Supernatural “Blade Runners” and “Mother’s Little Helper”

I know, I know, I’m falling behind.  Besides being a mom, and a seamstress, and a property manager, oh and a band manager I’m also the volunteer coordinator for some area beer festivals.  So I’ve been knee deep in festival organization lately and although I’ve gotten to watch I haven’t had the time to write anything.  So here’s my catch up article.

“Blade Runners” accomplished many things plot wise.  First off we finally got to see Crowley get back in action. His struggle with his human nature is interesting, but not as interesting as Dean becoming increasingly disturbed.  Crowley’s desire for approval from Dean and Sam throughout the episode was slightly pitiful to watch.  However I didn’t blame him at all for taking the first blade away at the end of the episode and threatening the boys.  Here’s my question though:  Why kill Crowley?  Abaddon has shown what the other options look like for the ruler of Hell so why not stick with the Devil you know?  Is Crowley a bad guy?  Yes.  But aren’t the other options worse? Why not accept the King of Hell that you can actually work with every now and then?

Also Magnus proved to me definitively that The Men of Letters are just as big of douches as the Angels. I am not sad that Dean chopped off his head even if it did speed along his crazy that much faster.

He just has a head meant for chopping off.

Sam doing everything he could to get into save Dean tells me that he’s moving towards the realization that he needs to forgive Dean for saving him with Gadreel.  I can now officially call crap on his act that Dean is just a partner to work with and nothing more.  That was panic on his face when he got thrown out of the house.

Now to move on to “Mother’s Little Helper.”  There is so much I love about this episode.  On the basic level I loved that the “monster of the week” played into the main plot.  The middle seasons did this the best and I love it when this works out.  It feels more cohesive that way.  After all if they are searching for the big bad it makes sense that pieces of the big bad would cross their path.  Some of my favorite episodes have the boys doing their thing and then having issues with a part of the big bad of the season (When the meet War when the go help the other hunters, all the manipulation they encountered while going against Yellow Eyes, etc.)

Dean jonesing for the First Blade is remarkably similar to Sam’s hunger for demon blood.  That being said I hope that Sam can empathize with Dean’s struggle instead of being all judgey like Dean himself was.  Sam is also getting a taste of how much it sucks for your brother to be all douchey.  The exchange between Sam and Dean when Sam leaves to go on a hunt was satisfying.  I really think Sam thought he could pitch a fit, ignore Dean and then finally see Dean crawl back apologizing.  But of course in reality what we are seeing is that while Sam was on his period Dean accepted the Mark of Cain and pretty much agreed to become a monster himself (I wonder if he’ll ask Sam to kill him because of this? After all he usually takes a hard line on monsters).

I know it’s all very deliberate, but it will be interesting to watch now that the shoe is on the other foot.  Dean loves control and I wonder how he’s going to react while losing it.

The new Dean/Crowley friendship is enjoyable as well.  Dean seems to know that working with Crowley is a bad idea, but his actions seem to show that he’s enjoying teaming up with him as much as I am watching it.  I wonder how Cas will react when he shows back up in the next episode and sees them working together.  I mean that as in an angel seeing Dean work with a demon, not in a Destiel way.  Although there is that aspect too.

I’m glad Crowley finally seems to be playing his own game.  As much as I hate seeing Dean manipulated Crowley needs to be on his A game to get rid of Abaddon.  Especially with the revelation that Abaddon is creating an army of new demons everyone needs to be focusing on that small task.  Maybe Dean and channel all that rage and love of killing into killing demons.  Maybe.  Hopefully.

I think the biggest unasked questions so far are:  Once Dean kills Abaddon how will Dean get rid of the Mark?  Will he be able to?  I’m assuming the actual Cain isn’t dying to get it back and if he doesn’t take it who will?  Does Crowley want it? Is that part of his end game at this point?  That would be a lot of power for the King of Hell to have.  And does the original Cain have an ulterior motive?

If “Frozen” Happened In The Real World

Let me preface this with that as far as Disney movies go I think this movie is good.  I didn’t get to go see it in the theaters because another family member took the kids so I saw this for the first time when I bought it on Amazon about a week ago.  Since then I’ve watched it approximately 13098538743029384 times.  OK I might be exaggerating, but it’s been a lot.  There are a few plot holes that I’ve had trouble getting past.

Oh, there’s a bunch of spoilers past this point, just FYI.

1.  OK so we are to believe that Elsa was locked away to learn to “conceal” her powers after Anna’s memory was wiped and although that’s a ridiculously horrible and poorly thought out plan I can buy that.  Crazy parents have done worse.  However, Anna was left to grow up alone and friendless.  THIS is where I have my first issue.  Anna would have been surrounded by daughters of princes, lords, etc. and there’s no way that the King and Queen could have cut all ties with all other royalty around without making some crazy enemies.  Besides the fact that they couldn’t get rid of all the other children that would have flocked around the royal family Anna and Elsa both would have had to have tutors in not only the basic educational needs, but also dance, music and people that would be teaching Elsa to one day be able to run a country.

2. So somehow even though Anna never had any interactions with the outside world she still managed to become a little less stupid version of Sansa Stark.  Like Sansa she entered the world ripe for corruption by those who would want to use her.  At least she didn’t have to see her dad’s head on a stake.

 

She did manage to be a bratty teenager that was so in love with falling in love that she grabbed the first guy that came across her path.  In true bratty teenager form she also pitched a fit in a very public forum when both her and Elsa should have been focusing on showing a united front on what had to be a very fragile kingdom.

