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[oselle]

Paul Krugman had a great editorial in today's New York Times about the nauseating Graeme Frost situation. You can read it here. (You'll have to watch a tiny American Express ad first, but you can skip it by clicking on the upper right.)

For llinos, who had some questions about what sort of arguments people put up to the idea of national healthcare, this comic strip pretty much says it all. Don't laugh too hard -- I've actually heard people say things like this. And mean it. No, really.

Has anyone here been watching the spectacular Mad Men on AMC? The season is just about over (next week is the finale) and wow...this show completely blows me away from week to week. By the end of last night's episode, I was literally sitting there with my mouth hanging open. The writing on this show leaves me absolutely speechless, not to mention the acting, the art direction, the wardrobe and everything else. If you've missed it and AMC repeats it (which they probably will, since it's been a huge critical success for them) please do yourself a favor and watch it. Warning: May cause cravings for cigarettes and scotch.

And speaking of television...

I went out to lunch today and had a couple of Bloody Marys. Then my friend found a worm in her ravioli so we got an extra round of drinks on the house (no, she did NOT plant it!). Being moderately soused put me in the mood to reconsider last night's SPN episode. I'm sober now and I'm reconsidering the reconsideration but felt like working it out anyway.

I was thinking that maybe separating Sam and Dean at this stage is a good thing. Maybe it works in terms of where they are. As much as the show benefits from the dynamic between the two of them, maybe it's more realistic (as realistic as anything can be in this show!) for them to be pulling away from each other. Selling your soul's gotta make things a little...awk-ward, huh? For both of them -- Sam probably doesn't want to be around Dean because he's furious at him and he's surreptitiously trying to figure out a way to save him. Dean probably doesn't want to be around Sam because he just doesn't want to deal with this at all. It made me think of a Joe Walsh song from the Season Two soundtrack (most kindly sent to me on CD by baylorsr):

Seems to me
You don't wanna talk about it
You just turn your pretty head
And walk away.

That's what Dean's doing. Turning his (very, very) pretty head and walking away!

What I have to wonder, though, is whether the writers are thinking the same thing. Or did they just separate Sam and Dean so that they could get Sam alone with Ruby? I'm not sure why I want to know this, but I really like to feel secure that the writers know what they're doing. If the writers only split them up out of necessity to move the plot along, that's somehow less meaningful than if they did it both to move the plot and because they know that this is what's right for the characters.

I just sort of...don't want to give credit where it isn't due. Do you know what I mean? It's one of my biggest beefs with the Harry Potter books -- readers twisting themselves in all kind of analytical knots to give meaning to a situation or character that Rowling only created to kick the plot along. That's the writer's job. Creating meaning, depth. It's not up to us as readers or viewers to create it where it doesn't exist. That's why Mad Men so astounds me because the I never wonder if the writers know what they're doing. I don't have to go prospecting for depth because they've already given me more than I could ever have dug up on my own.

I'm still very much on the fence about last night's episode and I'm not sure that I trust the writers. The whole Ben subplot is bothering me even more, especially when they've got Dean blathering about how he's leaving nothing but a car behind. Ummm...pardon me??? I said this to ghyste and I'll repeat it here: Dean just sold off his life and his soul to save his brother and he thinks he's leaving nothing behind? Some kid that he doesn't even know would somehow be a more rewarding legacy than the brother for whom he sacrificed everything? What the fuck, Sera Gamble? I felt like that was a sloppy, gratuitously angsty line calculated to make the audience (female members, anyway) go "Awwwww!" It doesn't fit the show's context, it doesn't fit the character and it just feels cheaply manipulative. Sorry.

Maybe I need some more Bloody Marys. Ah well. There's always next week. Onward and upward.

Comments

[ghyste.livejournal.com]

What I have to wonder, though, is whether the writers are thinking the same thing. Or did they just separate Sam and Dean so that they could get Sam alone with Ruby

That's been niggling at me ever since I saw the ep. I can think of any number of entirely rational in-story reasons why Sam and Dean should be distant from each other at this stage of the proceedings, but what I fear is that I'm just making excuses for the fact the writers are making room to showcase their shiny new characters.

In other fora I've often used Supernatural as an illustration of where Torchwood got it wrong. The two shows do a lot of the same stuff, but SPN suceeds where Torchwood doesn't because the writers never make the audience feel like they think they're stupid. I really hope that's not going to change.

[oselle.livejournal.com]

Yes, "making excuses" is the feeling I was trying to describe. Supernatural does a lot of goofy things but I've never felt like I had to make excuses or invent a rationale for something that just flat-out wasn't working for me. And I really hate feeling like the writers are violating character just to push my buttons.

I've only skimmed one forum so I can't say I've gotten a global fan reaction or anything, but I'm kind of surprised that this episode seemed to get a much better reception than the premiere. At least the premiere was fun. And no one said anything that made me go WTF.

[hiyacynth.livejournal.com]

Yeah, my initial reaction to the relatively tiny amount of screentime Sam and Dean had together was, "Hey! Show! Come on!" But, contrived or not, Sam needs time away from Dean to sneak around researching How to Save Dean's Ass for Once, and also to have sneaky, revealing, hot-tempered conversations with Ruby (come on, people, just use her name onscreen already, please). And Dean needed to be able to interact with Lisa and Ben on his own. But still. Winchesters. Together. Better. And there really should have been a scene between them discussing the whole Dean and Ben thing. Stupid 42-minute hours.

And, yep again to the whole "leaving nothing behind" speech. My handwave there is that Dean's filtering himself for Lisa's benefit (and his own). Giving the short version of that idea rather than diving into his whole family history. It's a pretty weak handwave, but it plays nicely into the conversation Dean and Sam had at the end of "Crossroad Blues," about what John's real legacy is, when Sam points out that his life shouldn't be measured by having ended with a devil-deal, but rather by all the people he saved while he was alive.

[oselle.livejournal.com]

I can handwave the Car of Great Conspicuousness being driven by interstate fugitives and I can handwave the entire FBI database-worth of fingerprints that these guys leave everywhere and I can handwave the 10-minute nights but man, I have a real hard time handwaving Dean Winchester getting all wistful over daddyhood, as if that were something that had ever been on his radar, and acting as if the L'il Dude being his would have made his life worthwhile. It's not like he's going to stick around and be a father to this kid -- what would be so great about being a deadbeat, and soon-to-be dead, dad? I'm gonna handwave this by saying he's so stressed out over his impending doom that he just doesn't know what he's talking about.

We probably won't get Ruby's name until the first time she and Sam swap spit. And you know that's coming!

[cpsings4him.livejournal.com]

For llinos, who had some questions about what sort of arguments people put up to the idea of national healthcare, this comic strip pretty much says it all. Don't laugh too hard -- I've actually heard people say things like this. And mean it. No, really.

LOL - sadly, I too have very often heard people make these very statements...and mean them with every fiber of their Republican being.

[oselle.livejournal.com]

It's all so outrageous that cartoons have become the only way to get the point across.