Things I Loved: I loved teenage-girl-in-a-big-man's-body demon, and was sad he died. A brief appearance every few episodes like tiny-angry-demon from last season would have been awesome. Also, I may live to regret this, but OMG foreshadowing! Yes, I will take your offhand reference to creepy psychopath BMOL who will undoubtedly show up later on. Please, writers, continue to think more than one episode ahead.
Things I Didn't Love: The BMOL have been discussed a lot at my house. Could they have been any more arrogant or incompetent at getting intel? But ultimately, the writers' biggest challenge at the start of S12 was to get us to care about the BMOL, especially after S11's cosmic plot. And we do care. We hate them. We hate that they started off with guns. We hate that they are arrogant and snooty. We hate that they did nothing to stop the apocalypse (I tried to come up with any other reason for them not to have interfered and couldn't, so I won't blame the writers for settling on that explanation). We hate them hurting Sam. (SAAAAAAM!) I have seen long, in-depth breakdowns of how the way they protect Britain would be absolutely ineffective in America. I have seen discussions of why the ice cold water torture can be effective, and folks arguing that the hallucination special effects are intentionally terrible to illustrate how ineffective they are on Sam post-Hallucifer. That said, I think those sections could have been written better, and that the special Fx team should have made Sam look even more beaten up after cut-aways if they wanted us to believe that torture Minion is good at her job, and I am choosing to accept the flimsy explanation that the BMOL-induced hallucinations were intentionally terrible, but overall I think the scenes were still effective. We hate them.
Sam: I selected "discuss in comments" because I could talk about him in this episode all day. SO AWESOME.
Dean: I was okay with Dean not immediately being in paranoid hunter mode. He'd just had God entrust him and his brother with guarding the world and say it was in good hands (HAH TAKE THAT BMOL), and had Amara say she was giving him something he needed, and then his Mom showed up. I think Dean is entitled to think, for a just a few minutes, that the world is okay and he gets to be happy. He'd left Sam with Cas, and had no reason to think that they were in immediate danger. And he did freak out the minute he realized Sam was gone. Also, fuck, Jensen straight-out broke that phone. No prop work. He just fucking broke it. DAMN.
On the other hand, S9 pre-MOC Dean could take on a room full of demons, and S12 Dean can't take on one woman with magic brass knuckles? I'm going to assume he's winded and concussed from the car accident. Yup.
Cas: Withholding judgment. Banishing an angel canonically diminishes their power, so maybe that's why he couldn't take on a human, or maybe her Enochian-glyphed brass knuckles were just that badass. He also couldn't push the car across the road by himself, or teleport back to Lebanon, so leaning towards not at full power. Love the attitude, though. (Did not love: Leaving a guy on the roadside. Move him to safety!)
Sam being tortured: What makes this awesome is that Sam didn't break. We see exactly how strong and determined he is here. Often when he's fighting, he gets taken down seemingly easily, so it's nice to see that he's an utter badass when it comes to stamina and willpower.
The BMOL: Of COURSE they have an ulterior motive. When you show up to a discussion with a gun from minute one, you're not there to offer help. You're there to take over and remove the "problematic" elements. Posh Spice is completely lying to Sam about what's going to happen to him. (It's possible her superiors are lying to her.)
Lucifer: Withholding judgment. I miss Pellegrino, but I think that Lucifer is a little played out; they can't bring him back without retreading old ground.
Side observation: Kudos to the show for continuing to add more female cast members. One episode in and Mary already has a surprising amount of depth.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2016-10-18 09:28 pm (UTC)Things I Didn't Love: The BMOL have been discussed a lot at my house. Could they have been any more arrogant or incompetent at getting intel? But ultimately, the writers' biggest challenge at the start of S12 was to get us to care about the BMOL, especially after S11's cosmic plot. And we do care. We hate them. We hate that they started off with guns. We hate that they are arrogant and snooty. We hate that they did nothing to stop the apocalypse (I tried to come up with any other reason for them not to have interfered and couldn't, so I won't blame the writers for settling on that explanation). We hate them hurting Sam. (SAAAAAAM!) I have seen long, in-depth breakdowns of how the way they protect Britain would be absolutely ineffective in America. I have seen discussions of why the ice cold water torture can be effective, and folks arguing that the hallucination special effects are intentionally terrible to illustrate how ineffective they are on Sam post-Hallucifer. That said, I think those sections could have been written better, and that the special Fx team should have made Sam look even more beaten up after cut-aways if they wanted us to believe that torture Minion is good at her job, and I am choosing to accept the flimsy explanation that the BMOL-induced hallucinations were intentionally terrible, but overall I think the scenes were still effective. We hate them.
Sam: I selected "discuss in comments" because I could talk about him in this episode all day. SO AWESOME.
Dean: I was okay with Dean not immediately being in paranoid hunter mode. He'd just had God entrust him and his brother with guarding the world and say it was in good hands (HAH TAKE THAT BMOL), and had Amara say she was giving him something he needed, and then his Mom showed up. I think Dean is entitled to think, for a just a few minutes, that the world is okay and he gets to be happy. He'd left Sam with Cas, and had no reason to think that they were in immediate danger. And he did freak out the minute he realized Sam was gone. Also, fuck, Jensen straight-out broke that phone. No prop work. He just fucking broke it. DAMN.
On the other hand, S9 pre-MOC Dean could take on a room full of demons, and S12 Dean can't take on one woman with magic brass knuckles? I'm going to assume he's winded and concussed from the car accident. Yup.
Cas: Withholding judgment. Banishing an angel canonically diminishes their power, so maybe that's why he couldn't take on a human, or maybe her Enochian-glyphed brass knuckles were just that badass. He also couldn't push the car across the road by himself, or teleport back to Lebanon, so leaning towards not at full power. Love the attitude, though. (Did not love: Leaving a guy on the roadside. Move him to safety!)
Sam being tortured: What makes this awesome is that Sam didn't break. We see exactly how strong and determined he is here. Often when he's fighting, he gets taken down seemingly easily, so it's nice to see that he's an utter badass when it comes to stamina and willpower.
The BMOL: Of COURSE they have an ulterior motive. When you show up to a discussion with a gun from minute one, you're not there to offer help. You're there to take over and remove the "problematic" elements. Posh Spice is completely lying to Sam about what's going to happen to him. (It's possible her superiors are lying to her.)
Lucifer: Withholding judgment. I miss Pellegrino, but I think that Lucifer is a little played out; they can't bring him back without retreading old ground.
Side observation: Kudos to the show for continuing to add more female cast members. One episode in and Mary already has a surprising amount of depth.