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.

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

And I'm pretty sure the writer's room would be all "it was a throwaway line! Why are you harping on it?" which is its own nugget of gender fail, but not one of characterisation, I don't think.

I made the leaps as well, and I did enjoy the episode. But that doesn't mean it didn't have some sloppy aspects that were riding the genderfailboat.

The main explicitly gendered things that I wish they hadn't done were having Anna show up in the middle of that sort of dream (it's cheap laughs, but also ties the whole thing into their previous backseat contact in ways that make the Glenn Close thing more problematic) and the Glenn Close reference.

And I'm pretty sure the writer's room would be all "it was a throwaway line! Why are you harping on it?"

Also, it's a very Dean line. He's pretty genderfail-y.

"it was a throwaway line! Why are you harping on it?"

For me, that's kind of the issue--way too many of their throwaway lines are fratboy misogynistic.