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SPN 3x16 - No Rest for the Wicked
There was much awesome last night (OMG SINGING). But let's talk about the not so awesome.
Point one—creepy little girl. Hello story that's been done so many times before. I've seen the Twilight Zone ep, thanks. I've seen "Chinga" on X-Files. There was nothing new here. The only thing this did was steal time from characters I like.
I like that in this ep, Dean is trying desperately to break the cycle, to keep Sam from doing the exact thing he did. He never says what he did was a mistake—I don't think he's capable of that, given what that would mean. But he comes close. I love that both of them have gotten to a point where they can just kill the human hosts of demons but Dean still balks at killing a child, even if it means his immortal soul. Sam says he's all for it, but still finds it difficult to do. (I did love that moment with the mom telling him to kill her child—that almost made all the other creepy child scenes worth it. Almost.)
I pretty much figured that Dean was going to hell—I mean, they showed him dead in the promo. Here's what I'm worried about. Once you show hell on a TV show, it's pretty much over. Remember some other shows that have brought us to hell? Yeah, I'm thinking Xena. This was just enough of a taste to be poignant, but I swear to god, if they spend any significant portion of the beginning of next season in hell, that's going to be the shark. You just can't tell a good story set in hell. Not unless you have the budget for as original and visually interesting a vision as in Constantine, which they don't. Hell is one of those things that is only frightening if you don't show it. Once you start specifying how it works, what the torture is, how time passes there—you're never going to be horrible enough, and in an effort to be, you're going to be so alien and surreal that you lose any connection to relatable emotions. (I didn't like the Lucifer comics for pretty much this reason.)
So, yeah. I'm worried that, when we look back on the show, this will be the shark. They've killed a character at the end of every freaking season so far. They can't keep doing it. Granted, they do it in a much more organic way than Stargate ever did with its Daniel killing tendencies. They build it up over the whole season. But where are you going to go from here? Each year they're challenged to be bigger and badder, but I often find that it's the smaller that works better. Things start getting too complicated, too impersonal, and it ends up feeling like going through the motions. It happens to every show. I just think this will be the finale they can't top and I'm not really looking forward to them trying to next year.
Point one—creepy little girl. Hello story that's been done so many times before. I've seen the Twilight Zone ep, thanks. I've seen "Chinga" on X-Files. There was nothing new here. The only thing this did was steal time from characters I like.
I like that in this ep, Dean is trying desperately to break the cycle, to keep Sam from doing the exact thing he did. He never says what he did was a mistake—I don't think he's capable of that, given what that would mean. But he comes close. I love that both of them have gotten to a point where they can just kill the human hosts of demons but Dean still balks at killing a child, even if it means his immortal soul. Sam says he's all for it, but still finds it difficult to do. (I did love that moment with the mom telling him to kill her child—that almost made all the other creepy child scenes worth it. Almost.)
I pretty much figured that Dean was going to hell—I mean, they showed him dead in the promo. Here's what I'm worried about. Once you show hell on a TV show, it's pretty much over. Remember some other shows that have brought us to hell? Yeah, I'm thinking Xena. This was just enough of a taste to be poignant, but I swear to god, if they spend any significant portion of the beginning of next season in hell, that's going to be the shark. You just can't tell a good story set in hell. Not unless you have the budget for as original and visually interesting a vision as in Constantine, which they don't. Hell is one of those things that is only frightening if you don't show it. Once you start specifying how it works, what the torture is, how time passes there—you're never going to be horrible enough, and in an effort to be, you're going to be so alien and surreal that you lose any connection to relatable emotions. (I didn't like the Lucifer comics for pretty much this reason.)
So, yeah. I'm worried that, when we look back on the show, this will be the shark. They've killed a character at the end of every freaking season so far. They can't keep doing it. Granted, they do it in a much more organic way than Stargate ever did with its Daniel killing tendencies. They build it up over the whole season. But where are you going to go from here? Each year they're challenged to be bigger and badder, but I often find that it's the smaller that works better. Things start getting too complicated, too impersonal, and it ends up feeling like going through the motions. It happens to every show. I just think this will be the finale they can't top and I'm not really looking forward to them trying to next year.