I don't really pay attention, but maybe the season 8 poster is just a placeholder. I mean, they've got time to promo the new season. Say three months, and in the meantime everyone is VAKAY YAY!!!!1! And then they'll regroup during their break and get new shots out there? I dunno, have previous seasons ended with already new shoots in the bag to promote the new season during the big summer break?

Maybe showrunners changing hands means the ball gets dropped? New bosses not realizing all their miniscule duties until it's too late (lord knows that's what I have right now at work, not that I hold it against her, short of me bossing her around, which is not a dynamic I want to set).

You're right, Amy--the shoot I'm thinking of with Cas dressed funny is season 6. Cas isn't in the S7 promo pics. Which are what went on the S6 DVD.

However, all the CW shows don't seem to re-use this much. Vampire Diaries usually has photos I've not seen before by the time they get around to the first poster and synopsis of the upcoming season.

I mean, what they're sending out as publicity right now for Wednesday is an (obviously new) Arrow poster, and a dusty old Supernatural one. I'm assuming there has to be a shoot for the new DVDs,

Maybe they assume the fan base is what it is, and it's not necessarily going to attract new viewers this late in the game?

They might also assume anyone looking at any picture of the Js will be too blinded by sheer beauty to notice if it's a new photo.

Meanwhile, this is adorable. I have very little idea what's actually being said, but Misha and Jensen especially are hysterical. And the payoff at the end is totally worth it.

the fan was talking about how Misha was asked which other character he would play if not Castiel. he said Dean and that he specifically said the role should be recast and that they look exactly alike. the rest is was ensued. haha!!

It sounds something like "You just turned foggy water into icecream", but obviously that ain't right.

I think Misha might be talking about Misha being recast as Dean, maybe, and Jensen being cool with that?

growing nails out is not conducive to typing well.

Thanks, tiggy! I got something about recasting, but other than that I just loved Jensen mugging it up whenever Misha wasn't looking.

Rewatching, and I am reminded of an initial observation that I had during the Road So Far: no mention of Amy. And the thoughts that I had was that, in the end, despite how the Amy nonsense dragged on, they didn't warrant recapping. They didn't have an impact on the big picture.

Now, I'm being mean and a minute or two long recap of a season that is mostly highlights and focusing on the mytharc excluding a character who lingered (and lingered) doesn't mean that she automatically deserves being categorized as pointless and "why did they bother to begin with".

But I'm still left with the thought of, here is a character that they made so significant, or at least the actions surrounding this character so significant that it was a mini-arc of sorts, yet in the end meant nothing in the bigger picture, why bother?

If Amy hadn't been around, and Dean hadn't had his secret about killing her, and Sam hadn't felt betrayed when he found out, would, say, how Sam dealt with Harvey been different? Would Dean dealing with Cas' loss, Bobby's death, and Sam' unraveling been different? In terms of their journies and character developement, did her presence and monkey wrench really mean anything?

Now, Amy annoyed the crap out of me, and I really don't like Jewel Staite as an actress, so my gut reaction is No. But I'm willing to be proven wrong.

And, it's perfectly okay to just be a blip on the radar, but I question her relevance because of the LINGERING and the seemingly lack of any point. Since her corpse refused to go away for so so many eps, surely she must mean more than any old speedbump, surely she must be up there with Ruby and Sam's dirty secret, to warrant so much of our attention.

I don't know, maybe if she'd been played by an unknown, tt would be more bittersweet for me, and more poignant, and the focus in my brain would be less on the person this betrayal was over, and more about Dean betraying Sam.

It's an example of what I was saying about writing episodic TV -- it's not a novel. It's not a self-contained movie. You don't have the luxury of looking at the finished season and saying, "You know what, this isn't really going where we wanted it to, so let's scrap it."

You're writing as you go, and you have to scripts ready to shoot, so at some point, the question of "Is this character a good idea?" becomes moot, and you just have to finish a script and film it. (Kristen could say way more about this than I can, since I'm doing a lot of assuming.)

Amy looked to me like a personal character conflict for the boys, since they didn't have anything else driving them apart this season -- no deal, no Ruby, no pit to throw themselves into, no soullessness. Maybe it was because the Big Bad was itself far less personal than usual, until Dick killed Bobby.

Either way, for me it was a minor misstep (and I didn't dislike the character or the storyline the way you did), but the fact that it didn't have a lasting impact on the boys or the plot is a *good* thing.

the fact that it didn't have a lasting impact on the boys or the plot is a *good* thing

I'll agree on that point, if only because it meant Amy's ghost was gone.

And, yeah, not every beat and moment and character needs to be Signficant and have Meaning. But even as a minor arc, it bugged.

I don't know the writer process, I don't know how much time they have to break a good episode, let alone know how it fits within a season. In my brain I think at least they say "this is the season arc vagueries, we want to achieve these minor stepping stones/strokes/beats, these particular episodes achieve that". But I'm sure that's an ideal world that doesn't exist.

Still, that doesn't take away from concept that such a minor mistep took up such a huge chunk of time.

Given that they're in purgatory, it's not inconceivable that she's show up. Which would not be relevant to the finale, but might be to early next season.

Not saying "will" or "should", mind.