jurassic spark

a friend mentioned to me yesterday that they're closing down "the lost world" at universal studios in order to make room for the harry potter world expansion. i am AGHAST. do people not love and respect jurassic park nowadays?!? this makes me unbelievably sad.

i saw jurassic park in the theaters when it was first released, 18 years ago. i was 12 years old and it scared the ever-livin' crap out of me. definitely it was one of the movies that sparked my intense interest in filmmaking in middle and high school, and my continuing love of film today.

in fact, i have probably seen it more than any other movie in my life. though i haven't kept a record, i would estimate i have watched it more than 2 dozen times. at least.

which of course, led me to make a list of the other movies i have watched obsessively over the years. as follows, a partial list of the films i have seen the most, in descending order (or the closest i could get to it, without having kept records.)

1. jurassic park
2. clue
3. newsies
4. indiana jones and the last crusade
5. scream
6. return of the jedi
7. dazed and confused
8. fried green tomatoes
9. dirty dancing
10. la confidential
11. boondock saints
12. the craft
13. casino
14. the princess bride
15. real genius

now the real question is, what the hell does this list say about me?


and to get even nerdier, what does it say that i spend my time making macros such as this? i do 'ship it though and i am not ashamed.

justified is the second best thing on tv

after several attempts to write actual thinky-thoughts, i have decided to take a fangirl-ier approach and picspam my way through an explanation of why i love "justified" so goddamn much.


1. the opening credits are incredible. basically just a montage of all things kentucky, they are brought to life by badass music provided by t.o.n.e. z and the bluegrass gangsta rap group gangstagrass (get it?!?). i never thought i'd hear such a bizarre mixture, but it totally works and reflects the show's dixie mafia environs.


2. i never saw a cowboy i didn't like and timothy olyphant as raylan givens is the best one i've seen since steve mcqueen. he has that perfect mixture of charm and self-righteousness, not to mention a flawless quick-draw and an ass that was meant to be encased in a tight pair of wranglers. raylan, won't you be my sheriff marshal?!?


3. the crux of the show is the push/pull relationship between raylan the lawman and boyd crowder the criminal (portrayed by the inestimable walton goggins). raylan shoots boyd early on and his near-death experience causes him to find god, though you never quite know if he's sincere or not. a snafu on raylan's part gets boyd released from prison and the marshal spends most of the season trying to put him back there. arrests and gunfights aside, the two men clearly like each other and you can't help but hope they end up on the same team.


4. i lovelovelove westerns!! and it's nice to see one set in modern times, replete with all the old gunfighter cliches. stetson wearing, gun toting lawman? check. ridiculous amounts of whiskey bourbon swilling? check. outrageous backwoods accents? check. "black hats" versus "white hats?" check. thanks for paving the way, deadwood.


5. raylan has two women chasing after him, one is the shotgun wielding country girl ava crowder (nemesis boyd's sister-in-law) and the other is classy dame winona hawkins, his ex-wife. both are bombshell beautiful and tough as nails and raylan can't seem to pick between them. not that i can blame him!


6. there have been a slew of rad guest stars, including the surprisingly buff travis wester aka harry spangler from spn. there have also been several of olyphant's co-stars from deadwood and naturally, the justified-deadwood-supernatural connections have me hoping that a certain jim beaver may eventually show up. make it happen tv people!!


7. mostly the story follows the greater arc of the marshals versus the dixie mafia. but there are a couple of stand alone episodes that are pretty darn good. the above cap is taken from one of these, a strange story intertwining the worlds of thoroughbred horses and obscure art. the jars are full of ashes of all the hitler paintings a collector has bought and destroyed. (and yes, the guest star is robert picardo, the leprechaun from the faerie episode of spn. whee!)


the new season starts tonight and i cannot wait! anti-heroes and kentucky accents ftw!!

seduced by superman

god help me, the rumors are true, i've started watching smallville. just finished season 1 actually, and though i feel no small amount of shame because of this, i am totally enthralled and completely enjoying it.

i've never been particularly interested in superman. sure, i watched "lois and clark" in my youth and i saw the bryan singer film when it came out, but i always found the man of steel to be a bit on the boring, goody-two-shoes side of super heroics. i tend to prefer darker heroes a la batman or the crow. but it seems that clark kent's farm boy aw-shucks-iness is quite a bit more charming when he actually IS a farm boy and still coltish enough to be believable as a small town teen hero.

