Rewatch S14: Nightmare Logic (14x05) and Optimism (14x06)
I'm doing two episodes in one post, because I did both rewatches on the same day and then realized that I didn't have much to say about Optimism.
Let's get into it....
Nightmare Logic
I really do question the logic of them sending Maggie out on hunts. Maybe I'm underestimating her, but she seems more of a survivor of a post-apocalyptic world than an active hunter. Like, there's a huge difference. Just because I may survive a zombie apocalypse, that doesn't make me an expert in killing zombies - it may just make me an expert in staying away from zombies, ykwim? Even when Sam and Dean first came across her, it was her and her friend/brother/whoever LEAVING a tunnel because it was full of vampires - they weren't going in there with machetes.
Hunter check-ins are a good idea when you're running a crew - Dean shouldn't make fun. Wait... does Sam say he has 1600 hundred cases right now?! I'm looking up a transcript. OH, he says 16 HUNTERS ON cases. Geez, that makes way more sense.
Anyway, it sounds like Dean's just trying to get Sam to sleep - so, fair. He's right. Sam DOES need to sleep. He went from being Dean's right-hand man to leading a large hunting organization, he might be going a little overboard in how much pressure to put on himself.
Bodycams are also a really good idea. As much as I prefer Sam and Dean as blue-collar out-of-society hunters without resources - I also like them being smart, and this is all smart stuff. I also have a thing for Leader!Sam, so this also checks that box.
Dean: "Private cemetery - must be nice."
Sam: "what?"
Dean: "I mean convenient."
- Hehehe, I love how Sam is like "oh, that's an acceptable answer" even though it makes just as much sense.
Historical Preservation Society is a good cover.
And AU!Bobby continues to not be Bobby. And we learn from Mary that this was Maggie's first solo hunt. Why do solo hunts at all?
Djinns are cool. I like the original concept, mind you... this one is like a cross between the two. Slow death, but nightmares rather than fantasies.
Oh right! This Bobby had a son (that wasn't Sam and Dean) so his parental instincts ARE flaring, but for Maggie, rather than for Sam and Dean... Sam and Dean are the ones who ENDANGERED the kid that he's parenting. It makes a lot of sense... but it does make me miss our Bobby... and also I wonder if it'd just be salt in the wound of Bobby's death (and Charlie's...) to have someone who looks just like him, but isn't him, walking around. In my mind, that would just be a constant reminder of the person you lost - though maybe people like that sort of thing.
Mary: "Bobby's not open like your dad."
Sam: "Wait, like MY dad?"
- And here we have an AU person who isn't from an AU, just in a different phase in life. Mary doesn't know the John that Sam and Dean knew - and Sam and Dean have only seen glimpses of the John that Mary knew. They're talking about separate people when they talk about him.
Mary: "I just don't know if I can do that - if I even put myself out there again... I shouldn't be talking to you about this!"
- I'm also really intrigued by Sam and Dean's relationship to Mary as adults and wish it could have been explored more. ESPECIALLY Sam's relationship to her, because he had absolutely no memory of her at all - she was a tragic origin story for him, the perfect wife and mother in his family's memory, but nothing in his own. It'd be like... me meeting my mother's father, who died before I could form any memory of him... so instead all I've heard about is how much they loved him, etc. If I met him, and he was miraculously returned as the same age as me - he WOULD just be an equal, and someone I would treat the same way I would treat anyone. And I can't imagine it from Mary's perspective - like, you have a 6 months old baby, and then you have a 30-something year-old dude who says he's your kid. You know nothing about him - what kind of person he is, what he's seen, what he's done... he's a stranger in the place of the baby you knew.
And Sam recounts HIS Bobby's backstory to Mary, and encourages her. It'd be really interesting to explore having an adult-friendship relationship with the mother you never knew. I'm sure there may be similar experiences for those who meet their birth-parents as adults after they were adopted as infants.
*Dean walks into room*
Dean: "You're not going to believe what I found in the shed!"
Woman: "You HUNT MONSTERS?"
Dean: "Oh, good, you told them."
Sam: "What'd you find in the shed?"
Dean: "Dead guy."
- Hahaha, I love this exchange.
Mary and Bobby make the classic mistake of "He shouldn't be out there alone - so I too will go out there alone in order to find him." God love any of my friends if they go out alone when we're someplace scary - "Well, it was nice knowing them, but they are dead now, and I'm just going to stay safe in this house."
Dean's heart to heart with the woman of the house about letting the past go - "Is that what you do?" - nope. I mean, he says he tries - but I think he tries to repress, rather than accept and move on. Or maybe he's only now just starting to learn the difference, but Dean tends to have the longest dwelling on things than anyone. Still, we can do our best to overcome our faults and still fail at it.
