Next up in our Carver episode reviews is his first effort in season 4, the time-travelling extravaganza "In The Beginning." Young John! Young Mary! Samuel Campbell! Azazel! Bad wardrobe! Worse cars! This episode has it all!
- Bye, Sam! Enjoy your episode off!
- There's something kind of sad about a person sleeping on top of the covers fully clothed, not being able to relax even in sleep.
- The hell flashbacks are 100% worse because all we see are Dean's terrified eyes.
- It's weird seeing Castiel back when we really weren't sure if he was a friend or foe.
- My grandma used to love Tab. I really got a kick out of this bench ad.
- John's a "Star Trek" fan! And a Sonny and Cher fan!
- I love the synchronized turn when the guy comes into the diner and calls out the name Winchester.
- When Dean makes the DeLorean reference to Cass, his reaction is hilarious. You can just see him trying to work it out in his head: "Why is Dean talking about cars? Should I ask him about it? No, that will probably tarnish my badassness, so I'll just ignore it and continue being mysterious. Also, my hair looks amazing right now."
- Of course I would NEVER trade the Impala for any car in the world. That being said, can you just imagine if Sam and Dean had grown up with a VW bus??? Sam could fit inside it! They could store a gajillion guns and things in there!
- I want to take the scene between Dean and John in the car lot where they talk about Baby and just hug it. It's precious!
- Cattle mutilations! Subtle, Dean. Subtle.
- Awkward family stalking!!! And yes, Dean, your mom is a babe. Did I mention awkward?
- The Mary is a hunter reveal was AMAZING!!!! Loved that. Also, she kicks some ass.
- Mitch Pileggi was such inspired casting. He's great.
- Dean's "Wait, I'm named after my GRANDMA?" face is hilarious.
- It's fascinating to hear how hunting happened back before you could just look things up online...or call Bobby to figure it out. Getting weather reports by mail? It's impressive that hunters managed to kill anything before it moved on. Maybe monsters were lazier...
- I've seen this episode a number of times and just caught Samuel telling Mary hunting is the "family business." Duh, self.
- Where did Dean get that priest outfit on such short notice?
- One of my favorite parts of television is the "walk two feet away from somebody and talk about them like they can't hear it." Dean and Mary do a classic version after interviewing the kid on the farm.
- Apropos of nothing, Deanna makes a mean fruit salad.
- I love the idea of Samuel telling Mary the story of the Colt as a bedtime story. Of course he would!
- My new favorite dialogue of the episode is; Dean: "My dad wrote down every person he ever thought came in contact with the yellow-eyed demon, who, where, and when." Samuel: "Why?" All they needed was a "what"!
- Dear Jeremy Carver, I would like my heart back, please. The scene you wrote between Mary and Dean RIPPED IT OUT! Ugh, with Mary being all, "the worst thing I can imagine is for my kids to be raised into this" and Dean telling her not to get out of bed, and him trying to hold it together and failing, and the SINGLE MANLY TEAR OF PAIN AND SUFFERING! UGH!
- It's weird seeing Castiel teleport into Dean's car without hearing the wing ruffling sound. I guess they hadn't introduced that yet. Also, "Sam's not looking for you." Ouch.
- Ah, cleaning the guns as family bonding. It's a hunter classic!
- Dean made good time in his POS little car, getting to Colorado and back in time to help save his mom in Liddy Walsh's house.
- I have to say, I love that they made John so sweet and not a hunter because it makes it that much more devastating that he ends up being such a hardass.
- I think Dean's angry face should be powerful enough to kill a demon all by itself. He's terrifying.
- Azazel leaning in to sniff Dean while he's in Samuel's body is ULTRA CREEPY. I think it's the creepiest part of the episode, even worse than Mary making the demon deal and kissing her dad. That's just gross.
- Dean manages to get Azazel monologuing, but I will give Azazel credit for not spilling the beans on his endgame like most villains end up doing.
- I love Azazel's moment of doubt after Dean tells him he's the one that kills him. He believes him, and for a brief moment, he's scared.
- Mary makes the demon deal, and down the rabbit hole we go. So Sam and Dean get their deal-making prowess from both sides of the family.
- What do you think would happen if Dean shot a demon with the Colt while it was smoking out? Why does a demon have to be corporeal for the Colt to work?
- Aw, the look on Castiel's face at the end...he's starting to have feelings! Next stop, getting too close to the humans in his charge. (And his hair still looks amazing.)
- I want to know how Mary explained her dead father, a disappearing Dean, how John wasn't dead, because you know he remembered Samuel attacking him, and a random car that wasn't there when John died. That's one hell of a story.
- Ooh, a threat from Castiel and then a To Be Continued! A menacing ending to an excellent episode.
- I know I didn't talk about the time travelling much, and that's because it hurts my brain to think about it. I mean, does John, who's in heaven at this point, suddenly get a memory of his son coming to the past and talking him into buying the Impala? If Dean hadn't gone back in the first place, how would Azazel have caught her scent? He obviously still does, but what would the circumstances of that be? My brain is mush now. I need a drink.
Comments
That said, I loved the look at young Mary and John. I loved Samuel and Deanna. I hate that the show later trashed Samuel without adequate explanation. Azazel was extremely creepy and Dean getting to see his parents was wonderful.
This is an episode that I have extremely mixed feelings about.
I love Season 6, but one of the things I hate most about that season is the use of the Campbells. They were introduced and eliminated far too quickly, IMO.
Plus, it never made any sense to me why Samuel made the choices he did? I know he missed Mary, but the whole idea was strange.
I think that all of season six had too much stuffed into it, so various parts got short shrift. Plus Samuel was part and parcel of the Soulless!Sam story, once they decided to end that mid-season Samuel no longer had a place. Dean never trusted him, Sam couldn't remember him so he and poor Gwen got killed and never mentioned again.
But Samuel would be sure Heaven existed because he was there and so I never got the real motivation to go so far as to agree to a demon to get Mary back, especially when it meant he'd be sacrificing her sons . I think they should've had Crowley tell him that Mary was in Hell, but saving his daughter from Hell would have made sense. The Campbell just didn't work for me.
Makes you wonder what Samuel C. did to end up in Hell. Maybe an un-natural attachment to his daughter Mary?
No I have to believe that Cas screwed Grandpa by pulling him from heaven and leaving him disoriented and desperate (for no real reason that we saw) and so a perfectly safe soul eventually, probably ended up in Hell. Although maybe not, because neither side of the deal was completed.
The problem with Samuel was he was supposed to be this great hunter with all this knowledge but he didn't make very smart decisions. Working with Crowley? He was a Campbell, not a Winchester so I'm not sure why he had to make the same decisions as a Winchester would. Why not show him accepting his daughter's death and being an ally to the boys?
I feel like no thought was put into Samuel or why the Campbells resurfaced, and then they were all systematically killed. Why? Yes, Christian was snarky with Dean, but I liked their interactions. And I love Corin Nemec. If the Campbells were still around and not shown to be evil, then Sam could have rejoined them this year or hunted with them a few times while continuing
to do mostly solo hunts. Maybe they could have helped Sam search for Dean.
