Rewatch S13: Bring 'Em Back Alive (13x18)
Mar. 25th, 2019 07:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hells_half_acreFun fact about taking 2 weeks off rewatches - I forget that they're a thing that I do!
So, now, coming at you on a Monday rather than the weekend...
(ETA: Just a warning, I did not have very much to say about this episode - this is a short one, folks!)
Bring 'Em Back Alive
Oh man, I forgot how epic 2017/2018-winter was for snow around here. We had a whole month of it, which is nothing compared to the rest of Canada, but astounding for the Vancouver/Vancouver-Island area.
Dean: "And what's this 'we' crap - you came here to save yourself, so save yourself."
Ketch: "Actually, I thought I could help..."
- Again, I really wish they had DONE something with Ketch if they were going to bring him back. It's like they just needed a body, but if they just needed a body, then invent someone new, or use someone already alive - OR, maybe don't kill off every single tertiary character in the first place so that when you need a body you have one!
But that's a good question for myself, if I were re-writing this episode without Ketch, who would be with Dean? I mean, Dean COULD go in it alone. I know that writers are afraid of silence, and that's a problem, but you could just have Dean on a solo-op. OR... Dean goes through and finds hunters, just as he and Ketch do in a little bit, and they team up just the same, it just happens sooner, and Dean has more conversations with them and less with Ketch to fill the time.
But, the Ketch/Mary dynamic COULD be really interesting, if the show actually explored it.
And again, the actor is doing "posh British" by pronouncing every letter in the English words (using English pronounciation rules), I really notice it in these lines he's saying.
My problem with this scene is that Dean actually listens to Ketch when he tells him not to try to save the humans. It's out of character for Dean to even hesitate.
Charlie!
As much as I'm glad to see Felicia again, I'm not jazzed about this method of bring "back" characters - what they're really doing is bringing back actors to play new characters that have an excuse for resembling their old ones. But they aren't the SAME characters.
I'm a firm believer in the fact that it's our experiences who make us who we are - now, maybe there's some neuroscientists or philosophers out there that disagree with me... heck, I even admit it's probably more of a mix, but to me it's at least 90% experience, and maybe these characters had the same life experience up until 10 years ago, but the difference those ten years make REALLY makes a huge difference. (not to mention, in the case of Bobby, never meeting the boys and having his own son - really, with AU!Bobby, it's 30+ years of AU).
So, yeah, this isn't "Oh hey, Charlie!" it's "Oh hey, Felicia's back playing someone else!"
Sam's still wearing the same shirt from last episode, so not much time has passed since Dean left.
Sometimes I wonder if the number of Sam/Gabriel scenes is down to the fanservice for the Sabrieler's out there... mainly, I think that because that's my NoTP. Not that I have anything against Sam and Gabriel interacting... okay, so maybe it's not so much that I worry it's fanservice, maybe it's more that the fandom has soured me on them interacting, because I get the same "ugh, Sabriel" feeling I get whenever I see it tagged in what looked like a promising fic on AO3.
I do love that we're getting a little Sassy though! So I'm a giant hypocrite.
And now that Lucifer is president of Heaven, it's becoming apparent that he was full of lies during his campaign speech.
Anael: "Your father created. You inherited."
- Ha! Such an allegory for our times.
Asmodeus isn't doing a good job on the meditation balls - they're not supposed to clink (or so someone told me once.)
Ketch: "... and you're sure it's not personal?"
- You're one to talk Ketch, you are literally in an alternate dimension looking for your ex-FWB.
I like Gabriel's decorative writing.
And Cas gives a synopsis of what happened to Gabriel.
Lucifer interfers with an exorcism.
Lucifer: "Anthony, what are you doing, man?"
- I wish they'd do this more often - I like it when genders don't match up with vessels (for demons - I like to headcanon angels as genderless. Though, I like when the names don't match up with our gender norms.)
I forgot about Dean getting shot and Ketch having to save him. It's a good addition to the scene, because I love a little h/c. Obviously, if I did do a rewrite without Ketch, you'd have to change the plot here and make it more about Dean rescuing Charlie than anything else.
Sam: "Look, I know you think it's safer inside - no more torture, no more pain, no more expectations. I've been there."
- I wish this conversation was more about THIS, the fact that Sam was also a torture victim for years, that he knows the preference for dissassociation... etc.
Sam: "But then my family needed me - and this is my life. No matter how many times I try to fight it. This is what I was put here to do. This is where I make the world a better place!"
