Finishing before the hiatus with such a lacklustre episode largely took all the pain away from having a month without the show and I enjoyed my time away watching other things. If this comes back with a good episode, then great but I've long since bothered getting my hopes up.
Part of the reason I enjoyed Goodbye Stranger is it largely leaves the lore alone. As much as the last few seasons have tried to expand Supernatural's universe, each new aspect introduced largely contradicts or undermines the last and by Season 8 Supernatural was barely coherent any more. Supernatural has always been a show with a crap universe but incredible characters.
Goodbye stranger puts its time specifically into expanding the characters instead and although Meg's death was largely underwhelming, especially with how important and long running she has been in the series, her reintroduction was a welcomed one. For a show that pussyfoots around a lot Meg got a lot of development in this episode and the focus wasn't even specifically on her. It's nice when you get these occasional reminders that the writers still do know what they are doing. Perhaps my favourite moment of the episode was the scene she shared with Castiel and now I can only hope she didn't die after all because after all this, I think in some twisted sense of the word, she deserves a second chance. About the only thing I'm not looking forward to is the Destiel fallout this episode is going to result in since the episode both affirms Meg and Cas as a thing and that Dean only recognises Cas as family, I can't wait to see what bullshit reasons they make up to get out of this one.Goodbye Stranger is oddly constructed to say the least. It combines all the best parts of classic Supernatural with all the problems of modern Supernatural. The case has a humanside to it, it starts by being about demonic possession but it spends time establishing the victim as a human being, whose death has a wider resonance. We then immediately follow it up with the brothers not talking about the victim as a human but simply as the demon that possessed her. Yay the demon is dead! Yeah but the victim died as well...is no one going to point that out? Oh wait I forgot you were the two 'heroes' that no longer thought twice about murdering innocent possessed civilians, my bad. I really cannot stand season 8 Winchester's, I know a lot has happened but I missed when they used to be human beings that actually had emotions other than angst.
Their serious personality problems actually end up undermining other narrative aspects of the episode. The show wants us to be shocked by Castiel's 'bad cop' turn but as said, after all the civilians we've seen the Winchester's nonchalantly kill throughout the season with claims that it's okay because they were possessed, which basically ignores five seasons worth of monsterlore, I didn't really find it shocking at all. I just feel sorry for anybody whoever meets the Winchester's these days, the brothers are no longer heroes, they are just reapers.Perhaps the most angering of all this is any aspects of this directed at Meg. Sure, Meg is evil but with all the second chances monsters have gotten this season, the fact that the brothers didn't even take a pause before they sped away as Meg literally gave her life for them made me sick to my stomach. Especially as Sam basically spends the entire episode laying into her about her moral decisions. With all the cuntery the brothers have done this season, they have no fucking right to ride a high horse, even with a demon like Meg. And the fact that brothers are so twisted and broken by this point that I actually sympathise with one of Supernatural's greatest evils clearly says everything.
The greatest sin of the episode though was the final five minutes. Sure from a dramatic standpoint we love the brothers heart to heart in the car or Castiel turning his back on Heaven but how many fucking times have we done this now? For all the development in the episode by the end we were in such familiar territory I'm not sure the episode even moved at all. Even the heartbreaking scene as Castiel beat Dean into the floor fell somewhat flat when you remember this has happened at least twice before and considering it was done before by a demon wearing John and an archangel wearing Sam, I find it particularly hard to care when it's being done by Cas, because they aren't really family and haven't been for quite sometime.So was this weeks episode better than last weeks? I loved every scene with Meg this week and honestly, I think she was enough to save the episode. Really any problems I had with the episode are problems with the season as a whole. Sam and Dean are unsympathetic douchebags who are so far away from the heroes they once were the reference to them as a serial killers seems every episode less of a joke and more of a worrying meta critique of what these once great characters have become. This is only made more frustrating because the episode starts in a very simple, human way like all the best, classic episodes did which only gives you further whiplash as the brothers roll their eyes as innocent people are dropped left right and centre. As said, I'm just glad we had Meg to breathe life into largely a dead horse.
Just as an aside, has it been confirmed Naomi is an angel? Her and Crowley apparently know one another in the past and when she vanished at the end, there was no sound of flapping wings.Pros;
- Supernatural always has great characters.
- It leaves the lore alone, for the most part.
- Meg!
- A few glimpses of humanity.
- I may have cried a little as Cas wailed on Dean...
Cons;
- Not only was it heartbreaking to see Meg go, her death was largely underwhelming and utterly sickening on the brothers part.
- I absolutely hate who the brothers have become.
- It ended in a way that has been done so many times over now that it is beyond stale.
Think About It!
-Locke
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