We never got to see how Sam found them. We never got to see them interact much with the REAL Sam. They were wasted for no reason.
And can I say I loved Sam having his own allies and friends instead of Dean's friends/allies. Many of the S/D's friends are really Dean's associates/frie nds. It was nice to see Sam with his own network of people but, of course, they were "evil" and are all now dead.
Like the fact the Dean was the one who told his dad to buy his baby. Young John is bittersweet. He so nice and seems almost innocent, before he became the harden hunter.
Love the fact that Mary was a hunter too. Mitch Pileggi was great. I thought the reintroduction of the Campbells in S6 was not done well. But I really like the character here.
That scene between Dean and Mary WAS a killer and so nicely done.
So many good things about this episode. My favorite of his of S4.
The only comment I have to make is that John never remembered seeing grown up Dean in this or the other time travel (1978) episode. This was because, in my opinion, Michael had said he would scrub John and Mary's minds. Or maybe Cas did it but it wasn't included in the story...hmm...
I understand a lot of people were miffed that this was a Samless episode, but I think it served a great purpose in advancing the mythology of the show. And I'm sure Jared enjoyed his little jaunt to Hawaii!
As far as Dean was concerned, for years I thought that this event happened in Dean's dreams, because that is where he interacted with the angels during S4; even Cas at times. I'm not sure about that now, after the re-introduction of perv Grandpa Campbell in S6.
I like Carver's episodes, because they often introduce new and interesting ways to take the story, all of which were never picked up by later episodes. In this episode, it was Grandpa Campbell. When it was announced that the Campbells were coming back in S6 and that there was a role reversal, I thought perhaps Dean would be the one arguing with him and Sam would be put in Dean's mediator role. Sadly, they turned Grandpa into some weird pervert and totally trashed his character in a season that was just a mess.
I, too, liked young John. I never bought into the fact that Mary was a young, independent, kick-ass hunter, especially in the early 70s, because the late 60s and 70s were all about women struggling to be recognized as equals to men -- the whole burning of the bras era. I also didn't think Mary came off too well in this episode. She wanted her way. She wanted to stay home and have babies. What the episode showed was that her stubborn, selfish wishes, and standing-up-to- daddy got her parents killed and doomed her future family. After spouting about wanting kids and NOT raising them in the life, she chooses John over her kids, and dooms herself, that husband, and her kids. That's not heroic. I never bought that she didn't know what she was getting into and, if not, she surely did not ask enough questions to find out.
Deanna, I thought, was a great character, much more believable than Mary, and I would have liked to have seen more of her. The actress did a wonderful job in projecting a strong personality, even with what little screen time she had. Along with that, she was able to project that she was a calming agent on both Samuel and Mary. It was perfect that Dean was named after her, since he became the peacemaker between John and Sam and also has a recognizable independence.
As far as Dean was concerned, the episode was really good in showing that Dean just never gives up or quits. That's the Dean that, I hope, gets him through a year in Purgatory.
So, again, not on my top ten list, but I liked the episode, because it advanced the mytharc for both Sam and Dean.
The deal that was made by Mary changed Sam's life ten yrs before he was born , it was the reason he was violated at 6 mths old .It was pivotal to everything about him and not only was he not allowed to find out for himself why his mother said sorry to him from Home but he didnt get to react to it at all.
We saw Dean react and witness what Mary did but we were never supposed to care how the very person so dramatically affected felt about it.
I understand story . plot and it fitted with what Eric was doing with Sam that season and I know it is a very much liked episode but it will never be one I can take to.
Where are the episodes evidencing Sam's anger problems? Where were they after SI aired?
I guess his beating up the bully in After School Special might have constituted anger, but again most people aren't warm and fuzzy to the people who bully them and their friends. For the most part Sam has been pretty mild mannered and has not acted in anger unless influenced by supernatural forces or in situations where most people would be angry.
I always felt that by season five the writers were scrambling to find real legitimate reasons why a detoxed Sam would ever say yes to Lucifer, without giving the "seal Lucifer back in the Cage" game plan away. So we suddenly got all sorts of character traits assigned to Sam that I didn't feel fit, but that could have explained his giving into Lucifer.
I didn't mind the episode at all. In fact, it is one of the few S5 episodes I'll rewatch b/c I liked it. However, it didn't really expand on Sam's character and despite having his name in the title, the episode was more about Dean than Sam.
I know it may seem from my comments that I'm an ESG, but I'm honestly not. I have no problem w/getting Dean's perspective. I have no problem w/exploring his character but since we so rarely get Sam's perspective or character exploration, I foolishly thought SI would focus on Sam and explore his character a bit. I was sadly mistaken. Most of the character exploration went to Dean and how he felt about the great burden he carried.
The "Sam's angry all the time" arc seemed thrown on at the last minute simply to justify putting Sam's name in the title. LOL! I guess Kripke thought the episode should say a little something about Sam since his name was in title. Who cares if what was said made no sense and contradicted eveyrthing we've seen and know about Sam? When was Sam some irrationally, psychotically angry individual? When has he blown up at someone for no good reason? If Sam is "angry all the time," he's a doing a fabulous job of masking that anger.
As you pointed out, Percy, Sam is a very mild-mannered, easygoing guy. I've been waiting for the guy to blow up, and he never has. He takes his brother's spontaneous punches w/ease and NEVER hits back. He had fights w/John, but never seemed to be harboring a lot of anger. He's never blown up at anyone. He was not crazy angry before SI aired, and he wasn't crazy angry after SI aired.
That whole mini-plot/angle was a complete lie and didn't even have anything to do w/the rest of the season or Sam, in general.
I don't dislike the episode at all, but it didn't offer any exploration into Sam or develop his character in any meaningful way. They made him "angry" for one episode. Okay . . . now what?
When you're dealing with a supernatural landscape things can be handwaved, see "Six of my brothers died, trying to raise you [Dean] from Hell" and the cage is buried so deep no one can find it AND the only way to get anything out is to break the seals and suddenly, all Castiel has to do is hop down and grab Sam, no questions asked. And Castiel isn't even soul powered at the time.
I have been trying to come up with a way that the reason John vanished from Dean in the beginning of season 1 is because he was moved forward in time to work with Sam and Dean in the present then was moved back to his own time (for 'Home' for example when he is with Missouri) which could be used to explain why he was missing and why he suddenly had all that information about Sam. Sadly, outside of a Fanfic, I can't work out a way for the John working with Sam and Dean in the present to be Matt Cohen instead of JDM.
I was also pointing out that the rules about how Lucifer's Cage worked changed so that Castiel could get Sam out all by his little lonesome. The Cage went from the most inaccessible place in the universe, to a place where one little angel could pop in, spring Sam's body and pop out. Then it went back to being the most inaccessible place in the universe and only Death could get in and out for Sam's soul. Basically the show threw out all the past story so that Cas was the one to get Sam out, so there is no reason they can't throw out past story and have John come back in Matt Cohen's body. I hope that this makes more sense.
