In the second episode of the ninth season of\u00c2\u00a0Supernatural<\/i>, the war on Earth now includes MORE DEMONS! Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch\u00c2\u00a0Supernatural<\/i>.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Trigger Warning: For discussion of consent and race\/tokenism.<\/b><\/p>\n
Okay, if this is a sign of what season nine is going to address, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m on board. I kind of love the idea that Earth will be a battleground between the angels, cast out of Heaven, and the demons, chaotic in the wake of their King being kidnapped. Everything is a mess, and the more exciting parts of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Devil May Care\u00e2\u20ac\u009d hint at the potential of this season\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s arc.<\/p>\n
LET US DISCUSS THINGS.<\/p>\n
Kevin Tran<\/b><\/p>\n
There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a meta conversation that could be had regarding Kevin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s role within\u00c2\u00a0Supernatural<\/i>: he is a person of color within a very white show, and therefore, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s highly possible that Crowley\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s prediction will come true. Once Kevin doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t serve a purpose to the writers, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be cast out. Tokenism is something that a lot of us who are marginalized in our respective cultures have to deal with. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve appreciated that the show fleshed out Kevin Tran in season eight, but I worry that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not going to get much development beyond this episode. The truth is that for the second half of last season, Kevin really was just a source of information to the Winchesters, particularly Dean. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a mischaracterization. Why else is Kevin so willing to listen to Crowley?<\/p>\n
Well, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s one aspect of it. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s stuck in the Bunker, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s always working, and he feels trapped. But the way in which Crowley tempts Kevin is another reason why he falls for Crowley\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s manipulation. To a point, I guess? I know we haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t seen Kevin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mother since last season, so it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s entirely possible she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s still alive, but I hate that Kevin has hope when it could so easily be a lie. All of this makes me wonder: what is Kevin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s role this season? At the end of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Devil May Care,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Dean makes an impassioned speech about how Kevin is family. Which is great! And very touching! But that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s literally the first time he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ever done anything\u00c2\u00a0that<\/i> affectionate for Kevin, so it makes sense to me that Kevin doubted whether or not Dean actually cared about him. So that means Kevin is staying, right? But for what? To recite exposition? And that<\/i> is what tokenism feels like. I enjoy Osric Chau a great deal, and I think he offers up a fantastic dynamic to the cast that the show doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t use all that much. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m biased, sure, but I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s unreasonable to ask for everyone on this show to get good stories for them, you know?<\/p>\n
Abaddon<\/b><\/p>\n
Alaina Huffman is fun to watch in this role, which I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m thankful for because I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know that much of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Devil May Care\u00e2\u20ac\u009d feels all that different from some of the earlier seasons of the show. In a more general sense, I am drawn to the story of Hell trying to sort itself out, of this power play by Abaddon. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s interesting to me. The execution of that is a little stale to me at times. Most of this feels like a very run-of-the-mill action set, a whole lot like the one in \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Abandon All Hope\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6\u00e2\u20ac\u009d for example. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an abandoned, vacant part of town, and the Winchesters have to fight off demons. Not groundbreaking for the show. And while I was pleased to see some new hunters, it was also hard to\u00c2\u00a0care<\/i> about characters we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve never met before. Who is Irv? Or Tracy? They feel like they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re stuffed into this episode just to serve the main story and nothing more. (That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s related to tokenism, too. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll admit to being utterly surprised that Tracy survived this episode; I was certain she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d be killed. So\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 yay? I think?)<\/p>\n
Ezekiel<\/b><\/p>\n
So, I wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t\u00c2\u00a0bored<\/i> watching this episode, but I certainly felt like I snapped to attention once Ezekiel \u00e2\u20ac\u201c within Sam \u00e2\u20ac\u201c \u00e2\u20ac\u0153woke up.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I DID NOT THINK OF THIS RAMIFICATION OF THE POSSESSION. Ezekiel has an interest in keeping Sam alive and safe, and that means he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll probably continue to show up like this to do so. Which is good for Sam\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 I guess? That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the complication of this story, though. Sam never truly consented to this, so it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hard to ever guess or surmise how Sam might feel about any of this. Couple that with his lack of memory of events where Ezekiel was present, and this becomes a rather uncomfortable reality.<\/p>\n
A good example of that is the final scene in \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Devil May Care.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Sam relates his recent happiness to Dean, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not a magical, beautiful moment. Is Sam\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s health and joy due to Ezekiel? Whenever Ezekiel leaves, does that mean that suddenly, Sam\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s progress disappears? That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not even factoring in his anger and betrayal, which he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll surely feel when he discovers what really happened to him. And you can see Dean squirming as he hears how Sam feels at the moment. This is what Dean has to live with, and I hope he doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t try to dodge responsibility for it.<\/p>\n
EVERYTHING IS UNCOMFORTABLE.<\/p>\n
The video for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Devil May Care\u00e2\u20ac\u009d can be downloaded here for $0.99<\/a>.<\/p>\n Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n – The Mark Does Stuff Tour 2015 is now live and includes dates across the U.S., Canada, Europe, the U.K., and Ireland. Check the full list of events on my Tour Dates \/ Appearances page.<\/a> In the second episode of the ninth season of\u00c2\u00a0Supernatural, the war on Earth now includes MORE DEMONS! Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch\u00c2\u00a0Supernatural.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[590],"tags":[591],"class_list":["post-4538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-supernatural","tag-mark-watches-supernatural"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4538\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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