FLAILINGS ON CAS/COCKROACH AND OTHER THINGS

[tracy_loo_who]

Or, disjointed notes on the Kripke/Singer/Edlund commentary for The End.

• Kripke has been OCD about dealing with the Croatoan virus since season two. "People would come in and they'd be like, 'good morning, Eric,' and I'd be like, 'WHAT ABOUT CROATOAN?'" ♥


• The first conversation they had about this episode involved someone cloning Sam and Dean, and they were going to call it Clone Wars. "But we couldn't figure out how to break that story, probably because of its overwhelming stupidity."


• This was the first time Sam and Dean got a chance to reunite and put some issues behind them. People on the interweb said, "boy, didn't they get together easily?" And you wanna say to them, "stay tuned, we have a season worked out here." They're gonna come together and then in the second half of the season they're going to start drifting apart. Ben hinted at it at the end of this episode where Dean says "we make our own future" (advocating free will) and Sam says "because we don't have any other choice" (which means he's a proponent of destiny) and there's conflict already. At some point Kripke talks about "the epic love story of Sam and Dean" and drifting them apart and pulling them together.


• They stumbled onto the Watchmen set, lol, but didn't mention JDM. :(


• There is mockage of the "phone doesn't work" horror movie trope, hahha omg such dorks.


• Doing the apocalypse has been a struggle this season, but they probably have more on the screen per dollar than any other show around in Vancouver.


• The Impala was CG'd into that one scene because it was so dressed down and muddied that it was impossible to tell what they were even looking at.


• Singer GUSHES ABOUT JENSEN'S PERFORMANCE A LOT. ♥


• Edlund treated Dean a lot like Gordon -- similar to Dean but further down the road and in a more hardcore, dangerous place.


• Jensen texted from the set to say "Please don't ever do this to me again." Haha aww.


• Kripke emailed him and said, "If this was the type of show to get any sort of mainstream respect -- which we're not -- but if we were, this is an Emmy performance." ♥


• Gushing about Rob Benedict! "It's like bringing Albert Brooks level sensibility into the middle of Supernatural."


• This is Jared's favorite episode because he only had to work one day.


• Kudos to Misha! They had an issue with Cas -- was he going to speak differently? Talked about him loving ganster movies all of a sudden. But Misha found the proper interpretation of this character. Still an angel in a lot of ways, tired and sad but with a massive capacity of perspective. "I buy that he's addled, but he shouldn't be like Rat Packer, he should be like Sting. He should be all tantric and guru and using it as a way to bang chicks."


• At one point, the storyline was not going to be about finding Sam as Lucifer. He was going to be living with a family in a cabin. They were going to hide that Sam was going to be Lucifer's vessel until later, but then they thought everyone would guess anyway.


• Re: the Colt -- They have gun fetishes. XD


• The idea of killing Lucifer has always been "schmuck-bait" aka a red herring.


• Scaring the audience that they're gonna be lame. "We might just shoot him with a gun!"


• Kripke and Edlund had this notion that future!Dean had already gone through this same experience and was manipulating Dean. "Time is cyclical!" They were drawing diagrams for Bob Singer, who gave them a wonderful dry look and said, "You'll be drawing this for the audience?" This part is HYSTERICAL but anyway, they pulled 6-7 pages of script very late in the game and moved to an AU model. There were two pages of dialogue of Dean explaining all this with metaphors about getting on and off buses, IDEK.


• The last moment with Chuck was originally them talking about mythology, discussing angels leaving and him not having prophecies anymore. But they needed levity so they turned to toilet paper, lol.


• Edlund says PARAMILITARY ORGANIZATION. (Is he consorting with Misha?) Anyway, they are all ♥ over Chuck's little parting gesture as the cars drive off.


• When they were first pitching the story, Castiel had gone mad in the future, literally. "Castiel's gonna be sitting in a dark room in Bobby's house, and he's gonna be killing a cockroach and bringing it back to life. Killing a cockroach and bringing it back to life, over and over, FOREVER." Eric thought it was "a little depressing" lolol. Then he had a notion that Cas in the future is so despondent he's become a lovable drunk, like Dean Martin.


