So much happened in this week’s episode, ‘All In The Family’ that it’s difficult to get it all down in a review that’s sandwiched between conventions. I just got back from the Ladies of SPN Con, where I met some wonderful actresses and some wonderful fellow fans, so my review is late – and most likely you’ve all read others while I was flying back and forth across the country. So I’ll make this one personal, and leave most of the deep theological ponderings to others. I watch this Show with a very personal lens – it’s the relationships that matter to me, more than anything else. Though of course the characters are embedded within a larger story, and it’s that story which shapes who they are.
We pick up where we left off (thank you for that, Show!) as Dean and Sam are reunited with Chuck and – predictably – don’t exactly say oh sure, you’ve been God all along, right. Instead, they’re skeptical, but their hunters’ skepticism is quickly erased by the sudden and unexpected (to me as well as the Winchesters) appearance of none other than Kevin Tran, looking as adorable as ever.
The veil has been good to him, it seems – or at least not terrible. I was so shocked to see Kevin that I dropped the remote I was holding and it fell right into the delicious dessert we were all eating. Oops.
Kevin gets a well-deserved upgrade, and I loved Jared and Jensen’s faces as Sam and Dean reacted to his ascent to Heaven – Kevin’s death was tremendously difficult for both of them, and they both felt guilty. I think Kevin being lifted from the veil lifted some of that burden from the Winchesters too.
Then we get a truly amazing scene. Sam, always the brother more drawn to religion, curious about God and angels and wanting to believe, is awestruck. Him talking to God – Chuck – sounded a lot like me talking to Jared and Jensen the first time I met them, so I had to laugh when Dean pointed out (in true brotherly fashion) that Sam was indeed babbling. Hey, I know the feeling.
This scene was brilliantly shot – and I don’t know if it was in the script or the director’s idea or if it was Jensen’s – but Dean curled up against the wall, sitting like a little boy who’s hurt and angry and doesn’t want to be at the big people’s table, worked immediately to set the scene. Dean’s emotions were there before he even started to speak, just in his body posture, just in the guarded look on his face.
The questions Dean asks, haltingly and prefaced by ‘no disrespect’, are the timeless questions of humanity, asked by every religion in some way and at some time.
“There’s so much crap…did you just tune it out? People prayed to you, built churches for you….and you did nothing.”
Chuck insists he had to back away, let his ‘baby’ find its own way instead of enabling. That he thought by doing that, things would get better.
The heartbreaking thing is, the Winchesters know more personally than perhaps anyone just how much they didn’t.
Dean: But it didn’t get better.
The first tears were brimming in Dean’s eyes almost as soon as this conversation/confrontation began. As they spilled over and ran down his cheeks, my heart was aching for him. I love this fictional character, I’m endlessly fascinated by him. By his bravery, his humanity, his flaws, his contradictions. And perhaps most of all by his emotionality. Dean Winchester feels so much; we see it in this scene.
The other side of the character’s emotionality is the willingness of the actor who portrays him to show it to us. Not with eyedrops and faked sadness, but by letting himself be Dean Winchester and feel the emotions that Dean would feel. That’s a courageous choice, and it makes all the difference. Everything about Dean’s crying – right down to his almost cluelessness about the fact that he was crying – rang 100% true. He was so caught up in what he was saying, the questions he’s begging for an answer to, that he doesn’t seem to even realize that tears are streaming down his face until he distractedly wipes them away. There’s no shame in his crying, no attempt to hide or stop. The pain Dean’s feeling is so real, there is no stopping it. And Jensen lets that happen.
Sam fell quiet when Dean started questioning Chuck, but he is still very much an integral part of this scene – there is never a scene with both Sam and Dean in it that isn’t about the two of them. Sam is clearly surprised – shocked maybe – by Dean’s emotionality. But he doesn’t deflect or try to minimize or tell his brother to ‘calm down’ or do any of those things that would invalidate Dean’s feelings and shame him. Instead, he listens. And Jared, who portrays Sam the same way that Jensen portrays Dean, lets us see Sam’s emotions too. His protectiveness of his brother, and his empathy. He sees what this is costing Dean, and he also sees that this is something Dean has to say.
