Catching up on Supernatural

[ivyfic]

I know these are way late, but I just caught up on SPN last night, so it's all new to me. :)

SPN 3x05—Bedtime Stories
This was muuuuch scarier than I thought it would be. I was so happy they didn't do yet another wacky fun episode. I like those, sure, but this is a horror show, not a comedy.

I actually was horrified by the little old lady, even if you see it coming a mile off. Mostly for the woman screaming "Stop!" after the guy's throat has been cut and it's clearly already too late. *shudder*

My one quibble is that it was too easy. Dean guesses what's going on…and he's exactly right. I kept waiting for the third act twist (No, wait, it was the father all along! or She's not understanding, she's a murderous spirit and turns on the father! or something) and it didn't come. I didn't trust that the resolution was the resolution, and then when it was clear that it was, it was like, huh. Okay.

I feel bad for the big bad wolf, though. Spirit or no, he's about to go to jail for kidnapping and three homicides.

Dean, why don't you know fairy tales? Everybody knows fairy tales. Though, if you wanted to make this all angsty, maybe the boys never heard the fairy tales growing up and Sam only knows them cause of Jess. (Can't you just imagine that? Jess says something about huffing and puffing and Sam's like what? and Jess looks at him like—where are you from, Mars? You don't know the three little pigs? And then buys him a book of fairy tales to educate him and he whines but secretly loves it cause it's the childhood he wished he had?)

The demon scene—first, I didn't recognize that that was Sandy. I always forget what she looks like. So my reaction was mostly, oh, another scenery-chewing sexy brunette demon chick. Woo. Though Sam and Dean seem to be using this Colt like it has unlimited bullets, which, maybe it does.

SPN 3x06—Red Sky at Morning
I know there are Bela wars raging through fandom right now, so here is where I stand on Bela. I'm extremely apathetic about her. Don't hate her, don't love her. I'm fine with her showing up now and again (like Amanda! Which means, will there be threesomes in the future?), but I don't want to see her all the time. The main reason I don't is because she doesn't really mesh with the genre of the show. Her antagonistic witty banter—that's not really my show. It's plenty of other shows, but it's more Moonlighting than Supernatural. And throughout the episode, I kept thinking, "insert obligatory scene of snappy insults between Dean and Bela." Felt forced to me.

That being said—holy cow, the plot holes. I love getting a ghost ship episode, but are there really enough people guilty of killing family members in this small town to have a "rash" of dryland drownings every 37 years? Hard to believe. And has Sam never heard of CPR? WTF? The dude dies of drowning right in front of you, he's been unconcious maybe thirty seconds, and you don't even try rescue breathing? That's what it was invented for! Drowning victims.

Mostly this show felt like blatant pandering. We'll put the boys in tuxes and have old women grope them and the fans will go crazy! I, for one, am not amused.

Here is what I want Bela's deep dark secret to be: I want her to have accidentally killed her infant brother or sister when she was a toddler. There's been a CSI episode about this, and I think a few Law and Orders, but it always ends with the revelation that it was the three-year-old. I want to see that three-year-old as an adult. It's such a fascinating concept—true original sin. Evil in the body of an innocent. How would you deal with that, knowing that you'd murdered someone before you understood right and wrong, before you could even form memories of it? How would it change how your family treated you? Would you think of yourself as tainted? Could you not?

I don't think this will be the secret. Bela's not nearly fucked up enough for that. It'll probably be something like, she killed an abusive parent, or she accidentally killed her sister when they were teenagers or something. But those are all so…predictable. So cliched. I want something new, dammit!

Also, 3x07 went a long way to redeeming Bela after this episode. You stay immoral and self-centered, girl. That's how you work best.

Comments

[gryphonrose.livejournal.com]

I agree about both episodes. 0305 was cool, though too easy. 0306 was a mess. I do like Bela, though, and I figured when we first saw her that she'd be back--she's too hot and has too much obvious chemistry/tension with Dean not to become a semi-regular. But yes, I'm sure the secret will wind up being justifiable--my guess is a relative was possessed and Bela killed him/her before realizing she could have tried to drive the demon out instead. I like her as immoral too, but she'll probably wind up having a good heart in there somewhere.

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

That's a good theory, given her "nobody understood" comment. But the way Sam phrased the ghost's motivation ("blood of a family member") made me kind of hope that she was another of the demon babies. Cause then she would literally have the blood of a family member on her hands. I doubt they'll do this either, though, since she is clearly a Dean character, and that's a Sam storyline.

I've known she's a regular since she arrived, of course. Rumors have been flying since the summer, and she's already listed in the credits as part of the main cast. If SPN were the sort of show to have opening titles, she'd be in them.