Way to make a scene Elsa and Anna.  That crown is secure now right?

3. Speaking of a fragile kingdom, who ran everything between their parent’s death and Elsa’s coronation?  They went down in a shipwreck and we’re to believe that all trade and government just went on with both of the girls locked up in the castle?  Cause I’m sure that none of the townspeople would resent two over privileged princesses that never came out in public or took part in politics.  Russia and France proved that they loved their royalty that lived in their own world, out of touch with reality.  Oh wait.

4.  This kinda bleeds over from #3.  If there hadn’t been a Regent explicitly declared there would have been someone there manipulating their way into power. Think Cersei and Joffery.  Littlefinger and Sansa.  Or in the real world Henry the Eighth and all women.  This point bothers me more than all others.  There is no way either girl wouldn’t have been corrupted and manipulated from the moment their parents went down with the ship.

5.  OK last one– Anna might seriously have been married off to Hans.  Granted it wouldn’t have happened because Anna and Hans decided to, but in a calculated move to solidify the monarchy.  Of course the 13th son of a kingdom might not have the pull for that kind of marriage, but the argument that “you don’t marry someone you just met” is invalid.  Both Anna and Elsa could very possibly have ended up marrying someone they hadn’t met or even disliked (see Marie Antoinette, Henry the Eighth and pretty much every other monarch preceding current times).

Once again– I did enjoy the movie, but I can’t help but think that it would have made a much more interesting movie if some of these plot points had been addressed.

Supernatural: Thinman. Return of the GHOSTFACERS!!

I have been looking forward to this episode ever since I found out that the Ghostfacers were coming back.  Every Ghostfacer episode is on my list of favorites (Hell House, Ghostfacers, and It’s a Terrible Life).  They are wonderful.  Just serious enough to not be completely goofy, but crazy enough to be a caricature of the ghost hunters on reality TV.

So maybe it’s because I was looking forward to this episode so much that I was a little disappointed in it.  Some of the interactions just felt forced.  The scene at the diner didn’t seem threatening to me, I didn’t buy that Dean wouldn’t have followed through with some of his threat of what he’d do if they didn’t leave, and the conversations between the ‘facers just seemed to scream “HEY LOOK AT US WE ARE HAVING THE SAME FIGHT SAM AND DEAN ARE HAVING!!”

There were a few great moments and lines.  So here are some of the awesome moments of the episode.  Let’s glory in the great moments before I get nit picky.

1. 

This is what I love about the Ghostfacers.  They are passionate about what they do and want to become famous doing what they love.

2.

I totally pronounce GIF’s JIF– like the peanut butter so Ed can call it whatever he wants.

3.

 

I include this because Tumblr exploded with this line.  Now there is a GIF for this emotion too!  Haha, seriously though even though this is totally just meant for people who make GIF’s I can’t help but loving it too,

4.

OK THIS.  This scene right here was the best thing out of the whole episode.  Yes they reminded us over and over that the problems that the Ghostfacers were having had great parallels with the issues that Sam and Dean are having, but this moment reminded us of the relationship they used to have.  I miss season 1-6 brotherly love.  I hope Sam took away from this what I did too.  This is a cute story about Sam following Dean’s lead even though it was a terrible idea, but look deeper.  Dean took Sam to the ER alone, on his handlebars, because at age 9 and 5 their dad was out hunting monsters instead of taking care of his family.  As a mother of a 6 and 4 year old I can’t imagine leaving my kids alone to fend for themselves.  They’ve touched on this before, but this is another huge reminder of what a huge loser douchebag John Winchester was.  Sure he was out there saving lives and killing monsters, but what was he doing to his kids in the process?  How can Sam shut Dean out after this reminder?  Sam is all that Dean has and yes he was ready to die, but how could he be surprised that Dean wouldn’t allow that.

5.

Just like I want Sam to stop pouting and fighting with Dean I also want Dean to realize how much he hurt Sam and apologize!  I predict that Dean will get sick, almost die or whatever and Sam will be faced with a similar decision and suddenly understand again what Dean was thinking.  I also think that Dean is going to have to apologize before any progress can be made between the two of them.

6.

I’m wondering if the ease with which Dean killed the Thinman is side effect of the Mark of Cain or if he just doesn’t feel any remorse with killing humans anymore.  I could see it either way and am even a little surprised that Sam brought it up.  They’ve both done their fair share of killing and this instance was completely warranted.  So I guess I’m going to go with the fact that both boys are crazy messed up in the head.

Overall this episode gave both Dean and Sam a lot to think about.  They saw two friends ripped apart by lies and pretty much saw their last argument repeated word for word right in front of them.  I’m going to call bs on a little of this though. Yeah Ed lied to Harry about the Thinman and broke up him and his fiance, but Dean saved Sam’s life!  He trusted an angel that Cas vouched for.  Dean wasn’t trying to break up Sam from a girlfriend because he wanted to hang out with him more.  He was saving him from being killed by a failed mission. Rule #1 is that Dean loves Sam more than his own life.  Period.  Sam once went to crazy lengths too to try to save Dean, but he seems to have forgotten all about that.

So yeah some of the plot felt forced, it wasn’t as scary as I think it could have been (I miss the episodes like Ghostfacer and even the webseries.  Those episodes had the creepy factor not just the prerequisite monster), and they drilled into us the similarities between the ‘facers and the boys instead of keeping it subtle.  However, when it’s all said and done, this was a solid episode and I can’t help but feel that we are moving towards something big.  My hope is that once we get to that something big that we’ll be able to understand these last few episodes a little more.