Thursday, November 10, 2011

The Season Seven Showdown: Episode 6 - "Slash Fiction" vs. "Him"

Will Season 7 of Supernatural tank like Buffy season 7 did? Before you get yourself all up in a huff listen, Buffy's coming up in this race. It won the last 2 in a row! Shocking. But I just want to make something very clear: if Buffy wins this thing at the end that doesn't mean that we took a time machine and fixed all the problems that were Potentials and Uber-vamps and all that shit. All it will mean is Supernatural did something very, very wrong. Sorry to break it that way.

I also want to mention that long time tweep @TheGingerPire said way back when we first started this showdown, in reference to these episodes: "I know SPN is going to beat the episode "Him". If it doesn't I will lose all faith in the show. lol." Fear not, Ginger friend.

I'm behind 2 weeks, so let's get cracking on this Episode 6 Showdown!









Supernatural Episode #6 - "Slash Fiction"
Episode Synopsis:
The boys pull a Pulp Fiction and start shooting up the joint, but alas it's just their evil Leviathan twins taking a murderous Season 1 tour across the country. Also, Bobby almost makes sexy time with Officer Jody, but ends up giving the Leviathan tied up in the basement a sudsy bath and then chopping his head off. Poor Bobby.

The Deets:
This week's episode starts off with 2 hot boys shoving all the patrons of a bank into a vault and brutally murdering them via machine gun. I'm oddly conflicted because of their hotness and all. Let us not forget that Jensen Ackles was on a little show called Dark Angel playing both a hot killer and later a hot hero, with the exact same face. They like to mess with my morals, these shows.

Aaaanyway, the boys kill everyone and wink at the security camera while doing it. Next, the surprisingly calm versions of Sam & Dean are hanging out at the cabin while Bobby tortures that Cheese-loving Leviathan that James Marsters zapped last episode. Unfortunately, nothing's working and the dude's just working our boys' last nerve by letting them know of the bank murder. See, it wasn't our precious boys who did the killing, it was more Leviathans who doppelganged them by swiping some of Sam & Dean's DNA at some point this season. How Cheese-loving Leviathan knew that I'll never get....wasn't he in the back of the Impala all night? Plausibility Strike 1.

Either way, Bobby's very annoyed when he hears the boys want to go and confront the unkillable, untortureable monsters with their cute faces head on, but sends them to see an old frenemy anyway, Frank Devereaux, for an assist. See lunatic Frank is going to give them some new identities for a fee, but they have to ditch all of their fantastic Rock & Roll aliases from over the years and Gasp! The car. This makes Dean so sad. Frank also gives them a map detailing all of the spots that LeviaSam & Dean have hit so far and it turns out to be a pattern of Season 1 episode spots in order. Fun!

Enter two FBI agents hot on the trail of LeviaSam and LeviaDean. End Scene. Meanwhile back at the ranch, the cheese-loving Leviathan pisses Bobby off so much that he lops his fricken head right off. That shut him up real quick. Bobby's onto something, but he's interrupted by a rapping at the door courtesy of Sheriff Jody Mills. How the hell she found them when the monsters and FBI agents couldn't I'll never know. Plausibility Strike 2. Aww, she likes him! Jody and Bobby make with the googly eyes but he takes a break to go decapitate Cheese-fan once again, since his head magically crawled up his body and re-attached itself. Plausibility Strike 3. Eh, that's ok.


Then the hilarious happens. The real Sam & Dean, driving a stolen hoopty since the Impala had to be stashed, try to find some tunes on the radio to calm Dean's nerves. Sam lands on a radio station playing "All Out of Love" and quickly makes with the kibosh since he knows his brother is a classic rock only guy, thank you very much....but Dean tells him to leave it. As soon as Sam gets distracted enough what with the maps and such, Dean seizes the moment and starts lip synching the hell out of that bitch. I mean he's reeeaally getting into it and it's hysterical. Side note: Actress Kim Rhodes who plays Sheriff Jody tweeted about the script "The only thing re: Air Supply was "He's into it." There ya have it" confirming that the scene was all Jensen Ackles, baby. That's some improv for ya!

So the boys figure out that the next spot on the Leviathans list would be that burger joint Dean loves in St. Louis. We see that the Leviathans are already there eating said burgers with disgust and bashing every little thing about the real Sam & Dean's personalities. Before the real Sam & Dean can get there, Bobby tells them what we already know: the Leviathans already shot up the place and ruined the day. Dean doesn't even get his burger, poor thing. So they re-route to Iowa where they finally end up getting busted by the cops for their doppelgangers killing spree.