to be honest, though, it wasn't the allure of the origins of superman that drew me to the show. like most things recently, the real reason was because of "supernatural." "smallville" airs right before spn on friday nights and being the diligent fangirl that i am, i turn the tv to the right channel well beforehand to make sure i don't miss a minute of winchestery goodness. as such, i've caught the back end of all of season 10 of "smallville," therein realizing that tom welling is SUPER hot. (heh. get it? super.)

anyway, the jist is, i'm boy crazy. always have been, always will be. so i'll suffer through some ridiculous writing and cliched scenarios (not a few of which are clearly stolen from buffy episodes), for the chance to see a big sexy man fight crime. i'm just shallow like that.

here follows the pros and cons of the smallville universe, or at least my first impressions...


pros:

1. strong, capable badass women. i like a show where women are shown driving tractors and running businesses while still in high school. the cw network isn't exactly known for it's portrayals of independent women (at least after buffy went off the air) so it's nice to see a show where the women are consistently badass, even more so in a show that's pretty darned masculine on the surface. in fact, if it weren't for clark's biological advantages, the women would be outshining the men!
martha kent manages to help her somewhat cantankerous husband run the farm, keep the peace between the men in her life AND raise a son who's not only the sweetest boy next door there ever was, but also ends up saving the lives of half the town. she also snakes drains, feeds the elderly and plows fields in her spare time.
and then there's chloe. who i freaking ADORE. she may be a little on the naive side when it comes to her relationship with clark, but other than that tiny flaw, the girl is badass. she (single-handedly?) runs the school paper, scooping the big city news desks with her "wall of weird" exposes. she is consistently upbeat and refuses to take any shit from pete or clark, admonishing them several times for not treating her as well as they should. being in high school and standing up for yourself like that against the guy you're into? not easy, but chloe pulls it off with panache. and she drives a 1961 ford falcon. nuff said.

2. the charm of mid-western america. god, i really really really want to live on a farm in kansas with jonathan and martha kent, which brings me to...

3. possibly the best television parents EVER. i love them and wish they were mine. except for i'd have a gigantic oedipal complex due to the overwhelming sexiness of john schneider. i mean, bo duke was no slouch, but the man is infinitely better looking now.

4. rad vancouver guest stars. like the chief, callie and tory from "battlestar galactica." also non-vancouverites like amy adams, shawn ashmore and adam brody. (*squee* seth cohen!! *squee*)

5. the slashiness. at one point, lex gifts clark with a sword as a going away present. a SWORD. and i always give bonus points for homo-erotic phallic imagery.



cons:

1. worst theme song ever to assail my ears. somebody saaaaaaave meeeeee from the sappy lameness of remy zero, not to mention the other assorted bad pop songs that crop up during the show. "supernatural" has really ruined me with all it's classic rock awesome.

2. pete's token-ness. srsly, what is the point of his character? to highlight the chemistry in clark's only other male friendship? other than bringing some cultural diversity to the white bread mid-west, pete seems completely useless.

3. the romantic obliviousness of, well, everyone. i suppose i should cut them some slack, smallville being a show populated by teenagers, but oh-my-chuck is this shit ridiculous. everyone is in love with clark and he is just too much of a puppy-eyed sweetheart to hurt anyone's feelings, though he clearly only loves lana. (or lex, depending on your preference.) and lana is rockin too much guilt to leave her quarterback boyfriend, even though they don't ever spend any time together and he's kind of a douchebag. so clark ends up asking chloe to prom and i just know he's gonna end up breaking her heart. then i'm gonna cry big crocodile tears even though i know it's coming and i just don't want so much angst with my cheese. smallville should leave the angsting to the winchesters, who are better at it anyway.


4. the cheesiness. although sometimes it's just so much fun.

5. the too-slow build up. someone freaking say the word kryptonite already! "meteor rocks" for the loss. and when the hell does clark discover that he can fly?!? running really fast is cool, but it does not compete with flying! or leaping tall buildings in a single bound, for that matter. i demand more awesome kryptonian abilities!

flashlights and blood splatters: recapping season 1 of supernatural

it's been a little under a year since i sidled up to this crazy fandom and went totally batshit for the winchester boys. i find comfort in the existence of thousands of other fangirls and the knowledge that i'm not the only one that finds supernatural to be something other than just a tv show. that being said, i feel a compulsion to recap and blog and generally squee about spn at all given opportunities. thus, after three viewings, a season one recap, mostly just to make myself happy.


