(no subject)

[fairyd123]

O.K.I'll admit that my expectations for this episode couldn't have been any lower. The released description of the episode was awful, the directors cut clip taken out of context was dire and hey of course the fact that I know this was going to be a Jo heavy episode did not fill me with joy. Basically if it was better than Route 666 I was going to be a happy bunny.

And thankfully No Exit didn't turn out to be anywhere near as bad as I feared - but not bad doesn't equate to good. For me it was the weakest episode of the season so far and certainly a pretty week ep to air during the first week of sweeps.

Jo - I remain as ever somewhat baffled by where Kripke and the writers are going with her. This was Jo's make or break episode and I was convinced that I would end the episode either loving her or hating her. But in truth I'm still as indifferent to her as I ever was. What does it say about how poorly they are writing the character that I can't muster up strong feelings about her one way or another? Hell they can't even get her name right. Last week she was Jolene (which actually really suited the character), this week she's Joanna Beth. Was the angel of continuity drunk of his ass this week or what?

I liked the fact that the case was Jo's case to begin with. If they are going to bring the character back the audience needs to see that Jo is a capable (if not experienced) hunter. And I do think they were successful in showing that. Jo had worked out there was a problem with the building, she'd sussed out the pattern, had done all the reasearch and all the groundwork. If I were her having put all that much effort into a case I would also want to see it through to the bitter end and would be monumentally pissed off that a couple of boys (no matter how cute they are) had snaked it from me. I totally understand Jo wanting to be involved with the case and following Sam and Dean to the building. I just wish the writers had had her be more mature about it.

If Kripke does read the various boards as he suggested this week he does he must know that the biggest problem with Jo is that she is coming across about a decade younger than they had intended. They should have addressed her apparent lack of maturity in this episode but if anything they just seemed to compound the view that Jo is a silly teenager. If you're mature enough to demon hunt you're mature enough to tell your damn mother where you're going. Even if you only tell her by leaving her a note. I would have respected the character more if she had been straight with her mother instead of launching into some Nancy Drew esque escapade with fake money trails and pleading with Dean to lie to her mother (which he shouldn't have done - he's a big boy so he doesn't get a free pass for the lying - that was his choice).

Then there was the attitude. Ackles is very good at being cocky and charming at the same time. Alona unfortunately isn't the world's most natural trash talker so whilst she was aiming for cocky it came out bratty - and it was as annoying as hell.

That being said I didn't mind her scenes with Dean. I didn't find them forced or boring as others did. Granted they have no sexual chemistry but the interchanges were nice enough. It was wonderfully in character for Dean to lecture her on lying to her mother and to discourage her from the hunting world. And whilst the conversation about their fathers was a little corny I did like the moment where Dean immediately apologised and gave back the knife he'd been mocking once he realised it was her father's because of course Dean would immediately get the significance of it to Jo. I also thought Alona did a lovely job of conveying how scared Jo was when she waked up trapped in that cage. I liked that she was terrified and was crying but still managed to keep her wits about her and pull herself together. And props are due - her delivery of "This won't make you feel better but I'm here to rescue you" was brilliant.

Of course if the writers actually wanted us to like Jo in this episode they shouldn't have committed the cardinal sin of literally relegating Sam to the backseat. My biggest concern about introducing a love interest was that it would necessarily interrupt the brotherly banter and significantly reduce the screentime of whatever brother the love interest isn't making moony eyes at. And of course that played out exactly as everyone had feared in this episode. Jo appears, Sam vanishes. I get that Padalecki probably wasn't available because of his injury but I still really missed Sam in this episode - it felt like he was barely in it. It must really suck for the two of them that everytime they have an episode which gives one of them a little time off like No Exit or Scarecrow it's always really poorly received by the fans. I think its going to be a while before they can start to do the "special" episodes which don't focus on our two leads.

And then there was the soap opera concept of John having gotten Jo's father killed. How exactly are our potential lovers supposed to get past that? Honestly I don't think they can. I can only think that they included this incredibly soapy plotline so that they would have a natural out for the character. They now have the ability to completely write out Jo by explaining her absence in any future Roadhouse set scenes by saying that Jo can't stand to be around Dean and Sam because of what their father did. Or they can reduce her back to the glorified extra role she had in ELAC for the same reason.

They have an out and I'm rather hoping they'll take it but I'm still a tad dismayed at how badly they've handled the character. Jo does have potential - not as a love interest - but as a strong ally for the boys, if only they could find someone decent to write her well.

And on a separate and slightly more catty note my inner fashionista (who has never fully recovered from the trauma that was my adventures with a home highlighting kit several year ago) would very much like Alona to do her damn roots. Dark brown roots and blonde waves is so not a good look.

Ellen - I still like Ellen and am happy for her to be featured far more often. I really don't like this "John got her husband killed" plotline but at least they didn't have her holding their father's actions against Dean and Sam until they had lied to her and put Jo in danger (the fact that Jo put herself in danger is irrelevant to Ellen - I'm sure that in her view Sam and Dean are the experienced hunters and so she feels they shouldn't have involved her). It's still hard to completely empathasise with her though. I can understand that she's terrified of the prospect of Jo hunting because it puts her at risk but if she didn't want her daughter to hunt she shouldn't have raised her in an environment when she came into contact with hunters all the time. Did she honestly think that Jo was going to grow up with all thse hunters, hear all their stories and then not want to hunt herself when she got old enough? Again the writing is pretty crappy but Samantha Ferris is thankfully rising above her material.

To be honest I felt that the plot was relatively insubstantial this week swamped as it was by Jo and her family traumas. However, the set pieces were some of the most unsettling things I've seen on this show. The eye in the wall in the teaser completely freaked me out and Jo and the other girl only having that tiny mettalic slit to look out of, never knowing where Holmes was - I thought it was pretty effective.

All round? A bit of a waste of a plotline (Sam and Dean meeting America's first serial killer deserved better), far too much emphasis on secondary characters and an uneven feel due to the lack of Sam and Dean scenes made for a decent but far from spectacular episode. Lets hope they step up to the plate next week.

Comments

[astrothsknot.livejournal.com]

They really dropped the ball on this one.

Alona was good with what she got. It's just that what she got wasn't very good.