Meanwhile, the cheese-fan that Bobby's been torturing all episode got a piece of him and is now wearing Bobby's face. He's really psyching him out too as we learn some tidbits about Bobby's past. His father was a drunk and an abuser, yadda yadda yadda. And buwhat?! This episodes interesting but a little complicated, no? Anyway, just as Bobby's about to lop that head off once again, a lucky twist of events occurs. Seems Sheriff Jody is cooking and cleaning upstairs (strange) and some sudsy mix that contains Borax drips through the floorboards to burn the skin right off the Leviathan's body. At this discovery, Bobby plants one right on Jody's lips. Cute!


The boys are now jailed in Iowa. Dean manages to get a phone call and Bobby quickly informs him of the Borax/Head Lopping discovery. The sheriff of that town thinks Dean's a psycho killer, of course, but gets a glimpse of the doppelgangers who are just now joining them and realizes that something Supernatural is afoot. He trusts Dean and releases him...off to find something containing Borax, stat. Unfortunately for Dean, his doppelganger has already reached Sam and blurts out what Dean has been guiltily keeping secret  - the killing of childhood demon-sweetheart Amy Pond at his hands. At this point, Dean has Boraxed and decapitated both doppels and for saving his life, the sheriff agrees to cover the whole thing up and fake their deaths once again.

To wrap things up, Sheriff Jody leaves without any sealing the deal with Bobby. Around the same time, the FBI agents that were tailing the boys reveal themselves as more Leviathan and kill the sheriff that helped the boys in Iowa. They call Edgar's boss who's a high-profile business man type, Richard Roman, to confirm the Winchesters are still alive and it's at that point that we're treated to an unexpected visit by Crowley! Yay! He wants to make a deal with the new order now that Cas is taken care of (where are you Cas!!) but Richard Roman is having none of it. In fact, he tears our favorite king of hell a new one. So Crowley skidaddles all pissy, not that I blame him.


In the end, Sam let's Dean know how he feels about his brother's betrayal. And by "Let's Dean know" I mean he kind of looks mildly perturbed and then walks off calmly. What the hell kind of break up is this? What happened to the great, screaming angst rages, full of emotion and brotherly turmoil on this show? Eh, at least the episode was very entertaining and moved things along. I would've loved it if this episode came directly after Ep 3 with some adjustments.



Buffy Episode #6 - "Him"
Grr to "Him". And double Grr to "Him" following the ray of sunshine that was "Selfless". See this is what I'm talking about when I rant about Season Seven Demise. Eh, let's get to it:

Everyone and their mother is angry at Spike for trying to rape Buffy and it's a leeetle uncomfy to watch, just saying. Fact is, the basement is making Spike mental so he's living in Xander's closet from now on.

Later at school, Buffy and Dawn are chatting on the school bleachers when Dawn gets hit with the love whammy by some dude in a letter jacket. Because she's already madly in love, Dawn makes a total ass out of herself, trying to get this boy named RJ's attention when he's talking to his jock friends. Then she makes an even BIGGER ass of herself the next day, when she falls all over the floor in Buffy's outdated Season 1 cheerleading uniform during tryouts. Ugh. I feel like I'm being tortured. This is Buffyfest. I want to like my show and instead I'm being tortured. Starting to get flashbacks of the first time....


Forgot to mention the 2 painfully thin girls fighting off a demon named Buffy and Anya. Wow, the weight thing seems way more jarring to me this time. Anyway, turns out D'Hoffryn isn't too happy about Anya's resignation from the demon business after all and there aren't enough sandwiches on set.

Later, Buffy and Xander are on the other side of the bathroom door where Dawn is flipping out. Buffy, seeing her cheerleading uniform cut to shreds, goes to confront Dawn but ends up trying to console her major freak out about knowing RJ's soul and all this crap. So much so that she pushes RJ's teammate down the stairs for replacing his spot on the team, or whatever. This gets her in trouble with Principal Wood, but earns her points with her precious RJ.

