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kcwcommentary · 5 years

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VLD8x12 – “The Zenith” (part 1)

8x12 – “The Zenith”

I have written more for this episode than I have for any episode before. Because of that, I’m going to post this commentary in two parts. This show has had some truly messy episodes, episodes where things happen that contradict previous things, episodes where characters behave oddly or out of character, episodes where things are presented as set-up but never resolved, episodes where trying to follow what’s happening is hard because of bad logistics. If you’re familiar with this series and/or you’ve read my previous commentaries, you know this. This episode is all those things but to an even greater degree.

This episode baffles me, not just in how it uses its characters, not just in the frequent, confusing shifts in plot, but it baffles me that it was made like this. This episode feels like a school essay, written hastily and turned in at the last minute, hoping that it makes sense. Of course, it is possible to do an okay job creating like that, but more likely the work won’t be as successful as it could have been. This episode is not a success.

The only thing I can say that I like about this episode is there is some good music in it, especially the arrival of the Balmeras and the combining of Voltron and the Atlas. Though that bit of story, like most of the episode, makes little-to-no sense, it has an atmospheric quality to it that I did enjoy. It’s weird to have to ignore what’s happening in order to enjoy what’s happening.

EDIT: I wanted to add (as I’m working on revisions to the second half of this episode’s commentary and just revisited the moment) that I really like young alternate reality Lotor’s clear recognition that Honerva is not his mother and his rejection of her. Aside from killing Narti and what this show did to Lotor between 6x04 “The Colony” and 6x07 “Defender of All Universes,” I have really enjoyed his character. Even being a little kid from an alternate reality, Lotor is still an interesting character.

The episode starts right where the last one ended. Honerva, with her mecha and Sincline combined, is doing her thing. The Atlas and the Balmera are there. The Lions are floating without power. The Paladins seem a bit baffled about what Honerva is doing, so Pidge comments, “That’s how she’s getting in,” and Keith responds, “What do you mean?” Maybe this was written this way to catch up any viewers who didn’t watch the previous episode or who totally forgot what happened last episode? It doesn’t really make sense that the Paladins would be baffled about what Honerva’s doing right now. Allura is heading toward her Lion, as she’s the only Paladin not yet in the field. Allura continues the recap that Honerva combined her mecha with Sincline.

Coran says, “Our universe is collapsing. Just like the day we lost the Castle of Lions. Those wings are causing the very fabric of our reality to disintegrate.” I don’t remember anyone in 6x07 “Defender of All Universes” saying that the rifts then were causing the universe to specifically collapse. Also, I’m still amazed by how willingly the creative team is ignoring 3x04 “Hole in the Sky.” Again, in that episode, we learn that the same comet that Sincline is made from had opened a tear from this reality through the rift between realities and into another reality, and that it had been holding that tear in reality open for 10,000 years. The universe didn’t collapse during that time. I know the show tried to handwave that last episode by having Pidge say that the comet was natural but Sincline is not, but it still seems like it’s more that this plot is ignoring the way the show had established the comet ore to work.

The Yellow Lion comes back online to give Hunk narrative time to get Coran, Romelle, and Tova to the Atlas.

Honerva starts talking, “My loyal warriors. Merla proved disloyal. She turned her back on our mission and the future of Altea.” So, Merla’s name is spoken in this series. And surprise-twist, Merla isn’t dead, despite having been blown up last episode. This show’s fake character deaths are so tiresome. So many characters are made to look like they die but don’t that it’s hard to take any of it seriously. At this point, it’s just blatantly manipulative. The other two Robeast Alteans, bolstered by Honerva’s speech, fly toward the Atlas. Pidge says, “Those Robeasts are headed our way,” but the logistics of the episode are already falling apart. Pidge and the Green Lion are shown, based on her visual perspective out of her cockpit, to be close to Honerva’s mecha. The Robeasts were shown blasting off toward the Atlas. They’re not heading toward Pidge.

The other Lions come online. Keith asks Allura if she can get to her Lion. She’s been heading to Blue for a good while now. I don’t think it’s taken a Paladin this long to get to their Lion since the extended fat-people-are-slow joke about Hunk in 1x04 “Some Assembly Required.” Shiro says that the Atlas has the Lions covered.

Coran interjects, “What about the collapsing universe?” I mean, what else does he think Voltron and the Atlas can do other than try to fight Honerva? Keith says, “Coran, we’re counting on you to figure something out.” Since the story eventually has the universe collapse and be destroyed, setting up the idea that Coran can actually do anything that benefits the plot here is just empty set-up. I guess they’re trying to give Coran something to do, but none of it really has any narrative relevance.

Keith says, “Paladins, do everything you can to keep the Robeasts distracted. Let’s give the Atlas a shot.” Literally 20 seconds ago, Shiro said, “The Atlas has you covered.” Now, it’s Keith saying that they’re covering for the Atlas. The writing on this show can’t even stay consistent for 20 seconds. The EPs and the writers don’t seem to have actually been able to decide who is doing what in this plot.

Also, Hunk is shown to have dropped Coran, Romelle, and Tova off on the Atlas and has now returned to be with Keith, Lance, and Pidge. Hunk had enough time to start out with the other Paladins near Honerva, jet to the Atlas, drop off Coran and crew, and return to the other Paladins. But in that same time, Allura has not been able to get from the wormhole generator on the Atlas to the Blue Lion in its hangar.

Shiro orders the Atlas to prepare for transformation. The Lions keep fighting the Robeasts. Keith has Black produce its wings spontaneously to fly past a Robeast, and he then declares he “is going in to stop Honerva.” At this point, isn’t Keith supposed to have developed out of his “lone wolf” attitude? So, what does he think he can do by himself? Also, what happened to Keith’s order to the other Paladins that they were going to distract the Robeasts so that the Atlas could shoot Honerva?

It’s impossible to follow what’s happening because things change without any regard to what happened before. First Shiro says that the Atlas is going to provide cover for Voltron, then Keith orders the Paladins to cover for the Atlas, now Keith is ignoring his previous order and ignoring the Atlas, which is supposed to be setting up to shoot Honerva, all so Keith can fly in by himself and “stop Honerva.” The narrative is so uncontrolled right now that it’s easy to see why people argue that there’s been a major, late-production edit of episodes, especially this one. This is just an absolute mess.

Honerva looks at the incoming Black Lion, says the word “Still,” a sigil appears around the Black Lion, and it stops. Since when can Honerva control the Lions remotely? This is a massive power spike for her character. It’s excessive. If she can do this, then the Lions shouldn’t be a threat whatsoever to her. It also actually offends me. Why can she do this? Zarkon had been a previous Paladin of the Black Lion who still had influence over Black, but Honerva has no bond, so how is she able to do this? This has long been a problem with her character, even from the beginning, and it’s rooted in the creative team refusing to establish definitive rules about how the magic of this story works. Honerva just suddenly does things because the creative team just has her do them. They seem to think, Honerva’s really powerful, is enough of an explanation. It’s not. It feels cheap and lazy, or at least woefully underdeveloped.

With the Black Lion “still,” and Honerva about to smash it with a fist, Atlas, which changed into mecha form offscreen, slams into Honerva at the last second. On the Atlas, Iverson over shipwide communication orders “MFE pilots, report to your hangars, standby for launch.” Even without announcing it, the MFE pilots should already be on standby by sheer nature of the fact that the ship has been in battle for a long time already. Iverson having to order them to the hangar and to be on standby is not how serving in the military during combat would work. Also, Shiro had already ordered the MFEs to standby prior to jumping into this battle last episode, so they should already be there. Iverson’s line seems like it was added to fill empty air/time, and it seems like it comes from someone who doesn’t have an understanding of how a military vessel like this would actually function.

