SPN Episode reactions 10x06 and 10x07
Since I didn't write a reaction for last week's episode, I'll cover both weeks today :).
Episode 10x06 - Ask Jeeves
Not much to say about this one. On first watch, it seemed a bit 'meh', but I liked it better on second viewing. I don't think it was the strongest episode, especially not after Fan Fiction, but it was kinda fun.
I'll admit that most of the Cluedo references went over my head - I haven't played the game since I was a child and I've never seen the movie. For those not in the know, the game is only called Clue in North America... everywhere else in the world, it's called Cluedo, and since it was invented in England, that was its original name, so that's what I'm going to call it here.
Liked:
- They had me fooled into thinking it was a ghost episode, so I was surprised by the shapesifter reveal
- The original shapeshifter lore of shedding skin is back... thank God.
- Dean working on the car again :)
- The 'whodunnit' feel of the case... as others have said, a bit more like old SPN, although considering we've lost the dark, scary, gritty feel of it, it wasn't quite there for me
- Dean shooting the shifter over and over... looks like the Mark is taking hold again!
- The music at the end of the episode :)
Not so much:
- The charicatures of the wealthy family - a bit over the top
- Jared's acting when Sam's with the ladies... just a bit cringeworthy
- The 'homosexuals' line seemed inappropriate and out of place to me. Why did they suddenly think Sam and Dean were gay, when they were coming onto them just beforehand? What was the point of saying that... what did it add to the storyline?
- Another CGI'd shot at the end with the Impala driving away? What is going on with these - they look so fake :S.
Episode 10x07 Girls, Girls, Girls
I try to avoid episode previews because I don't like to get spoiled, and while I didn't actually see the preview for this episode, I heard enough online about it to get a general idea of it. I knew that Dean got a dating app, I knew that witches and Rowena were involved, I knew that Cole would be back (from an interview with Travis) and I knew that there had been some controversy on Twitter and some hate directed towards Robert Berens due to the implications of the preview trailer (something to do with Hannah/Cas incest or something), but I went into the episode with an open mind, taking the advice of Berens from Twitter about the trailer taking things out of context.
And basically, he was right - I knew from the first couple of minutes of watching that the episode was not going to be what I assumed people were thinking it was. Now that I've seen the trailer, I can see how the episode was twisted to portray something entirely different. The Cas/Hannah stuff was taken completely out of context and the whole witches/girls/brothel thing wasn't what was implied at all.
Things I liked:
- Dean and Sam's interaction at the beginning, with the dating app... nice to see them back to bantering and being brothers again (although why on earth did Dean put his real details on his profile?)
- Rowena... I was surprised to like her, because I guessed immediately when they announced the casting call for a Scottish actress to play a witch that she was likely to be related to Crowley... most likely his mother... and my reaction at the time was that I didn't give a shit about Crowley's family. However, I didn't dislike her nearly as much as I thought I would... she wasn't bad at all
- Cole being back. I did like the idea of Cole's storyline and how that would fit into the Winchesters' lifes and Dean being a demon/not being a demon anymore
- The fact that we seem to be going back to the themes of Classic SPN, with demon deals, hell and witches and not stupid corporate stuff (i.e. S7) or nothing but angel-war stuff (S9)
Not so much:
- Too much going on in one go - they're doing that thing where they have a couple of filler episodes with no mytharc or overarching storyline and then they try to cram all the mythology into one episode... as a result, it all just feels rushed and disjointed. I miss the days where every single episode had something important in it, tying everything together, whether it's character development or soemthing that moves the mytharc along (even the bad episodes like Bugs had this - there was the running thread of Sam and John's relationship right through the episode, which is what keeps me re-watching it, even though the MOTW was crap).
- No offence to Jensen, he's a great actor, but I can't help cringing at his love scenes in the show... is it me, or does he seem a bit uncomfortable doing them? Or at the least, they seem a bit forced and don't seem natural to me. Maybe it's because it's not very common to see Dean in that position, so I've just got used to him not having sex scenes... I don't know.
- Rowena's accent. I know the actress is Scottish, but in this episode, it seemed too much like she was doing a 'Scottish for American TV' accent... by speaking too slowly, enunciating her words too much and generally taking the edge off her natural accent. As a result, it just sounded weird. It's a bit like Daphne in Frasier, who was supposed to be from Manchester, but had an 'Americanised' accent so the US audience could understand her... and don't get me started on how her brothers had completely different accents to her, including London Cockney, Birmingham (with a hint of Scottish), and posh English :S.
- I feel a bit let down by Cole's storyline, if in fact it's over now and he's just gone back to his family now that he knows the truth. There was some great potential for his character and storyline - getting into hunting, learning about monsters and demons, finding out what really happened to his father etc. It would have been really cool to have had Demon!Dean for much longer and Cole hunting him down.
- While I did like how they handled Hannah this week, showing her choosing to leave Caroline's body, the Cas and Hannah stuff is just boring... I don't care for the angels at all unless their storyline is integral to the Winchesters' lives and to their fight. Hopefully they do a bit more with Cas now that Hannah is gone.