So it is one that I admire rather than like.
A question that occurs when I think of this ep is 'how much of the quality of an ep is down to the writers and how much the showrunner'. In ITB one of the best aspects is the revelation of the back story of the Campbells - that D&S come from a long line of hunters, that their (so they thought) innocent victim Mum was actually a born and bred hunter and the author of her own, and her son's, destruction. I presume that all that came from EK as it is a crucial part of the overall arc. So how much credit should JC get for writing a great ep around a great central idea that came from someone else? The same applies to MS. JC admits that the Groundhog Day concept wasn't his idea. Also in AVSC was the significance of the amulet - which is where the story gets its emotional kick from - JCs idea or EKs?
I guess we'll see in s8 as he will be in charge of the arc and overseeing the writing content / quality.
To be honest, it irked me that Sam was left out of the episode, but it was necessary and it worked. I am only offended for Sam because I lean toward his side of things and want to see more about and from him. But this ep worked as an ep in the larger scheme of things, it's a solid, well crafted ep given where the plot was going. But then again, I liked season 4 a lot. Yes, it was hard, yes Sam made bad choices and was "wrong, wrong, wrong" while Dean got to be "right, right, right." But dramatically it was awesome, powerful, the plotting was so well done, consistent and tight. I was hanging off my seat for every episode.
So, does it make me a bad fan to want to see a little turn about? I would love it if Dean could be wrong, wrong, wrong for a change. He never has been, not really. He's made a few small mistakes (Amy) but the show has always backed his position in times of conflict, and has never shown him to be in the wrong long term. I would love for Benny to be Dean's Ruby, and I don't care if people think it's just a retread of old story lines, it worked for Sam and Cas and Bobby, it can work for Dean too. It just needs to be well written. (Ducks all the flying rocks) Every main character on the show has experienced taking the wrong path to a greater or lesser degree except Dean, and I feel it's now his turn. The best way to understand someone is to walk a mile in their shoes and to do this would have BOTH brothers gain some crucial insight if they are truly going to have the more mature relationship that JC has talked about.
I think equivilating 7.7 with getting Sam's soul back is a bit much, though.
I realize that Robo Sam couldn't continue to exist without his soul, he was a loose canon and downright dangerous. But it's still another example of Dean wanting one thing, and Sam wanting another thing, and Dean forcing Sam to his way with the basic premise of the show coming down on Dean's side; Dean was right to force the soul back in Sam, and Sam was wrong to not want it back even though he had made some good arguments to support his side. Additionally, it was Sam's soul and Sam's decision to make, but that got overridden once again by what Dean felt was best for Sam. Dean may have been right in this case, but the pattern is the same as it was for the Lisa/Ben mindwipe incident, the rejection of Cas and the Amy Debacle.
I think could agree that Dean does have a habit of deciding what's best, and more often than not his judgment is good. That doesn't mean it's infalliable, nor is it presented as such, in my opinion. His decision to resoul Sam was questioned and argued against by nearly everyone. His decision to mindwipe Lisa and Ben was very much questioned by Sam. I don't know that we were supposed to see it as right--I thought it was supposed to be a reflection on Dean and how he viewed himself as basically poison to everyone he knows. Since I always thought that was show's way of getting rid of that storyline permanently so they'd never have to address it, I doubt we'll ever know.
Dean's decision to reject Cas and not reach out to him was questioned and overriden by Sam in 7.1, and it worked. The Amy debacle set up a good debate, and Dean did apologize at the end of 7.6. Then 7.7 came back and set that arc on fire, and that's all she wrote.
If you want to argue that show often portrays Dean as the one with the correct instincts, fine. I'd agree. I also don't agree that it's an all the time thing and that he's never shown as being wrong. That seems hyperbolic to me, but mileage varies. I'll agree to disagree.
The thought that SS should have the right to remain souless is a odd viewpoint in my opinion. Even though he wasn't non-stop obnoxious, he didn't have a conscience and very few, if any, scruples. That sounds alot like a sociopath to me. I sort of felt that SS was going to hijack Sam. Who, with his soul, was the rightful tenant in that body.
The writing for that scene in The Mentalist was very disappointing .
I think the intent was to show that what had happened with Cas was affecting Dean, and was causing him to make judgment errors and slide backward to the point where he was back to not trusting Sam's judgment. This was meant to be a bad thing, but scenes were cut and that's not necessarily what came across on screen. Dean fans ran to Dean's defense, saying Dean was right to kill Amy and that Sera was trying to ruin Dean's character again.
The writers, instead of continuing with what they started and showing that Dean was impaired, buckled under pressure and came up with a story ending that was ambiguous showing who was right and who was wrong.
I think, cd28, that if the scenes you'd mentioned had been in place, the Amy storyline would have made much more sense. Over the years, I think Dean had become so overwhelmed with his responsibilitie s and faults that he started relying on Castiel. He needed someone with incredible strength, the strength he didn't think he had, to lean on, and when Castiel betrayed his trust and hurt Sam I think it really did cause Dean to believe that he'd been wrong to trust anything supernatural. They always betrayed you in the end, or went back to their natures, even if it wasn't their fault (see Lenore).
I think trusting Sam was a tricky thing at that point, considering the episode before Sam was ranting and shooting in an empty warehouse and in the same episode he left with only an "I'm okay" note and refused to answer his phone. He wasn't exactly reliable. However, you have to treat others the way you want to be treated, and Dean wants people to be honest with him. Therefore, he should have discussed Amy further with Sam, instead of pretending to agree and killing her anyway.
Now, I personally think killing Amy was the right call, because she was murdering people with no remorse and in my mind would have done it again if the situation called for it. But in terms of Sam and Dean's relationship, that's neither here nor there. And that's where the PTB punked out--they ended up making the storyline about whether killing Amy was right or wrong instead of about Dean's damaged mindset or Sam's struggle to be a full partner while also being impaired. The latter is something they really never did a good job with until 7.15-7.16, and even in 7.17 Sam was hunting while sleep deprived and allegedly dying. The PTB wanted Sam to have these massive issues, but they also wanted him to be the "together" brother to contrast to Dean, since during the Gamble years Dean's sole characteristics seemed to revolve around "We think Jensen is great at angst." That robbed Sam of being able to really follow through on his storyline and robbed Dean of being given any character growth or movement on his own issues. Double fail.
I think etheldred is right, however--7.7 was probably written and in the can before 7.3 was even shown. Which is why I stick by my original premise--this is one of the many storylines of the last two years that PTB set up and ultimately kicked to the side because they couldn't be bothered to see through to a meaningful resolution, instead dumping them off unceremoniously so that they had no real impact on the overall narrative, ultimately making them a waste of time.
As I said below, I thought the only reason Dean stopped debating w/Sam about Amy was b/c Sam was self-identifyin g as a freak, and Dean didn't want to argue w/him about that. If the deleted scene mentioned earlier had been included, that would have put an entirely different spin, for me, on the episode.
