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Post by thesnowleopard on Dec 8, 2017 21:03:11 GMT -5
My collected recaps and reviews of season one, which first appeared on Innsmouth Free Press, are now up (with a few extras) on Kindle. The Kindle version is available through Amazon. The print version is also up, though the cover's needing a little tweaking right now. I've ordered a copy for a final galley proof to make any changes that don't show up online (KDP doesn't let you do that before the book goes live because KDP works for Satan). Anyhoo, we start off with a standard recap of the season so far with some very lame generic guitar music. It's pretty boring. This is the Nepotism Duo on again tonight, so I'm expecting to be bored and hoping not to be (too) offended. But I'm trying to keep my expectations low. Cut to Now and a blonde white girl necking with a stereotypically long-haired Native American guy (oops, so much for avoiding offense; I can see this going ugly in a hurry), as they discuss his latest painting, her needing to go to work, and his latest client. It turns out said client is Jack. After the woman leaves, Jack starts asking the guy about his ability to dreamwalk to other worlds (basically, spirit travel). Jack makes it sound unique, never mind that Dean spirit travels rather frequently and as late as a few episodes ago. But nope, the Nep Duo are in full-on white condescension mode and have Jack go on and on about the guy's abilities in that Mystical Native American New Age stuff that many Native Americans actually quite hate. Jack adds insult to injury by offering the guy money. Anyhoo, the guy is two months behind in his rent, so he agrees to go looking, but it goes poorly. The place he goes to is nasty and when he tries to back out, Jack uses his power to make the guy (Derek) stay and hurts him a whole lot. Derek's girlfriend comes home to find him dead with his eyes burned out. Cue title cards. Cut to Dean leaving a message with Patience, who has a conversation with her father about how she's ignoring Dean. Sam, meanwhile, has been talking to "Castiel" (because the Nep Duo really do believe the Brothers are stupid enough to fall for low-rent Asmodeus' trickery) and getting nothing. Then Jodie calls them and tells them about Doomed Teaser Stereotypical Native American Guy. She says Derek's girlfriend saw Jack beforehand. Dean recognizes Grody Alt-SPN World in one of Derek's paintings. In the car, Dean points out that it appears Jack has gone rogue for real and maybe they need to talk to a tribal leader to get more info. Sam deflects by saying they should talk to a young girl, another dreamwalker named Kaia, whom Derek had been corresponding with, instead. Because hey, why be culturally sensitive or leave innocents out of the fray, am I right?
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Post by thesnowleopard on Dec 8, 2017 21:29:18 GMT -5
Kaia, meanwhile, is in a drug support group and she has a creep for a counselor who keeps pushing her. She says that she only takes speed to keep from sleeping. The counselor continues not to get it. Yay for undercutting that whole pro-getting help message your cast is trying to send in their off-set hours, Nep Duo. Nice job. [/sarcasm]
Anyhoo, 30 seconds later, she meets Jack. Gee, I wonder if he will help her get out of the treatment center?
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Post by thesnowleopard on Dec 8, 2017 22:00:21 GMT -5
So, Jack cuts right to the chase and says he's a "friend of Derek," that she's the most powerful dreamwalker ever, and he can get her out of stir (why do these characters always have to be the BESTEST, MOSTEST of their kind ever?). This reinforces my apprehension that the show is choosing to add on two new Wayward Sisters who are not only WoCs (fine with that) but also ridiculously overpowered with magical talents (not so fine with that). So far, it seems they will be getting the Walking Plot Device treatment that Bonnie on The Vampire Diaries got, which is not good. I'm all for the CW beginning to write young women better like ... right now.