Episode 10x06 - Ask Jeeves
Not much to say about this one. On first watch, it seemed a bit 'meh', but I liked it better on second viewing. I don't think it was the strongest episode, especially not after Fan Fiction, but it was kinda fun.
I'll admit that most of the Cluedo references went over my head - I haven't played the game since I was a child and I've never seen the movie. For those not in the know, the game is only called Clue in North America... everywhere else in the world, it's called Cluedo, and since it was invented in England, that was its original name, so that's what I'm going to call it here.
Liked:
- They had me fooled into thinking it was a ghost episode, so I was surprised by the shapesifter reveal
- The original shapeshifter lore of shedding skin is back... thank God.
- Dean working on the car again :)
- The 'whodunnit' feel of the case... as others have said, a bit more like old SPN, although considering we've lost the dark, scary, gritty feel of it, it wasn't quite there for me
- Dean shooting the shifter over and over... looks like the Mark is taking hold again!
- The music at the end of the episode :)
Not so much:
- The charicatures of the wealthy family - a bit over the top
- Jared's acting when Sam's with the ladies... just a bit cringeworthy
- The 'homosexuals' line seemed inappropriate and out of place to me. Why did they suddenly think Sam and Dean were gay, when they were coming onto them just beforehand? What was the point of saying that... what did it add to the storyline?
- Another CGI'd shot at the end with the Impala driving away? What is going on with these - they look so fake :S.
Episode 10x07 Girls, Girls, Girls
I try to avoid episode previews because I don't like to get spoiled, and while I didn't actually see the preview for this episode, I heard enough online about it to get a general idea of it. I knew that Dean got a dating app, I knew that witches and Rowena were involved, I knew that Cole would be back (from an interview with Travis) and I knew that there had been some controversy on Twitter and some hate directed towards Robert Berens due to the implications of the preview trailer (something to do with Hannah/Cas incest or something), but I went into the episode with an open mind, taking the advice of Berens from Twitter about the trailer taking things out of context.
And basically, he was right - I knew from the first couple of minutes of watching that the episode was not going to be what I assumed people were thinking it was. Now that I've seen the trailer, I can see how the episode was twisted to portray something entirely different. The Cas/Hannah stuff was taken completely out of context and the whole witches/girls/brothel thing wasn't what was implied at all.
Things I liked:
- Dean and Sam's interaction at the beginning, with the dating app... nice to see them back to bantering and being brothers again (although why on earth did Dean put his real details on his profile?)
- Rowena... I was surprised to like her, because I guessed immediately when they announced the casting call for a Scottish actress to play a witch that she was likely to be related to Crowley... most likely his mother... and my reaction at the time was that I didn't give a shit about Crowley's family. However, I didn't dislike her nearly as much as I thought I would... she wasn't bad at all
- Cole being back. I did like the idea of Cole's storyline and how that would fit into the Winchesters' lifes and Dean being a demon/not being a demon anymore
- The fact that we seem to be going back to the themes of Classic SPN, with demon deals, hell and witches and not stupid corporate stuff (i.e. S7) or nothing but angel-war stuff (S9)
Not so much:
- Too much going on in one go - they're doing that thing where they have a couple of filler episodes with no mytharc or overarching storyline and then they try to cram all the mythology into one episode... as a result, it all just feels rushed and disjointed. I miss the days where every single episode had something important in it, tying everything together, whether it's character development or soemthing that moves the mytharc along (even the bad episodes like Bugs had this - there was the running thread of Sam and John's relationship right through the episode, which is what keeps me re-watching it, even though the MOTW was crap).
- No offence to Jensen, he's a great actor, but I can't help cringing at his love scenes in the show... is it me, or does he seem a bit uncomfortable doing them? Or at the least, they seem a bit forced and don't seem natural to me. Maybe it's because it's not very common to see Dean in that position, so I've just got used to him not having sex scenes... I don't know.
- Rowena's accent. I know the actress is Scottish, but in this episode, it seemed too much like she was doing a 'Scottish for American TV' accent... by speaking too slowly, enunciating her words too much and generally taking the edge off her natural accent. As a result, it just sounded weird. It's a bit like Daphne in Frasier, who was supposed to be from Manchester, but had an 'Americanised' accent so the US audience could understand her... and don't get me started on how her brothers had completely different accents to her, including London Cockney, Birmingham (with a hint of Scottish), and posh English :S.
- I feel a bit let down by Cole's storyline, if in fact it's over now and he's just gone back to his family now that he knows the truth. There was some great potential for his character and storyline - getting into hunting, learning about monsters and demons, finding out what really happened to his father etc. It would have been really cool to have had Demon!Dean for much longer and Cole hunting him down.
- While I did like how they handled Hannah this week, showing her choosing to leave Caroline's body, the Cas and Hannah stuff is just boring... I don't care for the angels at all unless their storyline is integral to the Winchesters' lives and to their fight. Hopefully they do a bit more with Cas now that Hannah is gone.