- I like this part of the speech too, because I like exploring Sam as someone who is now comfortable in the life as a hunter.
Dean: "Charlie was like family. She was a sister to me. She did more for me and Sam than I can even say. And she was butchered. And we couldn't get there in time, and I-"
Ketch: "You feel you failed her."
Dean: "I know I did."
Ketch: "That, I understand."
Dean: "Okay, so what about your story you're not telling me..."
- He's trying to bang your mom!
- Seriously though, I DO like this exploration of their similarities, especially if they were actually going to explore Ketch's guilt over what happened with Mary, or his failure to act in her best interests sooner, etc.
And Anael ditches Lucifer, yay!
It bugs me that the Bunker is infiltratable. I know it's to show how powerful Asmodeus is, but it still bugs me.
But Gabriel smokes Asmodeus out like a boss.
AU!Charlie: "...and you were friends with her?"
Dean: "Yeah, very."
AU!Charlie: "How Very?"
Dean: "She was into chicks."
- Hahaha, I love that Charlie's chief concern for a moment there was a combo of a)is is possible for me to be into dudes in ANY universe? and b)Am I gonna have to break this guy's heart?
Gabriel: "Yeah, not so much, I mean, thank you, for the rescue and the redemption arc, but, ah, I'm not really a team guy - so I'm gonna bounce, okay?"
- I like Gabriel and how he's not a team player, even if he's good.
Gabriel: "Castiel - my father turned his back on his creation. Guess it just runs int he family."
- They should have told him about God's redemption arc. :P
And Dean comes back without his quarry only to discover that their archangel, and their archangel grace is gone. This was his one shot, and now, finito.
BUT, Gabriel needed to be healed in order to destory Asmodeus - or else Sam and Castiel would be dead. They should emphasis that part.
Dean being mad is done really well. It's triggered my "angry man! must run away!" response!
Cut Scene:
Scene 6:
Sam locking the door to Gabriel's room. Asking Cas what they can do. Cas says to keep trying.
Scene 11: Cas unlocking the door to Gabriel's room.
Scene 34:
Lucifer walking and leaning on something, while a woman closing her trunk asks if he's okay... and asks where's he's headed. Lucifer says he doesn't know.
So, Rewrite time:
Rewrite Option: Keep Ketch around
Ketch doesn't die at the end of S12, instead his redemption arc begins there. Everything stays as it is. EASY!
Rewrite: Ketch isn't around.
Option 1: Dean goes in alone. We could have the same sequence of events, only they're done silently. Dean could even still get hurt, but not to the point where he can't first-aid himself. Dean still saves Charlie, it's even more badass because he's all on his own, and then Charlie refuses to come back with him because it's her home, but tells him to bring reinforcements. You could also fill time with Sam and Cas having a longer battle with keeping Asmodeus out... or perhaps Asmodeus tricks them somehow into exiting the bunker with Gabriel, or something... or just exiting the bunker themselves, and then Asmodeus grabs one of them to leverage as a hostage, or - since he's a demon, he could just grab like, a random puppy or child, and Sam would be like "damn it, I can't let him kill that puppy/child!"
Option 2: Someone joins Dean. What did Cas actually do in this episode with Sam that needed him and only him? Just translate some enochian. So, instead - have Dean enter the AU!World alone, but with instructions that he's called Cas, and Cas his on his way to join Dean. When Cas arrives, he walks through the portal and follows Dean's trail. He discovers Dean's been injured and some-such and does first aid, and then they rescue Charlie - pretty much the same, but the time lost from not having conversations with Ketch is made up for with us seeing Cas swoop in and save Dean from the hunter, or with conversations with Cas instead. Cas returns to discover that Sam has lost Gabriel and the remaining Grace in their absence after Asmodeus attacked the Bunker.
S12 rewrite continued?: I can't really continue the S12 rewrite anymore, because the finale is too dependent on Lucifer still being alive. Yarr. I see now other reason for Dean to say yes to Michael, and that's what we need to have happen for S14...so, ultimately, whatever continuation of my S12 rewrite there might be, must ultimately live in an alternate universe that no longer even remotely resembles our own.
Since there's no new show on Thursday, I'll try to do a rewatch that night! And then another on the weekend... I've got 4 more left to do, and I really desperately wanted to be done before the S14 finale aired, but I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do that. Maybe I'll achieve it with just a week to spare? We'll see!