episode 1.1 - pilot
4 stars
location: jericho, ca
awesome guest star: sarah shahi

the pilot episode is pretty solid, regardless of the shit tons of exposition required to lay out the show's premise. thankfully, it's blended so well into the story of the boys re-bonding that it never seems overly garrulous or out of place. in one minute long conversation, the writers manage to establish that 1. all dean eats is junk food 2. their money comes from credit card scams/hustling 3. dean is in charge of the impala and 4. the classic rock soundtrack. and that's half the show right there :-)


episode 1.2 - wendigo
3 stars
location: black rock, co
awesome guest stars : callum keith rennie aka leoban and donnelly rhodes aka doc cottle

aside from dean's delightfully whimsical attitude, what really struck me about this episode is the mention of sam's anger issues. so early on! destiny is such a bitch, especially when your destiny is to become lucifer's bitch.


episode 1.3 - dead in the water
4 stars
location: lake manitoc, wi
awesome guest star: amy acker
awesome song: movin' on - bad company
awesome aliases: agents ford and hamill

ah, the first of sera gamble's episodes and the first truly good episode of the series. dean's efficacy with children is introduced, hinting at how all those years raising sammy made it easy to communicate with little guys :-) and to teach them how to say "zeppelin rules!" also notable is dean's profession of love for green army men, one of which will eventually save the world. ah, unintentional foreshadowing, you make me happy.


episode 1.4 - phantom traveler
3 stars
location: nazareth, pa

phantom traveler is saved from crappiness by all it sets up for future story lines, as sam and dean encounter their first demon. therefore, we also see black smoke for the first time and hear the first mention of sulfur as a demon calling card.

also, dean's fear of flying is adorable and this is the ep that contains the rather infamous long pan up dean's sleeping body. thanks again for that, mr. singer :-)


episode 1.5 - bloody mary
3 stars
location: toledo, oh

the teaser for this ep is like every slumber party i ever went to, except with liquefied eyeballs and bloody mayhem at the end of the night. it's a pretty solid episode, but not particularly interesting. although, all those broken mirrors in the antique shop could account for all the winchesters' bad luck over the years.


episode 1.6 - skin
3 stars
location: st. louis, mo
awesome song: ina gadda da vida - iron butterfly

apparently, someone in the spn boardroom said, "more horror!" because there is plenty of scary and gory going on in this ep! the opening sequence with the commandos busting in a house to find a beaten girl tied to a chair, with "ina gadda da vida" in the background, is pure excellence. very intense. and dean ripping his skin off in the sewer?! gross, but rad! we also see dean as a bad guy for the first time, though i will alwaysmaintain that sam is the better villain.


episode 1.7 - hookman
3 stars
location: eastern iowa university
awesome guest star: bulldog from frasier
awesome song: peace of mind - boston (best song EVER.)

best part of this ep? the introduction to rock salt shotguns! dean's idea, of course. everything else? kinda meh.


episode 1.8 - bugs
2 stars
location: oasis plains, ok
awesome song: rock of ages - def leppard

frak this episode. of course i hate it, as i hate all things involving bugs. but even if i didn't have a phobic fear of insects, this would still be a terrible episode. it is saved from utter derision by three things: 1. dean hustling pool, which is always ultra hot 2. the first instance of the boys being mistaken for a couple and 3. dean in the steam shower. still, it's probably the worst episode of the whole show.


episode 1.9 - home
4 stars
location: lawrence, ks
awesome secondary character: missouri mosely and motherlovin papa winchester!

oh, lawrence, kansas, my future home and the genesis of the entire winchester saga - so full of secrets and family bonding opportunities! sam finally learns that dean rescued him from the mom-fire and the boys discover that missouri mosely is responsible for papa's introduction to the occult. dean sheds the first of what will be many manly tears trying to get papa on the phone, but to no avail. of course, pops being a sneaky fuck, he then shows up at missouri's place after the boys have left.

also, i would be remiss if i didn't mention the garbage disposal attack on the repairman! so freaky and disgusting! i miss the show being so scary.


episode 1.10 - asylum
3 stars
location: roosevelt asylum - rockford, il

again, sam's anger issues are mentioned, even before dr. ellicot zaps him with the "rage juice," which surely didn't help his natural ill-tempered tendencies. i just can't believe his anger was such an issue so early on! how could i have not noticed it? srsly, sometimes i think this show is so well planned out and sometimes i think they just got lucky and/or are just as obsessive as the fangirls.