And Sam saves Maggie - yay!
And Bobby sees Daniel, his dead son - who he ASSUMES was killed by angels. I thought they might make this into more of a thing, since Daniel doesn't have a confirmed death - but I get that AU!Bobby is too much of a side-character for them to have done so. Also, everyone who did come through from the other world HAS come through, so there's no way for Daniel to still be alive or possessed or anything anyway.
Bobby would totally be dead if he was really stabbed into a tree, SUSPENDED from his stab wound, and then pulled the stabbing implement out himself before falling to ground.
Dean: "Sasha, could you go make me a sandwich?"
- Smooth Dean.
And at least now they have Michael as an excuse for monsters being more powerful than normal.
I absolutely love how Dean's nightmares are too much for the Djinn. I know it might be a hint that Michael is still in the Dean (or connected to him) and that's why the Djinn was taken aback, but I prefer to think that Dean just has TOO MANY NIGHTMARES.
My dad never apologizes for anything either, and I have also just moved on with my life. :P
Sam and AU!Bobby are actually going through the same stuff - or rather, they'd be good to talk to each other. AU!Bobby blames himself for leading his son into war - Sam is currently leading a bunch of hunters, including some young ones, into Hunting and is struggling with the responsibility of it. Obviously, that's why AU!Bobby disapproves of Sam's leadership - perhaps seeing him as naive and too green for the job.
I forgot they sent Mary to Donna's cabin. Oh man... I love Donna. I prefer their secondary character friends staying off camera and therefore always alive, and we only hear them referenced in moments like these.
And AU!Bobby apologizes and encourages Sam. :)
Mary leaves and makes sure Dean's okay with it this time. :)
Dean: "Mom, go. Be Happy."
- Aww, growth.
Optimism
I don't remember this episode very well besides the fact that Sam and Dean are working two different cases with two different companions (AU!Charlie and Jack).
Without Jack's powers everything tastes different - I wonder if Jack tasted molecules the same way that Castiel did, only he likes them because it was all he knew!
Sam and AU!Charlie have nothing to talk about. :P
I like how they realize that both Jack and Dean have a lot of guilt when it comes to Michael. I suppose I should call him AU!Michael, since we briefly get OUR Michael in S15.
Ah, this is the episode with the gross fly creatures that Sam and Charlie are hunting.
Sam tells AU!Charlie about their Charlie. And AU!Charlie tells Sam about the love of her life - Kara... who was killed in a mob when the apocalypse happened and resources got thin. But AU!Charlie is actually a LITTLE bit wrong, I mean, there ARE mobs - but studies show that humans actually band together in crises and society continues no matter the circumstances.
Dean and Jack do the old bad/good guy con.
AU!Charlie is retiring. She hates hunting.
Jack's adorable. I don't have much to say about this episode so far. It's pleasing enough.
The fly thing is freakin' gross though.
Harper saying "I'm the last one" when referring to her family is a red flag when it comes to hunting monsters. I'm remembering this episode now a little... she killed her boyfriend and resurrected him and now he kills everyone around her right? Let's see if I remember correctly.
Jack: "... I need to know everything about sex - Go!"
- Hahaha! I'd forgotten that line.
Sam trying to convince AU!Charlie not to be a hermit... or to stay a hunter? I'm not really sure whether it's in character. If it's just trying to get her not to leave them completely, I understand - but I don't think Sam would ever advocate someone staying in hunting if they don't want to.
The fly thing is SO GROSS.
I mean, dating your resurrected flesh-eating boyfriend is also super gross.
I do like Dean trying to reason with the zombie.
The weird montage of the Musca funeral over Sam's speech about helping people is so weird. Also, as a single person without kids, I kind of hate it when people imply that it was good to save someone because they have a wife and children. Like - uh, all human life has value? You don't have to be married or have offspring to matter.
Harper writing a creepy letter to Jack. Sending it to Jack in Lebanon. Do we ever follow up on that? I don't think so.
Awww, I'm sad, because I remember that Jack passes out in this sweet scene between Dean and Jack at the end. :(
Poor Dean (and Jack) - it's terrifying when someone you love is hurt/very ill.
Deleted Scene
Scene 15 - Sam and Charlie eating in the truck.
Charlie does NOT want to talk about Rowena. Hahaha! I love Felicia and Ruth's headcanon that Rowena and Charlie had bad sex. I'm adopting it as my headcanon.
And there you have it! Tune in next week for another two episodes! So far the new system for getting these done is working, yay!
I'll see you Thursday for the new episode!!!