Knowing some behind the scenes insights about this scene added to its intensity. Jensen talked about filming this scene at a convention shortly after, saying that he got unexpectedly emotional so he asked to do his coverage first. The scene was actually written as intended for Dean to be angry, but because the actors let their characters’ emotions come through organically, instead Dean became upset – and Jensen went with it.
Jensen (laughing): And then the waterworks continued – off camera!
Jared: I was like, wow, Jensen is really playing this up.
Except he wasn’t. That was Dean all the way. Dean, whose own father abandoned him, refusing to answer his desperate phone calls for help even when it might have been life or death for his sons. Dean, who lost his mother far too young and has experienced so much pain and death and loss ever since. Who has been abandoned and left on his own again and again. Chuck’s admission that he was around the whole time but chose not to help must have hit Dean where he’s most vulnerable – and Chuck, of course, knows it.
Chuck: Don’t confuse me with your Dad.
Ouch. But the thing is, Chuck? There are a helluva lot of similarities. This is Supernatural, after all. The show has always had daddy issues.
Daddy issues run through the parallel story line of this episode too, with Amara trying to convince Lucifer to ask for help from his father, aka God. I thought Misha did a fabulous job of portraying Lucifer in this episode – he has it down so well now that I can barely see Cas in there at all anymore. We start to see Lucifer a bit differently as he expresses his anger and hurt, his doubt that his father would even want to “rescue his screw-up of a son.”
And we see Chuck’s own ambivalence. He clearly doesn’t hate Lucifer, but he’s clearly hurt and angry too. He refers to Lucifer as his “greatest hope and disappointment”, setting Dean and Sam straight when they oversimplify Lucifer as simply a bad guy with an authoritarian “Thus spake the Lord” that leaves the Winchesters speechless.
I confess to being a bit confused about Amara, as I have been all season. She’s warded against God now? But I thought she was trying desperately to get him to come to her? She seems much more desperate at this point to get to Dean, using his bond with Cas to be able to appear to him and try to get him to come to her. I’m not entirely sure why she’s so fascinated with him – I mean, other than the obvious. I mean, I find Dean Winchester pretty damn fascinating too. And yes, he let her out. And he held the Mark. Clearly Dean is important in the scheme of things, but Amara’s interest seems…personal. Not that I blame her. Plus, we get this kind of close-up.
Anyway, one of the things that I love about this season is that Sam and Dean have finally learned that keeping things from each other never ends well. At least, they’ve learned it for the moment – until one of them becomes convinced that they need to keep something from the other for their “own good”. But for now, Dean tells Sam about his visions of Amara – there’s a theme of truth and honesty running through this season, and I like that it’s making the Winchesters stronger together. I loved that the Samulet reappeared, a symbol of their years together – though I confess I wish they hadn’t dropped it like a hot potato in the very next episode. Couldn’t we even have just a little “Wait, did you have this all along?” conversation?? Robbie Thompson, will we ever get those kind of moments again now that you’re leaving us??
The other two major players in this week’s episode were Metatron and the new prophet, Donatello. I adore Curtis and his portrayal of Metatron, and last week’s episode made us all reassess our opinion of the Scribe with Curtis’ emotional performance. This week, he takes it a step further. Seeing that Sam and Dean have met with Chuck (and I loved the way Metatron just clambered up onto the bar to watch the television hehe), Metatron calls them up to give them some important information.
[Why does Dean have Metatron’s number in his phone though? And why did he put it under ‘Scribe’ instead of ‘Douche’?]
That stricken look on Metatron’s face when he read the ending of Chuck’s revised autobiography in last week’s episode? Now we understand it. Because Chuck is planning to sacrifice himself to save his creation. To give Amara what she wants in the hopes that she’ll spare the rest.
Woah. Now that’s a revelation. And a theme of this Show from day one. Sacrifice.
Metatron also tells the truth, and eventually Sam and Dean believe him. And we understand a little more about Metatron, the angel and now the man. It’s true, he never used to give a damn. But things are different now.
Metatron: I was by his side from the beginning. If there’s something I can do to help save him, and his creation…
Not what I ever expected to hear from Metatron, but I think he means it.
Meanwhile, Kevin gone, Donatello becomes the next prophet (in the midst of the Amara fog which I also don’t really understand. Do people now just die outright when it hits them? That isn’t what happened the first few times though, right? Confused….) At any rate, Amara is upping her numbers game a bit. Thousands die this time, and Chuck isn’t willing to take the bait and save them.
