User blog comment:FTWinchester/Holy Terror/@comment-11331875-20131204113750/@comment-11331875-20131204232308

Okay, so this episode was written by the most notorious writing team of SPN. The most surprising part for me was that not all of it was bad, considering their track record (racist ghost truck episode, racist kinky bestiality episode, the twenty levels of un-continuity that was "Taxi Driver", and the boring, gross mess that was "I'm No Angel"), but I figure that that's because they had a lot of storyline "meat" to work with--if a more competent writer got this episode, it probably would've been much better. I did like how it picked up towards the end buuuut:

A.) Without vessels, angels are supposed to manifest as overwhelming white lights with screeching sound to represent their voices. The pretty blue-white mists are supposed to be their grace, not their true forms. They made this mistake in "I'm No Angel", too, and it bugged the crap out of me then, too. I guess you could say that their forms have been altered by their wings being damaged, but for now it just comes off as an inconsistency, like they watched "Heaven and Hell" for reference over the summer for Cass' storyline and didn't realize that that was the grace, not the angel.

B.) While we're on the subject, shouldn't Cass' body (AKA Jimmy) have been destroyed from absorbing that other angel's grace? I suppose you could fanwank that he didn't because he was stronger than Anna before he lost his grace, but that shouldn't figure into it because he was just a human at the time, not a seraph. Also, I don't like that angels can absorb one another's grace: I liked thinking that each angel's grace was individual to them, and it makes me wonder why haven't we seen it before, like why didn't Uriel absorb Anna's grace to permanently stop her from absorbing it/become more powerful? I suppose we could hand-wave it as so atrocious even bad angels wouldn't do it or that Uriel didn't want to have any part of Anna merge with him since he was so disgusted by her, but it still comes across as a retcon. Which brings me to my next bitch: Cass becoming angel again, considering how his exploration of humanity was supposed to be his big storyline and how it finally solved the "overpowered Cass" problem for the writers--why did they turn around and blow it? I mean, I'm indifferent to Castiel as a character at best and I hated everything they did with his newfound humanity (namely, being homeless, oogling ladies, and working as a gas station attendant), but the storyline could have had some potential and Misha Collins seemed really excited about it before the season started. It makes me wonder if the writers back-tracked because that storyline wasn't going over well, or if they intended to reangelify him from the start... either way, we wasted nine episodes on a subplot that went nowhere. It's possible that they're building up to him voluntarily giving up his grace and becoming a human again of his own choice, but now I'm just getting whiplash.

C.) "Ezekiel" being evil and lying about who he is--everybody on the Internet called it. I wish I'd mastered enough self-control by now to stay away from the message boards and their spoilers, but alas... That said, I do like Gadreel more now that his background and motivations have been revealed, even though he's been doing some pretty awful stuff (with his murder of poor Kevin topping the list). I'm not sure I'll forgive him for Kevin's death enough to want him to stick around as an ally (even if he brings Kevin back as repentence or something *crosses fingers*), but he makes for an interesting little character. That's just about the best any angel character can hope for from me, considering how boring I find most of them. (Anna, Raphael, Lucifer, and Naomi being the only exceptions.)

D.) Speaking of which, I agree with another poster--where are the damn demons? They're seriously the only characters I'm interested in right now; angels are going around in circles, Castiel's a snooze-fest, Kev's dead, Sam's got no agency anymore, all Dean is doing is biting his lip and lying terribly, and the rest I don''t care about/actively dislike. What's going on with Crowley and the blood?--I mean, Mark Sheppard plays my heartstrings like a violin whenever Crowley gets teary, but I prefer him evil and snarky and would hate for him to actually turn good (or die). And Abaddon and her army should have started laying siege to the Bunker ages ago, since logic would dictate that she knows where it is from "As Time Goes By" and wanted to break into it so badly. Imagine her and her soldiers breaking through the wards, one-by-one, while the Winchesters try to mount a defense inside. That could have been a fun little mid-season finale. Just show her doing some of the conquering she said she'd do.

E.) The guest angels' acting in this episode was kind of bad. The Glee Club angels had me snickering at how over-the-top "OMG creepy bloody angels singing after killing" (now that I type that out, it actually does look creepy on paper, but the execution was ridiculous). The exchange between Malachi and Bartholomew's assistant had me averting my eyes from the screen, and Theo was a complete moron to buy what Castiel was selling. Wish Naomi had lived so we could have an angel villain with some gravity. On the plus side, Curtis Armstrong seemed better than usual--I couldn't take him seriously at all in Season 8, but he seemed good in the role here. (Ripped Zachariah off a bit, but still good.)

F.) Killing Kevin off. His death was anti-climatic as hell because it didn't give him a good enough send-off for a recurring and well-liked character (compare this to "Abandon All Hope..." for a lesson in how to do a send-off right). I would say that it was also unneccessary, but Metatron probably had him killed off to stop him from revealing some information from the tablets to the Winchesters (perhaps the spell to expel angels is indeed reversable), so it might be justified within the narrative. As for Kevin: Adios, mi amigo! I hope he gets reunited with his mom and his girlfriend in Heaven and that Heaven doesn't suck too much with Metatron in charge (maybe we'll even get to see him again if Sam, Dean, and/or Castiel infiltrate Heaven at some point).