Writing Tips – Mysteries

(well, II seems to have canceled my Writing Tips series so they’re back to here on my blog.  so here’s the latest one, Furious D tested and approved)

This post was inspired by DC comics epic failure: Final Crisis.  Now I am primarily a DC fan (though I do enjoy Marvel at times) and Grant Morrison drew me into comics with his quite excellent JLA run.  How then can I say that their latest works is a failure?  Because Morrison and DC have forgotten one of the most important rules of mysteries.

The audience has to care.

Of course that’s true of any story (fiction or non) so what makes mysteries different?

Mysteries are about keeping key information away from the audience until the final moment (the “reveal”) if ever.  This is accomplished by either leaving the info out all together or hiding it in unassuming disguises (the “clues”).  The former is easy, the latter is much harder to accomplish without spoiling the reveal ahead of schedule.  Thus, many lazy writers use obfuscation to create mystery.  But like Jim Doom says:

The fact that I don’t know what the mystery is doesn’t make me more intrigued.

Does this mean you can never have a vague mystery?  No!  But imagine your mystery is like a scene in a movie.  A scene can open or begin completely blurred and out of focus.  However, some shape and definition has to come into focus or the audience quickly grows bored.  Parts of the scene can still remain blurry, but the audience has to have something to latch onto.

What do I mean the audience needs to latch onto something?  How is it done?  Like most techniques, this can be broken down into some basic components:

1. The audience needs to know what question(s) is being asked.  This doesn’t mean it has to be the right question, but you have to give them an anchor to hold onto.  Imagine watching a cop show where the police are investigating a crime without ever telling you what the crime is.  Is it a murder?  Robbery?  Kidnapping?  Public nudity?  Without this crucial info, you are left distant and uninvolved in the proceedings, less interested in what’s going on than in trying to figure out why anybody’s doing anything.  This is Final Crisis’ biggest failing.  Instead of being involved in the story, we’re left asking “What’s going on?  Why should we care?”  Though the book started off with a mystery we could latch onto (Who killed Orion?), more bewildering threads were tossed at us till we were no longer able to hold onto the anchors in the story and were drowning in questions.  Now instead of following the mystery, the audience is left asking “What is going on?”
2. There needs to be clear stakes if the mystery isn’t solved and the audience needs to know them.  There are many things which are primal and instinctual to your audience, thus why murder mysteries hold such strong and enduring appeal: justice may be subverted and the murderer may escape.  This is another failure of Final Crisis.  We the audience can’t be drawn into the mystery because we have trouble understanding what will happen if things go unsolved.  We’re given a hint that the world might end but since that’s a normal Tuesday in comics the emotional ‘punch’ that stake has is greatly reduced.  We no longer care that the world might end (that’s been the case for how many decades?) we have to know how it’s going to end.

This doesn’t mean that you can’t do weird, world changing mysteries in your stories, but you have to start with those two.  Think about the X-files.  They didn’t launch right away into the government conspiracy but gave you a tangible mystery (part 1. What happened to Mulder’s sister? part 2. He will never find peace).  Then as the series unfolded, that anchor was used to lead you into a deeper and greater mystery (part 1. What’s the deal with aliens? part 2. They will doom humanity to extinction or slavery.).

Build your world first and draw the audience into it.  Once they are comfortable, begin the deeper, more fascinating mysteries.  Don’t be lazy and tell your audience nothing in an effort to keep the reveal in the dark.  Once they understand the rules of that world, they will be more intrigued by your mysteries within it, and you will have a successful story.

Supernatural RPG (humor edition)

So the Supernatural RPG may or may not exist (I think we’ll call it the shrodenger RPG).  Amazon says it’s not coming out till the end of the year.  Borders says you can buy it next week.  Or you can just download it right now.

At any rate, while I eagerly await for its release (so that you can then see NW’s true stats), I started thinking… what if the show was done like Star Wars & Lord of the Rings – it’s all a roleplaying campaign?