episode 1.11 - scarecrow
4 stars
location: burkitsville, in
awesome guest star: william b. davis aka cigarette smoking man!
awesome song: bad company - bad company
awesome secondary character: meg! original meg. love her.

le sigh. the first brotherly fight and it leads to the freakiest scarecrow EVER on dean's end and demon meg on sam's! of all unholy terrors to run into on the side of the road!

the epilogue is probably my favorite of the whole show, with meg slitting truck van driver throats and bad company's "bad company" pumping in the background :-)


episode 1.12 - faith
4 stars
location: true believers revival, nebraska
awesome guest star: julie benz!
awesome song: don't fear the reaper - blue oyster cult

this ep is the inception of 100s of hurt/comfort fics because nothing is as sexy as someone who loves you so much they would go to any length to save you. and because dean looks hot, even on his deathbed.

"faith" also boasts one of the best sequences this show has ever seen, certainly the best in this season, i.e. the girl running from a reaper, while the screaching guitar of boc's "don't fear the reaper" plays in the background. mind-bogglingly awesome.


episode 1.13 - route 666
3 stars
location: cape girardeau, mo
awesome song: she brings me love - bad company

it's good to see inside dean's gruff exterior and finally see that he can care about someone other than sammy. cassie is all right, certainly better than most of dean's women. and the sex scene set to "she brings me love"? drool. i do wonder why dean never dreams of cassie in later years. his dreams of apple pie existence always revolve around lisa, with whom he had a much briefer affair. i suppose his and cassie's story just played itself out and ended with this episode.


episode 1.14 - nightmare
3 stars
location: saginaw, mi
awesome guest star: the aunt with the sexy voice from sabrina the teenage witch

"nightmare," not surprisingly, begins with a nightmare, causing sam to wake dean up in the middle of the night. the kicker is that dean is surprised! meaning, they are still in the habit of sleeping regularly through the night. better enjoy it while it lasts boys. you're about to be faced with the nightmare hunt for azazel.

also awesome? the infamous priest outfits. whose idea was that? i love the wardrobe department and their collective crazy, not least of all for inspiring some interesting fantasies/fanfic.


episode 1.15 - the benders
a rather surprising 4 stars
location: hibbing, mn

i was so surprised by "the benders"! i remembered this ep as kinda boring and annoying because the guys were fighting hillbillies instead of monsters. hardly supernatural.

but unholy crap! there is a real spooky leatherface-iness to the whole episode, which also benefits from a very talented guest star in jessica steen, who plays the deputy. in addition, we are treated to super! fighty! boys, who beat the crap outta some backwoods crazies. and then they walk off down the road after their victory, laughing and joking together. i loves it and i misses their easy camraderie.


episode 1.16 - shadow
4 stars
location: chicago, il
awesome guest star: elosha from bsg
awesome secondary character: papa winchester and meg

three things: 1. oh my god the uniforms for the "alarm company" are so blue collar delicious. drool. 2. this related interchange: "these uniforms cost hard earned money." "whose?" "ours. you think credit card fraud is easy?" and 3. sam, dean AND papa all get torn to motherfrakking shreds by meg's deva. how do those scratches on sam's face not leave a permanent scar? hmm. sometimes i wish they had more visible scars, instead of just the ginormous emotional ones.


episode 1.17 - hell house
5 stars, one just for jared's just out of the shower half-naked bod
location: richardson, tx
awesome secondary characters: the origin of the ghostfacers!
awesome music: tons of blue oyster cult

made. of. win. interstate 35!!!! ghostfacers!!! blue oyster cult!!! small town teen life!!

i really kinda hated ed and harry the first couple times through, but now i am part of their cultish sliver of this wacky fandom. they provide the show with it's first truly comical episode, which sets the tone for the less angsty side of the story. they're just homoerotic, silly, stoner hunters, so basically the equivalent of me, if i were a hunter :-)


episode 1.18 - something wicked
4 stars
location: fitchburg, wi
awesome secondary characters: the wee!chesters! and vintage papa too!

weechester alert! oh how i love the flashbacks to young sam and dean! codependency certainly began early for these two :-) and sam's always been a bit of a whiney baby.


episode 1.19 - provenance
3 stars
location: upstate new york

blah is what this episode makes me feel. although i do love it when sam's smarty pants side is showcased.

