No, yeah, I don't disagree with you, Lee, but -- just the fact he's the only person in the world John never managed to drive away kind of automatically tattoos the word DOORMAT on his forehead in big black ornate letters.
Yeah, pretty much. And I don't think John was Mr. Hearts and Flowers with him, at all. I suspect much of their interaction was more like John barking at him about the car than not.
And Dean, well, he's the poster boy for codependent.
ITA that normal for Dean is weird for a Winchester.
Nutty, was it you who said Dean's emotional belief in a stable universe was stopped at age five? Which accounts for the fact that he's desperately attempting to maintain the status quo with and for what's left of his family, and continually failing, since the other two members haven't such a dire need for that stability. There was a lot more, but that was the central bit of info I took from that post.
Damn, I have to start being better about adding things to memories. That essay made so much sense to my understanding of Dean, and I wish I could find it again.
Bev, it was dodger_winslow, here. (Brilliant meta, by the way...)
Sciffy is going to run GOLF. . . GOLF!!
WTF?
Okay, somebody over at TWOP's Metallicar thread is asking if anyone can tell which episode from Angel this screencap is from. Anyone?
I'm fairly sure it's "The Cautionary Tale of Numero Cinco."
I wish I could earn a living with this skill.
Thanks.
I'm sure that there is some sort of job -- possibly a useful talent in espionage?
Jericho-fans, It looks like the nut-sending folks were successful
OMG, and Strega gets to deal with them now!
I wonder how much overlap there is with Daniel Jackson fans...
Aha, it's definitely "Numero Cinco." Almost identical to the top shot here:
[link]
possibly a useful talent in espionage?
I was thinking that I could at least win some bar bets, but I suspect that even if I win, I am still the loser.
ETA
Strega gets to deal with them now!
Ha! But no, they will be Someone Else's Problem. Assuming it's true, which I'm still having trouble with.
Well, would they start recapping again if it came back? I imagine that's not necessarily automatic. (And Strega's replacement really seemed to enjoy the show.)
OMG, I finally watched the
Life on Mars
finale! Wow.
That was great, just really satisfying. I *loved* the shot of Sam on top of the building in present-day Manchester, looking around, making his decision, and walking, then running, then leaping off, so joyful and free. I mean, I assumed from pretty early on that he was going to choose 1973 over 2006, but it just made me really happy to see him finally do it. I liked that what finally did it for him was the fact that he couldn't betray his friends and leave them to die, no matter if they were all in his head or not. And I agree with Dana that once he left them in danger, it was obvious that the best choice he could make -- for himself -- was to go back and save them. So I definitely see it as a happy ending.
And yet...
I also agree that it is kind of fucked up that we're meant to see Sam's choice to kill himself as the positive choice. But I still cheered. It was a leap of faith, and it was the only way he knew of to get himself back to where he was happy. It was unfair, and awful, to the people in 2006 who loved him and had waited so long for him to come back. But he couldn't stay there, because he wasn't the same person he was before the car accident, and it wasn't his world anymore.
ita said,
"I still think it may have been more unfair to him to keep living, and that's his call to make,"
and I find myself agreeing strongly with that.
Jon said,
"So his girlfriend left him and his job is boring -- Oh Boo-fuckin'-hoo! Did he even try to get help for his depression? if he did, we're not shown it. We can only assume that he was depressed and, rather than get help, he jumped off a building hoping to go back to his fantasy world for a brief moment before he went splat. And the creators presented that as a happy ending. I think that's messed up."
But
would the ending have been satisfying, from a narrative perspective, if it showed Sam waking up in 2006, recovering from his injuries, getting some therapy, having a few brief interactions with characters we've never seen before, and deciding to stay there -- all in the span of about 10 minutes? I agree that from the POV of the people waiting for him in 2006, it would have been much better. But we don't know those people. We know Sam and his POV, and we know and care about Gene, Annie, Chris, Ray (well, maybe not Ray), and the rest of them in 1973. So 1973 is where my sympathies lie.
I could have bought
an ending in which Sam learns how to live in 2006 again, but it would have taken a lot longer than 10 or 15 minutes of getting to know that world for me to feel that it was where he'd be happiest. Maybe if the last episode or two had been all about his recovery in present-day... but I think they still would have had to incorporate some of Sam's life in 1973 into his present-day life, otherwise... what was the point of him spending all that time there to begin with?
I also liked the idea that
maybe Sam waking up in 2006 was also all in his head. Or maybe he really was an amnesiac who was on an undercover assignment from Hyde (um, and he could see the future), and he created the waking-up-in-2006 scenario in his head in order to convince himself that 1973/A-Division was where he really belonged.
(I do wonder why
DCI Frank Morgan tried to get him to believe the whole amnesiac-undercover story. (Totally loved the M.A.R.S. bit, by the way.) Was that Sam's subconscious, trying to tell him that 1973 was the real world (and thereby get him to stay), or was it actually Dr. Frank Morgan, reaching out to Sam the only way Sam's mind would allow him to appear... or was it the truth? I didn't really believe it, but I liked the idea that the explanation for Sam's situation might be something totally different than anything he had considered. Also, when Sam confesses to everyone that he's been undercover all this time, and they react with genuine dismay, I think that's meant to show that people *do* like and trust Sam in 1973 -- that he doesn't have to go back to 2006 to find a (continued...)
