Yeah, I did realize the thing about young!Uriel later, and though I'm happy about the continuity, I think my point still stands, albeit a little bit modified. It's no secret that SPN writers have a serious problem with violence & black men - Jake, Gordon Walker - and while taken as isolated incidents, the violence makes sense, as a general pattern, it's... disturbing, to say the least. And I'm really disappointed that they took what could have been an awesome moment for Uriel characterization - my god, that whole night must have been an enormous paradigm switch! He found out that he was going to die! - and turned him into a convenient tool for his (white) commander. (See: Jake.) For chrissakes, Castiel's not the hammer, Uriel is. A tool with little of the depth of emotion that is given to pretty much all the other characters on the show. And this episode is just a continuation of that overall theme.
To be honest, depending on what direction they were going in, I would have been happy if A) Anna was not killed at all, but dealt with some other way - perhaps had her Grace ripped out? That way she would still be alive and there could be the possibility for further alliance with the Winchesters? Or temporarily depowered? I like angel!Anna but I can't see how they would get out of that situation without her incapacitated somehow, OR, B) If they were going the whole trinityofone's Fire of Heaven, Dean-is-Michael route, have Dean kill her. I'm actually pretty glad that Castiel wasn't there, all things considered. He would have been smote by Michael in a heartbeat. And, to be honest, I think Cas is plenty loyal to the Winchesters, and killing Anna would be something that he would not come back from. Not entirely, anyway. It would change him, and not for the better. On one hand, being close to the Winchesters has been good for him. But on the other - not really. People too close, too dependent on the Winchesters tend to come to bad ends, simply because they're so wrapped up in each other, and mostly blind to everyone else.
The sad truth is, Dean is always going to choose Sam first, and Castiel will never mean as much to Dean as his brother. They can work within that, sure; it doesn't exclude Dean and Cas from having a meaningful relationship. But binding Cas closer to them, so that they're everything he has left, is dangerous. That's what happened to Sam and Dean, thanks to John, and look how that worked out.
I... was not actually too fond of John's actor's portrayal of him. I mentioned the whole thing about the otherness of angels (and by extension, demons), right? To me, Michael's movement/behavior/speech patterns were way too... human. Like, my favorite demons/angels on the show so far have been the first Meg, Castiel, the last Alistair, Castiel-in-Claire, and the Azazels, just because there was something - not right, not human, about how they acted. It made your hackles raise. Whereas, MIchael-in-John was more comic book supervillain creepy than inhumanly so. Kind of cheesy and not very interesting. And, yeah. Not terribly enthused about the direction they're taking his character. (Really, I would have been happy had he never shown up. I really liked the thing they had going before - how Zachariah was going to use Dean as bait to get MIchael to show up, because he's missing. That, in my opinion, would have been much better - like the Trickster is Gabriel thing! I loved that! - and further established the fucked-upedness of heaven.)
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branchandroot
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Date: 2010-02-07 05:18 pm (UTC)To be honest, depending on what direction they were going in, I would have been happy if A) Anna was not killed at all, but dealt with some other way - perhaps had her Grace ripped out? That way she would still be alive and there could be the possibility for further alliance with the Winchesters? Or temporarily depowered? I like angel!Anna but I can't see how they would get out of that situation without her incapacitated somehow, OR, B) If they were going the whole
The sad truth is, Dean is always going to choose Sam first, and Castiel will never mean as much to Dean as his brother. They can work within that, sure; it doesn't exclude Dean and Cas from having a meaningful relationship. But binding Cas closer to them, so that they're everything he has left, is dangerous. That's what happened to Sam and Dean, thanks to John, and look how that worked out.
I... was not actually too fond of John's actor's portrayal of him. I mentioned the whole thing about the otherness of angels (and by extension, demons), right? To me, Michael's movement/behavior/speech patterns were way too... human. Like, my favorite demons/angels on the show so far have been the first Meg, Castiel, the last Alistair, Castiel-in-Claire, and the Azazels, just because there was something - not right, not human, about how they acted. It made your hackles raise. Whereas, MIchael-in-John was more comic book supervillain creepy than inhumanly so. Kind of cheesy and not very interesting. And, yeah. Not terribly enthused about the direction they're taking his character. (Really, I would have been happy had he never shown up. I really liked the thing they had going before - how Zachariah was going to use Dean as bait to get MIchael to show up, because he's missing. That, in my opinion, would have been much better - like the Trickster is Gabriel thing! I loved that! - and further established the fucked-upedness of heaven.)
THERE IS NO EPISODE THAT DOES NOT NEED MORE CAS.