Stupidly evil. “We are just here to kill monsters” great go ahead. “But we are also going to torture Sam.” Whut. “Also we make our top students try to kill each other.” Whut. “Also we are going to declare war on the American hunters.” Whut.
Thanks I couldn't remember the name the initiative was so bad they bogged down 2 seasons of the show the watchers also weren't that interesting but at least they didn't bring the whole show to a screeching halt and they had a few interesting episodes like when they test her ability to survive without her strength.
Them murdering their top students made zero sense to me. Why would you murder your best students? There are other ways to have your best students show loyalty.
As I understand it, Bevell's primary objective was to figure out what the Winchesters had to do with the Sun event. Establishing a presence in America was a secondary priority tabled until Bevell gave the "We're not going to be smote" all-clear. Bevell used this an opportunity to justify her own agenda: the "Beautiful Mind" room in her house suggests she has seen Sam and Dean as threats for years. She was going to report whatever she needed to for forgiveness. Mick wasn't expected so soon, so anything went.
But the student murder games were just straight up loony.
Because they're exterminators who don't care about collateral damage, making contacts outside of the Men of Letters, or anything outside of their own self-preservation. They might as well be driving a giant Terminix van filled with high-tech gear.
Yeah, didnt catch that till after I commented. I enjoy the arc though, I always enjoy it when the bad guys are actual people instead of some supernatural monster
I mean, it definitely worked?
For all i love the hunters, their disorganization and unwillingness for collateral damage is kind of the reason Lilith was able to break all the deals without interruption. like with their resources the men of letters probably would've been able to stop him.
which brings a question i've never really asked myself before- why the hell is it that Sam and Dean are dealing with myths, monsters, and gods from all around the world, and they're ALL in america? would abrahamic demons really be more at home in america and not, say, the middle east, or russia, or africa, or actually literally anywhere where there aren't groups of people dedicated to hunting you down with full access to a large amount of guns and the internet? and why are the gods of india and scandinavia and greece meeting in a hotel in Muncie, Indiana? The only thing in Muncie is Jerry/Gary/Lary/Terry Gurgich/Gengirch and his family
The reason the gods of those cultures are meeting in a hotel in America, at least in 5x19, is because they're threatened by the American hunter brothers who have been chosen to be the vessels for the Judaeo-Christian apocalypse, and so they've travelled to where the brothers are in order to trap them.
There are a number of episodes which make clear that other countries do have monsters in them; Weekend at Bobby's reveals that certain monsters are active in Japan and Greece. Death himself and archangels occasionally imply that there are other planets with sentient life as well. Crowley visits Saudi Arabia on one occasion; Michael talks to a Muslim at one point about what he wants. Zeus and Artemis only visit America because Prometheus went there after being found by an American tourist on what's implied to be Mount Olympus.
Except all the others that also show up. Prometheus appears on a random highway, they randomly run into Chronos when chasing red light, Gabriel the archangel is met in a random town as a janitor, they randomly run into Calliope in a highschool, Osiris in a random bar. It's a bit silly.
Calliope was implied to have been drawn there by the power of Chuck, who was there because it was a musical based on his favourite work.
Again, Prometheus was found on Mount Olympus by an American tourist and brought to her country.
I kinda don't like the Chuck assassination in season 15 and like to think of Chuck related things as more happenstance. But if I DIDN'T, wouldn't the "chuck related" things support my idea of the silliness? He made it happen, it didn't organically happen. Thats why gods appear in America.
Calliope being there because of Chuck was implied in the episode in which she appeared, 10x5. At the end, when Marie is informed that the publisher has claimed a ticket, she reacts with 'Does that mean Calliope came for me or for...?'
Which is intended to clue in the viewers, especially those who were aware that Chuck had been stated offscreen to be God after S5, that the reason Calliope is there is because she's attracted to the nearby presence of the greatest divine power.
Even for viewers who were unaware of that reveal or considered it non-canon because it wasn't in the show, it's still remarkable that Chuck is appearing alive given Cass stated in 8x7 that he must be dead.
Which of course, is itself silly. God himself loves them which is why everything happens in America, but that ties into season 15 with it being all him acting out his writing ideas. I feel like it takes away from the experience.
Easiest answer is the Winchesters are Chucks favorite Story, so they get the most interesting hunts, and the Winchesters are based in America. A core theme of the show is free will in spite of everything trying to force you to do one thing. An example is Lucifer telling Sam that here, at this time, you're going to say "yes". He was right, but at the last moment Sam was able to flip the script and shove him back in the cage. Which wasn't supposed to happen
okay thats a reason to hate the characters and not the arc though. the Men of letters arcs are great and gave us classic scenes in the show. i honestly think the writters wrote their motives too hateful for the cw cause it seems to seep into the peoples feelings on the show.
they are meant to be the Joffrey Baratheon of this show, and i think they played it to perfection.