This entry was originally posted at https://hells-half-acre.dreamwidth.org/584999.html.
Let's get into it....
Nightmare Logic
I really do question the logic of them sending Maggie out on hunts. Maybe I'm underestimating her, but she seems more of a survivor of a post-apocalyptic world than an active hunter. Like, there's a huge difference. Just because I may survive a zombie apocalypse, that doesn't make me an expert in killing zombies - it may just make me an expert in staying away from zombies, ykwim? Even when Sam and Dean first came across her, it was her and her friend/brother/whoever LEAVING a tunnel because it was full of vampires - they weren't going in there with machetes.
Hunter check-ins are a good idea when you're running a crew - Dean shouldn't make fun. Wait... does Sam say he has 1600 hundred cases right now?! I'm looking up a transcript. OH, he says 16 HUNTERS ON cases. Geez, that makes way more sense.
Anyway, it sounds like Dean's just trying to get Sam to sleep - so, fair. He's right. Sam DOES need to sleep. He went from being Dean's right-hand man to leading a large hunting organization, he might be going a little overboard in how much pressure to put on himself.
Bodycams are also a really good idea. As much as I prefer Sam and Dean as blue-collar out-of-society hunters without resources - I also like them being smart, and this is all smart stuff. I also have a thing for Leader!Sam, so this also checks that box.
Dean: "Private cemetery - must be nice."
Sam: "what?"
Dean: "I mean convenient."
- Hehehe, I love how Sam is like "oh, that's an acceptable answer" even though it makes just as much sense.
Historical Preservation Society is a good cover.
And AU!Bobby continues to not be Bobby. And we learn from Mary that this was Maggie's first solo hunt. Why do solo hunts at all?
Djinns are cool. I like the original concept, mind you... this one is like a cross between the two. Slow death, but nightmares rather than fantasies.
Oh right! This Bobby had a son (that wasn't Sam and Dean) so his parental instincts ARE flaring, but for Maggie, rather than for Sam and Dean... Sam and Dean are the ones who ENDANGERED the kid that he's parenting. It makes a lot of sense... but it does make me miss our Bobby... and also I wonder if it'd just be salt in the wound of Bobby's death (and Charlie's...) to have someone who looks just like him, but isn't him, walking around. In my mind, that would just be a constant reminder of the person you lost - though maybe people like that sort of thing.
Mary: "Bobby's not open like your dad."
Sam: "Wait, like MY dad?"
- And here we have an AU person who isn't from an AU, just in a different phase in life. Mary doesn't know the John that Sam and Dean knew - and Sam and Dean have only seen glimpses of the John that Mary knew. They're talking about separate people when they talk about him.
Mary: "I just don't know if I can do that - if I even put myself out there again... I shouldn't be talking to you about this!"
- I'm also really intrigued by Sam and Dean's relationship to Mary as adults and wish it could have been explored more. ESPECIALLY Sam's relationship to her, because he had absolutely no memory of her at all - she was a tragic origin story for him, the perfect wife and mother in his family's memory, but nothing in his own. It'd be like... me meeting my mother's father, who died before I could form any memory of him... so instead all I've heard about is how much they loved him, etc. If I met him, and he was miraculously returned as the same age as me - he WOULD just be an equal, and someone I would treat the same way I would treat anyone. And I can't imagine it from Mary's perspective - like, you have a 6 months old baby, and then you have a 30-something year-old dude who says he's your kid. You know nothing about him - what kind of person he is, what he's seen, what he's done... he's a stranger in the place of the baby you knew.
And Sam recounts HIS Bobby's backstory to Mary, and encourages her. It'd be really interesting to explore having an adult-friendship relationship with the mother you never knew. I'm sure there may be similar experiences for those who meet their birth-parents as adults after they were adopted as infants.
*Dean walks into room*
Dean: "You're not going to believe what I found in the shed!"
Woman: "You HUNT MONSTERS?"
Dean: "Oh, good, you told them."
Sam: "What'd you find in the shed?"
Dean: "Dead guy."
- Hahaha, I love this exchange.
Mary and Bobby make the classic mistake of "He shouldn't be out there alone - so I too will go out there alone in order to find him." God love any of my friends if they go out alone when we're someplace scary - "Well, it was nice knowing them, but they are dead now, and I'm just going to stay safe in this house."
Dean's heart to heart with the woman of the house about letting the past go - "Is that what you do?" - nope. I mean, he says he tries - but I think he tries to repress, rather than accept and move on. Or maybe he's only now just starting to learn the difference, but Dean tends to have the longest dwelling on things than anyone. Still, we can do our best to overcome our faults and still fail at it.