And Sam's anger about what Dean did? It was never clear to me why Sam was angry. Was he angry b/c Dean lied to him, didn't trust his judgment, killed his friend . . . who knows? During that psychic episode, Sam confessed to being perfectly fine w/Dean killing Amy but was really angry b/c Dean was in emotional pain and wouldn't tell him about it. What? Dean is often in deep emotional pain that he refuses to disclose to Sam. Sam doesn't always run away for a week b/c of it! I forget the lame, contrived reason Dean said he lied, but I do remember his reasoning ringing false to me.
That whole arc was a complete mess and utter waste of time! Those 5 episodes could have been spent on better developing the boring Leviathan, on telling Sam's story of hallucinations and problems, on giving better reasons for Dean's persistent depression. What did Sam learn from it? What did Dean learn? What did the audience gain from that debacle? Asylum showed us that Sam had some deep anger issues w/Dean. Skin showed us that Dean had some self-worth issues. If you're going to introduce a mini-arc, it should have some meaning, a purpose.
Oddly enough, I didn't hate TGND. It was a good episode but b/c it kicked off that completely pointless, waste of time mini-arc, I have no desire to see it again. To me, that episode pinpoints when the season went off track!
Plus, like I said, the way it was handled made no sense because it became all about killing Amy instead of their issues with each other. Dean's spiralling was suddenly pinned on lying to Sam, but since it didn't abate after that it made no sense. Sam's motivations for leaving and being angry became muddled instead of staying focused on the very real reasons he should have been angry.
If the arc had had some true emotional resonance or moved either boy's storyline forward, then maybe it would have been worth it, but it didn't. Instead, it felt like they were ignoring more important things to focus on something they didn't really care about, anyway. Never a truer phrase was written about 7.3--it's really where the wheels came off in S7, and that's not a good thing.
As for the boring Leviathans, not sure they could have made them less boring. Someone here once said something to the effect that they find spiders scarier than the Leviathans. Couldn't agree more.
Then the show went for the trite political metaphor, and it all just became eye-worthy. If I wanted to watch a show about how all corporations are the devil, I could watch nearly anything else on television or nearly any movie currently being produced. This wasn't new or original thinking, show.
I always thought that Dean was operating just as subjectively as Sam in 7.3. That's not an argument about whether he was right to kill Amy, but about his mindset when he did -- he didn't actually make the argument that she would kill again if her kid got sick, he made the argument that she would kill because it was her nature; he seemed to be in an extremely fatalistic place about hunters and monsters having fixed roles, and his language about the other shoe dropping, repeated from the scene with Bobby about Sam, combined with the suicidal implications of his words to Amy's kid, made it clear that his own issues and what was going on with him re: himself and Sam were as much in play in that episode as Sam's long-standing freak issues.
I don't think there's a lot of difference between Dean arguing that Amy would kill again because of her kid or arguing because it was her nature. One begat the other. When a child gets sick, it's not in people's nature to think, "I should kill people to try to save my child." Her child becoming sick is what pushed Amy to go back and accept her nature. Once she did so, she didn't seem to have a problem with the act itself unless Sam or Dean was standing in front of her threatening to deliver justice for her murders. Contrast her with Lenore, who was genuinely horrified by her actions and begged to be put down.
I would agree that Dean was in a very fatalistic place at this point--waiting for the other shoe to drop seemed pretty true at that point, with Sam and the wall, with Castiel, with monsters like Lenore. I'd also agree that influenced his mindset regarding Amy. At the same time, though, he didn't kill Amy's child, because he was still an innocent. If he was completely consumed by his fatalistic nature, he wouldn't have waited for the other shoe to drop with him, so to speak, and killed him before he had a chance to kill. The fact that he didn't does indicate to me that Dean was still operating on a set of principles, no matter what his issues with himself were.
Quote:I think Amy was portrayed a creature with a biological imperative to kill, but because of her own sense of morality - not a decision that was forced upon her - she chose to build a life in which she wouldn't have to hurt anyone. That was tested, though, when the life of her son was in danger. And even then, she selected people to kill like drug dealers and drunk drivers, who many would argue don't deserve to survive.
I think both Sam and Dean have proven that they will sacrifice the lives of strangers (a big example are the hosts of demons) if it means saving family. So I don't see Amy as being all that different from the Winchesters in that regard.
Quote:
When we talk about trusting Sam's judgment, there are two different things here.
First, there's questioning Sam's ability to be independent and hunt, given his hallucinations. Although three weeks had passed since the warehouse incident, Dean was right to be worried when Sam went off on his own and didn't return his phone calls.
Second, there's Dean dismissing what Sam told him about why he chose not to kill Amy, how Amy had killed her mother to save him, and how you can be a "monster" but not be dangerous. That's a POV that Sam has had for a long time. Dean unilaterally decided that his opinion in this matter was right and Sam doesn't get a vote. That was Dean pulling the big brother card - I'm older so my way goes, and you don't get a say in the matter.
The lying was a whole different issue that I think we're in agreement on.
And what about that drunk stumbling to his car? Amy had no way of knowing if he was going to drive or sleep it off. She had no way of knowing if he were a serial drunk driver, or a man about to make one tragic mistake? Does that mean she should get to decide who lives and dies? If so, then how is it wrong for Dean to make the same life and death decisions, judging human lives over the life of a murderous monster, whom many would argue doesn’t deserve to survive?
And as for the Winchesters, for me, there’s quite a bit of difference between saving your family in a kill-or-be-kill ed demon attack and deliberately stalking and killing people. Self-defense is quite a bit different than pre-meditated murder. And this why Swan Song continues to be such a mess for me—drinking blood went from always wrong to “Well, the ends justify the means, so whatever.†It took the boys’ stand in 3.12 of “What we do separates us from the bad guys†to “People don’t matter anymore, so let’s just kill regardless of collateral damage.†This isn’t a stance they’d ever taken before nor is it one I really remember them taking since, though I may be wrong on the latter. If that is the attitude being taken, I hardly think it should be celebrated.
I don’t think you can separate trusting Sam’s judgment from trusting Sam’s ability to function as an independent person. Through no fault of his own, Sam showed he didn’t have good judgment—both in 7.2 and 7.3, when he took off on Dean with only the barest of words and refused to return his phone calls. I don’t blame Sam for this because he wasn’t in his right mind, but it does have to be taken into account when judging Sam’s ability to make calls like this. I will also say that the three weeks passed show don’t tell really didn’t work in Sam’s favor, because you can tell the audience he’s been fine, we swear, but if that’s not what we see than that’s going to be a problem.
I agree that Sam has always held the POV that not all monsters are dangerous. I think lala2’s point below is part of that—Sam has always identified himself as a “freak†and projects that onto other “freaksâ€, identifying with them more closely than he should in some cases. He also projects these fears onto Dean, and he wasn’t any more willing to listen to Dean than Dean was to listen to him. Sam unilaterally dismissed Amy’s victims and their grieving families because he believed in Amy’s right to kill them because she judged them bad. Dean unilaterally dismissed Sam’s opinion that it was okay for Amy to behave this way. I don’t think either one was right.
