SPN: Crossroad Blues, Croatoan
Mar. 30th, 2011 05:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snick_backupCrossroad Blues
Yanno, considering all the effort the show made to first show Robert Johnson being chased by hellhounds and then have Sam and Dean discuss him later, all he really did was confuse the issue. Did he make his deal at the same crossroads? Does it even matter? His deal had nothing to do with these present-day deals except for the logistics. I spent the whole episode wondering what the 1938 portion was supposed to contribute to anything. My conclusion: not much.
I'm a little disturbed that Dean can turn on the angst at will. It brings into question the genuineness of all his other angst where it's supposed to actually matter. Then again, we get the idea that he actually considered the deal, if only for a moment, so I suppose we could say he was using method acting.
I didn't like that he was about to exorcise the demon and then changed his mind. Either you do it or you don't do it, but for heaven's sake you don't just toy with the idea and tick off the demon in the process.
So the doctor lady - when she made her deal, did she get kissed by a gorgeous demon in a long dress? Hmm?
Croatoan
So, the Roanoke colony idea was all a fake-out by the demon? Or what?
This ep felt like it'd been lifted from a whole different show. I'm just not sure that Dean would have gone paranoid that fast; unless something personal has him spinning emotionally, he's pretty level-headed. And I still can't believe he shot multiple infected people without so much as blinking.
Another thing: it turns out that Sam's blood isn't infected, but the other blood becomes uninfected at the same time. Why wouldn't we just figure that whatever caused all the people to disappear also removed the virus from all the blood? Why assume that Sam's special?
The emotional tenor, the logistics, the only somewhat-solved mystery at the end - this was not a real satisfying episode.
And now, finally we find out what John told Dean in the opener. Yanno, when we pick up in the next episode. Yeesh. Ten episodes in, people!
---
I complained about the Dean characterization in both of these episodes, but it occurs to me that Dean has had hardly a single contextually appropriate emotion since the events in "In the Time of My Dying." He's overreacted ("Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things," "Croatoan") and underreacted ("The Usual Suspects"); he's been a bit manic ("Bloodlust") and also paranoid ("Croatoan"); he's had plenty of genuine angst and also a bit that wasn't so genuine. He's taken his feelings out on Sam, civilians, and even the Impala. Basically, he's been all over the map, and while not every episode calls attention to the fact (which I appreciate), I've decided that I'm quite willing to accept his volatility as making sense given John's death and Dean's feelings of responsibility (not to mention the Big Secret that's been weighing on him all this time, whatever it is). I still don't know that it was intentional, but it works for me, so I'm giving the writers the benefit of the doubt.
Yanno, considering all the effort the show made to first show Robert Johnson being chased by hellhounds and then have Sam and Dean discuss him later, all he really did was confuse the issue. Did he make his deal at the same crossroads? Does it even matter? His deal had nothing to do with these present-day deals except for the logistics. I spent the whole episode wondering what the 1938 portion was supposed to contribute to anything. My conclusion: not much.
I'm a little disturbed that Dean can turn on the angst at will. It brings into question the genuineness of all his other angst where it's supposed to actually matter. Then again, we get the idea that he actually considered the deal, if only for a moment, so I suppose we could say he was using method acting.
I didn't like that he was about to exorcise the demon and then changed his mind. Either you do it or you don't do it, but for heaven's sake you don't just toy with the idea and tick off the demon in the process.
So the doctor lady - when she made her deal, did she get kissed by a gorgeous demon in a long dress? Hmm?
Croatoan
So, the Roanoke colony idea was all a fake-out by the demon? Or what?
This ep felt like it'd been lifted from a whole different show. I'm just not sure that Dean would have gone paranoid that fast; unless something personal has him spinning emotionally, he's pretty level-headed. And I still can't believe he shot multiple infected people without so much as blinking.
Another thing: it turns out that Sam's blood isn't infected, but the other blood becomes uninfected at the same time. Why wouldn't we just figure that whatever caused all the people to disappear also removed the virus from all the blood? Why assume that Sam's special?
The emotional tenor, the logistics, the only somewhat-solved mystery at the end - this was not a real satisfying episode.
And now, finally we find out what John told Dean in the opener. Yanno, when we pick up in the next episode. Yeesh. Ten episodes in, people!
---
I complained about the Dean characterization in both of these episodes, but it occurs to me that Dean has had hardly a single contextually appropriate emotion since the events in "In the Time of My Dying." He's overreacted ("Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things," "Croatoan") and underreacted ("The Usual Suspects"); he's been a bit manic ("Bloodlust") and also paranoid ("Croatoan"); he's had plenty of genuine angst and also a bit that wasn't so genuine. He's taken his feelings out on Sam, civilians, and even the Impala. Basically, he's been all over the map, and while not every episode calls attention to the fact (which I appreciate), I've decided that I'm quite willing to accept his volatility as making sense given John's death and Dean's feelings of responsibility (not to mention the Big Secret that's been weighing on him all this time, whatever it is). I still don't know that it was intentional, but it works for me, so I'm giving the writers the benefit of the doubt.