the spacey/disco motel room the boys stay in marks the beginning of the supernatural's trademark wacky motel rooms, one of the best non-human characters on the show.


episode 1. 20 - dead man's blood
3 stars, only b/c of papa
location: manning, co
awesome secondary character: our fair lady, the colt! who is totally a character in her own right. also, papa.

spn does many things right, but it really misses the mark when it comes to vampires. they are completely ridiculous pseudo-gothy vamps of the lost boys variety, which is to say, kinda lame and laughable.

the episode is saved by the family dynamic, especially the big fight between sam and papa, with dean interceding, as usual. then later, after the vamp victory, all 3 winchesters are back together, armed with the colt and on the hunt for the y.e.d. (though he has not yet been mentioned as having yellow eyes...)


episode 1.21 salvation
4 stars
location: salvation, ia
awesome song: carry on wayward son - kansas. it begins :-)
awesome secondary character: meg and papa

everything the season has been leading up to finally comes to a head in these last two episodes. and they totally deliver! the history of the winchesters entanglements with the y.e.d. are exposed and we finally see dem yella eyes.


episode 1.22 - devil's trap
5 stars
location: iowa, south dakota, all over the damn place
awesome song: fight the good fight - triumph
awesome secondary character: bobby singer, papa

ah, man, the season really wraps up so well with the brothers standing together against a y.e.d.-possessed john. they may have been searching for him this whole time, but not even papa can come between sam and dean.

there is a nice parallel drawn between john holding in the y.e.d. and begging sam to shoot him and sam holding in lucifer and dean letting him die in "swan song." are john and sam really so similar? always ready to martyr themselves to the cause, and be damned the people they leave behind?

and then, BOOM! the end of the first season. kripke was sooo wrong to end it like that with all 3 winchesters presumably dead in the crushed impala...what a cliffhanger!



so it took three viewings, but i have now come to appreciate both the highs and lows of season 1. the storytelling is often dodgy and the writers are clearly still finding their way, but they cover a lot of ground and managed to emerge with more good episodes than bad.

the way season two starts, the creative team must have figured out the rest of it over hiatus!

mark sheppard makes everything better.

"the devil you know" episode 5x20

initially, this episode left me cold and kinda bored aka super disappointed! only 3 eps left and they give us this low action, super expositiony stuff? but i think i was just over-excited (surprise, surprise) and my adrenaline flow didn't match that of the show's. upon second viewing, this episode is as brilliant as any of ben edlund's previous efforts and really ties together the whole mythology of the show.

the teaser opens on an animal testing lab, total "outbreak" style. there are some monkeys, a couple lab coats and a random janitor. (do they usually clean labs while in use? doesn't that pose a problem with sterility?) anyway, the scientists are discussing the new swine flu vaccine, which is being put into production without proper testing. then, uh-oh! suspiciously conspicuous janitor is really a demon sent by pestilence to help spread, well, pestilence. he injects one guy with what i suppose is croatoan virus because the guy goes bonkers and kills his colleague. and the demon gets away.


cut to the boys in investigator mode, wearing medical masks in the lobby of a hospital and interviewing a doctor. the town has been hit by a mini-epidemic of swine flu, a tell tale sign of the horseman of the week. this whole scene seemed really surreal because you couldn't see anyone's mouth move. it kinda freaked me out.

i wonder if this scene was a deliberate suggestion on jensen's part to show how he can emote, even only working with his eyes. you can totally tell how big his smile is here. the eye crinkles give it away!

on with the hunt, the boys drive along, heading east when pure awesome appears in the backseat. that's right, pure awesome in the form of crowley the demon, played by the utterly charming, scene-chomping, sexy beast mark sheppard (aka badger from "firefly", romo lampkin from bsg, etc) this man makes everything he's in better and is pretty much solely responsible for my reassessment of this episode. sheppard has a magnetic personality and that coupled with his ridiculously sexy voice makes his crowley the most charismatic motherfucker in the room at all times. i wouldn't trust him, but i'd do what he told me to anyway.

on a side note, the impala's been getting a lot of love/screen time lately. it is a coincidence that everyone's heading east toward detroit, where she was made. and she's made of steel, which is demon proof. could the impala play a part in saving the day? could she be magical implement, like the colt or ruby's knife? that would be fricking BADASS!


so crowley pops in to propose that they all work together to kill/cage lucifer. he's oozing charm and snake oil smiles, but due to his somewhat spotty history with the brothers, the winchesters are pretty pissed that he'd show his face.