Yes, the lying is very much the point of contention, though, and I think we can all agree that that’s wrong.
You said that Amy didn't feel remorse. I think she felt guilt, which is why she hand picked victims that were the least sympathetic she could find. Was that guilt enough to stop her from doing it again? No, because it was her son.
The problem with the argument that Dean should have made the decision about Amy because Sam was projecting is that Dean was obviously projecting too. The same language that he uses earlier in the episode to talk about Sam - about the other shoe dropping - he uses before he kills Amy. I'm not sure if he was supposed to be projecting his fears about Sam onto Amy, or his feelings about Cas onto both Sam and Amy, or his feelings about himself (that he is a monster) onto Sam and Amy. You could make a case for all three scenarios. But it's clear that Dean's decision to kill Amy had as much if not more to do with his own issues as it did about Amy.
I can agree that killing a drug dealer hoping it will save your child seems like a good trade, even sympathetic. That doesn't mean you shouldn't have to face the consequences. The people who made demon deals were sympathetic, but nearly all of them had to face the consequences as well. You could argue that Dean faced consequences with his own behavior in 6.21, losing Ben/Lisa forever and being shamed by his brother (as this website has taught me, your brother making you feel bad is a punishment). So while not the same, he didn't get off scott free. No one should from a decision like that, and Amy's no different.
I didn't see any guilt or remorse from Amy personally. I saw rationalization --"I don't kill, but my son is sick and I had no choice!" Maybe she was trying to ease her conscience by killing off "bad" people, but who is she to judge? Besides, once you start pitting complete strangers' lives against your child's, how hard is it to decide that the stranger isn't as worthy? That's a pretty slippery slope. After she tried for the drunk driver and got away from Sam, we have no idea who she killed. So yes, as you're saying, because she was killing for her son any guilt she may or may not have been feeling was irrelevant--she still would have murdered more people if she had to. That's why she had to be stopped.
I can see how Dean might have been projecting some, but I don't think that was the whole of the reason Amy died. I think Amy was the epitome of the other shoe dropping--no matter how long she might have struggled to fight against her nature, with the right motivation she took back to it whole-heartedly . I didn't see any sign that he was projecting his fears about Sam onto Amy, as in he thought Sam would become like Amy. There was some kinship there in that everyone told him the other shoe would drop and that the wall would fall, and for Amy the other shoe dropped and she reverted to her monsterous nature. I could agree that his feelings about Cas did aide him in making that choice, because in Dean's mind the shoe dropped too, and Cas reverted to being an untrustworthy supernatural danger.
I would argue that his issues did have something to do with killing Amy, but the other major point there is that Amy did turn to her nature and did kill humans. That shouldn't be forgotten. So she had to face the consequences of that. If Dean was operating solely on projection, he would have killed her son as well, reasoning that he would eventually revert to his nature, too. Instead, he gave him a chance to make his own decisions. So that speaks to me that he also operating on his principles as well as his issues.
Quote:If this were a court of law, there would definitely be consequences. There would also be a jury or a judge to weigh the extenuating circumstances (that the accused was trying to save her son). Dean isn't a judge. His role isn't to punish the guilty but to save lives. Dean's decision to impose a death sentence was a much harsher punishment than a court would have delivered. So I don't think it was his right to make that call - especially considering the verdict was deadlocked - Sam had voted for monitored parole.
Quote:I think Dean realized that Amy was done with killing for now, but killed her because he was at a point where he couldn't believe anyone could rise above their past. That is most definitely projecting his own mood onto someone else. He didn't kill her son because he has a soft spot for children - always has - and there's no deeper meaning to it than that.
While show doesn’t operate in a court of law setting, I would argue that the majority of the time there are consequences to characters’ actions on show. I don’t know that any court of law would give a pre-mediated murderer parole for killing strangers (from whom she was in no danger from at the times of their deaths) on the hope it would save her son. I think any court and any victim of the strangers would definitely think that she deserved very harsh punishment for becoming a serial killer. As for Dean being a judge—Dean and Sam both judge supernatural beings all the time. They frequently hunt them down and serve as judge, jury, and executioner. I don’t know why in this case Dean would somehow be unqualified to make that call. Dean initially disagreed with killing Emma in 7.13, but that didn’t stop Sam, and in the end Dean admitted he was right.
I don’t think there’s any way Dean thought Amy was done with killing for good. I think he might have believed that she thought she was done, but I think it’s pretty clear that he thought the other shoe would drop again, as it always does, and that she would kill again. It seems much more likely that she would, considering she had no problem rationalizing her kills the first time around. So in that way, he was saving lives in saving her future victims, and that very much is his job.
I don’t see how you can definitely say that Dean’s motivations for not killing her son stem solely from not being able to kill children. I agree it’s a possible interpretation, but there’s nothing in canon that makes that an absolute fact. I maintain that he did operate on his principles of not killing someone who hadn’t killed yet, just as he wasn’t ready to kill Emma in 7.13. Obviously, mileage varies, and that’s fine. But I don’t see how either one of us can claim we know the answer and there’s no deeper meaning than our own chosen perspective. Just my thought.
As for Emma, she was moving in to kill Dean. Sam perceived her as an immediate threat and reacted quickly. Sam didn't make a decision to track her down and kill her after she had promised to good and Dean had given her his blessing to go off and lead a peaceful life.
As for saying she was no longer a threat, I think she'd proven she could not be trusted on that front any longer. If she could easily revert to her nature to save her son once, she could easily do so again and would have no qualms. Lenore feared the slippery slope, and that was rightfully a concern with Amy as well. Dean might have been projecting, but that doesn't mean he wasn't correct. I am comfortable with him saving possible future victims from a killer who could easily rationalize their deaths as being less important than her son's life.
Now, as to Sam and Dean coming to consensus before acting, I agree that would be ideal. We, of course, agree that Dean shouldn't have lied and gone behind Sam's back. But what if they don't come to an agreement? Someone's decision is going to ultimately come out the winner, and someone else's will is obviously going to be subverted. Sometimes Sam gives in, and sometimes Dean gives in. Sometimes they go behind each other's backs. It's what they do. It's no worse when one does it than the other.
In the case of Emma, I agree she seem to feel she had to kill Dean and had made moves to do so. She'd also hesitated when Dean was talking to her. So it could have come down either way, in Dean's thinking. Of course, he was too close to the situation to make an unbiased judgment, and he realized that. Similarly, Sam realized he was too close to the Amy situation and hadn't been able to make an unbiased decision about her fate.
So once again, the problem is that Dean lied to Sam about Amy, and everything else is just a sideplot, so to speak. On that, we continue to agree.
I think you're being harder on Amy than I am. I don't think she killed without guilt or remorse, but nothing came above saving her son. She wasn't innocent, but she was sympathetic, and her acts weren't that different from things the Winchesters had done in the past.
Quote:In this case I'd argue that it was Sam's case. Dean wouldn't have even known about it had he not been checking up on Sam.
Quote:Yes, we do.