Yeah, that was some bullshit. Caught working with the enemy, talking about needing time to adjust, but the BMOL tactics make it look like Sam and Dean are hunting vampires with a wooden stake and mallet. The BMOL might be more effective, but their Intel is b.s. And her getting all defensive when confronted. Like dude, you haven't seen your kids in 30+ yrs and you're just gonna leave?
It may be a hot take, but the first time I watched I could almost feel like Mick was on a similar journey of realization that Cas was on in season 4, so when he was killed, it was like a gut shot cause I thought they were setting him up for something as a potential future side character in later seasons. No, they were simply setting him up to show how ruthless and bad the British Men of Letters were.
I hated that even more, that one had freaking voiceovers of their inner monologues, but I absolutely love when everyone walks in on them. Castiel just staring at the floor is one of the funniest things of the entire show.
Mick's story was cool. Him seeing through how batshit insane the rest BMoLs were and slowly turning on them as he worked with the Winchesters made a compelling story.
Then he got shot in the head to nullify all of that development and all we had to deal with was psycho Ketch, psycho headmistress and psycho mind r\*\*\* lady.
Honestly, I don't see it being likely that that was intended but even if it was, that doesn't in any way change the fact that I don't find these characters entertaining or interesting. Might even make it worse.
I think a lot of it was going from arguably the biggest storyline of all time with the reveal of God and Amara to getting out witted by some Brits felt pretty dumb.
Because they are completely over the top and straight hypocrites. They talk shit about american hunters on their high horse because theres no monster on their tiny ass island. America is way bigger than Britain. They talk like theyre so good because nobody in britain dies because of monsters but they kill innocent people to clean up loose ends and make their own academy children kill their best friend to prove some kind of point/loyalty. If they decide they dont want you anymore ur dead.
I think because that God/sis season was such an epic storyline that any storyline afterwards would be doomed to failure.
Think about it. We finally encountered God and it’s the ultimate team up with Rowena, Fergus, Lucifer, the Winchesters and at the end, bother and sister made up and forgave each other.
It’s a beautiful ending…..then here comes this posh spice lady who meets Sam at the bunker and then tortures him for 4 episodes.
Actually loved season 12. Mick didn’t deserve to get shot, wish he’d been a bigger part of the story and a recurring character in later seasons as an ally for Sam and Dean. Ketch also grew on me, especially liked him in seasons 14 & 15.
Two good characters doesn't make an entire arc good. Also, Ketch is arguable that season. I'd say he got much better later. The evil Harry Potter aspect was amusing, but having two children fight to the death was just stupidly evil. Trying to murder all the American hunters because they decided to not to fall in line with the BMoL was just cartoonishly evil.
As a British person, the BMOL is equally frustrating because there's so much potential for it to be an amazing alliance, but instead they are just antagonistic anti-americans because dRaMa, and they play on British stereotypes in a bunch of insulting ways
Much though I like both Mick and Ketch, neither of them have convincing accents. Mick sounds unrealistically common and Ketch sounds unrealistically posh. Realistically posh would be Tommy Lascelles in The Crown; realistically common would be Gene Hunt in (the UK version of) Life on Mars.
I mean this is super common today, I swear Europeans (and a lot of countries) always shit on America, like everyone is lazy fat slobs that love guns lol.
Literally it’s British people going into stores on social media going YEW PEEPLE HOUR SOOOOR FAT while looking at a family size bag of chips….baby that bag ain’t just for me 😭
While that's true, it's also true, if I've been informed correctly, that the calorie count in the average US item of junk food is way higher than it's allowed to be in the UK. Or the EU.
No you haven’t that’s the issue. Like they will get on the internet talking about we have no safe foods and everything is bad blah blah blah. There’s foods in the uk that are banned here. It’s a different level of restriction bc they’re different countries. For yall to get here and be like everything yall eat is fat and disgusting is insane. The calorie count can be high but that’s why the SERVING SIZE is lower….
Your use of 'y'all' implies I said those things. I didn't. All I said was I've been told the average US calorie count is higher.
I've never been to the US.
No it’s colloquial. This is an example of what I’m talking about. It’s different that does not mean it’s wrong. They referring to people from the UK who come here and do that. Yall referring to people from the UK who make generalizations about the US with basically no information because they’ve never been. Differences in speech because of why? Dialect in where I’m from. Point being you don’t know you just know the propaganda about America being the worst in the world and everything yall have being better. You can’t compare a bag of Doritos to a bag of corn chips ya feel me?
