(no subject)

[green_queen]

I'm tired, I'm cranky, I'm sick, and I'm already fairly sure I'm not going to like this episode. Let's go!

Evangelists freak me out.

Ooh, pretty Sam in scrubs. Gloria? Really? How does she think God's too busy for house calls but wants her to do his dirty work for him?

I love Dean on the vibrating bed. Oh, the things I could do. He is the prettiest. This? This is their plan? Hee, Sam got a funny line about unicorns, aww.

Hello beautiful car. Heh, think I found it. Sam's getting very sarcastic lately. Yeah, I hate when I'm snooping in someone else's basement and find fingernails.

Here we go again. Kind of a violent, disrespectful 'angel' with the breaking of stuff. Everybody looks like crap in that bright angel light. Zachary? Really?

Is Dean so bored he's listening to police scanners? Aww, his face. LOVE the decor in that room. AHAHAA PLEASURE BUTTON LAB RAT, so very true.

I can't wait to get this song, whatever it is playing when they're breaking into the house. Go Hacker!Sam. I find that really hot. Stop with the angel shit! LOL 'Our Lady of Angels', of COURSE. Only thing better would be to put 'avenging' in there. *eyeroll*

Wow, gorgeous church though. Michael. John Travolta was in a bad movie as an angel called Michael. So...the priest is the 'angel', then. Pretty, pretty Dean calling the priest 'padre.' I wish they'd wear their priest outfits again. Mmm. Prays every day? Where'd he learn it from?

Statement revised: Everybody looks like crap in that bright angel light except Sammy. BOYTOUCHING! OMG Dean holding Sam, aww. And he kept touching him as they walked into the next room, and hovered behind him, and everything. I'd drink too, Dean.
Firstly, this scene is being shot beautifully and cleverly. The tilted, low-angle close-ups to show the imbalance, the cutting, the light, the framing. It's genius. The boys are doing a fantastic job too.
So, okay, Sam's gonna have to kill a guy for an angel? How does this fit in with his fairly black-and-white concept of the morality of killing? Andy can't kill someone who was trying to kill his girlfriend but Sam can kill someone because a dubious angel told him to?!
Here we go with the Mom thing that I dislike so completely. I voiced my opinions on it already, but since this is the official episode thread: why is it that, instead of reasoning that there was no God, Dean had to come to that conclusion as the result of a trauma? I had a feeling something like this would come up on this show, but it's all been more delicately handled until now. They're essentially saying that faith in God is more natural, more right than not having it.

Hooray for Sam getting a pop-culture reference. Ghost, no less.

OMG SPONGEBOB-SIDE DOWN WINS AT LIFE. Oh, good boy Dean. He's thinking that if Sam goes after the guy he might kill him and then freak out and go evil, so he's going to go do the dirty work and sending Sam to do the easy stuff. He's always portecting Sam first, no matter how he feels about the matter at hand.

LOL Sam's busted face is adorable. Hey Priesty. Sam's so disappointed. Is it just me or is ghost!priest kinda cute?

Even the original music on this show's good. Course, the rock music's better.

The ghost!priest isn't picking out people who need redemption, he's picking people who think they need redemption. Sam hasn't done anything wrong yet.

...uhuh, 'I've never done this before' is not so great a save after punching a woman in the face, genius. Go action Dean.

I suppose there's two ways to interpret this: one is that, being a priest, this ghost needed last rites performed upon him as a personal way of being at peace with his life on this Earth so he could move on to wherever dead people go, whether or not there's a God. The other is that the writers are saying that Christianity is right.

Oh, come ON.

Of course he was right. What, you think Dean doesn't know how hard it is? Here's the good music again! Saved? Fuck's sake, Sam, quit whining and save yourself.

GOD'S WILL?!?

So I'm guessing it's door number two for the writers and door number gee, the boys are pretty but sometimes I can't stand this show for me. And after such a good episode last week. Bring on next week and the funny, please.

Green Queen

Comments

[jfc013.livejournal.com]

This episode *was* kind of a slap in the face to rational, freethinking people, wasn't it? Not everybody is Xtian, nor needs religion. It kind of stung coming from a show I love so much...

[green-queen.livejournal.com]

It's in keeping with some of the things I already kinda knew about the show but didn't want to believe. I just feel like this has been handled with Faith already and the ending of that was more open, it gave you more space to believe what you wanted. This episode basically went 'Christians are right, God has a plan for all of us and if you don't believe that you're deluding yourself.'

[truffle-shuffle.livejournal.com]

It's a slipperly slope to start talking about religion, and for the most part, when religion is forced upon me in television and movies I feel offended by it, which is much of the reason I hated Narnia and will never watch it again. To be fair, I did feel that way for much of this episode. And yes, I felt that way during Dean's final scene, too. But I did have an alternate reaction to it, because I do believe in God, if not The God and especially not Christianity, and that was that there might be, if not a "plan" for all of us, but an end of the line, so if we were meant to die, it's going to happen. And Dean, having spent his life angry at God (in theory) because his mother had such strong faith and was taken from him, to see what happened to the guy after knowing that he was going to kill him because Sam was supposed to do it (or believed he had to) had to sort of jostle what he believed up to that point. Does that make sense? Of everything in that episode, what I liked most was Dean not rejecting what he saw because it went against what he'd spent his life believing, because of what he knew beforehand and the fact that he saw it with his own two eyes. Not to get too...I don't know, preachy? about this, but I understand having a hard time believing in something because there isn't any proof, and I'd have to change that way of thinking if I suddenly witnessed something that really forced some proof on me.

