SPN: Scarecrow and Faith
Mar. 10th, 2011 09:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snick_backupI cannot remember the last time I watched a show with so small a main cast. Everything I've watched within the last few years or so has involved an ensemble cast, and even if there was only a handful of principals - on Veronica Mars, say, or Bones - there were many more supporting and recurring characters. I mean, here are my main shows of the last five years: BtVS, Ats, Lost, Battlestar Galactica, The West Wing, House, Avatar: the Last Airbender. Huge casts!
And now I'm down to three characters I've ever seen more than once (well, plus their mom, I guess). It feels a tad claustrophobic.
I also haven't spent this much time thinking about guy-guy relationships in a really long time. Or possibly ever. Certainly not with BtVS; there aren't any guys with anything like the depth of relationship the Winchesters have. So that's kind of a new/weird mental space to be in.
(It actually quite bothers me how few same-sex friendships we see in the Buffyverse. We have Buffy-Willow, Andrew-Jonathan [which y'all have assured me is totally platonic!], Dawn-Tara, Dawn-Janice, and Dawn-Buffy if we're counting siblings. It's not like there aren't plenty of girls around for pretty much the whole show, but so few of them are friends. Feh.)
Anyway. On to the ep notes, which got long and end up talking about, among other things, religious faith (in fairly generic terms); if that sort of thing gives you hives, well, be ye forewarned.
Scarecrow
Further plot is afoot, I see; clearly I'm supposed to care who the blond chick is and what her nefarious purposes are. Alas.
However, the wholesale lifting from Gaiman's novel amused me. (I am purposely not naming the novel for fear of spoiling, but you who've read it know which one I mean!) Also, at the very beginning? With the young couple in the apple orchard? The apples made me think of The Wizard of Oz even before the guy made his "If I only had a brain" comment. Not sure how intentional that was, but...
Also, Dean's blind faith in his dad is increasingly disturbing. "Those are my orders," indeed - I can see where John's military training came in during the boys' childhood. However, I was particularly interested in the comment Dean didn't finish, when he was talking to Sam on the phone: "You stood up to him. Hell, I wish I..."
Faith
I ended up liking this episode a whole lot more than I expected to, given the subject matter. Y'all might have gathered that I get a bit tetchy about depictions of faith in media, but I really appreciate that this episode balanced the "All sinners must die!" reverend's wife (see, I told you) with a really satisfying final conversation between Dean and Julie Benz's character. This, right here:
Which, yeah. Faith that only exists during the good times isn't faith at all; it's just a recognition of which side your bread's buttered on. Not to say faith doesn't take a battering sometimes when faced with tragedy and the general awfulness of human existence - the problem of evil is still a problem for a reason - but if it withers at the first sign of drought, then what's it good for?
Um. This may partly be my backhanded way of complaining about the prosperity gospel, which is often likewise linked with the belief that if bad things are happening to you, then you must not be praying hard enough.
Anyway, I got to see a sincere, intelligent person of faith (with a sense of humor, even!) on my TV screen, and she was played by Julie Benz. That pretty much made my evening.
In other things, I got to watch Dean be all vulnerable - physically, emotionally, and, hmm, spiritually? - which I enjoyed more than I ought, probably. Y'all were right that the show moved out of a tight Sam-POV pretty quickly, for which I'm glad. This was definitely a Dean ep. And they played his ethical discomfort and feelings of guilt really well without overplaying them. At the end there, when the reaper's coming for him and he doesn't move, it was obvious to me that he was okay with dying to save Leila, and yet the script never quite said that. Nicely done, show.
Also, the reaper was pretty cool. (Did I snorfle when "Don't Fear the Reaper" started to play in the background? YES I DID.) I prefer spirits that have specific purposes and MOs, rather than just being random and vengeful. The Reaper did bear a startling resemblance to another horrific creature of my acquaintance (*points to icon*), but we'll forgive him this once.
Overall, this was by far the best disk so far; all four of these eps were head and shoulders above anything else that came before (except possibly "Skin," which also pretty solid). Interesting spooks (except for the poltergeist in "Home," but that ep had enough other stuff going on that I didn't mind too much) and good character stuff for both individuals and relationships. Good work team.
