SPN 5.21 - That's it?
Before the episode, ash48 posted a hypothetical list Dean would have to go through to wrap up this season’s hanging threads. Unfortunately, despite being simply a list it was more entertaining than the penultimate episode. If this were Project Runway, Tim Gunn would have called this episode a hot mess.
I’d like to start with the good, but I’d rather leave that for later to end on a more up note.
Really?
(1) I need to find another word for “underwhelemed” when it comes to describing Pestilence’s appearance. Not that it didn’t seem as if he’d be shortchanged given the time left in the season, but at least Famine and War got an episode each and not bad ones at that.
I find it funny that the best explained part of Pestilence’s appearance was the patient who greets him about his “trip.” My assumption is that he has possessed the body of this doctor and then went on the road trip we saw at the end of 5.19.
We then find out that he has been culturing illnesses through the patients in this place. At least some of the staff are possessed but it seems quite a few others are not, so why the CDC isn’t there by now, who knows. But that’s not really our biggest problem.
I also liked the way the stakeout set up Sam and Dean’s problem in figuring out how to proceed since they don’t know how to find him in this building. What makes a whole lot less sense is that they know nothing about how to fight this horseman but could reasonably assume that taking precautions againt common infections would help! If not putting them in hazmat suits, why couldn’t they at least be wearing the gloves and face masks sure to be available everywhere in a medical facility?
The idea of fritzing the cameras was good but it also led to the effect of fuzzing out his face so other than figuring he’s tall, it still didn’t give them a good idea of what he looked like! And when Pestilence finally attacks them, why does it take so much longer for them to die than everyone else? Castiel seems to walk into the room unaffected until he crosses the threshhold, when the rest of the hospital seemed to have been decimated through airborne contamination.
Given the time we have, Pestilence’s conversation with the nurse didn’t seem all that necessary as the whole vessel issue had already been mentioned and we’re aware that both Dean and Sam can be brought back, although I had a thought on that in Other Bits. It would have been clearer in explaining why Sam and Dean didn’t die at once, if only Pestilence hadn’t claimed he didn’t care if they did. All the speechifying could have been more informative.
It is interesting, though, that Pestilence gives us the fact that Castiel can still possess Jimmy despite having (next to, and eventually) no powers. Of course, we’d already learned from Anna that angels and their power are separate things, but it leads me to wonder how Castiel can continue to operate Jimmy without it.
When it comes, the removal of Pestilence’s ring and his disappearance is very anticlimatic. Given what happens later with Death, it made me wonder if he didn’t just give it up, although everything he said didn’t seem to reflect that at all.
I also didn’t understand why Pestilence’s disappearance would magically withdraw any illness with him. I could understand why people already dead wouldn’t recover, but since when would infections suddenly recede? Talk about convenient.
2) But don’t think about that because we’ve still got lots more ground to cover! Back at Bobby’s the next task is Death, figuring out how to use the collected rings, what Pestilence’s plan was, and to reintroduce Crowley. And for time’s sake alone, I could have done without the latest glaring bit of fanservice.
I find it hard to believe that at this point 98% of SPN fans out there aren’t tired of the fanservice and want it to stop. Like any fan, I don’t mind a touch of it here and there over the seasons, but this season the writers seem to have lost any sense of persepctive, or perhaps they’ve come to believe that hitting every fan issue out here is the way to create a successful series.
Furthermore, if you simply must include fanservice elements, at least do it in a holistic way instead of writing it with a glaring neon sign pointing to it.
Case in point, Crowley/Bobby vs. Sam/Brady. In the scene about Crowley’s deal with Bobby, Sam asking about the kiss could have been a funny aside – not because Sam would actually be concerned about it but because he might want to lighten the moment. In which case, personality wise, Dean would really be the person most likely to think of and ask that. Going through the whole bit with the photo was just an eyeroller, especially since everyone in that room should be reacting much more badly to this news than they do. I mean, since when have any of them ever heard of a soul being returned from a deal? Sam, in particular, should be ballistic about this, not cracking a joke.
This is also, I might add, time taken aside from Castiel getting to react to this latest disturbing set of events which has taken place while he was out of commission. But if he has any opinion about working with Crowley, we don’t get to know it.
On the other hand, the bit with Sam and Brady seems to be slipped in there in such a confusing matter, one has to wonder if it was meant at all. To have Crowley refer to Brady as Sam’s demon lover would seem to be the first time an entire slash genre of Sam experimenting in college has been Kripked. It would have otherwise only made sense for Crowley to say “my demon lover” given his story to Brady in the last episode. Or even to say to Sam, “Your demon, lover.” However, I’m fairly sure Mark Sheppard is a good enough actor to distinguish the difference in those two sentences, so I can only assume he was presenting what was on the page (not to mention, given his antagonistic relationship with Sam, it doesn’t seem in character for him to refer to Sam as “lover” regardless of the context). So between the two, the way to do fanservice is exactly in the sort of subtle way that keeps people guessing and not in a way so absurdly obvious and out-of-character that everyone in the scene (except Crowley) gets skewed for the joke.
