The Walking Darkness: Supernatural Review, S11 Ep 1: "Out Of The Darkness Into The Flame"

So, fans were wildly excited for the Season 11 premiere of Supernatural.  As you know, I wasn't expecting much.  And I got it.

The producers said it would be like The Walking Dead, but they didn't say how much it would be like The Walking Dead.  It was, but not in a good way. "The brothers are together again!  Season 1 feel!  New evil like none of them have ever seen!"

"New evil"?  Um, isn't that most seasons, except maybe Season 5?  Carry on.

The Road So Far: "Run To The Jungle" plays over the montage of last season.

Now: Dean's in a dark swirling cloud.  Through the cloud, he espies a babe, a brunette with tumbling brown hair, fashionable dress (didn't get to see the shoes) and, curiously, bra straps.   She turns and gives him A Look.

Seriously bad CGI



Bra straps? A bra?  They had brassieres before God showed up?

As a woman, I can understand why being imprisoned since before the Dawn of Creation in a bra would be incredible torture.  Looks like she had access to pre-Dawn copies of Vogue, too.



"Good evening and welcome to the Darkness.  I'll be your designated evil babe this season."

Sam wakes up alone in the Impala, fetchingly bruised and bloodied. Damn, he looks hot.  He finds Dean, they do some exposition.

This is just here because I have such hots for Jared Padalecki.

NEW TITLE CARD!



It's the Season 1 title card, with some smoke.

Back To Now, With Occasional Visions

Time for the low-budget version of The Walking Dead!   The brothers walk down the road, spot a road crew--all dead.  Family in a car--all dead.  Since this show doesn't have nearly the $$$ of its predecessor, there's six or seven dead people.  A guy with black veiny stuff on his neck comes around from the back of the vehicle: "Stop!  We'll shoot!" Guy keeps coming.  Oh, shit, a ZOMBIE an infected guy who's pretty pissed.  Doesn't make any cool noises, just looks pissed.  Down he goes, shot from behind.

A pubescent girl sheriff with amazingly blue eyes pops up from behind the police car armed with a shotgun.  We last saw her as the Alpha's child in Season 7, "There Will Be Blood".



"I'll be menstruating by Season 11!"

She orders them to "show her some skin".  While I scream with delight, the brothers pull open their collars (just their collars?).



This show can be such a tease. Excuse me while I lick Sam's neck.

It gets a little tricky.  I only watched the episode twice.  And it didn't keep my attention the second time around, so there will probably be mistakes.  Somewhere early on the sheriff anvils, "I thought this job was saving people."  Welcome to Supernatural, little girl.

Another of Dean's visions: Darkness feels more peaceful than she has in a long time, she purrs seductively.  Oh for God's sake. Peaceful?  What was she doing all these eons? Turns out she has a little Mark of Cain on the left shoulder.  Duh-duh-dun!

I always picture Colin Ford in the gag reel whenever I write that. I miss Colin Ford.

Meanwhile, Teen Sheriff 's been shot, so they take her to a hospital to stitch her up.  When they get there, the receptionist is dead.  Out the boys go to Baby's Trunk O'Stuff, and excuse me for saying a loud FUCK YOU to the ever-deceitful CW PR monkeys:



This is the best promo image, and of course it never happened. Not enough $$ to blow shit up.

They come back with weapons and find more dead people, and lights flickering on and off.  I expected to see two metal doors chained together with DON'T OPEN DEAD INSIDE but that probably would have gotten the show sued.

The main thing I wish they had ripped off taken from The Walking Dead is the gore.  All of the dead people are so tidy.  Pools of blood, yeah, but how are they killed?  Bitten?  Shot?  Bitchslapped?  How?

Something that jumped out at me--no, not a zombie--is that Dean killed Death and the Darkness doesn't know what Death is.  So why are people dying?  Shouldn't they be popping back up again?

Dean sews up Teen Sheriff while Sam stalks a rabid guy trying to break the door to the janitor's closet with a fire extinguisher.  Pretty smart zombie infected guy.  There's a baby crying on the other side of the door.  Sam, shoot him! Come on, man, there's a baby's life at stake!  Fortunately for everybody, the zombie rabid guy conveniently drops dead and Sam frees the hostages, a baby and her father.  Lori died but Judith's still alive--

Shit, wrong show.

Mother's dead, baby's alive.  The father is infected.  He hands off Judith the baby to Teen Sheriff.  By the way, there's a later scene where she diapers the baby because she's a gurl.  Didn't Dean become an expert at this stuff in Season 6? "Two Men And A Baby"?  Oh, forget I said anything...