Well I won’t be doing a webcomic of the show (just yet, maybe if enough people ask…) but still, I can already see the lines…

“What’s your character name again?”
“Jo!  I’m a hot blonde.”
“Ok, making a reflex saving roll.”
“Why?”
“You’re a girl.  You have to make a saving roll every hour against random death.”
“Screw that, I’m rolling a guy.”
“Ok, what’s his name?”
“Castiel!”

“You have what feat?”
” ‘Pure bad-ass’.  All opposing creatures must make a will save in John’s presence or kill themselves out of pure awe.”
“…Yeah that’s going to have to go.”

“You come around the corner and in the middle of the junkyard, you see a car.”
“A car?  What color is it?”
“…it’s black, Dean.”
“Black?  Gotta be evil.  I attack it with a tire iron.”

” ‘I hope your apple pie is freakin’ worth it!’ “
“The the townspeople ignore you.”
“I struggle against the bindings again.”
“Why?”
“Improved taunt.   Gives me a +1 strength modifier after I say something witty.”

“I totally want to do her!”
“Alright Sam, fine.  You screw the hot girl, only to wake up after the passionate loving to discover that she’s a werewolf.”
“Cool!  I shoot her with a silver bullet.”
“She dies.  You get half the XP for the encounter because you slept with her.”
“Dude that’s so unfair!  Can’t you cut me a break?  My girlfriend just died.”
“Because you shot her!”
Dean: “Dude, too soon.”

All your base – predictions and review 2

Dismay Tentacle

5 speed
5 defense
3 +1 brawl
2 +1 short-range blast
5 health
Burrow,  Beat back, Hit & Run (adj), Reach

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Despair Tentacle
5 speed
5 defense
3 +1 brawl
2 +1 short-range blast
5 health
Burrow,  Fling, Telekinesis (adj), Reach

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Distress Tentacle

5 speed
5 defense
3 +1 brawl
2 +1 short-range blast
5 health
Burrow,  Siphon (adj), Summon, Reach

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Dread Tentacle

5 speed
5 defense
3 +1 brawl
2 +1 short-range blast
5 health
Burrow,  Penetrator (adj), Vampirism, Reach

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The first thing you’ll notice about the split edition of the monster is no power attacks (though at least 2 of them have power attack like abilities).   Which means you’ll probably have to use those power dice on brawling and blasting.  We also get our first look at two new abilities: Burrow & Reach.  My predictions for them:  Burrow will be a movement ability that funcitons like jump, except you won’t be able to attack flying targets.  Reach will be the ability that lets you attack flying targets.  Probably the biggest hint we get is the idea of combined attacking on monster activations.  Since each tentacle has poor stats without any ready way to beef their boost dice (like G.U.A.R.D.’s sky sentinal forces) the pieces must work together.  Players will also get the chance to make hard choices of who they want to lead the attack. (though it’ll probably always be the Dismay Tentacle for beat back, and it can get penetrator & siphon if it has 2 brothers next to it).

I’m also willing to bet that to balance out no power attack, the parts will be immune to some power attacks themselves (probably throw, smash & body slam obviously), though how they’ll work with stomp, rampage or fling could lead to some judging headaches.  The other big concern is how health will work.  At first I wondered if all split monsters would just have ‘4′ health and change into their ultra form once all the pieces are dead, but the listed health of 5 has sunk that theory.  So doing damage to one will affect the health as a whole (because letting each one have it’s own 5 health would be broken, the monster’s base form would have a whopping 20 health!) the big question is how multiple strikes work.  If I fling one tentacle into another does the whole take 1 damage or 2?

At any rate, the new metamorphs look like they are going to add a lot of fun to the game.  I’m interested in seeing if they’ll break the current standard monsters but in any case, it looks like the board is going to be a whole lot more fun and ‘war-like’.

Let the games begin.