I think arguing over whose case it was isn’t particularly relevant. Once Dean knew a monster had killed people and was walking away clean, in my view he had not only the right but the duty to stop her and give the families of her victims a measure of justice, even if they aren't aware. Again, mileage may vary.
Well, if nothing else, at least we can agree on that. Lying is bad, Winchesters.
Amy's child had gone like 13 years without needing fresh meat. Amy had the skills to find a job where she had food readily available. She had behaved through most of her life as a moral monster and I personally felt she deserved a chance to continue to prove herself.
Dean decided that Amy would no longer live the moral life that she had committed to all those years ago. He may have been right, but Dean had and continued to let creatures as dangerous or more dangerous continue to live, the witches, Lucky, even Castiel. He worked with Meg. Even worse he let her child go.
The main issue is for me the lying to Sam, but I am one person who thinks Dean jumped the gun on killing Amy.
I will agree that the major issue here was Dean lying to Sam, and I'll further agree that show is very inconsistent on the idea of letting some dangerous creatures go and working with others is fine while others need to die immediately. I'd much prefer that they'd killed the witches, Lucky, Meg, etc. I don't agree with killing Amy's child, because he hadn't done anything to deserve it at that time. When/if he does murder someone, sure, but not yet. But yes, generally, Dean (and Sam--he doesn't get a free pass with Meg or the witches either) should be allowed by show to be more consistent with their views of dangerous monsters. I think that generally comes from show's desire to make everything gray, so that murderous monsters aren't worse than anyone else. It stopped being edgy a long time ago, show, and now it's just muddying up the works.
To me, Dean seemed ready to argue the good fight as they have done in the past when they've disagreed on a kill (i.e., Lenore, that kid in Croatoan, the Rugaru), but when Sam visibly bristled at Dean calling Amy a "freak," got up, and then went out to confirm his own status as a "freak," I felt Dean thought it was best to not argue w/Sam about Amy or about Sam self-identifyin g as a "freak." Dean tends to forget that Sam does that, which is why he doesn't hesitate to throw around the word "freak." Dean doesn't see Sam as a freak, but Sam sees himself as a freak.
So, once Sam started arguing how Amy may be a freak (like him) but she has it under control (like him), I think Dean decided it wasn't worth the argument. Sam did ask Dean to trust him, and if Sam hadn't been so vulnerable, then Dean may have argued w/him some more. I haven't seen the episode since it aired, but after it ended, I just remember thinking Dean shut down - not b/c Sam had been hallucinating and wasn't trustworthy - but b/c Sam was calling himself a "freak."
That's what I took from that scene. I didn't see it as Dean not trusting Sam's judgment b/c they've disagreed on kills before. I honestly thought Dean stopped the debate b/c of Sam's self-worth issues. And since there was no real follow up from that episode or exploration of what it all meant, I have no idea what we were supposed to learn from it.
It was a waste of five episodes! See my rant above
"Freak" is one of those exemplars of how the boys project their own insecurities onto each other. I agree that Dean doesn't see Sam as a freak, but Sam always fears it so that's his trigger word. Dean has simliar triggers with Sam, so that makes sense to me.
But yes, in the end, it all was for naught as we gained no insight or character development for either boy, and this subplot had no impact on the season as a whole. What a waste indeed!
But my biggest problem was that they have both chosen not to kill "monsters" at different times. Dean was even going to let that demon Casey go, even though she'd killed several people. Sam told Dean that he believed that this time this monster should live. As he said in the Mentalist (before he just decides he agrees with him) that he'd been a hunter long enough that when something felt wrong it probably was. He felt killing Amy was wrong, but Dean killed her anyway, even though he said he wouldn't.
Then proceeded to let those f@#$ing witches go 2 episodes later, when they were killing out of spite. I know. I know they were supposedly too strong. But that was lame ass try. And the only reason not to try harder was because they were done killing at that point, but then so was Amy. So the logic just freaking goes out the window.
So the moral from the season kill all monsters-unless it's too hard. Yes, I'm a little bitter about that. I just preferred when the show and the brothers-both brothers-made judgment calls. They can't send Amy to monsters court, so yes they have to be judge and jury. So I want there to be more consideration, than kill all monsters. Since in the past they have let all kinds of monsters that have killed go, many with far less reason. IE that skinwalker and the f@#$ing witches 2 f@#$ing episodes later.
Okay I'm better now.
I was never sure why killing Amy would feel wrong, personally, but mileage varies.
Also, I've never understood why Dean is held solely responsible for the witches in 7.5. Sam was right there and just as culpable. Surely he didn't think they deserved a pass for their murders, too? So both boys failed there, and maybe their try wasn't good, but they did try. I don't think that should be discounted completely.
I think it was a matter of the writers either 1) completely failing in tone, figuring that since this was a "comedy" episode that we shouldn't take the murders too seriously or 2) not being willing to kill off the Buffy alum for hopes that they might come back again. Yes, I agree that logic went out the window there, but I think it's impossible (for me) not to consider the other factors at play there.
But saying that the witches and the skinwalker deserved to die doesn't mean Amy didn't. Just because the skinwalker slipped out in the confusion and the witches were too powerful (writing fails) doesn't mean that Amy should have been allowed to kill without remorse, too.
But I agree it was a badly done storyline all the way around, so there's that.
I know many - my sister included - didn't think Amy was evil or deserved to be killed, but I felt differently. An alcoholic can become sober and lead a fulfilling a life. A drug dealer can change his/her ways and lead a productive life. Who is Amy to judge these people? She shouldn't be allowed to decide who lives and dies. She can't look into people's hearts and make character determinations.
As far as Spike and Cordelia go - I thought the show made it quite clear that they were way too powerful for Sam and Dean. I haven't seen that episode since it aired, but from what I remember of the Spike/Cordelia episode, Sam & Dean tried to take them out but failed. They could have tried again, but it would have been pointless. At the time, I didn't think it was a writing failure or anything. I just thought they were too powerful for S/D. That adds some realism to the show in that Sam and Dean aren't all powerful and can't always kill everything they encounter, which is fine by me.
I don't even remember the skinwalker you guys are referencing. Was that in this past season? I know they let the witch in TCCODW go. I haven't seen that episode since it aired, but I feel like they just walked away after they got Bobby and Dean's years back. Plus, I'm pretty sure that Leviathan lackey working for that real estate lady got away. It didn't seem like S/D killed him.
I, personally, had no problem w/Dean killing Amy but then not trying to kill Spike and Cordelia again. I can't say it bothered me too much.
I'm not really debating whether it was right to kill Amy, I don't think it was (she was done killing and had a kid who depended on her and had proved that she didn't normally kill), but I can see the other side.
Dean is not solely responsible for the witches, but he is the one who made such a big deal about Amy killing people and so there was no possible way to let her go. And then he just lets the witches go. Did we know how the skinwalker got away? Regardless he showed up at his house, he wasn't exactly hard to find. And for that matter Cas killed a lot more people then Amy did and while Dean was still mad at him (although I got the impression that was more for the betrayal and Sam's wall), he didn't say he had to die. Also let the witch in tCCoDW go, he killed people. They let those kids go in Swap Meat even though they were going to kill Dean. They worked repeatedly now with Meg who KILLED JO AND ELLEN and countless other people. Same goes for Crowley for that matter.