So, just as Kaia is following Jack out (I did like the way the actress played that one, so points to her for that), we see the Impala drive up. Sam infodumps to Dean - as they get out of the car - that Kaia is an orphan. She never knew Daddy and Mom died when she was 12 (what is this show's creepy obsession with having girl characters hit the streets in their preteens?). An aunt took her in, but died of cancer. So, Kaia's been on her own ever since because, like, this country doesn't have any kind of foster care system, or anything. [rolls eyes]
Also, I don't quite know why Sam is As You Know, Dean-ing as they get out of the car when they had an entire trip to get up to speed on Kaia.
So, Kaia's jailbreak is not entirely without incident. As they're walking out, they encounter her jerk of a counselor. Jack rather forcefully puts him to sleep and then literally busts through a locked emergency door that, oddly enough, doesn't sound an alarm. As he puts it to Kaia, "You're not the only one with powers."
Kaia chooses to respond to this, once they're outside, by casually saying sayonara and then punching him in the face and running away when he objects (and grabs her arm). This strikes me as a really stupid thing to do with someone you've just seen act extremely powerful and lowers my estimation of her after my previous lukewarm response. Especially since the only reason she gets away from him is because the Brothers bust out through the same door at that moment and grab Jack.
Talking ensues in which Jack explains that he left Derek alive and that he found Derek after doing research and experimenting with his powers - he can travel between worlds, but he can't navigate very well. They both traveled to Grody Alt-SPN World, where Jack saw Mary being tortured in a sort of Iron Maiden device and yelling for help, but Derek wasn't quite strong enough to let Jack go there and rescue her.
After Jack shows the Brothers what he saw, he and Sam have a clinical infodumpy conversation in the background while a shocked Dean has his entire season's purpose realigned - now that he knows for sure she's alive and in trouble, he's gonna save Mom.
Meanwhile, Kaia, a girl who supposedly has been on her own for years, promptly gets kidnapped by angels in a dodgy old station wagon while hitchhiking. [sigh] The stupid is strong with this character.
I really hate these incessant Riverdale and Dynasty commercials.
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Post by saltgunempty on Dec 8, 2017 22:36:44 GMT -5
The title should be 13.09. Just to let you know.
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Post by thesnowleopard on Dec 8, 2017 22:43:50 GMT -5
Back to Patience, who is having Yet Another Vision of Jodie (in the middle of traffic, no less) dying, and of the Brothers someplace dark. Nothing really new there, then, but it's enough to get her off her tail and trying to contact Dean.
Over to Kaia, tied up in a warehouse and being Evil Overlord Monologued by the angels about how they tortured and killed Derek (lest the Brothers get involved because surely, that wouldn't alert Sam and Dean - oh, wait), that he's the son of Lucifer, and that they're using Kaia as bait.
Remember when angels weren't stupid? I kinda miss those days. The wings bit, too.
Driving this home (literally, in fact), the Brothers are in the Impala with Jack in the backseat, trying to find Kaia. Dean is now obsessed with rescuing Mary and says that Sam was right. Sam at least has enough motherwit to admit that he was willing to bust open worlds on "hope" rather than certainty, but they're both on the same page about going to get her.
Jack ... is moping that they thought he killed Derek. Even though his incidental and accidental body count is actually rather high. Am quite tired of this. Suck it up, Jack. You're a killer. Move on.
Sam starts to waffle, but Dean cuts straight to the point - they thought Jack went to find Lucifer. Jack protests that Lucifer means nothing to him and that TFW are his family (Dean agrees, including Mary in the circle). Watch out for those foreshadowing anvils, folks. They're awfully dense this season.
Welp, the plot still needs to move along. Jack gets a message through Angel Radio that they have Kaia.
Chez Patience, she's packing and leaving. Her dad, rather than leave the door open, gives her the John speech and tells her not to come back if she leaves because reasons. Ugh. What is it with the writing this week? So formulaic and nonsensical.
Meanwhile, Kaia is giving a rather boring speech to the woman angel about how she's not good bait. She's not a blonde white girl and no one will come for her because "I don't matter." The angel agrees with her, but says that the Winchesters think she matters, so they'll come, the angels will kill them, and the angels will kill Jack. Because that's worked out so well for them so far.
