Spoilers Supernatural - Season 12

[RJDiogenes]

It was pretty good, but there were a few things that bugged me. Mainly it was Mary's and Cass's reactions to Sam and Dean being captured. They should have been together that whole time, working night and day to find them. Cass should have had a hissy fit at Crowley for not helping. They just gave up too easily. Everything seemed too contrived to keep the boys locked up. And I really didn't buy Dean's statement that six weeks in solitary was worse than thirty years in Hell.

Cass's assassination of BIllie was a pretty bold move, though. Kind of a shame, since Billie is quite hot for a creature of death. I'll miss her not coming around. But I have to wonder if her comment about cosmic consequences for breaking the deal was foreshadowing. She's not the only Reaper.

And once again, the BMOL kill everybody, but it was really sad that they killed the old guy. The young guy was a twit, but the old guy was pretty cool and funny. I was expecting him to go on to do some research on the boys and figure everything out, and eventually become an ally. That was a missed opportunity.

 

[Guy Gardener]

The young guy was the medium to big bad in Continuum.

I expected more out of him than one night.

 

[Kelthaz]

And once again, the BMOL kill everybody, but it was really sad that they killed the old guy. The young guy was a twit, but the old guy was pretty cool and funny. I was expecting him to go on to do some research on the boys and figure everything out, and eventually become an ally. That was a missed opportunity.

It would appear that the BMOL's singular role on the show is to kill off all the interesting new characters in their debut episode. Thank god these guys weren't around back in season 1; Bobby never would have made it out of his junkyard.

 

[tnpir4002]

It's a shame that they killed Matthew Kellogg...or whatever he was called here. If you ask me it was the exact same character as he played in Continuum with a different name. And it was glorious! Would've been great to have him around the rest of the season...oh well.

 

[JD]

Yeah, I was really frustrated the BMOL killed them too. I thought the whole thing had a nice set up for an arc with the government guys hunting for the Winchesters.
I do agree with RJDiogenes, that it seemed odd how little effort Cas and Mary put into finding the brothers. I would have expected them to spend every possible moment searching for them, rather than pretty much just shrugging their shoulders and moving on.
I knew as soon as Billie said "a Winchester" had to die that Mary would sacrifice herself, but I did not see Cass killing Billie. It will be very interesting to see if that leads somewhere.
I kind of like the stuff with the British Men of Letters, the idea of having a powerful group like that around to help and/or interfere with the Winchesters adds an interesting new wrinkle the show.

 

[tnpir4002]

I suddenly have an image in my head of Crowley trying to get Castiel into a cannon.

I take it back. THIS is the best reply ever.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Yeah I was super excited about Continuum guy and then..

Thought this episode while enjoyable was awkward as heck. They had to kill themselves to get out of prison because SIX WEEKS was worse than 40 years in hell and the Cage?!

Old prison guy: you will be in the dark.

Well that didn't happen.. and the cell they were in was bigger than actual solitary confinement much less a lot of shitholes people end up in.

I've power watched all of SPN last year from the start and am now caught up and.. what is up with the directing of this show? It looks very shabby and seems to have lost its punch. There are aimless scenes that go on too long, strangely delivered lines as though the actors are also wtf is this.. the background music (not the soundtrack) is AWFUL like an 80's cop show in places. Still has good ideas, good stories but the execution seems to have taken a dive into exhaustion.

Glad Mary is still in it.

 

[tnpir4002]

I've power watched all of SPN last year from the start and am now caught up and.. what is up with the directing of this show? It looks very shabby and seems to have lost its punch. There are aimless scenes that go on too long, strangely delivered lines as though the actors are also wtf is this.. the background music (not the soundtrack) is AWFUL like an 80's cop show in places. Still has good ideas, good stories but the execution seems to have taken a dive into exhaustion.

I blame at least part of this on the new showrunners. I haven't been paying attention to the directors and writers of these episodes, but I do know that in seasons past there were some names you loved to see and others that could make you groan in terror as soon as you saw them. I need to go back and look at the credits for this season...but thus far, the only episode that seemed to have been both written and directed competently was "Mamma Mia," and even then I had some complaints about the scene where Lucifer showed his wings in what was clearly a threat display (the sound mix was WAY too soft; compare that to the scene where Gadreel did the same in "Devil May Care").