• Kripke: "Apparently this character has more in common with the real Misha. Not all the stoned and debaucherous activity part, I'm just saying he was raised in a counter-culture household, and the uptight, trench-coat wearing Cas is his Halloween costume. When you speak to him, he's an amazingly intelligent, philosophical personality." ♥


• They are also all ♥ over Ben Edlund's scripts.


• Lucifer's suit was Sera Gamble's idea. Everyone is grubby but Sam should dress like Tom Ford. Apparently it's Wayne Newton's suit which they got at a bargain. They joke about him having sequins and a man-purse in the first draft, lol.


• One pattern that irritates them is that they fight their way to the monster for the climax, and what do you have in the climax? A really long conversation. This happened with War, Lucifer, Gabriel, etc. Now that they've noticed it in the middle of the season, they're trying to deviate from it. A lot of it is getting the show mythology out. They're not even having conversations that have anything to do with the plot -- they fight their way to Lucifer and he's like, "Let me tell you the story of how I fell!" "Yes, but I wasn't actually all that curious. I'm much more concerned about my own body lying dead on the ground." "Yes but let's talk to you about something that happened when you were just digging grubs out of the ground!" etc. "Who asked you to monologue? IDK what the Devil's problem is." This part is also hysterical.


• They wanted Lucifer to be sympathetic. Not that it was their idea -- it went from Milton to a bunch of graphic novels.


• This season's mythology isn't as twisty or surprising as last season, but it's about revealing more and more depth of character: Lucifer and Michael.


• Called Jensen and his man tear beautiful. XD


• They gush over Kurt Fuller too and go off on completely random tangents and mock themselves for it. HAVE I MENTIONED I LOVE THESE GUYS?


• Edlund on Misha: "This angel storyline working -- a large portion of it comes from electric angelic performances." ♥ "It's one of those storylines where if we ran into someone who was just not hitting it for us as Cas, then we would've ditched the storyline."


• Singer: Second time filming at this bridge. "If anybody uses it again I'm gonna get angry."


• Singer: "I think we should do an episode of all the people who had their cars stolen. We never see them!"


• They mock Sam and Dean for leaving all the dead bodies at the crime scenes and being like "you were mean to me back there" etc. in the same voices the Sam/Dean RPers used in that convention episode. FREAKING HILARIOUS.

OKAY, TEXTUAL VOMIT OVER.

Comments

[maychorian.livejournal.com]

Ahahaha, this is all very adorable. ♥

[tracy.livejournal.com]

It will be even more adorable when you hear how nerdy they are! ♥

:D

[k3lit0.livejournal.com]

Ahh I was tempted to track down the half-season dvd o somethin, but this will do for now. :)

I love the commentaries, I wish they'd do more- it's like what, two per season? Not enough! It can't be too difficult/time consuming to sit someone down and let them chat while watching an episode!

I think I would have preferred crazy!cas. The way they did it was pretty depressing already, but it hid it with the funny. It would have been less.. subtle if they'd done it the original way. But if he was ressing the bug he still had his powers, so maybe he was crazy for a period of time between present and future, but he got 'better'. :O


Thanks for posting this, you're amazing. Highlight of my day/week when I see your journal pop up on my RSS reader :D

Re: :D

[tracy.livejournal.com]

Yes, this is the only one for the first half of the season. BOO. But at least they chose the best episode to comment on!

I'm torn on crazy!Cas. If he really did spend eternity with a cockroach, there wouldn't have been much of him in the episode. :P But yes, the having his powers thing gave me pause too, that would've been interesting. A crazy angel with scary powers would be hella dangerous.

[ibroketuesday.livejournal.com]

and using it as a way to bang chicks.

NO. NO. CREEPTASTIC. FAIL!

