spn retrospective: s8!

[fannishliss]

A bit of an uneven season again.  Several good ones, several mediocre ones.  Overall, a bumpy arc as it transitions from recovery from Dean's year in Purgatory, to closing the gates of Hell.  And then they don't.  Hmm.

:D :D    •    8.01 We Need to Talk About Kevin
-- Dean's femur obsidian blade!
-- resurrecting Benny!!  Dean hugs a vampire?!?!
--I think it's interesting that the very first scene between Sam and Amelia explicit showed that they were never going to make it.  Yet fans STILL hated it.  sigh.
--Dean gets bent out of shape with Sam within a minute of seeing him.  And Sam clams up.  sigh.
-- I still feel there is a likelihood that demons were involved with masking Kevin's calls from Sam. I know there's nothing in canon about that... but it's just a very persistent headcanon for me -- very similar to how Dean's voicemail to Sammy was changed.  Demons do that kind of thing, and they did have motive.
-- Dean's feeling that Purgatory was pure gave me the creeps.  I began to worry about Dean.  So a good start to the season!!

:D   •    8.02 What's Up, Tiger Mommy?  Linda Tran, and also Samandriel!  Crowley was very cruel in this ep.
 :)   •    8.03 Heartache -- the one about the ancient athlete.  I remember liking it at the time.
:D    •    8.04 Bitten -- this is the found footage ep about werewolves.  I really liked it!  I don't every ep in 200 to focus solely on Samndean.
:D  :D   •    8.05 Blood Brother -- Ben Edlund's ep about Vampirates.  I liked it a lot!  When they were in the nest and Dean was sneaking around... when they had to behead Benny's girlfriend... when they met the very creepy maker -- there were a lot of good moments.
o_o    •    8.06 Southern Comfort  - -a pretty good ep with Garth.  Dean is a little heavy handed with the grudge, but at least he refrains from shooting Sam.
    •    8.07 A Little Slice of Kevin -- torturing Samandriel was horrible.  The stuff about Naomi and Castiel was compelling...  Linda Tran was amazing in every ep. One thing I notice is that they were trying to balance flashbacks to Purgatory with flashbacks to Amelia.  The main effect was to slow and dilute the first half of the season.  Especially with Amelia, it didn't work like they wanted it to.
o_o   •    8.08 Hunteri Heroici -- an okay ep but strangely inconsequential?
 :D   •    8.09 Citizen Fang -- I liked this one a lot.  I liked Benny's somewhat desperate attempt to rebond with his descendent.  And Martin's crazed mission to stop him. I'm fully on Benny's side for this ep.
    •    8.10 Torn and Frayed -- I hated the torture of Samandriel like wow.  D:  also:
"The brothers have chosen hunting and each other over Benny and Amelia."  Yes, that took way too long, and also, it has been my longterm peeve of Sam and Dean believing they need to "choose" between having actual lives and each other.  Every so often a friend needs you, you can go to them --epecially if they saved your life!!  So I didn't think Dean needed to "give up" Benny -- and then of course -- he needed him again, and Benny made the ultimate sacrifice.  Benny was a true friend.  With Amelia, I feel like as soon as Don re-entered the picture, Sam should make his polite exit. You know, he could secretly plan to look in on her later just in case it didn't work out ultimately with Don? But you have to let a husband and wife try to rebuild their marriage...
:D :D :D    •    8.11 LARP and the Real Girl -- so happy with the return of Charlie, and the Boys in Moondor.
:D :D :D   •    8.12 As Time Goes By   -- I loved the introduction of Josey and Abaddon and Henry.  I love Henry so much.  The Geekiest Winchester ever.  I like pondering the idea that the Winchesters all along were the geeky ones and the Campbells were the serious asskickers  (including Mary).  Campbells are largely Slytherins, while Winchesters are largely Ravenclaws!!!
:D :D :D :D    •    8.13 Everybody Hates Hitler -- one of my very top all time favorites.  the golem! the Nazis! the kid!  I loved every minute of it.  Hal Linden!!!!!  so awesome.  thanks, Ben Edlund, you're the best!!!  Plus this ep introduces the Bunker, which is pretty awesome.
 :D   •    8.14 Trial and Error -- the one where Sam kills the hellhound.  I liked the crazy family and Ellie in this ep.  Probably should write a tag about Ellie...
 :D   •    8.15 Man's Best Friend with Benefits  -- tons of folks hated this ep.  I'm not gonna argue, I'll just say, that I remember it very clearly and liked it a lot.  It went a ways towards showing witches in a more positive light, or at least that they are not one unified homogenous group, and I always like that.  I also liked that the relationship between the witch James and the familiar Portia made the other people in their cohort uncomfortable, and yet they perseverered despite that prejudice.  I liked that Portia defended her relationship with James, and refused to let outside perspectives define who they were to each other.  ... I also liked that the ep portrayed a kind of dom/sub dynamic in a positive light, with both parties being sympathetic.
o_o    •    8.16 Remember the Titans -- I do not remember this at all.
:)    •    8.17 Goodbye Stranger -- the most memorable thing about this ep was the death of Meg.  I still wish they would bring her back.  Loved Meg by the end.
  :)   •    8.18 Freaks and Geeks -- bad Hunter school.  A good concept.
:D    •    8.19 Taxi Driver -- I was glad Sam got Bobby out of hell.  also I pitied Benny.  a good ep.
:D :D    •    8.20 Pac-Man Fever -- a very good ep.  I love Charlie.
:)    •    8.21 The Great Escapist -- ugh, Metatron.  He was a very hatable villain from the beginning.
:)    •    8.22 Clip Show -- Crowley killed Tommy Collins!  and Sarah Blake!!    that is bad.
 :)   •    8.23 Sacrifice -- then Crowley threatens Jody!! onoz!!
At the church, Dean promises to love Sammy forever.    Sam quits the trial.  All the angels fall. 