All your base – predictions and review

(no I haven’t forgotten Supernatural, I’ve gotten the latest magazine and the guidebook to monsters etc and will be reviewing them over the next couple of weeks on Thursdays)
(info found and gleamed from here)

The Despoiler [grunt edition]

stats:
5 speed
3 defense
1 brawl
[] +2 long-range blast
Climb, Sniper

The source website forgot to put in how much the blast stat is for but I’m willing to bet that it’s a 1.  That +2 boost makes this unit comparble to Hunters (any more and they become much better than hunters).  As “I chomp NY” gave us the Reaper – a mini version of Deimos-9 – “all your base” will apparently give us the mini version of Phobos-7.  In the first set, “Rise” Martians had only 2 units that could hold objectives and they both had a defense of 2.  Now they’re going to have at least 4 (probably 5 as a “negative pod” has been hinted at) and two of those will have the highest defenses of the whole faction.  These guys will probably replace reapers as they can fire on anyone approaching your power base.  The larger question is: will they replace Hunters?  Though they lack flight and 1 point of speed, Despoilers probably will, especially on maps where they can “building hop” around impassible/rough terrain.  After being on the low scale of units, looks like martians are going to have their due.

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Ultra Ancient Osheroth

stats:
6 speed
7 defense
7 +4 brawl
6 +1 unknown blast
8 +3 power attack
6 health
3 hyper cost
Telekinesis [global], Radial Attack, Annihilate, Sacrifice

The ‘combo’ monster for C’thul (I’ll review his individual parts tomorrow) is a fearsome beast indeed. In fact, he looks to make Ulgoth obsolete. True he isn’t immune to throw or volatile but who cares? He can eat any C’thul unit for health and gives everyone telekinesis across the board. The only thing that would have been better is if he had the tow ability so he could pull units in right before hitting with radial attack. His stats are higher than Ulgoth’s across the board (save for brawl & power but he gets more boost dice!) which makes this guy seem like pure escalation. (unless the rules on his alpha-split form gimp him just enough) Now I feel silly for having traded for Ulgoth the other day. All hail Osheroth!

Terminator Salvation – Review

spoiler free review

I went into the movie expecting men fighting machines, lots of guns and explosions.  I wasn’t disappointed.  A lot of critics have talked about how the movie doesn’t “examine the human condition” as well as the previous 3 but really?  It seems nostalgia has clouded reviewers’ eyes as they’ve forgotten the earlier Terminator movies were mostly men fighting machines, lots of guns and explosions.  In fact, the only Terminator you really need to have watched for this movie is the first one.  Plus there’s Christian Bale who is incapable of NOT kicking ass.

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spoiler review

Robocop vs the Terminator
Yeah, the plot has a lot in common with that.  But I’m not here to pick apart the plot but 2 problems with it.  One which is endemic to post-apocalyptic stories in general, the second to the Terminator series specifically.

A pivotal point in the movie comes when the humans think they’ve found a way to take out Skynet and are getting ready to attack its central headquarters.  The only problem is that there are human prisoners there.  John Connor tries convincing them not to attack because he’s learned Kyle Reese is there and he doesn’t want to not exist.  However, nobody brings up the obvious objection to this attack.  A fact particularly important to man vs machine futures but one that is never addressed (yes, not even by the Matrix): soldier production.  For those who have forgotten, human beings take 9 months to make.  They are limited to an average of 1 per female and even after those 9 months, you have another 5-20 years before the human is useful as a soldier to your cause.  Compare to machine who can produce a dozen soldiers a day and you realize the logistics problem for humans as well as the wisdom of letting women fight in this world.  Every female soldier that becomes a casualty reduces your ability to have more soldiers later. (one wonders why there’s no fiction where only barren women are allowed to fight – or any that examine what a total war against humanity might entail to fight, like… breeding farms that successful soldiers are allowed to visit etc)  More so than ever, each human life is of incomparable value.  John Connor shouldn’t have to argue with the leaders of the resistence to save the prisoners, there should already be rescue plans in place.