Coran tells Romelle and Tova that he has an idea about how to stop the collapse of the universe. He says he’s going to get Slav and Sam and for Romelle and Tova to get the other Alteans. The Alteans were last seen unconscious after having been possessed by Honerva. We have no idea if they’re now conscious or still possessed, so we have no idea if they would even be able to help. We don’t learn of their status until they’re already on their way for this mission.

So, Allura never made it from the wormhole pedestal to the Blue Lion before Atlas changed. With Atlas now close enough to be in a fist fight with Honerva’s mecha, where is Allura and the Blue Lion? She doesn’t even have to travel the distance from where the Atlas was to where the Lions are because they’re all in the same spot now. This really feels like it’s totally contrived, done to justify not having the Lions form Voltron yet. It’s artificial.

Shiro screams, “Allura, now’s your chance!” That phrasing implies that she was waiting for something. What in the world was she waiting for?

The Robeasts continue to attack the Lions. Keith says, “We can’t get past them—” get past them to do what? I guess this is supposed to reference the eventual attempt at attacking the wing-blade mechanism, but the show hasn’t set that up as their ultimate target, so Keith’s comment is totally missing context. Also, there are two Robeasts currently fighting and now five Lions on the battlefield, surely if there’s some need to get past the Robeasts, at least one of the Lions should be able to do so. Moments like this fragment of dialog from Keith really do make this feel like it’s two completely different battles happening that have been edited together.

They form Voltron. The formation music has been changed. Forming Voltron now feels odd to me. I know that Voltron is more powerful than the Lions individually, but they’ve now gone from a five-on-two to a one-on-two situation. If the goal was to “get past them” per Keith’s statement, then they’ve made it easier for the two Robeasts to just focus fire on one target now.

Keith tells Pidge to use her special arm cannon and seemingly blows up one Robeast. She also blows up a lot of… rocks? There’s a lot of smaller explosions along the line of the cannon’s beam, so something has to be exploding, but the only thing there is rock. The blast might pulverize the rock, but why would the rock explode?

They make it look like the other Robeast is within literal inches of hitting Voltron with its scythe, but then cut to a different shot, and surprise-twist, Merla comes to Voltron’s defense and blocks the other Altean’s attack. Anyone remember when Honerva blew up Merla last episode? Merla was one of the few Colony Alteans to be actually given a voice in the show. She was depicted as one of the, if not the most zealous and devout of Honerva’s followers. Her turn against Honerva does not feel earned. It’s more of this show being written not to ensure that characters behave consistently, but written to produce surprise-twists. This form of writing causes characters to be hollow. I know she had a pivot point in the narrative: watching Honerva order the Alteans on the Atlas to give up their quintessence to fuel her action, but Merla has always been one of those who has been shown to believe in Honerva so much that they’d be willing to die for her. Like I said, it just doesn’t feel earned. Merla’s change is too sudden.

Also, what is up with this shot composition? This looks like they just flung together a bunch of unassociated images of various characters. Allura and Lance both only get half their face shown, but that’s more than Hunk gets. It looks like he’s only half a shoulder. The male Altean and Merla are supposed to be in direct combat, but their eyelines give an impression that they’re not currently directly against one another. There is no visual unity to this shot. No two characters in this shot look like they’re reacting to the same thing. It’s really, really weird.

Lance says, “Why is she helping us?” Did he miss last episode when Merla first shot and damaged one of the spires of the pyramid, producing a setback (though temporary, of course) for Honerva, and then later tried to blow up Honerva, resulting in Honerva blowing her up? Having Lance surprised that Merla’s turned when she’s done multiple things clearly showing that turn last episode makes it feel like Lance’s comment is out of place.

Merla says, “Do not harm them. They were misguided much like I was. We all were.” This is such unrealistic, simplistic writing. This feels like more of the show being unwilling to have consequences for characters’ actions (except for Lotor, the show didn’t mind killing him). It’s like the show is unwilling to have any of its villains (except Lotor) ultimately be a villain. And Merla’s massive psychological change that has occurred in just a few minutes is not even slightly realistic behavior. No one changes their entire world view this suddenly. Sure, people can undergo massive changes, but not as fast as Merla has done. This feels like a cheat. It shows how the creative team of this show think that having surprise plot twists is the height of storytelling.

So, Voltron’s sword, with one swipe, cuts through the Robeast in order to carve out the “pilot capsule” from the rest of the Robeast. That is absurd. We have seen one single Robeast hold off both Voltron and the Atlas in 7x13 “Lions’ Pride Part 2,” but now one Robeast is easily dispatched with a single swipe of Voltron’s regular-mode sword. I hate that I keep using the word “inconsistent,” but this really, really is.

Something nearly blasts Voltron with an energy beam attack. I am baffled by what this shot is showing us. Who fired? Voltron is currently slightly offscreen near the camera’s location just a bit off to the right side of the screen. The energy blast was not shown coming from Honerva, and she’s not in position to have shot the beam rightward toward near-camera and also have that beam destroy things near the pyramid on the left side of the shot. The Honerva/Atlas part of this shot to me honestly feels like it was added into the shot after all the rest of the animation of the shot was done. It’s really hard to see, but very close to the direct center of the shot, silhouetted by one of the explosions, is a Robeast that’s doing a bank turn and is swooping toward the camera, thus swooping toward where Voltron is. The shape of its movement has it originally heading from right to left, toward the whole Honerva/Atlas/pyramid morass on the left side of the screen. But it couldn’t have been what caused the blast that nearly hit Voltron either because that blast came from left to right, the complete opposite direction than the Robeast was moving. Maybe it’s all a fault in the logistics of the shot, but I don’t know who fired that beam and caused all these explosions.

Also, how is this Robeast still functioning? The episode was very dramatic about Pidge blowing this Robeast up. There have only been three Robeasts in this extended fight sequence across this episode and last. Merla has turned against Honerva. Pidge blew up one. And Voltron just carved the pilot out of the third. So, this has to be the one Pidge blew up. It is so incredibly frustrating that this show has done this so damn much. It’s all audience manipulation. We’re shown enemies being conclusively dealt with, but then surprise-twist, they’re still alive. You cannot believe any of the plot developments on this show because it’s only a matter of time before the show says that they didn’t actually happen despite showing them happening.

Honerva punches Atlas in the face. I literally laughed out loud. It’s not supposed to be funny. The voice acting of Honerva saying, “No!” right before throwing the punch is devoid of emotion. It just sounds flat. So that primed me to bust out a laugh when she literally punches Atlas in the face. This fist fight between the two of them is animated slow because the animators are trying to give a sense of size and weight to their mechas, but a punch that looks like slow-motion even though it’s real-time just feels weird.

Coran announces that he needs “an escort to Honerva’s pyramid structure.” At first, I thought: Atlas is directly fighting Honerva, there’s only one Robeast (even if it shouldn’t be functioning since Pidge/Voltron blew it up) that, between Voltron and Merla, they should be able to keep it occupied, so why would Coran need an escort? (And guess what, I’m right. Coran’s transit from the Atlas to the pyramid doesn’t have anything happen, so the escort is pointless.) Shiro even says, “What!? Right now!?” But then I realized, if they need an escort, there’s an easy option: the MFEs. They’re not doing anything, despite Iverson having said a long time ago for the pilots to “standby for launch.” They never did launch, despite Iverson’s line of dialog acting as if that launch was imminent.

Slav tells Shiro that “the sooner we go, the higher the probability that we can use the Atleans to stop the space-time rupture.” Coran, Slav, and Sam are in whatever room it is where Slav and Sam work. They’re not in a hangar boarding a transport, which when Coran first announced his need for an escort I expected him to be. Coran tells Shiro that his plan is “similar to how we stopped the rupture when Voltron entered the quintessence field.” This has to be just a clumsy way of Coran referencing the fight with Lotor in “Defender of All Universes.” The way it’s phrased, his specific words could be interpreted to mean that the means of stopping a rupture was by having Voltron enter the quintessence field. It’s just odd that he phrased it as “when Voltron entered the quintessence field” instead of something like, when Voltron defeated Lotor. Of course, the means of stopping that rupture was that they blew up a teludav. What Sam next describes sounds nothing like that.

