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I watched it now and I don't it. Remember in your last review you said u dislike how spn always does the same with the ambiguity; but /this/ is the thing I dislike having s/t major happen like Crowley saving Cas and it not changing/having no longlasting impact on any or their dynamic as seen with Sam/Dean/Crowley. With Crowley but also with Cas who has had one of his biggest moments in his story, is just tossed aside doing his day job and giving off screen plot updates.

Look, on good days I tell myself it just about works, right, because both Sam and Dean basically have the emotional range of a teaspoon and they don’t want to talk to each other for various reasons and also we’ve got this weird show, yeah, where sometimes weeks and weeks pass between two episodes, so while we’re still sitting here crying and giffing things, for them - they haven’t moved on, exactly, but they’ve been on three other hunts and they’ve killed stuff and they’ve been slammed into walls and stabbed and cursed, so, who even knows.

So, yes, if you squint, it sort of makes sense.

But also: it really doesn’t. Those are narrative choices, aren’t they? Because I’m still convinced Dean did say something about his mom to that social worker, Beth, and they didn’t show us that. And it’s possible Sam had some awkward exchange with a librarian or a waitress or, hell, someone at Asa’s funeral - they never showed us that either. And what about nurses and doctors? I don’t know how believable it is that they never need a professional to patch them up, and moments like those - you’re in shock, perhaps, and your adrenaline is still up and your heart is beating boom boom BOOM - I’m not saying they’d tell people about monsters, but we know they do confide in other people sometimes. Look at Dean and that priest, or Dean and werewolf widow Michelle - I’m sure there were a lot of other cases. They’re only human, after all. And, well, the same goes for everything else: those dead people they carry on their backs like heavy chains and never talk about, new monsters and new freakishness that’s never mentioned again, heavy trauma seemingly unremembered, and, yes, momentous events that apparently change nothing, like Cas being afraid to leave the Bunker and Crowley’s suddenly selflessness.

Ultimately, I think it all comes down to the usual doublespeak. They’ve got a show about monsters and gore, so that’s what they keep filming. When I first joined the fandom, I asked around about this, and someone told me it was a CW problem - that all their shows are aimed at women - think Jane the Virgin, The Vampire Diaries and Supergirl - and with this one muscle cars and blazing guns extravaganza, they wanted a piece of the male demographics, so by God, they’re fighting to keep it. I really don’t know enough about any of it to have an opinion, but it’s certainly true that Supernatural is only one step removed from those old Clint Eastwood movies: cowboy stuff with a few tears thrown in. And since they know - and we know - that Sam and Dean are not like that, they’re probably afraid that any conversation about anything will stray into chick-flick territory -

(which, ironic)

- and that will be it, goodbye male viewers and goodbye Republicans and goodbye anyone who likes to pretend men don’t have feelings and never talk about anything because being worried and guilty and anxious and overwhelmed - my God, so gay - pull yourself together and walk it off.

So I understand where you’re coming from - I feel the same way. But this show is mostly subtextual, and that’s it - love it or leave it. We spend a lot of time on those clues about Dean’s bisexuality and his love for Cas, but we could spend even more time in mapping out what goes down in all those moments we don’t see. Because we know they keep in contact with people, for instance, we know they worry (look at Dean casually mentioning to Jody he’d been wondering about how the girls were). We know they probably don’t eat fast food day in day out, if only because they look the way they do and they’re not getting any younger, so someone - probably Dean - buys groceries and cooks. We’ve seen Dean ironing clothes (and that was, like, the first time in 12 season?) but we know that must be a common occurence, as is buying those clothes, which are costumes, really, so there must be some debate between them into what pyschologists wear or whatever. We know they have many painful anniversaries, and how do they spend them? We know Sam must be going through something major right now - that God he prayed to his whole life? a fraud - the archangel who whispered to him every night for years? still around, and I’ll never believe Sam can’t feel his presence somehow - the people who burned him with a blowtorch? working with his mother - but it’s been weeks and weeks and Sam is just peachy. And we know a lot about Dean too - in fact, we know so much I won’t bore you with it.

[More on Crowley and Family Feud below the cut.]