But that brings us to a problem that has always plagued the Terminator series and the ending that wasn’t.  It is a conceit of resistence movements (particularly when fighting against totalitarian systems) that no one person is invaluable.  Strike down the leader, another will rise to take his place.  So what makes John Connor so important to humanity?  When I brought this up to my pal Asahel, he provided the fascinating concept of “machine logic” (one which would have opened up intriguing posibilities for the franchise but was spoiled with the sequels).  The idea being, John Connor leads the humans to victory, so the machines send a terminator back in time to kill him.  Imagine they win.  Then in the future, another leader is victorious.  So the machines send a terminator back in time to kill the new guy, etc.  Thus, the machines are always destined to lose because they fail to realize that it’s not the leader that’s defeating them.

But the franchise didn’t take this road so we’re stuck with the idea that John Connor is key to human victory without explaining how.  Thus, the alternate ending: John Connor becomes a cyborg.  Earlier the film had been exploring how John is vital to the future because he has his mother’s tapes and is a “prophet” (of sorts) though his foreknowledge is running out.  In was with interest then I watched the last act of the film, the cyborg Marcus acesses and Skynet and is able to force it (or does he?) to do his bidding.  For a moment I thought the movie had pulled a sleight of hand and only made us think John’s importance was his foreknowledge, but it would actually be due to the fact that he would be transformed into a nigh indestructible warrior that could strike at Skynet’s heart.  But no, the ending to the movie was changed and we are still left with the question of why humanity needs John Connor.

That is what I ultimately hold against the movie.  An underlying theme throughout it was the debate about becoming the enemy to defeat the enemy and John becoming a cyborg would have tied it all together as well as give viewers much to talk about and make us eager to see more films about this world.  As it is, the movie is just… average.

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P.S. Christian Bale has portrayed characters named “John Connor” and “Bruce Wayne” which, if you put them together, becomes “John Wayne.”  Think about it.

Monster Anaylsis – Tharsis-5

(because I’m in a gaming mood, that’s why)

Tharsis stands out as the martian monster with the most raw offensive power.  He doesn’t have quite the defensive or scramble abilities of his peers, instead relying on finishing the game quickly.

Best units
In mid to late game, the defensive stat on a monster becomes worthless against the opposing monster as by that point the power dice are flowing freely.  Where it is important is against the opposing units.  Currently in Monsterpocalypse there are many tournament viable armies which focus less on powerful monster attacks and more on consistent damage.  It doesn’t matter if it’s the units or monster attacking, you are getting hurt (Sky Sentinel is the current reigning king of this style).  Thus, Tharsis’ support should generally look at keeping your opponent’s units down so the monsters fight one on one.  Vanguards, with their short range, are usually a poor choice for him.  Tharsis can usually get power dice easily and their short range keeps them from reliably locking down the board.  Instead, concentrate on marauders and hunters for your forces (hunters love the universal energy cycle).  2 saucers to pop anything too tough for even your hunters.  Hold objectives with power pods or reapers (the toughest martian unit).

Strategies
I like to include a building with the “attraction” ability on it so my units can give me a guaranteed power dice on turn 1.  You want to get some power dice and shift into your plus form as quick as possible.  From there move in close and begin wailing on the enemy (rampaging through his power structure is nice).  Both plus forms have ways of dealing 3+ damage a turn.  Stick close and batter around the opponent, you need to make sure you get ahead of the damage game.  It won’t be long until your plus form is destroyed and you’ll be back on your basic.  By this point the game has probably reached the moment where it’s a fast war of attrition, hence why you wanted to save the basic form for late game.  (I’ve played several matches with him, flexing doesn’t work well.)  If you don’t have control of your opponent’s units by now, the game will probably be his.

