Spoilery reaction to 4X16
Mar. 20th, 2009 10:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
A couple of thoughts on 4X16 -- not much squee here, I'm afraid.
So, Show, did you really need to (once again!) make the black character evil and then kill him off? Really? It's at the point that it just makes me tired. I'm past outraged, past angry, and just tired. I'm tired of expecting the show to do better, having faith that it'll do better, on issues of race and gender...and then having it fail over and over again.
TPTB must know that many fans object to this kind of crap. I mean, does anyone doubt by now that Kripke et al are keeping track of what fans think? They must have gotten some inkling by now that, hey, people have a problem with this. And apparently, they just don't care.
And isn't this supposed to be the show where No One Is What They Seem? Demons can be good guys, Angels can be badass, Bullies Are People Too? Except for scary, scary black men, apparently. They really are just as threatening and mean as we (clearly) suspected them to be all along.
Tired.
Racefail 2.0 aside, I just...wasn't feeling the Show love this week. While I adore Dean, and as pretty as Jensen is when he angsts, I'd be thrilled if we could go awhile without seeing Dean cry again. Addicted!bloodsucker!Sam was an interesting turn. The one thing about the ep that I found truly fascinating was the notion that God may not be in charge upstairs anymore, that someone else is ordering angels around.
Randomly, since when does Dean getting beaten up land him in the hospital on a ventilator (though still, oddly enough, sitting upright)? I like the idea that Dean being a righteous man who was broken in hell was the first broken seal (though as has been pointed out on my flist this morning, is he really the first righteous man in all of time to be broken in hell?)
I did love Misha's deadpan delivery of "Uriel's got the best sense of humor...ask anyone." *snarf*
So, Show, did you really need to (once again!) make the black character evil and then kill him off? Really? It's at the point that it just makes me tired. I'm past outraged, past angry, and just tired. I'm tired of expecting the show to do better, having faith that it'll do better, on issues of race and gender...and then having it fail over and over again.
TPTB must know that many fans object to this kind of crap. I mean, does anyone doubt by now that Kripke et al are keeping track of what fans think? They must have gotten some inkling by now that, hey, people have a problem with this. And apparently, they just don't care.
And isn't this supposed to be the show where No One Is What They Seem? Demons can be good guys, Angels can be badass, Bullies Are People Too? Except for scary, scary black men, apparently. They really are just as threatening and mean as we (clearly) suspected them to be all along.
Tired.
Racefail 2.0 aside, I just...wasn't feeling the Show love this week. While I adore Dean, and as pretty as Jensen is when he angsts, I'd be thrilled if we could go awhile without seeing Dean cry again. Addicted!bloodsucker!Sam was an interesting turn. The one thing about the ep that I found truly fascinating was the notion that God may not be in charge upstairs anymore, that someone else is ordering angels around.
Randomly, since when does Dean getting beaten up land him in the hospital on a ventilator (though still, oddly enough, sitting upright)? I like the idea that Dean being a righteous man who was broken in hell was the first broken seal (though as has been pointed out on my flist this morning, is he really the first righteous man in all of time to be broken in hell?)
I did love Misha's deadpan delivery of "Uriel's got the best sense of humor...ask anyone." *snarf*
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Date: 2009-03-20 03:25 pm (UTC)TPTB have no business playing online and allowing one section of fandom to dictate what they write. It destroyed the Stargate fandom, and has this one so divided I don't think it will ever be cohesive again.
And yeah-- the Black man was the bad guy. Again. How awesome it would have been if it had been Castiel and he'd killed Uriel and GOTTEN AWAY?!?!?!
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Date: 2009-03-20 03:53 pm (UTC)I was hoping, HOPING that it would turn out Uriel was really doing good - that the angels he'd killed were fighting against God, and that Castiel had been tricked by them, and that Castiel would join Uriel and together they would fight crime! Or, you know, demons. Whatever. It would be SO AWESOME to see Uriel's character be both an asshole and the one doing the right thing. That would have gone a long way towards restoring my faith in the show.
Meh. I just don't even know anymore.
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Date: 2009-03-20 04:33 pm (UTC)This, exactly.
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Date: 2009-03-20 04:35 pm (UTC)I love your scenario-- that would have been awesome.
Why are fans so much better at writing plots than the idiots in Hollywood????? Someone needs to win a lottery somewhere so we can have our own NON-COMMERCIAL TV station so we can run our own shows....
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Date: 2009-03-20 04:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-20 03:57 pm (UTC)So here's an interesting thing.
Righteous souls don't go to Hell.
So, what was Dean doing there? He sold his soul; that would make him unrighteous.
Except, apparently not, because he broke the first seal.
So, selling his soul to save his brother wasn't an unrighteous act? Or something?
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Date: 2009-03-20 04:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-20 04:38 pm (UTC)I'm guessing here:
That Dean, even though he ran credit card scams which are illigal, and even though he sold his soul, since he did it all for RIGHTEOUS reasons, then that made him still a righteous man.
Was it an episode or fanfic where one of the boys pointed out that they sort of hoped the good they were doing out-weighed the bad in the big picture?
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Date: 2009-03-20 04:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-20 04:02 pm (UTC)but hey series finale of 'BSG' tonight!
