I generally agree with you. But I felt you were a bit harsh on Jensen in that review about 15.09. He didn't overact. Given the script, Dean was basically having a type of panic attack, his acting was great as usual as per that. (Now whether Dean should have had a panic attack for Cass of all people... that is definitely a valid question some people are asking, I liked the explanation about it being his own guilt resolution). I request you to revise that take if possible. 💚 (No offence though.)
Normally I agree that Jensen is very good at emotional scenes and he’s one of the few actors that doesn’t look cringy awkward when he cries. But the difference with 15x09 scene is it didn’t have an organic lead up to Dean’s panic attack so Jensen comes off as overacting.
They used Benny’s death and Cas’s possible Benny-like death as triggers for Dean’s breakdown, but they didn’t spend any time showing why Benny was such a big deal. Was Benny even in the “Then” portion? Then there’s Cas who comes off as petulant man-bitch:
Dean: I know you’re sorry about mom
Cas: I was talking about Jack
Me: Dude, come on, it’s his mother!
Cas: You should have stopped me from leaving
Me: Duuuuude, you’re a million years old, not a 12 yrs old girl
Why would any of ~that lead to Dean’s breakdown? Even if you look at from a shipping pov, on screen Dean has never treated Cas any more than a convenient ally and he hasn’t talked about Benny in years.
Think of Faye Dunaway’s infamous “no wire hangers” scene in Mommy Dearest. It was over the top not because Dunaway overacted but because there wasn’t anything leading up to signal her freaking out over wire hangers. The real Joan Crawford once worked at a dry cleaner during a very difficult time in her life growing up, thus triggering bad memories. But the film never showed that part of Crawford’s life so the audience couldn’t sympathize with her sudden tantrum meltdown and found it extreme and over the top.
What did make sense and came through in their arguements was Dean’s anger issue and grudge holding habits, and during Dean’s apology prayer he emphasized this and wanting to do better about it. As I watched this scene, I was thinking, “huh, guess Jensen never been to an anger management meeting, not even as a tourist.” Or he thought they looked support group meetings in Fight Club.
Here’s a test if an emotional scene is overacted or not, does it get better on repeat viewings?
Season 4 Dean reveals to Sam about his time in hell and broke down into teary confession how after 30 years on the rack, he broke and took up torturing other souls and he liked that. That breakdown makes sense because the preceding episodes and this episode was building up to Dean’s breakdown and he earned the right to do so. With repeat viewing this scene gets better.
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