Donatello is as mystified about being a prophet as Kevin was, and equally reluctant. The Winchesters don’t have much time for breaking it to the poor guy gently, and that made for some hysterical exchanges with Donatello locked in the back of the Impala. Also? I laughed out loud at:
Reluctant prophet: My name is Donatello.
Dean: Like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle?
Sam: [Epic bitchface at his brother’s cluelessness. So quintessentially Sam and Dean.]
I do have to say this episode jumped around a lot, and at times the dialogue didn’t entirely make sense. It was like bits were edited out and what was left didn’t 100% go together. Like:
Dean and Sam and Donatello come back to find Chuck watching curling (Oh Canada…).
Chuck: I’ve never seen so much porn in one sitting.
Dean (closes the laptop like it’s about to bite him).
But it was curling on the screen, not porn! Why so ginger, Dean?
Sometimes I love the small things in an episode though. Donatello on seeing Chuck exclaims “Oh my God!” and starts to stumble backwards. Sam is right behind him with a hand on his back, propelling him forward in exasperation. Jared did it seamlessly and it just said so much about the Winchesters and how hard it is to shock them at this point.
I love that the new prophet has been an atheist, and I love Chuck’s shrugged whatever to that news.
Chuck: I did include free will in the kit.
Yet another major theme of the Show touched on. This episode is head spinning in its tossing in references to so many of them!
I also love Chuck taking too long showers (and Dean yelling at him for it), chowing down messily on powdered donuts, liking bacon (to Dean’s absolute joy) and stealing Dean’s dead guy robe (to Dean’s absolute annoyance). He’s still clinging to being Chuck even as we know he’s God.
The last few scenes were pivotal, and once again, emotional. Dean confronts Chuck where he sits on a park bench, watching children playing, eating a box of popcorn. We were lucky enough to watch this scene being filmed, so I already knew what some of the dialogue would be, but seeing it onscreen in its final form is usually very different. This time, however, as I watched the filming, I already knew I was watching something very very powerful. Jensen and Rob were both incredible, every take nailing the confrontation, the restrained emotion they were both portraying. I watched Jensen as he stood behind the bench at the start of the scene, joking around and chatting and then falling into character, his expression and stance and even his mannerisms changing as he became Dean. The cautiousness with which he approaches Chuck, the hesitation with which he comes around the bench and finally sits down, spoke so much of what Dean was feeling.
Both actors spoke their lines softly as we watched, but their voices carried so much power. Dean trying to talk Chuck into stepping up, Chuck insisting that humans will step up if they need to. When Chuck drops the bombshell that Dean and Sam were chosen, long ago – that’s why he saved them – that they are the ones who will need to step up and (once again) save the world, the impact that has on Dean is staggering. He doesn’t want to believe it; he doesn’t want to be the ‘firewall’ between good and evil. He doesn’t believe he’s enough, not to do that.
The director, Tom Wright, came in and out of the shot to give direction from time to time; the actors clearly value his expertise and they all worked together seamlessly, like this cast and crew always seem to. A few behind the scenes tidbits – the sandbox you see in the scene was built by the Show (too bad they couldn’t leave it there, because it was pretty sweet!).
And the tree you see behind the sandbox is Kim Manners’ tree. Jensen came over between takes to tell us that and I got unexpectedly emotional.
They all still miss him so much. WE all miss him so much.
Another little tidbit – they were shooting in the woods, and there were tons of mosquitos everywhere! I was trying not to move or make a sound while the cameras were rolling, which is difficult when you’re standing on a carpet of fallen twigs and branches, so I didn’t want to keep swatting at mosquitos, but it was hard not to! Jensen, by the way, is capable of smashing a mosquito in the air with his hands between takes and then snapping right back into character. Or was that Dean??
They also shot the scene of Dean and Amara meeting up in the woods that day, so we saw a bit of that too. Even Dean Winchester had trouble not tripping on all the fallen branches on the ground, by the way! Emily Swallow was lovely to chat with, and I got a kick out of her walking around in her fuzzy boots and then slipping on the Amara shoes at the last second.