Sam says, “Only this time, that superstructure will be the energy amplification conductor, and the Alteans will be the energy source.”

Can I tell you how much this infuriates me? Like, this is offensively infuriating. Remember how this show declared Lotor to be “evil” because he drew quintessence out of Alteans from the Colony? And how this narrative condemned Lotor to disgrace and death because he did that? Well now, the heroes want to use the Alteans as an energy source. The show doesn’t condemn the heroes for thinking of and using the Alteans as an energy source like it did when Lotor did the exact same thing. I doubt the executive producers, story editor, writers or anyone whatsoever working on this show realized how hypocritical this is. Through their storytelling, this show’s creative team absolutely condemned Lotor for using Alteans to produce energy. Just last episode, the show, at least temporarily, condemned Honerva for demanding the Alteans give up their quintessence to power her attempt to tear through reality to the point that her doing so was such a severe action that her own lieutenant, Merla, turned against her. But now, using the Alteans as a source of energy is okay because it’s the officially labeled heroes and not the officially labeled villains who’re the ones doing it. Nothing about this plan has established the idea that the Alteans are willing participants in this. We’re left to have to assume that once we see them in action. And the specifics of what the Alteans end up doing is different than what Coran, Sam, and Slav are planning here because the Alteans end up going to the Balmeras, not to the pyramid.

When the teludav was used to close the rupture, there was a huge explosion. This plan is being described here as being similar. So, wouldn’t there then be an explosion at the energy source the same way the teludav caused its explosion? So, won’t the people at the pyramid explode? (This gets even more complicated once this plan is in process because why they’re doing it keeps changing.)

Shiro concludes this discussion by telling Curtis, “Get a team in place.” I’m surprised that Shiro didn’t instantly think of ordering the MFEs to fly escort. Again, it’s not like the MFEs are doing anything.

The Robeast that had once been destroyed by Pidge’s cannon blast but then was surprise-twist okay continues to fight Voltron. Merla slams into it, and then Voltron swoops in and, like when they carved out the cockpit from the other Robeast, cuts this Robeast in half with Voltron’s sword in one single swing. How was Luca’s Robeast able to endure being attacked by both Voltron and Atlas in “Lions’ Pride Part 2” when twice here Voltron has been able to take two Robeasts out with a single swing of the sword?

So, the MFEs are part of the escort. I never knew that Curtis had the authority to order the MFEs on a mission.

Also, since Coran, Slav, and Sam are working on this plan now, and Hunk, of course, is part of Voltron, this reveals how absolutely pointless part of last episode was. Last episode, Hunk, Coran, Romelle, and Tova went to the Balmera to get a crystal to power an upgrade to Atlas’s weapons that Sam, Slav, and Pidge were putting together. But now, none of that is happening. Why did this show waste time last episode by having Team Coran go to the Balmera for a crystal and Team Sam working to design a weapons’ upgrade for the Atlas if the upgrade never happens? And Coran had Allura wormhole the Balmera to here because he couldn’t find a crystal big enough to power the weapon upgrade, though there was nothing said about what Coran was thinking they would do that required them to bring the Balmera here.

All of that – Coran, Hunk, Romelle, and Tova going to the Balmera, the introduction of new Balmerans who look nothing like the long-established Balmerans – Allura standing by at the wormhole generator specifically to bring Hunk and crew back and ultimately bringing the Balmera here, and thus Allura taking forever to get from the wormhole generator to the Blue Lion in this episode – Sam, Slav, and Pidge working together to engineer the Atlas weapons’ upgrade, and Pidge getting annoyed with Slav’s OCD – none of that means anything. It was all a giant waste of time.

Out of curiosity, I went through last episode and counted the time the episode spent on having characters talk about the weapons’ upgrade, going to the Balmera, actually going and coming, and Honerva’s attack on the Balmera. If I’ve done my math correctly:

Excluding Honerva’s attack on the Balmera, last episode spent 4 minutes 35 seconds on this weapons’ upgrade/Balmera crystal plot.

If you include Honerva’s attack on the Balmera, the time spent was 5 minutes 40 seconds.

These numbers are just last episode. These numbers do not include any time this episode spent recovering from that plan, like Hunk having to drop Coran and crew off on the Atlas or how much time Allura wasn’t in the Blue Lion because she was moving from the wormhole generator to her Lion (I don’t even know how one would actually calculate this latter element since it takes unusually long for her to make the trip).

The length of last episode between the end of the opening title sequence to the start of the end credits is 21 minutes 50 seconds.

Without Honerva’s attack on the Balmera included, last episode spent 1/5 of its time on the weapons’ upgrade/Balmera crystal plotline.

If you include Honerva’s attack on the Balmera, last episode spent 1/4 of its time on the plotline.

Spending one-fifth to one-quarter of an episode on a plot that is never resolved, never manifests, goes nowhere, means nothing, is totally forgotten, etc. is outrageous. It’s not like this is a plotline introduced seasons ago or even at the beginning of the season but then forgotten or abandoned much later. This is a plot that was introduced just last episode. Now, seven minutes (including the opening title sequence) into this episode, with Coran, Sam, and Slav now going to the pyramid to stop the universe from collapsing, the weapons’ upgrade plot is abandoned. Why spend so much screen-time last episode and have logistics ramifications this episode that had to be resolved for a plot that had no purpose in the narrative?

We finally see that the Alteans are conscious and seemingly unpossessed now. Team Coran is travelling to the pyramid on a rebel ship that includes Matt and his girlfriend.

Voltron swooshes, past Honerva and Atlas fighting, toward the rift. Keith has Hunk form Voltron’s shoulder cannon to shoot, I guess, the spinning wing-blade device. The cannon fires, everything goes black, and then there’s a huge explosion. I don’t know what happened. I don’t know if the cannon caused the explosion or if the explosion was just the natural end of the cycle of the spinning wing-blades doing their thing. With no reason explained, Voltron and Atlas are now drifting without power, while Honerva’s mecha is positioned, fully functional, directly in front of the spinning wing-blades. Atlas is now between Voltron and Honerva, so given the size differential between Voltron and Atlas, the explosion had to send Voltron flying back far past where it had passed Atlas and Honerva fighting. How Honerva is now suddenly directly in front of the wing-blades is not explained either. It definitely feels like a transition is missing. The episode has totally just skipped over something again.

Honerva causes the wings-blades to stop spinning and to return to their wing-like position around her mecha. She flies into the rift, everything goes white, then the light from the rift fades. Then there’s a shot that places Voltron in between the Atlas and the rift, when the last we saw them, the Atlas was between Voltron and the rift. The logistics of this episode are a mess.

Keith says that they’re going in and orders the Atlas to follow him (because Keith is in command of everything, apparently). Coran reports that the Atlas can’t, and Pidge confirms, the Atlas isn’t made of transreality comet ore, so it can’t go through the rift. This makes me realize that the ship that the transreality comet was on in 3x04 “Hole in the Sky” was not made of the ore, but it somehow sat with one half of the ship in this reality and the other half of the ship in the other reality for 10,000 years. How was it able to transverse realities if it wasn’t made of the ore?

If Atlas can’t come with them, Keith says Voltron will go in alone. Slav says that won’t work because Voltron alone is unlikely to defeat Honerva.

Then, literally out of nowhere eight more Balmeras warp into the area. As others have pointed out, if Balmeras can warp like this (and they’ve never been shown to be able to do so before), then why did Allura have to remain in standby waiting to wormhole the Balmera to this location last episode?

Beyond the abandonment of the weapons’ upgrade plot making the trip to the Balmera last episode absolutely pointless, and thus negating a need for Allura to have been kept away from her Lion and out of the fight for so long, the fact that the Balmera can apparently travel at super speeds necessary to all warp in like this now is a second reason that Allura did not have to be written to be out of the fight. It makes you question: Why did they write Allura out of the fight then? Keeping her out of it is clearly artificially created since it has nothing to do with anything necessary to the narrative. Was it solely that the creative team for this show couldn’t think of what to have Voltron doing during this battle if Voltron was formed for all of it?