If you want to talk about aspects of this episode that I've blatantly ignored, please bring them up in comments! Just because I don't mention something, doesn't mean I don't have thoughts on it.
So, now, coming at you on a Monday rather than the weekend...
(ETA: Just a warning, I did not have very much to say about this episode - this is a short one, folks!)
Bring 'Em Back Alive
Oh man, I forgot how epic 2017/2018-winter was for snow around here. We had a whole month of it, which is nothing compared to the rest of Canada, but astounding for the Vancouver/Vancouver-Island area.
Dean: "And what's this 'we' crap - you came here to save yourself, so save yourself."
Ketch: "Actually, I thought I could help..."
- Again, I really wish they had DONE something with Ketch if they were going to bring him back. It's like they just needed a body, but if they just needed a body, then invent someone new, or use someone already alive - OR, maybe don't kill off every single tertiary character in the first place so that when you need a body you have one!
But that's a good question for myself, if I were re-writing this episode without Ketch, who would be with Dean? I mean, Dean COULD go in it alone. I know that writers are afraid of silence, and that's a problem, but you could just have Dean on a solo-op. OR... Dean goes through and finds hunters, just as he and Ketch do in a little bit, and they team up just the same, it just happens sooner, and Dean has more conversations with them and less with Ketch to fill the time.
But, the Ketch/Mary dynamic COULD be really interesting, if the show actually explored it.
And again, the actor is doing "posh British" by pronouncing every letter in the English words (using English pronounciation rules), I really notice it in these lines he's saying.
My problem with this scene is that Dean actually listens to Ketch when he tells him not to try to save the humans. It's out of character for Dean to even hesitate.
Charlie!
As much as I'm glad to see Felicia again, I'm not jazzed about this method of bring "back" characters - what they're really doing is bringing back actors to play new characters that have an excuse for resembling their old ones. But they aren't the SAME characters.
I'm a firm believer in the fact that it's our experiences who make us who we are - now, maybe there's some neuroscientists or philosophers out there that disagree with me... heck, I even admit it's probably more of a mix, but to me it's at least 90% experience, and maybe these characters had the same life experience up until 10 years ago, but the difference those ten years make REALLY makes a huge difference. (not to mention, in the case of Bobby, never meeting the boys and having his own son - really, with AU!Bobby, it's 30+ years of AU).
So, yeah, this isn't "Oh hey, Charlie!" it's "Oh hey, Felicia's back playing someone else!"
Sam's still wearing the same shirt from last episode, so not much time has passed since Dean left.
Sometimes I wonder if the number of Sam/Gabriel scenes is down to the fanservice for the Sabrieler's out there... mainly, I think that because that's my NoTP. Not that I have anything against Sam and Gabriel interacting... okay, so maybe it's not so much that I worry it's fanservice, maybe it's more that the fandom has soured me on them interacting, because I get the same "ugh, Sabriel" feeling I get whenever I see it tagged in what looked like a promising fic on AO3.
I do love that we're getting a little Sassy though! So I'm a giant hypocrite.
And now that Lucifer is president of Heaven, it's becoming apparent that he was full of lies during his campaign speech.
Anael: "Your father created. You inherited."
- Ha! Such an allegory for our times.
Asmodeus isn't doing a good job on the meditation balls - they're not supposed to clink (or so someone told me once.)
Ketch: "... and you're sure it's not personal?"
- You're one to talk Ketch, you are literally in an alternate dimension looking for your ex-FWB.
I like Gabriel's decorative writing.
And Cas gives a synopsis of what happened to Gabriel.
Lucifer interfers with an exorcism.
Lucifer: "Anthony, what are you doing, man?"
- I wish they'd do this more often - I like it when genders don't match up with vessels (for demons - I like to headcanon angels as genderless. Though, I like when the names don't match up with our gender norms.)
I forgot about Dean getting shot and Ketch having to save him. It's a good addition to the scene, because I love a little h/c. Obviously, if I did do a rewrite without Ketch, you'd have to change the plot here and make it more about Dean rescuing Charlie than anything else.
Sam: "Look, I know you think it's safer inside - no more torture, no more pain, no more expectations. I've been there."
- I wish this conversation was more about THIS, the fact that Sam was also a torture victim for years, that he knows the preference for dissassociation... etc.
Sam: "But then my family needed me - and this is my life. No matter how many times I try to fight it. This is what I was put here to do. This is where I make the world a better place!"
- I like this part of the speech too, because I like exploring Sam as someone who is now comfortable in the life as a hunter.
