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Supernatural 6x01 "Exile on Main Street" discussion/spoilerish

I agree the show seemed off. Sam especially seemed off, I honestly kept expecting that in the next scene Sam would turn out to be one of Djin and it was all a ruse. He was like someone coming in and acting like Sam but who didn't really know him well enough to ad lib.

I didn't like the Campbells because they weren't fun and interesting. Bobby, Meg, Ruby, Alistair, Crowley, Jo, Ellen, pick any supporting character and they are great characters that you want to see back again and again. The cousins were so bleh, I couldn't even tell them apart except one was a girl. Grandpa I could handle being a recurring, but really the Campbells aren't interesting characters. They could be, the writers have a knack for making every character interesting, but they haven't done so.

I kept hoping the kid, and kick me for forgetting his name, would be a mini-Dean again, at least a little. I loved that.

One other thing of note that hasn't been mentioned, compare this with the series pilot, and reverse the roles. Sam has been out hunting for a year, Dean has been at home with the GF. While the characterizations in the pilot were still raw at that point, they were miles ahead of what came out tonight.

Overall it was like the first chapter of Harry Potter and Sorcerer's Stone, it supposedly had to be there but it just didn't work. I hope this gets the exposition out of the way and we can get back in groove quickly.
 
I agree that this was not the best episode ever. It felt kind of like the Bones premiere: Awkward, like the writers had put themselves in a position they didn't know how to get out of.

As has been said, the Campbells were non-entities. And Grandpa, while cool, is either a fake or is up to something that he is-- surprise-- keeping secret from everyone else. Like many shows these days, there is too much arbitrary secret keeping.

And it looks like there is some new major Apocalyptic plot in the works. I was looking forward to the return of the folk tales and urban legends-- although the "new monsters we've never heard of" bit sounded interesting. Normally they are able to do some research to figure out how to defeat a monster-- but somebody had to figure out those methods to begin with. Now they are in that position, it seems.
 
For me the whole episode felt off and the pacing was just somehow wrong. I don't trust the Cambell's, I'm not sure if I trust Sam and I certainly don't trust the writers. I would like to, but I would be lying if I said that I have no doubts. Also like Lax said, I didn't find the cousins to be very interesting. One is a girl, one thinks he's better than Dean, one doesn't speak a lot and then there's Samuel. Yeah, at this point they have no real personality and they can very well be just cannon fodder.
 
The biggest component missing: a hook for the rest of the season (or really why Dean in particular needs to be involved now that Sam has a bunch of other hunters). The closest was the line about Dean acting from the heart/gut (to save the people who were already pretty much dead) and Sam "not even considering" doing the same (perhaps an indication of how far away from humanity he has lurched). Otherwise, though, it seemed a bit aimless.

I don't think the Campbells were introduced very well here. They came across as rather uninteresting. I agree that it would have been better to hold off on their introduction until episode two (perhaps--as his re-introduction--having Grampa save Dean and Sam in the closing moments of episode one). It probably would have been better to have them introduced gradually over the course of the season (rather than all at once). I agree that they come across as "cannon fodder" by just being thrown into the group so fast.
 
There's definitely something wrong about Samuel. I don't quite trust him. The other Campbells will die rather quickly except for Samuel and Corin Nemec's character. I'm not sure why they'd introduce such obvious red shirts. I doubt we'll care much when they die.
 
Well, that was disappointing. This episode felt too much like a reboot for the entire series. I always thought this show had trouble starting seasons. With the exception of Lazarus Rising, all of them have been very slow. The main problem I had with it was that it didn't do a good job at trying to show what this season was going to be about.

Grampa Campbell is okay, I guess the writers really like Mitch Pileggi, but I already dislike the cousins. They feel like addons. The monster of the week felt a little weak. They were just a bunch of dudes with tatoos. Anyone think it was funny how Dean and Sam reacted to finding out that Grampa had been brought back? They don't even treat resurrection as a big deal anymore.

I hope the next episodes pick up. This show just doesn't feel complete without Cas.
 
I thought the whole episode was taken kind of lightly. There just wasn't much of an emotional impact like there normally is.
 
