I always thought Mark Shepherd, from clips I'd seen from cons, seemed to be wanting all the attention for himself. But I could be really wrong about that.

Last night's episode, S15E3, was ... wow. I did not see a lot of that coming. And I sincerely hope this whole "hell's open" thing is over for the rest of the show.

I think Sheppard is an all-in kind of player. Do you remember the Firefly con that nearly didn't happen? When the "organizers" absconded with the money and left people without hotel reservations or organized events? When Allyson and Maya stepped up to fling things together at the last minute, and found hotels and meeting places, and called on Joss and Tim? Nathan brought a box of his own memorabilia to give away, Tim brought DVDs, back when we had just managed to convince TPTB to make Firefly DVDs and they weren't widely available yet? And did two days of "behind the scenes" for whoever was interested? And Adam and Alan and Christina Hendricks (...drix?) showed up to visit with the fans and Clare Kramer and her husband were opening a bar the week after this con, and got permits for a limited opening as a 'private party' for the con? Well, Sheppard showed up, along with some other guest stars. But he'd only been in two episodes as Badger, but he showed up to talk to folks and schmooze. And when an interviewer who had come to chronicle the "impromptu" rescue of a almost-failed con and talk to some of the personalities who'd come to meet folks asked Sheppard, "Why are you here at an unsponsored event for a failed tv series?" Mark answered, "Darling. Where else would I be?"

Sheppard goes all out--yes, I get the impression he's somewhat brash and forward, but his energy is infectious, he demands interaction, he engages, he makes people laugh, and he's wonderful with kids. He attracts a lot of attention, but that's different from attention-seeking, more of a "We're here now--let's take advantage of that and have a good time!"

Or so people say who've been to cons where he's appeared. My info is all second-hand, but this is what I hear.

Hm

I am not down for a big Dean/Cas rift. But I'm willing to hang on and see where this goes.

ENjoyed the Cas & B in hell storyline more than I expected. Found the Sam and Rowena story extremely unsatisfying, but I guess I'll go with it.

ANd this is stupid but I wish that once they had decided to go with the horn closing the tear thing that they had committed to the shofar end of Yom Kippur the-gates-are-closing pattern, Probably blasphemous but it's what I wanted.

I'm glad to know that about Mark Shepherd. I always loved Crowley.

It seems Jared got into an altercation with management at Stereotype, an Austin bar he reportedly owns.

He's been charged with charged with two counts of Class A misdemeanor assault with injury. Ignore the video at the top of this article. It's just filler junk. [link]

TMZ has some video. [link] It made me sad to see him so visibly intoxicated.

The larger entertainment press has picked it up (like THR and Deadline, but their coverage doesn't add anything).

According to TV Line, as of now, a source close to the set says it shouldn't affect production. [link]

ETA

This LA Times article includes names of two alleged victims and reports they want to pursue the assault charges. It also quotes TMZ as reporting there were three charges against Jared (rather than the two reported by the Ledger in my first link). [link]

Two counts of assault, plus public intoxication.

I'd heard backchannel that his arm cast in an earlier season was the result of picking a stupid drunken fight. Apparently, it's a habit.

I think he and Jensen talked about that old drunken fight publicly.

This, though, makes me disproportionately sad.

I just got around to reading this piece by Misha in the NY Times: [link]

It's sort of amazing (and sad and scary) that he actually lived Sam and Dean's childhood.

So ... Sam is getting flashes of Chuck's internal monologue through his dreams? And Chuck is apparently going to be this season's big bad?

I loved the featured song (I think Jensen and Steve Carlson's album is really good, in an old school bluesy rock way), but I felt like the episode itself was clunky. And the direction seemed ... weird. Like, lots of closeups, and other choices that aren't usual. (And I know Jensen directed, so ...) A cynical part of me feels like they're sort of trying to show the world in general what else they might be right for, in terms of roles.

I wanted to love this season so much. So far, I really don't.

Is that what was happening?

Really did not care for this episode at all. The MOTW story was somewhere between meh and terrible and the Chuck storyline I could barely watch. What a disservice to Becky