Quick Reaction: 5x17 99 Problems

[hells_half_acre]

For scheduling proposes, we watched the East Coast feed tonight, so here are my thoughts 3 hours earlier than expected!


I can't believe Dean. Nice to know that being a self-centered asshole really is a Winchester trait and not reserved just for John and Sam.

Ugh...ok, let's start at the beginning.

This one really had me thinking it was going to be a MOTW. As soon as I saw the pretty boy, I thought "yeah, he's too pretty to live."

So, Sam and Dean encounter a town full of Hunters led by a prophet named Leah.

Problem: The town is slowly turning into a fundamentalist crazytown. Sam doesn't like it, but Dean just doesn't care about anything anymore. He's lost all hope. Sam is still holding strong, and trying to make Dean hold strong too...and he's super worried about Cas. Basically, Sam is the one that's desperately trying to hold every one together.

Oh, HILARIOUS break: Castiel's voicemail! HAHAHA! Brilliant. I laughed so hard I actually missed Sam's message.

Long story short, she's not a prophet, she's a WHORE ("come on Cas, tell us what you really think!")

Drunk Cas was both funny and extremely heartbreaking. And if I hadn't already been mad at Dean for being a fatalistic asshole to Sam, him throwing Cas the bottle of painkillers would have driven in the final nail. Dude, YOU ARE MAKING THE FUTURE HAPPEN! Maybe you don't think you are, because you're going to go say yes, but goddamnit - Cas does NOT have to end up a drugged-out hippie. He doesn't! Don't put him down that road!

What else, what else...Dean's a servant of God. I can't say I'm surprised...I mean, what defines "servant of God" in the Supernatural universe anyway? Do you really need to be ordained? The Winchesters have been blessing their own holy water for years. I did love the "and Sam's an abomination" line though! Ha! Poor Sam.

And then Dean just LEAVES SAM. ARG! And Sam KNOWS that's what he's going to do....and man, you just feel it right along with Sam when that distinct engine starts up.

:-(

Sigh...it was a good episode. It really was. But now I'm so SAD. Seriously...seriously sad.

Next week is the 100th episode! Looks like another doozy.

Ok, so that was much shorter than usual - more reactions, less recap.

Comments

[alexseanchai]

I always figured the holy water was priesthood-of-the-believer sort of thing--Church of St. Diana the Huntress or some such thing.

I...don't really have words for the rest of it. Except DEAN HOW CAN YOU. Also, show, fuck you for your misogyny.

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Yeah...I echo the DEAN HOW CAN YOU.

And yes...knew the minute certain lines were said that the episode was going to get called out for misogyny. It never really bothers me, thankfully. But yeah...if they had worded things a little better they could have dodged a few of the impending bullets.

[liliaeth]

That's actually not the show's mysogyny. The line about the Whore of Babylon is straight out of the Bible. I actually liked the way they went with the whore, that they didn't make her sexual.

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Ha, yeah, kind of hard not to be misogynistic when your source material is the Bible :P

[liliaeth]

I would have hated it a lot more, if they had made her promiscuous, as it stands now, Leah wasn't attacked over being sure and confident of herself. But over the fact that she was using religion as a way to drive people apart.

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Yes, I agree. I think they did a good job with it overall.

[alexseanchai]

"On good days, you get to kill a whore"--that's not misogyny? And isn't there a Revelation character called the False Prophet? (There's certainly a Lahaye/Jenkins character called the False Prophet.)

[alexseanchai]

Which is to say, the concept of Leah, awesome, the execution, mostly awesome, just, why did the word 'whore' have to come up at all?

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's the line I cringed at and thought "Oh, Show...I can hear the typing already..."

Take out that line, and I think they could have pulled it off better - you could even leave in the joke with Castiel "tell us what you really think" but then just refer to her as a false prophet the rest of the time.

[liliaeth]

thing is, in the bible, the False prophet Jezebel, IS the Whore of Babylon. It's what she's referred to as in the bible.

I'm thinking that line is along the same lines as "in a good day we can kill a horseman/goul/vampire/fill in the blank"

[alexseanchai]

The only Biblical figure I know of named Jezebel isn't a prophet, she's a queen who pissed off the prophet Elijah, and she never had anything to do with Babylon. Wikipedia assures me her name might be translated as 'virgin of Baal' or 'whore of Baal', which might be what you're thinking of.

In any event, your interpretation of that line equates 'murderous inhuman thing, the existence of which is problematic, and the only solution to that problem being to kill it ASAP' and 'prostitute'. This...I can't see any way to read that as anything but violently misogynistic.

[claudiapriscus.livejournal.com]

Angst show is angsty.

Drunk Castiel was kind of awesome.

But I have to admit that when the show hits a certain level of angst, I kind of check out. It just gets a little too...over the top.

[liliaeth]

Honestly, I prefer the angst over the comedy. One of the things I disliked about 511 is that they tried to hard to be funny, when the ep would have worked better for me if they focused more on the angst.

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Mm...I thought they struck a pretty good balance with 5x11. But I get what you are saying.

