I think the framing of 8.10 as Wincesty is facile if your job is recapping. Which is entirely different from having an opinion, or even shipping.

It is no more Wincesty now than it was before--and it's clear that the show isn't going to get less codependent. If you don't like that in your Winchesters, I think it's fair to stop watching, but complaining without...eloquence...I don't actually read IO9 for the personalities. I do it for the insights and the sparks of conversation.

To me, this was the first time both Sam and Dean got to sit back and make the call on their long term direction. Sam, to me, seems less in it for the tablets--he was leaving without Amelia when that mission was done before--I don't think he's going anywhere anymore.

My *big* issue with Benny is that it was hamhanded having him call Dean "brother" all the time. Yes, it's a valid verbal tic, but it's an extra meaningful one here, and must be pointed. It makes it seem like there was ever just a decision to choose between either of them--but Dean showed up wanting Sam, and he really didn't ever stop wanting Sam. He was in it for life--the two of them and the car, for the long term.

And the other Benny issue was the lack of Lenore.

However, Dean should cut him off. Not stop being his friend, but he can't be on call across the nation every time Benny starts fiending. There isn't really a lifestyle Dean could have that supported what Benny was demanding from him.

But I do think he's willing to avoid anything that makes Sam mad now, because, like he said, he's tired. But he had a practical ultimatum, and not one posed by Sam, for which I'm very grateful.

As for Cas and his will, I'm not gonna lie. I like that 50% of his directives are exactly what he wants to do, and 50% break his heart. Someone has to be miserable at the halfway point, and I don't think the boys are miserable, unlike others--I think they are at peace, and I don't see any resentment or ill will in that sitting down with food scene--perhaps because I now think of them settling on the sofa to eat as Bobby's most cherished memory, and so it has plot-induced vaseline lens (that's how you do that, Carver--let the story speak for itself, instead of trying to make the lens do it). So you hark back to that, I get fuzzy boy feelings, and nothing in their presentation contradicts that--I'm good. I see path to boys who are both on a mission and making a call about their lives.

So, yeah, I sacrifice Castiel's happiness for that. Him bopping down to do what he wanted because she wants him to--watching him use the Winchesters in a way he did not in S6 and the proactiveness of grabbing Sam against Dean's wishes I attribute all to Cas trying to make this happy, and it's growth--there isn't really a point before now he'd have shown that level of independence while working with the Winchesters. And I loved it. But I also like Sam and Cas together a great deal.

I feel that Mrs Tran was absent for reasons other than the plot, and that rankled. Kevin putting her away was..enh. But watching Kevin take the sort of dedication he must have had for his schoolwork before and putting it towards this, trying to force himself into some sort of spiritual quantum leap--because there is no way to decode the tablet. He knows that. People can either read it, or not. So there's some test he has to pass (or get the other half of the tablet...I dig that) to be worthy, at least in his eyes, and even though I also think Osric cut his hair, not Kevin, the whole thing works for me in a way that I like better than Chuck's prophet, which was mostly for giggles.

I would be fine never seeing Garth again, but since the fic I read where Garth and Mrs Tran were...yeah. That's what was happening offscreen for me. But Garth has zero value to me. He doesn't represent or highlight or dramatise anything for me, because I don't respect him, and don't really feel he deserves it compared to just about every other hunter we've seen, even Walt and Roy. Has he ever killed anything?

So, yeah, I'm not a (continued...)

( continues...) flagwaving season gr8er, still not talking about Amelia, because I'm not sure how to not sound like one of those fangirls who thinks no one (but me) is good enough for the boys--but she was badly painted for the response Sam had to her. I guess I just have to pretend she was someone who could do that, as opposed to what I saw.

I always assume there will be a new big bad every season (Thanks, Joss!), and that the boys will, one way or another, sooner or later, defeat it.

Part of it (and I had the same issue with Joss and nearly every other showrunner) is that the next big bad has to be bigger and badder. Which meant that this last ep (and, yeah, for a while), we just go and kill demons like it's NBD. When at the beginning, it was the whole season freak out. Now we can take out a dozen and take on Crowley like it's Tuesday. So the Big Bad has to be bigger and badder and it makes shows less compelling to me. Because I care more about Winchesters and the people that get tangled up with them than I do about unexplained tablets and power plays in Heaven or Hell.

For me the joy in the show is watching how Sam and Dean develop and change as they face every new challenge, and how they interact.

Yes.

I think the framing of 8.10 as Wincesty is facile if your job is recapping. Which is entirely different from having an opinion, or even shipping.