Also, how did these Balmeras know to come here now? Why didn’t they come earlier? This is all completely contrived. To deal with the Atlas not being made of comet ore, and thus (if you ignore the ship in “Hole in the Sky”) not able to enter the rift per the rule that only ships made of ore can go in, the show needed to do what Honerva had already done for herself. To balance Honerva’s creating a new, unified mecha of Sincline and her mecha, the show wanted to combine Voltron and the Atlas. But there is no mechanism for that to happen. Honerva used the energy she tore out of the Balmera to power her mecha combination. So, here come a bunch of Balmeras to power the Voltron-Atlas combination. There is no other reason for this to happen but to produce the combination. But because literally no characters planned for this, it happens out of nowhere. Again, the arrival of the Balmeras is completely contrived. No character has to do anything, and boom, magical power upgrade.

I actively try to avoid ever referring to anything in any story as being a deus ex machina. But the arrival of the Balmeras to cause Voltron and the Atlas to combine is a clear and blatant deus ex machina.

One of the Balmeras has Shay and her people on it. Bringing in this species, who’ve been exclusively presented as Balmerans the whole series until a new species was introduced last episode emphasizes the discrepancy or dissonance of there being two different species who’re called Balmeran.

Lance actually asks, “What called them here,” and Hunk answers, “Shay.” This is not an answer. This is a writing cheat. Just because the writing has Hunk say Shay did this does not explain how this situation came to be. How did Shay know to come here and to do so now? She had no ability to know that now is precisely when Voltron and the Atlas would need power to merge mechas. Even if Shay somehow magically knew to come, how did the other Balmeras know? This is absolutely absurd.

The music of this moment is really nice, at least. There is an atmospheric quality to the moment that, though it makes no sense, feels kind of cool.

Voltron and Atlas combine. Maybe I’m wrong for thinking this, but the design of the combined form totally looks like it has feminine high-heeled shoes/boots. That would make so much more sense if Allura, not Shiro, was the captain of the Atlas. The closest they can get to try to explain it away is that Allura is the pilot of the Blue Lion, which is one leg of Voltron, so somehow her being a leg causes her femininity to influence the feet of the combined mecha. That’s me really stretching to try to give them an explanation for the design aesthetic that works with what made it into the final product of this show.

Shiro orders Coran, “We need you to secure this area and find a way to suppress this rift.” Like with the weapons’ upgrade plot, why is the show spending time having Coran organize and act on a plan to stop the collapse of the universe when the show has everything he’s doing as part of that rendered meaningless because the universe ceases to exist?

Coran suddenly realizes “how to get the Altean energy into the structure.” It’s still really weird that they’re going to use the Alteans as energy generators while having condemned Lotor for his having done so. Anyway, he’s going to have the Alteans do something with the Balmerans. He, Sam, and Slav, meanwhile are going to the pyramid. None of this matters though because it doesn’t affect anything.

Voltron travels through the rift to an alternate Altea. Lance says, “It looks like this reality is crumbling, just like ours.” At least Hunk points out that it’s happening really quickly. Pidge tries to say that it’s specifically because the wing-blades are what opened the rift, but it just doesn’t work for me.

Pidge says, “The rift must lead directly to the reality that Honerva’s been looking for.” So, the reality that they’re in is not the reality that Honerva was looking for, so then why did Honerva tear into this specific reality then? She tore into this one and then tore out of it to another one. Why? She’s supposed to have already found the specific reality she wants to go to, so it’s not like she has to go into each one and spend time looking around to figure out if any particular reality will suit her desires.

There’s a shot of Shiro. He’s floating in the air in front of his control screens. His floating looks odd. There is no other bridge crew, so that makes me wonder, what happened to the rest of the crew of the Atlas during this merger with Voltron?

Shiro says, “Any reality that those wings bore through is falling apart.” Well, Pidge just said that the new rift (the one up in the sky, not the one behind them that they just came through) “must lead directly to the reality that Honerva’s been looking for.” So, that means only three realities should then be affected by Honerva. It seems clear that this line of dialog from Shiro is set up to negate what Pidge said. So, why did the writer not just revise Pidge’s line of dialog so that she wasn’t saying something that wasn’t true?

I just realized that I am only halfway through this episode.

(Here’s a link: This episode’s commentary continues in part 2.)

#voltron legendary defender #voltron #vld #voltron criticism #vld criticism #voltron critical #vld critical #vld season 8 #vld 8x12 #commentary

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dimples-of-discontent · 6 years

Text

Reporting in from Paleyfest

I have returned from Paleyfest (and some drinks with friends afterwards so sorry for the delay)! It was a great experience - the crowd was psyched and it was all super fun. I’m glad you all got the livestream so you can enjoy the whole panel too. I’m actually pretty surprised that there wasn’t some kind of announcement made, either about possible Season 14 (although Singer alluded to it with “maybe we’ll go there next season” it’s not a confirmation and he could just be assuming) or about Wayward. It seemed like with this much PR going on there would be something substantial to promote BUT the crossover ep itself is a big deal and a long time in the making so I guess it was the occasion.

Speaking of the crossover episode, I’m going to break the rules (or the very polite request that they gave us) to not spoil it for anyone else. @tinkdw asked me to and I’m guessing there are other people out there who’d like to know some the details in advance. (I’m also not a member of the press or anything or else I’d have more qualms about making public stuff they asked to keep on the DL since it would be job-related.)

SO - I am putting my thoughts on the episode below a cut. If you read on, know that I will spoil the whole plot and also give you my initial analysis of it from the perspective I usually have (Destiel-positive, endgame-positive). And if you’d rather not spoil, just scroll on.

@elizabethrobertajones @naruhearts @sactownbrowns3 @amwritingmeta @postmodernmulticoloredcloak @mittensmorgul @amyoatmeal and any other meta writers (who I forgot b/c it’s 4:30am to my body clock) I’m alerting you to the existence of this post in case you want the episode details ahead of time BUT in your position I probably wouldn’t so don’t feel in any way bad if you don’t want to read now. (I’ll reblog once it airs.)

***SPOILERS BELOW THE CUT LIKE WOAH***

I loved this episode!! It was a ton of fun. It was slapstick and silly but did some heavy lifting too. Honestly, it worked the way a lot of our favorite crack episodes did and alluded to at least one of them explicitly (”Changing Channels,” obvs, and I think there may have been more subtle references to others).

I’m too tired to do a full meta analysis but here’s a kind of bullet recap, first of the most plot-based elements:

The plot turns on the fact that the Scooby Doo world, suddenly, ends up functioning like the world Sam and Dean inhabit. The boys enter the cartoon assuming all usual cartoon rules would apply (and Dean’s ready to have a rollicking good time with them) only to discover that the first murder in the haunted house is real. Ghosts are real. Death is real. Sam wants to tell the Scooby gang about it from the get-go but Dean wants to protect them and preserve their innocence.

It’s already obviously about childhood, and losing it, but Dean makes it explicit by talking about how much he loved Scooby Doo because no matter where their dad had dragged them it would always be on. They were his friends and constant companions. He is really being thrown into the best part of his childhood....and you can see why it would be the best because it’s probably his fantasy and deepest wish that the ghosts, demons, etc. of the world he inhabits would turn out just to be bad guys in masks, death wouldn’t be real, etc. It’s Dean safe place in childhood because it takes his actual life (ghost hunting) and makes it safe and even fun. Dean wants to keep his safe place safe and is shocked and horrified when the rules of his universe invade.