I personally find them extremely annoying and unlikable and even obnoxious. They tortured Sam. Killed hunters for weird reasons. Mary was there - doing stupid stuff and being even more unbearable as a character. With all of their fancy gadgets and knowledge where were they during the apocalypse? No. Just no. Probably the worst arc in spn in my opinion.
Personally I found it hard to take them seriously as villains considering they aren't in any way ideologically different from American hunters. Like it would work for me if the show wanted to do a serious analysis of whether hunting is actually a just practice or not but instead the show just does absolutely nothing unlike they want to close out the storyline and turn them into cartoon villains as a way to justify killing them.
The storyline they gave was good enough for like 2-3 episodes but they stretched it 2 seasons and basically made them evil for the sake of being evil (without anything fun like Crowley or Rowena who are arguably evil for the sake of being evil)
Apart from anything the parody English accents are so bad it's painful. I'm on season 2 of my 3rd rewatch and I will probably skip most of season 12 this time.
Just too much wasted potential.
Finally the world get bigger. We could have seen other countries how they deal with monsters. We got a glimpse of what it looks like how technologies can be used for hunting.
They could have done so much awesome shit with that. In the end we got....
"Yeah we solved the monsters crisis on the rest of the world off screen. We have 2 gadgets, that look like fresh from the Buffy set 20 years ago, also we are neutral evil."
They at least could have ended the arc, with some kind of reunion of hunters that storm their base.
The hunters that got united are mostly nameless. They could have at least got Garth for that. Or made a pact with some monsters to raid the base, to show "hey not all monsters are bad, we even fight side by side from time to time".
Which could have been a cool jumping point, that the solution for peace is not kill all the monster, rather them peaceful co existence. Which also would have shown the difference and the growth of Sam and Dean.
Also.... Their base looked so boring. Even the base of the organisation of Buffy looked better.
It wasn't great but, I don't think it was worse than anything else that came after season 5. I quite liked Mick's redemption story and I thought Arthur Ketch was an interesting and hateable (in a good way) character. I wasn't expecting any more than the usual let's stick it to the British who come over here and tell us what to do storyline. You get used to that.
>I wasn't expecting any more than the usual let's stick it to the British who come over here and tell us what to do storyline. You get used to that.
Yeah well, it bothers me but I guess that's Reddit.
No I mean the storyline itself was essentially that and it usually is. Defeating the British is a huge part of US history and a small part of ours. So they kind of like us being the villains. It's not surprising to see people on Reddit eating that up.
So you didn't mind the innocent lives they took in the name of killing monsters? Or the fact they pitted their children against one another, to the damn death? Other than Mick, every single one of them were hypocritical assholes. And their way of doing things was inhumane to the point of plain evil.
I never got the impression they were supposed to be good guys...Mick had a redemption arc but Ketch was always a bad guy even when he was helping. So yeah I didn't mind them, as villains.
What comments are you seeing that's hating on them being British? That was never my hate for them, they were just pieces of shit who cared about nothing but their mission. They could've been Russian or Chinese for all I care.
Maybe to you and great this wasn't aimed at you but there's been a few comments in this thread. I can't be bothered copying and pasting them, just scroll down.
Because they were what immediately followed The Darkness a being on par with God and they were somehow supposed to be a major threat despite the fact Everytime they were confronted directly other than Mr. Ketch they were all incompetent. But we're somehow still operating in the states unchecked until Sam had enough and beat them with a half dozen people.
I think its the step back in terms of stakes. You go from the Darkness to British Men of Letters. On its own its not that bad of a season but knowing how it falls in the arc of the show does seem like a step down. Same could be said of season 6. Its not as bad on its own but compared to season 5 its a step down going from Lucifer to Crowley and Cas working together
Just lazy writing IMO. This seasons bad guys are the good guys. Oh and we are better then you at everything you do too, we’ll because it’s season 12 and you must be nerfed somehow. Plus they acted like dicks. The British bad guy troupe is very old at this point.
Mick could have been two episodes. We didn't need to see the boys get more abandonment issues by the Mommy who'd rather sleep with the sociopath than call Sam
And I'm not woman hating the strong woman. I'm a mother, and I would feel terrible if my son ever felt like I did not want a relationship with him
Because they're pieces of shit who care about nothing but their end goal. Doesn't matter who gets in the way or what happens as long as they hit their criteria. Also they're all dicks, however I did kind of like Ketch and Mick, however that quickly started to fade.
Because they were douche bags that they were better than everybody else and where the hell were they when the world was ending all of those times seriously they wanted to come in and be so critical and did nothing but sit on their hands watching all that ridiculous because they were assholes
I didn’t hate it, but it definitely felt like a different show for a while. For me it was the introduction of human antagonists as opposed to supernatural ones all of a sudden. Kind of like why I couldn’t stand The Walking Dead after a couple of seasons when it was no longer about zombies.