The Brothers and Jack show up, having grabbed the male angel. To get the ball rolling, the male angel improbably gets loose from Dean and there's a fight. Jack, in excruciatingly slow motion (that's a really dull effect, Show. Just saying), tosses the woman angel through a glass window, then forces the male angel, who is trying to stab Dean (Sam got knocked out, or something), to stab himself. Meanwhile, the woman angel somehow gets away.
So, Maia, inexplicably, doesn't respond especially well to any of this. She actually wants to run off again (because that worked out so well for *her*) and calls them all "insane."
"Yeah, well, the whole world's insane. Get used to it," Dean tells her. Go Dean.
Sam then goes the Savior route, saying that Kaia can help them save Mary. Kaia doesn't want to help them, even though (as Dean points out to her) they just saved her life. Kaia is really bad at this whole reciprocity thing.
Kaia then tries the Pity route, saying that she only ever goes to one place in her dreams - The Bad Place (this is an obvious, but very spoilery reference to a certain current show). She says she comes back with scars and she doesn't want to help them.
Dean (a guy who has seen and done far, far worse things than Kaia could even imagine) does what the audience wanted him to do all along - pulls out his gun, and tells her to get in the car. I cheer a little because as much as the show wants me to sympathize with Kaia, she's irritating the hell out of me with her "Me, first" whining.
Anyhoo, in the car, Sam tries to talk to Dean about this new obsession of his and Dean shuts him down with Hey, you said you wanted Mom back, too. In the back, Jack asks Kaia to let him show her what he and Derek say. She reluctantly agrees and then has her world rocked.
But before we can find out if she's on board with all this, yet, or not, the Impala nearly gets sideswiped by the old station wagon. It's the surviving angel. A car chase ensues.
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Post by thesnowleopard on Dec 8, 2017 22:44:11 GMT -5
The title should be 13.09. Just to let you know. Okay, thanks.
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Post by thesnowleopard on Dec 8, 2017 22:53:48 GMT -5
The Impala arrives at a rotting old barge on a dock for some random reason. Dean gets out and opens the trunk for a bag. He tosses it at the others and tells them to get on the boat while he plays rearguard.
The angel arrives in her, uh, station wagon.
She gets out and reiterates her intent to get Jack so he can make new babies for angels (mind you, the angels still have no plan how to deal with Jack and his powers - like, at all). Then reinforcements show up. In other crappy cars.
Dean bails and runs into the boat. The Brothers make angel sigils and the angels start blasting them from the outside. Kaia finally steps up and says she can help Jack send the four of them to another world.
BTW, we've got new incidental music, y'all. Don't think we had any classic rock at all this week. Guess Jack's FX cost too much.
So, Jack and Kaia go to the Bad Place and Jack starts showing her how to go somewhere else. He sees other worlds, then Grody Alt-SPN World and Mary. Dean yells at Jack to hurry up, but Kaia is losing the direction. She screams as her face glows. The angels are all blasted to dust and all four of TFW 2.0 vanish, leaving behind a glowing rift (I'm sure this won't create any future problems).
Muting the Riverdale ad because ugh.
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Post by thesnowleopard on Dec 8, 2017 23:02:26 GMT -5
At her house, Jody is calling Sam and leaving him a message to call her. She's worried. The doorbell rings and it's Patience. Patience says she "had a vision," but rather than tell Jody what it is (that Jody died. Again), she just says that "something bad is coming."
Pan over the rotting barge (apparently, the angels are really dead) to a roadside in daytime, with Kaia lying unconscious. Then we see Mary in her cage in Grody Alt-SPN World looking down at Jack waking up on the floor. Then Dean and Sam wake up in The Bad Place and walk (unknowingly) through a Chuckzilla footprint while something large screeches and stomps in the near distance.
Credits. Obviously.
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