And now I'm down to three characters I've ever seen more than once (well, plus their mom, I guess). It feels a tad claustrophobic.
I also haven't spent this much time thinking about guy-guy relationships in a really long time. Or possibly ever. Certainly not with BtVS; there aren't any guys with anything like the depth of relationship the Winchesters have. So that's kind of a new/weird mental space to be in.
(It actually quite bothers me how few same-sex friendships we see in the Buffyverse. We have Buffy-Willow, Andrew-Jonathan [which y'all have assured me is totally platonic!], Dawn-Tara, Dawn-Janice, and Dawn-Buffy if we're counting siblings. It's not like there aren't plenty of girls around for pretty much the whole show, but so few of them are friends. Feh.)
Anyway. On to the ep notes, which got long and end up talking about, among other things, religious faith (in fairly generic terms); if that sort of thing gives you hives, well, be ye forewarned.
Scarecrow
Further plot is afoot, I see; clearly I'm supposed to care who the blond chick is and what her nefarious purposes are. Alas.
However, the wholesale lifting from Gaiman's novel amused me. (I am purposely not naming the novel for fear of spoiling, but you who've read it know which one I mean!) Also, at the very beginning? With the young couple in the apple orchard? The apples made me think of The Wizard of Oz even before the guy made his "If I only had a brain" comment. Not sure how intentional that was, but...
Also, Dean's blind faith in his dad is increasingly disturbing. "Those are my orders," indeed - I can see where John's military training came in during the boys' childhood. However, I was particularly interested in the comment Dean didn't finish, when he was talking to Sam on the phone: "You stood up to him. Hell, I wish I..."
Faith
I ended up liking this episode a whole lot more than I expected to, given the subject matter. Y'all might have gathered that I get a bit tetchy about depictions of faith in media, but I really appreciate that this episode balanced the "All sinners must die!" reverend's wife (see, I told you) with a really satisfying final conversation between Dean and Julie Benz's character. This, right here:
LEILA: You wanna hear something weird?
DEAN: Hmm?
LEILA [who was hoping for a miraculous healing of her brain tumor, and didn't get it]: I'm okay. Really, I'm okay. I guess you can't just have faith when the miracles happen. You have to have faith when they don't.
Which, yeah. Faith that only exists during the good times isn't faith at all; it's just a recognition of which side your bread's buttered on. Not to say faith doesn't take a battering sometimes when faced with tragedy and the general awfulness of human existence - the problem of evil is still a problem for a reason - but if it withers at the first sign of drought, then what's it good for?
Um. This may partly be my backhanded way of complaining about the prosperity gospel, which is often likewise linked with the belief that if bad things are happening to you, then you must not be praying hard enough.
Anyway, I got to see a sincere, intelligent person of faith (with a sense of humor, even!) on my TV screen, and she was played by Julie Benz. That pretty much made my evening.
In other things, I got to watch Dean be all vulnerable - physically, emotionally, and, hmm, spiritually? - which I enjoyed more than I ought, probably. Y'all were right that the show moved out of a tight Sam-POV pretty quickly, for which I'm glad. This was definitely a Dean ep. And they played his ethical discomfort and feelings of guilt really well without overplaying them. At the end there, when the reaper's coming for him and he doesn't move, it was obvious to me that he was okay with dying to save Leila, and yet the script never quite said that. Nicely done, show.
Also, the reaper was pretty cool. (Did I snorfle when "Don't Fear the Reaper" started to play in the background? YES I DID.) I prefer spirits that have specific purposes and MOs, rather than just being random and vengeful. The Reaper did bear a startling resemblance to another horrific creature of my acquaintance (*points to icon*), but we'll forgive him this once.
Overall, this was by far the best disk so far; all four of these eps were head and shoulders above anything else that came before (except possibly "Skin," which also pretty solid). Interesting spooks (except for the poltergeist in "Home," but that ep had enough other stuff going on that I didn't mind too much) and good character stuff for both individuals and relationships. Good work team.
