![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
apocalypsosOkay, so ... my thoughts.
First off, Holmes. Holmes fascinates the hell out of me, so I'm glad that they got it right for the most part. (WRONG VICTIM'S PHOTO. Ahem.) Of course, the downside of knowing the case inside and out is that I could see the plot twists coming a mile way. Jo asks about burning the bones, I practically repeat along with Sam and Dean that Holmes had his body interred in cement to keep graverobbers at bay. Sam and Dean discuss the torture chambers in the wall, and I suggest out loud that they might want to check the one in the basement a split second before Sam brings it up. Heh. I'm a crime dork.
I am a little annoyed that they didn't get a guy without a beard and slap a waxed mustache on him, since that's how Holmes looks in every damn picture of himself, but then again, I'm also still hung up on Elizabeth Stride's photo. Sheesh, show. Come on.
(I can't remember right now if they mentioned it in the episode, but the thing about Holmes' place in Chicago was that it was this huge sprawling building with rooms to let and when the Chicago World's Fair came around he cleaned house. There's a reason they have no idea of his death toll -- because it's anybody's guess how many people came to Chicago to go to the World's Fair and ended up dying in that house. And then they arrested him and the place burned to the ground a month later, and then they completely fucked up his hanging so that he lay there twitching for another ten minutes after he fell to the ground. Cue cement.
Er, hi. Still a dork.
And while I'm being dorky, true crime buffs, who IS that?
I could swear I know that victim from somewhere and I have no idea where and it's going to KILL me.)
I was sufficiently creeped out, though, although a lot of that might be because I know the case inside and out (and now really feel the urge to pick up "The Devil In The White City" again). So all I'm thinking about is every gross and disturbing thing Holmes did to his victims and ewwwwww.
So ... Jo.
I am liking her more as we progress. It's not falling-over ridiculous swoony love or anything, but still. I like her when she's talking with Dean although I still don't like the concept of the two of them together (that may still be residual "Why the hell did you have to go and mention her as a love interest for?!" annoyance, because that can be either love or hate with me, and it's still sitting in hate category with me here) and I thought the shot of her and Sam exchanging "looks" in the backseat was priceless. "Oh, God, Mom and Dad are fighting again." Heh.
I do understand where the people who hate and despise her with the fire of a thousand burning suns are coming from, though. On the other hand, not that I've seen anyone I know doing this, but the "Jo is a ho" thing continues to be ludicrous. You don't like her, that's fine. But considering her most egregious act so far in a romantic or sexual capacity has been to flirt badly with a male character who had a canon threesome, SHUT IT. Sheesh.
My main problems with Jo still stand.
1. I wish she hadn't been set up to be a victim, even if she did offer herself up as bait from the very beginning. I know this is what she wants to do and she's trained to do it, it just doesn't sit well with me on a personal level. Granted, both Sam and Dean have been the victims before. This is not me saying I want her to go all Mary Sue on us and save the day from her very first hunt. This is not me saying that I never think she should be a victim, because on this show everybody gets to be a victim. I just don't like all of the drama of this being her first hunt and Ellen being all worried-mama on them all. Not that Ellen doesn't have reason with THAT set-up at the end, but still. It's a personal preference, mind. Please don't try to argue with me that it's okay that she's inexperienced, because it is. It just makes me uncomfortable because then they all have to have arguments about her and not about the hunt.
2. In related annoyances, I didn't like the temper tantrum/family fight at the beginning of the episode. Maybe it was Alona's acting, I don't know, but it did feel a lot like a temper tantrum on her end. She acted more like a teenager than a young woman which bothered me. I don't want to watch a teenager run off and try to hunt because then it DOES feel like Dean and Sam are babysitting her no matter how capable she is. If she did go off to college and left because she was the freak with the knife collection, that's fine and I like it the same way I like Ash leaving MIT for "fighting." It doesn't fit well to me when she's over eighteen and has left college but is still so very much under her mother's thumb. Yes, Ellen has reason to be overprotective. I know that. It doesn't mean that I have to like it. The times when I like Jo best is when she's being treated like the adult that she's supposed to be. When everybody is treating her like a bratty teenager or when she's acting like one, that's when it gets to me.
3. The romantic angle. Which is silly because if nobody had ever said anything I'd probably be shipping the two of them right now.
4. Sometimes I wish she were a boy. As much as I dislike the romantic angle, I mostly wish she were a boy because the arguments about whether a not a girl can do the job bug me. I just want them all to DO THE JOB.
5. You know how when everybody was asking what would happen this season if John survived and someone proposed all of the Winchesters in one van all the time and everybody made the face in my default icon because they just wanted it to be the brothers Winchester on the road together hunting alone because that's what we fell in love with? Yeah, that's part of my problem. I don't mind recurring characters but once they start going on hunts with the boys I get antsy.