3) “You don’t get to be horsemen for nothing.” Uhm, I wish that statement wasn’t so completely laughable given the relatively brief threat they’ve posed to the Winchesters this season. War was kind of interesting but the level of threat he posed seemed petty. Famine was rather more fascinating and the way he was defeated (Dean’s immunity, Sam’s cleverness) provided an actual payoff. Pestilence, well, see above. And Death we’ll never know, since they decided to go a different route with him. However, it seems a tremendously odd disparity of power between him and the other horsemen.
I can only assume that Crowley’s explanation of Pestilence’s plan was considered necessary to either catch up the audience or better explain to them what we saw in the last episode. But it’s just another case of Sam and Dean being handed explanations and solutions rather than figuring them out for themselves, something which happens again with Crowley handing them Death’s sickle and Death handing Dean the solution to the ring problem overall.
But the sickle thing was a particularly stupid addition because the moment Mike saw it he commented, “Wait, if he can get the sickle, why doesn’t he just kill Death himself? Crowley seems to be able to do anything, why does he need Sam and Dean?” Given that Sam and Dean were rescued from Pestilence by a nearly extinct angel, one does have to wonder. When Crowley tells Dean, “Have you met me? Because I know” it begs the question that if he could find Death, why couldn’t he find Pestilence without Brady?
I am going to assume at this point that Crowley has been working for Death all along, since it’s what makes the most sense. But really, Sam and Dean should be asking these questions as well.
4) To Bobby, the reduction of his mobility is indeed probably an equivalent of Castiel’s loss of his powers, proportionally speaking. But in terms of actual loss, Castiel’s power erosion is enormous. If we hadn’t had the whole sequence that came before of Death killing a man on a Chicago street, we might actually have had time for a meaningful discussion between the two about loss. Instead, Castiel’s real fears (and what it means for their team’s chances in general) is just dismissed in a way that should have made him angry. Maybe he’s just too exhausted to be angry.
This exchange seems particularly hollow in light of the next scene where Bobby gets to walk again, because, I suppose, it’s more convenient for the final fight scenes. The whole “Bobby is magically cured bit” just pissed me off, frankly, even though I’m not disabled myself. But if I were, I imagine I’d be more than a little angry that Bobby’s storyline seemed to consist largely of putting him in and then taking him out of a chair and not dealing with very much in between. I am often disappointed by fanfic which magically cures people after spending the bulk of a story having them deal with their lives changing, as well as the characters around them adjusting to the changes as well. But it’s even worse when it’s dealt with like this in canon.
This also means that if Castiel returns next season we can expect no bettter from him in terms of his process of becoming human.
5) If Pestilence’s plot was a letdown, the bombing of the distribution warehouse was just plain confusing. How did they know the first truck wouldn’t leave for an hour? How did they know who was and wasn’t possessed in that warehouse? For that matter, how did they know that there were hostages who practically ran over them when Sam shot the door open? How many bullets does Sam have in that gun? What were the group of men doing on the ground when Sam and Bobby walked in? Given the speed of the humans’ response to the Croatoan virus here, apparently I was right in the last episode that the whole “vaccine” distribution idea makes little sense.
Why was that woman alive long enough to keep screaming? Was all that purely for the purpose of Bobby later telling Dean that there’s a lot of good in Sam, as if we didn’t already know this, as if Dean didn’t already know it, and if this wasn’t completely contradictory to behavior we saw at other points in the last few episodes as regards collateral damage?
Lastly, why would we care if Sam gets exposed to the virus when we know he’s immune?
6) What was that all about in Chicago when Crowley and Dean go to the warehouse and then Death isn’t even there? That was another hugely wasted scene in an episode with a ton of stuff to do. 7) I liked the general idea of Death being represented as a mobster given that he is the head of the horsemen, the ultimate mobsters who collect their pound of flesh and exploit people’s weaknesses. Their actions all lead their victims to become indebted to Death. And I also liked the idea of Death being incredibly old and being the balancing element to God, whereas in Christianity Lucifer is set as God’s oppposite. Here, he’s just portrayed as a childish brat.
However, there’s something absurd about him speechifying to Dean about how insignificant he is when Death is in fact: a) Aware of who Dean is. b) Has been waiting for Dean to find him. c) Is dependent on Sam and Dean to free him. d) Is apparently a great fan of bacterium chefs.
This was a poor piece of writing in that it undercuts other things Death says. If that’s the point, great. But given Dean’s reaction I don’t think that’s what we were supposed to get out of it.
I mentioned above that I can only assume Crowley works for Death, because it’s Dean that Crowley brings to him rather than Sam. Since Sam is supposedly the key to defeating Lucifer, it would make sense for Death to speak to him. But instead he speaks to Dean, because if Dean doesn’t let Sam go, it won’t work. Dean is his insurance, just as Bobby is Crowley’s.
Lastly, the commercial breaks in this episode tended to lack punch. My suspicion is that it was already such a hodge podge of things that they had to break wherever they could, rather than using the break structure to organize the story as is generally done. But it added to the meh of the episode.
