![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragojustine Oh my GOD. You know, my fannish relationship with SPN swings wildly between cold-light-of-day criticism of all the ways the show is mediocre (not to mention its horrible misogyny) and total JOY and this is like, the very farthest side of the TOTAL JOY end of the spectrum. Seriously, after the mixed bag of clunky dialog and evil lesbian witches and demon-with-a-heart-of-gold crap of last week, this week was PERFECT. Beyond perfect. BETTER THAN PERFECT. Partly because it hits my narrative kinks big (yaay for plot devices that force characters to reveal and confront their subconscious in anvilicious ways! And yaay for dreamwalking too!) and it goes right next to IMTOD and Devil's Trap and WIAWSNB for best episodes ever. Seriously. It was SO AMAZING that I'm even afraid to read ep reactions, for the first time ever, for fear of having someone say something to squash this feeling of PURE GLEE.
Oh God, I actually stood up and danced around the apartment SEVERAL TIMES while watching this because I was just too happy to stay seated. That is the kind of dork I am.
1. There was no ickyness with women. There was no particularly bad stupid!Dean. There was no clunky exposition. It's a commentary on the sad state of our show, but these are ways this episode was better than average (and sort of the base floor to qualify as good).
2. The comedy! Jared Padalecki is becoming SUCH a FUNNY MAN! Seriously, his comic delivery gets better and better. Also, after the dream- seriously, he CHECKS HIS LAP and then says he can't get up for a minute, which is such an obvious joke to make there but I seriously did not expect them to do it and I just about died. (We can have Bela in a little negligee spread out on a bed moaning and it doesn't strike me as particularly racy at all, but Sam checking his lap? Wow, I did not expect them to go there on network TV. Which is like, complete proof that our culture is WEIRD about sex. But I digress.) Also, the two of them play off each other so well now:
"Crap. Bela."
"Bela. Crap."
Funniest line on television this year. NO JOKE. It's ALL in the delivery, for serious. I DIED.
3. Bela! She is sassy and competent and sexy and not REMOTELY concerned with impressing our boys or being convinced of their cause or winning either of them sexually or, you know, ANYTHING. It looks like we are not going to hear anything about her sad traumatic backstory and increasingly like she has no heart of gold and she is not going to be converted to their side for ANY reason except one that serves her own interests first and foremost and I think that is AWESOME. Yaay for a total lack of a heart of gold! This episode put me definitively off the fence- I LIKE Bela.
4. Have I mentioned how sexy Jensen Ackles is? The scene with Nightmare!Dean really seriously... did things to me. I find his voice incredibly hot (Not, like, JDM hot, but then few voices reach that bar. But still really really hot) and it was at its best in that scene and having that voice just come at you and come at you and come at you- it was relentless. And all the closeups of his face while he was talking- from his lips to his eyes and back, all those shots of his lips in profile. Considering that I already spend half my SPN time trying to tear my eyes away from Jensen's lips... *squirm*
5. And, of course, oh, Dean.... Dean's reaction to the deal has been PERFECTLY in character all season long. First the hedonism, then the stoic fear- and now, FINALLY, he has broken out of his passivity. Finally, Dean has decided that he wants- even DESERVES, and if that isn't a giant leap forward for the character- to be saved. Which, in turn, lets Sam rededicate himself to that cause, after the apparent resignation of last episode. I am SO GLAD that the show took such a long, sweet time getting Dean to that point, because the character had a LONG way to come from his low point in WIAWSNB, you know? It's RIGHT that it took Dean so long to step out of his passivity, right that it took so long for him to be able to actually acknowledge to himself that he doesn't want to die. It's PERFECT. And you know what else was perfect? That it was DEAN HIMSELF who decided that. Ruby didn't manipulate him into it, Sam yelling at him didn't do it, our dreamwalker this episode didn't do it, he only facilitated. This is Dean's decision and his step forward utterly on his own, and I LOVE that. I also think absolutely everything about Dean's dialog was perfect- including his comments about John, which I suspect some people had trouble with. (not that they were right, just that they were perfect for Dean at that moment)
6. And Jensen's acting. God, the boy hits it out of the park. Give him an episode like this to work with and he just makes my jaw DROP. EVERY MOMENT of it, from ordering the whiskey at the beginning to saving Bobby in the dream to confronting his nightmare to talking with Sam at the end, every SECOND of his screentime left me in awe.