And Sam saves Maggie - yay!
And Bobby sees Daniel, his dead son - who he ASSUMES was killed by angels. I thought they might make this into more of a thing, since Daniel doesn't have a confirmed death - but I get that AU!Bobby is too much of a side-character for them to have done so. Also, everyone who did come through from the other world HAS come through, so there's no way for Daniel to still be alive or possessed or anything anyway.
Bobby would totally be dead if he was really stabbed into a tree, SUSPENDED from his stab wound, and then pulled the stabbing implement out himself before falling to ground.
Dean: "Sasha, could you go make me a sandwich?"
- Smooth Dean.
And at least now they have Michael as an excuse for monsters being more powerful than normal.
I absolutely love how Dean's nightmares are too much for the Djinn. I know it might be a hint that Michael is still in the Dean (or connected to him) and that's why the Djinn was taken aback, but I prefer to think that Dean just has TOO MANY NIGHTMARES.
My dad never apologizes for anything either, and I have also just moved on with my life. :P
Sam and AU!Bobby are actually going through the same stuff - or rather, they'd be good to talk to each other. AU!Bobby blames himself for leading his son into war - Sam is currently leading a bunch of hunters, including some young ones, into Hunting and is struggling with the responsibility of it. Obviously, that's why AU!Bobby disapproves of Sam's leadership - perhaps seeing him as naive and too green for the job.
I forgot they sent Mary to Donna's cabin. Oh man... I love Donna. I prefer their secondary character friends staying off camera and therefore always alive, and we only hear them referenced in moments like these.
And AU!Bobby apologizes and encourages Sam. :)
Mary leaves and makes sure Dean's okay with it this time. :)
Dean: "Mom, go. Be Happy."
- Aww, growth.
Optimism
I don't remember this episode very well besides the fact that Sam and Dean are working two different cases with two different companions (AU!Charlie and Jack).
Without Jack's powers everything tastes different - I wonder if Jack tasted molecules the same way that Castiel did, only he likes them because it was all he knew!
Sam and AU!Charlie have nothing to talk about. :P
I like how they realize that both Jack and Dean have a lot of guilt when it comes to Michael. I suppose I should call him AU!Michael, since we briefly get OUR Michael in S15.
Ah, this is the episode with the gross fly creatures that Sam and Charlie are hunting.
Sam tells AU!Charlie about their Charlie. And AU!Charlie tells Sam about the love of her life - Kara... who was killed in a mob when the apocalypse happened and resources got thin. But AU!Charlie is actually a LITTLE bit wrong, I mean, there ARE mobs - but studies show that humans actually band together in crises and society continues no matter the circumstances.
Dean and Jack do the old bad/good guy con.
AU!Charlie is retiring. She hates hunting.
Jack's adorable. I don't have much to say about this episode so far. It's pleasing enough.
The fly thing is freakin' gross though.
Harper saying "I'm the last one" when referring to her family is a red flag when it comes to hunting monsters. I'm remembering this episode now a little... she killed her boyfriend and resurrected him and now he kills everyone around her right? Let's see if I remember correctly.
Jack: "... I need to know everything about sex - Go!"
- Hahaha! I'd forgotten that line.
Sam trying to convince AU!Charlie not to be a hermit... or to stay a hunter? I'm not really sure whether it's in character. If it's just trying to get her not to leave them completely, I understand - but I don't think Sam would ever advocate someone staying in hunting if they don't want to.
The fly thing is SO GROSS.
I mean, dating your resurrected flesh-eating boyfriend is also super gross.
I do like Dean trying to reason with the zombie.
The weird montage of the Musca funeral over Sam's speech about helping people is so weird. Also, as a single person without kids, I kind of hate it when people imply that it was good to save someone because they have a wife and children. Like - uh, all human life has value? You don't have to be married or have offspring to matter.
Harper writing a creepy letter to Jack. Sending it to Jack in Lebanon. Do we ever follow up on that? I don't think so.
Awww, I'm sad, because I remember that Jack passes out in this sweet scene between Dean and Jack at the end. :(
Poor Dean (and Jack) - it's terrifying when someone you love is hurt/very ill.
Deleted Scene
Scene 15 - Sam and Charlie eating in the truck.
Charlie does NOT want to talk about Rowena. Hahaha! I love Felicia and Ruth's headcanon that Rowena and Charlie had bad sex. I'm adopting it as my headcanon.
And there you have it! Tune in next week for another two episodes! So far the new system for getting these done is working, yay!
I'll see you Thursday for the new episode!!!
This entry was originally posted at https://hells-half-acre.dreamwidth.org/584999.html.