But I love their other thoughts on Cas (amazingly intelligent and philosophical, aww yes - that's the kind of thing that would stay Cas even after he acclimated to human culture and lost his awkwardness and weirdness, as adorable as those are, and I fucking love that they compared this to Misha, lolol). Also, it hurts to know that we were THIS CLOSE to psychotic!Cas and instead got the future!Cas that we did, a persona I had a lot of problems with. But. THIS COMMENTARY IS LOVE. I want it for myself.

[tracy.livejournal.com]

JUST BECAUSE IT'S CREEPTASTIC DOESN'T NECESSARILY MEAN IT'S FAIL. THE MORE CREEPTASTIC, THE MORE FUCKED UP, AND THE MORE AWESOME, SOMETIMES.

No, no, the intelligent and philosophical comment was about Misha! I don't think they meant for that to be a comparison to Cas at all, by then they'd sort of gone off on a tangent about Misha.

it hurts to know that we were THIS CLOSE to psychotic!Cas

SERIOUSLY I THOUGHT THIS TOO. But if he really had been that psycho there'd have been like, one scene of him in the entire future, probably.

[je-suis.livejournal.com]

Kripke and Edlund had this notion that future!Dean had already gone through this same experience and was manipulating Dean.

TBH, I would've really REALLY been on board with this, as this is my interpretation of how time travel would work if it existed - it'd be a cycle and therefore if your past self ran across your future self, your future self would have already experienced it and could totally screw with your past self. I love this ep as is, for sure, but MAN. I totally would've been all over manipulative!Future-Dean.

[k3lit0.livejournal.com]

" if your past self ran across your future self, your future self would have already experienced it and could totally screw with your past self. "

Like in Doctor Who!

[rogueslayer452.livejournal.com]

LOL CASTIEL AND COCKROACHES! XD I actually think what we saw of future!Cas was far more depressing than that, though.

But lol @ the comment on future!Cas being Sting. Now I can't get that image out of my head....although he would totally be banging Dean, just saying it because it's all true

The first conversation they had about this episode involved someone cloning Sam and Dean, and they were going to call it Clone Wars. "But we couldn't figure out how to break that story, probably because of its overwhelming stupidity."

All I see when I read this was CYLONS CYLONS CYLONS CYLONS! Think about it, Cylon!Winchesters. Or they could do something very The Prestige-esque or something like that.

I LOVE THEIR LOVE FOR MISHA. ♥ And they're so right, if anyone else were to play Castiel it definitely wouldn't work. Which is why I THANK THE LORDS OF KOBOL the casting director found Misha because without him, Castiel wouldn't be Castiel. Like, for serious. I can't even imagine anyone else taking his place.

[tracy.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I'm not sure, the future!Cas we saw at least showed traces here and there of the old Cas, at least in his loyalty to Dean. If all he'd done the entire episode was sit in a dark room playing with a cockroach, that would've been.. IDEK, dude.

YOU KNOW I THOUGHT IT TOO, BB. SEE ICON.

They talked about casting Mark Pellegrino as Castiel, and how it came down to Misha vs Mark. Obviously I'm glad they picked Misha, though I wonder if it had been Mark from the very beginning if I'd have loved him too.

[star-watcher81.livejournal.com]

Oooh, crazy!Castiel! That sounds like it would have been awesome (heartbreaking, but awesome).

And it seems like they gush about their actors a lot, and I just LOVE THAT!

Thanks for sharing <3

[tracy.livejournal.com]

I'm sure it would've been creepy as fuck.

ESPECIALLY JENSEN. THEY CALLED HIM BEAUTIFUL. XD

[littlestclouds.livejournal.com]

Is this going to be on the DVDs or something?

[tracy.livejournal.com]

Yes, it will be!

[cindelius.livejournal.com]

Your cut made me go, "... Gregor Samsa?" *facepalms*

[tracy.livejournal.com]

I have no idea who Gregor Samsa is but HOLY SHIT YOU ARE ALIVE AND BACK ON LJ WHAT? YOU HAVE BEEN GONE FOR YEARS AND YEARS AND I THOUGHT YOU'D NEVER COME BACK.