It was much easier to accept the inconsistencies when I could just say that they have to make judgment call based on the situation. But with Amy, to me Dean didn't make a judgment call, it was like he was following some new code. Regardless of the situation, we kill the monster, but then didn't even bother to follow the code afterwords. If he didn't trust Sam's judgment on the situation (even though he is the one who had spent days on the case and knew her), Dean should have tried to talk to her himself. That way he could try to read whether he thought she would kill again. If he had done so, I really wouldn't have had a problem with it.
But as it is, I feel like "monster must die" was the show's new mantra and that feels wrong to me.
You're right that there are more examples of the boys working with/letting go killers than I remembered, but I don't see how that's the case with either the skinwalker or the witches. They weren't working with either one, and they did try to stop both. Not succeeding is not "just letting them go."
So Amy's real problem is that she wasn't good enough at being bad. If she had been a better monster and killed Dean to get away or just been better at escaping, she would have survived.
Well, Amy was very purposefully written to be ambiguous, wasn't she? She didn't look like a CGI-ed evil monster--she was a pretty actress from Firefly. She didn't just kill because she gave in to her nature--she had to do it to save her baby. Everything about her was deliberately written to make her seem to possibly be a good monster, no matter what her actions spoke of her, and if she'd tried to kill Dean show wouldn't have been able to set up the debate that she didn't deserve to die. So you're right, she wasn't enough of a monster for that, and that was by design. But no, her real problem was that she killed humans with no remorse. If she hadn't done that, she might have survived.
To me this isn't that much different than Dean torturing demons in Let It Bleed. We know how he feels about torture and he knew those were human bodies with demons inside, the humans didn't survive. But he had to get Lisa and Ben back. I don't think he was right to do so and I don't think Amy was right to kill. But in the Supernatural universe, I don't think it warrants death either.
Because losing people through your own choice to violate their autonomy in a mindwipe, having your brother tell you that your choice was fucked up (and responding by threatening to punch him if he mentions it again) and feeling bad don't seem to me to be equivalent to a death sentence.
I don't really have a problem with the killing of Amy (I can honestly see both sides, and I think Dean's choice was defensible, though more influenced by his issues than he realized), and I have sympathy for the desperation that made Dean make some appalling choices in 6.21, but I think your comparison of the consequences is a bit disingenuous.
It seems odd to expect the leads of a show to be punished in the same fashion guest stars and monsters are, however. Of course their consequences aren’t going to be equivalent—th at doesn’t mean that Dean didn’t face consequences, nor that Amy deserved to face them. I’m sorry that you feel my comparison is disingenuous, but the fact is that they both faced consequences. The larger point I’m making is that Amy did not deserve to get off scott-free for her crimes, and in terms of show human deaths are always going to be seen as less heinous than demon/monster deaths.
Mileage may, of course, vary.
But that is part and parcel of my problem, because while I didn't find the episode very uncomfortable to watch there was no fall out. It is not mentioned ever again as part of his guilt. We had a steady progression from Meg coming back to haunt them because they didn't save her when they didn't know she was possessed to now rarely if ever a mention made of the poor people these demons are possessing.
It seems both guys, but especially Dean are becoming more and more harden and callous. While I can understand why if the become like Gordon I will have a hard time rooting for them.
I find 6.21 a waste of an episode, because it didn't have us learn anything new about Dean. Of course Dean felt guilty--show probably can't keep track of the number of things they have him feeling guilty about at this point. That's neither new nor interesting. The truth is, by this point they really just wanted to put a bullet in the Ben/Lisa storyline so the fans would know it was well and truly dead, and the chance to play the angst card with Jensen again. There's not much point in hoping for more from it. Besides, if Dean and Sam were haunted by every demon host they'd killed, or even acknowledged them, I don't think they'd have time to deal with anything else, and the guilt would probably be paralyzing.
Which is all part of the bigger problem you mention. Dean and Sam are very much becoming more callous, more hardened, and less interested in the people they're supposed to be helping. Some of that seems natural, given what they've been through, but some of that, I think, is a sign of show's lack of interest or care in civilians any longer. Show would much more like to cook up sympathetic monsters or demons with accusations of racism than deal with the lives being stepped on by monsters week in and week out. That's not absolute, but it's been the reality more often than not for show the last several years. Yes, I agree it makes the boys harder to sympathize with, because in the beginning the "Saving people" came before the hunting things, and now it seems way lower on the priority list.
And I would very much like to get back to more of the "saving people" and not just the hunting things. Not that they don't save people but they usually seem like by-product rescues.
I don't think the problem is so much kill first ask questions later as it is that Dean and Sam don't discuss things much anymore period. Well, that's not true--they do have talk about about things like the Amy situation, the Emma situation, how hard to pursue the Leviathan, what to do about Cas. They generally avoid confronting each other and having in-depth discussion or arguments, though, and have done so for several seasons now. If they disagree, they generally just state their position and then one boy or the other give in. That's it. I think they could do more, both in terms of trying to relate to each other and find common ground and in terms of show remembering there actually should be moral implications in what the boys do. They generally don't seem to, as I said earlier, since they're all about the shades of gray these days. There is no right or wrong, which is very problematic.
I very much agree that saving people is more of a happy side-effect to the boys' hunts these days, rather than being the main objective. The boys are so weary these days they just don't seem to connect to the everyday man anymore, which makes them seem less relatable. Yet another thing I'd love to see Carver address this season.
I just don't think main characters get a pass on right and wrong. That doesn't mean I expect them to be perfect, but if they do something wrong or at least morally iffy. I want it address in some way.
I feel like the show is on a slippery slope. Where Sam and Dean's action and the fallout from those action are address less and less. Or addressed badly ie killing Amy and Emma. I understand why Emma didn't have the reaction that Amy killing did, since she stated that she had to kill Dean. But the fact that Sam killed Dean's daughter and that both are pretty much over it by the next week is kind of wrong. Can you imagine the Dean or Sam of S1-5 not dealing with that at some point.
This show is typically so great at continuity of characters, but this kind of stuff along with things like not addressing Dean's torturing or memory wiping. Or even further fallout from Soulless Sam, is potentially really damaging to the characters in my opinion. They'll could become caricatures, like James Bond, where consequences for actions only happen when they're convenient.
Now they could still be address. Perhaps we just haven't been shown the consequences yet. And that's fine-great in fact. But I saw little evidence last year and it worries me a bit.
In the end, Amy did try to defend herself by saying she wouldn't kill anymore. Dean listened, but he didn't believe her. So he killed her. In both cases, he did hear Sam and Amy--he just didn't agree.
True, it's had to know what the point of the Amy arc was, or what resolution was meant to be taken from it. I agree that I don't think lack of faith was really at the crux of Amy's death for Dean--I think it was Cas reaffirming his belief that trusting the supernatural was bad, because they were always going to return their nature, i.e., killing people. But I could be wrong. Show was never particularly clear on the point. Oh, well.