So Amara tries to talk Dean into merging with her, citing the “sensations that you arouse” which I have to say, I can’t really quibble with her there.
Or with her caressing of Dean’s face. Totally understandable.
Of course, she eventually senses that Dean’s loyalties lie elsewhere, and Dean’s attempt at keeping her busy is over.
Meanwhile, the unlikely trio of Sam and Metatron and Donatello are saving Lucifer, which is even MORE unlikely. I was struck, not for the first time, by Sam’s courage and willingness to put his own needs aside for the greater good. I mean, this is Lucifer – Sam was locked in the Cage with him, tortured by him, so traumatized that he was tormented by a psychological version of him for months and months. Now he is voluntarily risking his life to save him, so he can help defeat Amara (and presumably so they can save Cas too). Once again, I saw something I never thought I’d see – Sam supporting Lucifer as they make their escape.
And Metatron sacrificing himself so they can do it.
Metatron: I got this.
I actually screamed NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO when Amara obliterated him – I love the character and I love Curtis, and I don’t want anyone else I love leaving this Show!
Metatron pleads for her to spare the others, heroic in his last moments.
Sam speeds away, and it’s a treat seeing him drive Baby for a change – only to be stopped by an enraged Amara.
“You aren’t worth sparing,” she says, and then ZAP! The Impala lands in the bunker’s garage, safe and sound. Thanks to Chuck. Some prayers it seems he does answer.
Donatello: Where are we?
Sam: We’re home.
Remember when Sam struggled with whether he could see the bunker that way? It warmed my heart to hear him say it.
There’s an awkward family reunion between Lucifer and God, with both Misha and Rob doing an amazing job conveying all that emotion and tension with just the way they stared at each other.
Where are we going from here?? Honestly, my head was spinning by that point.
Dean and Sam put Donatello in a taxi, Dean advising him to take a spa day, “that or a pair of hookers” and we’re treated to yet another of Sam’s reproachful bitchfaces. I love it when they’re brothers, you know? I need that in my Show.
Dean once again tells Sam the truth about his confrontation with Amara – that she wants him to be a part of her. Sam’s reaction is all of our reactions, as he pulls back in distaste.
Dean: In other words, adios.
The brothers walk away, without an answer but full of determination. And I’m left wondering what the hell these next two episodes will bring. Where are we going, Show?? I honestly don’t know. And I guess that’s a good thing.
There was some clunky dialogue in this episode, a few times I shook my head at what was being said. Sam’s burning question for God is why planets are round?? Or….about ears?? Really? Sam, who we know is thoughtful and smart and burning with intellectual curiosity. That’s what he wants to know?
There were also, as often happens with these particular writers, multiple fan references. Whether they’re an intentional meta reference or not, I have no clue, but they’re striking just for their repetition. Dean accuses Chuck of wasting time going to fan conventions, Sam is referred to as a fanboy in his babbling adoration, Amara complains that her brother wanted a fan club. Make of it what you will, but it’s a recurring theme for Buckner and Ross-Leming episodes.
But all in all, the episode managed to accomplish a helluva lot in 42 minutes. In addition to touching on the major themes already mentioned, the theme of family — arguably what Supernatural is about more than anything else — played out in multiple ways. Dean and Sam’s brother bond was referenced explicitly by Chuck (and his own sibling bond with Amara) and was depicted throughout – kudos to the writers for making that seem genuine. God and Lucifer as disappointed father and “screw up” son. Dean (and Sam) and their troubled relationship with John. And finally, humanity’s sometimes troubled relationship with God, another father figure.
That’s alot of themes in one episode!
So here we go, into the final stretch. Are you ready for this week’s episode??
Big thanks to @kayb625 for the caps!
–Lynn
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check out our adventures in ‘Fangasm Supernatural Fangirls’
When BuckLeming make fan references, I can’t help but wonder if they’re making fun of the fans. There doesn’t seem to be any affection in their use of the word “fan” and all its alliteration.
I wonder that too, but lately I’ve been leaning more towards the idea that they think that’s how to win us over, but they either don’t have the writing chops to pull it off, or they don’t have the work ethic to spend the hours it would take to write/rewrite/delete it/write it again to make a fan reference work and fit within the context of the show.
Like Chuck says, “Writing is hard.”