Of the Good
1) I like the way we begin the first act with a pan of the various articles spread across Bobby’s desk of the destruction Death has been visiting across the country. Heck, they probably just printed actual headlines from the last month. 2) I also liked the way we jumped right into Dean’s reaction to Sam’s suggestion of caging Lucifer by essentially wrestling him into it. Even better is to see that Sam meant what he said to Bobby, that he’d only go through with the idea if Bobby and Dean were backing him. This is continuity, exposition, and character bits all rolled into one. This is certainly efficient given the screen time we have left this season, especially as we go straight to Castiel’s storyline. 3) Castiel didn’t have a lot to do in the episode, but his was a welcome return, since it allowed for a little more input into the events. Unsurprisingly, we discover that his power is nearly gone, moving us along to the future we saw in The End. While fan discussions may continue on whether it was a hallucination or a view into an alternate universe (the existence of which, Death seemed to confirm), I think the point is moot largely because it seems to have been a roadmap for the writers this season. Castiel’s, Dean’s, and perhaps even Sam’s development have all been leading to that point.
Also, of course, Castiel remains welcome for his humorous confusion and bluntness, such as when he apologizes to Dean for assuming he was more of a mess than he actually was,
4) One thing I did enjoy in this episode was characters spitting out my exact reaction to certain lines – starting with Bobby’s “I will?” (Does he look like an ATM?) “Eunice Kennedy?” “Remember when we used to just hunt Wendigos?”
5) I did like that Crowley explains his deal with Bobby, not as something necessary to carry out the mission, but rather as a self-serving act intended to guarantee his own safety. It seems much more in character for him, and also a good plot point in keeping us from asking why Sam and Dean aren’t killing him when they get the chance. Thus I wish this had been done in the start of the last episode rather than this one, and it would have given us a better scene with Bobby, but, bygones.
6) I liked Dean’s “Let me guess, we’re abou to have a talk.” I liked the familiarity of the statement, and it immediately made me think of another conversation in Bobby’s yard between Sam and Dean where Sam’s trying to convince him of something important.
Less clear for me is Sam’s statement about being less than anyone else in the team. I can only assume he means this in terms of will power – although given the way Bobby just folded, one has to question why he’d say that.
As a final point, one thing that particularly concerns me is that this episode was written by Sera Gamble. While I think she’s written lots of meaty stuff for the characters over the seasons, it’s pretty disappointing to be on the verge of a S6 that she’ll be running to see this sort of disjointed, messy writing. It doesn’t fill me with confidence about the season to come. Perhaps the sentence that resonated the most with me in this episode was when Crowley says to Sam and Dean, “You two are lucky you have your looks.” Because that is probably the single engine carrying the show forward at this point.
Other Bits
1) At least Iowa and ND aren’t so far apart that Dean and Sam couldn’t have made it there in a day. 2) I’m getting a bit tired of the acting touch (is this in the scripts?) where actors start a sentence talking and end it shouting. We’ve seen Bobby, Crowley, Dean and Pestilence do it in recent episodes and it’s going to become a cliché. 4) I was talking with su_darklily about issues regarding the Colt, Ruby’s knife, and human hosts. If these weapons destroy the demon (not just exorcise them) then surely they’re destroying the human hosts’ souls as well? And if the do, then suicide would in fact be possible for Sam and Dean since presumably they can’t be restored if killed that way. It doesn’t stop the apocalypse, but it certainly would end their part of it. 5) Why is it Pestilence who asks Cas how he arrived at the nursing home? And Castiel took a bus from – where? Given his reference to Delacroix and fishing, I assumed he was in Louisiana. What sort of bus could he possibly have taken to get from there to Iowa in a day? The one from Harry Potter? 6) Speaking of transportation, if Ruby could teleport people around, surely Crowley can as well. Why, when time is of the essence, are he and Dean driving to Chicago? I’ll go along with Castiel, Sam and Bobby because they have all sorts of equipment and such, but Dean and Crowley? 7) How does Castiel know that Michael has possessed Adam when he’s been unconscious for a week and is certainly not flitting around unnoticed anymore? Does he still hear angel radio? This could have used a line of explanation. Also, why mention to Sam just now that he’d have to consume tons of demon blood to maintain Lucifer, when the issue had presented itself even more clearly back in MBV? And why would that be true of Lucifer but not Michael? What’s Adam having to drink for Michael to maintain his vessel, and why would Castiel not mention this to Dean when it looked like he would say yes? 8) In the Chicago scenes it seemed like JA wasn’t faking the cold he felt. I have no idea anymore what time of year it’s supposed to be. 9) Dean can’t figure out for himself what Crowley’s trying to say at the door of the pizzeria? 10) “Apparently these things can be useful.” Heh. We’ll be seeing him with a bandolier next. 11) That pizza did not look appetizing. 12) I liked that bit with Bobby discussing walking up and down stairs so long that he was sore. It was JB’s best line in the episode, although given how tired everyone should be, rather unrealistic.