There was one episode last year or the year before when a comment was made about how SPN has a "house" style of directing and how one particular episode (which featured one act-out that included a wide shot of the whole set) didn't fit. Speaking for myself, it's starting to seem like there's no consistent flow to any aspect of the show, and that's no good.

 

[Sto-Vo-Kory]

Yeah I was super excited about Continuum guy and then..

Thought this episode while enjoyable was awkward as heck. They had to kill themselves to get out of prison because SIX WEEKS was worse than 40 years in hell and the Cage?!

Old prison guy: you will be in the dark.

Well that didn't happen.. and the cell they were in was bigger than actual solitary confinement much less a lot of shitholes people end up in.

I've power watched all of SPN last year from the start and am now caught up and.. what is up with the directing of this show? It looks very shabby and seems to have lost its punch. There are aimless scenes that go on too long, strangely delivered lines as though the actors are also wtf is this.. the background music (not the soundtrack) is AWFUL like an 80's cop show in places. Still has good ideas, good stories but the execution seems to have taken a dive into exhaustion.

Glad Mary is still in it.

I've written about this in other Supernatural threads and it's something that becomes especially noticeable when you watch an early season episode right before a new episode or, like you, binge the entire series in a short period of time.

Around the seventh or eighth season, Supernatural lost its second unit for filming due to budget cuts. So, whatever gets filmed for an episode is done by the first unit team or not at all. Less location shooting, fewer scene changes, more episodes being set in a single nondescript "abandoned" warehouse, limited nighttime filming, no pick-up shots to flesh out a scene -- you get the idea. Hell, even variety in the brothers' motel rooms (which formerly was a unique design for each episode) is now almost non-existent.

This all adds up to latter seasons looking cheaper and more claustrophobic than the the first five or so seasons, when the show could afford to be more ambitious and creative with its visuals.

I don't fault the directors for this; they're doing the best they can with the production equvialent of one hand tied behind their back.

 

[Aragorn]

The writing on this show has always been sloppy in order for the characters to get from point A to point B, namely deadly monsters who can kill humans in a split second but would rather push Sam and Dean into walls, walk slowly toward them and tie them up. For a government black site, it was sure easy for them to just walk outside and then take on armed soldiers. And it was quite fortunate that absolutely no one told anyone else they had captured Sam and Dean for the attempted assassination of POTUS.

 

[tnpir4002]

The writing on this show has always been sloppy in order for the characters to get from point A to point B, namely deadly monsters who can kill humans in a split second but would rather push Sam and Dean into walls, walk slowly toward them and tie them up. For a government black site, it was sure easy for them to just walk outside and then take on armed soldiers. And it was quite fortunate that absolutely no one told anyone else they had captured Sam and Dean for the attempted assassination of POTUS.

All true but let's go back to Cas for a minute. For all the episodes he's been in so far this season, they've been remarkably tame in how they've used him. Very few displays of angel power, despite a laundry list of abilities that we've either seen or heard talked about, any of which by all rights should have come into play here. Consider:
* The brothers could easily have prayed to him, making it easy for him to locate them. (He pointed this out himself sometime in season 10, that angels can locate people and that "it doesn't have to be a formal prayer")
* Upon locating them, he could've walked through walls to get to them (referenced by Bobby in the episode where Cas made off with the Lovecraft manuscripts or some such)
* For added effect, he could turn invisible to slip past the guards (see above)
* Or, without turning invisible, could simply render them unconscious (as he did Bobby in his introductory scene)

And yet, instead we have the BMoL as the heroes that save the day. Even without wings, there's no reason Cas couldn't have saved the day. And personally, I found it rather conspicuous that they *had* to turn to Crowley--who can still teleport--as the answer to how to sneak into the president's compound in the midseason finale.

Sloppy writing is one thing...but this is something else altogether. It's as if they've completely tossed out their own continuity, and are delivering narratives that are horribly broken as a result.

 

[tnpir4002]

Two weeks in a row I'm the first one to comment on the episode? Where have all our regulars gone?

Okay, here goes...