The one reference I’ll give them in this episode is the fan convention. That works because that actually happened in the show and had some of the funniest Rob Benedict lines as Chuck stalls for time (“I don’t think the Benders made suits out of the victims… maybe a few scarves.”) but in general I completely agree with you. It feels like they’re trying to break the fourth wall when they have enough trouble erecting the walls in the first place. They should just leave the load bearing ones in place.
Reblogged this on Ana Fraser Lallybroch Blog.
It just occurred to me, do you suppose they changed what was on the screen in post per Wright? I try not to always presume the worst of B-L, but Dean being delicate… If there had been porn on the screen that would have been a B-L standard. If so, Wright was right to change it. The two scenes with a Dean were far to heavy to put that kind of whackiness in the Ep.
At first i thought Sam was made to look stupid when he asked the questions. i wanted to swat the writers for those ear and planet questions. Sam is smart. On a re-watch I have to say I saw it a different way. Sam has always wanted to believe in GOD,(“Houses of the Holy”). Faced with the real deal, he babbles in complete awe. Despite having been witness to those things that are supernatural, he is still awestruck and almost child like in his choice of questions. To me, this is Sam’s inner child speaking, the one who was given a shot gun when he said he was afraid of the thing in his closet. A childhood cut short would put a damper of asking questions when the response was a .45, Clearly, Sam’s curiosity has never been extinguished.
The camera angles when Sam drives Baby and the long shots of Dean and Chuck are masterful choices. All actors perform at top notch, but Jensen’s body language, softness, and all the rest are so organic to Dean that it becomes a tour du force and re-visits who Dean is. He too had a childhood cut short.
Kevin, Baby, Metatron made me gasp!
Although i do think there is some reflection of fandom in Dean’s speech to Chuck, he speaks the truth, Chuck did write books, attend conventions, and fan-girl the last few times he had major dialogue in episodes. He also goes to student productions of musical Supernatural. The amulet does go into Dean’s pocket and I suspect due to time constraints, any conversation between the brothers about the amulet is not on screen. The impact of its appearance is evident to viewers.
Jensen talked about how when it re-appeared, there was a discussion as to whether Dean would wear it again,( it had become a hazard during action scenes), with the decision to put it in the pocket….for now. Great episode, especially from this pair of writers. Great review.
How lucky are you, to get to watch the filming of that scene!
This episode has made me want to go back through EVERY episode with “Chuck” in it. I feel like I need to parse them all for information. Were the signs there all along? Did the writers decide that Chuck was God right from the beginning, or was this a, “Hey, you know what would be cool…” kind of idea.
A few ideas on some of the “Huh?” things you brought up. Sam’s questions to Chuck: I think it’s one of those things like what happens to people at cons. You come up with truly thoughtful questions then when you’re face to face with them it’s “Why is your hair so pretty?” lol. Although I have to admit that depending on the time of the month I met God my question could very easily be, “So, God, menstrual cycles. Care to elaborate?” And God may very quickly exit the vicinity instead of answering.
Amara “warding herself” translates, to me, the complications of bringing all powerful enemies together. How do you make the final conflict not come until you need it to in the story without them finding/destroying each other before hand? By bringing God back, there’s a whole can of worms they opened up. They are doing a decent job so far dealing with it, but yeah, in theory God should be able to find her. However, maybe it’s a case of she’s a lot more scared of him than she lets on and is re thinking her final conflict scenario. She did seem rather nervous about being shoved back into solitary when she talked to Dean about it.
Sam saving Lucifer – I actually thought that was a rather clever bit of writing for a few reasons. One, it shows, yet again, Sam’s ability to put aside his fears and do what he has to to get the job done no matter what. Two, when last Sam met Lucifer, Cas showed up to save him so I think there’s a level of safety there for him, he sees Lucifer as less of a threat because Cas is still in there somewhere protecting him. Three. Having Dean distract Amara made sense and Dean probably feels like that’s the least he can do since he can’t seem to be able to fight her.
