Let's wrap up season 13 with a poll!

[caranfindel]

How about one more poll, where we talk about season 13 as a whole?



[Poll #2081822]

Remember, no spoilers for s14 in the comments, please!

Comments

[kalliel]

Just as a note for posterity, I'd like to say that I've watched that magical asphyxiation scene from "Good Intentions" like 20 times in the past 48 hours and that is not an exaggeration. <3

[caranfindel.livejournal.com]

Believe it or not, I forgot about that scene until I was going through my old recaps for poll questions. And now I want to spend an hour or so watching it over and over.

[fanspired]

you know, Gog and Magog were so obviously meant to parallel Sam and Dean that I wonder if the script originally had Sam and Dean confronting them, but then it was re-cast to give Cas more of a role in the episode. Plus, there's kind of been a running gag about 'who's the prettiest Winchester' this season, and that would fed into that.

[caranfindel.livejournal.com]

Seriously, it desperately needed Sam.

[marciaelena.livejournal.com]

Hee! My comment got so long LJ is forcing me to post it in two parts.

The best thing to come out of this season was, for me, Jack. And I wasn't expecting to like him at all (I hated the whole Lucifer's spawn plot line in season 12). I don't know if it's Alex Calvert or if the writers actually did the character justice or if it's some happy combination of the two, but I just adore him. And I adore the bond that he and Sam formed from the start, and how Sam's become Jack's father in every way except by blood. I love how instinctively protective of Jack Sam is (and isn't that a Winchester parallel too, to how Dean is with Sam?). I love how Jack reciprocates Sam's love just as fiercely. It's beautiful.

As frustrated as I was for over half the season with Sam getting sidelined again and again, looking back I feel like Sam had the better storyline. The show finally dealt with his trauma over having been trapped in the Cage for centuries (even if not enough yet), he had lovely moments with Rowena, he went from hopeful to depressed to determined and then maybe hopeful again, and well, the finale crushed him, but he's Sam-fucking-Winchester and he's not giving up. He's not leaving Dean behind. (Please Show, if you do that to Sam again I'll never forgive you.)

There *were* things done to Sam this season that I hated, besides him being sidelined so many times, and I blame it all on the writers, not on Sam. Him not saying anything when Dean pulled a gun on Kaia and forced her to come with them. Him being the butt of Dean's juvenile humor. Him having to be so kind to Gabriel after the unforgivable things that Gabriel put him through, all for the sake of pleasing certain sections of the fandom--that was almost as sickening to me as having to watch him work with Lucifer. Sam being abandoned in the tunnels, and, most of all, Sam not being the one to kill Lucifer in the end. I feel like Sam keeps getting robbed, like all these defining moments keep getting taken away from him. He wasn't the one to get Dean out of Hell, he didn't even *look* for Dean when Dean was in Purgatory, and now this thing with Lucifer. That should have been his. And if they wanted team work between him and Dean then Sam should have restrained Lucifer like he did Ruby so Dean could sink the blade in. What a perfectly beautiful callback to the season 4 finale that would have been, visually. They were in a church then, they were in a church now. The Lucifer was rising, here Lucifer was fading. Poetic and brilliant, and yet they went for cheesy and ineffective instead. Ugh.

I hated the way Dean was written this season, so shallow and two-dimensional, like a cardboard cutout of himself. Most of the time what we got from him was either anger or humor, and it made me feel like the writers completely forgot that Dean has layers. I felt like that impacted Jensen's acting sometimes too, because as wonderful as he is, there's only so much you can do with bad writing. It's a testament to how good he is (and how well he knows this character) that he still managed to bring a semblance of Dean to the fore, but then the writers also had him do very un-Dean things, like threatening Kaia and forcing her to help them instead of trying to protect her, and letting Castiel convince him so easily to leave Sam behind in those tunnels.

[marciaelena.livejournal.com]

There were a lot of completely useless and/or dropped threads and characters this season. Why did we need Gabriel? He contributed nothing of value to the plot. Castiel's continued presence in the show is mystifying (okay, I know it's because he's popular) because he's been useless for several seasons now. The Heaven drama is neverending and I don't really care about it, but we never got an explanation as to when/why Lucifer decided to abandon Heaven. They brought Ketch back and then we didn't get to see his reunion with Mary and what transpired there, and I for one wanted to see that. Why did they name Anael Jo and Billie's reaper "friend" Jessica? Couldn't they have come up with different names? Did they forget about Jo Harvelle and Jessica Moore? And there were all the WTF moments, like (again) Dean pulling a gun on Kaia, or Jack suddenly remembering Kelly telling him she'd understand if one day he wanted to meet his father or something similar, and no one bothering to tell Jack in detail about some of the things that Lucifer had done, especially to Sam. So much poor writing it boggles the mind.

