My Wayward Sons
Dec. 13th, 2018 03:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
neomerisI didn’t want to, I swear, but after that little bit of news I just read… in case anyone watching the latest season of Supernatural (14!) and reading this doesn’t want to be spoiled, I won’t post what it is that I read about, but let’s just say I was sure he was never going back, off to greener, richer pastures. Goes to show you what I know, I guess.
So this got me thinking, about how much I love the first five seasons, how much I loved season six, seven and eight and how disinterested I feel with the prospect of, say, another seventeen seasons. Whatever, at this point it sounds plausible!
I guess I want to talk about the perfection of seasons one through five and what sets them apart from everything coming after. Spoilers, if you can call it that for seasons that aired a decade ago.
As they say…
THEN
Season 1: it starts off so well, establishing our two protagonists. They are both heroic enough to warrant a show about them but also flawed enough to be interesting and relatable. The obvious love between Sam and Dean is another hook – we care about these two if nothing else because our fave (Sam here, but I admit that Dean is the bigger player) does. There is mystery, horror, adventure and comedy. Enough daddy and mommy issues to give Freud nightmares. It’s amazing.
Season 2: is more of the same only better and establishing the mythology of the show even more.
Season 3: short and sweet, it was so, so tension filled and that ending… besides they established Sam’s fall so well back in s3 it’s ridiculous.
Season 4: this might be my favorite one, just because I was watching all of it live (I was a fan since 2006!) and the way they’ve introduced and portrayed angels was wonderful. Not only Cas (heart eyes) was great of his own, but their story, the fact that they are the frigging other part of the villains in that season made that season magical for me. Also, Chuck was introduced and it was glorious. In fact, that season gave us Ruby, Anna, Cas, Lilith, Chuck… it was so good, I remember watching the show wide-eyed and thinking “Goodness, are they really going to let Dean fall for Cas! All the signs, all of the signs are pointing to!..” Oh, stupid, little THEN me!
Last but absolutely not least, Season 5: I cried so much. Until the finale of 12 Monkeys there wasn’t a show I’d cried this much for. I didn’t cry watching Infinity War and seeing my fave’s fate (oh, Bucky). Even Gamora had me shedding a manly, nay, a Deanly tear, but nothing like the buckets I wailed watching Swan Song. I still get weepy whenever I rewatch that goddamned season. And Lucifer!.. Not only Mark Pellegrino is the absolute best in portraying him, but the writing, the story in which he isn’t the worst (Hello, Michael and Zachariah) was great. In fact, a big part of why I dropped this show was that the more they used a returned Luci, the farther from Kripke’s vision they got. From the guy who absolutely never lied to Sam, he became… well, it doesn’t matter, I mean, they even tried other actors for the character, so that should have told me everything already. This season also introduced Jody and Crowley. It’s just the best. The characters are on point, the humor, the plot, the tragedy, the relationships. There’s so much and it’s so good. I kinda want to watch it again right now, the more I’m writing about it!
NOW
And therein lies the problem of every other season. Yes, season 6 had soulless Sam, season 7 had Hallucifer and 8 had a stunning quest, but it all stopped feeling relevant for me because of the simple fact that there was no plan. No end in sight. That the characters would never learn and repeat the same mistakes for the literally twenty first time and retread the same relationship beats. Sam and Dean separate. Again, yeah? Is there anyone invested and believing them when they are watching it in season 10? They have been going separate ways for three episodes tops since the days of season 1 and Meg seducing innocent demon kid Sam!
Kripke had a story to tell, planned and defined arcs, fluffed for the sake of 22 episodes, but he knew the overall path and destination for Sam and Dean. After season five, the only destination was remaining on air.
Well, of course not, I just might be a bit bitter about them not closing hell and then bringing Rovena and, once fed up with that box of mommy issues, bring back someone else again. By the way, is there anyone, who hasn’t been brought back from the dead one way or another? I mean, even Adam, in a way, was introduced as a dead man walking twice…
Oh, also, whomever ideated Dean talking to dogs should be in Lucifer’s cage. It was worse than the bugs, the truck and the home-video-from-season-3 episodes piled together.
And yes, the things that I could forgive after five seasons, I got fed up with after twelve. The queerbaiting, the infinite world ending disasters they boys caused, the deaths, the deaths of supporting characters (especially the women at some point), the boys going through the same lie-betray-fight-forgive cycle…
I know that I will tune in one last time for the inevitable last episode. If I will still remember the show in fifty three years, that is!
