Well, with these new demons unleashed on earth, I hope we get some more down and dirty ass-kicking. I do like the psychological games, but watching a character beating the crap out of another... even better!

I *love* that they ended the season on what counts as an upnote, with callbacks to the pilot. It sure as hell feels like they're aiming for less overt emo next season from the last few minutes.

I know there are good, legit crits of the finale, but I fear Kripke and I are not only the same age (a fact that still freaks me out), but we share the same damn emotional buttons.

Remember that whole firewall of flail thing?

Yeah. That.

Critical thinking just can't get past the thing today.

I am as Ple. I can see half a football field of loose plot through the holes in it, but the flail has driven enough of the air away from the brain that all I feel is the manpain before I reach oblivion. Nirvana.

They're going! On the road! ::ita claps merrily:: To kill things!

They can be emo a bit if they want, but Dean looked so damned happy to have something to do so he can just not talk about the deal.

Yay.

I am as Ple. I can see half a football field of loose plot through the holes in it, but the flail has driven enough of the air away from the brain that all I feel is the manpain before I reach oblivion. Nirvana.

Exactly. There's comic book logic, gaping plot holes, and yet... I... I...

I don't CARE!

I mean, intellectually, I agree with most of the criticism I've seen leveled. But the firewall catches those thoughts, and it hits Does Not Compute instead.

I say most, because the one thing I've seen repeatedly that I do strongly, strongly disagree with is that there wasn't a narrative need to have Bobby and Sam explicitly state to Dean that he does, in fact, have worth outside of his self-defined role. I swear I've had this conversation before, but there are some characters who really do need anvil-sized cluestick interventions, and Dean Winchester is one of those characters.

Dean is so totally that guy. And you know what? He still doesn't buy it. But it doesn't mean you don't try.

I suppose you may be right, Plei, but three times in one episode is too much.

I will grudgingly admit we could've lost the YED's, except that then I'd probably feel that the YED's characterization felt off, on account of failure to taunt.

But Bobby and Sam's were essential.

In other news, SG-1 tonight was MARVELOUS.

I love the Cam-and-Vala show, and it's nothing like the John-and-Aeryn show. And Teal'c looming genially, and Josh Molina (!), and Daniel saying "hooped!" and everything.

It's the story Nutty has said for years they needed, where they come through in the middle of a museum, minus the kindergarteners. And I adore that Ben Browder helped come up with it. It's funny and suspenseful and has such good character bits in it.

I think the Bobby confrontation works fine, the YED would be fine if they cut one line, and the Sam confrontation would be fine if they cut two lines--which maybe works fine for Sam, because the boy is melodramatic and wordy.

I have been thinking about the finale as Sam's story, and while the big problem remains Sam being put so firmly outside the final confrontation with the YED (as if he got out everything he needed last week, which ... I'm not quite convinced of), he had two major turning points in the episode: shooting Jake (and shooting him, and shooting him) and confronting Dean at the end. We've been reading that confrontation as a Dean turning point, but it is just as much a big moment for Sam, who has been trying to get through to his brother and claim partnership in moments big and small ever since "The Devil's Trap." Or earlier, really, but "The Devil's Trap" is when he took a big step toward adulthood, when he stopped reacting out of adolescent rebellion and made a conscious decision to prioritize family over revenge; when he realized Dean wasn't just an invulnerable quasi-parental figure, but someone who needed his support.

The Dean monologue to Sam's corpse really does set up and recapitulate their basic conflict: Dean wanted to give Sam space to be a kid, to be free of the responsibilities of adulthood, like a lot of parents and older siblings; Sam wanted to grow up fast, to learn the world, to have all the benefits and privileges of maturity, like a lot of kids and younger siblings. Dean's protection, however loving, can feel like limitation; there's been a lot of fic about Sam wanting Dean to come with him to California when he left for Stanford, but my personal fanon is that Sam was trying to get away from his big brother's shadow as much as his father's. Dean's desire to protect Sam is established by--well, lots, but I was thinking of "Skin" and "Something Wicked" and the comics and all the times when Dean says he wishes Sam didn't have to know about the supernatural. When Sam kills Jake, as when Sam killed Madison, he is claiming parts of adulthood he may not have wanted, but which are unavoidable all the same. (Okay. My adulthood has not actually involved killing people, and I do not foresee it doing so. But in horror symbolism, difficult choices that hurt some people to benefit the greater good = BLOODY DEATH and anger, hatred, and giving into base impulses also = BLOODY DEATH.)

And then the end -- Dean defines looking after Sam as his "job", where his job used to be hunting; where job = vocation, identity. Imagine a sociologist having a field day with the role of work in the construction of contemporary American identity. And Sam asks him what he thinks his job is then -- and a job is something adults have. Sam launched the arc by saying they had work to do; he launched it in mourning, rage, self-blame, and grief. Dean launches the next arc by reclaiming the lost joy of hunting and hunting as brotherhood, work as fun--but also work as escape from the difficult discussion of his deal with a demon, his death, his sacrifices in the private sphere. Hunting as stealth emo.

On the whole, I think the second season is much stronger than the first; it's just that the first started out weak and gained strength, and the second started out strong and faltered near the end. Maybe for season three they'll figure out how to balance it all the way through.

With less crying, more action, and no horribly unfunny meta episodes. Please.