At the Bronze, everyone is still bitching about Spike. Also more icky, unintentional early Xawn, due to the fact that she's over there acting like a big ole' "slut-bag hussy." Buffy bitches, Dawn storms off and has a cat fight with a jealous girl outside. Back at the house, shades of Ringer as Buffy shadily manipulates Dawn into thinking she's come on too strong....but it's really because Buffy's been hit with the whammy too. Oh brother. "Bewitched, Bothered, Bewildered" this is not. Next day Buffy proves how true that statement is when she seduces and eventually makes out with RJ. At school. Where she's on faculty as a counselor. Dawn catches them and it's on.

What happens after this is so gross I wish I could just stop here. In a nutshell, Xander tries to console Dawn, Xander goes to find Buffy, Xander finds Buffy GRINDING RJ on top of the still life in the art room with her shirt falling off. Poor Buffy's character...I can't.


At home, Dawn rips Buffy a new one over what's she's done and Buffy all "he's my lover" and Anya, Willow and Xander have had just about enough of this as I have at this point. They point out the spelliness of it all, which of course the Summers sisters deny. While the unaffected Scoobies do research, they learn that RJ's brother has a link to all this. So Xander and Spike goes pay the brother a visit and find that he's kind of lame. Once inside, Spike notices that the brother, Lance, is wearing RJ's jacket in a photo and it's revealed that the jacket comes from a long line of desperate losers trying to be popular with the ladies in high school.

Back at the Summers home, RJ stops by and hits the remaining females with the jacket whammy. Now everyone is fighting over the kid and Buffy's particularly annoyed about Willow, since she's gay. At one point Anya notes that"His physical presence has a penis," but Willow's down with working around it. Dawn's pissy, what the hell else is new, and Buffy insists that everyone must be under a spell but her. They're all fighting and while trying to prove who loves RJ more the following list is made:

- Anya is going to kill for RJ or rob a bank or something
- Buffy is going to specifically kill Principal Wood for RJ
- Willow is going to magically gender re-assign him.
- Dawn is going to kill herself for RJ

Now we get to probably the only real funny part of the episode (at the expense of our heros performing murder, suicide and other heinous crimes, but still.) A 70's style quartering of the screen showing what the girls are up to, complete with Buffy holding a humungous weapon that I don't know the name of. Rocket launcher? When Xander and Spike find out what's happening, they thwart Willow's castration spell to Hecate and decide to stop Buffy next. So we see Principal Wood is cozy at his desk listening to a CD and when Buffy turns to blow him to bits, Spike flies out of nowhere, tackling her to the ground. They both come back into the window frame, Buffy on Spikes back. Then Spike runs away with the weapon with Buffy on his tail. All while Wood is obliviously turning the pages of his appointment book. Heh.


So the whole gang gets to Dawnie, who is lying on train tracks, just as the train's arriving. Buffy saves her in the nick and flips out on her, saying "No guy is worth your life, not ever." They all finally realize they're under a spell. Next scene, Spike and Xander make with the planning and funnily tear the jacket off RJ using their hands and that is all. Another funny moment, I'll give it that. They burn the jacket. Dawn feels stupid and turns out, Anya actually burglarized a bunch of places. The End! Thank the gods.

How do the eps compare?
Well, they both kind of showed our main characters "Not as themselves". Story wise, on one hand you have an episode that advances the plot, albeit only slightly, and gives us an answer on how to kill the big bads of the season, Acathala Stylee. On the other, we got a slightly funny but still dumbass spell-of-the-week episode that degrades all of our favorite heroines and makes Buffy look like a desperate, predatory cougar at the ripe young age of 21. Digging out her ancient cheerleading uniform didn't help.

Also, still with the "where the eff is Cas/where the eff is Giles." Blerg.

Mini Battles!!:
Best Throwback: Buffy's Uniform vs. The Winchester's Season 1 tour - Winner: Supernatural
Best Episode Villains - LeviaSam and LeviaDean vs. The Girls of Buffy - Winner: Supernatural
Best Final Scene: Sam sleepily storming off vs. Anya buying ice cream with stolen money. Winner: Buffy, by a teensy bit

Final Ruling:
Not much to say here, the Leviathans are back and so is Crowly. Buffy disturbed me greatly. It's going to Supernatch.

Season tally so far:
Supernatural=4
Buffy=2

3 comments:

Kaaren said...

Last sentence of the "Mini Battles" section is blacked out. Was that on purposde?

Tara said...

No, that's weird. Maybe a coding issue. I'll fix. Thanks Kaaren!

Steph said...

So happy that SPN won this one. The season 1 throw back was awesome and double the Winchesters is double the fun. :)