SPN spoilers

[rivkat]

Okay, I’m not that interested in debating the ethics of sleeping with a demon in a comatose body, because in the end I’m not sure it gives us much purchase on actual ethical problems. What I object to from last night is not the backstory, which on its own I could accept and would actually find quite interesting. What makes me furious is the retroactive discontinuity created with Lazarus Rising, which was also a version of Ruby I could accept and find interesting.

In Lazarus Rising, I can handwave Sam as in shock when Dean shows up, so that we don't see the five-minute hug that then occurs half an hour later. What I cannot do is accept that Sam would have the coherence to fake a random hookup at the same time as he’s reeling from Dean’s return, and even more I can't accept that Ruby would be able to hide her reaction to seeing Dean Winchester risen from the dead. Unless her game is longer than anyone else’s, we haven’t seen her able to hide reactions like that. Trying to reconcile the two episodes is what makes my head spin.

Lazarus Rising could have made plenty of sense if Ruby had possessed Sam’s one-night stand after she left. It would mean we couldn't get that version of fucked-up Sammy having sex we saw last night (though there are plenty of other flashbacks I could suggest that still got him naked), and it would mean Sam had to accept the serious ethical problems of Ruby possessing a person with an active soul. If they didn't want that, they shouldn't have had played the first scene with GC in Lazarus Rising the way they did, and once they did have that scene in canon they should have sucked it up and done something different with Sam/Ruby.

catdancerz has suggested to me that maybe Ruby knew Dean was back through the demonic grapevine, which … okay, then her lack of reaction to Dean’s reappearance is merely evil and puzzling, not incomprehensible. That still leaves the problem of Sam; perhaps he’s just ashamed of being with Ruby, but I find Lazarus Rising indigestible in retrospect.

In itself, this was a strong episode. But you can't keep taking shortcuts to get the moment that's good now at the expense of overall characterization. Short-term returns lead to long-term losses, as I think we've seen on Wall Street.

On a separate note, when Sam talked about how Ruby reminded him of Dean, I was reminded very much of SV’s attempts to revitalize Clark/Lana by having Clark & Lana reenact all the key Clark/Lex moments of S1. Disavowing subtext: you’re doing it wrong.

Comments

[giandujakiss.livejournal.com]

Love the Wall Street comparison :-). And yes, re Lazarus, but you've seen me rant and rant and rant on the subject forever.

omg, i never thought about shorting stories like stocks before...

[catdancerz.livejournal.com]

guess we're ALL in trouble now huh...unless there's a deus ex machina bailout coming from somewhere ;>

[snake-easing.livejournal.com]

Oh, geez, did Smallville do that after I stopped watching? I'm ashamed of them.

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

Well, it was kind of funny to have Clark rescuing Lana from watery death and performing CPR, which was supposed to read as evidence of their perfect love. Because that did so much to de-gay Clark's relationship with Lex.

[snake-easing.livejournal.com]

Well, perhaps I'm less ashamed than I am embarrassed for them. Really, show? Really?

[korestemenos.livejournal.com]

I hadn't thought about this before - I see your point. I wonder if the explanation might be that in 'Lazarus' Sam saw Dean and was not so much ashamed as you say, but panicked and terrified that Dean would find out he was using his demonic powers and sleeping with a demon that he immediately went into denial? I don't know, I may need to do the onerous task of watching both eps again to confirm...

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

Honestly, as much as I love the overall arc, and as stunning generally as Lazarus Rising is, Sam is written really awfully in that episode, a casualty of the Dean-focus. For example, "I don't pay for it" makes no sense to me as something he'd say under the circumstances. At the very least, we needed a break to indicate that he'd had time to calm down before much of what he says in that first conversation makes sense. I don't blame the actor; he clearly had no idea what was coming later. I can buy Sam panicked and terrified, but that was not what I saw on screen. In the end, I may simply have to rewrite that episode in my head to give us what you're talking about: a Sam so thrown that he just says the first lie that comes into his head. Though even there, he wasn't as ashamed initially as he got later, when he learned that the angels didn't want him to use the powers. When Dean first returned, my read was that Sam just didn't want to upset him because Sam knew Dean wouldn't approve, but he didn't seem to feel shame about it.

[cellia.livejournal.com]

Agree with this so much. I'd love series-spanning arcs, but mostly, I just want episodes to vaguely be consistent with each another. An interesting possibility for fannish spackle for Sam is that he's playing a subtle and long game too, and had an idea that Dean was coming back, but that has it's own problems and seems pretty unlikely to happen on the show.

[deadlychameleon.livejournal.com]

I have a strong suspicion stuff got rewritten after the official forum boards exploded with DEMON SEX = RAPE (which they did).

I can buy Sam's (bad) act (he forgot her fake name), only because I figure they'd been playing it that way for awhile, and that he was probably panicking a little over how to explain Ruby, esp. naked Ruby. IMHO, Sam does look pretty guilty throughout that episode.

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I have no sympathy for writers who didn't notice that DEMON SEX = RAPE, though it's not at all surprising that they didn't. Okay, so they missed a biggie; they then really needed to rethink the Ruby backstory, instead of deciding to tell the same story, only with bonus get-out-of-rape-free coma victim as Ruby's host. I think Sam's flat affect was weird generally, and even weirder if he was also panicking and not just stunned. As I said above, I'm just going to rewrite Lazarus Rising so that Sam did react in the stunned/happy/guilty/terrified way he should have if he was trying to conceal Ruby. And Ruby was also stunned and did not manage the casual/bored "you're brothers" thing, even though it was good fanservice.

[giandujakiss.livejournal.com]

Wait you are?? YAY!

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

IN MY HEAD, sorry! OTOH, Deancubus now has a plot, at least in my head, so there's that.

Re: Ruby in "Lazurus Rising"

[jr-1969.livejournal.com]

Okay I thought that girl in the hotel
room was not possessed by Ruby yet.
It seemed that she was just a random
girl Sam hooked up with.

Did I miss something? That girl
in the hotel room was already taken
over by Ruby? I really did not get that impression.
But then again it makes sense that she was
because the next time we see her she's with Sam
exorcising that poor guy when Dean discovers Sam
workin' his bad mojo again. Is there a backstory
to that girl who became Ruby?

Re: Ruby in "Lazurus Rising"

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

In the most recent episode it's revealed that by the time of Lazarus Rising Ruby has been in that body for a while. I agree that based on Lazarus Rising the only thing that made sense was that Ruby possessed Sam's one-night stand thereafter, but new canon simply ran roughshod over that.

Re: Ruby in Lazurus Rising

[jr-1969.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen the latest episode yet
but that really makes Sam more screwed
in the head than I originally thought.
LIke many comments lately reflect
the series is really Dean centered this season
it seems. Sam is definitely more detached
since Dean came back.

[suzume-tori.livejournal.com]

yeahhh, I admit I was a bit confused by that. I figured that Ruby had possessed his one night stand, because otherwise, their dialog was too -- I don't know. Who could come up with that spontaneously? (Especially the "are you two like... together"? bit) so... yeah.

That annoyed me.