Countdown to S10, day eight. Season eight.

[fufaraw]

First of all, this is a dream, right?
Sam's prone to hallucinations, we know this about him. So this whole year had to be some psychosis-built fantasy of his while he was locked in some sanitarium trying to recover from the breakdown. Right?


Of course Sam deserves a life, and someone to be with, and even a dog. But it remains a mystery to me how Carver et al expected us to believe that he would just skip happily off with the Impala, lalala, and into a lovely dreamscape complete with twittering Disney songbirds and field mice. No, damn you Season eight. Damn you to hell.

Or, you know Purgatory.

This, however?


and the whole sequence that followed, reminded me what a long, tall drink of water Dean actually is, when he's not standing next to Sam.


The reunion scene had all the emotion and gratefulness, relief, and joy that 6.01's was missing, and that was a relief for me too--that these were Sam and Dean, no substitutes. It boded well for the season, I thought.

The Purgatory flashbacks were amazingly well done.

And I really loved the new character of Benny, and his backstory. I was not pleased with the introduced "friction" and conflict manufactured by having Dean rely on Benny and depend on him more than Sam. I thought both Sam's and Dean's storylines were completely out of character, and terribly frustrating.

The resolution of Benny's storyline, with a taxi-driving reaper and an easily-hacked back door to hell, was stupid. Sam's return to hell was stupid. I was grateful he got Bobby out, and the patented Dean hug o' relief and reunion was awesome, but not enough to balance the stupid.

I really wanted to love LARP and the Real Girl, and no question Dean looked awesome in medieval-fu. But I couldn't get past the knowledge that it was Sam who has the gaming and geek-knowledge background, and it was Sam who should have been all up in costume and LARPing, not stuck in a tent somewhere turning down the cute advances of a very lovely young lady. If he's gonna be consigned to the geek tent, then let him have some fun, dammit. I was charmed on first meeting Charlie in Season seven. But she very quickly got on my last nerve when she balked at giving the brothers privacy because she "didn't want to miss the broment." And when she quite callously made a dig at Sam and the tragic loss of his girlfriends--and Dean came in for a headslap of his own when he didn't defend Sam. I'm still mad at Dean for not buying his brother a tablet like Charlie's "I hate that thing. I want one." for the next giftable occasion. Dog knows Sam's earned it. But back to Charlie, she did nothing to endear herself to me by wasting time vamping while modeling clothes for Dean, and protesting when he suggested she cut it short. "But--montage!"  I want to like Charlie. She started out as an awesome character. But she needs a crash course in sensitivity training, and Dean needs to knock her down a peg or two when she rags on Sam.

Still. This was very nice.
.


There were a lot of small moments to love in Season eight. Not the least of which was Jared's masterful performance in 8.23, Sacrifice.



But there's a lot of unresolved fubar'd canon that I just can't get past, to call the season a success.


Edit: I'm hearing that folks can't see the pics. My internet connection keeps going down like an underpaid sex worker, but when I get that straightened out I'll try to repost the pictures in another format. Sorry, meanwhile.

Comments

[aerynsun5.livejournal.com]

Can't see pics again. :(

[reggie11.livejournal.com]

I can't see the pics for some reason so I can't comment on those, but I do agree about the giant clusterfuck that was season 8. Sam was so ridiculously out of character for much of that season and I can't fathom what Carver was thinking. I could have bought the whole not looking for Dean if they'd given even a snippet of a plausible reason, or at least given us just one flashback to Sam heavily grieving or even going all OCD like after Mystery Spot. I could accept meeting someone and hanging on to them for dear life to keep his head above water but not the way it was written.

I love Felicia Day, I think she's charming, cute, and extremely talented. Charlie, however, annoys the holy hell out of me. She was great when they first introduced her character but since then she is shown as a self-absorbed, whiny, and atrociously insensitive idiot. It made me desperately want a woman on the writing team that knows how to write women. I know some highly insensitive females yet I still couldn't imagine any one of them saying something so horrendous about the deaths of someone's former partners. I clearly remember getting up and walking out of the room at that comment. I probably missed something important while I was making myself a coffee but I've never been bothered to go back and watch in case I did.

I think there were a few really good episodes, and some great moments in season 8 (Jared in 8.23 just knocked it out of the park) but I agree, I wouldn't call it a successful season by a longshot.

[doneitall.livejournal.com]

I totally didn't think of any of these opinions during or after the season, but I completely agree with you. I liked Benny, but I think that the writers forgot that SPN is about the brothers till the end, and tried to salvage the fact that they forgot about it.

Also, I could see pictures so I don't know what's going on with other people's devices.