[claudiapriscus.livejournal.com]

it's not that I want to go comedy necessarily. I guess in my mind angst is not the same thing as drama (or even tragedy). I know they are capable of those two things, and I guess at this point I'd rather see more of those than the, hm, I don't know, the never ending misery they keep dumping on their heads in order to make them feel (more) sorry for themselves. They've just go overboard with the angst. Less can be more, IMO.

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed drunk Castiel as well...but I was really hoping we wouldn't end up with pharmaceutical-addict Cas.

I WISH I could check out...my heart is all kinds of crushed in empathy. For some reason I can check out of the shows whose angst is based on lovers cheating on each other or whathaveyou, but I can't check out of Winchester-angst.

[claudiapriscus.livejournal.com]

It can get me up to a certain point. For example:

I laughed evilly at 4x03, even though I loved it. That scene with young Mary was sad enough, and the acting was fabulous. But when they had her do her whole "the worst thing, the very worst thing?" I cracked up. Not because it wasn't good, or heartfelt, or beautiful in its own way...it just seemed excessive at that point, emotionally speaking.

Same thing with the 40 years in hell thing (though there was more exasperation there).

Someone once directed me to a funny little discworld video where one character gets sent 'to meet his maker' and meets the author. He marches right up to him and calls him a complete bastard, and then walks away.

Then there's stephen king, who put himself in one of his books. His characters meant him no harm, which was nice of them considering, but he still ran like the dickens when he saw them.

I digress here to illustrate a point. I think if the Supernatural writers similarly broke the fourth wall, it wouldn't end so nicely for them. ;)

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

They already did sort of with Chuck, and poor Chuck doesn't even make up the stories, he just writes them...and I believe Sam's parting words to him last time were "we know where you live and we have guns."

[claudiapriscus.livejournal.com]

yeah, but that's only turning the 4th wall into a window. He's just the author avatar. they probably had many reasons for not doing a full-out 4th wall breakdown, but I imagine one of them could have been:

"Ok, so we say hi. Then....we get the crap beaten out of us and then get tossed into hell." :-p

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Ha! Most likely :P

[kairia.livejournal.com]

Basically, Sam is the one that's desperately trying to hold every one together.
It's heart-rending and and I hope its just me over-analyzing but I can see the Michael/Lucifer parallels playing out and I'm starting to think Dean's betrayal and abandonment of Sam may be what make Sam say yes -___-

Second the drunk!Castiel love!

Even though Dean was being such an ass, I pretty much went "AWWW, Dean" when he told Lisa that he'd make arrangements for him and Ben [Yes, I'm one of those fans who died of happiness at seeing Lisa]

The episodes are all ending in angst, this does not bode well -__-

PS The CW was amazingly quick and already three promo clips and the trailer for the 100th episode are already out - is it next Thursday yet? :P

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Yes, basically in order for either Winchester to say yes, they have to be stripped of EVERYTHING. Dean was stripped of everything last week, when he stopped listening to Sam and starting listening to the self-hating voices inside his head. And now Sam's been stripped of Dean. :(

I still think it's going to take some mad torture (physical/psychological) to get Sam to say yes though.

Awww Dean indeed. He can be an ass and still have my sympathies. Sam had my sympathies last season after all. These boys just get a little messed up in the head from time to time.

Dude, those promos clips are AMAZING. I don't want to talk about them too much here, just in case my other readers don't watch anything before the episode starts...but yeah...this show is going to kill me, if not with the episodes themselves, than with anticipation for the next one.

[kairia.livejournal.com]

Dean was stripped of everything last week, when he stopped listening to Sam and starting listening to the self-hating voices inside his head. And now Sam's been stripped of Dean. :(
*sigh* This season is going to leave me shaking and crying innit?
broken!Dean breaks my heart but I confess I kind of want to see michael!Dean - Dean is the only Winchester who didn't have a stint as Yellow Eyes/Azazel and after seeing Dean as a demon and Samifer, I want Michael!Dean ^^


Dude, those promos clips are AMAZING. I don't want to talk about them too much here, just in case my other readers don't watch anything before the episode starts...but yeah...this show is going to kill me, if not with the episodes themselves, than with anticipation for the next one.
Ugh, I know right? I think I'm going to stop reading spoilers, the anticipation is driving me up a wall >_

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

It's true, I'm pretty conflicted about it. In terms of the storyline, I don't want Dean to say yes...just because I want them to "win", I wanted them to figure out a way to fix everything and screw over those crazy manipulating angels.

But in terms of acting, I would LOVE to see Jensen do Michael. Jared's done Meg and Lucifer...and WIAWSNB!Sam and Gary...and the Impala :P ...Jensen's only been Dean and S1 shapeshifter-pretending-to-be-Dean. It'd be great to see him inhabit another character.

Yes, my rule is that the promo clips (and any information that comes out of Conventions) are the ONLY spoilers I'm allowed. So, now that I've watched all three of them, the only thing I can do is wait until Thursday.

[trystan830.livejournal.com]

you know my thoughts.

i have clips for next week at my LJ already. =)