Because, in the end, it turns out that closing the gates of hell is a two-man job after all, and I love the prospect of Sam and Dean once again achieving together what a single soul could not.
The ending was definitely the high point of the episode, and makes a nice contrast to the pointless sniping in the first half of the season. I can't say I entirely understand how the characters got there - unless I mentally edit out huge portions of season eight and view it as a continuation of their previous development - but in itself it makes a very satisfying storyline.
It has a nice sense of balance - that each in turn must convince the other that this is survivable, and that they can do this. I always like it best when they save each other. :)
But the setup, direction and sentiment of the scene between Castiel and Dean are clearly designed to mirror Swan Song in particular, and that intentional parallel infuriates me.
Yeah. I did not like that at all. It's bad enough, as you say, that they just copy-paste Sam's storylines onto Castiel - but you can't take the climax of a five-season arc, with all its emotional implications, and drop it into a random scene in the middle of a season without expecting me to feel as though my intelligence is being insulted. I mean - really? How could they not see how cheap that is?
I do recognise that they are doing somewhat better with Castiel these days, but this crutch they keep falling back on is awful. I think the only way I could find him at all tolerable in the future is if he reappears only as an antagonist. Not an 'he's crazy so it's not his fault' antagonist, but the 'we are on opposite sides for what we regard as good reasons and it's very sad but that's the way it has to be' kind.
I like that she acknowledges the irony of the fact that it put her on the side of good more than once, thus blurring the lines between good and evil for her.
I feel Meg's loss keenly, particularly in relation to the Crowley stuff, because she always struck me as a nuanced and interesting antagonist. I always felt as though she thought she had good reasons for what she did. That doesn't mean I agree with her actions, but I always got the sense that she was a person with understandable goals and even her own brand of ethics. I used to get the same sense from Crowley, but not anymore.
Another thing that bugs me about the Swan Song remake is that, well, this is Meg's farewell. And the story touched on her relationship with Castiel - a relationship that I could find a hell of a lot more understandable than the one between Dean and Castiel if they'd stopped playing it as a joke about Castiel's sexual naivety, because the characters come from the same morally grey, confused place - largely as a 'what might have been'. Why on earth not let Meg step in and save Castiel? A parallel that has two characters 'being' Sam and Dean is far less offensive than Castiel just nicking Sam's spot, and it has been used effectively before. It would have had to be structured differently, of course, but they could have done something there that was poignant instead of insulting.
So, they know each other from Mesopotamia? How is that possible, if Crowley’s human persona Fergus MacLeod died in the 17th century, as we have learned in Weekend At Bobby’s?
I'm pretty sure this is going to upset me. It's not that I'm particularly enamoured of Crowley - I like him when he's well used, but he hasn't been for a while. It's just that it highlights one of the problems I've had with this whole season: the villains don't know what they want. Azazel made sense. Michael and Lucifer made sense. Eve made sense. The leviathans made sense, and I disliked that plot. Crowley's actions make no sense given what we know about him. So now, at the tail end of the season, they're going to slap a retcon on it and call it fixed? No.
It also makes me feel that they're mistaking grandiose for good. The idea that the king of hell is a tailor who fell for a silly crossroads deal is sad and interesting. He wasn't always what he is now, but you can imagine how he got here from there. But a Crowley who has been stalking the earth in his evilness for millennia is ... not interesting. At all.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2013-03-27 07:54 pm (UTC)The ending was definitely the high point of the episode, and makes a nice contrast to the pointless sniping in the first half of the season. I can't say I entirely understand how the characters got there - unless I mentally edit out huge portions of season eight and view it as a continuation of their previous development - but in itself it makes a very satisfying storyline.
It has a nice sense of balance - that each in turn must convince the other that this is survivable, and that they can do this. I always like it best when they save each other. :)
But the setup, direction and sentiment of the scene between Castiel and Dean are clearly designed to mirror Swan Song in particular, and that intentional parallel infuriates me.
Yeah. I did not like that at all. It's bad enough, as you say, that they just copy-paste Sam's storylines onto Castiel - but you can't take the climax of a five-season arc, with all its emotional implications, and drop it into a random scene in the middle of a season without expecting me to feel as though my intelligence is being insulted. I mean - really? How could they not see how cheap that is?
I do recognise that they are doing somewhat better with Castiel these days, but this crutch they keep falling back on is awful. I think the only way I could find him at all tolerable in the future is if he reappears only as an antagonist. Not an 'he's crazy so it's not his fault' antagonist, but the 'we are on opposite sides for what we regard as good reasons and it's very sad but that's the way it has to be' kind.
I like that she acknowledges the irony of the fact that it put her on the side of good more than once, thus blurring the lines between good and evil for her.
I feel Meg's loss keenly, particularly in relation to the Crowley stuff, because she always struck me as a nuanced and interesting antagonist. I always felt as though she thought she had good reasons for what she did. That doesn't mean I agree with her actions, but I always got the sense that she was a person with understandable goals and even her own brand of ethics. I used to get the same sense from Crowley, but not anymore.
Another thing that bugs me about the Swan Song remake is that, well, this is Meg's farewell. And the story touched on her relationship with Castiel - a relationship that I could find a hell of a lot more understandable than the one between Dean and Castiel if they'd stopped playing it as a joke about Castiel's sexual naivety, because the characters come from the same morally grey, confused place - largely as a 'what might have been'. Why on earth not let Meg step in and save Castiel? A parallel that has two characters 'being' Sam and Dean is far less offensive than Castiel just nicking Sam's spot, and it has been used effectively before. It would have had to be structured differently, of course, but they could have done something there that was poignant instead of insulting.
So, they know each other from Mesopotamia? How is that possible, if Crowley’s human persona Fergus MacLeod died in the 17th century, as we have learned in Weekend At Bobby’s?
I'm pretty sure this is going to upset me. It's not that I'm particularly enamoured of Crowley - I like him when he's well used, but he hasn't been for a while. It's just that it highlights one of the problems I've had with this whole season: the villains don't know what they want. Azazel made sense. Michael and Lucifer made sense. Eve made sense. The leviathans made sense, and I disliked that plot. Crowley's actions make no sense given what we know about him. So now, at the tail end of the season, they're going to slap a retcon on it and call it fixed? No.
It also makes me feel that they're mistaking grandiose for good. The idea that the king of hell is a tailor who fell for a silly crossroads deal is sad and interesting. He wasn't always what he is now, but you can imagine how he got here from there. But a Crowley who has been stalking the earth in his evilness for millennia is ... not interesting. At all.