[kiltiebum.livejournal.com]

Ah, bless your cotton socks for posting this. We (UK) don't get these commentaries...and it truly sucks that we don't. ;(

[tracy.livejournal.com]

This is from the UK DVDs of the first half of season 5 due out next month!

[ellie-234.livejournal.com]

Nice commentary and how nice to see those 3 tell us how wonderful Jareds performance as Lucifer was thanks Eric and all .

[tracy.livejournal.com]

Hahha I think they were actually too busy mocking their own writing where it comes to Lucifer to gush too much about Jared's performance, but there is some good stuff in there!

[olympia-m.livejournal.com]

oooh- this is incredibly cute - and illuminating! thank you os much! :)

[tracy.livejournal.com]

Yes, I'm so happy they did this episode. :D

[chasingtides.livejournal.com]

I am having, like, fits over this.

But, you know, I also have this massive meta I've been paring down and this totally fits in with Lucifer and Castiel's masculinity. Imma die.

Also, I want to see the fic where everyone with stolen cars and terrible credit because of the Winchesters forms a support group.

[samara-draven.livejournal.com]

But once they figure out the Winchester gospel is real and they helped fund the good guys fighting the Apocalypse they'll probably change their group into an elitist club. :)

[silverusagi]

This is Jared's favorite episode because he only had to work one day.

Heh. Jensen had a crazy time filming, and Jared got a vacation.

I am also amused by crazy!Cas and the cockroach. Just because I find the idea of a crazy angel interesting. Particularly the part were he still had his powers. But mainly because because I'm imagining the angst of dealing with a being who's that powerful, yet insane.

[tracy.livejournal.com]

Just like the last time travel episode. :P

That would be incredibly dangerous, dude. Deliciously so. I'd love to see Dean deal with a Cas who was a real threat to him.

[tracy.livejournal.com]

It would've been pretty amazing to see Dean deal with psycho!Cas, even if it broke my heart.

You're welcome! :)

[eido.livejournal.com]

Meandered here from friends of friends' flists, but honestly? I think I would have probably hated the Madwoman in the Attic!Castiel and I'm kind of glad they didn't go that direction. It would have probably shared the same space as whoopie-cushion!Cas and ground-beef-scarfing-like-a-dog!Cas as of MBV, but obviously a lot worse than either of those. There was at least a little more dignity in Last Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_man)!Cas we got from a narrative perspective. Both Castiels would have been immeasurably broken, but there's more story and layers in Last Man!Cas. Cas/Cockroach would have just been Bertha Rochester basically from this impression I'm getting and that's comes off lazy to me. Like an inconvenience to be dealt with and probably would have gotten as much storytime as Bertha did (show up, do crazy shit and leave). He probably wouldn't have even gotten to burn the house down, so to speak.

ETA. Wow, I'm rude. Thank you for writing all this up, btw.

[tracy.livejournal.com]

Yes, I agree, when I first thought of that scenario I got the impression that would be his one and only future scene, and that would've been pretty flat. I'd only go for the cockroach thing if Dean had somehow roused him, but then I think it would've been too much work to get Cas from playing with cockroaches to semi-functional.

Hahha no thanks needed!

[tracy.livejournal.com]

A friend sent it to me!

Dude, yes, I also want fic about Dean dealing with crazy!Cas who STILL HAS POWERS and is all unpredictable and completely dangerous.

Misha is also gross, apparently. XD

[c00kie.livejournal.com]

Oh wow! This is awesome. Thanks for putting it up! <3

This kind of makes me want a fic where Cas gets a pet cockroach.

[tracy.livejournal.com]

You're welcome!

And LOL THIS WOULD BE HORRIBLE. BUT CUTE. BUT HORRIBLE.

[love-jackianto.livejournal.com]

'It's one of those storylines where if we ran into someone who was just not hitting it for us as Cas, then we would've ditched the storyline.'
I love that.

