalent, until she implied they could work together… his doubts continued, but it took Dean breaking again, and the further uncovering of evidence that Uriel (and possibly Heaven in general) were at the very least working against the general good:

Castiel: Lucifer is not God. Uriel: God isn't God anymore. He doesn't care what we do. I am proof of that.

Cas continues to struggle with what is right, with whom to trust, and what lengths he’s willing to go to, how much of his loyalty to Heaven is deserved:

ANNA: What do you want from me, Castiel? CASTIEL: I'm considering disobedience. ANNA: Good. CASTIEL: No, it isn't. For the first time, I feel... ANNA: It gets worse. Choosing your own course of action is confusing, terrifying. ANNA puts her hand on CASTIEL's shoulder. He looks at it; she drops it. ANNA: That's right. You're too good for my help. I'm just trash. A walking blasphemy. CASTIEL: Anna. I don't know what to do. Please tell me what to do. ANNA: Like the old days? No. I'm sorry. It's time to think for yourself.

Meanwhile, when Dean is taken away to torture Alastair, Sam’s first move is to call on Ruby for help. She not only locates Dean for him, but reinforces Sam’s dependence on her and his belief that drinking her blood will make him more powerful. When Sam eventually arrives to find Dean unconscious and beaten by Alastair, who’s on the verge of defeating Castiel as well, and he uses the demonically-given powers that Uriel and Castiel-- not to mention Dean-- had been warning him off of all season long to literally save the day. Talk about positive reinforcement of a massive objectively Morally Negative behavior, you know?

Cas stands appalled when Sam proudly tells Alastair that he’s become strong enough to kill with his powers, and then proves it by killing Alastair.

The thing is, based on the information they had at the time, ALL of their actions seemed morally justifiable. They had goals they’d established in the name of the good of the entire world. Their INTENTIONS were GOOD. And they literally paved the road to Hell by the end of the season.

So, no, the entire fandom hasn’t suddenly flipped our collective morality in justifying any of their actions in season 13. We as the audience are being given more information upfront this time around, underscoring the dramatic irony of some of their objectively morally grey choices, but the characters’ beliefs that they’re all acting with Good Intentions is easier to deconstruct when we have more of the puzzle pieces to work with than we did in s4 (or s6, or s8 for that matter…).

We’re not being show a more morally corrupt or objectively shady version of TFW. We’re just in on the season’s irony so that we can see their good intentions go so horribly wrong in real time instead of only with the benefit of hindsight.

I’m just really tired of holding up s13 TFW up against past seasons and refusing to recall just how bad most of their intentions have gone in the past.

#spn 4.16 #spn 4.15 #s13 meta rewatch #spn 13.14 #dramatic irony is the the magnetic force holding all of s13 together #can we PLEASE stop looking at the past through rose colored glasses?#supernatural has never presented our heroes as objectively morally correct and good #they've always made morally debatable choices but they've also never really been faced with any objectively GOOD choices either #even the revelation of Dean's fated role as the Righteous Man who will stop the apocalypse is mired in moral quandaries #from the fact it was the demon that corrupted him in Hell who gave him that title #to the fact that HE WAS CORRUPTED IN HELL IN ORDER TO EARN THE TITLE... i mean...#tell me how any of that's morally upstanding or commendable?#you're watching supernatural... which is a HORROR show in case anyone forgot #and is not and never has been a show about demonstrating objective morality

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safetypinsymphony · 6 years

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Road to hell paved with "Good Intentions"... (thoughts on SPN and episode 13.14)

I've had some time to chew on my response to this past episode, and I still haven't watched it again. Don't think I will, either. It's not that it was gaudy awful; it just, hmmm … okay, I'm just not invested in this ensemble cast that the show is pushing at us.

cassiopeia7 and caranfindel have both written wonderful, entertaining recaps/reviews of “Good Intentions”, so hit their journals if that's what you're looking for.

I'm going to be contemplative about the current direction of the show, with a big dose of Sam!girl salt. Just so's you know. I'm still in it for the long haul, but I have complaints. (No, YOU?) This essay is also over on my LJ, so if anyone would rather reply there, for ease of reading and/or privacy, please do so!

As I said above, Supernatural has become an ensemble cast. Jared and Jensen may still be in every episode, to varying degrees, but their characters are no longer actually the central nexus of the mytharc. This is different from the first half of the series' run in that Sam and Dean's relationship and watching them untangle the mystery that was their family (as well as themselves), kept us glued to the TV. Not anymore.

Nowadays, a fan is as likely to be watching for Destiel or Wayward Sisters or Jack or anything else BUT Sam and Dean. And given the popularity of this Destiel business, anything else but Sam.