I love it, I love it so much, but at this point I feel like seasons 1-5 is Supernatural, seasons 6-tdb is a spin off. I mean, they tried two of those as it is.
Spoiler alert, this is my first incoherent spn related post, there will probably be meta and character flailing going forward.
So this got me thinking, about how much I love the first five seasons, how much I loved season six, seven and eight and how disinterested I feel with the prospect of, say, another seventeen seasons. Whatever, at this point it sounds plausible!
I guess I want to talk about the perfection of seasons one through five and what sets them apart from everything coming after. Spoilers, if you can call it that for seasons that aired a decade ago.
As they say…
THEN
Season 1: it starts off so well, establishing our two protagonists. They are both heroic enough to warrant a show about them but also flawed enough to be interesting and relatable. The obvious love between Sam and Dean is another hook – we care about these two if nothing else because our fave (Sam here, but I admit that Dean is the bigger player) does. There is mystery, horror, adventure and comedy. Enough daddy and mommy issues to give Freud nightmares. It’s amazing.
Season 2: is more of the same only better and establishing the mythology of the show even more.
Season 3: short and sweet, it was so, so tension filled and that ending… besides they established Sam’s fall so well back in s3 it’s ridiculous.
Season 4: this might be my favorite one, just because I was watching all of it live (I was a fan since 2006!) and the way they’ve introduced and portrayed angels was wonderful. Not only Cas (heart eyes) was great of his own, but their story, the fact that they are the frigging other part of the villains in that season made that season magical for me. Also, Chuck was introduced and it was glorious. In fact, that season gave us Ruby, Anna, Cas, Lilith, Chuck… it was so good, I remember watching the show wide-eyed and thinking “Goodness, are they really going to let Dean fall for Cas! All the signs, all of the signs are pointing to!..” Oh, stupid, little THEN me!
Last but absolutely not least, Season 5: I cried so much. Until the finale of 12 Monkeys there wasn’t a show I’d cried this much for. I didn’t cry watching Infinity War and seeing my fave’s fate (oh, Bucky). Even Gamora had me shedding a manly, nay, a Deanly tear, but nothing like the buckets I wailed watching Swan Song. I still get weepy whenever I rewatch that goddamned season. And Lucifer!.. Not only Mark Pellegrino is the absolute best in portraying him, but the writing, the story in which he isn’t the worst (Hello, Michael and Zachariah) was great. In fact, a big part of why I dropped this show was that the more they used a returned Luci, the farther from Kripke’s vision they got. From the guy who absolutely never lied to Sam, he became… well, it doesn’t matter, I mean, they even tried other actors for the character, so that should have told me everything already. This season also introduced Jody and Crowley. It’s just the best. The characters are on point, the humor, the plot, the tragedy, the relationships. There’s so much and it’s so good. I kinda want to watch it again right now, the more I’m writing about it!
NOW
And therein lies the problem of every other season. Yes, season 6 had soulless Sam, season 7 had Hallucifer and 8 had a stunning quest, but it all stopped feeling relevant for me because of the simple fact that there was no plan. No end in sight. That the characters would never learn and repeat the same mistakes for the literally twenty first time and retread the same relationship beats. Sam and Dean separate. Again, yeah? Is there anyone invested and believing them when they are watching it in season 10? They have been going separate ways for three episodes tops since the days of season 1 and Meg seducing innocent demon kid Sam!
Kripke had a story to tell, planned and defined arcs, fluffed for the sake of 22 episodes, but he knew the overall path and destination for Sam and Dean. After season five, the only destination was remaining on air.
Well, of course not, I just might be a bit bitter about them not closing hell and then bringing Rovena and, once fed up with that box of mommy issues, bring back someone else again. By the way, is there anyone, who hasn’t been brought back from the dead one way or another? I mean, even Adam, in a way, was introduced as a dead man walking twice…
Oh, also, whomever ideated Dean talking to dogs should be in Lucifer’s cage. It was worse than the bugs, the truck and the home-video-from-season-3 episodes piled together.
And yes, the things that I could forgive after five seasons, I got fed up with after twelve. The queerbaiting, the infinite world ending disasters they boys caused, the deaths, the deaths of supporting characters (especially the women at some point), the boys going through the same lie-betray-fight-forgive cycle…
I know that I will tune in one last time for the inevitable last episode. If I will still remember the show in fifty three years, that is!
I love it, I love it so much, but at this point I feel like seasons 1-5 is Supernatural, seasons 6-tdb is a spin off. I mean, they tried two of those as it is.
Spoiler alert, this is my first incoherent spn related post, there will probably be meta and character flailing going forward.