* First, YAY for open discussion (however brief) of angels losing their wings AND Cas' role (however unwitting) therein...and for the burned-out shadow of Benjamin's broken wings to boot. Yay for continuity!
* Second, YAY for openly discussing what a nephilim actually is and why they're so dangerous...well...except I don't get it. Why does soul + grace = worlds getting lost? Unless she was fathered by a seraphim (did they even clarify that?), I just can't see the grace of a regular angel resulting in something that lethal. The nephilim that Metatron had Cas kill in season 8 didn't seem that powerful after all.
* Why did the smiting fail? She sure looked like she was in pain...and we've seen angels smite other angels before (unless I'm misremembering)
* Was I the only one hoping we'd get a glimpse of BAMF Cas going to Hell to rescue Dean?

 

[auntiehill]

I don't know......this episode was odd. So someone can study Angel Magic and be strong enough to kick their asses--and it all it costs you is a glowing Terminator eye? How did we not know this? What's going to happen to the woman now?

I hope this actually leads somewhere.

 

[sojourner]

It costs you a little bit of your soul every time you use that magic.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

I was impatiently wondering when we could get to the real nephilim story line but then thought she's only recently pregnant but then thought ANGEL conception, that can take like 2 months not 9 months if they want it to.

So, yeah.. that was better than the last ep and a decent story but lets get to the arc plz.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Well, I'm glad that they're foreshadowing the cosmic consequences. I wonder if Billie-- and maybe even Death-- will somehow be resurrected (if that's the right term for creatures of death). I liked the episode overall-- I had wondered if Cass would be one of the Angels on the hit list, and sure enough he was, but I didn't anticipate a flashback to the turn of the last century. Those other Angels certainly held onto their vessels for a long time (and, while Castiel did have a different vessel, she wore a similar coat ). It was an interesting plot, with a nice twist, and I'm glad the Angel hunting woman didn't die-- I like it when characters survive to make a return appearance later. She didn't even get offed by the BMOL in an epilogue.

So Cass has no idea what the offspring of Lucifer and a human will be like (you'd think Lucifer would have tried this before). I wonder if they have some twist in store for us, like the kid turning out to be the Second Coming or something.

 

[tnpir4002]

Third week in a row I'm the first commenter...

Tonight's show was kind of iffy...an interesting premise, but the whole time Rowena felt very out of character. The notion that she and Dean would share a laugh, even if it was at Sam's expense, was too much a departure. If you imagine Rowena as a figment of Sam's imagination (again), then this episode works. If you imagine this as a 100% standalone offering, and throw away everything we've learned about Rowena thus far, it works. If you want to take this as part of anyone's character arcs, then it breaks.

My CW affiliate isn't showing the promos for next week anymore thanks to Rivertown or whatever the new teen drama is that follows SPN--they say to go to CW.Com for more, but I can't find next week's teasers there. Anyone know where they are?

 

[RJDiogenes]

I think this is it. Are they always this short?

I don't comment right away because it takes me a day or two to get to see it.

 

[Icemizer]

I dont know tnpir4002 I saw this as character growth for Rowena. As she explained to Dean she always thought gaining power was what would make her happy and then she met the two beings in the universe with ultimate power and they were not happy so she is reassessing her goals. She is still a crafty, evil, self centered person but her end game seems to have changed. She did hand over the book rather easily.
As for the episode itself, meh nothing exciting and the end was horrible. I would rather have had a few more moments of story than Dean riding the bull recapping what we had just seen. Lazy story telling at its finest.

 

[RJDiogenes]

This was kind of a touching episode about Alzheimer's Disease. It's not often that Supernatural does deeper meanings, so I'm wondering if this was about somebody in particular, maybe a parent of one of the writers or producers. I was almost expecting to see a dedication at the end.

Interesting standalone story, too. No Mom or Cass, but a nice guest role for Rowena. She wanted to get back at the other witches for the mistreatment of a hundred years ago, but she wasn't quite up to it. Good thing Dean showed up-- even with Alzheimer's, he figured out what to do. I was a little surprised that Sam said they owed her one at the end, since Dean saved her bacon.

And it certainly had its touching moments. Dean, standing in front of the mirror, trying to hold on to his most basic memories; Sam, saying that watching Dean lose himself was worse than watching him die. How many people have had to go through that?

And then there's that Grimoire. I wonder if anything will come of that.