With regards to the Chuck/Dean/Sam scene in the beginning, there’s another level to it that I don’t know if people picked up on. Sam has always had faith, Chuck/God appearing finally confirms it and he’s, at least for now, willing to be happy knowing that God is real. Dean, to me, never wanted to believe because of all the horrors he’s been through, but I think he had a small spark of hope that there was a God and that maybe there was a legit reason he’d been MIA for so long; come to find out, there is a God, but he’s spent the last however long ignoring the horrors that have been going on. That revelation confirms to Dean that everything has always and will always be up to him and Sam in the end, and that’s is why I think it was so emotional. Sure, God may pop in every now and again and help, when he feels like it, but then he’ll bail and let them struggle, suffer and fight without a single word of thanks or true assistance. I think that is what led to the line later by Dean that he wouldn’t care what God did after helping them with Amara because God obviously doesn’t care and he and Sam will fight on, regardless of the capricious nature of his divine assistance.
If anything, that opening scene lowered the already low opinion of God that Dean had, notice he was less than thrilled about Sam’s later questions and seemed like he had to force himself to be civil to Chuck in the scene on the bench, and Chuck even stated it, “You think I’m a dick.”
I also think that Sam’s expressions in that first scene were not only empathetic but he was, perhaps, starting to truly understand Dean’s lack of faith and maybe starting to waver a bit himself. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.
🙂
I’m trying to get this done quickly between work tasks, so pardon the typos and lack of proofreading. I’m every bit as rambling as Sam talking to God here.
Thank you for your review – and the visual of dropping the remote into dessert. I can relate. I had to watch this one late – let’s call it solidarity with the west coast fans – due to a pressing deadline and I assure you clumsiness and snacks were involved for me too. 😉
One of the things you touched on that I also really appreciated was how this episode flowed fairly seamlessly from the last one. And while I didn’t love it, I didn’t roll my eyes nearly as hard as I often do with these writers.
At this point I find myself wondering are they the ones trying to force all these points into their episodes, or are they assigned “we need you to introduce a new character, and write a conversation with God, and show what’s up with Amara, oh, and be flippant about it, will you?” If that’s how the assignment goes, is that a vote of confidence or more of a “well, why not you – we already know there will be complaints.”
I often feel when I’m watching this team’s episodes that they have a notebook and on page one they wrote down and underlined the following:
• Fans like when we reference them!
• Fans like meta!
• Dean likes sex stuff!
• Sam is awkward!
In my head they wrote that down in season 1 and never evolved beyond that. Yeah, I’ve gotten to the point of head canon for the writers room. It’s like I’m writing my own meta meta to explain these episodes.
So I’ll just run with a few points that really stuck in my head after my two viewings of this episode.
I like that the new prophet was an atheist, and the conversation with Chuck. “It’s okay, I believe in me.” was possibly their best line ever. Kudos, truly. That was great. That said, I don’t like the new prophet of Amara. Because he’s her prophet, right? If the point of a prophet is to receive or proclaim the word of the Lord and the Lord spaketh directly to you at breakfast, bringing in the prophet to talk to God seems redundant. I also don’t understand why you’d play that role for comic relief. But this team seems to like the ‘comedy’ so I guess that’s my answer.
I might be alone in this one, but I liked the “I’ve never seen so much porn. Not in one sitting.” line. One, we know that Dean has quite the collection on the laptop. (Admittedly, some of that is from this writing team, but it’s mentioned throughout the series and hey, he has a stressful job. Let him have this.) But the “in one sitting” line implies that Chuck watched it, and did so in one sitting. Well played, Chuck.
The “two hookers” line, however, seemed completely extraneous and a “let’s make Dean reference sex” throw-away line.
The Amara fog and its various effects on people doesn’t bother me. That’s how she manifests and sometimes she transforms people into Rabids, and sometimes she kills them. She is chaos and destruction. It’s her thing. I doubt the show is going to go there, but the idea that she is warding herself against God and that the warding is working does help paint the picture of a duality. There can be no creation without destruction, no light with dark, etc. This gets theologically sticky to say the least, but I genuinely want to see how this plays out.
The conversation between Chuck, Sam, and Dean was great if a bit heavy-handed. Maybe this team forgets how great the actors are. Or maybe they just don’t like Jared, because seriously, he keeps getting the worst dialogue out of them. I liked the aspect losing his cool and asking weird questions – I can’t even imagine what I’d do or say if thrust into this situation – so asking about planets (gravity, Sam, the answer is gravity) was awkward, and that awkwardness was appropriate to the character. I just wished they went in a different direction with Sam’s babbling. Not necessarily more profound, but more ‘Sam.’
