Deleted my last entry-fora while

[sistermagpie]

Because I realized there was no way it was going to come across the way it was in my head instead of as something else.

ETA: I didn't realize people had actually read it and wanted to comment. It seemed a little unfair to yank it in that case. I was able to find it by going back to a previous page, so here's the text of it again. Basically, I was worried that I'd accidentally made it sound like a big attack on Sam as a person/character that would leave me defending things I didn't really believe when really it was just that I thought it was a sloppy reset. But anyway, here's the basic idea of what I had said the first time around.



I've seen a couple of reactions that found the ep really emotional and providing for explanations of Sam's behavior, but to me it sort of felt like it was attempting to be emotional without dealing with the emotions it laid out for itself. So it was more like characters telling Dean where things stood now and since they had to get to a certain kind of resolution by the end of the ep they didn't have time for all the things that would have to be processed there. So I wound up feeling the way I often do with scripts that I feel weren't really well done, like I'm watching some alternate universe that only looks like the one I know but is probably some Ray Bradbury-esque illusion with a horrible reality underneath.

I'll willingly admit that maybe there's explanations coming that will make this make sense, and maybe be fine going forward, but the way it played to me last night was pure meta: the show ended on a pretty final note and they had to re-establish a new status quo that's almost like a pilot. So Sam had to be all over the place: justifying a deception by claiming he wanted to get Dean the life he wanted for himself but wouldn't take for himself and Bobby agreed with him, but showing very little investment in said life, to the point where by the end of the hour he seems to consider it a given that Dean should walk away from it.

There were times where I almost felt like I watching a character bashing fic, only without being sure which character was being bashed. The closest analogy I could think of in the scenes where Sam brings his new family to Dean's place and they proceed to mock it was that Dean had spent the summer at band camp and his bff Sam had made new friends on the swim team. Now he'd brought them to Dean's house so Dean could feel left out. Depending on the pov, the author's showing Sam getting a better family and shoving it in Dean's face LIKE DEAN DESERVES or the author's showing Sam being mean to poor Dean LIKE SAM ALWAYS IS.

Obviously I don't think it was either of those things intentionally, really, but that's the reason it came across as mostly awkward. Sam seemed as confused as anyone as to his behavior, and while that could be about some big traumatic revelation I don't know if JP is up to that if it is. (Sam's been numb for so long it's beginning to be just his personality.) I guess at this point I just don't trust that I'm being intentionally knocked off balance for a satisfying payoff instead of being asked to go along with the patch job and embrace Dean's conflict as organic instead of something he was tricked into (meaning not that Dean doesn't actually love Ben and Lisa but that it's now tied to people intentionally witholding information from him), and maybe be interested in there being even more male relatives running around.

Including one that was dead. As I said to someone earlier, apparently in the SPN universe if you're going to be pulled out of heaven or hell you must be gripped by the penis because nobody without one of those suckers is getting a second chance. When Samuel was telling Dean that he (Dean) reminded him of his (Dean's) mother I couldn't help but wish it was Mary that had been brought back. But then, I doubt a mom would go along with that kind of deception.

One thing I did love about the new Campbell members was oselle saying that wow, Sera Gamble really loves that "we've been fighting demons since the Mayflower!" thing and maybe we should look forward to a special Thanksgiving episode complete with period costumes!

I don't know. I saw some people saying their heart really broke for Dean, but I was only able to feel mildly annoyed on his behalf at being lied and condescended to throughout the ep. Even his choice not to go with Sam seemed less about protecting his family and more about nobody in their right mind agreeing to become the beta wolf in Sam's new pack. It was sort of another version of every fantasy of Sam's we've ever seen. ETA: "Beta wolf" being the word that came to mind not because Sam doesn't show any respect for Dean's ideas in the ep, but because whatever the reasons behind it, Dean's the newbie who isn't respected by anyone else in that team because he lived in a house with InStyle Magazine.

