SPN 3x09: Malleus Maleficarum

[vaznetti]

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.

Comments

[vaznetti]

I must admit that I am finding Henrickson's point of view more and more compelling, at this point.

[spiderine.livejournal.com]

Well... he does show a great deal of concern for others, which automatically leaves him out of the psychopath category; but then again, that's part of the "mission statement" which was ingrained on him since the age of 4: "saving people, hunting things". Notice how "saving people" comes first. So it might be that his altruism is part of being a "good soldier".

He also has the ability to love and feel real emotion. Again, that knocks him out of the psychopath category.

On the other hand, he has more than a touch of pyromania, but in my opinion, that stems from an unconscious urge to control and master the thing that destroyed his family, you know? Having your mom burn up and your entire life ruined and changed forever by a fire at the age of 4 ...

So I don't know if I'd call him a psychopath, but he certainly is one seriously fucked fudged up dude.

[vaznetti]

If this were season one, I would agree with you 100%. But right now, the show is telling me that Dean wants to save other people, but I see him treating people as disposable: compare his concern for Meg (the human girl) in S1 with his complete lack of concern for the woman possessed by a demon in last night's episode. Granted, he cares for Sam, but it's not necessarily a healthy kind of caring.

I'm particularly concerned, at this point, by the violence Dean shows towards women and creatures which look like women. I remember being able to say, wholeheartedly, "Dean loves women!" but right now, that's not based on what I see on screen. It's based on my memories of what Dean was like in S1. This may be the evolution of the character, or it may be sloppy writing, but as of now, this is a guy whose hands are very, very dirty.

[spiderine.livejournal.com]

Huh! Good point! *gets all thinky and quiet*

[se-parsons.livejournal.com]

I think it's the changeover in writing staff from two women to guys with issues and one woman.

Edlund wrote this. He has misogyny in every fucking thing so far. Dude has problems and he puts them in Dean's mouth.

[minnow1212.livejournal.com]

I've found it interesting that while the "previously on" section used to always include that quote, "saving people, hunting things," we now get something along the lines of "kick some ass, raise some hell." I'm assuming that's a deliberate change on their part and points to a deliberate change in Dean.

[veejane.livejournal.com]

Right. Now, if he'd been showing up at the end of each episode, tsk-tsking over the new dead bodies, we might be well on our way to rehabilitating him out of his "I am the antagonist; therefore I must be wrong" rut.

Of course, to script it that way, the show would have to be conscious of its human-disposability attitude, which, far be it from them to admit that anything that happens within a story has actual meaning.

[vaznetti]

Well, at least they would have to care about continuity outside the Sam-Dean dyad, which as far as I can tell, they don't. And as you say, they would have to think about the meanings of the stories they're telling, which they do seem reluctant to do.