Dean has more visions of the Darkness, but really, they're boring and the crappy CGI bugs the hell out of me.  She murmurs: “We’re bound, Dean. We’ll always be bound. You helped me, I helped you. No matter where I am, who I am, we will always help each other.” 

Dean's all for blasting their way out of the hospital, but Sam gets misty-eyed and says they've gotta change, stop doing the same stuff. Once again they've busted the world, and Sam loooooooves his brother:



And he'd do it again. Despite that meaning that millions will die, Sam says: “This kill first, questions later, what happened to us? Hunting things, we’re good at that, sure. We’re great at that. But that’s only half of the bumper sticker, man.”

Bumper sticker? Okay, cute little meta joke.

This is all undone by the end of the episode and we're back to where we always are.  Dean didn't tell Sam the full extent of his conversation with the Darkness; Sam didn't tell Dean he'd been infected. Wow, way to change-up, Supernatural!  Dean goes off with Teen Sheriff and Sam stays behind.  The usual ignoring things-go-really-bad-when-they-split-up trope.

Father turns zombie rabid, hands off baby saying, "her name is Amara," and drops dead.

MEANWHILE:

Cas is under an attack dog spell, although he's a very well-mannered puppy.



"Once I kill Crowley my blood lust will subside and I will gladly fetch a stick."

A kid finds him in an abandoned cabin.  Cas warns, "Don't make me hurt you!"



Looks like that pink-eye is clearing up.

But of course he won't.  The attack dog has enough control to barrel out of the cabin into the nearby woods, without killing the kid or his brother and father.  It would be such fun watching Rabid!Cas being part of The Darkness and wreaking havoc.  Naw, too interesting, let's just have him captured by angels and probably tortured next week with the Angel Headpiece of Doom on.

Crowley's more fun because Crowley's always more fun.  While Castiel was busy puncturing him like you puncture a steak before you stick in the garlic cloves, Crowley smoked out and possessed a woman's meatsuit.  "She" enters her house to find her husband and an extremely eager couple waiting for her to have an orgy.  It's the best scene in the show.  It ends badly for everyone but Crowley.  When his demons come to fetch him (they've patched up his meatsuit so that Mark Sheppard can keep working) one minion says, “You barely escaped assassination, you’re arguably on the run from the most powerful witch on Earth, not to mention an angel of Heaven. And you didn’t call for help until after the orgy?”



This woman is old enough to have menopause?  Fuck you, Supernatural.

Turns out half of Hell is "freaking out" because screams came from the Cage. Michael? Lucifer? Adam?  Congratulations, show, you got me to watch next week.

Like everyone stupid enough to lock themselves in a janitor's closet, Sam is Not Alone.



"Oh, no!  I've turned into the woman at the beginning of most of our episodes!"

A zombie infected person in nurse's scrubs attacks him.  He slits her throat and she bleeds all over him.  A group of zombies infected people go for him. But then they sniff, and walk away.  He's infected!  Cool!



Oh God, I'm dying of the sexy

Somebody says at some point, "the baby eats souls."  And wouldn't you know it, Amara has a teeny-weeny Mark of Cain on her shoulder!  Some poor woman pushed out The Darkness!



"Get that bottle away from me and gimme your soul!"

That's all I can remember.  Can I take my nap now?

RANDOM:

They give Zombie Infected Nurse the loud clacking teeth sound that The Walking Dead uses.  Without the actual big teeth and bloody face.

Crowley gets laid more than any of the other three leads.

NEXT WEEK:

Sam gets bloody...and shirtless. And there's other stuff.

Female Trouble - Supernatural, Ep. 9x19, "Alex Annie Alexis Anne"

Was I seeing things?  Was this an alternate universe?  Was this "Supernatural"? Three interesting, nuanced, intelligent female characters on the show?  A recurring character didn't die?  It's not Bizarro World, it's "Alex Annie Alexis Anne", written by Robert Berens and directed by a guy whose name I can't spell.

The title is a play on the thriller  "Martha Marcy May Marlene" (2011).  From IMDB: Martha has run away from an abusive hippie-like cult where she was living as Marcy May for two years. Here it is a child who has been kidnapped and been raised by a family of vampires, who have kept her human for complicated reasons. What I didn't know when I wrote this was that Berens was referencing four other movies: "Carrie", "Fargo", "Aliens", and "Pete's Dragon".