Wincesty as actually thinking they are shagging or that their relationship with each other is way more important than any others? Because I don't actually think they're shagging. But they are clearly choosing each other over any other relationships, both platonic or romantic.

But while Dean and Benny were probably only buds and Benny is a vampire so I can see where Dean is supposed to choose Sam and fighting the evil that Benny presumably is by nature, Sam is supposed to be in love with Amelia. Like Jess levels of in love. And Sam who used to want white picket fence and "normal" family didn't choose her.

I think we're being shown they are really the Epic (platonic) Love Story of Sam and Dean.

--I think they are at peace, and I don't see any resentment or ill will in that sitting down with food scene--

Different reads. They both looked resigned to me. Not happy, not content. But this is where they had to be so they were. Different reads are what make the show interesting to talk about though.

Amelia was actually more off-putting to me the longer she was on, but I really think it's the actress, not the writing. There's something irritating about her, no matter what she's saying, for me.

They both looked resigned to me.

I agree. But they didn't seem resigned to *doom* either. There was a little nostalgia there, as they looked at each other. No matter how much things change, they're always going to have all that history together, two kid who had nothing but each other.

If Sam and Dean got 8 years on, even without an angel intermittently on their side, and they weren't a lot better at doing their jobs, then I would find the show less compelling.

They don't say "Christo" anymore, they just get a headstart on an exorcism into the phone (that is so fucking funny to me--I'm still laughing), and Dean gets a smug old "But you forget my boyfriend..." look when Kevin tells him something is hard--which is why we must have such a cruelly broken angel, because the show where he's powered up and hangs out with his only friends--that's also less compelling, because they really wouldn't need to do much more than supply the "people skills" while he neutron bombed evil out, town by town.

The things that were hard, for me, should change, otherwise it's just them and the same challenges, and then I'm bored. Especially since I'm not interested in them outgrowing their need for each other or the job, so there's a cap on how healthy is interesting--no hunter therapists, please.

I keep fading back to that scene with Brady in the alley, when Dean says they're what the monsters in the night need to be afraid of. I think of the cute boys from the pilot, and then hear Crowley's fit about continually underestimating them, and I have the warm fuzzies. Dean threatened to kill hsi grandfather, and Sam actually did it...I love the contrast and I love what stays the same. It's very successful for me on that front, but I'm not trying to convince, just to explain.

I've been staying less spoilt this year--last year I was ep guides ahead two or more episodes, which was fine, because they're pretty careful with what's revealed in trailers and blurbs, versus the punch of the episode. But I thought I was in a space that had pictures from next week's trailer and I saw photos and a name from a few episodes on. And no picture...there's a frame in the preview where Dean is wearing an askew crown, and it's so beautiful...but now I know a thing I must post in spoilers.

The actress's voice wasn't helping anything, but the things they think are cute I think are icky. Her finishing his sentences? I'd have left the room. Her "I don't love my husband so it's okay if I cheat on him, but please don't make this hard on me" schtick. No. I'm just pretending it was Sarah Blake the whole time, and I'll close my eyes (and ears) during the upcoming previouslies where they try and tug my heartstrings about his choice.

But since he didn't just not choose her, since I felt he chose to not quit soon period, I don't feel the same resignation or sadness.

Well, I've generally liked the women the show has paired the Winchesters up with (even Cassie, bless her poor wooden actress' heart) or, in Ruby's case, enjoyed the storyline while loving to hate the character. But my immediate reaction to Amelia was "UGH! Kill it with fire!" and I have not warmed up to her with successive appearances on Kotex Cam.

Sam's entire storyline this year has been made of fail as far as I'm concerned, and I don't think it had to be—having a sympathetic love interest like Sarah or Madison would have done wonders, as would framing his abdication of his responsibilities as sincerely thinking Dean was dead and being too grief-stricken to forge on alone. As opposed to "oh well, Dean's elsewhere, now I can live the life of an aimless drifter like I always yearned to do!" But the show has squandered any sympathy Sam has earned from me since the end of Season 5.

I'm taking the bad with the good though: Dean's storyline has been more compelling than in the last few years and gives Jensen plenty of opportunities to shine, the use of Cas has been note perfect, Benny and the Trans are successful cast additions that reverse the trend of claustrophobic narrowing focus on the brothers alone, and I've been happy with several of the standalone cases.

Here's one of those musings (no spoilers) on why the whole thing may have been a dream so far: [link] I don't watch the show to that level of detail, and I might be frustrated, depending. I'm not swayed, just watching.