norwich36 | Tonight's TV

Tonight's TV was all about fate, and whether or not you can fight it.

Instead I am taping Vampire Diaries at that time, but since I am four episodes behind and may never catch up, I think I might start taping FF instead.

I've been thinking, the past few weeks, about how even Supernatural, my current destiny-heavy show, doesn't play around with the concept of predestination as much as Flash Forward does. And while I was really glad that Janis didn't die last week, I thought that the silver-lining of her death would have been to show that destiny is not fixed, that human choices can still change it.

I am sad to have that confirmed by Al's death, though. I really liked his character, dammit! And I thought he was just being all hardcore when he pulled the trigger on the gun in the Blue Hand club, but in the aftermath of his suicide I can see that he was already thinking that his own death would be better than causing someone else's death. And it was foreshadowed, but so well I didn't even catch on to it, with the British agent watching the bird die and being helpless to stop it. Damn, I'm crying again. If they had to have someone die salvifically to prove the future could be changed, couldn't it have been Mark, who still bores me?

I did like the idea that he was dying to save Celia, though, and to keep her two little boys out of foster care. (Did anyone else think that he was going to jump and land on her car or something, and therefore in the very act of trying to save her he would kill her? I'm really glad they didn't go that route.) And at least he has seen many things from the flash forwards come true, so he has cause to believe in them. I'm a little skeptical about the nihilism of the Blue Hand club, because why would the world at large be so convinced everything they saw in their visions was true? It seems pretty far out there, honestly; certainly not grounds for suicide unless you have some evidence.

SUPERNATURAL

I think I probably injured myself from laughing so hard at this episode. The herpes commercial had to be my absolute favorite of the TVland bits, though Dean's obvious crush on Dr. Sexy (plus the shoutout to JDM) and both of them dissing on crime procedurals and spoofing the CSI guys is a close second. And great job with both the laugh track (fairly creepy when they were talking about being trapped in their forever) and the background music at "Seattle Mercy"--that was too funny.

Sam as KITT was also awesome, and I hope is prompting

rivkat with interesting ideas for her Impalaverse as we speak. (Though somehow I don't think Dean would ever make indelicate jokes about pulling the holy oil out of Baby's ass).

I think what I loved most about it, though, is the more that heavenly figures tell Dean that destiny is fixed and he and Sam can't change anything, the more he firms his own convictions that he can. I wonder if anything will come of him telling Gabriel to man up and stand up to his family, instead of running and hiding?

Gabriel's speech to Dean and Sam had a little too much of the air of "spelling it all out for the dumb viewers who haven't yet figured it out that there are parallels between Michael/Dean and Lucifer/Sam," but it is an interesting decision to have had Gabriel, of all the angels, run away from home and join the pagans. (This is even more SPN-blasphemous than normal, since Gabriel is the angel who revealed the absolute oneness of God and its corollary, that worshipping false gods is an unforgiveable sin, to Muhammad. Of course, Gabriel is pretty much the only famous angel other than Michael who wasn't on the playing field already, and it speaks powerfully of the disillusionment all the angels are feeling if the one who in several religions is the voice of divine revelation has abandoned heaven). I feel like I want to rewatch Mystery Spot now with the knowledge that Gabriel is an angel, and see if I see anything new about his interactions with Sam.

I really loved his line about not liking pretty-boy angels, though. Hee!

On a more serious note, though, it really is fascinating that they're painting the apocalypse mainly as a family feud, because it makes the existence or non-existence of God fairly irrelevant. But honestly, why would Gabriel want to end things? What is that going to result in, besides an awful lot of dead angels and demons? How is half your family dead better than then being alive and fighting?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

SPN had me rolling with laughter. This show continues to blow me away with the creative storytelling, while staying consistently entertaining. My son has become a regular viewer, and after tonight's episode he said to me, "This is a better show than Smallville." I said it's hard for me to compare them.

Gabriel's speech to Dean and Sam had a little too much of the air of "spelling it all out for the dumb viewers who haven't yet figured it out that there are parallels between Michael/Dean and Lucifer/Sam,"

*cough* I knew there were parallels, but I liked hearing it spelled out too. My son knows nothing about any of the angels, so I think it helped him quite a bit as well.

but it is an interesting decision to have had Gabriel, of all the angels, run away from home and join the pagans. (This is even more SPN-blasphemous than normal, since Gabriel is the angel who revealed the absolute oneness of God and its corollary, that worshipping false gods is an unforgiveable sin, to Muhammad.

Oooh, I love the insight you can offer on these things. Please feel free to offer these "angelic insights" in your reviews more often. I find them very interesting.

I knew there were parallels, but I liked hearing it spelled out too. My son knows nothing about any of the angels, so I think it helped him quite a bit as well.

