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Post by thesnowleopard on Jan 19, 2018 21:48:01 GMT -5
Starting now.
Overlong recap introducing all the female characters who would be in the spin-off, should it occur. Could be edited down a bit. Definitely needs something more than a rather boring hard rock tune that sounds as though they got a knockoff of a Melissa Etheridge song instead of getting an actual Melissa Etheridge song. "Royal Station 4/16" would have done nicely here. Or maybe "Ruins." Or "2001."
Just sayin': 2:13 is an awfully long montage, especially set to generic rock.
Cut to Patience showing up at Jody's door. She's had a vision and it involves Jody apparently dying.
Cut to Now.
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Post by thesnowleopard on Jan 19, 2018 22:07:47 GMT -5
In some random shack in the middle of nowhere, two werewolves disguised as white-trash lowlifes (not a real stretch) are threatening a young girl who kinda looks like the girl ghost in season two's "Playthings." A delivery truck shows up (we get a rather CGI'd overhead view of it coming in). It's Claire, disguised as a delivery girl. The one werewolf who was taunting the little girl is so dumb, he has to read the address label saying "Mr. Werewolf" before he gets it. Half a second later, he gets a shotgun load in the gut that tosses him across the room.
The second werewolf puts up more of a fight and bloodies Claire's lip a bit before she stabs him. Then a mother werewolf shows up just to get shot. Yeah, the dialogue's not the best this week.
As Claire sends the girl back to her mother, she gets a call from Jody. Jody reprises Dean's line about John not having been home for a few days, this time for the Brothers Winchester, and asks Claire to come back to her house.
Cue title cards, which seem a little more extended than usual.
At the house, Jody and Alex are determining that Donna and Walt (still salty he's still alive) haven't heard from Sam and Dean, either. Gee, where were these idiots when Sam and Dean got locked up in a sooper-sekrit government facility last year for a month and a half? For that matter, what about when Dean went missing in Purgatory for a year? Sam and/or Dean go missing all the time, so why the DEFCON-1 alert status all of a sudden?
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Post by thesnowleopard on Jan 19, 2018 22:36:12 GMT -5
Claire arrives and the sneak peek about her awkward reunion with Alex and Jody ensues, as well as her introduction to Patience. As cocky and arrogant as Claire is in this scene, I can grok her being upset about Patience appearing to have replaced her. FYI, Jody, if you really want to get Claire to come back home, maybe don't turn her room into storage or hand off her clothing to some random new girl five minutes before you know she's arriving. That doesn't rhyme with "Welcome back."
Patience seems quite bland, including after Alex leaves to go to work at the hospital (Claire is annoyed because she thinks all hands should be on deck for finding the Brothers) and when she starts relating her vision. It turns out Jody doesn't die in it - Claire does. Maybe.
Claire turns bratty and says that sitting back and making a plan is a bad idea. Yeah...um...no. Pretty sure that's the best idea, girl. Then she storms out. It's rather sad that this is what she got from watching Dean. Dean's the most cold-blooded planner of them all. That's why he's still here.
Oh, and they've been clued into Kaia's existence by a phone message from Sam.
Meanwhile, it turns out to be a good idea that Alex went off to work, since Kaia has been found by the roadside and loaded into an ambulance, while some creepy, hissing thing watches from the shadows. Quickie flashback during all this to the coda from last week when the Brothers first arrived in the Bad Place.
At the hospital, Alex is being the perfect nurse and we finally get some good lines. After Claire comments on her nurse scrubs, Alex shoots back: "It's a uniform. What's your excuse?"
Claire: I look great.
Alex: You look like Biker Barbie.
They have a discussion about how Alex knew about the vision and their differing approaches to protecting Jody. As they do, Alex is looking up Kaia in the system and finds a Jane Doe just being checked into the hospital. Wow. How plot-convenient.
When Claire goes down there, Kaia spots her and they share an intensely slashy staring contest right before Kaia decides to do a runner. I facepalm at this show's really poor knowledge of medicine. Once again. Ain't nobody going nowhere with the colossal headache that comes from a concussion, let alone with Kaia's fleetness of foot.
