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Boy, it's been a long two months. I missed you, show.
So, it's been one month since Dean's confession in the mid-season finale, and Dean has been working them both non-stop since then. They're even sleeping in the car. I suppose it's even odds whether he was working himself that hard so he wouldn't have to think about what happened to him in hell, or whether he was working Sam that hard so that Sam wouldn't have the time or energy to pursue the issue further. Probably a little of both.
I liked the main plot. It was interesting to see what a "haunting" felt like from an innocent family's perspective. Of course, the haunting turned out to not really be one. Jeremy Carver could have just as easily called this episode "The Revenge of Missy Bender." It was the first time in awhile the Winchesters have had to deal with a human monster.
I wish Sam had had a more proactive role in the episode, though. Dean picked the job. Dean herded the family around. Dean tracked the feral daughter through the house. Dean rescued the son. Sam? Read Rebecca's diary and then ran up to each scene just as things finished happening. I understand that the main focus was on Dean trying to make up for torturing those other souls in hell (and enjoying it), but I don't think it would've taken the focus away from Dean if Sam had had a little more to do. Maybe I'm just cranky because it's been two months and I wanted to see both brothers get their badass on.
When Suze answered the question of whether or not her family was okay with, "We're the opposite of okay, but we're together," I was really hoping that was an object lesson Dean would take home with him, but so far, no dice. Maybe later in the season. I'd really like Dean to realize at some point that he can lean on Sam for awhile.
My only real issue with the episode was with the feral children. I can cope with them being locked up and ignored (it's tragic, but it happens in real life). But Danny said "the girl in the walls" told him that he could stay, yet the feral children who turned up in person later in the episode seemed to be completely non-verbal, which is what you'd expect from their circumstances. And who was scribbling the notes in blood? Granted, "Go" and "Too late" aren't exactly Shakespearean in scope, but they might as well be in Swahili to someone who can't read or write, and somehow I doubt these two kids were home schooled. The whole plot was an interesting idea, but the feral kids we eventually saw seemed very different from the ones who were anonymously terrorizing the house earlier.
So, it's been one month since Dean's confession in the mid-season finale, and Dean has been working them both non-stop since then. They're even sleeping in the car. I suppose it's even odds whether he was working himself that hard so he wouldn't have to think about what happened to him in hell, or whether he was working Sam that hard so that Sam wouldn't have the time or energy to pursue the issue further. Probably a little of both.
I liked the main plot. It was interesting to see what a "haunting" felt like from an innocent family's perspective. Of course, the haunting turned out to not really be one. Jeremy Carver could have just as easily called this episode "The Revenge of Missy Bender." It was the first time in awhile the Winchesters have had to deal with a human monster.
I wish Sam had had a more proactive role in the episode, though. Dean picked the job. Dean herded the family around. Dean tracked the feral daughter through the house. Dean rescued the son. Sam? Read Rebecca's diary and then ran up to each scene just as things finished happening. I understand that the main focus was on Dean trying to make up for torturing those other souls in hell (and enjoying it), but I don't think it would've taken the focus away from Dean if Sam had had a little more to do. Maybe I'm just cranky because it's been two months and I wanted to see both brothers get their badass on.
When Suze answered the question of whether or not her family was okay with, "We're the opposite of okay, but we're together," I was really hoping that was an object lesson Dean would take home with him, but so far, no dice. Maybe later in the season. I'd really like Dean to realize at some point that he can lean on Sam for awhile.
My only real issue with the episode was with the feral children. I can cope with them being locked up and ignored (it's tragic, but it happens in real life). But Danny said "the girl in the walls" told him that he could stay, yet the feral children who turned up in person later in the episode seemed to be completely non-verbal, which is what you'd expect from their circumstances. And who was scribbling the notes in blood? Granted, "Go" and "Too late" aren't exactly Shakespearean in scope, but they might as well be in Swahili to someone who can't read or write, and somehow I doubt these two kids were home schooled. The whole plot was an interesting idea, but the feral kids we eventually saw seemed very different from the ones who were anonymously terrorizing the house earlier.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-16 06:23 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2009-01-16 02:26 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2009-01-16 02:59 pm (UTC)From:When Suze answered the question of whether or not her family was okay with, "We're the opposite of okay, but we're together," I was really hoping that was an object lesson Dean would take home with him, but so far, no dice.
I was so sure that this would be a turning point for Dean, that he'd understand that Sam is there for him too, until it turned out that is not gonna happen yet. I was a little disappointed by that. And I really would've wanted more Sam in this episode. I'm pretty sure the feral kids got more screen time than Sam, haha.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-16 06:53 pm (UTC)From:Playthings in Season 2 was pretty much the same thing there only Sam was the one who did everything. So what's the difference? This is the first time this season Dean has been allowed to be proactive and successful in a hunt. It's the first one they've shown him finding(though we know in the "month" he found alot of them) the hunt, the first time he's been responsible for the main "save" of the episode.
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Date: 2009-01-18 08:07 am (UTC)From:What stuck out to me most about this episode was that Dean identified with those children. The family was actually, after I thought about it, kind of set up to parallel the Winchesters in a way - they suffered a devastating loss of their son (in Winchesterland, that was John) that tore their family apart and nearly broke them all, then they thought they would move to a new life (in the case of the Winchesters, just keep moving), and were further torn apart by circumstances beyond their control (in Sam and Dean's case, Azazel still being around). That's where the object lesson you pointed out would come in if Dean had gone towards identifying with the family - he'd have understood that "we're the opposite of okay but we're still together." Instead, he identified with the "monsters." That's interesting to me.
The whole episode creeped me right the hell out - that urban legend about the dog and the murderer and the licking has always squicked me right the hell out and I started squealing when it happened in the episode. I will give you, though, that I was suspecting another setup like we had in Home - with one malevolent spirit and one benevolent spirit, with what we kept seeing versus what we were finding out by proxy. I figured the girl that slashed the tires and killed the dog and whatever was a different entity from the one interacting with Danny and trying to get the family to leave; and maybe that's what they meant for the addition of the brother, kind of, to be. I don't know, but I agree that kind of came together off.
One last bitch. I'm as much a fan of Dean angst as the next fangirl, but the writers need to give him a more original way to emote. Give Jensen something to work with besides a roadside confession - he can totally do it. That just felt like they decided "Aw, fuck it. It's becoming a Dean classic and no one will notice."
no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 01:25 am (UTC)From:I didn't think Dean identified with the monsters so much as feel sorry for them. Those feral kids weren't inherently evil, they were the product of an abusive and neglectful upbringing (and I'm sure the inbreeding didn't help much either) and really didn't know any better. Unfortunately, they were well past the age where therapy might make them functional.
I think the roadside confession thing is actually what Dean needs to talk to Sam. The car is right there so he can make a break for it if things get too heavy, they're in a semi-public place so Sam might be more restrained in his reactions than if they were completely in private, and it's easy for Dean to avoid looking at Sam's face (the key thing). I hope Dean eventually gets to the point where he does look Sam in the face during one of these confessions because I don't think he's going to see what he's afraid he's going to see there.
Now I'm wondering what happened to Missy Bender. She's another one who was a product of her upbringing, but she was right on the border of an age where therapy might or might not have been useful.