In summation, it's not Jo I don't like, it's writing choices in regards to her that are bugging me the most. I feel like when I'm watching her that I'm reading a fanfic with a red pen in hand and itching to cross out stuff on my laptop screen like I would with a hard copy I was editing. I want to change stuff and make suggestions, I want to ask questions of the authors about where they're going with the character considering her behavior, and I can't and it's driving me up a wall.
I don't want to be distracted by freaking Jo when we could all be theorizing about the demon. Unless, you know, she IS the demon, which I doubt.
Having said all of that,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
researchgrrrl's comments about Jo being a hunter groupie makes me horribly tempted to write a story about teen!Jo getting together with Ash to make Hunter Trading Cards.
*headdesk*
First off, Holmes. Holmes fascinates the hell out of me, so I'm glad that they got it right for the most part. (WRONG VICTIM'S PHOTO. Ahem.) Of course, the downside of knowing the case inside and out is that I could see the plot twists coming a mile way. Jo asks about burning the bones, I practically repeat along with Sam and Dean that Holmes had his body interred in cement to keep graverobbers at bay. Sam and Dean discuss the torture chambers in the wall, and I suggest out loud that they might want to check the one in the basement a split second before Sam brings it up. Heh. I'm a crime dork.
I am a little annoyed that they didn't get a guy without a beard and slap a waxed mustache on him, since that's how Holmes looks in every damn picture of himself, but then again, I'm also still hung up on Elizabeth Stride's photo. Sheesh, show. Come on.
(I can't remember right now if they mentioned it in the episode, but the thing about Holmes' place in Chicago was that it was this huge sprawling building with rooms to let and when the Chicago World's Fair came around he cleaned house. There's a reason they have no idea of his death toll -- because it's anybody's guess how many people came to Chicago to go to the World's Fair and ended up dying in that house. And then they arrested him and the place burned to the ground a month later, and then they completely fucked up his hanging so that he lay there twitching for another ten minutes after he fell to the ground. Cue cement.
Er, hi. Still a dork.
And while I'm being dorky, true crime buffs, who IS that?
I could swear I know that victim from somewhere and I have no idea where and it's going to KILL me.)
I was sufficiently creeped out, though, although a lot of that might be because I know the case inside and out (and now really feel the urge to pick up "The Devil In The White City" again). So all I'm thinking about is every gross and disturbing thing Holmes did to his victims and ewwwwww.
So ... Jo.
I am liking her more as we progress. It's not falling-over ridiculous swoony love or anything, but still. I like her when she's talking with Dean although I still don't like the concept of the two of them together (that may still be residual "Why the hell did you have to go and mention her as a love interest for?!" annoyance, because that can be either love or hate with me, and it's still sitting in hate category with me here) and I thought the shot of her and Sam exchanging "looks" in the backseat was priceless. "Oh, God, Mom and Dad are fighting again." Heh.
I do understand where the people who hate and despise her with the fire of a thousand burning suns are coming from, though. On the other hand, not that I've seen anyone I know doing this, but the "Jo is a ho" thing continues to be ludicrous. You don't like her, that's fine. But considering her most egregious act so far in a romantic or sexual capacity has been to flirt badly with a male character who had a canon threesome, SHUT IT. Sheesh.
My main problems with Jo still stand.
1. I wish she hadn't been set up to be a victim, even if she did offer herself up as bait from the very beginning. I know this is what she wants to do and she's trained to do it, it just doesn't sit well with me on a personal level. Granted, both Sam and Dean have been the victims before. This is not me saying I want her to go all Mary Sue on us and save the day from her very first hunt. This is not me saying that I never think she should be a victim, because on this show everybody gets to be a victim. I just don't like all of the drama of this being her first hunt and Ellen being all worried-mama on them all. Not that Ellen doesn't have reason with THAT set-up at the end, but still. It's a personal preference, mind. Please don't try to argue with me that it's okay that she's inexperienced, because it is. It just makes me uncomfortable because then they all have to have arguments about her and not about the hunt.
2. In related annoyances, I didn't like the temper tantrum/family fight at the beginning of the episode. Maybe it was Alona's acting, I don't know, but it did feel a lot like a temper tantrum on her end. She acted more like a teenager than a young woman which bothered me. I don't want to watch a teenager run off and try to hunt because then it DOES feel like Dean and Sam are babysitting her no matter how capable she is. If she did go off to college and left because she was the freak with the knife collection, that's fine and I like it the same way I like Ash leaving MIT for "fighting." It doesn't fit well to me when she's over eighteen and has left college but is still so very much under her mother's thumb. Yes, Ellen has reason to be overprotective. I know that. It doesn't mean that I have to like it. The times when I like Jo best is when she's being treated like the adult that she's supposed to be. When everybody is treating her like a bratty teenager or when she's acting like one, that's when it gets to me.
3. The romantic angle. Which is silly because if nobody had ever said anything I'd probably be shipping the two of them right now.
4. Sometimes I wish she were a boy. As much as I dislike the romantic angle, I mostly wish she were a boy because the arguments about whether a not a girl can do the job bug me. I just want them all to DO THE JOB.