Claire comes in and cuts right to the chase, saying she knows Sam and Dean. Kaia, apparently having completely reset her learning curve from the beginning of the previous episode, tries to run away, anyway. Until she's accosted outside by the creepy thing that was stalking her. It has glowing red eyes, kicks Claire's ass, gets shot by Jody (who, also conveniently, pops up out of nowhere) and then bleeds fluorescent blue blood when Claire stabs it in the throat.
And then they take the body home, where Alex pulls on some gloves and gets cracking on an autopsy with almost obscene glee.
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Post by thesnowleopard on Jan 19, 2018 22:57:57 GMT -5
The Brothers would be so proud.
Claire talks to Kaia. They compare scars and Kaia talks about the Bad Place, how she knows the creature from there and they usually "travel in packs." I know some really like Kaia, but so far, she seems to have about three emotional settings - Coward, Victim, and Tremulous Hero - and I'm quickly growing tired of all of them. Anyhoo, Claire asks her about Sam and Dean.
It's more interesting in the garage, where Alex is pulling off the creature's mask to reveal lots of mandibles. Alex and Jody suggest Patience not scream. Patience suggests that puking is more likely. Claire enters and informs them that Kaia knows what the creature is. Kaia offers that she is a dreamwalker and then fills in the others on how she helped the Brothers open a rift (she doesn't mention Jack) and they got stuck in the Bad Place. She's sure that if they did, they are already dead, but Claire says that the rift is still open, so they can go find the Brothers.
Cut to Sam and Dean (who are actually not dead at all), and immediately, the banter improves. Dean is eating a lizard over a fire ("It's a lizard, Sam - it tastes like lizard"), while Sam is cringing and saying they should go find the rift. Dean points out that the last rift only lasted "a couple of hours" and they've already been there two days. So, the rift could be already closed, they could be there for a while, and Sam needs to suck it up and eat something.
When they hear a faraway monster call that seems to be approaching, they run away, but not before Dean goes back to grab the rest of the lizard.
Back at Jody's, Alex finds Patience punking out and packing to leave. Patience is freaked out and says she's "not a fighter." Maybe if she goes back now, Daddy will take her back. Alex points out that Patience can't just turn back the clock like that and that there's more to dealing with the supernatural world than fighting. Patience leaves, anyway, but when she reaches the car, she has a vision of more creatures bursting through the windows. She runs back inside and tells them, including a skeptical Claire, that they all have to leave. Kaia says they're after her.
Later, we see the creatures burst through the windows, just as Patience predicted. But the girls are watching it on a security cam from the car. They've already left for the barge. Patience, who is driving, asks Claire if she believes her now.
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Post by thesnowleopard on Jan 19, 2018 23:35:05 GMT -5
After daybreak, Jody has them stop. She tells them she called in backup. Donna shows up, armed to the teeth (including a flamethrower - and y'all wonder why Dean has so much Ducky love for her?). She has become a vampire hunter and it seems she's quite good at it. It turns out they don't actually know where they're going, yet, because Kaia didn't know and needs some prodding to come up with enough clues for Jody and Alex to figure out it's the Larsen Brothers Shipyard off Route 14.
Jody and Donna decide to go on ahead. Jody leaves Claire in charge of Alex and the civilians and Claire reluctantly agrees.
Meanwhile, in Monster Land, Sam and Dean are being stalked by a refugee from Sword of Shannara, a hooded figure with a spear who manages to take out both of them. I call shenanigans on this. Maybe the figure could take out Sam, who hasn't been eating much the past day or two, but Dean? Dean survived a year in Purgatory and came out on top. He even had fun. And he fights multiple demons with relative ease. Plus, he and Sam would be armed to the teeth. Why don't they have their guns out at least?
It doesn't help that the fight is very poorly done in typical choppy Arrowverse style (that's not a compliment) where there is so much cutting to cover up the lack of fighting skills among certain parties that you can barely see what's happening. Nope. Not at all impressed. The show's done pretty well so far in avoiding dumbing down the Brothers to make a new character look better, but this is an egregious exception.
Jody and Donna scope out the shipyard and then go in. The incidental music for this scene is rather cool. They pass by an angel sword melted into the ground and hear a hissing from the upper deck of the ship (looks like a ferry) they're on.
