User blog comment:Touchinos/“Raising Hell” Discussion/@comment-25589722-20191019193228

Now, since the story is dragging on and still takes place in the same town, I will give my opinion on both episodes (Back and to the Future & Raising Hell) just to have it out of my head and maybe some of you can add something to it or criticize on the things I’m going to list: GOOD: Back and to the Future The Beginning pared with the song: I have to say, that hearing Bob Seger’s “Famous Final Scene” kinda caught me off guard and the realization kicked in, that this season and the scenes within it will truly be the final scenes… The part in the beginning started off pretty good and was solid. Up until the appearance of Belphegor. More on that later. The End with the Talk at the Impala: Classic Supernatural stuff here. A talk next to the Impala about the current situation. Also a good scene and nothing much to complain about! Raising Hell Emily Swallow and Ruth Connell: Two of the things I liked about this episode were Emily Swallow’s acting and of course the finesse and elegance, that is always being put into the show by the appearance of Ruth Connell! Both of them made the episode somehow watchable. Lane Davies: He played Jack the Ripper and although such a character seemed a bit wasted in this scenario, his acting was very good and made it enjoyable to watch. BAD: Now, without separating it into each episode, I will pick out certain things that might cross over from the first into the second one: Belphegor: Belphegor, someone you wouldn’t think that he is a demon, because he acts more like one of those teenagers you can find almost anywhere and who think of themselves as cool or chill. A portrayal which isn’t fitting when it comes to those evil, soul-twisted demons. At least in my opinion. I mean, remember Meg, back in season one? She used to behave, talk and act like a demon. She was dangerous and somehow scary. Not a quirky demon wannabe. Jesus, if you want to bring back nostalgia from season one, like they tried with the Woman in White and/or Bloody Mary, why not start with the care, that was put into the characters back then? Ghosts: And speaking of the ghosts, especially Constance Welch and Bloody Mary. While the latter was somehow okay and there wasn’t really anything about the make-up and costume design to really argue about. But what’s up with the cheap Woman in White outfit? Again, remember back in the Pilot? The Woman in White standing on the road side, with fog in the background, a soft wind blowing through her hair and moving pieces of her ripped dress and how she was able to seduce you with her kinda creepy look? Well, throw all that out of the window… Now we have a Woman in White, who looks like she was dressed up by some wannabe filmmakers with a low budget. A cheap white dress, no atmosphere surrounding her, that could embrace her appearance. Just standing there with the back turned to the viewer (a terrible cliché by the way). I mean, the trash can in the background was more appealing to look at, than the Woman in White during that scene. Well, while there is the problem of the ghost scenes being dragged on for waay to long in 15x01. The worst part about it was the stupid clown! Pogo the Clown. John Wayne Gacy. Call him what you want. But seriously, those scenes were cheesy and cheap. I mean, just watch the scenes and as a long time viewer of the show you can tell what’s wrong with it. One example is the portrayal of Sam Winchester, whose being played by the ghosts like a newcomer to the hunting business, although we know that he has fought some crazy critters all his life and over the course of the show. So you might think, that he knows how to handle situations like that. But NOPE. And the cherry on top was the stupid scene where they were running away from the ghosts on a straight road, in broad daylight. xD Filming at daylight: This is something that completely ruins the feel and atmosphere of the situation. I do understand, that it can’t be night all the time but with a night setting it would look sooo much better and they could pull of some awesome stuff. The impeding flood of the souls from hell would look much more intimidating, than it does in daylight. Also, the filming location overall is a bit meh. They certainly could have used something way more fitting, than this suburban town with perfectly trimmed grass and hedges. That way the feel of the danger that’s hovering over Team Free Will just doesn’t come to fruition. At least for me. Souls from Hell: And something that bothered me ever since I saw the ending scene in “Moriah” which, without the music from Motörhead, wouldn’t have been that good of a scene. The overall appearance of the souls from hell. They had the opportunity to show some really messed up souls looking scary as hell (no pun intended) and maybe even unnerving. I mean, it would fit the stories we used to hear from Ruby back in season three. But NO, we got slightly transparent skeletons with red glowing eyes, looking like the cheap Halloween decoration you can find in your local super market (and honestly today I just saw something like that while shopping). They look like they crossed the franchise from Ghostbusters (The Original!) to Supernatural. They already used a CGI skeleton model for Lucifer in the empty, which is also a completely illogical look for an archangel to begin with. But nevertheless, it seems like they got someone with a fondness for skeletons to do the CGI. '''Spell Nr. 1023''': Then there is again the case of magic ex machina. Instead of coming up with a Winchester-idea to maw these possessed corpses to the ground and continue the fight in a hunter-way, NO! There just has to be somebody suddenly showing up and knowing a special spell to save them for the moment. Now that’s just lazy writing! And the worst thing is, that Belphegor does it again with this ghost-shield-wall-thing. All these magical McGuffin-spells are cheap. Remember back in the finale episode of season three, where Bobby put the rosary in this water tank (or whatever) and consecrated the water to fend of the demons with the sprinkler system? Well, that was a hunter way of thinking and it was genius. Now some powerful guy appears, does some parlor trick and this is then supposed to be a solution for a tricky situation. Lazy! Now, I do hope you understand where I wanted to go with this. Kevin Tran: His appearance was, well, weird. It seems to me, that he was only there for fan service and to bring back yet another character for the long-time fans and to make them a bit more nostalgic. It also caused a bit of a retcon to season eleven, as we were “told” that Kevin went to heaven. So in order to tell a new story with a lame twist, they went all the way back to change this rather touching scene of Kevin being send to heaven by Chuck himself. Really don’t know how to feel about this… There are some more small bits here and there I could name, like Castiel’s healing abilities and why he can suddenly rebuild cloth and/or why he wasn’t able to heal Ketch. Why did neither Cass nor Belphegor saw that Ketch was possessed by a soul from hell, and so on. But, well. NEUTRAL: Chuck and Amara: As for Chuck and Amara it seems like their relationship is not good, but also not bad. Not really a retcon to season eleven, but Amara stated back then, that Dean gave her what she always wanted: Her brother. And it looked like the two have left the world in harmony. Now, suddenly she still kinda hates him, but not really,… whatever. I liked the idea of Amara getting sort of a light revenge on her brother by “locking” him to this world and Emily’s acting was actually really good in that scenes. Arthur Ketch: I don’t really have anything against him and he’s actually an interesting character. Although all the fancy BMOL-Armory is, well, it does make sense, but it seems a bit too over the top. The relationship that build up between him and Rowena felt kinda forced really, but then again it gave me a few scenes to chuckle. I don’t really ship them but at this point, everything is already a bit messed up. All in all it’s a want-to-like-it-but-also-sort-of-hate-it situation for me. It’s the last season we have with the boys and I really want to be excited about episodes one last time. Then again I honestly think, that the sole reason I’m still watching it, is the fact, that it’s the final season. Nothing more, nothing less. The overall interest also doesn’t seem to be that big, when you look at the ratings. Is it because the episodes are rather low rated on imdb and the viewer’s/fans also aren’t really excited, happy or satisfied with the season? Who knows? Will it get somehow better? We’ll see…