That being said, the rest of the religion stuff was heavy-handed and anvillicious. It wasn't the worst episode, but I don't think it was necessarily needed for the series on a whole. I don't really think that religion has a place in stories where supernatural things happen, (and for that matter, I don't think it really has a place on television at all most of the time) and if I were a better X-Files fan I'd be able to remember if Mulder and Scully ever had something like this to investigate to compare it to.

And, to make a long comment longer (lol), the episode was very pretty, so thank you, Kim Manners.

[green-queen.livejournal.com]

But the way they did it wasn't...I've seen things like that before on TV shows, I'm sure it's happened, it could be coincidence just as easily as 'God's will.' If Dean hadn't been chasing the guy, it wouldn't have happened. I don't think it would've proven anything if the writers weren't so obviously going for something.

I just feel that the episode is a slap in the face to atheists. As a Buffy fan I've seen the religious overtones of supernatural entities handled much, much better.

[truffle-shuffle.livejournal.com]

I can't think at all of any religious overtones in Buffy right now. lol Not counting anything to do with Glory, of course.

[green-queen.livejournal.com]

Well, the whole 'Buffy died and went to heaven' thing...

[killerspork33.livejournal.com]

Well, Joss Whedon's an atheist which probably explains why the topic of religion was handled much nicer in that series.

[green-queen.livejournal.com]

My being an atheist probably made me biased towards that point of view. Even so, in general I just feel that Joss has a more subtle hand as a writer that's missing from Kripke and Supernatural.

[killerspork33.livejournal.com]

Well, it's Joss. His shows pretty much pawn any other shows out there.

And I wasn't against the idea of religion being brought up in Supernatural because it's canon that demons and such exist. I always assumed that within that universe that their had to be good powers at work to to find some sort of balance.

I'm not a huge fan of the episode because, like you said, it totally lacked subtly and most of the religious conversations felt really forced and unnatural for the characters.

[lij24-will26.livejournal.com]

Prays every day? Where'd he learn it from?

Depending on how well they knew him growing up, I assumed that Pastor Jim would've been the one to teach him.

why is it that, instead of reasoning that there was no God, Dean had to come to that conclusion as the result of a trauma?

I'm not really sure what kind of reasoning Dean could have for believing there is no God if not through a trauma. I'm not saying that all people should believe in God (since I'm not even sure that I do) but that in the Supernatural universe we're clearly told that there is a hell of some sort (opening the chance that there is a heaven of some sort as well), demons flinch in the name of God, and they even use holy water against demons. So given those circumstances, I think they have less options available to give for why Dean doesn't fully believe.

Also, I'm not saying this of all atheists but there are a good amount of people that do lose faith due to trauma or some other similar negative experience. That happens no matter whether that's faith in a Christian God or any other kind of religion or higher power. While it tends to be an overused concept in TV, movies, etc, I think that's only because it's also a fairly common reason for people in real life for why they lose their faith (either in religion or in humanity itself).

I had a feeling something like this would come up on this show, but it's all been more delicately handled until now. They're essentially saying that faith in God is more natural, more right than not having it.

I do think they handled it a little better before (such as in Faith) but that said, I don't think they're saying that faith in God is more natural or more right than not having it. What I got from it is that having faith in something good is what's important. It doesn't have to be a Christian God, it can be just as relevant no matter what religion someone is or even if they aren't religious at all but still have faith that there is some good out there. Given that Mary was apparently religious, the way demons react to holy things, and even their relationship with Pastor Jim, I think that's the main reason the boys would relate their own questions of faith to more Christian ideas but the meaning behind it would be the same no matter what religion they're talking about because faith in a higher power is found in all sorts of different religions (and even in people who don't think of themselves as religious at all).

I suppose there's two ways to interpret this: one is that, being a priest, this ghost needed last rites performed upon him as a personal way of being at peace with his life on this Earth so he could move on to wherever dead people go, whether or not there's a God. The other is that the writers are saying that Christianity is right.

I didn't get the impression that they were saying Christianity was right just because that's what the priest felt he needed to move on. I didn't really look at it any differently than the way the boys read an exorcism to cause demons to move on.

Other than that, I agree with you on pretty much everything else. This episode was really beautifully shot.

[blondiusmaximus.livejournal.com]

I've always wondered (just within the parameters of the show and with the information the writers have given us) why it is that Dean has trouble accepting the idea of a higher power. For me, it just comes down to the fact that they use holy water repeatedly against spirits. If there was no higher power (again, just within the universe of the show) than there would be nothing making the water holy and able to burninate those pesky demons. That one thing has always, always bugged me when they start talking about faith on the show. I guess relating his attitude about faith to trauma was the only way to get around it? I don't know. :/

Definitely agree on everything about how the episode was shot. And I am definitely looking forward to next week.