SPN 3.01

[hope]

Firstly: MY SHOW IS BACK! <3 <3 <3

As someone else said, 3.01 was definitely no 2.01, but I guess that's what you get by not ending the last season on a cliffhanger. Or anything really that open that can be tied over into the first ep of the new season. I think I definitely need to re-watch it once I've got the high-res avi version, the wmv quality was a little distracting.

Um, is this an unpopular opinion? I don't particularly enjoy the episodes Kripke writes. Kim Manners is, of course, awesome, but yeah. not a huge fan of Kripke's scripts. The early scenes with Dean being a complete hedonist were hilarious, and also pure Kripke (Dean is always sexed-up when Kripke's writing him). Not that I have a problem with Dean being sexed-up... but it's just such a noticeable difference in characterisation when Kripke writes vs. when Kripke doesn't write. I would like it if it were a bit more consistent across the board.

I think I have been reading waaay to much post-2.22 in the hiatus, because I need to get back into the headspace of oh-right,-SPN-is-actually-quite-heavy-handed-and-clunky. Tamara was cool, but the introduction of her & Isaac & their TWOO WUB could have been handled a bit better (um, actually, all that stuff reminded me very much of the clunky style of the Pilot... Kripke!!! >.<)

Buffy-girl? sigh. Admittedly, it's way to early to tell where her character is going, but... Why did they think that getting rid of Jo and bringing in a character like this was a GOOD idea?

I'm not against having women in the show, but my heart does lurch in distress at the thought of it being anything but the sam-and-dean show. I'm all for supporting cast (of any gender) as long as they don't infringe on the team of sam-and-dean (but anyway, this is an old argument, so moving on...)

I really liked Jo because she was totally real for me - just a "kid" with way too much bragadaccio, a healthy serve of brattiness, and bravery tempered with the insecurity of youth. The point at which I really loved Jo was in No Exit, after she'd been dragged through an abandoned sewer - and she looked like it. My frustration with female action heroes are pretty much embodied by the heroine's hair. It's needs to bloody well reflect the filthy sweatiness of what they're actually doing. So this new girl? not so much.

What I would really love to see (though I doubt this will be the case, sigh) is a play out of this girl's character arc as being related to the whole "Sam came back changed" thing. Like, Sam is the only one who has seen her, and she's only followed Sam. She seems to be able to disappear (at this point. Who knows? maybe she's just really limber). I think it would be awesome if this is because she's something that's come back from wherever and attached itself to Sam - or even if she's like, Sam's alter-ego or something. Like, Sam did come back changed - weird, ruthless, destructive, super demon-related powers and without conscience - but has disassociated that part of himself. And it's a girl!

*sigh* like that's going to happen! Still, a girl can dream.

The portrayal of female sexuality in this episode made me seriously uncomfortable, though. Lust, in particular.

I mean, Dean's conquests are rarely characterised at all in the show as a whole, and in the context of this episode, his partner at the start of the episode was subsequently given a character as much as his egg & bacon mcmuffin was. Same old, same old.

Lust, though. It bothered me, when Isaac and Tamara were in the bar, that the most horrific threat to make was Lust going after Tamara. Both for the fact that Tamara was by default the recipient of sexual violence (wouldn't it be *more* disturbing and upsetting of normal order - i.e. what demons do - to have the man be the victim?), and that the female/female nature of it was held up as horrific.

I was really bugged by the bathtub-of-holy water scene as well. Let's face it: Lust was representing a female sexuality (hell, the fact of the matter is that they were equating female sexuality with demonic sinfulness, just as they were equating demonic-scale pride with a businessman, and demonic-scale sloth with a fat guy). Demon or not, just semiotically her sexuality - which was shown as being as energetic/aggressive and indiscriminate as Dean's - was portrayed as horrific, and her punishment at Dean's hands was extremely gratuitous in the way it was shot, and all the inferences of the place of domesticity, and the prominence of the oh-so-moral rosary. Maybe that wouldn't have disturbed me so much had the kissing between her and Dean immediately beforehand seemed less consensual/equal. Semiotically/symbolically: She was no more immoral than Dean in this situation. Why was she punished?

The other demons weren't dealt with in such a gratuitous way - the three Sam were with were dispatched quickly, with the focus on the weapon rather than their suffering. Lust was tortured - the holy water isn't able to exorcise her, then we can assume it's meant to subdue her enough to exorcise. Why then pull her out and shover her back in again? We didn't even witness the actual 'deaths' of envy, wrath, sloth...

Anyway. In other news, Sam got choked! heh.

Bobby's character in relation to the Winchesters amuses me. As I was saying to V last night, he's taken on a pseudo-father-figure role, only he's really nice & caring to them, so they don't respect him like they did John *g*

Most importantly of all: What the hell was that weird doll thing hanging behind Sam at Tamara & Isaac's place!?