SPN 5x07 - Longer Thoughts

[giandujakiss]

So, yeah, not a whole lot more to say about this one because...



There wasn't a whole lot of there there. I hope I'm not being too spoilery for future eps when I say that I think something happened this week that was a set up for something else I think's gonna happen, but other than that, it felt like this episode was treading water. Not just in the sense of advancing the overall plot, but even within the episode itself, where scenes dragged on for no reason other than to fill the whole 41 minutes. Which you'd have thought would have been easier to do.

The bad.

1. Booorrrrinnnnggg. Was that scene in the graveyard ever going to end? Or Dean and Bobby's endless bonding moment? Or that final scene between Patrick and his girlfriend? And how many "old people are broken" jokes did we need? Seriously, this episode ended at 9:45 but then it just kept going and going....

2. Continuity, lack thereof. If witches have essentially sold themselves to demons - which is what we were told in MM - wouldn't you think that a demon would have stepped in when it saw that Sam was threatened? Alerted Lucifer? Something?

And old!Dean had blue eyes. That was just wrong.

3. Gender, again. Sorry, I just can't get past the fact that when we saw women as witches, they were disgusting, they did disgusting things, they were the subject of endless gendered slurs, they spewed bodily fluids, and Dean hated them. A male witch, however? He's sexy and hot and has no bodily fluids and Dean likes him. This whole episode just forced me to relive the trauma that was Malleus Maleficarum.

Also, interesting that Dean's so disdainful of men who go to brothels ... this week.

4. Race. Asian hookers? Seriously?

5. Incoherence. Wait, why did the woman want to undo all the spells again? It was set up like she was getting revenge, like Patrick had done something to hurt her - when Patrick asked why she was betraying him, she said "you know why" and fingered her locket. But no, no, she just outlived her daughter - which, under the circumstances, was exactly what she could have expected. So it really didn't make any sense at all. cormallen had an awesome idea for how it should have gone, but, as she says, women in the SPN-verse don't get to be that interesting.

Also, I was totally confused about the final poker game. Patrick made it sound like it was a bluff - like Sam had intentionally played up a panicked concern for his brother. Which would have been a cool thing for Sam and Dean to coordinate, except there was no way they could have - Dean couldn't fake his health problems.

And how did Bobby figure out exactly where Patrick was and get there before Dean? Is this another instance of how Bobby's house is exactly one hour from everywhere in America?

Finally, did Patrick have some form of amnesia, that with Bobby sitting right there he couldn't figure out why Dean was upset?

6. Indifference. If Sam really thinks Dean is dying at that instant, I don't think he's going to delay the revelation of his winning hand to heighten the dramatic effect.

7. Gooey. I ... am not sure I understood that joke.


The good.

1. The jig. I laughed out loud.

2. Brotherly bonding. Sam got all emotional when he thought Dean was dying - um, maybe? Because it was possibly a set-up? What was going on, again?

3. The bucket list. Okay, that joke was funny.

And ... yeah, I got nothing else.

Comments

[gelasius]

Is this another instance of how Bobby's house is exactly one hour from everywhere in America?

You know, I really want the fic that explains this -- that Bobby's house is actually full of portals to anywhere in America, or something. Because yes.

Finally, did Patrick have some form of amnesia, that with Bobby sitting right there he couldn't figure out why Dean was upset?

I thought that was a filming continuity error, where Bobby wasn't there at the beginning of the scene and then suddenly was there just after Dean agrees to play. At least Bobby isn't in frame until then. So maybe he took his time getting there and arrived in the middle of the conversation?

Patrick made it sound like it was a bluff - like Sam had intentionally played up a panicked concern for his brother.

I took that it was a bluff, sort of -- that Sam really was thinking OMGDEANMUSTSAVEDEAN, but by then he knew he had an awesome hand so playing up the irrational panic (which is oh-so-familiar to him, and therefore easy to exaggerate) was his way out. And I took it as a demonstration of how devious and calculating Sam is becoming. But maybe that's wishful thinking.

And I'm with you on the blah and *twitch* for the rest of the episode. Old/cripple jokes, Asian brothel, Man-witch, blah blah blah. *sigh*

[giandujakiss]

I would love a fic that explains Bobby's power! I was thinking maybe on one of his hunts he obtained a teleportation charm or something....

But if Bobby did arrive in the middle of the conversation, he is one stealthy wheelchair driver, is all I'm saying.

But maybe that's wishful thinking.

Well, I think it's the best explanation for what happened, but it feels more like they were actually going for a sting-like set-up and left out the, you know, plot. But it would have been an actually awesome episode if there had been an actual sting plot, where they really did engineer a fairly elaborate bluff to win the game. That would have been one helluva plot.

[gelasius]

Agreed, that would have been... actually satisfying. :)

[msdori]

My take on the last hand was that once Sam heard about Dean's imminent death, and then saw his hole cards, he used the fact that every damned demon and its brother knew he'd rush off to help Dean ASAP and without thinking to run the bluff. He deliberately accentuated his recklessness, IOW, he turned what has heretofore been his weakness into a strength. I think that may have been the point of the episode, which otherwise was unremarkable.

[giandujakiss]

Yeah, that may be what they intended, but it doesn't make much sense either. I mean, that's not exactly how it was presented, but it also requires the incredible coincidence that Sam had a strong hand at the precise moment that Dean was dying - I mean, it's just a story that relies on impulses and coincidence in the last couple of minutes. And even those weren't really explained.

I'd have so preferred an actual sting-like story where the whole game was a set up for a spectacular bluff.