It’s Sam who wants to tell them the truth about monsters from the word “go” even before it’s been revealed that death can come to Scooby Doo. (Dean laments, heartbreakingly, that it doesn’t matter if he dies...what’s important is that they make sure Scooby doesn’t die because clearly he’s such an innocent creature.) Sam, who did not have his childhood cut as abruptly short as Dean and who did not have to seek solace in a cartoon world because Dean helped him make a safe space in the real world, doesn’t see the point of lying about ghosts being real. Dean, who worked to keep Sam safe from this knowledge for YEARS of his own stunted childhood by acting as a parent, does want to keep the gang in the dark because he wants them to retain their innocence. It’s a huge lampshade to the different experiences Sam and Dean had as children and as sons.

They do eventually have to tell the Scooby gang and, wonderfully, it induces an existential crisis in them. Watching Daphne question the existence of God based on what she has inferred about the afterlife is amazing. It is not what I expected. Dean brings them back from the brink by reminding them of all the good work they had done before.

I’m going to tell the ending now and then double back to some other observations: the phantom they are chasing is the ghost of a small boy who is being manipulated, through a cursed object (a pocket knife given to him by his beloved father before he died), by an unscrupulous man (the real estate agent who we met in the beginning) who unleashes the boy’s anger on whoever he chooses for his own purpose...to scare people off of property he wants to buy. This way, the villain of a typical Scooby episode actually becomes the villain of this SPN episode...the evil real estate developer.

Before heading back to their world, where they burn the pocket knife and free the ghost, Dean convinces Sam and Cas to lie to the Scooby gang and tell them that they were right initially--ghosts aren’t real. He goes so far as to stage the unmasking of the cartoon villain (the one from the original Scooby episode) and helps them to explanations involving wires, cornstarch blood, etc. Sam is grumpy about it but does it anyway. It’s crucial to Dean that they leave the Scooby gang as they found them and not saddle them with the world the Winchesters live in.

Let me just reiterate...the ghost that has been terrorizing them is frightened little boy. Who kept a pocket knife (much like the one we see being used to carve the Winchester’s initials into the Impala) as a token of his dead father. His father is symbolized and memorialized by a weapon. The weapon is the object the little boy is tied to and that another man--a bad man--can use to manipulate him into hurting others because “I just get so angry sometimes.” To be free, the knife (weapon, father’s legacy) has to be burned. There are closeups on a very sad Dean while this happens (some sad Sam and Cas too).

It is blindingly obvious that the little boy, who is wreaking havoc on the cartoon safe space of his childhood, represents Dean. To stop the destruction Dean has to let something go (he starts the episode referencing Elsa and EXPLICITLY SAYING THIS LINE I CAN’T EVEN). Something that is keeping him angry. Something that is tied to his father. Something that can be used to manipulate him, employed as a weapon to hurt other innocent people (Mark of Cain/Demon Dean plot lines). Dean is full of anger and of self-loathing and it’s coming from the same source. That source is toxic masculinity. Let it go, Dean. Let it go.

Is it also tied to issues of sexuality? I think so. I’ll reflect a little bit below, but I wanted to do the whole plot-based analysis first.

And now the less plot-based stuff:

Ok, so can the ghost represent repressed sexuality/a different form of masculinity? SO MUCH YES. Point one: Cas is the only one who stops to take a look at the ghost and is thisclose to seeing through it’s big ol’scary disguise and finding a vulnerable child. He stops and squints at it, Cas-style, and says “I’ve never seen a ghost wear such a ridiculous costume. Unless...” and then he reaches out to it, starting to push aside the veil only to be pulled away. Now if that isn’t metaphorically precisely what Cas did, and does, for Dean and his performing facade I will buy a hat so that I can eat it.

Point two, there is a scene where the ghost is chasing everyone through a series of doors on either side of a hallway (you know the scene...they run across the hallway, doors open and shut on either side, feet flying everywhere). They successfully shut the ghost in a closet with iron chains, though it’s close to breaking out. Daphne presses her body up against the door to hold it. Dean checks her out very obviously in a way that is both superfluous to and inconsistent with the plot. This means that the silhouette of a conventionally sexy woman is QUITE LITERALLY holding the closet door closed on the ghost. Metaphorically, it shows how Dean is able to use his attraction to conventionally sexy women to hold back what’s haunting him...attraction to men, ideas about a certain type of masculinity. Does it work? BIG FAT NO. The ghost breaks out anyway. (<Puts on professor cap> Have you guys read “The Beast in the Closet”? It’s by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick and is about "intense male homosocial desire as at once the most compulsory and the most prohibited of social bonds.” It’s about Henry James’s work but I think you would all dig it. <Takes off professor cap.>)

I wanted to start with that because I can tell that people are going to be very upset about Dean’s excessive flirtation with/pursuit of Daphne. And, yeah, I almost injured my eyes by rolling them so hard at some of the things he says. BUT THAT’S THE POINT. What he’s saying is a child’s idea of how a grown man would act with a woman he likes. And it bears a great deal of similarity to how Dean does act sometimes. We call it performing!Dean and wonder to what extent Dean is conscious of his performing. Given this episode I’d say..maybe .not that conscious? I feel like the overstated heterosexual dudebroness was done specifically to give us an over-exaggerated literal cartoon version of heterosexual Dean to compare to regular Dean so that anyone who doesn’t know Dean performs in his own life will have a lens through which to see it.

Also, Daphne is his childhood crush. OF COURSE he’s going to act like a moron around her. If I encountered [insert childhood TV crush here...for me it was Kevin from “The Wonder Years” for whatever reason] I’d act dumb as fuck! But you have to remember that she represents innocence for him...it’s established that all the Scoobies do (heh - puns!). Even if he’s kissing her hand or putting an arm around her or whatever there is no danger there, just like there’s no danger in the ghosts. Sexuality to Dean isn’t scary in Scooby Doo because it’s simple: it’s just a girl he likes. Except, just like how the ghosts are also dangerous, the love plot isn’t going to be that simple or that straightforward (heh - straight). You see where I’m going. Dean would rather be in a universe ghosts weren’t real because it’s safer and easier and kind of a fantasy land but they ARE real and he will have to deal with them; Dean would also rather be in a world where he was a suave, irresistible ladies’ man because it’s safer and easier and a kind of fantasy....but he’s not. Jensen even said so in his interview. Granted, Jensen’s comment may have just meant that Dean’s not suave like he thinks. But the actual episode draws a parallel that’s pretty damn clear.

Another reason to not worry: Daphne is zero interest in Dean at all. She has negative interest in Dean. Her lack of interest in Dean has created a void that is sucking all the air out of the room. She may not even know that Dean is hitting on her. She is so focused on Fred that no one else exists for her as a romantic interest. They are so obviously a pair, even though they are never shown to be together as a couple explicitly. <Stares directly into the camera like I’m on The Office.> Can Dean not see that? Is he blind? Well, he does see it, but he thinks Daphne is “settling” for Fred who represents a kind of masculinity that makes him uncomfortable (more in a sec). In point of fact, no one is romantically interested in Dean in this episode...unlike Sam who gets a lot of appreciation (and an eventual kiss) from Velma.

As for Fred, Dean begins by really hating him (so much that Sam remarks on it) and when pressed about why he attributes it to Fred’s self-confidence despite things like his “stupid ascot.” Dean comes to like and admire Fred and, ultimately, have the confidence to wear an ascot himself BECAUSE HE LIKES IT. It didn’t make Fred less of a man. It doesn’t make Dean less of a man to wear it with his plaid shirt. Fred helps Dean along the way to some self-acceptance. It’s nice. Fred is there to serve as a contrast to Dean’s overblown notions of what is “masculine” and offer another form of masculinity that is, manifestly, still appealing to the ladies.