Now, the problem is - some of it may be marketing, and other things are down to narrative choices (for instance, we’ve seen what Sam becomes when Lucifer climbs inside his mind: do we really need to see that again?*), but it’s still bizarre to watch a show like this one, which is 90% subtext and silences. Because they talk and talk about ‘going where the story leads them’ or whatever - they don’t. They insist in going in circles, because that’s the format of the show: drive somewhere, talk to people, drink bad beer, gank vampire, drive off. But stories change, and characters grow. I remember people bitching because there was no Quidditch in HP7 - and, I mean, are you for real? The Dark Lord’s taken over - there’s what amount to a military dictatorship over half of Britain - Muggleborns are being rounded up, their wands snapped in half - and you think that, what, Harry can stay at Hogwarts and play Quidditch? So here, what you’ve got is a format which used to work well with two angry young men who saw no need to talk to each other, but now - now they’re grown-ups, for fuck’s sake. And their lives actually depend on adapting their strategy around new enemies, which brings me back to Crowley.

What Buckleming did to Crowley last week is a flashing billboard of why you can’t stick to your format no matter what. Because at this point I’m pretty sure they’re planning to have Crowley betray them in some major way, again, and the problem is that good writing leads you into complicated situations you should really adjust to? Like - I may be completely off the mark, but - in Stuck in the Middle (With Me) they needed Crowley, so they wrote him in. And then it made sense that he was the only one to know about the Lance (I still think Cas is bizarelly oblivious about a lot of things concerning Heaven, but whatever), and therefore he was the only one who knew to break it. Great, done, beautiful scene, huge bit of character development. And next those two idiots have to steer the story in the ‘right’ direction again - ie, the general arc that’s been decided for the season - which means Crowley must be given a reason to be bad again or something, so they go and write that - a confusing, OOC episode full of plot holes whose only point is to give Crowley a reason to hate the Winchesters. And I’m not saying you can’t write him that way, but the problem is - that episode made me hate the Winchesters as well, because, come on - all those times they’ve gone back and forward in time and come back to life and somehow that’s not a problem, but suddenly poor wee Gavin does it and you absolutely need to kill him? And what if that had been Sam, uh? Would Dean have sent Sam back to a doomed ship without so much as a shrug? Nope, because when it’s about them, they find another way. And the fact they didn’t allow Crowley so much as a goodbye - the fact they trust Rowena over Crowley - people who spend a solid twenty minutes every episode harping on and on about family - that’s -

(That’s exactly what happened with Charlie, by the way: they needed a reason to have Dean snap, and took a shortcut. An extremely unbelievable, OOC and badly written shortcut.)

Anyway.

I don’t know what to tell you. I think my Dean, the Dean I write about, would never have been so cavalier about destroying an innocent person and someone Crowley cared about so much (the one line I liked about that episode: “In your own lizard way, I know you cared for him.”). In fact, the Dean I know would have acknowledged the huge debt he now has with Crowley - would have bought him a beer, at the very least.

(Then again, the Sam I know was affected by Lucifer’s presence - my Sam would have had some kind of faith crisis over last year’s events, and he wouldn’t have been so whatever about being locked away not once, but twice already, and he would probably have debilitating nightmares and still, despite everything, he would be sympathetic to the BMoL’s proposals because that’s who he is, or who he thinks he is: a Means and Ends kind of guy.

Shows what I know.)

I think we need to accept this show has a format, and that format doesn’t leave a lot of room for plot coherence and character development, which means a lot of the actualy story will stay in the subtext and sometimes we’ll be left to explain away illogical points and general weirdness. Luckily, most of the writers seem to know what they’re doing and they’re able to fit a lot even into a MoTW episode, but other things are just wrong, and that’s why we have fanfiction.

*Just to be clear: I would love to hear more about Sam and Lucifer, and I’m convinced it could be written in a new way, and I know they’ve got the right people to work on that - my God, just look at what Berens and Dabb were able to do with a couple of werewolves - look at what Yockey’s doing with nothing at all.

[Sorry for the rant. I mostly like this show - a lot - but as I’ve said before, its inconsistency is occasionally very hard to bear. Every other show I watch, I know exactly what I can expect - in terms of quality, that is - and here - here I’m thinking they could have something that’s critically acclaimed, as well as fiercely loved, and instead they throw it away - and for what?]

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