There's a bit of a reality disconnect between the extreme lengths Sam went to keep Dean out of the world of hunting (not telling his brother that he's out of hell? Seriously?) and the 'you should totally become a hunter again' attitude Sam has now. That has to be explained a bit more. Otherwise, it just seems like nonsense.
 
mswood said:
Yeah but for the show (previous to the last to episodes of season 5) it wasn't her.
[...]
For the writers it makes sense. Internally for the story it doesn't. But its hardly the first time the writers have had to do something like this.
Click to expand...

It wasn't her, no, but it was the kid. You can see in The Kids are Alright that Dean desperately wanted Mini-Dean to be his son, to the point that he probably would have quit hunting right then and there is not for the fact that he was on a one-way trip to hell.

Heck, I think he might have just quit hunting and spent his last remaining days bonding with Ben if not for the fact that the kid's bio-dad showed up at the end. You could see how incredibly disappointed he was at not being saddled with that particular responsibility.

Then in Dream a Little Dream of Me, settling down with Lisa and Ben was a part of Dean's dream fantasy, one that he suspiciously denies ever having before.

So yeah, they've been setting this up since Season 3. It isn't out the the blue at all.
 
You complain that this season is different than previous... or this season, this! or this season, That.... You all forget that this show now resides in the same catagory of babylon IV... Shows that had a specific termination scenario but now a extra season was tacked on.

Supernatural should have ended last year and we all should be singing about how wonderful the show use to be... but, the writers who had a 5 year plan for the show now have to scramble to think up some plausable scenario about what would make a great season and still keep the interest of past supernatural viewers....
GMAB
 
Lt. Trull said:
You complain that this season is different than previous... or this season, this! or this season, That.... You all forget that this show now resides in the same catagory of babylon IV... Shows that had a specific termination scenario but now a extra season was tacked on. Supernatural should have ended last year and we all should be singing about how wonderful the show use to be... but, the writers who had a 5 year plan for the show now have to scramble to think up some plausable scenario about what would make a great season and still keep the interest of past supernatural viewers.... GMAB
Click to expand...
The problem is that the show itself doesn't feel like the show. The characters don't feel like the characters. Neither of those things have anything to do with the story or plot being told. It's as if they've forgotten how to write these characters at all. Dean didn't feel like Dean. Sam didn't feel like Sam. No one felt like anyone. Even the little things were missing, like the AC/DC season introduction. For a character-driven show like Supernatural, that's kinda-sorta important.
 
Dorian Thompson said:
People change when they've been to hell. Something is pointedly wrong with Sam. He's grown cold. That's their point.
Click to expand...

True. It wasn't even normal hell either. The guy had Lucifer in his head. That's bound to give anybody some severe emotional and psychological issues (especially given that he had just trapped Lucifer in a cage--thereby giving him even more reason to mess with Sam's head).
 
I think it's a very logical progression. Even without sharing his meatsuit with Lucy, Sam's grown progressively colder as the series has gone on. I didn't find his behavior strange at all.
 
Just my opinion, but I think it was presented to be a bit jarring and different deliberately.

Even without sharing his meatsuit with Lucy, Sam's grown progressively colder as the series has gone on.
Click to expand...

Yes, he really has. That characterization is consistent.
 
Dorian Thompson said:
Just my opinion, but I think it was presented to be a bit jarring and different deliberately.
Click to expand...

After a few more viewings I have to agree that this might be a very real possibility. After all this is the same team that has worked on the show since the beginning and they should know what they are doing. If they want us to feel uncomfortable and unsure about the situation, they are pulling it off perfectly!
 
I tend to agree. It's post-Apocalypse, it's seven months later, everybody has moved on one way or another-- coming back together now is awkward and anti-climactic. I had the same feeling during the Bones premiere; it felt like everybody had taken a step backward. Working through that will be part of the storyline.
 
Hmm...Like some Romulan once said
"It's a faaaaaaaaaake!"
Its a djin dream... It must be... It felt like a dream

I liked it...if it's dream.

If it's the shows new style.....bleh I hope not :)
 
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