even pretty when he's pissed.

sam has a 'roid rage moment and tries to kill crowley, who eventually explains his offer of satanic assassination assistance. lucifer knows that crowley gave sam and dean the colt, which puts crowley squarely in the hunted category, right along with the winchesters.

crowley also discloses that he's been watching over the winchesters with the help of a magical coin planted in the impala that allows him to see and hear the boys. with a smirk crowley drawls, "and my the things i've heard." (what exactly have you hear!?! i'm gonna pretend it was wincest!)

eventually, they agree to work together. crowley confesses that while he can't deliver pestilence and the third power ring, he can give them the "horseman's stableboy" in the form of a possessed pharmaceutical company exec.

the name of the company is niveus, which means snowy or white. a reference to the morningstar, perhaps? lucifer!sam was wearing that white suit in "the end." i could just be reading too much into, but i think the writers are just as nerdy about that shit as the fangirls, so i doubt it's a coincidence.

there are, of course, conditions to crowley's information give-away, mainly that sam can't come with them to kidnap the demon. the boys argue for a minute, but dean eventually agrees to go sans sam. which prompts the puppy face to come out of hiding.

sam's so emo.

crowley and dean head to niveus hq, conceivably to offer war and famine's rings to the demon and lure him back to crowley's lair. while dean is trying to discover a way into the building and past the guards, crowley just pops in and kills them. dean is shocked, but crowley replies with, "that's what ya get - workin' with a demon!" oh, crowley. je t'aime.

dean gets sent upstairs alone to face the demon, tries his usual cocky smartass routine and gets the ever living shit kicked out of him. this demon does work for the horseman after all, so he's kind of a badass.

dean wiping blood on the demon's suit jacket. just delightfully insouciant, that dean :-)

dean ekes out an escape, takes the world's longest elevator ride down and regroups with crowley. the demon, of course, reappears, but crowley has the latest in devil's trap headwear handy and uses it to capture the evil exec.

this makes me giggle :-)

en route to their hideout, crowley instructs dean to drive in the opposite direction, away from sam. apparently, the younger winchester has a history with this demon and crowley doesn't trust sam to not kill their hostage. but dean ain't having that shit, so they go back to the lair. when they arrive sam somehow immediately knows something's up and pops up to investigate.

sam's spidey sense is tingling!

dean and crowley unmask the demon for sam to reveal....dundundun...brady! wait, who?

we learn that brady was sam's college friend, the man who introduced him to jess. brady was apparently possessed throughout most of their friendship, on assignment from azazel. brady was sent to put sam back on the "right" path, as yellow eyes thought sam was becoming too much of a civilian. the demons conspired to hook him up with a beautiful innocent girl, and then kill her, in order to ignite sam's anger switch and steer him back toward the dark side.

basically, sammy's been screwed since forever. poor puppy.

the puppy doesn't last long though and then, out comes angry sasquatch sam!

dean has to physically keep sam from killing brady then and there, as they still need him to find pestilence. crowley thanks the winchesters for getting brady "nice and fluffed" and takes a swing at trying to pry pestilence's whereabouts from the demon. the negotiations don't go well, and crowley rather abruptly leaves to pursue an alternate plan. sam takes advantage of their demon den mother's absence, locks dean in a closet and goes after brady with ruby's knife. he gets this close...

...and then doesn't kill him! sam takes control of his temper! hallelujah! does this mean he could take control of lucifer too? has sam finally mastered the force?

i found this recently, but couldn't find out who made it. but they are clearly awesome.

while the boys are still bickering over brady, crowley returns with good news. he's killed a bunch of demons, but left one alive to spread the story that he and brady are "lovers in league against satan," (squee!) which puts brady on the same most wanted list as crowley. so now everyone's on the same side, willingly or no. and this marks the zillionth second official time on the show that "gay love saves the day." amazing!

team free will isn't out of the woods yet though. turns out a demon planted a magic gps tracker on crowley and sent hellhounds after them. dean looks suitably terrified, poor thing, and crowley promptly skedaddles. not knowing what else to do, sam and dean prepare for a hellhound fight, shotguns at the ready. just as dean's about to get mauled (again), crowley reappears with a jumbo sized hound, who rips the others to shreds. demons and winchesters all escape in the impala.

later, brady hands over directions to pestilence and acknowledges that he's now on the lam, just like the rest of them. job done, crowley takes off and dean draws a salt line in the alley behind him, hemming in the winchesters and brady. they stand at opposite ends, showdown style and dean brings the butch saying, "we're the one's you should be afraid of."