Now, remember the Scooby Doo universe doesn’t have sex in it. It’s a cartoon. And they bend those rules only the tiniest bit here. All of Dean’s advances and even his jokes are PG. That innocence on the part of the Scoobies is played for laughs, Daphne remarking that Dean is silly for not knowing that “boys and girls don’t sleep in the same room” for example, but it’s also integral to the plot. (There are some other jokes too and, for a glorious second, I thought that they were legitimately going to reveal that Daphne and Velma were a thing but sadly not.) No one would want to ruin the Scooby universe by telling them about sex...not even Dean. Again, it contains a child’s conception of relationships.

I’m imagining some people will also be upset about how the episode treats Cas. I was especially stung that, right at the outset, Dean says flat-out that “Cas is basically a talking dog.” I made a noise of indignation that made people look at me. BUT let’s also remember how much Dean loves that talking dog. He’d die for him. He wants to protect him at any cost. He doesn’t want to spoil his innocence. So, yeah, that’s not a nice thing to say but it’s also not the whole story. Cas is grouped with Scooby and Shaggy the whole time and he bonds with them, SMILING (ALERT ALERT CARTOON CASTIEL KNOWS HOW TO SMILE) AND LAUGHING when he has to leave. He thanks them for showing him the importance of humor even in dangerous times. I think it’s a good lesson for Cas and his real affection for them reminds me of what a soft character he is inside, wanting to get a cat or save monkeys or keep bees. That’s been missing from Cas lately (even though I do LOVE bamf!Cas) so maybe this will help him recall it.

I want to say again that Cas is the one who can see through the ghost and its “ridiculous costume.”

Interestingly, both his entrances (his first appearance after Fred and Dean take off to drag race; when he reunites with the boys in the haunted house) frame him as a scary villain. The first is from behind and you just see the coat billowing out (though this did remind me of the girl running the drag race in “Grease” which...lol); the second he’s silhouetted in a window, approaching it in the rain, and is then covered with a sheet before he’s “unmasked” by Dean and discovered to be a friend. This is...pretty much Castiel’s character progression always. Looks like a threat but is discovered not to be.

Once they get back to their regular world Dean makes a remark about how that was the most fun he’s ever had “including that time with the Cartwright twins.” Cas studies him and asks “What did you do with the Cartwright twins?”. There’s a long beat in which Dean looks shifty and grins and shakes his head and turns away. Sam says “I don’t think I want to know.” Cas says nothing. Cas does want to know. This is new and part of a general progression that @amwritingmeta wrote a great analysis of where Cas is becoming able to think something like Forget that sacred oath...I must know what Dean did with those twins.

There was probably more, you guys, but it’s super late for my poor body clock. Please feel free to pass this on to anyone you think would like it but bear in mind that a) there are MASSIVE SPOILERS, b) this is just my interpretation of the episode, and c) I only saw it live once so my details may be wrong.

I thought this as a fantastic episode the more I think about it and I’m SO EXCITED for all of you to get to see it too so I can hear your thoughts!! <3

#13x16 #13x16 meta #SPOILERS #dean is bi #doubles and mirrors #villains as exposition #things that look like other things #toxic masculinity ruins the party again #brother feels #parental unit dean #maybe more tags to add later not sure #paleyfest 2018 #my meta #long post for ts #spoilers for ts

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sammyhale · 7 years

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J2 JIBCon 2017 Panel

*Warning for s13 spoilers

J2 were stuck on a plane (Jared: a car then a plane. Jensen: then a train...*boys laugh* there wasn’t a train) so they weren’t able to watch the finale.

Boys ask what the fans thought of the finale. A fan yells out that episode 22 was awesome. Jared: “Guys, it’s Supernatural, people can come back.”

A fan yells out about Cas. Jensen: Cas? Who?

Jensen: Who all died? Let’s list them. Cas, Crowley, Rowena, Kelly, Ketch. Jared is running out of fingers. Jensen: It was like the Red Wedding! “Little Game of Thrones reference for you guys.”

Jared starts playing with the holes in Jensen’s pants on his knees. Jensen: Don’t touch the hole in my knees! Jared laughs saying that Jensen only saw the back of the pants and didn’t realize the holes were there. Jensen laughs and says he really didn’t know. Just saw black pants in his size and grabbed them without inspecting. “I paid for this...” Only realized when he put them on. Jared keeps playing with them lol.

J2 talk about a Supernatural movie. Jared asks Jensen if he wants to do a movie. Jensen says he would rather do a shortened season. Like a “six episode release.” Jared starts giggling at “release” (quickly turns dirty) hiding his face. Jensen: Leave it alone. Leave it alone. That’s low hanging fruit. Just walk away.

Jared would also rather do a shortened TV season rather than a movie.

Jensen said that one of their produces had an idea where the brothers wake up in a different place than they’re familiar with (AU) and all of the people in the town are old cast members or old characters but “weird” like not who they were on the show. Like the Trickster is the mayor, etc.

Jared says there are times when he wishes they can delve into something for more than one episode. He likes the idea of doing a shortened season like Jensen said because they could have one arc, a specific location or city, etc, that the boys could delve into specifically for a few episodes and being focused on one thing for a long time during the shorter season.

Jensen: And this is why we don’t write the show. Jared laughs.

Jared plays with his mic for a few seconds after it makes a loud noise.

Jensen, repeating a fan’s question: What TV shows would you like to see Sam and Dean thrust into *boys giggle*

The question was what show would they liked the boys to be in if there was another episode like Changing Channels? Jared says The Simpsons, then brings up the crossover Supernatural is doing with Jared: Scooby-Doo. He says they already recorded the dialogue for it (it takes time to draw the animation). Episode 16 of next season is the Scooby-Doo ep. Jared: Jensen, Misha and I...Crowd reacts at hearing MIsha’s name. Jensen realizes, covers his face. Jared blushes after Jensen smiles at him and Jared realizes that he just spoiled that and hides his face for a long time lol.

Jensen quickly says: He’s just an animated character. There’s other characters in the animated ep, too, that don’t exist anymore. Jensen to Jared: BOOM! You’re welcome *slaps Jared’s shoulder*

Jared says it’s the only ep they’ve seen so far so, in all fairness lol.

Jensen joking: It was cool that Jeffrey Dean came back. Jared: Ruby. Jensen: Ruby - “it’s a who’s who.” In sync the boys mime like they’re digging holes with shovels lol.

(Side note and spoilers: For those worried Jared might get in trouble about letting Castiel’s return slip, it doesn’t seem like they were going to try and hide that all hiatus, because during Misha’s panel a fan tweeted: “Misha seems to think we should be focusing on how Cas’ death will affect him when he returns rather than worry he won’t come back” so he was talking about it, too. Source: x).

While a fan asks a question, Jared opens up one of the drinks and sniffs it, then walks it over to Jensen so he can sniff it.

Fan from last year who beat Jensen at rock paper scissors wants to do a rematch. She comes onstage and Jared referees the match like last time. They go 2 out of 3. Jensen wins the first, fan wins the second. For the 3 Jared steps in between so Jensen and the fan can’t see each other. Fan beats Jensen again! Jensen: Dammit! Jared jokes: She was looking at the screen, she totally changed it. Jensen: Next year!

Fan wants to hear story about when J2 were mistaken for a couple years ago at the airport hotel. Jared explains that this was years ago and they were shooting late in Vancouver and they had to get up super early to fly to Los Angeles to do something there. They decided since they had filmed until like 4 or 5am they would just go straight to the airport. Airport wasn’t checking people in yet. Said the Fairmont that is connected to the airport is open so they go to get a room. Since this was back in the days of film and not digital, they had heavy makeup on from set that they were still wearing. They decided to grab one room, asked the person at the desk if they do rooms by the hour. Jared says Supernatural hadn’t aired yet, wasn’t sure if the guy knew him from Gilmore Girls and Jensen from Smallville or if he knew them at all. Said that “we just need a room for a couple hours.” Guy was like, “We don’t do that here.” So they just asked for their smallest room and the guy gave them a look like, “Okay.” J2 finally realized by the guy’s reaction that they thought J2 just wanted one bed and were together. They were like no, we just need a couple hours of sleep, we play brothers on a show, just going to do some acting. Jensen laughs.