I don't think I have EVER squeed so hard over an hour of television.
Oh God, I actually stood up and danced around the apartment SEVERAL TIMES while watching this because I was just too happy to stay seated. That is the kind of dork I am.
1. There was no ickyness with women. There was no particularly bad stupid!Dean. There was no clunky exposition. It's a commentary on the sad state of our show, but these are ways this episode was better than average (and sort of the base floor to qualify as good).
2. The comedy! Jared Padalecki is becoming SUCH a FUNNY MAN! Seriously, his comic delivery gets better and better. Also, after the dream- seriously, he CHECKS HIS LAP and then says he can't get up for a minute, which is such an obvious joke to make there but I seriously did not expect them to do it and I just about died. (We can have Bela in a little negligee spread out on a bed moaning and it doesn't strike me as particularly racy at all, but Sam checking his lap? Wow, I did not expect them to go there on network TV. Which is like, complete proof that our culture is WEIRD about sex. But I digress.) Also, the two of them play off each other so well now:
"Crap. Bela."
"Bela. Crap."
Funniest line on television this year. NO JOKE. It's ALL in the delivery, for serious. I DIED.
3. Bela! She is sassy and competent and sexy and not REMOTELY concerned with impressing our boys or being convinced of their cause or winning either of them sexually or, you know, ANYTHING. It looks like we are not going to hear anything about her sad traumatic backstory and increasingly like she has no heart of gold and she is not going to be converted to their side for ANY reason except one that serves her own interests first and foremost and I think that is AWESOME. Yaay for a total lack of a heart of gold! This episode put me definitively off the fence- I LIKE Bela.
4. Have I mentioned how sexy Jensen Ackles is? The scene with Nightmare!Dean really seriously... did things to me. I find his voice incredibly hot (Not, like, JDM hot, but then few voices reach that bar. But still really really hot) and it was at its best in that scene and having that voice just come at you and come at you and come at you- it was relentless. And all the closeups of his face while he was talking- from his lips to his eyes and back, all those shots of his lips in profile. Considering that I already spend half my SPN time trying to tear my eyes away from Jensen's lips... *squirm*
5. And, of course, oh, Dean.... Dean's reaction to the deal has been PERFECTLY in character all season long. First the hedonism, then the stoic fear- and now, FINALLY, he has broken out of his passivity. Finally, Dean has decided that he wants- even DESERVES, and if that isn't a giant leap forward for the character- to be saved. Which, in turn, lets Sam rededicate himself to that cause, after the apparent resignation of last episode. I am SO GLAD that the show took such a long, sweet time getting Dean to that point, because the character had a LONG way to come from his low point in WIAWSNB, you know? It's RIGHT that it took Dean so long to step out of his passivity, right that it took so long for him to be able to actually acknowledge to himself that he doesn't want to die. It's PERFECT. And you know what else was perfect? That it was DEAN HIMSELF who decided that. Ruby didn't manipulate him into it, Sam yelling at him didn't do it, our dreamwalker this episode didn't do it, he only facilitated. This is Dean's decision and his step forward utterly on his own, and I LOVE that. I also think absolutely everything about Dean's dialog was perfect- including his comments about John, which I suspect some people had trouble with. (not that they were right, just that they were perfect for Dean at that moment)
6. And Jensen's acting. God, the boy hits it out of the park. Give him an episode like this to work with and he just makes my jaw DROP. EVERY MOMENT of it, from ordering the whiskey at the beginning to saving Bobby in the dream to confronting his nightmare to talking with Sam at the end, every SECOND of his screentime left me in awe.
I don't think I have EVER squeed so hard over an hour of television.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-10 05:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-10 03:11 pm (UTC)