Ok, I have to remember that not everyone is a hardcore SPN viewer who also reads all the fanfic! It's just that people have been speculating about this for over two years in fic, so to me it feels very much like old news.

Please feel free to offer these "angelic insights" in your reviews more often. I find them very interesting.
I'm happy to do that when I have them, but SPN canon is usually so far from any traditional interpretation I don't know how often that will come up again!

I've been fond of pretty, talented Lee Thompson Young since he first came to my attention on SV; getting to see him every week was one of the things that kept me tuning in to FF. Therefore, I was *so conflicted* when it became obvious what Al was going to do: while, on the one hand, as you said, it's *really nice* to see somebody in the ensemble of this show taking an irrevocable step to prove that everybody's flash forwards *aren't* necessarily carved in stone ('cause one of my issues with this show is how easily everyone seems to cave to the idea that they're powerless to prevent what they saw, when in fact the only reason events seem to be unfolding in ff-compliant fashion is because everyone's acting on the knowledge of what they saw to *bring about* what they saw), on the *other* hand...no more pretty, talented actor-guy! Alas.

That was a very long run-on sentence. Sorry about that. *g*

cause one of my issues with this show is how easily everyone seems to cave to the idea that they're powerless to prevent what they saw, when in fact the only reason events seem to be unfolding in ff-compliant fashion is because everyone's acting on the knowledge of what they saw to *bring about* what they saw

Yes and yes and yes. It's just sad that the only way to prove the future isn't inevitable is to die.

FlashForward: OMG! I don't know if I can wait until next week! (I say this every week; it's true every week.)

SPN: I laughed so hard. Their Gray's parody was perfectly spot-on. I'm not sure how much you'd get from "Mystery Spot" - do you really think Kripke knew what he was doing and thought about the Trickster being Gabriel ever since then? I found the Gabriel reveal interesting in an "of course the pretty one is Gabriel" way - I may have seen a lot of medieval/Renaissance paintings of The Annunciation.

I'm not really sure about whether they knew the Trickster was Gabriel back then, but I do think they had a purpose in making him test Sam beyond the fact that he's a trickster, and it was interesting that the standard way of killing tricksters never worked on him.

Flash Forward was really good last night!
That's two really good episodes in a row for me.

Like you, I love what they did with this episode, but hate the way they did it. I really liked Al. :(

I'm a little skeptical about the nihilism of the Blue Hand club, because why would the world at large be so convinced everything they saw in their visions was true? It seems pretty far out there, honestly; certainly not grounds for suicide unless you have some evidence.

I'm not really surprised by this. People are easily swayed, and by things much less believable than flash forwards these people experienced. And especially when you see some things start to come true, I think it would be easy to get drown in helplessness and pessimism if you saw nothing. We saw Demetri almost reckless few times, since he believes he's set to die anyway. And he seems like a pretty grounded individual. Weaker characters would probably lose all hope and get to "what's it worth it anyway" point sooner.

I just don't know what on earth the general public could see as coming true, since the events people saw are all 6 months in the future. Yes, one particular team of FBI who are investigating the blackouts has seen a few things that seem to indicate the visions are true, mainly because of Mark's very specific vision about investigating!--but it's not like that's widely shared public knowledge. Demetri is in a different boat than most of the blue hand people because he's on the investigative team, so he keeps getting confirmation that the flash forwards are true. I'd have to see something like that to buy that the general public is all so convinced that they're forming suicide clubs!

I can't figure out why Agent Cyborg thought that him dying would prevent Celia's death. I mean, didn't whatshername tell him that even if they taped the windows, the bird would probably crash into some other window and die? The same thing could happen to Celia ... if she doesn't die because of whatever it is Agent Cyborg did, she's probably going to die because of something else. I just can't fathom why he'd actually go as far as suicide to save her. :/

Sorry for the late response; I don't seem to be getting email notifications.

I think it was not so much preventing Celia's death as preventing the fact that *he* caused her death that was motivating Al. But it will be interesting to see if she dies anyway.

Great review! I mostly agree with you on this point:
little too much of the air of "spelling it all out for the dumb viewers who haven't yet figured it out that there are parallels between Michael/Dean and Lucifer/Sam,"
Because I have been in love with the EPICNESS of this plot since the reveal of Sam as Lucifer's vessel. However I have seen several journals that called it cliche and didn't seem to understand the paralells so I guess the clear explaination was needed. And I don't mind admitting that I was flailing like crazy during the entire explaination scene anyway. Yay for epic win!

Sorry for the late reply; I don't seem to be getting comment notifications.

Yeah, I guess not everyone is as interested in that plotline, so they haven't been paying minute attention, so it's good for the more casual viewer.

Tonight's TV

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject