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SPN 3x09: Malleus Maleficarum
This commentary is not 100% squee.
I could not watch the opening, with the woman and her teeth, because that is a major squick point for me. Ewww! Ewww!
One thing that made me smile -- I'm fairly sure that I called Sam trying to turn himself into Dean some time earlier this season, but then again, it was a fairly obvious thing. But I got the sense from Sam's dialogue that he has given up hope of Saving Dean and is now more worried about how to live without him. Which, on the one hand, is very Sam, but on the other is not really what I had expected. I mean, I kind of thought he'd keep looking until the end. I guess I can handwave and say that he's lying, but that was not the sense I got from the scene.
As for the origins of demons... I think we've hit the point in the mytharc where a bunch of people are sitting around in a room saying "Wouldn't it be cool if..." and then someone says, "That would be totally cool!" and no one bothers to think about it too much. I guess I can live with this -- it does tie into one of the themes I thought was there in the first season, that evil creatures at some point choose to become what they are. And I guess the older a demon is, the stronger it is? But ultimately, I can see my breakup point with this show coming, sooner and sooner, because I have been there and done that with random mytharc.
When the witch-demon (did she have a name?) had Sam sliding up the wall, did anyone else want her to get him all the way up to the ceiling, cut him open, and set him on fire? No? Just me, then.
The thing that stays with me -- aside from all the men live and all the women (except Ruby, who exists to help male characters rather than herself) die -- was the strikingly sexual nature of Dean thrusting that knife into the witch-demon, again and again and again. I get that sexualized violence is everywhere, really I do, but that was a little more obviously sexualized than most of it. Did anyone else see that? Again, I not only saw it, I saw my breakup with this show coming closer and closer.
Sigh. I like the fandom, for all its craziness, but I'm actually starting to dread new canon, because I have no idea what kind of awful thing they'll come up with next. And without an OTC to focus on, it may just be easier to step back. I don't want to be that person who watches and writes about how much she hates the show.
I could not watch the opening, with the woman and her teeth, because that is a major squick point for me. Ewww! Ewww!
One thing that made me smile -- I'm fairly sure that I called Sam trying to turn himself into Dean some time earlier this season, but then again, it was a fairly obvious thing. But I got the sense from Sam's dialogue that he has given up hope of Saving Dean and is now more worried about how to live without him. Which, on the one hand, is very Sam, but on the other is not really what I had expected. I mean, I kind of thought he'd keep looking until the end. I guess I can handwave and say that he's lying, but that was not the sense I got from the scene.
As for the origins of demons... I think we've hit the point in the mytharc where a bunch of people are sitting around in a room saying "Wouldn't it be cool if..." and then someone says, "That would be totally cool!" and no one bothers to think about it too much. I guess I can live with this -- it does tie into one of the themes I thought was there in the first season, that evil creatures at some point choose to become what they are. And I guess the older a demon is, the stronger it is? But ultimately, I can see my breakup point with this show coming, sooner and sooner, because I have been there and done that with random mytharc.
When the witch-demon (did she have a name?) had Sam sliding up the wall, did anyone else want her to get him all the way up to the ceiling, cut him open, and set him on fire? No? Just me, then.
The thing that stays with me -- aside from all the men live and all the women (except Ruby, who exists to help male characters rather than herself) die -- was the strikingly sexual nature of Dean thrusting that knife into the witch-demon, again and again and again. I get that sexualized violence is everywhere, really I do, but that was a little more obviously sexualized than most of it. Did anyone else see that? Again, I not only saw it, I saw my breakup with this show coming closer and closer.
Sigh. I like the fandom, for all its craziness, but I'm actually starting to dread new canon, because I have no idea what kind of awful thing they'll come up with next. And without an OTC to focus on, it may just be easier to step back. I don't want to be that person who watches and writes about how much she hates the show.
no subject
My brother! He was calling for one of them to get pinned to the ceiling and set ablaze all episode, and he was excited and then disappointed when Sam got pinned to the wall.
Really, my brother's the only reason I've kept watching this season. Circumstances kept me from ever getting involved in SPN fandom itself; I just knew the show from mainlining all the current episodes partway through Season 2. Then I forced them on my brother last summer, and he got into it enough for us to watch the rest of Season 2 and for him to get excited for Season 3. Although his habit has always been one to pooh-pooh my slashy ways, he really likes to tune in and giggle at all the Sam/Dean moments.
Meanwhile, I've just been getting more and more disgruntled--the episodes and the arcs are all just so sloppy, and I increasingly get the feeling that TPTB just don't want anyone who actively respects women to enjoy watching. But my brother's enthusiasm has kept me watching with him for now, although he also complained in this last episode about the sloppiness (even more so than the general mocking he does of all the episodes). Oh, well, I feel like in the meantime, it's giving me some good teachable moments to get him to think more about feminism--he asked whether Dean's stabbiness seemed kind of disturbing, and I didn't hesitate to agree and elaborate on that.
no subject
That's actually kind of neat! I thought there was something really horrifying about the way that was staged.
I agree that somehow the show feels sloppier -- the infodumps seem more awkward, and the emotional continuity seems off to me as well, which is weird because that's the one thing I tend to feel the show keeps track off. It just seems unbelievable to me that Sam would be preparing himself to live without Dean at this point -- I haven't seen him do anything like enough to try to keep Dean yet! It saddens me, because I want to like the show, but sometimes the show makes it hard for me to do so.