Castiel has been the only angel that's been on their side (as in, putting the safety of the Winchesters above the "stop the apocalypse" agenda). I don't see how anything that Anna did is out of line with their general vibe up to this point.

Anna had been their ally in S4, and was acting as a free agent in this case if she is to be believed (and if Michael still wants to make with the brother-on-brother fight to the death, than Anna is probably to be believed as acting independently in her desire to stop it from happening). Sera and memefaultotherwriter did a poor job selling me on her motivation, by which I mean, I feel like I had to fill in motivational blanks and Anna should have made a more convincing argument with Castiel.

I find that allies-turned-antagonists work best when still somewhat sympathetic/understandable. So Gordon and Ava worked better for me, because Gordon's righteous belief was *sold*, as was Ava's trauma and desire to survive. Anna wasn't really allowed//written with the three dimensionality that would have put the episode over the top in the good way.

Anna wasn't really allowed//written with the three dimensionality that would have put the episode over the top in the good way.

But that's just writing fail, not gender fail, the way you're explaining it.

For me, given that Anna lived as a human, and purposely fell so that she could, her motivation to save humanity by preventing the apocalypse is pretty understandable.

Anna had been their ally in S4

Yeah, but an ally is not a friend.

But that's just writing fail, not gender fail, the way you're explaining it.

I would say that 99% of the time, gender fail *is* writing fail. Okay, maybe more like 75% of the time.

For me, given that Anna lived as a human, and purposely fell so that she could, her motivation to save humanity by preventing the apocalypse is pretty understandable.

Not enough callback to it here, after her torture/jail time. I mean, I knew that, but the text didn't *show* me that, and required that I remember it from S4,

Well, they do only have 45 or so minutes to work with.

I would say that 99% of the time, gender fail *is* writing fail. Okay, maybe more like 75% of the time.

Wait, what? Writing fail could be writing fail on any number of things. And yes, gender fail results from writing fail, obviously, but you're explaining why her lack of illstrated motivation here is a *gender* issue.

I had no problem with Anna's stated position that the world was more important to her than Sam. She's been hauled back up for re-education, she's got some mojo back, and she's thinking big picture. What's the hole?

And I saw nothing gendered about it outside of the crass gratuitous Glenn Close (I was thinking of her in Damages, so real confused too) reference.

I am explaining how writing a previously nuanced and sympathetic female character as a 2-D bad guy is writing fail that reads as gender fail. Basically, keep the nuance, lose the fail. Poor execution that relies on stock tropes and explicitly calls out/parallels it with bunny boiling crazy ladies reads to me as gender fail.

I guess I made the leaps without it being spelled out. A lot was going on in this episode, and most of it was way more important to me than Anna, so. Anna was simply the cog that set this in motion this time, and to get to the emotional meat of the episode, that was fine with me.

Plus, Mary rocked. No gender fail there as far as I could see.

Call me crazy, but Anna has been trying to stop the Apocalypse since she became an angel. This is not new a new idea for her, but with the Apocalypse started, she's now taking a more active role in stopping it. Seems like a natural next step for her to first try killing Sam, and having failed, then killing Sam's parents. I think it's perfectly valid character development.

I would add I do think the equivocation of Anna with Fatal Attraction/Glenn Close was very sloppy and unfortunate.