Comments

[hugemind.livejournal.com]

I really need to rewatch Everybody Hates Hitler. I've focused more on LARP and Time, but that's a good episode and it's gotten a lot of love on my flist. :)

[fannishliss.livejournal.com]

I love Everybody Hates Hitler. But then again, not everybody is waiting, waiting for GOLEM SMASH NAZIS!!!!

So awesome. :D

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

There are a few here I really should rewatch...

[fannishliss.livejournal.com]

me too. someday!

[tsuki-no-bara.livejournal.com]

i liked kevin and his mom (poor kevin - being a prophet sucks), i liked benny, i liked some of the cases, and dean doing braveheart at the end of larp and the real girl cracked me right up, but i couldn't stick out the season. someone had to tell me how it ended.

[fannishliss.livejournal.com]

My ranking seems to indicate that the second half was a lot better than the first. I try to stay positive when shows are airing because a lot of times I think we as a fandom can get bogged down in developing plot situations and too much speculation about spoilers... but looking back, I think it's fair to be a bit more critical... and Season 8 really does look like a much weaker season. I think you can blame it structurally on the heavy reliance on flashbacks in the first half. Especially the Amelia flashbacks tried to drain the momentum out of every ep! I like Amelia as a character who brought a certain amount of tension and conflict. She was a very imperfect person (not a paragon like Lisa) and it's not that I couldn't see Sam falling in love with her -- just the opposite. He has a huge capacity for love, and with her being damaged and needy, he had a safe place to invest love. But then Don came back. The whole Don thing was super fishy to me throughout -- not the strongest piece of writing ever!!

And TBH, Sam and Dean are so estranged. It's sad. We want Brothers. And now, for s10, the situation is DIRE. I hope we will get Brothers back soon.

