Review Links For Your Enjoyment
Since I took three days to slack (and loved every bit of it) a few noteworthy reviews have surfaced that I felt compelled to share.
First, I finally got out yesterday, just hours before the next one was to air, my review of “Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid” on blogcritics. It isn’t very long but it pays attention to how different this zombie story is.
http://blogcritics.org/video/article/tv-review-supernatural-dead-men-dont1/
Also, some reviews of “Dark Side of The Moon” have already surfaced (I’m staring at a blank page not certain where to begin on mine). Maureen Ryan has put out a nice detailed review which as usual brings up some excellent points.
http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/entertainment_tv/2010/04/supernatural-dark-side-moon-cw.html
I’ve never linked to one of her reviews before, and I have no idea why because they’re always great. Tina Charles at TV Guide.com has her review up as well. Her reviews are always thorough and really ask some thought provoking questions. She claims on Twitter she was up all night doing this, so give it a look!
http://www.tvguide.com/Episode-Recaps/Supernatural/Supernatural-Episode-Recap-1016872.aspx
Amanda at Support Supernatural has her review up as well. Man, I admire the ability of everyone to do this so quickly!
http://www.supportsupernatural.com/s5e16review.htm
There are plenty out there, so if you see particular ones that you like, share the links below!
This message is from Deborah, giving a wonderful recommendation:
I just read an amazing LJ review/meta by Dodger Winslow, who always seems to have such insight (she even made me appreciate “Family Remains”!).
The entire meta is amazing. She touches on Dean, Sam, Cas, John (in particular drawing parallels to the ep “Home”), God, the loss of faith — in God by Castiel and in family and Sam by Dean — and many other things. But this, here, is so basically how I’d like to see this season endwhat ‘d like to see:
“So this episode? This Dark Side of the Moon of which they speak? It’s always darkest before the dawn, or so I hear. Castiel gives Dean the amulet, which to him represents faith in God. “This is worthless.” Dean throws the amulet, which to him represents family, in the trash. “I don’t trust you any more, Sam.”
So who do you think picks that amulet up out of the trash and takes it with him to the final confrontation? Around whose neck will the amulet be hung so there, in the presence of Joshua — who once told Dean in heaven, where Castiel was not, meaning the amulet also was not, that God is with them on Earth, but it isn?t God?s problem to save to save mankind, so Dean needed to get off this quest he was pursuing that was distracting him from the war that must be fought now, and must be fought by him, in order to be won — it will glow hot as Cain and Abel stand together as brothers to save mankind from being slain with the jawbone of an ass as Gabriel has always known would happen.
But that doesn’t happen. Because the wild card changed things. He changed things by rebelling against his Father’s design, just as he was designed to be capable of doing, but never had.
So around whose neck will the amulet be hung, I ask again? Why Lucifer’s, of course. Or mankind’s version of Lucifer at least. And by that, I mean Sam. Sam, the son who was so like his Father, and who was so loved by his brother, and who in service of his own pride (pride goeth before a fall), rebelled against his Father?s design and brought on Armageddon.
And it will be so because only in Sam redeeming himself by being the one who retrieves Dean’s discarded faith in family and self and his fellow man can Lucifer likewise redeem himself from his own fall from grace by CHOOSING not to slay his brother mankind out of jealousy for perceiving that brother the favored son in their Father’s eyes.”
The entire post is here: http://dodger-winslow.livejournal.com/222262.html#cutid1.
Maybe it’s only me, but I don’t think this reviewer likes Sam much. Did he rebel out of pride? I don’t think so. If you think about it, Sam was exercising Free Will – the same Free Will everybody defends – the right to choose what to do with HIS life. Was he doomed to a life of hunting, which he detested, just because he happened to be born in a family of hunters? Why wouldn’t a bright kid with a crappy family history go in search of something different? I don’t see jealousy as one of his reasons and I don’t see that John favored any of his sons either.
Other comments are interesting tough. Yes, I suppose the Amulet could end around the neck of Lucifer’s meat suit, which is a disturbing idea.
AndreaW, I guess that all of us have our own Supernatural world-view, but although this meta is very well-written, I think the writer’s need to prove their thesis has led them a bit too far from the known facts. And the writer is definitely a John-person and Dean-person and not a Sam-person or Castiel-person.
I think the basic problem is the characterisation of Castiel as the only angel other than Lucifer to exercise free will, and therefore as getting in the way of God’s plans. Since God “left the building”, all the angels have been exercising free will, not just Castiel. Which is itself presumably God’s plan. Provided he has one, of course. Who knows? He’s being pretty ineffable at the moment. Also, I don’t see the evidence that Castiel has chosen to be a man – he clearly regrets the loss of heaven and some of his angelic powers, and going by The End, he prefers the angels’ “much better club”.
I think the author also mischaracterises season 1, when John disappeared for reasons to do with YED, not for any reason to do with Dean’s development as a hunter, and it was Sam not Dean who persisted in searching for John rather than going on the hunts that John sent them to. And I think the reason John doesn’t want to get in touch is that because as soon as he does (Asylum/Scarecrow), it enables the YED’s daughter Meg to find Sam.
Even without those two main issues, either the meta becomes a bit incoherent towards the end or my skills at decoding text became worn out. Which is entirely possible, of course. It’s a thought-provoking meta, though, so I’m glad to have been pointed in its direction.