Jensen: “I just love the guy at the front desk then immediately picked up the phone and was like, ‘Uh yeah that guy from Smallville and the guy from Gilmore Girls just showed up in like quarter drag and got a room together. Okay, TV Guide, thanks.” Jared cracks up.

Fan gives a shout out to ep 22 loving Sam’s leadership and Dean’s emotional honesty. Jensen: Oh yeah, Dean’s crying again.

Fan asks about the Mockumentary. J2 say they are not classic Hollywood types. They moved their families out of Hollywood and out of California in general.

Jared playing with Jensen’s holy jeans again.

The Mockumentary was them making fun of Hollywood types and stereotypes of themselves. They both love satire. The characters derive from stories they hear about other sets, other actors and some of the antics are pretty outrages so they were making fun of that.

J2 horse around on set and have way too much fun. They would rather do that than walk around on eggshells like some other actors or crew members have to do on “toxic” sets they hear about from other people. Used a bit of that to add to those fake characters in the Mockumentary. Complete opposites of who we are.

How do you keep fighting? Jared says it changes day to day sometimes. You can be inspired by song, rainbow, piece of art, friend, spouse, child parent, etc. Jared says that he is still having a fun time learning that life surprises him everyday. Something makes him sad everyday, something makes him happy everyday, tries to focus on the latter. Mentions that days like today what makes him happy is meeting fans, shaking hands, the hugs and smiles. “How fucking cool.”

Jared says if it wasn’t for Supernatural he would never have meet any of the fans or Jensen (”or this guy”) or any of the other cast. Sometimes when he is tired or sore or jetlagged and worries he’s going to let someone down/disappoint someone, he forgets what a cool blessing his situation is and tries to remind himself of that blessing.

Jensen: There’s also a lot of inspiration in our lies. We have beautiful wives, amazing children, we have great friends, family, awesome extended family, there’s a lot that you can be inspired by. When it comes to the day to day work of it, getting up in the morning early to make your set call and to get there even though you worked all night last night, maybe tired or sick. He and i have been doing this for a pretty long time as most of you know. At this point the network and studio, they’re like we’re gonna keep going if you wanna keep going. Gotten to a point where, we don’t have to do this. When Jensen wakes up in the morning he might feel tired and thinks: I don’t have to do this, I get to do this. He says it’s a sentiment he and Jared both shared. They are very fortunate and humbled by the daily inspiration they get.

J2 discuss how the scripts get worked out. Jensen goes into detail with Jared adding in tidbits. Writer comes up with a general idea, if it gets approved, works out a beginning middle and end of the script. Gets pitched to Andrew and Bob. Write the treatment, submit it to studio and network to get their approval. Then they’ll pepper in through lines or scenes throughout the season. Like, when in a MOTW ep they say something like “Talked to Mom yet?” that’s a through line to keep the season length arc connected. They know it’s a random line that gets thrown in but there’s a reason why the writers include them here and there. Script goes through moderate rewrites throughout the whole process. Then it becomes a production script. Once the script is finally done, the production crew has to piece it together to make it live action. Essentially a puzzle they have to put together. Many departments. Once everything is figured out, they then have 8 days to shoot (after 8 days of prep, then location scouting, building sets, etc).

Jared sneaks Jensen a drink while he’s talking and Jensen thanks him. They take a moment talking about honey crisp apples because of the smell of the drink. Jared made a face after taking a drink. Jensen asks if it’s sour and if he’s okay. Jared says he is blowing fire right now. Whatever alcohol they are drinking is strong lol.

J2 start whispering to each other about a guest star but can’t share because she might come back.

After shooting they take several weeks editing, additional dialogue, sound effects, then a master edit, then send it to the studio, then it goes to affiliates then it goes on air. Very detailed explanation on the entire process.

Lot of people work tireless hours to make the show what it is. Everyone who works on the show don’t get nearly the praise they deserve. “We are just the two faces you see the most of.”

Misha crashes the panel with an accent he calls “German, Russian, Italian.”

Misha asks J2 if after they read the end of the finale script how many hours they held each other and cried. Jensen: I remember reading the end and literally burst into tears of laughter. And I thought, how much fun is season 13 gonna be? I mean, talk about cutting the fat.

Misha comes on stage and hugs Jared and the three start telling a story about how Misha rented a house while they were filming on location for the last three days of s12 because it was a long drive to the location, which was halfway to Whistler. Misha invited J2 to stay with him so they wouldn’t have to make that drive either. Misha: This was a moment of poor decision making.

The shooting schedule was like 3 or 4pm to like 5am the next morning for those three days. Jensen: It was awful. Misha offered for them to stay so they wouldn’t be exhausted doing the 4 hour drive roundtrip. He told them it was like a 3 or 4 bedroom house, but it wasn’t lol. It was actually two bedrooms at the most.

Jared slept on the floor in Misha’s bedroom, Jensen was alone in the other room. Jensen: “[Jared] slept on the floor next to the bed [Misha] slept in. I don’t know what happened, I was in the other room.”

Lots of innuendo and lots of laughter lol.

Misha: How much of this story are we going to tell? Jared: We’re telling it all. Jared realizes that it’s time for J2 to go because Misha is supposed to be starting his solo panel. Jared: We’ll delay a little bit for y’all, “fuck it.”

Jared explains that after shooting until about 5 in the morning they go back to Misha’s place he’s renting and decide to hang out on the patio and drink as a send off to season 12. Jensen: After we realized that there were very little places to sleep in this place, we were like, guess we should just stay up.

Jared: So we stayed up, and then went to bed. Misha stands up and high-fives Jared. Boys are all giggling lol.

Jensen: I do remember at one point being in the other room being awoke by *mimics loud snoring* and he was like “What are they doing in there?! Have they brought in animals now?!”

Jared was a little sick and was snoring so loud that Jensen could hear him from down the hall through a closed door and it woke him up.

Jensen wondered how Misha could possibly be sleeping through that in the same room. Jared: Oh he had been put to the test the night before ;) Jensen: He can sleep through anything. Jared: No he woke up for...*laughter* Jensen: When you nudged him.

Jared referring to the fans: They’re all like, what’s true and what’s not? I wanna believe!

Jared was snoring from down the hall and closed door. Jensen was like

Jared: What’s true and what’s not? Boys are just cracking up lol.

The rented home is all under Misha’s name. Misha: So stupid. They wake up the next day, phone rings. Jared answers. Guy on the phone thinks he’s talking to Virgil, the guy who owns the home. As Jared is pretending to be the home owner because he knows everything is under Misha’s name, Misha catches him and tries to take the phone from him. The phone flies out of both of their hands into a glass and breaks the glass. Misha: There’s the sound of me going, “No!” glass breaking and the phone hanging up.

The phone rings again, Misha runs downstairs to unplug the phone, forgetting he has left his laptop open. Jensen says that Jared runs over to the computer and starts tweeting on Misha’s Twitter. Misha realizes he left his computer vulnerable and sprints back to the room. Misha laughs when he remembers that Jared was trying to tweet Trump from Misha’s Twitter. Misha finally got the phone unplugged and his laptop rescued.

Jensen: Meanwhile, it was the best morning cup of coffee entertainment I’ve ever had. He was just watching them from the table lol.

Misha goes to shower and Jared starts flipping through channels and finds the pay per view. Stops on a show called something like Boys in the Shower 7, or about their butts, he can’t remember. Jensen: That piqued your interest? Jared also assumed the home owner would have blocked renters aka Misha from using the PPV but the guy didn’t so Jared ordered it. Misha says Jared actually subscribed to it under Misha’s name. Misha: it was very graphic bathroom sex. Jared: In all fairness they were offering a deal at the time lol.

J2 left to go back to work before Misha did. Misha spent two hours trying to unsubscribe it. He was unsuccessful because he didn’t have the password Jared had created.

