#spn problems

Now, the problem is - some of it may be marketing, and other things are down to narrative choices (for instance, we’ve seen what Sam becomes when Lucifer climbs inside his mind: do we really need to see that again?*), but it’s still bizarre to watch a show like this one, which is 90% subtext and silences. Because they talk and talk about ‘going where the story leads them’ or whatever - they don’t. They insist in going in circles, because that’s the format of the show: drive somewhere, talk to people, drink bad beer, gank vampire, drive off. But stories change, and characters grow. I remember people bitching because there was no Quidditch in HP7 - and, I mean, are you for real? The Dark Lord’s taken over - there’s what amount to a military dictatorship over half of Britain - Muggleborns are being rounded up, their wands snapped in half - and you think that, what, Harry can stay at Hogwarts and play Quidditch? So here, what you’ve got is a format which used to work well with two angry young men who saw no need to talk to each other, but now - now they’re grown-ups, for fuck’s sake. And their lives actually depend on adapting their strategy around new enemies, which brings me back to Crowley.

What Buckleming did to Crowley last week is a flashing billboard of why you can’t stick to your format no matter what. Because at this point I’m pretty sure they’re planning to have Crowley betray them in some major way, again, and the problem is that good writing leads you into complicated situations you should really adjust to? Like - I may be completely off the mark, but - in Stuck in the Middle (With Me) they needed Crowley, so they wrote him in. And then it made sense that he was the only one to know about the Lance (I still think Cas is bizarelly oblivious about a lot of things concerning Heaven, but whatever), and therefore he was the only one who knew to break it. Great, done, beautiful scene, huge bit of character development. And next those two idiots have to steer the story in the ‘right’ direction again - ie, the general arc that’s been decided for the season - which means Crowley must be given a reason to be bad again or something, so they go and write that - a confusing, OOC episode full of plot holes whose only point is to give Crowley a reason to hate the Winchesters. And I’m not saying you can’t write him that way, but the problem is - that episode made me hate the Winchesters as well, because, come on - all those times they’ve gone back and forward in time and come back to life and somehow that’s not a problem, but suddenly poor wee Gavin does it and you absolutely need to kill him? And what if that had been Sam, uh? Would Dean have sent Sam back to a doomed ship without so much as a shrug? Nope, because when it’s about them, they find another way. And the fact they didn’t allow Crowley so much as a goodbye - the fact they trust Rowena over Crowley - people who spend a solid twenty minutes every episode harping on and on about family - that’s -

(That’s exactly what happened with Charlie, by the way: they needed a reason to have Dean snap, and took a shortcut. An extremely unbelievable, OOC and badly written shortcut.)

Anyway. 

I don’t know what to tell you. I think my Dean, the Dean I write about, would never have been so cavalier about destroying an innocent person and someone Crowley cared about so much (the one line I liked about that episode: “In your own lizard way, I know you cared for him.”). In fact, the Dean I know would have acknowledged the huge debt he now has with Crowley - would have bought him a beer, at the very least. 

(Then again, the Sam I know was affected by Lucifer’s presence - my Sam would have had some kind of faith crisis over last year’s events, and he wouldn’t have been so whatever about being locked away not once, but twice already, and he would probably have debilitating nightmares and still, despite everything, he would be sympathetic to the BMoL’s proposals because that’s who he is, or who he thinks he is: a Means and Ends kind of guy. 

Shows what I know.)

I think we need to accept this show has a format, and that format doesn’t leave a lot of room for plot coherence and character development, which means a lot of the actualy story will stay in the subtext and sometimes we’ll be left to explain away illogical points and general weirdness. Luckily, most of the writers seem to know what they’re doing and they’re able to fit a lot even into a MoTW episode, but other things are just wrong, and that’s why we have fanfiction.

*Just to be clear: I would love to hear more about Sam and Lucifer, and I’m convinced it could be written in a new way, and I know they’ve got the right people to work on that - my God, just look at what Berens and Dabb were able to do with a couple of werewolves - look at what Yockey’s doing with nothing at all.