I honestly believe Kripke's got a deeper mean streak than Joss. And that's saying something.

Now into season two of Leverage and have forgiven Aldis Hodge for killing Sam on Supernatural.

xpost with Cable Drama

I've been trying to articulate the differences in pain caused by Whedon and Kripke. It's hard. I think Joss is trying to say more, and thinks he's aiming higher (I'm not judging here, but I think he has lofty goals) and mostly I think Mr. Kripke is just a bastard. He's not trying to teach his audience the meaning of the fragility of life or anything like that. He's just trying to make them cry and cry and cry.

But he hits that spot anyway, so in the end I'm not sure his goal matters. I think Joss's goals were often so clear cut you could see them coming from a mile away, once you figured out how he operated. And that's not a bad thing, since it probably saved me from actually ripping my hair out in shock and misery, but.

I think mostly Kripke has a lot to be thankful in his writing staff. Given his original idea for this series, the way they've explored family and brotherhood and loyalty and heroes and human fear and desire has dug a lot deeper than he might have expected.

mostly I think Mr. Kripke is just a bastard. He's not trying to teach his audience the meaning of the fragility of life or anything like that. He's just trying to make them cry and cry and cry.

I think Kripke must not interview well and that is why I have the impression of him just wanting gore, blood, and teen age humor. I never get a feeling that subtleties of the storytelling are credited to him, but I guess they must be.

I think Joss's goals were often so clear cut you could see them coming from a mile away, once you figured out how he operated

There's an IO9 post today about tearjerker moments in genre, and mine are pretty much Whedon and Kripke (oh, and Peter Jackson/Tolkien). The Buffy/Angel/Firefly even Dollhouse moments that choke me up have a similar tenor that's quite different from the more ongoing sort of misery that Kripke's work sustains.

Supernatural's crypoints are more moments and acting and realisations that make me cry, when it's apparent that that must hurt so damned bad, and I love the character, and I must cry too. Joss gets me with words, more often. I'm never going to say "Oh, that Emma Caulfield really knows how to manipulate me." But the fruit punch speech? Makes me shiver just thinking about it. I don't want to reread it. I don't want to get upset. Same with Wesley's death scene, although the acting was great--the words themselves tear me up, outside of me thinking "Poor Wes!"

Whereas with Supernatural I'm just so invested in Sam and Dean and Cas and friends that their pain or happiness guts me and the wordsmithing is less key. I'm going to be triggered by the visuals of the fireworks scene.

Bah. Rambling. Obviously I'm invested in Buffy when she says "Mom? Mom? Mommy?" But something about the words themselves breaks me, right now, still.

Everything that ita said, I am nodding and saying , "yes."

And my alergies are kicking in a little from some forgotten moments. Damn.

Oh, I will agree with you there, no question. Some of the writing on Buffy was so dead on, it was absolutely cutting. And I agree that it's often the visuals in SPN, the expressions, the turning away or turning toward, etc.

God, the fruit punch speech. I could get choked up right now thinking about it. I also think that was one time Joss really surprised me -- I did *not* expect him to kill Joyce, even for a minute.

I think the difference in my head might be that what Kripke and Co. put the boys through is the gutting thing, and on Buffy it was more often about how those things were played out (or written). Which is pretty much what you said, I think.

Now I'm rambling. Both shows, excellent! Both shows, gutting for me! Fire bad!

Of course, one wonders where Sam was before he was resurrected and how the demon could get its hands on his soul to bring him back to life.

If people immediately woke up in heaven postmortem there'd be no need for Reapers, right? Maybe Sam was still in transit when the demons brought him back.

I would assume that Dean was either held in stasis after his death in Mystery Spot or just skipped forward to the point that the Trickster undid the whole pseudo-reality setup. Everyone and everything in that scenario other than Sam and Dean themselves were just creations of Gabriel's, if I understand it correctly.

I didn't think he was creepy talking through the Impala, but whoa man, he was creepy as hell coming through the TV.

The former creeped me out because of the crackly barely-there connection, with its implication of vast distances being bridged and the possibility that the Winchesters could be lost forever to Castiel if they progressed too far away from the world of the living. Early on the scary dream-like mood of the episode was fantastic, but I find that the Kurt Fuller's smarmy, mystery-free portrayal of Zachariah just sucks away any sense of foreboding and majesty that should be there. Misha (before Castiel became too cuddly as Dean's BFF anyway), the Raphael and Joshua actors, and for that matter both Jared and Bellamy Young as Lucifer can convince me that they're playing ageless beings far removed from the human way of thinking. Fuller, Julie McNiven, and Mark Pellegrino, not so much.

Misha (before Castiel became too cuddly as Dean's BFF anyway), the Raphael and Joshua actors, and for that matter both Jared and Bellamy Young as Lucifer can convince me that they're playing ageless beings far removed from the human way of thinking. Fuller, Julie McNiven, and Mark Pellegrino, not so much.

What about Speight and Robert Wisdom?

I like Mark Pellegrino's Lucifer, but it doesn't have a patch on Padalecki's. Creepy-assed shit. Kurt Fuller represents a very depressing heaven. Bureaucracy run amok. I don't see him and Uriel in the same place.