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Post by thesnowleopard on Jan 20, 2018 0:13:05 GMT -5
Back at Base Camp, Kaia and Claire bond (more slashy overtones) over Kaia realizing Claire is scared. Claire admits that she's been shaken by Patience's vision. Why she's admitting this to Kaia, I just don't know. But when she declares that "Sam and Dean saved my life" and she has to return the favor, Kaia offers to come with. I know this is intended to make Kaia look heroic, but it sounds vaguely ridiculous: "I was a cowardly lion when those menz were around, but I shall follow you to the ends of the multiverse, fair lady."
Not helping is that the show's writers (who are downright obsessed with their meta) seem blissfully unaware that this whole storyline is an old and very sexist Western trope as old as the media hills known as "The menfolk are out on a cattle run/incapacitated, so it's up to the little ladies to save the day." And it's looking as though we're about to get the variation of "All the adults get themselves taken out, so now the kids have to save the day." You'd think the show would at least bother with a little more onscreen explanation about why these random characters all immediately banded together to find and save Sam and Dean, seeing as how it's still called Supernatural and the protagonists are still Sam and Dean.
On an upper deck, Jody and Donna find the rift. Jody wants to go in immediately because reasons - sorry, because she's afraid that if she doesn't go in right that second, Claire will and then will get killed. Or something. Points to Donna for thinking this reason is stupid, especially after Jody admits her thinking is clouded by not wanting to "lose another child."
This conversation is cut off by their hearing more rift creatures. Well, duh, if the rift is open and these things hunt in packs, it makes perfect sense that not only one crossed over, y'know?
The creatures, btw, are exceedingly cheesy when alive and look exactly like what they are - stuntmen in monster costumes.
Over in Monster Land, Sam wakes up at night and Dean, who is already awake, calls the figure with the spear "Darth Dickwad," even though it's pretty obviously a female figure. The figure bangs on a giant skull and the creature they heard before responds from a distance.
Meanwhile, Claire and the others are saddling up, while Jody and Donna are stuck inside an abandoned car. They're saved by Claire with a flamethrower. The others are just standing behind her, even though Jody warns that there's "another one."
Claire hears the hissing and immediately goes upstairs. Jody realizes it's closing as it starts to fade. Claire insists on going in to save the Brothers.
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Post by thesnowleopard on Jan 20, 2018 0:35:30 GMT -5
Downstairs, Donna give Patience a (very) quick rundown on how to use a shotgun, but a whole bunch of creatures show up and the women flee upstairs. As Donna and Jody and the others hunt monsters, Claire goes into the rift with Kaia. Because let's not leave the one person who knows how to go other worlds back in ours, or anything.
In the Bad Place, Claire and Kaia immediately find and cut Sam and Dean loose, but when they all run back to the rift, the hooded figure tosses its spear at Claire and hits Kaia instead when she steps in front of Claire. They hold hands and Kaia dies (here at the CW, we bury allllll our gays, especially if they're WoCs!). The Brothers pull out angel swords, which the hooded figure apparently did not bother to take away from them (now they do? And what about their guns?), and Dean prevents Claire from going after the figure, who is now, you know, totally unarmed. The three of them flee back through rift, but not before some creepy giant CGI troll shows up and peers over the trees.
As Jody cradles Claire, Patience (who has finally made her first monster kill) realizes that was her vision and Kaia was the one who died.
Afterward, the Brothers leave, asking Jody to thank Claire when Claire is able to hear it. The adults worry about more rifts and more creatures, but Jody assures the Brothers that since they've got saving the world covered, she and the girls can take care of Sioux Falls.
Claire mourns and Jody has a talk with her. Claire finally realizes that going in half-cocked gets innocent people killed.
Downstairs, Patience is still shocked at having ganked something and Claire starts a journal. There's a cheesy voiceover from Claire about how she needs "my family...my army," and she's going to kill the thing that killed Kaia, as they montage at the dinner table.
Meanwhile, a big old rift appears again in Sioux Falls and through it steps the hooded figure, which pulls back its hood to reveal an evil, smirking Kaia, because killing off a redshirt character we've barely met and have no investment in, but who appeared to be a regular, and replacing her (it's frequently a her) with an evil doppleganger isn't a huge cliche at all.
Credits
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