What we got was Sam admitting he was wrong. And then Sam going along with the kill all monster in Slice Girls, even though technically she hadn't killed. And them both wigging out about Bobby and then him going dark, showing that they were right all along. But they still trusted the beings that actually had betrayed and killed. Meg, Crowley and Castiel. And Castiel was the one who had destroyed his trust to begin with. It made no sense.
As for Castiel, I could at least understand working with him again because he did at least express remorse for what he'd done and a willingness to sacrifice for the Winchesters (his sanity in 7.17 [despite the fact that this didn't make sense] and his life in 7.23). That's more than anyone can say for Meg and Crowley. Unfortunately, show made Sam and Dean hold the idiot ball when it came to both of those characters at the end of the season, much to their detriment.
Although that makes me think of another problem. She had saved Sam by killing her own mother, you'd think that would at least warrant a sit down with Dean. Previously saving Sam as a kid would have gotten a lot further with Dean, but this time he barely acknowledged it.
I don't mind the forgiveness of Castiel, I like him and want him on the show. And he did express remorse, but that doesn't wipe away what he did. I just need them to discuss the inconsistencies , give me a reason or at the very least, just say. It's because it's Cas.
Meg and Crowley. Crowley is likeable and he is a great bad guy, like Spike, and to me their behavior with him is more understandable. He has things they need so they use him, knowing they're taking risks. Sometimes it works out okay and sometimes it really doesn't. This time it landed Dean in purgatory.But at least that last risk seemed calculated and there weren't a whole lot of options.
I would be good with Meg dying though. I don't mind her but she's not a character I even love to hate. Not like Ruby. And them trusting her REALLY bugs me. More than Crowley. She killed Jo and Ellen. The fact that they work with her, but Bobby was too dangerous to "live" is just craziness to me. Again I need a reason.
The last season's story arcs to me were all over and never quite worked. That's why I really hope some of this is picked up this season. I keep deleting the post with spoilers from my email, but I keep getting glimpses of the freakouts. And they're increasing my anxiety. But I am still going to just stick with my hope that S8 redeems at least some of S7 story arcs, because I really did love a lot of the individual episodes, I even really like Girl Next Door.
I didn't have a problem with S6's, except for the Campbells, I felt it all came together really well in the end. So if they don't fix some of it, S7 would be the first season I have really disliked the overall arc.
But at the end of the day, she killed without hesitation and would have done so again. Knowing Sam for four hours 15 years ago shouldn’t excuse that. Saving Sam was a good thing, but it doesn’t make the families of her four victims’ losses any less real or painful, nor does it save future victims if Amy’s son gets sick again. Now this is a point where I can agree that Dean’s mindset might have been influencing him, because he had been, against his better judgment, working with supernatural beings like Crowley and Castiel for a while now, and it had come back and bitten them hard. They’d let Lenore go, and even she had been forced to act out her nature (again, though contrast her reaction to that death with Amy’s reactions to her own killings, and it’s clear to me that Lenore is the sympathetic character of the two). I can see why Dean wasn’t willing to take the chance, because all signs at the time were pointing to the shoe always dropping.
I agree that forgiving Castiel makes more sense, because he had been a good ally to the boys, and he did express remorse and make some gestures that indicated he was willing to make up for what he’d done. I agree that a discussion about the inconsistencies would have been interesting, though Sam and Dean were pretty consistent in that regard in that Sam was much more willing to forgive and overlook what Cas/Amy had done, while Dean didn’t trust either character at their word. But yes, for me and apparently the Winchesters, Castiel had built up a lot more goodwill in the bank, and deserved a second chance much more than Amy did.
I agree, Crowley is a likeable bad guy, and it’s always possible that he might want to screw the other guy more than he wants to screw you. Except it’s always the case that Crowley wants to screw everybody (Bobby on his deal, Sam on getting his soul back, etc), so trusting him to keep up his end in a “the enemy of my enemy is my friend†deal was ludicrous by the end of S7. Show has to either only bring Crowley in at the very end of an arc, when the boys seem to have little time to think through his offers, or have Sam and Dean hold the idiot ball, because they shouldn’t be falling for things with him at this point.
I want Meg dead. I liked her as a villain, but as the snarky evil “You guys are racist against demons-Ignore how many of your allies I’ve killed†comrade I just want her stabbed with the demon knife. Show kept her around because fans liked her as a villain, but turning her into an ally after all she’s done to them and their friends is just idiot plotting. Ridiculous.
I think the arcs of the last two seasons were full of stops and starts, meandering sidelines that went nowhere and sudden solutions helped out by idiot balls. I feel like we can only go up from here. I could, of course, be wrong. I think people are freaking out because people always freak out during hiatuses. Water’s wet, sky is blue, fandom likes to freak out during hiatuses. It is what it is. But I have more hope this off-season than I’ve had the last two combined, so that’s something for me. Time will tell who’s right.
I wonder if perhaps the final edited version of an episode gets missed sometimes, and the writers assume something is understood because of how they'd written it - and then that scene didn't air as they'd expected?
Absolutely hated the Amy plot, btw, - it was wrong all around, imho... And the fact that Dean was stupid enough to hit Sam in the head when he caught up with him - after the trauma Sam'd been through (Edgar and Lucifer)! regardless of how upset Dean was, that really ticked me off - stupid writing and unnecessary - could just've easily punched him somewhere else, if the punch was necessary.
Following that up with the mess of an argument/apolog y.... Just Wrong. But many better writers than I have explored that issue here, so I won't belabour the point.
It does occur to me though, that I think one of the issues during SG's time was too much filming, more than once the J's indicated that many of the episodes ran too long, that filming went 9 days instead of the usual 8. I think that this showed in the editing, there were odd holes and leaps you had to make in logic that were not explained. I think it all has to do with the overly heavy plot and myth arc, it cut into the boys relationship.
I am absolutely not saying that Dean was wrong to kill Amy, I think he was, unfortunately, correct to go ahead (although why those two almighty powerful witches got to live is BEYOND me, talk about a double standard!), but the larger issue was about trust, not only did Dean not trust Sam, but he couldn't even be up front about it. Its perfectly valid and an interesting plot point for Dean to have problems with trust due to the Cas situation, but we have to KNOW that. There was not one thing there to indicate that this was on Dean's mind or influencing his decisions. It's just bad story telling to leave something like that out and hope that the audience makes the connection somehow.
If it had anything to do w/trusting Sam b/c of Castiel, then the show did a craptastic job of conveying that.
Honestly, I don't recall anything to show that Dean was even missing Castiel or even all that sad that Castiel was dead. IMO, Dean's depression arc was horribly told. I can usually pinpoint why Dean's depressed in any given season, but this time, I was at a loss. I had no clue why Dean was so sad. Sam was pretty high-functionin g. Honestly, he appeared to have NO issues. Bobby was okay. Yes, Castiel was "dead," but then Dean had gone a year w/o talking to Castiel or seeking him out before so . . . .
Season 7 was horribly written and wasn't very well thought out either.