intimidating as fuck.

and then sam stabs the shit out of brady! and nearly smiles while he does it! his mannerisms and facial expressions are becoming more and more like lucifer!sam in "the end." which makes me sad cause i'm just starting to like sam again. i don't want either of the brothers to say yes!

this is part snarl, part smile, all lucifer's vessel.

after the demon slaying, sam walks off into the shadows and dean just lets. him. go.


dean just stands there, like he's finally resigned to sam's tremendous anger and aggression. or maybe he's just finally letting sammy become sam? or is he resigned to the whole damn apocalypse? these guys really have the worst lives and they are stressing me out. srsly.


let's see...final thoughts. 1. when they first introduced brady, i immediately thought of eric brady, jensen's character on "days of our lives." i find comfort knowing i am not the only one :-) 2. sam stabs the impala's upholstery when crowley first shows up in the back seat! i couldn't help but think how mad dean must have been. 3. the flies in the blood chalice when brady was communicating with pestilence were super cool and clever!

next week, more pestilence, hopefully some castiel action and (finally) hello death!

gabriel! gabriel! gabriel!

only three episodes left til armageddon! kinda wish i had them all at once because the waiting is making me crazy. crazier. scary to think what will happen to me this summer, during my first hellatus...

anyway, onto the recap...

"hammer of the gods" episode 5x19

first of all, kudos to the production staff. the sets for this episode were stunning! especially the transformation of the super spooky abandoned motel into the "4 star hotel on a no star highway." scary or spectacular, you guys do it right, every time. also, there was tons of blood splatter this episode, which always makes me happy.

so who is responsible for the newly spruced up elysian fields? well, this creepy motherfrakker, who we later find out is the roman god mercury. acting as herald, he is sent ahead to clean up the place and make it suitable for holy-types because...
"they're coming. all of them." oh, really, messenger boy? every last god out there? so are we supposed to believe that the deities eventually gathered are the only ones left? 'cause how the hell would mercury survive and not pluto or janus or just about any other roman god? and what about the rest of the norse or hindu pantheons?

anyway, so the boys arrive at the motel amidst a torrential downpour and looking like adorable wet puppies.

they get all checked in, suspicious of the creepy clerk and overly nice digs, until dean finds out there's free pie. which leads to these shenanigans...

lol! he looks like this is the hardest decision he's had to make in months!

oh, dean :-) stay classy, darlin'!

and free pie leads to our first glimpse of kali the destroyer, who looks...odd. srsly, what the hell happened to cylon tori's kali's face? (methinks some botoxing went awry somewhere.) and anyway, who the hell does she think she is, turning down dean winchester? i turn my back to you, crazy lady. and then i mock you.

see?!? her face looks waxen.

dean's face, on the other hand, is doing just fine. fucker.

the boys chat for a bit and there are some intense moments, as per usual. dean tells sam to "unpucker" and to get some sleep, as it looks like they may actually have a night off. sam gets all angsty and implies that dean is unconcerned about their rapidly approaching doom. dean counters with, "nobody's giving up. especially me," delivered with his trademark stoicism.

all is resolved for the moment and the fellas decide to turn in. there is an adorable moment when dean is flabbergasted at their lodging windfall ("we're like the rockefellers!) and becomes overly excited by pillow chocolates and on-demand porn. but the winchesters being the winchesters, happiness is fleeting and they quickly find trouble in the room next door. after informing desk clerk mercury and being further creeped out by him, the boys decide to investigate on their own.

sam's determined face! a hilarious and personal fave from the padalecki oeuvre.

dean with his emf reader! seems like ages since we've seen that. and we've never seen an elephant!

after scoping the joint, the boys find hostages locked in the walk-in freezer and bloody eyeball soup on the stove. yikes! then they get captured and tossed in here...

again, kudos design team! this is spectacular!

...with a roomful of gods! everyone is duly introduced through a series of flashes of "ancient" images and texts intercut with the god in question. it looked super badass. several pagan religions are represented, though haphazardly, and there are a couple of characters that are never introduced and it's nigh impossible to read their name tags. because, yes, the gods are wearing name tags. lol. wouldn't they know each other already after spending several millenia together? sometimes, this show is so silly!

i rest my case. silliest and best line they're ever had on the show.

and then gabriel shows up!! unf unf unf. i love you. i'm so glad you're back.

and i love the boys expression at gabe's grand entrance. priceless padalecki. sam looks like a mentally challenged, wounded rabbit.

so then gabriel zaps team free will back to the room, hits on dean, snarks on everyone and decides to seduce kali to save the day.