Faction Matchups
G.U.A.R.D. – Poor.  Laser Knight is the bane of your existence and Nova is annoying with her constantly trying to dance away from you. (Another reason you want to save the basic form for last: it has the higher movement unless you’re using the Mega edition.)  Repair vehicles are even worse which is why you need to keep the units tied up with yours.  Try to bash the opposing monster away from his spawn points and even park your units over them (your opponent will have to eat up A-dice to move them).  You’ll need a lot of luck here.

Terrasaurs – Fair.  The game will probably be quicker than most and you’ll be lucky to have any of the city left standing.  There are no great or sucky matchups here (though ultra Armodax vs basic Tharsis is a lesson in frustration).  The games can also come down to who destroyed the other’s healing buildings first.

Lords of Cthul – Good.  They have poor health and little in the way of defensive ability.  One good attack can finish a monster form outright.  However, they also have the most diverse methods of healing so you must make sure you keep the damage high.

Plaent Eaters – Fair to poor.  They don’t have much with damage mitigation but they do have deep health and some of the most damaging abilities.  Several games have been decided by whomever gets in the first solid blow.  Luck of the die will determine how you do.

Martian Meance – Excellent.  The other martian monsters specialize in defensive and disruptive abilities.  Abilities that Tharsis gets around quite well.  The Mega edition of his plus form will have a bit of trouble against the mothership, but the ultra  should steamroll over all of them.  Of course if it’s a mirror match, whoever hits first will usually carry the day.

Shadow Sun Syndicate – Good.  The SSS have excellent mobility and defense but Tharsis should have enough power dice to flatten them.  The biggest worry is someone like Zor-Voltis shooting then dancing out of the way while Tharsis tries to chase him down.  Keep a cool head and focus on getting that one attack in that will take out a form.  If you get a chance, toss nearly every dice you can at them.

Holey Matrix

The other day I was bored (no Supernatural on and saving up money to get some of the latest goodies coming out) so I turned to my modest movie collection and looked for some entertainment.  Ah, I thought, the Matrix, always a good choice.  But as I popped it in and watched it I realized something: This movie is filled with plot holes.  True they are not as obvious as the ship scene in Jurassic Park 2 but they are there nonetheless.  So, since I need some material here, I thought I’d share the worse of them.

Cipher’s betrayal

The key turning point in the movie to its action packed climax is the moment when one of the crewmates – Cipher – betrays them all.  The problem?  Nothing here makes sense.  Earlier we see him having a meal with Agent Smith, planning the judas moment.  However a scene later, Morpheus asks for the ship to be brought to “broadcast depth”.  If they weren’t at broadcast depth before, how did Cipher get into the Matrix?  When the betrayal happens, a tense scene occurs as the redshirts are disconnected (from life!) because they can’t leave the Matrix.  But if you can’t leave the Matrix without outside help (the ‘operator’) how did Cipher leave after his meeting with Agent Smith?  Much less how did he plug himself in as the chair set ups we see would make driving a large needle into the back of your skull highly difficult.

Then there’s the lightning gun he uses to shoot Tank & Dozer.  Why is this thing on the ship? Earlier Trinity said that EMP was the only weapon they had against the machines – which is great because it makes friendly fire impossible (unless a nearby human has a pacemaker).  So what’s up with the lightning gun?  If Trinity isn’t lying, then its only use is to shoot other humans, but why would you need or even want that in war where humans are near extinction? (and are harder to produce than mass manufactured machines)  I wonder if I can use the zoom feature to see the “use in case of betrayal” tag on it.

Morpheus’ capture

Leading up to Cipher’s betrayal, Morpheus is captured by Agent Smith.  But why?  We later see Trinity and Neo work together to defeat an agent, so why do the humans never seem to gang up on them?  There’s 6 of them in that scene vs 1 agent.  At the very least they should be able to lay down a field of fire that’s impossible to dodge.  Or why not use grenades?  Or a flame thrower!  Let’s see them dodge explosions and fires.

