Episode poll 12.14: "The Raid"

[caranfindel]

[Poll #2064088]

No spoilers in the comments, please!

ETA... Y'all, I'm sorry I didn't close an italics tag in the poll and now all your comments look like you're a lot more enthused than you actually are.

Comments

[jj1564.livejournal.com]

"Why was Dean so disturbed by Ketch punching the vampire he planned to kill..."

Dean's never been happy about torturing monsters - although he's never seemed to mind torturing demons! - and stopped Gordon from torturing Lenore back in the day. I think he feels that making them suffer is wrong, which is why he promised her to make it quick.

I always love these polls, you always make me giggle! I loved this...

"Why did Dean and Ketch feel confident about killing ten vampires but Sam and Mary were a bit panicky at the thought of killing ten vampires, even before they knew the Hunter King of Baton Rouge wasn't going to be any help?"

Thanks :)

[anactoria.livejournal.com]

I reckon there's going to be a power struggle within the BMoL at some point, and Ketch is buttering Mary up so she'll take his side over Mick's. Same reason he tried to buddy up with Dean. I mean, not that the prospect of that storyline fills me with joy, but it's my guess at where this is going. ;)

[fufaraw]

I'm just imagining "The Old Men" as a renamed Watchers' Council, and I expect them to get the same results when Buffy The Winchesters do what they do, in spite of BMoL rules and regs.

[flawedteacup.livejournal.com]

Was Dean knowingly playing good cop to Ketch's bad cop?

Things that I disliked in this episode: "Pick a side."

Umm, could the BMoL have killed all the Vamps in the Mid West Region vs Northwest since the remainders were holed up in Wichita?

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

Another unanswered question - what happens to the vampires of the world now their Alpha is dead? And if nothing, why not!

[percysowner.livejournal.com]

I'm conflicted on Sam being willing to kill all monsters. It's not even Lenore, he didn't go and try to take out Benny even after Benny killed Martin. I'm not sure why he joined the BMOL, except I think he wants Dean to get out of hunting. I think he is resigned to the idea that he can't get out. He's been touched by Lucifer and poisoned by a demon and soulless. I think he sees himself as beyond hope, but I think he thinks Dean can have that life that Dean pretends he doesn't want.

Although I don't think Dean wants Mary to kiss his boo boos, I do think that he wants her to do what he says and live up to his image of her. Dean has always been pretty controlling and this is another side of that. I basically liked this episode.

What I loved

[kribban.livejournal.com]

Words cannot express how much I loved the scene with Dean and the vampire. If the rest of the ep had been crap, that scene would have made it worth it.

He didn't taunt, scare or lie to her; in other words he treated her with respect. I think it's because for the first time in years he's not facing some horrible fate or under some sinister influence.

[casey679.livejournal.com]

I wasn't surprised Dean didn't like Ketch punching the vampire - shades of Gordon, really. There's hunting and then there's taking sadistic glee in the kill. Ketch seems like a more sophisticated honey-trap to get Dean back to his more violent ways. I think Dean sees himself that way a lot, especially after MoC.

I think Mary has a reputation as the best Winchester for them because she has the hunter pedigree but isn't associated with any of the major occult apocalyptic things that the boys had to deal with, so she's got the skills without the apparent black marks. That and she was "smart" enough to willingly work with them.

[cuddyclothes.livejournal.com]

So much of this episode made no sense to me I'm just going to leave my checkmarks here. Sam works with the BMoL after they tortured him? I liked the idea of "cops and robbers" whether it was a bluff or not. It seemed truer to the Winchester's mission. That whole part of the episode was a mess.

I figured it took so long for Dean and Ketch to get there because they were hate fucking.

However, the bunker family scenes were GOLD.

[fanspired]

> SERIOUSLY, WHY THE FUCK WOULD SAM WORK WITH THE BMOL?

You know, it's not so utterly impossible when you think about it. I'm just re-watching Criss Angel is a Douchebag - that convesration:

Dean: it ends bloody or it ends sad; that's just the life.
Sam: what if we could win? cut the head off the snake.

We know that Sam is capable of a kind of "end justifies the means" pragmatism when he's up against it. (We saw it in Jus in Bello and Mystery Spot, too). Now, true, he was up against the Apocalypse then, and his relationship with Dean was critically damaged, neither or which are the case at the moment. Nevertheless, I think the show has made an effort to make it psychologically plausible. Firstly, the Winchesters have just saved the world from the feud between God and his sister, and Sam thinks they've defeated Lucifer, too. It's possible this could have re-ignited his old hubris that it's his job to save the world, especially combined with the damage that was done during his spell in pseudo-guantanamo. He's admitted he's still having issues with that, and I think they went deep. Was it you I was talking to about the scene where he was working out and how I thought that was a nod back to The Third Man and a shorthand way of saying Sam was losing his soul in that place? Now, I know BMOL stuffed up but I think Sam was already well on the way to being sold when he saw what they'd achieve in the North West Region or whatever it was, and I think the fact that they actually showed some vulnerability may even have helped - when he saw the place was staffed with ordinary people who were just trying to do their jobs, and that Daniels was willing to acknowledge their failures. Also, I believe wanting to bond with Mary is a huge factor in this. All season we've been seeing subtle hints that Sam is even more desperate than Dean to have a relationship with her and, though I'm not suggesting he thought of it this way consciously, I think the division between Mary and Dean over BMOL presented him with an opportunity to 'get Mom's attention' by 'picking her side'. What Mary has signally failed to appreciate up until now is that the little boys who never had a mom are still very much alive in the adult men in front of her but, possibly, she's starting to get it now.

Were there great gaping holes in the plot of the episode? Hell, yeah! I think Dabb's main weaknesses are in plotting and sometimes a certain moral blindness, plus there are some really really weak links in his writing team, but I do think he has a reasonable understanding of the characters, and cares about them in a manner that's been woefully absent in preceding seasons. I actually do feel that, whatever else this season's episode have sometimes lacked in the execution, there has been more effort made to maintain emotional and psychological credibility and continuity than there has for years. So, I'm gonna give show kudos for effort :)

Possibly interesting addendum: at the end of Criss Angel, when Sam goes to meet Ruby, he tells her "I'm in." Exact same words he said to Daniels. Hmmm. *strokes chin*

[fanspired]

Why did Dean agree to hunt vampires with Ketch?

Because he needed to hit something. Now.

[madebyme-x.livejournal.com]

I think Dean, and to some extent a lot of us fans, are struggling a bit with the fact that Mary is a hunter. The Mary we saw was from Dean's memories from when he was a child, of her cutting off crusts and making tomato rice soup and praying to angels, so I think they're all struggling with this, and I love that. Because yes, Mary isn't just a Mom, she's a hunter, and her children are adults and not babies, and that's complicated for them all to deal with, and I loved the family arguments that we saw in this episode.