I hope you at least watched Everybody Hates Hitler?? It's kind of First Avengery in a way... where instead of Hydra there is the Thule and instead of SSR there is the Men of Letters and their Rabbi allies. A ragtag band of Rabbis!! \o/ Now that I know a bit more of Captain America comic book canon (I never read Cap or the mainstream Avengers if I could avoid it) I see how Edlund has had a long history of mocking that canon (like he does everything). :D

Possibly the other one you might enjoy would be Pacman Fever. Charlie is trapped inside a videogame basically and there are a lot of costume changes and it's pretty fun. Robbie Thompson has a strong track record with me. :)

[tsuki-no-bara.livejournal.com]

the flashbacks helped kill s8 for me. they were SO BORING (even the purgatory ones, altho i liked the way they were shot) and slowed the action down SO MUCH, and i didn't think sam and amelia had any chemistry. (and the actress reminded me so strongly of the actress who played myka in warehouse 13 that i kept expecting amelia to be her, and she kept not being her and it constantly threw me off. which was such a stupid thing and nothing to do with the show but it didn't make it any easier for me to get into her part of the plot.) i like your interpretation of sam&amelia and at the time it might have helped me appreciate her as a character more, but you're right that don was always fishy and the flashbacks weren't even well done, and they felt soapy-romantic in a way the show never was. it was like the ptb were trying to graft romance onto a paranormal type show, and not successfully, either.

a lot of the parts i hated about s4 and s5 where when the ptb pitted the boys against each other, and i didn't want to suffer another season of that. i watch for the boys and i always have, and if they're just going to be at each others' throats all the time i'm not going to keep watching. they didn't even seem to like each other. (and then they seemed to have the easiest resolution ever and i just threw in the towel.) i couldn't quite get into the whole men of letters thing, altho i did like as time goes by as an episode. i was tired of the angels and the demons and heaven and hell and the primacy of the biblical mytharc, and i was tired of castiel and tired of crowley and the only major player in the mytharc who i liked was kevin. well, and his mom. mrs tran was kinda tough.

i am full of unpopular fannish opinions, seriously.

i never saw everybody hates hitler, which is absurd because i'd wanted a golem motw for SO LONG. like, hey, something that can't be banished with salt and holy water! i even downloaded it, but it just sat on my hard drive and sat on my hard drive and sat on my hard drive and i finally deleted it because i knew i wasn't going to watch it. which might tell you how much i didn't care any more. i heard the second half of the season was much better than the first, and in retrospect i should've checked out after the premiere and just waited until after the mid-season hiatus to pick it back up, but, again, i couldn't muster up enough give-a-damn. i was just done.

[milly-gal.livejournal.com]

There are certain episodes from this year that will go down in history as favourites for me. But it's the same with every year, likes and do not wants ;) Thanks for taking the time to join in cos I certainly enjoyed the recaps and reviews :D

[fannishliss.livejournal.com]

It's been really fun. It's also a chance to take a step back and let myself say, well, I don't remember that ep at all, so maybe it wasn't that great... :) Whereas sitting in front of the tv in the moment, I am completely glued. O_O Even meh episodes are riveting as they occur. It's only two or three years later that I'm like whuh??? So it's interesting to do a retrospective like this. In the last week I've touched back on EVERY SINGLE EPISODE, and it is actually pretty interesting to watch as the show changes.

I can say, there was a shift after Kripke left, which is, that the first five years do develop along a single arc, and then, post Kripke, that sense of forward pull is a little more absent.
As fans we want to reach equilibrium where the Boys are happy and Hunting and maybe have a few friends. But the writers have chosen to keep the show Tense by having the Boys become more and more estranged. I really hope that s10 will be a season where some of that is worked out. Star Trek was always able to make a more episodic storyline work out, but nowadays, the long arc is preferred. Hm. I could stand a season 11 where it was just monsters of the week! :)

[milly-gal.livejournal.com]

I saw the shift when Kripke left, it lost it's way a little, but as shows go, for one that's gone on this long, they've done okay. Each season has it's merits and pitfalls but without either, we wouldn't have gotten here.