Then there’s the whole fighting deal.  Agents can dodge bullets.  Humans can hit agents.  But humans can’t dodge bullets.  When I pointed this out to my buddy Asahel, he noted that the agents’ fighting style was to let the humans wail on them ineffectually while they struck back at moment of vulnerability.  All well and good, but why don’t the humans then use concealed weaponry?  If your punches land on the agent, a switchblade or small gun would end the fights quickly.  Or maybe just some brass knuckles?

Building rescue

The main action piece of the movie involves the following sequence of events: Trinity & Neo enter the building where Morpheus is being held.  They fight through the lobby and then go to the roof to get a helicopter to fly down midway of the building and get Morpheus.

…

Why didn’t they just bring a helicopter with them (instead of the shit-load of guns) when they entered the Matrix to start with?  If – for some reason – that couldn’t be done, why not just go rent/hijack a helicopter from a less heavily guarded private airport?  Or why not just jump from the rooftop of a neighboring building onto the roof with the helicopter?  Why not just scale up the side of the building, throw a flash bang grenade into the room and then grab Morpheus in the confusion? (you know, like Batman did in the Dark Knight)  Did they just want to kill some innocent people?

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Well what else do I have on my shelves…

(also, why are there only 3 agents at a time?  their AI programs so the machines should be able to produce as many of them as possible effortlessly, like 1 for each target human…)

Star Trek – Review

Before I became a rabid SN fan, I was a rabid ST fan.  Raised on TNG and obsessing over DS9, I spent much of my high school and college years soothing my lonliness with going where no one has gone before.  But Voyager, Enterprise, Insurrection and Nemesis broke my heart and I left the fandom I used to love so much.  So how was the new movie?  Well…

(note: spoiler lie ahead)

The good?  McCoy, Spock, Pike and Sulu were spot on.  The special effects were top notch but intergrated well enough into it that we felt we were a part of the movie, not blinded by it.  Also, kudos to the makers for really upping the ante and actually putting this old cynic a bit on the edge.  Over all, there are worse ways to spend your hard earned cash.

The bad

I’m not going to harp on the time travel thing.  Certainly if you’ve been a trekkie for any amount of time you’ve learned to accept and coast through the shenanagins.  However, the event that kicks it all off doesn’t make sense even by the movie’s own logic.

Ok, a supernova threatens the galaxy. (let’s ignore how this would work for a moment)  Why then are only Spock and the romulans involved?  Shouldn’t the entire Federation, Klingon, Borg, Dominion, Cardassians, Ferengi, Cylons and Terminators be helping?  It does threaten them too.

However, Spock goes off to denoate his Deus Ex Bomb  but Romulus is destroyed by the supernova.  The images on screen show Romulus being destroyed by a shockwave.  How then did Spock get to where the star was in the first place?  (imagine the shockwave as a bubble)  Even assuming for near instant communication, how did Romulus get destoryed, Nero hear about it, and then beat Spock to the magic zone?  Spock would have to be travelling not only slower than Nero, but also a little slower than the shockwave (so again, how was he not destroyed).  Then, how was the Deus Ex bomb supposed to stop or prevent the supernova from destroying the rest of the galaxy?    Was it supposed to actually reverse the shockwave? (if so, why wasn’t Spock given a much faster ship?  like Nero’s)

Spock notes that Vulcans are an endangered species.  Really?  Romulans are a Vulcan off shoot that are still closely related enough to allow interbreeding.  TNG even had an episode where they found some Vulcans that had settled on a planet many years ago but remained primative.  Are they the only ones?  Why can Spock and the rest go and gather these lost cousins to repopulate the species? (and doesn’t their existence as well as Romulans mean Vulcans AREN’T an endangered species?)  Then there’s the ethical question, if Vulcan’s are endangered, should Spock be macking on a female outside his species?