Thinking on it more, I thought of something that's going to sound very sexist but given the show that shouldn't be surprising. It seemed almost like Dean had to stay with Lisa and Sam because it was the only place where he was treated like a man. Like I said, sounds very sexist. But what I mean is that the whole plot against Dean was reminiscent of the way women were traditionally treated. He was lied to so that he couldn't make an informed decision about his life because people decided that was best to make him happy. When called on it they were defensive, feeling that Dean should be grateful. Basically they claimed Dean as a symbol to them. He was supposed to live the happy life that none of them wanted, but which made them feel good to have won for him. But at the same time you can't really respect somebody you're duping for their own good and out of your own good will. Lisa came out with far more dignity because when Dean tried to do the "I'm sorry I put you in this situation" she could truthfully say she had chosen it for herself. There really just isn't any good reason for letting your brother think you're being tormented eternally.

Comments

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Then on top of it, I'll read some ridiculous interview where the writers talk so confidently about what their intentions were even though none of that ever made its way onscreen in any coherent way. We wind up with the writers sitting on panels TELLING us what they should have SHOWN us, but never did.

This is so true. And that's going to be even worse with the situation where where the show clearly ended at the end of last season. Not only are they trying to reset everything with Dean in Sam's place but there's this whole introduction of the awesome Campbell family.

I think this wasn't so much a slam at Dean's domestic situation as a lame bit of humor from the writers -- just as it was oh-so-funny to see Dean wearing a suit and eating healthy food in "It's a Terrible Life" (another Gamble episode), it's oh-so-funny to see Dean living in a nice house with golf clubs in the closet and women's magazines on the coffee table. Side splitting!

I definitely thought that--even though there wasn't anything particularly emasculated about Dean's life. He'd somehow found himself that job that was pretty traditionally masculine, he was protecting his home, he was teaching a son how to fix cars.

On one hand I totally bought the hunter's attitude towards it. They're part of a subculture that's going to have all these conflicting feelings about it and I totally buy that this type of bravado is part of the package. Wasn't it even the girl who mocked the InStyle (while looking pretty, natch!). But it just pointed out the messiness of the story intentions. Like I said in your lj, we've got Sam who's committed himself to lying to his brother in an incredibly huge way, and bringing Bobby into it, but then he tosses it out the window for a couple of lame djinn with a weak motivation for going after Dean. Then he's telling Dean that he's doing this family a disservice by staying with them.

Again, they probably didn't intend it, but okay, this ep is sort of a flip of the pilot: Dean's got the domestic life and Sam wants him to hunt. But Sam's arc seems to have been coming to realize that he can't have that real life. So you could almost look at his actions here and feel like he set Dean up to go through the same thing he did. I don't think that's what he was supposed to be doing and it wasn't played that way, but I wonder if they thought, "Hey, Sam specifically wanted Dean to have the life he was going for in the pilot and by the end of the ep he's telling him he's wrong to want it." It doesn't seem like they did.

Total agreement on the Mitch Pileggi idea. If they wanted him I think the least they could have done was just make him an unknown Campbell (since there are so many of them, apparently!) who just looks like Samuel. It's just way too obviously he was chosen out of everyone to come back to life because he was played by Mitch Pileggi.

[oselle.livejournal.com]

they probably didn't intend it, but okay, this ep is sort of a flip of the pilot

But that is what they intended. At ComicCon the writers and the actors were all talking about the big "role reversal." So we're definitely supposed to see this as a flip of the pilot.

But it doesn't even work as that because Sam supposedly wanted Dean to have this life, to the extent that he made Dean promise that he would pursue it. Dean never exacted any deathbed oaths from Sam about getting a law degree. It's also such a false equivalency...Sam in the pilot was still pretty much a kid. He was a grad student with a committed relationship, but at the age of twenty-two, nothing is set in stone. And even though Dean didn't really "get" Sam's life, he still drove him back to Stanford to continue living it...and in time for his job interview to boot. I've heard people say that Dean dragged Sam back into the hunting life, but he didn't...he just dragged Sam out of the trap the YED had set for him, and after Jessica died it was Sam who wanted to get on the road and hunt him down. I don't think the show plans to torch Lisa and Ben, but they're going to have to find some reason to get Dean back in the game and judging from the way the djinn was used in this episode, I suspect that reason will be hopelessly lame.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Yes! That's exactly what seemed so weird, that the parallels to the pilot were obvious but it seemed like they weren't being very careful about the ways that it wasn't. Like, they must see them but they're not important. The motivations in the pilot were straightforward and here they were weirdly twisted but it's almost like they were presented as if they weren't. Dean's motives are muddled because he's been manipulated and lied to and Sam's motives are muddled because they just are.