Epic SPN Rewatch: Season 6
Jan. 16th, 2019 11:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
caitriSeason 6 was the first season I watched "live" after a mad binge. I remember being incredibly frustrated with it, especially after the emotional high that was S5. It doesn't--to its credit, actually--raise the stakes after S5's Apocalypse, and instead makes the logical connection that angels don't know what to do with free will, and how free will leads to a war in heaven.
I think the best episode by far is "The Man Who Would Be King" which retells the events of the season from Castiel's point of view, replaying scenes from throughout the season in a new light. It makes the argument for the entire season in a neat, clean way.
There's also a number of good standalones: "Weekend at Bobby's", "Live Free or Twi-Hard", "The French Mistake", "My Heart Will Go On", "Frontierland". There's also a lot of wasted opportunities: the introduction of the Campbell family, the cousins the boys never knew they had, had potential as an idea. They were a family of hunters who had worked in "the family business" for generations. And--they were boring. And quickly dispensed with.
This season also closes out the Lisa and Ben plot; Dean tries for the apple-pie life, it goes poorly. There are a number of great scenes sprinkled here and there, like when Ben asks to learn to shoot and Dean gets *angry* because he doesn't want to become his own father....only in a way he does by the end of the season he has to ask Ben to pick up a gun and shoot to save Lisa. It's a rough scene on all parts: Dean's roughness (he slaps Ben to shock him out of nonfunctionality at a dangerous moment), Ben's look of fear and horror as he shoots demons that leave behind human bodies, Dean's own fear and horror at what his presence has done for his would-be family. And in the end, he asks Castiel to erase their memories of him, to keep them safe. It's a tragic end to what would have been, and in a more conventional show should have been, an epic love story.
(Confession: I sometimes hope we'll get to see adult Ben the same way we eventually get to see adult Claire. Though at the same time that would have been adding on to the tragedy of the story....)
I was also frustrated the first time by the deterioration of the Dean/Cas relationship. Dean really is awful to Cas sometimes; it's also clear that he's heartbroken when he realizes Cas is no longer the pure-hearted angel he once was. It's rough and it's painful....and it actually works better when you know that there's eight more seasons of their relationship. This is the start of a rough period (I read somewhere that the then showrunner for S6-7 hated Castiel/Misha which is why he went dark side and then was seemingly killed--he was resurrected when the ratings tanked--and I think that knowledge explains A LOT of what happens in those seasons, and why they don't altogether work.).
This season is also where they introduce the "let's up the stakes by killing long-time characters"--Rufus dies, and Balthazar (who was only present for S6 which is a loss for us all, because he was great), and it's a damn shame. It sets a pattern up through S10, where they kill people off regularly each season. By S11 they stop because they are kind of...out of people.
(I also noted on FB that the "Rufus and Bobby Show" was the spin-off we should have gotten and it's a damn shame we didn't.)
I'm starting S7, which everyone remembers as The Worst Season. Wish me luck.
I think the best episode by far is "The Man Who Would Be King" which retells the events of the season from Castiel's point of view, replaying scenes from throughout the season in a new light. It makes the argument for the entire season in a neat, clean way.
There's also a number of good standalones: "Weekend at Bobby's", "Live Free or Twi-Hard", "The French Mistake", "My Heart Will Go On", "Frontierland". There's also a lot of wasted opportunities: the introduction of the Campbell family, the cousins the boys never knew they had, had potential as an idea. They were a family of hunters who had worked in "the family business" for generations. And--they were boring. And quickly dispensed with.
This season also closes out the Lisa and Ben plot; Dean tries for the apple-pie life, it goes poorly. There are a number of great scenes sprinkled here and there, like when Ben asks to learn to shoot and Dean gets *angry* because he doesn't want to become his own father....only in a way he does by the end of the season he has to ask Ben to pick up a gun and shoot to save Lisa. It's a rough scene on all parts: Dean's roughness (he slaps Ben to shock him out of nonfunctionality at a dangerous moment), Ben's look of fear and horror as he shoots demons that leave behind human bodies, Dean's own fear and horror at what his presence has done for his would-be family. And in the end, he asks Castiel to erase their memories of him, to keep them safe. It's a tragic end to what would have been, and in a more conventional show should have been, an epic love story.
(Confession: I sometimes hope we'll get to see adult Ben the same way we eventually get to see adult Claire. Though at the same time that would have been adding on to the tragedy of the story....)
I was also frustrated the first time by the deterioration of the Dean/Cas relationship. Dean really is awful to Cas sometimes; it's also clear that he's heartbroken when he realizes Cas is no longer the pure-hearted angel he once was. It's rough and it's painful....and it actually works better when you know that there's eight more seasons of their relationship. This is the start of a rough period (I read somewhere that the then showrunner for S6-7 hated Castiel/Misha which is why he went dark side and then was seemingly killed--he was resurrected when the ratings tanked--and I think that knowledge explains A LOT of what happens in those seasons, and why they don't altogether work.).
This season is also where they introduce the "let's up the stakes by killing long-time characters"--Rufus dies, and Balthazar (who was only present for S6 which is a loss for us all, because he was great), and it's a damn shame. It sets a pattern up through S10, where they kill people off regularly each season. By S11 they stop because they are kind of...out of people.
(I also noted on FB that the "Rufus and Bobby Show" was the spin-off we should have gotten and it's a damn shame we didn't.)
I'm starting S7, which everyone remembers as The Worst Season. Wish me luck.