"bite me, gabriel" "maybe later, big boy!" (dean/gabe, ftw!)

see, the pagan god collective has decided to wage war on lucifer and stop the xtian apocalypse. easier said than done. since gabriel (as loki) and kali used to be an item, he decides to use his sexual prowess to convince her to not take on his brother.

work it, archangel.

the seduction routine, sadly, does not work out, though there is some rather awkward kissing. turns out kali knows that gabriel is really an archangel and not a norse god. oops.

meanwhile, sam and dean are out trying to save the frozen townspeople and stumble upon a slaughter in progress. sam pulls them against a wall to hide and has to pin dean against the wall, so he doesn't charge in, guns blazing. sam insists, "it's too late" and what appears to be physical pain crosses dean's face. he cannot bear to lose anyone, but sam doesn't think twice about holding him back and sacrificing the victim. is this their true natures coming out? or is sam just more practical/logical? and dean is pure intuition and constant action?

so eventually, everyone gets captured again and kali sprouts a long metal phallus steals gabriel's angel killing sword. then kills him with it. or does she?
so then dean, seemingly at his wits end, gives a seriously xenophobic speech, preaching that they all need to join forces to kill lucifer, using gabriel's pilfered blade. while putting their plan to action, dean discovers that gabriel is still alive and that the blade kali used on him was actually made "out of a can of diet orange slice." (lolwhut? why does gabriel get so many weird lines? also strange, "so i got wings, like kotex.") anyhoo, dean lectures gabe for a while, comparing the two of them, saying, "i see right through you, you know that. the smartass shell, the whole i-could-give-a-crap thing. believe me, it takes one to know one." it's good to know dean is at least a little self-aware, but in the context of a speech about possible fratricide...i just do not like where dean is going with it. at all. you should never kill your brother, dean. no matter the circumstances. never.

but right now, bigger problems. lucifer shows up and wastes everyone with no effort at all. a mind-boggling bloody mess. apparently, lucifer really is the shit, if he can waste a motel full of gods.
kali gets scared and turns on her fighting arms of fire, which, while awesome to behold, don't slow lucy down one bit.


thankfully, gabriel shows up all eleventh hour-like, having decided to take dean's advice and stand up to his big brother. which prompts this look of hotness...

your face is a criminal offense, you so pretty.

gabriel's badass moment. i love that he's dressed like sam and dean.

gabe goes head to head with lucifer, declaring himself a member of team free will. he says things like, "damn right, they're flawed. but a lot of them try to do better, to forgive" and "no one makes us do anything." le sigh. and this is the moment when i knew he was gonna bite it for real. right after joining the gang. because badass or no, gabriel's still no match for lucifer, who "taught him all his tricks." though, lucy sure does look sad after killing his little bro. pellegrino's bringing a nice complexity to the character.

the wings make it true. :-(

the boys escape the lucifer/gabriel melee, with kali and a copy of casa erotica 13, given to dean by gabriel. they stop on the side of the road to watch and discover that the trickster is up to his old tricks. gabe has inserted himself into the porn and proceeds to explain how the winchesters have no hope of icing the devil, but they can lock him back in hell. all they need is the 4 horsemen's power rings. and they already have 2.

this is my fave cap. i love you, impala.

way to subtly work in porn, writers. fanservice?

naturally, cut to max headroom trashcan man pestilence, who is one nasty fucker. i can't wait to see how they take him down! it's bound to be a snotty, bloody mess.

this cap is included simply because damn! vancouver is beautiful.

the third ring of power

free kittens. lol.

oh, show. awesome.

in conclusion, i loved this ep. i loved that sam and dean seemed almost incidental, which makes sense as they are in the company of gods! the winchesters are important sure, but still kinda secondary; just fancy meatsuits. um, other things i haven't mentioned: 1. dean was totally wearing his jacket from "the end." what does it mean? is everything already decided? can the winchesters change destiny? 2. where the fuck is cas? not to mention adam. at least we get crowley back next ep. mark sheppard, always ftw! 3. another not-so-subversive dig at xtianity, as lucifer basically says the god squad rules the world now because they took power by brute force. sheesh, i love this mythology.