On that note, J2 take off. Misha starts his panel by finishing the story saying that they were all sitting on the couch watching the graphic bathroom sex while J2 were waiting for Clif to pick them up and it took Clif a minute to realize what was on screen lol.

Info via: Periscope, Periscope, Sil’s livetweet list

#j2 #jared padalecki #jensen ackles #jibcon #cracksmyshitup #panel sum #long post #shpost

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idontneedasymbol · 7 years

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12x15: Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell - the not as good

There were things I liked about the ep...and then there were things I liked a lot less (under a cut for those who want to stay positive!)

This ep was emblematic of the problems I’ve been having with this season. The emotions are underplayed to the point that there is no drama to engage you; the boys are superficially working together but in practice might as well not be; past elements are being brought up, but strictly as plot points without any exploration of the personal history; any potential moments for h/c are carefully arranged so there is none; characters make dumb, OOC decisions to further the plot.

The biggest question of the episode (after the lack of sexier glasses): Why was Sam lying to Dean?

If someone has a good explanation, please tell me, because I have no idea. The boys have a long history of lying to each other (it’s one of the major defenses I’ve seen of Mary’s character, that the Winchesters lie all the time, and it’s not untrue.) But every other time I can think of them lying, there is a clear motivation for it. It’s not always a good reason (often it’s a terrible one) but it’s understandable. Sometimes it’s to try to avoid hurting someone, sometimes it’s out of guilt or shame; but there’s a reason.

While I was already a little confused why Mary was so determined to lie to them, I am utterly baffled why Sam would. When Dean had been so hurt Mary had lied – but forgave her. When Dean knows Mary is working for the BMOL and is a little grumbly about it but not really pissed. What possible reason is there for Sam not to tell Dean right away? And why did he need an incredibly hamfisted conversation with the episode’s innocent to realize that lying is bad? Haven’t the last 12 years taught you that lesson, Sam?

If Dean had really blown up at the end, maybe it would’ve justified Sam’s hesitation a little – but he didn’t. And their previous fight with Mary, and its resolution, proved that Dean is open to reason about this. The impression is that Sam would rather lie to and manipulate his brother into doing something he doesn’t want to do, for weeks, rather than risk a day or two of argument. Because it would be inconvenient.

I’m also disappointed that Dean just says “we hate them” without saying why -- it feels like the show is avoiding the whole ‘they tortured Sam’ issue because they don’t have a good way around it. Instead it, again, casts Dean’s protests as an immature, unreasonable grudge for him to get over. Like he’s more angry that Sam doesn’t agree with him than that there are damn good reasons for them not to trust or work with the BMOL.

Meanwhile, Sam is seriously trusting the BMOL. He’s not trying to infiltrate or undermine them; that disaster last time truly convinced him their way is better. What the hell, Sam. He’s not even verifying their intel (that we saw) even though he’s had at least two examples of their intel being so wrong that it got hunters killed.

I’m assuming that we the audience are not meant to like this. That we’re supposed to be questioning his decision, and now Dean’s, to work with them. Or are we just supposed to accept that the BMOL have a better way? That the last decade plus we’ve watched the boys saving people and hunting things, they were actually massively ineffective screw-ups who missed tons of murderous supernatural things right under their noses? That all the times we thought they were being smart and skilled, tracking down and researching monsters, it really would’ve been better for them to be taking orders from random British dudes, because they really are just blunt instruments, good for killing, not for brainpower.

I don’t think that’s what the show is going for. But I’m not sure what they are. Dean says at the end that they will get out if anything seems off. Like, umm, them kidnapping and torturing you? Or giving inaccurate info that gets hunters killed? Or inducing your own mother to use you in a mission? Or wholesale slaughtering supernatural beings that may not all be evil? Where is the line? It feels like if/when the boys find out about Magda’s murder, they’re just going to shrug and go, well, that sucks, but we’re getting more monsters to hunt so it’s worth it.

I’m starting to suspect that the show is never going to explore whether the BMOL are moral or not, that the questions of their methods and attempts at supernatural genocide are never going to be raised; instead they’re going to be wiped out by some mistake or accident, leaving us regretful that we never get to see their new and better world.

Honestly, though, I’d probably be okay with this if the show were giving me what I watch for. I’m a simple fangirl with simple needs. SPN has always been a reliable source of h/c…until this season, in which along with excising the melodrama, it’s taken out most of the other character drama, too. This is the third time now that Sam is in trouble and Dean turns up late, so not only do we not get a rescue (or really any reason why Sam even needs to work with Dean, when he’s so effective without him), but we don’t even get to see Dean asking if Sam’s okay.

In fact, Dean hasn’t had a chance to show more than momentary and ineffective worry for his brother all season. He hasn’t so much as helped Sam up off the floor, much less save his life, run to his side, hold him, perform any physical sign of caring. Sam’s gotten to help Dean in a few cases (like going to him in “Lily Sunder,” and obviously “Regarding Dean” thank you Meredith Glynn) but not the reverse.

Which may be part of a larger trend to avoid showing Dean’s softer side. Dean has not had any alone time with any innocent victim all this season; it’s always been Sam. Instead we get Dean expressing worry about Baby – and while that’s funny and all, when it’s juxtaposed with Dean not showing an iota of concern for either the victim or Sam, it comes across as callous. Not as badly as if either of them had actually gotten hurt – but why couldn’t Sam have gotten banged up a bit, and let Dean show a moment of concern about that?

From the beginning of the show, my favorite thing about Dean is that he acts all tough but cares so deeply. This season that deep heart has been limited to, “Dean gets cranky and immature when people close to him do things he doesn’t like, but eventually he gets over it.” He doesn’t bond with victims, he doesn’t save his brother, he doesn’t exhibit any particular understanding or compassion for anybody (except Cas, on a limited basis, which I suspect is why a lot of Destielers are loving this season. And even this time, the Winchesters hear that angels are dying again but don’t want to tag along this time, are content to let Cas handle it solo?)

Speaking of Castiel – is there something in the water that’s promoting pointless deception? Because as confused as I am by Sam lying, I am even more puzzled by Cas at the end. What possible reason did he have for not telling the Winchesters that he’s going to Heaven? It’s not like it’s the first time – Heaven was Cas’s home; they know he wants to go back. They know the nephilim is dangerous enough that it might require help. And they were taking on the phone, so it’s not like the boys could’ve stopped Cas from going. I’m pretty sure the next few eps are going to have the brothers being increasingly concerned when they can’t get hold of Cas, having no clue where he could be, when he could’ve just told them.

It feels like lying to manufacture drama…except going by this season’s past performance, the drama is going to be resolved in a single underplayed conversation, not worth the time it takes to establish it.

There were other things that bugged me – like bringing back hellhounds and never making a single reference to the Winchester’s past history with them -- or really that entire A plot, which was boringly linear (unexpected, after the fun of “Stuck in the Middle” – did Davy Perez blow his whole plotting wad on that ep?) No trick or trap or research is needed to take out the hellhound, just Sam being quick with a knife, and Dean being completely superfluous. As is Crowley – he tells us that it’s Lucifer’s special hellhound, but that has zero bearing on any following events. The only reason Crowley comes along is to bond with the boys, and (more importantly) to be away from Lucifer long enough for that plot to go down. It’s sloppy writing such as the show is prone to, but it’s disappointing in a writer with as much promise as shown in Perez’s previous eps.

But yeah, in all honestly, I probably wouldn’t be harping on any of this if the show would just give me Dean helping/supporting/saving Sam (physically or emotionally). Which is the one thing I always thought I could count on SPN providing, and I don’t understand why it’s not anymore.

#season 12 #somewhere between heaven and hell #spn 12x15 #12x15 #spn meta #ep analysis #meta #my meta #spoilers #my post #wank for ts #sorry #bit of a bitter dean fan here #is that a thing?#if it is i'm probably doing it wrong #oh well

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