Dean: "Charlie was like family. She was a sister to me. She did more for me and Sam than I can even say. And she was butchered. And we couldn't get there in time, and I-"
Ketch: "You feel you failed her."
Dean: "I know I did."
Ketch: "That, I understand."
Dean: "Okay, so what about your story you're not telling me..."
- He's trying to bang your mom!
- Seriously though, I DO like this exploration of their similarities, especially if they were actually going to explore Ketch's guilt over what happened with Mary, or his failure to act in her best interests sooner, etc.
And Anael ditches Lucifer, yay!
It bugs me that the Bunker is infiltratable. I know it's to show how powerful Asmodeus is, but it still bugs me.
But Gabriel smokes Asmodeus out like a boss.
AU!Charlie: "...and you were friends with her?"
Dean: "Yeah, very."
AU!Charlie: "How Very?"
Dean: "She was into chicks."
- Hahaha, I love that Charlie's chief concern for a moment there was a combo of a)is is possible for me to be into dudes in ANY universe? and b)Am I gonna have to break this guy's heart?
Gabriel: "Yeah, not so much, I mean, thank you, for the rescue and the redemption arc, but, ah, I'm not really a team guy - so I'm gonna bounce, okay?"
- I like Gabriel and how he's not a team player, even if he's good.
Gabriel: "Castiel - my father turned his back on his creation. Guess it just runs int he family."
- They should have told him about God's redemption arc. :P
And Dean comes back without his quarry only to discover that their archangel, and their archangel grace is gone. This was his one shot, and now, finito.
BUT, Gabriel needed to be healed in order to destory Asmodeus - or else Sam and Castiel would be dead. They should emphasis that part.
Dean being mad is done really well. It's triggered my "angry man! must run away!" response!
Cut Scene:
Scene 6:
Sam locking the door to Gabriel's room. Asking Cas what they can do. Cas says to keep trying.
Scene 11: Cas unlocking the door to Gabriel's room.
Scene 34:
Lucifer walking and leaning on something, while a woman closing her trunk asks if he's okay... and asks where's he's headed. Lucifer says he doesn't know.
So, Rewrite time:
Rewrite Option: Keep Ketch around
Ketch doesn't die at the end of S12, instead his redemption arc begins there. Everything stays as it is. EASY!
Rewrite: Ketch isn't around.
Option 1: Dean goes in alone. We could have the same sequence of events, only they're done silently. Dean could even still get hurt, but not to the point where he can't first-aid himself. Dean still saves Charlie, it's even more badass because he's all on his own, and then Charlie refuses to come back with him because it's her home, but tells him to bring reinforcements. You could also fill time with Sam and Cas having a longer battle with keeping Asmodeus out... or perhaps Asmodeus tricks them somehow into exiting the bunker with Gabriel, or something... or just exiting the bunker themselves, and then Asmodeus grabs one of them to leverage as a hostage, or - since he's a demon, he could just grab like, a random puppy or child, and Sam would be like "damn it, I can't let him kill that puppy/child!"
Option 2: Someone joins Dean. What did Cas actually do in this episode with Sam that needed him and only him? Just translate some enochian. So, instead - have Dean enter the AU!World alone, but with instructions that he's called Cas, and Cas his on his way to join Dean. When Cas arrives, he walks through the portal and follows Dean's trail. He discovers Dean's been injured and some-such and does first aid, and then they rescue Charlie - pretty much the same, but the time lost from not having conversations with Ketch is made up for with us seeing Cas swoop in and save Dean from the hunter, or with conversations with Cas instead. Cas returns to discover that Sam has lost Gabriel and the remaining Grace in their absence after Asmodeus attacked the Bunker.
S12 rewrite continued?: I can't really continue the S12 rewrite anymore, because the finale is too dependent on Lucifer still being alive. Yarr. I see now other reason for Dean to say yes to Michael, and that's what we need to have happen for S14...so, ultimately, whatever continuation of my S12 rewrite there might be, must ultimately live in an alternate universe that no longer even remotely resembles our own.
Since there's no new show on Thursday, I'll try to do a rewatch that night! And then another on the weekend... I've got 4 more left to do, and I really desperately wanted to be done before the S14 finale aired, but I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do that. Maybe I'll achieve it with just a week to spare? We'll see!
If you want to talk about aspects of this episode that I've blatantly ignored, please bring them up in comments! Just because I don't mention something, doesn't mean I don't have thoughts on it.