I could go on and on, sigh. But to end on a more positive note, one more "favorite flash of skin" to me was the bit of Sam's skin we got to see in the finale in that shot from above when he's struggling to get up from the floor after Lucifer zapped him and Jack into that church.

And I know I invaded your LJ out of nowhere, I really hope you don't mind. Your posts bring a lot of happiness to my fangirl heart.

[caranfindel.livejournal.com]

Yeah, if I'd had time, "most OOC moment" would have been a good poll question.

And I know I invaded your LJ out of nowhere, I really hope you don't mind. Your posts bring a lot of happiness to my fangirl heart.

Mind? Yeah, I'm just sitting around here saying "dammit, someone commented on my post." ;) I'm so happy you're here and you're enjoying it.

[marciaelena.livejournal.com]

♥ ♥ ♥

[gidgetgal9.livejournal.com]

All great points about Sam this season. I will hug the good and try and forget about the bad you mentioned.

[kribban.livejournal.com]

I hated the way Dean was written this season, so shallow and two-dimensional, like a cardboard cutout of himself.

Yes, that has been going on since season 12. On a shallow note; they took away everything a viewer finds attractive about Dean. ("He doesn't wash or change his underwear and he has food all over his face! Isn't that funny?")

[marciaelena.livejournal.com]

Ugh, yeah, I don't like that kind of "funny", especially when it's detrimental to Sam or Dean in this way. I can let some of the food related jokes slide, because Dean + food has always been a thing, but him not washing or changing his underwear? Since when?

SPN's so-called humor has been so sophomoric lately, it hurts.

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I thought that in parallel with "what was the worst incident Sam was left out of" there should have been a "what scene was Dean most OOC" question. I think he was more IC this season than s12, but that's not saying much. :/

[caranfindel.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I should have worked that in there too.

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

*laughs* You mean you hadn't spent enough time on this poll?! (seriously, putting these together has gotta take work, and it's appreciated -- they're so much fun for all of us! even if we whine :)

[jj1564.livejournal.com]

Claire and Alex as Dean and Sam in 'Wayward Sisters' - NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO - JUST NO!

[gidgetgal9.livejournal.com]

Agreed!

[amypond45.livejournal.com]

Thanks for doing this poll. I'd started to think nothing good happened this season! There were so many things I didn't like.

But there were moments, as you point out. I thought the saddest death was Dean's in"Advanced Thanatology" -- poor Sam! When Sam died in the season finale, I was more shocked than saddened, especially when Dean let Cas drag him out of the cave.

I loved Billie's return as Death, and her promise to Dean that she had plans for him was wonderful. I hope they don't forget all about that in Season 14.

[caranfindel.livejournal.com]

OMFG I left Dean's death out of the poll!!! (Smacks self upside the head)

[amypond45.livejournal.com]

Lol! Not intended to show you up at all! It’s just where my brain went when I read that part of the poll. I’m truly amazed and impressed that you went back over this season so thoroughly! Brava!

Edition 4,398

[livejournal.livejournal.com]

User waterofthemoon referenced to your post from Edition 4,398 (https://spnnewsletter.livejournal.com/1097176.html) saying: [...] by Miscellaneous Poll: S13 wrap-up [...]

[gidgetgal9.livejournal.com]

I loved your wrap up because it reminded me there was lots of things to love about this season mixed in with the parts that were not good. I also will add reading your recaps is definitely a big part of my pleasure when it comes to SPN watching so thanks for that. :)

[nofish80.livejournal.com]

I just read about two interesting plot holes in season 13 that I missed of course, because I forget so much things or don‘t pay enough attention or what ever.

The first one (I don‘t really care about) was how it is possible that the angels power heaven when they all fell in season 8 and heaven was still running????

And the second one was that season 5 was pretty much about keeping Luciver and Michael from fighting because this fight would destroy half of the earth and kill half of humanity or something like that. Sam jumped in the pit to keep them from fighting! And here I just was like yeah, of course! How could I forget that? And more important - how could the show forget that????? And now they just fought a simple short normal fight and thats it..... hm, ok, so Sam went to hell for nothing?