#s14x01

[thedogsled]

Your morning reminder that Kip the demon had already been visited by Michael the Archangel wearing Dean Winchester, so as to ask him what he wants. So the whole scene where he sets Cas up to tease him about how he’s lost Dean is just that: Kip setting up the entire exchange so he can make a Destiel joke at Castiel’s expense. Have a great day.

[archangelgabriellives]

Oh shit Michael!Dean is awesome!

[charliethechocolateeater]

I just saw the season 14 promo

Never have I been so afraid

[thedogsled]

Just a quick post here about mood things and positivity/negativity and all that.

Sometimes new episodes are very divisive. That’s bound to happen; we all want different things out of the episodes and sometimes what I see as something awesome is going to leave other people blinking in confusion. Season openers and much hyped episodes are specifically prone to that because expectations are so much higher.

Over the last season, I don’t think there was a single episode everyone universally agreed with everyone else on. I liked it, other people I knew hated it, or I hated it, and other people I knew liked it. Even the ones that got great ratings: Scoobynatural and Cas’ return, were ALL OVER THE PLACE with who liked them and who didn’t.

If nobody is demanding you to change your mind, the idea is to show that same respect to others. The only way to do that is to scroll when you disagree, and reblog things you agree with. Show with your blog how you feel and forget about how other people feel when making your decisions. This is because at the end of the day other people’s opinions about the show aren’t hurting you, and even more importantly they aren’t hurting the show, so you don’t have to defend its honor. For all you know next week these may be the people you agree empathically with instead, while this week you’re agreeing with a whole different bunch of folks. Unless you want to follow and unfollow on a weekly basis, that’s not a great approach.

So if I disagree with you on any point, or if you disagree with me, here’s a reminder that that’s perfectly okay. This show means different things to different people. Please be kind and respectful to each other, and remember that other people’s opinions and experiences aren’t wrong just because they’re different to your own.

[thedogsled]

14x01 et tu, Beyonce?

No immediate ep review from me, because honestly there were things I liked but it’s going to take another viewing or two to get over my general disappointment and pull them out of the text. Nevermind, this turned into an ep review.

Follow the read more for the whole minirant.

The way I see it is this: they want to take the episode in an unexpected way (and possibly mirror season 6, like @naruhearts was saying the other day), so we are back to souped up supermonsters as a plotline, and, look, between the Leviathan and the whole Jefferson Starships thing I don’t know how I feel about that yet. 

But most of all I feel like in order to accomplish some of the things they laid out in this episode, they just threw a whole lot of preexisting canon out, and when shows do that, they’re conceiving that the finished product outweighs the need to stick to canon. i.e. Wouldn’t it be SO COOL if we brought Gabriel back, we’ve never brought him back before. Well okay, how will we come up with a way to bring him back without altering canon too much. Well okay, the fans had this awesome theory, we could do something with that. FINE.

The issue comes here I think in that they wanted to do these things specifically: set up the vampire thing, get Jo working with TFW somehow, show how deep in a hole Cas is (fail btw), have Sam do his sparkly moment with the ‘There will be no King of Hell’, that sort of stuff. Oh. And give Mark P something to do because FANS LOVE HIM. Or something.

But none of those things were worth it. (Maybe Sam.)

None of those things were worth destroying established canon to achieve. None of those things were worth making characters look stupid to achieve.

Angel theories broken: Angels can see demons true faces The vessel once destroyed allows the dead soul inside to go to its final destination. Lucifer’s vessel isn’t a real vessel it’s a mock up (already contrived). Archangels (and angels) burn out the people they possess. Angel blades kill the host as well as the angel. (And don’t even get me started on the archangel blade existing in the first place). Cas just don’t got the juice any more. Ever. He talks the talk, but then he what the fucks the rest of it. Oh and everyone has a pair of angel restraining cuffs, because WHEN DID THOSE HAPPEN? Like, I literally can’t remember when angel restraining cuffs became a thing. They just started happening nbd. But demons have them.

So just. If one of those things had happened to move the plot along, fine. But all of them? ALL of them? And Michael’s WEIRD motivational alignment? Like. I am giving it a break because I KNOW it has to pick up from where season 13 left off and that was an unenviable starting point, but I just.

Other things that were frustrating: why were there odd sound effects and directing choices in the fight scene? Why was Cas such a wet blanket?Kip the demon--he was rubbish. Sam already knew he didn’t have to fight him, that his demon followers would chicken out, it was just set up that way. Why did we see an angel from an angel’s POV for the first time ever? Why was Cas such a wet blanket? Why can’t people use their words, like seriously Cas, anyone with half a brain knows Jack is going to do something stupid since you had to get out the door before you ran out of time on screen. What the fuck, Cas? What the fuck?

No but. I’m sure I’m going to like bits of it when I watch again. The finale wasn’t so bad watching it again before the new ep showed. (sound of glass breaking) and I will let this one settle down a little. I just wish there wasn’t so much I’m mad at. Castiel’s issues and Nick would be HUGE all on their own, they’ve bad, and contrived just because they a) don’t know how to keep Cas from being OP without literally tying him down and b) have to keep Mark around because of audience feedback (how about the sound of me grinding my fucking teeth, CW?) But it’s the lore problems, ultimately, that really have me down.