'"Castiel's gonna be sitting in a dark room in Bobby's house, and he's gonna be killing a cockroach and bringing it back to life. Killing a cockroach and bringing it back to life, over and over, FOREVER." Eric thought it was "a little depressing" lolol.'
Personally I think drugged up hippie Cas is much more depressing than Cazy!Cas; Hippie!Cas knows actually what's happening to him (and is using the Dean Winchester style of coping) but Crazy!Cas might not even know/realized what happened to him.

[tracy.livejournal.com]

Seriously, the angel storyline is HUGE, I almost don't believe they would've ditched it entirely since they were originally going to have a lot of Anna, but I like to think this anyway.

Yeah, crazy!Cas is an interesting concept but I don't know how well it actually would've worked.

[samara-draven.livejournal.com]

Dude! You're awesome knows no bounds! You find the good stuff and make it look easy. ;) Thanks for posting this. I'm glad to see the guys like Misha pretty much the same as Jensen and Jared. Gives me hope that Sera's ominous comment about the show always being about the Winchesters and getting back to that doesn't spell doom for our favorite angel. *wibbles at the thought* What she said is possible while keeping Cas around, I just worry about it. But seeing that Kripke and Singer seem to be over the moon about Misha makes me feel better.

I'd like to think that after years of the Js pranking them, Misha's unique brand of humor is a welcome change and they love him as a person as much as they love what he can do onscreen, just as they do with the boys. XD

Sorry waxing poetic here, but I mean seriously? Dropping a whole storyline because no one else can play Cas like Misha can? That's huge. =D

Love you BB for posting this! Thanks! :)

[tracy.livejournal.com]

Hahha you're very welcome! I'm also glad they like Misha so much and also hope it's an indication that they'll KEEP HIM FOR NEXT SEASON. And yes, I do get the impression they're very enamored with even his off-screen personality, as they should be. ♥

You know, I don't believe that 100% since they were originally gonna have much more of Anna, but ehh.

[azdaja-dafema.livejournal.com]

♥!

[tracy.livejournal.com]

♥ back!

[gembat.livejournal.com]

I LOVE EVERYONE WHO WORKS ON THIS SHOW.

[tracy.livejournal.com]

SO DO I OMG. ESPECIALLY EDLUND, I AM SO IN LOVE WITH HIS WEIRD LITTLE VOICE.

[kelios.livejournal.com]

This sounds so great! Um...anyone in the UK know how those of us stateside can get a copy of the half-season dvds?

[tracy.livejournal.com]

I'm not in the UK so I wouldn't know, but aside from this commentary, the only other special feature is a two-minute deleted scene from The Real Ghostbusters, so..

[missjigsaw23.livejournal.com]

That commentary sounds fun to listen to! I really should check out the commentaries on my DVDs... I never get around to that...

As for psychotic!Cas, and the cockroach.... I think I want fic of this now XD

[tracy.livejournal.com]

I don't think I've listened to most of them either. *hangs head*

RIGHT? It would be amazing to see him still have powers but be dangerous and Dean would have to deal with that while trying not to get killed. Unf.

[k3lit0.livejournal.com]

Maybe he just does what he learned from Dean? He's in a male body, and as far as he knows there's no such thing as homosexuality? Plus Dean's kind of.. 'an average guy' about sex, not to say he's completely homophobic or anything but he'd probably be weird about it (he hasn't been exposed to that sort of thing really..), and future!cas seemed to be emulating him and would probably not want to do something that might make future!dean awkward.

There are plenty of reasons why he'd be 'straight,' even if he's not technically male. Though there are just as many reasons why he'd not be, so it might be nice if they'd address it and let us hear which way they've gone and why. I think I'd be happy either way, as long as they justified it.

Oh, and idk how many people were in that camp but it's possible all the men living there were straight? Especially considering the ratio so far in the SPN world. :P

[cheerful-earl.livejournal.com]

OMG I cannot wait to actually hear this. Thanks for the recap! Gah, they're goofballs and I love them.

[tracy.livejournal.com]

You will not be disappointed! :D