The babbling did give a nice contrast to Metatron just being able to blurt out “why” conversationally the previous episode. It was a nice reminder that while certainly not your standard humans – I need to know more about this “that’s why I saved you” line – Sam and Dean are in fact people and part of this grand experiment.
I totally agree with your assessment of these writers! I had to smile when you mentioned a head canon for the “writers room.” I read an interview last year that said, unlike most shows, that there actually is no traditional writers room for Supernatural. I mean, surely there is some communication between show runners and script writers, but there is no meeting of the writers together (partly because most of the writers are down in California while the show is based in Vancouver). It makes a lot of sense when you look back at the show as a whole, and the way it can vary so wildly from one episode to another. Not to say that is always a detriment–in fact it might be a contributing factor in what makes this show so endlessly fascinating to us all!
I have to agree with most of the other comments about Sam’s babbling. It seemed like his very own fan-boy moment, and I can easily imagine if I were to meet God (or perhaps a lesser celebrity like Jensen or Jared), I’d babble too. Because really, no matter how intelligent you may be, you can’t sound smart when your brain stops working and your mouth doesn’t.
For me, Amara’s fog is disappointing. If she’s THAT powerful that God can’t defeat her by himself, why is she turning herself into a white mist? Wasn’t she a dark mist, before? Why has she changed colors, anyway? I’m just not feeling the “big bad” of it all. Honestly, Meg and Ruby were far worse. Even the Mother of Monsters was scarier. I must point out that this is not Emily Swallow’s fault–she’s been doing a wonderful job, to be sure. But unfortunately, Amara’s toxic mist is like…air pollution. (Like, if you could don a mask–or duck tape–and not be affected, how powerful is it?)
In a sense, it reminds me of learning about GMO’s and global warming on Facebook posts. Environmental and man made toxins are just such a part of every day life, I can’t allow myself to be frightened by a supernatural, white cloud that kills.
Geesh. Speaking of babbling…I seem to be guilty of it as well. 🙁
Can’t wait to see how this season will wrap up–hopefully, it will be epic and not easily solved. (Quick, Sammy! Get the duck tape and the giant, industrial fan! Stand back, God and Casifer–we’re gonna McGuyver this thing!)
Thank you for your comments about the character of Amara! I feel the same way about her but have not seen a lot of commentary on it (and I also intend no offense to the actress playing her–she isn’t writing or directing the show). My reaction to her as a villain all along has basically been: “meh.” For a character who is intended as the big bad this season, I have not found her frightening at all; I don’t hate her (as I did characters like Zachariah and Metatron); and she isn’t even someone you can love to hate (like Crowley or Lucifer). I don’t even sense a spark of chemistry between her and Dean, tbh.
That being said, season 11 has been amazing; there have been many great episodes. Loved Jody Mills with her teenage foster daughters, Claire and Alex . “Baby” was an instant classic. And the return of Chuck in “Don’t Call Me Shurley” moved me to tears more than once. So kudos to our wonderful show and looking forward to seeing where we go next!
I talked to Robbie Thompson at the Motor City Comic Con this past weekend. I asked him if it was his idea to bring the samulet back or it if was a direction from above. He said it was his idea. He thought it was an important part of the show and liked how it was a gift between the two brothers. I thanked him for bringing it back.
I think there some good moments in this episode but the ending left abrupt. It was almost like there was a scene missing. I really wish Buckner and Ross-Leming wouldn’t get the myth arc episodes to write since I think they’re the weakest writers of the bunch. I’m sure it won’t change though, especially with Singer being one of the show runners next season.
It does look like we’ll be stuck with Team Nepotism. Andrew Dabb however has (I think) written more episodes than anyone else – Eric Kripke included. That could provide overall balance.
OH NO! Robert Singer is going to be a showrunner next year? UGH! I thought he was finally gone, which was why this season was so much better. How disappointing to have him back. This season has been one of my all time faves, top 3 I’d say, but now I’m dreading next season.
Thank you for this article !!
All about DEAN is simply true, absolutely true, fantastically true !! I totally agree about him !!
Thank you again !!
.. obviously also about JENSEN !!!