And it shows.

Sam and Dean are often little more than guest stars in their own series these days. Not only that, they've gone from 'epic' heroes to 'iconic' heroes. (I mentioned this elsewhere, but I'll recap here, because it has merit, IMHO.)

We all pretty much know what an epic hero is: a man whose fortune is brought about by his own admired characteristics. They're proactive, rise above their flaws, and take on Herculean (see what I did there?) tasks. The iconic hero, however, is more like a Conan the Barbarian or a Mad Max. The tale isn't really about them, but they are the thread that connects the plot points together. They're almost like tour guides through a story. This is pretty typical for procedural television, actually. (How much did Jessica Fletcher from 'Murder She Wrote' actually evolve?) Problem is, that's not really how SPN gained the rabid, loyal fanbase that it did. It started as a horror procedural, but bottled lightning when Kripke and Singer realized the magic they had in the relationship between Sam and Dean. It wasn't just the chemistry between the actors; the audience tuned in to watch the brothers unpack their emotional baggage and struggle with each other and a difficult paternal relationship. All the while, monsters, demons and angels nipped at their heels, and ultimately, they had to confront the fact that both of them were inextricably entwined, by blood, with a fate bigger than mankind. They started, and thwarted, The Apocalypse.

Nowadays? The Winchesters have become iconic heroes in the MotW episodes, MacGuffins in the mytharc ones. Per TVTropes: “A MacGuffin (a.k.a. McGuffin or maguffin) is a term for a motivating element in a story that is used to drive the plot. It serves no further purpose.”

Jack wants to be on the 'good' side for the Winchesters. Mary is being told that her sons made a positive difference, so she feels worthy herself. Claire returns to the roost to save Sam and Dean, thereby kicking off Wayward Sisters. Cas, uh, well Dean's there for him so that Destiel shippers have something to do. And Sam is there for Rowena to sucker him into giving her powerful magical whatevers, so she can return to bite them on the ass later. If we're SUPER lucky, we'll get a scattered handful of lines that reveal something about what's going on in Sam or Dean's noggin. Nothing about Sam-and-Dean's relationship. (Wee, it's so healthy now!) Nothing about them being supposedly too “important” to reap yet, per Billie-as-Death. (My guess is Dabb has nothing concrete planned for this.)

Lucifer doesn't give two shits about Sam as his original vessel, nor will Michael give any shits about Dean being his. Sam and Dean are just annoying flies in the ointment, eminently disposable.

Honestly, think about it: if Sam and Dean actually died died right now, it would impact absolutely nothing, plot-wise. Cas would continue to track Lucifer, Jody would continue to shepherd her girls, Mary and Jack would keep each other safe, trying to escape Apocaworld … I'm seriously not invested in the plot anymore. I watch the show out of fidelity, for the horror and the handsome.

This past episode, Sam stayed behind in the bunker while Dean and Cas went off and had a rough-n-tumble little adventure together. Sam, on the other hand, was easily taken out by Donatello, apparently overpowered Donatello later (off-camera) and then spent the last scene of the episode out of focus. Literally wallpaper. (Dean tends to be the Little Black Dress of the show; he looks good with everyone, so he gets screentime no matter what, with lots of those loving shots that linger on his face. I do enjoy those, make no mistake! But y'all know me... )

It's like they're dividing the show into two parts: the MotW episodes, with our iconic heroes (Sam and Dean) going through their typical paces, and the mytharc episodes, wherein our iconic heroes fade into set design, as the other characters become the epic heroes. Or epic villains, as the case may be. And I have to be completely honest: I don't much care about these epic characters. I'm just not invested in them.

I became invested in Supernatural like no other show. It struck me like a heart attack. I have never once wanted to find tie-in novels or search out additional products before, which is how I stumbled on fandom in general, the SPN one, in specific. But I'll tell you, if the current genesis of the show had been the one I'd seen, 13 years ago? I never would've gotten hooked. No way in hell. And this makes me reeeeeally frustrated, as the characters that got me addicted to begin with are still on the show, yet written with such disinterest.

Yeah, I know, it's not easy to explore characters who have long histories. It's far easier to take on characters who are still pretty much blank slates. I get it. Doesn't change the facts for me. SPN is a show that was conceived as one thing, turned into something else, and now is suffering for it. This season has been more “ensemble” than most. Thanks, Dabb. Ya fucker.

The next episode seems to be a MotW, so at the very least, I'm sure to get something more than Sam knocked out or blurred into obscurity. Right?

#Safetypin stuff #show meta #13x14 good intentions

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