Chekov was horrible.  Pretty much the textbook definition of Never Live it Down.  Scotty was even worse.  First and foremost Scotty was always a consumate professional (he was famous  for reading technical manuals for FUN) who really was the best.  He is not the buffon that Peg portrayed him as.  In the same line, I grew quite tired of the ENTIRE crew pretty much getting their ranks improperly.  Save for Spock and Checkov, every other crew member got their spot by trickery or death of a superior.  While once or twice isn’t bad, by the time it was happening to McCoy and Scotty I was sick of the trope.  Especially with those two who were always shown to be the best that there is.  McCoy and Scotty should NOT have needed a superior to die to get their ranks, they should have had them (on the Federation flagship no less) from the start.   That the crew of the enterprise were the best was always acceptable in the show because it was the federation flagship, you’d expect for the best to be on board.

As for Kirk himself?  First I refer you to this article.  I don’t entirely agree with her on it as there’s still a chance and room for Kirk to grow into the man we remember.  However, failure for the character to grow in any sequels would condemn Chris Pine in my opinion to always be inferior to Shatner.

Final word?  Well I’d actually rank it about equl with the Wolverine movie (and Terminator: Salvation above both of them).  The more you know about the source material, the more you’ll hate these films.  (conversely, if you know nothing about Star Trek, go enjoy the movie)  For each plus either movie has there is accompanying minus that drags the movie down to a little above average. (the only real difference is that ST really should be savored on the big screen while Wolverine can wait for DVD)

Episode Review – Lucifer Rising

The episode itself was, as usual for Supernatural season finales, most excellent. However, I grade the finales a bit on a curve with the high standard set by previous. So why doesn’t this episode warrant 5 shells? As great as it was, it didn’t have a “whoa” moment. Dean shooting Azazel. Dean getting ripped apart by invisible dogs. The Impala getting hit by a truck. Everything was great in this episode but I can’t think of any moment that really burns itself into your brain.

Kudos to Kripke & Co for giving us an ending that could be the last show of the series if need be. In truth, I have no idea how the show will proceed from here or what is left to be done as every mystery and question seems answered. We can see some hint of how things might be from the TV show Angel when it had a similar story arc (the hero failed to stop a apocalyptic being from entering our world). Will Lucifer be like Jasmine and, in fact, brainwash the world to peace with the brothers trying to stop him? Can we finally get the Colt back?

Excellent acting from everyone involved and it was great to see Bobby break Dean out of his “emo” phase into the “action-oriented” Dean we all know and love.

Not much else to say about this show as it was fairly straightforward. More to come in my season analysis.

Supernatural Finale Live Blogging

Yay! the season recap montage has Carry on Wayward Son for the music.

Poor priest.  I kind of wish holy workers had some special protection.  I do like the priest’s compare/contrast monologue.

Yellow Eyes???  Is it Azazel or someone else?

2 slow focuses in a row… interesting motif tonight and nice touch contrasting the two.

(lot of guest stars too)

Yay Bobby!  Enough mopy, solve it like men!

Did this just turn into 2001?

Go Sam!  I’m glad they didn’t leave that baby-eater around for long.

Angel “green room”.  That makes me laugh.

Misha Colli has great talent.  I love that subtle turn of his.  Still disappointed that Zacheriah is as much a bastard as the other angels.  I was hoping he’d be different.

“Sam tortures a fangirl by not touching her.”

Ooooo…. that was a cold move on the demon’s part.

What is this lost?  Why we having flashbacks?

Ok, confirmed that this is Azazel but his “endgame” is to release Lucifer?  Raises some questions from earlier in the season.

That’s the Dean we all know and love.

Yep, I was right, a brother’s war.

Way to splurge on decorating guys.  The paintings, mirrors, I love the look of Dean’s scene and how it contrasts with Sam’s dark scenes.

Evocative of Superman with Dean hitting Castiel there.  And not a bad speech from Dean.  I’m glad they kept it short.

Oh that was COLD changing Sam’s voice mail.

C’mon sam!  You’re going to break the seal over a taunt???

Props to Genieve for this scene.

Yay for the brothers working together to kill Ruby!

NOOOOOOO

This is just as bad as season 1, I can’t wait a summer!

(full review tomorrow)