The destruction of canon for the sake of a contrived plot is BAD SHOWWRITING especially with a series like this where the whole universe relies on the established lore. Lore IS the show, and to forget that in order to take the plot in an “unexpected” direction does a huge disservice to fans, and makes you look like an awful writer. I would rather move in a predictable direction and stay true to canon than change everything and take you somewhere you don’t want to know.

It’s like that game that Joey is going to be the host of in Friends, Bamboozled, except that the nonsensical rules of the game do actually make sense when you get to the bottom of it. There’s no sense to be made here. It just gets more and more tossed around like an old chew toy until the original lore is pointless and sticking to it makes no sense so why bother, right?

But lore is the show. Lore is why ghosts hate iron and demons get burned by holy water and angels need to be killed with angel blades. Lore is the rules by which everything else makes sense, and a good writer can tell a good story within those rules. It’s not like it’s a mystery or a challenge, that’s precisely what a lot of us as fanfiction writers DO. All the time! So is it so much to ask from the people who actually make the show? I don’t think so. And I resent someone changing the rules on me constantly just so they can stroke Mark P’s ego, or bring back a character who they’re only going to kill again in two episodes anyway. It’s tiring. I’m tired of it. And shame on you, Dabb, for playing the Bucklemming game here. You’re the one who should be holding the ship together, not conspiring to help it spin further apart!

Most of all, though, starting out on this footing is an issue, because it implies that all bets are off, and the writers (and showrunner, remember), will do whatever they want to tell the story they want to tell, and rules of the universe be damned. We’re already likely to get 1/4 of the eps this season written by BL, isn’t that enough destructive power? It doesn’t fill me with a lot of hope that things will shape up, and overall, it was a bad start for me.

Maybe I’ll feel different about it tomorrow. This is usually a positive blog (unless Bob Singer wrote it), so... Don’t give up on me just yet. I’m feeling a bit bruised and battered for now, though.

[thedogsled]

Warning: bitching about Mark P follows.

So 20 hours later I still can’t believe Sam gota H/C scene with Nick the same as he did with Gabriel and nobody’s on my dash shipping it. 

Oh wait.

Being dead serious, though, we’ve been waiting a little less than a decade to see Sam recover from his experience being possessed by Lucifer, and if we get it now it’s only going to be through his experience dealing with Nick’s trauma. That’s...annoying. Nevermind that Nick shouldn’t be in his body, he dropped dead in Detroit, and if he was he should be catatonic like Raphael’s not-quite-perfect-possession, and the whole contrived plot with Crowley digging up the one true shape of Lucifer to stuff him into forever was just dumb in the first place.

And seriously why? Why is this the Mark P show now? Just as someone said on my dash earlier: what does Mark have on management, seriously? When they ran that mid-hiatus road so far on season 13, it was like 50% Lucifer. I’m tired of Lucifer. And that’s the feeling that clung to me when I was watching those scenes. Not just revulsion that once again Sam has to spend time with his tormentor and abuser, but exhaustion.

I suppose I should get use to it. Mark P is going to be with the show until Mark P himself wants to move on.

The irony is I just reread this all to myself and replaced the words Lucifer with ‘Castiel’ and Mark P with ‘Misha’, and when you do that it sounds like exactly the kind of crazy talk you get from the anti-Cas folks... 

But look, I really liked Lucifer’s arc. The midseason finale when we see Mark P with glowy red eyes in the cage gave me shivers. I was one of those people who was vibrating with excitement for seeing him in the show again, so long as he was the terrifying Lucifer who was a threat to everyone and not the comic relief. And, you know, Hallucifer was scary, but he was a hallucination. I LOVED that arc a whole hell of a lot too. Awesome stuff.

And when Luci started headhopping and falling apart and questioning his role, and fuck you dad, I LOVED the meta of that, and I was excited to see where it led him, and disappointed when it led him to ‘hey, I can make babies’. Awesome. I think things honestly started nosediving from that point, as much as I love Jack. If Luci had gone to cage again thanks to the Men of Letters, end of story? I would have been a happy happy bean.

But he outstayed his welcome. He got whiny and pathetic and a hollow shell of a villain. He was at once played for comic relief and then pulled back out as the big bad for both the S12 and S13 finales, relying on his past mystique for that.

I’m especially offended on behalf of Sam. I want to see him face his inner demons, but I didn’t mean LITERALLY, and I’m just so tired of it. If all the wasted screentime with Mark had been spent on Sam, building him as a character, I would have been thrilled. Instead, the only points they did bring up Sam’s trauma? It was to use him as a crutch to hold Lucifer up and prove how scurry he is.

I honestly don’t care about Nick. This arc should have ended a season and a half ago, and I’m offended and miserable and bored every time I see Lucifer on the screen. /endrant

[thedogsled]

Can I mention how very impressed (as in not very) I was at them advertising Charmed and Legacies to audiences during the SPN showing. Sorry, CW, but that just reminded me how salty I was, and it made it clear you want to jump off SPN’s popularity to popularize your choice of what SPN fans should be watching next. Fuck Wayward, amirite?

[thedogsled]

I think it’s fair to say this. I liked Lucifer. I don’t like this unending Mark P resurrection train. He’s so, so done, and five minutes of him just gave me stomach ache, nevermind the rewriting of angel theory AGAIN. Like just. Stop. What is wrong with the angel theory we have? It keeps a story constant, instead of just. Well, we’ll change whatever we want to do what we want. I hate it. Ugh.