The following is an exchange about the Supernatural (one of our favorite shows) episode 4.11, “Family Remains.”
—–Original Message—–
From: Gregor
To:Eugene
Sent: Sat, 17 Jan 2009 5:56 pm
Subject: Re: Flowers Under the Deliverance Stairs
I thought it was really bad. Except for the very beginning and the end, it didn’t even matter that the main characters were Dean and Sam. They were so generically written that it could have been any crappy horror movie or TV show.
The plot was so predictable. Of course the uncle was going to die, and of course the father would have to kill one of the baddies to be a hero to his family. And some of the crap just made no sense. How do these grown-up animal kids know how to spell, and why would they know to search and empty the trunk of the car of all weapons (but not the flashlights)?
All in all, a very sloppily written episode. And I also think the retconning of Dean — “I didn’t just torture because I had to; I liked it!” — is a lame, lazy direction to take the character. It felt like an outside writer wrote this episode, so I hope it’s quickly forgotten and ignored by the rest of the writing staff.
I heard Smallville was actually pretty good. Guess it was opposite night on Thursday.
Tonight’s BSG night. Last night’s episode is at OnDemand for free, so we’ll be checking it out.
From: Eugene
To: Gregor
Subject: Re: Flowers Under the Deliverance Stairs
I found it to be tense, but stupid. It was like a low budget slasher flick. And how come those kids could move without making any noise (when the uncle was killed) through narrow crawlspaces–they didn’t have supernatural (pun intended) stalking powers, they were just human tunnel rats.
The trunk weapon theft pissed me off too. First off, they had only a few minutes to steal everything, right? That’s a lot of stuff to take. And Sam and Dean’s stash is in a hidden compartment in the trunk…how’d feral tunnel rat(s) know that?!?! Good catch on the spelling…what school did those freaks go to?
And the family seemed particularly blase at the end of the episode. They were just hanging out at the house where their brother/uncle was MURDERED a few hours before. Any other family would have been like, “Let’s get the F out of here now!” It seemed the episode implied they were going to stay at that house…are you kidding me?!?! And how were they going to explain the dead uncle to the authorities?
Throwaway episode. I too hated Dean’s “I loved torturing” line. What was that? Totally out of character and unnecessary, especially considering he already opened up about Hell. Are we going to have a new revelation every week?
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