I see what Andrew Daab was trying to do. Sorta. He was pointing out that almost all TV superheroes seem to have "luck". They never have problems picking locks, they are never lactose-intolerant, they never trip, they never get sick (except when it's relevant to the plot), they never get cavities, they do all kinds of illegal parking things and never get tickets, their credit cards always work. It can be a Star Trek crew, or MacGyver, or a CSI detective, or any "hero" on TV.
But as was noted elsewhere, some of it IS skill. Lockpicking, for instance, isn't just "Ooh, look how lucky I am that I can pick this lock" but "I've trained for years in lockpicking". It isn't "luck", for instance, that Spock spots the one scientific clue that lets him solve the whole mystery. It's decades of him studying and being the smartest guy in the room. MacGyver isn't just lucky the things he needs are in the room: he's spent years studying and training to pick the right things out of anywhere, or make do with what's there.
I can kind of buy the premise: Chuck should start screwing with the Winchesters. But just say that he cursed them, not that he he took away their TV hero "luck". That's where Daab should have gone, but instead he went with the whole luck thing. When Daab brought in "luck", he went off in a different direction and missed the point.
That, and there was other stuff that was just weird. Like Dean's dance routine, and Garth and Bess dancing at the end. Which didn't seem to have anything to do with anything Daab was trying to say about luck and plot contrivance and "heroes". That stuff was funny/amusing/touching, sure, and Supernatural always gives good humor. Mostly thanks to Ackles, but Qualls and Padalecki helped, too.
As a result of all of this, the episode just felt funny but meandering. The Winchesters have lost their luck, but it's not all luck. It's a "funny" episode, but Daab & Company are trying to make some serious points and make Chuck a formidable Big Bad. Except they've already done the "Winchesters Have Bad Luck" plot, which makes Chuck look like a bush-league one-shot opponent instead of a "Curse of Job"-giving Big Bad. It also doesn't help that Chuck's end-game is so vague. Is he really trying to get the Winchesters killed off, or give them something formidable to overcome so he can write his story with a decent finale? Or what? Season 15 is supposed to be some incredible God-written story. But the only way the creative team can pull that off is to have God-like writing talent. Daab & Co. are good, but they're not that good.
So as a one-off, "Journey" was okay. Judging from the preview, the whole Bad Luck Winchesters is going to run into the next episode. But to what end? They get rid of God's curse, which means God couldn't have been too powerful in the first place. Why can't he just snap his fingers and reinstate the bad luck? He's God, not some one-shot villain. That's been a big problem with Season 15: God is... well, God. If he's omnipotent, the Winchesters shouldn't be able to take him on like the typical monster-of-the-weak. He's omnipotent. They did that a bit last week, with God just knowing what Eileen was trying to do with him and stopping it with a snap of his fingers. But once or twice ain't enough. And it's a thin tightrope to walk between God being omnipotent, and God being defeatable.
But if he's not God, what's the point? You can't have him as 15 seasons of the biggest Big Bad the Winchesters have ever fought, but also reduce him to some monster-of-the-week with one-and-done powers.
But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. What do you think?
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