5. You know how when everybody was asking what would happen this season if John survived and someone proposed all of the Winchesters in one van all the time and everybody made the face in my default icon because they just wanted it to be the brothers Winchester on the road together hunting alone because that's what we fell in love with? Yeah, that's part of my problem. I don't mind recurring characters but once they start going on hunts with the boys I get antsy.
In summation, it's not Jo I don't like, it's writing choices in regards to her that are bugging me the most. I feel like when I'm watching her that I'm reading a fanfic with a red pen in hand and itching to cross out stuff on my laptop screen like I would with a hard copy I was editing. I want to change stuff and make suggestions, I want to ask questions of the authors about where they're going with the character considering her behavior, and I can't and it's driving me up a wall.
I don't want to be distracted by freaking Jo when we could all be theorizing about the demon. Unless, you know, she IS the demon, which I doubt.
Having said all of that,
researchgrrrl's comments about Jo being a hunter groupie makes me horribly tempted to write a story about teen!Jo getting together with Ash to make Hunter Trading Cards. *headdesk*
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-11-03 11:52 pm (UTC)No, seriously? That really IS happening?? I thought that was just a joke. Oh man. *headdesk*
makes me horribly tempted to write a story about teen!Jo getting together with Ash to make Hunter Trading Cards.
Dude, if you do that? I will make photoshopped Hunter Trading Cards for you.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-03 11:56 pm (UTC)And we'll have to see how much time I have with NaNo in the way. ;)
no subject
Date: 2006-11-03 11:53 pm (UTC)Top Trumps with Hunter trading cards...and someone picking a fight with Ash because they gave him a low rating in one of the categories. "Four for knives, eh boy? I'll show you!" slash-thunk.
...
and i'll shut up now.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-04 12:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-04 12:17 am (UTC)I don't have an problem with 'Jo as victim' in this ep 'cause she wasn't so much 'victim' as willing participant. Also - no way were Dean or *Sam* gonna be a victim in this ep, lack of boobage and blonde hair topping the list.
I *liked* that she freaked in the...prison thingy but then got herself together and was as calm as could be expected. I liked that the spirit's hand came *through* the slit and was corporeal enough to half-suffocate her.
I liked Dean saying she shouldn't throw things away 'cause they'd be hard to find, and i liked his little trip down memory lane about his dad.
I didn't like Jo being all 'lie for me, cover for me, let me in your kewl club!'. That's lame. She should have just proposed going to Dean and Sam and/or talked Ellen into letting her go on a more low-key hunt. I don't like her lying and slipping off alone - it's dangerous and kind of stupid.
I didn't like the huge hole where Sam should have been! And i didn't like them relying on Ash for so much info - they are *just fine* in the geeky-research area!
I liked the cement truck, even though it'll only plug that drain but not others. I liked the long, silent, twitchy trip that we didn't see but that they surely suffered through.
I liked that Sam gave up shotgun for Ellen like a proper gentleman. Heh.
Good ep, *not* the greatest, but it had its moments. Jo needs to tone down the 'i'm so smrt, watch me!' thing. Ellen needs to explain her sudden freak-out over the boys better than 'your dad did something'. I mean - they didn't have anything to do with it!
Wow. Ranty. And long. Wheeeeee!
:)
no subject
Date: 2006-11-04 08:42 pm (UTC)And the part where Jo freaked out a bit, then visibly pulled her shit together and did the right thing? That's where I started liking this character.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-05 12:59 am (UTC)Hrmmmmmmmm.....
no subject
Date: 2006-11-05 03:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-05 03:10 am (UTC)When did they acquire a new one? Damn.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-04 12:24 am (UTC)Also loved the rest of what you had to say. :)
no subject
Date: 2006-11-04 12:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-04 12:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-04 02:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-04 08:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-04 02:45 am (UTC)Agreed. I think the show's people may have gotten too excited when they announced that. I don't think they know how fandom works.
This was such a fun ep. I really liked that the bad guy was an ACTUAL bad guy. And it was super-freaky!!
no subject
Date: 2006-11-04 02:57 am (UTC)This is what I get for not paying attention to the cowboys when we covered that part of history.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-04 08:22 am (UTC)Damn it, I feel like I should know this and probably do. *headdesk*
no subject
Date: 2006-11-05 08:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-05 03:15 pm (UTC)I don't mind the not going back to school because she feels like a freak, though, mostly because I've been in that position myself and I only wish I'd had the sense enough to leave.
And the thing about Dead!Daddy and holding it against the boys pisses me off. Dean and Sam had nothing to do with that, and if anybody was irresponsible in this particular hunt it was Jo, not the Winchesters.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-05 07:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-05 09:47 am (UTC)It's another Ripper victim - Catherine Eddowes so they stuck with the same killer, just not the one they actually featured on the show. Heh.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-05 03:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-05 09:48 pm (UTC)She just strikes me as very young.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-06 09:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-06 09:08 pm (UTC)