 
Writer Robert Berens getting in touch with his feminine side. Note matching lip gloss. Work it, girl!

This was a throwback to the good old Supernatural MOTW, and unlike others ("Sharp Teeth", anyone?) it was a solid entry.  It won me over with the line, "He's been having nightmares ever since the barn scene from The Walking Dead."  Cue Norman Reedis voice: "So-fee-ya! So-FEE-Ya!"  But I digress.




A struggling teenager is hauled into the Sioux Falls police station and put in a holding cell.  She tells the officer that "they" will get her. A minute later he gets a B&E call and leaves her alone. Until a vampire happens to  shows up. "You can run, but we'll always find you," he says. Then--

 
Sheriff Jody Mills in da house!

It's great to see Kim Rhodes again, even with that strange John Travolta skullcap hairdo. And so we have First Dead Vampire Brother.  Keep track, folks.

Jody and Alex are the center and heart of the story, which upsets those fans who want all Sam and Dean, all the time. I don't know about you, but unless Crowley is around, I'd rather not spend too much time with these guys right now.  All they do is avoid eye contact and act mopey.  Alex is completely closed off, until she begins to bond with Jody.  Probably the first human being Alex has interacted with in eight years.

The Winchesters arrive in Sioux Falls. Jody shows them the dead vamp in her police car.


 Jody has major junk in her trunk.

Sam: Yeah, that's a vamp all right.
Dean: I don't know Sammy, looks like Jody might not need our help anymore.
Sam: Ah, they grow up so fast.  
Dean: Don't they?

Okay, so that was adorable, not mopey.  My bad.  When Jody asks the boys how they are, Dean:"peachy", Sam:"touch and go."  That's about it for brotherly angst this go-round.  It seems that Alex is really Annie, who was kidnapped eight years before.  However, Alex has become loyal to her captors. "Vampiric Stockholm Syndrome?" Jody asks. Heh.  


During the interrogation, Alex corrects the boys when either of them calls her Annie.  I would, too. Alex is a much cooler name.  She's a "blood slave" to a nest of vamps--they feed from her before they go on a hunt.  There's some "make choices and hurt your brother" stuff slipped in, of course.  But my foot wasn't crushed by an anvil this time. The Winchesters take pest control duty while the sheriff takes Alex to Jody's secluded cabin in the woods. What could possibly go wrong? Dean and Sam find the vampire nest in a foreclosed house.  Excellent exterior shot of Vamp Castle.

 
Where's that eerie owl hoot when you need it?

Indeed, this is where the vampires are nesting.  The woodchipper from "Weekend At Bobby's" reappears!  Another recurring character.  It's been too long, Industrial Machine of Spouting Blood and Gore.  (Dang! This was a "Fargo" reference and I missed it!)  Sam and Dean capture a vampire, tie him up and torture him.  It's pretty hilarious listening to a monster hissing out a litany of complaints about Kids These Days.

 
Noooo! Don't kill the only cute vampire!!!

Seems the vamps used underage Alex to lure pervs from bars to secluded houses, where her family killed them.  Who needs a register for sex offenders when you've got the undead?  Dale becomes the Second Dead Vampire Brother.  I know his name because later somebody says, "They killed Dale."

Back in The Cabin In The Woods, Alex tests Jody's boundaries, as any teen would, by pissing Jody off.

 
Don't make me use my twin temple moles on you, young lady!

But soon Alex's heart softens, and she allows Jody to tuck her in.  Alex couldn't stand the killing and listening to the victims' screams anymore, so she fled to Sioux Falls.  But her brothers show up, snatch her, and since Jody needs to be alive, knock her unconscious instead of killing her.  It's morning when Sam and Dean arrive.  Who wouldn't want to wake up with the Winchesters standing over them?

Now in full woman warrior mode, Jody insists on going with the boys back to Vamp Castle.  The vampire brothers are straight out of "Deliverance."  But instead of making Sam squeal like a pig, they tie him up (is anyone surprised?  There must be some huge rating spike whenever Jared Padalecki is tied up) to "pack a lunch" i.e., sticking an IV tube in Sam's arm to siphon out his blood.  Somehow there's a Third Dead Vampire Brother when I wasn't looking.  Dean plays possum until Fugly Vamp Brother grabs him.  Is it me, or do Dean's eyes flash back for a split second before he leaps and pins Fugly to the wall? "Look at me!  Look at me, bitch!" he hollers at his intended victim.


 
 
"Was it as good for you as it was for me?"

 
"That's some fucked-up shit, bro."