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Date: 2009-03-20 04:37 pm (UTC)OMG BSG TONIGHT! *fears*
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Date: 2009-03-20 05:10 pm (UTC)Oh I hope the finale kicks all sorts of but
oh and I agree with a previous comment you made, I don't recommend this show to people either now, and am now more likely to recommend 'Gossip Girl', which hmmm not sure what that says about me or 'SPN"
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Date: 2009-03-20 04:42 pm (UTC)Yeah, those were the first reviews I saw :-(
I liked Uriel for the same reasons. I dearly wish they'd tone down both Dean's angsty crap and also his smart mouth. He's 30 years old. Time to grow up, even if he is a guy *G*
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Date: 2009-03-20 08:33 pm (UTC)*blech*
I was a Dean fangirl, but I just might switch sides, since Sam needs the love more.
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Date: 2009-03-20 05:15 pm (UTC)Sometimes when a show has Fail fandom is the happy place where I can escape it, but right now? Not so much. I like Misha, but I'm starting to hate the fact that Castiel even exists, and that's entirely because of the way the dynamic of the show has changed, and the fact that fans who objected so strongly to Ellen and Jo and even Bobby are going mad for him.
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Date: 2009-03-20 06:26 pm (UTC)Eric Kripke got the okay on his pilot/spinoff, titled Angels in America. It follows the relationship between Uriel (the angry black guy), Castiel (the clueless geek), and Anna (the token hot chick).
Sam and Dean were featured just long enough to tie it in to SPN. Normal viewing will resume next week.
in short... i hated it. I hate Dean tears. I hate Castiel. And I hate five minutes of screentime!Sam.
mostly though, i hate the fact that i'm seeing squee everywhere about how it's a good thing that Dean and Castiel got 'bonding time.'
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Date: 2009-03-20 07:16 pm (UTC)There is a fantastic post over on Limp!Sam about last night's episode and Sam. It really opened up my eyes a lot.
http://www.websitetoolbox.com/tool/post/limpsam/show_single_post?pid=32639847&postcount=54
Part of it says:
**Sam has been forced to step to the fore as the strong one. He is not the straightforward hero like Dean in Season 1, because nothing is straight forward about his power or the path that brought him to where he is. He is mysterious, and ambiguous, and to me, exciting. He seems cold because he has built walls around himself that a tank couldn’t get through. He cannot allow himself to be vulnerable. Sammy in season 1 had that luxury, Sam in season 4 doesn’t. He especially cannot allow any vulnerability around his brother. 1) he can't be so weak that if he loses his brother again it will destroy him. 2) Dean has the ability to hurt him if he lets his guard down, and has done so. Implying Sam was something to be hunted? Throwing Madison in his face? 3) If he gets distracted by his brother’s pain it will weaken him. The way things are now, God forbid Sam goes weak. If he does the world can kiss its butt goodbye.**
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Date: 2009-03-20 08:29 pm (UTC)The nastier side of me though would point out that this entire season has been nothing but fanservice to the loud and vitriolic side of fandom that spent all of last season swearing up and down that they were DONE if they didn't get rid of those two bitches and give Dean some respect already. And I know that's entirely untrue and probably not what the writers were going but... so far Kripke has not said all that much about one brother while the other has been praised pretty openly. And that's where I start getting a little too fed up with the whole thing. Bad plot and melodrama aside, I'm just getting too much Dean and Dean's new blue-eyed fanboy and it sucks because I liked Dean fine before this season. Now I've learned to just do other things while he and his shiny angel are onscreen.
Thanks for the link though, I'll have to read it tonight after dogwalk. Mmm dogwalk. <3 <3
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Date: 2009-03-20 08:38 pm (UTC)Yes, do read the link, it helped me a lot in how I was looking at things. Didn't change my mind, just eased it a bit.
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Date: 2009-03-20 07:11 pm (UTC)where are our Sam centric, or at least brotherly centric episodes?!?!
Im so tired of Dean crying, he has been loosing my sypathy more and more every week when he does that
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Date: 2009-03-20 11:54 pm (UTC)Well, no, apparently John was. Which I'm not buying either. From what we've seen on the show, righteous men made deals all the time. Why hadn't they tried to start breaking seas before?
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Date: 2009-03-20 11:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-21 12:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-21 12:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-21 12:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-21 12:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-21 12:29 am (UTC)Not very happy with him right now.
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Date: 2009-03-20 11:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-21 12:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-21 12:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-21 12:30 am (UTC)And for the most part roles are written without race in mind,they then cast the best actor for the part..
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Date: 2009-03-21 12:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-21 01:17 am (UTC)OK,now I'm gonna wrack my brain, the husband and wife hunters, Issac(?), he wasn't bad, yes he died, but like I said,Kripke kills off a lot off folks.
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Date: 2009-03-21 01:22 pm (UTC)At this point it would be better if black actors were never cast in this show at all. Better to be racist by exclusion than to continually put black people into the worst possible situations on the show over and over and over again.
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Date: 2009-03-21 04:07 pm (UTC)Having spoken to Malik Whitfield(Hendrickson), he was thrilled with his role in Supernatural. He of course would have liked more, but so wouldall of the actors in the show,Jeffrey Dean Morgan is still hoping to be asked back.
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Date: 2009-03-21 06:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-21 12:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-21 01:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-21 01:48 am (UTC)I don't think I'll ever stop laughing at that. I enjoyed this week, but a lot of that was needing a fix. Ya know? Also, the pretty one was there.
The Sam stuff PISSED ME OFF cause it was VERY interesting and it's NOT what he should be doing. /dean rant
I do think they cry too much. But the Cas and Dean moments made everything pretty for me. All could be forgiven because two pretty people were on the screen together. (I'm sadly only half way joking.)
Anyway, much love!
K
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Date: 2009-03-21 01:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-21 02:27 pm (UTC)