And we have Fourth Dead Vampire Brother.  Alex is in the basement with Celia, aka Mama, who is deeply hurt by her child's running away.  This is a much more complicated creature than usual.  Vampires on "Supernatural" tend to be portrayed as having families they love, with the ability to grieve.

 
It is Piper Laurie in 'Carrie'!

As Second Dead Vampire Brother had said, Mama thought Alex was "too good" to be turned.   "It was so selfish," she says.  "I wanted to watch you grow up. I kept putting it off. Don’t you see? These things you’ve been feeling – all the guilt and suffering – those are human feelings. It ain’t too late. I can take the pain away, and then we can stay together, as a family. Like none of this ever happened. Wouldn’t you like that?" Jody hears the noises in the basement (which sound a little too much like porn moans to be comfortable) and finds that Mama has turned Alex.

 
That's a great look on you, Alex! Oh, wait...

"I'm sorry, Jody," Alex sobs. Upstairs, Sam has had so much blood drained out of him that it's a miracle he's still alive.  Let's face it, if he died he'd be brought back before the end of the episode.  Sometimes I think this show should be called "Resurrection". "Dean," he gasps.  "Yeah, you wouldn't do the same for me," Dean snarls, pulling out the IV. "No, Jody you asshole," Sam says.

To complete turning, Alex has to feed.  Mama has been kind enough to tie up Sheriff Mills for easy snacking.  But the girl won't do it.  Mama knows that Jody is feeling unresolved guilt--and so is Mama.  The vampire once had a little girl named Alex, which is why she changed Anne's name.  Mama proceeds to beat the shit out of Jody, and since Alex won't kill her, it's din-dins for Mom.  Except that Alex plunges a syringe full of dead man's blood into her mother's back.  Mama is staggered at the betrayal.

"Don't look, sweetheart," Jody says, before cutting off Mama's head.  It's a moment the plays one hundred times sadder than that sentence. 

Children can be so ungrateful!


Sam and Dean bring Jody and Alex back to the Cabin In The Woods, while Alex is being cured.


This lesbian sex scene had to be cut for length.

Sam is disturbed--not by "bitch" being virtually the only word in Dean's vocabulary--but by how much Dean enjoyed killing Fugly Vampire Brother.  The Winchesters drive off, and we're left with Jody and Alex.  The ending is left nicely ambiguous.  Will Jody take on a maternal role? Will Alex go into the foster system? Will Alex strike out alone?  It's nice to be left to make up your own after-story.  Dirty or otherwise.  Finally:

 
Because I'm the reviewer, that's why!

Next week: the Winchesters meet a whole lot of college kids who are monsters and run Chicago.  Just so you know.

screencaps by www.homeofthenutty.com
Robert Berens courtesy of Robert Berens

Proving I'm Not A Cultural Troglodyte - Or Maybe I Am

One of my resolutions this year is to write more personal entries in this thing.  I thought I would start out with an impossibly long entry about recent movies, tv and books.  Woo-hoo! (DISCLAIMER: I GO TO MUSEUMS AND CONCERTS, I SWEAR!)

Movies:

We saw "Dallas Buyer's Club."  So incredibly sad...we both knew we would cry like babies, and we did.  Matthew McCounaghey was astounding.  He conveyed so much with his eyes, and his body moved like a wary snake, curving and curling.  Jared Leto was more or less a standard character (bitchy drag queen to camp up the proceedings).  He brought more to it than was in the role.  Jennifer Garner's character was woefully unwritten.  She mostly sat around with sad face until there was the obligatory "stick it to the man" scene.

As for TV:

"Breaking Bad" - we're in the second half of Season Two and it is fucking amazing in every conceivable way.  I'm glad we're watching it the way we are: having watched the last eight episodes and then going back to the beginning.  Even though there are fewer surprises, there are still surprises aplenty, and knowing what's going to happen gives some of the drama extra heft.  The writing, acting and directing never cease to be top-notch. I'm wondering if it slows down S3-4 before it picks up again.

"The Walking Dead" - I love this show.  Because it's zombies and Carl and Michonne and Daryl and zombies and it's not the Governor and Andrea.  The last episode "Claimed" had me on the edge of my couch.  (Although Abraham's hair reminds me of "I Love Lucy".)  I have to DVR it and watch it after Jeff goes to bed.  This makes it extra fun because I'm sitting alone in the dark, and I can zip through the commercials.  I have a wild hope that Lizzie will throw baby Judith to a walker and Carol shoots Lizzie in the head.  The way Andrew Lincoln says "Korrl" never fails to crack me up.  Check out these "Previously On The Walking Dead" videos because they're funny as fuck.  I'm twelve.

"The Big Bang Theory" - one of the three shows I appointment watch, if you include TWD.  The other, of course, is "Supernatural".  Jeff and I gasped when Sheldon and Amy kissed.  With it being on every channel all of the time, we watch one episode a day several days a week. From the way my husband gets upset when Sheldon encounters Evil Wil Wheaton, I suspect Jeff identifies with Sheldon.  Oh God, I hope not.  He didn't like watching "Monk" because I'd be snickering and saying, "That's like you."

"The Crazy Ones" - I was enjoying this a lot, but now every episode has a Very Special Moment between Robin Williams and Sarah Michelle Gellar.  "You're the reason I'm alive" or some shit.  Also, James Volk is really funny, but Hamish Linklater (who is also hilarious) is getting a lot of the best material.  So it's off the DVR.

RIP "The Michael J. Fox Show".  But honestly, the Parkinsons seriously wrecked Fox's comic timing.  The rest of the show was funny in a meh kind of way.

I don't watch any scripted dramas, which is probably my loss.  I went through my syndicated "NCIS" phase but lost interest.  I watch old movies instead.  God bless you, TCM.  And the Sundance channel, now that the Independent Film Channel has COMMERCIALS!  GODDAMN YOU! DIE DIE DIE.

"Supernatural" - this is my major guilty pleasure.  I really love it and can't wait for each episode.  Even though I know it's not as good as it used to be, it doesn't have the "House" Best Show on TV to Complete and Utter Shit trajectory that made me so insane.  I also love writing the reviews because they're fun, but I worry that I'm wasting my time.  And when I find myself pondering the similar emotional journeys of Gadreel and Sam, that's when it becomes worrisome.

"Hoarding: Buried Alive" - my other guilty pleasure.  I love watching people living in garbage and freaking out when it has to be thrown away.  I feel their pain.  Don't ask.  I only admit to having a bag from the Container Store that says "Happiness is an organized closet" and I feel ashamed by an inanimate object.

Books:

Finished Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby, a gift from a friend.  It's a memoir of an obsessive football fan in love with Arsenal, one of Britain's worst teams.  As a woman married to a Mets fans, I understand.  Even though I don't know nearly as much about football as my friend,  the parts about being a crazed fan hit the mark.  I'm hoping my husband reads the book.  There's one section that I can't find where Hornby talks about not going to parties, dinners, family events because of football.  It's so perfect.  Recently we were talking about an event in June.  I wanted to check when the finale of SPN S9 was, first!  (May)

Then I picked up The Most of S.J. Perelman. The binding came off my copy years ago, and then I found another 1950s hardcover in our laundry room!  S.J. Perelman is one of the greatest comic writers in the US.  As a kid, my older sister would read it to me.  I never really "got" Robert Benchley, he seemed so tame. Besides, how can you not worship a writer who names a butler Strabismus?  So I've been giggling my way through it, even though I'm supposed to be reading The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt.  Which was lent to me by my mother and has thus become the source of ceaseless nagging.

Phew!

I Spent All Day Doing What?

Writing an SPN review.  Re-watching the episode, looking up and watching an interview, taking a break by accidentally eating two lunches (now I know what I'm having for dinner...nothing).  Went to therapy, did about 10 minutes proofreading the paperback version of "The Abortionist's Daughter."  Jeff's reading it and likes the book!!  I took it with me to therapy so I could proofread on the bus back.  My therapist was a bit surprised at how thick it is.  How many pages it is.  Get your mind out of the gutter.  For those of you intimately familiar with my writing, you know I don't do short and sweet.

Recovering from last night's "Walking Dead."  I'm fine with waiting until February, but did they have to kill Herschel? I stayed up until 1 AM.

Thanksgiving was quiet.  The first everything that happens after a loved one dies is so difficult.  First Hanukkah, first Thanksgiving, first wedding anniversary.  So we skipped the family dinner and went to our favorite diner.  Yesterday we rented a car and went shopping.  Then we discovered the third S1 disc of "Breaking Bad" had only ONE episode on it!

Fletcher, Cleo and Rupert are all staring at me. Rupert, my big gray cat, is yowling.  So off to feed the animals and then watch a recorded episode of "Hoarding: Buried Alive."

 Feed me, or this toy is toast.

 

I've got work avoidance down to an art, I tell you.