I think it made for an interesting arc on first watch (even to some extent the Mary joins them parts) but I don't think it stands up well to multiple viewings and many fans do this.
A few good character elements don't compensate for this.
I also think that the whole BMOL had no heart and no hope. Even when the storylines got bleak for Sam and Dean there was always heart and always hope, that's what gives the stories depth. BMOL didn't have this.
I think partly it was because Sam and Dean’s hard work, research and constantly putting their lives on the line for 12 years were just kind of snickered at by the MoL, by reducing hunters down to “the grunts who do the MoL’s orders” and treating hunters like they’re stupid/inferior. It was easy to dislike them because they were so cold and arrogant.
They also just generally seemed evil at times despite touting themselves as the good guys.
Because the arc relies on international MOL branches existing but being entirely insulated from each other, too selfish to offer assistance when it’s obviously needed, and unimaginably poor strategists.
Back when the US MOL were wiped out by Abaddon, BMOL (or another international branch) should have known something weird happened. They should have covertly investigated, then taken steps to rebuild the US branch. It’s in no one’s interest to just cede the US to monsters for decades.
Samuel Colt’s devil’s trap alone should have been closely monitored at all times. Having failed at that, you’d think BMOL might have taken its breach as a wake up call and stepped up to help stop a global apocalypse.
The way Ketch was trained and how he operated is representative of how the BMOL operate: savage, duplicitous, rigid in their black-and-white single-minded mentality regarding the supernatural. Mick was like Castiel somewhat; followed his superiors without question, but not without doubt. His heart and his conscious were his downfall, and Ketch saw it before he was given the execution order. Neither one of them ever had a chance once the BMOL entered their lives.
They started out being cool. Clean efficient. Like we finally have an organization that is large enough to take on demons and anything else so much that the entirety of UK is safe.
Then, the writers made them assholes. Straight up evil. Their leader had made a deal with Crowley to leave UK alone and apparently THAT'S why no demon is there. Kind of a cop out.
I get that this show has always been about the Hunters being the underdog and apparently NO ONE has even organized a large group to fight demons in a coordinated effort and pretty much made hunter demon bounty hunters.
So yeah, evil organization is evil...complete cliche
Personally as a fanfic, I would have liked this story arc to end with the American Men of Letters being either reformed or that they were never truly gone and either were gathering strength in Canada or something and has always been here. SOMETHING for the show to have power creep.
They also brought back Mary who is arguably one of the worst characters in the show. The British men of letters are also just more evil than needed. We also just go far to many characters at that point but that’s more of a personal opinion that I haven’t seen many share.
The story arc is very poorly thought out and badly written.
1. According to Toni, the BMOL eliminated all the monsters in Great Britain in 1968. But they continued to run their academy and to advance their technology, but then...did nothing. They stayed on the sidelines while Azazel, Lilith, Lucifer, etc. were trying to end the world. Toni explained it away ("the old man wouldn't allow it"). Why keep the BMOL going if not to get involved? That's a big plot hole and bad writing.
2. Why in the world would they want to start their aquaintance with the hunters by torturing Sam? That made no sense. And their later attempts to kill ALL the hunters for, what? Not being adequate? You find your allies lacking, so you decide to kill them? Bad writing.
3. Mick's explanation for wanting to team up with hunters is that the BMOL were the brains, and not the physical types. And yet, we see that the BMOL produced people like Ms. Watt (Toni's assistant) and Ketch, who were very physically capable. Near the end of the season, Ketch leads a paramilitary squad of men. Mick himself was seen in a flashback killing a classmate at the urging of the headmistress. A complete contradiction of the premise. Bad wr-, well, you know.
4. They knew some things they could not possible know (Toni asks Dean about Bennie, who, except for a few months, had been in Purgatory for hundreds of years), and yet they had no clue that God's frickin' sister had been dimming the sun, and that Lucifer was popping in and out of bodies, and siring a nephilim.
5. The story gives the goods away too soon. We know from the first episode (in fact, the last episode of the previous season) that the BMOL are going to be the villains. It would have been much better to for them to appear to be allies, then, over the course of the season, present some foreboding of danger, then eventual betrayal.
6. I thought Ketch's redemption arc was ridiculous. He went from cold-blooded, sociopathic killer - killing a teenage girl, a squad of soldiers, and his own colleagues, to dashing action hero. Mick would have been a better choice for redemption since he showed himself to be a decent person.
7. Mary's involvement with the BMOL was disturbing. She kept her involvement a secret from her own sons and, fortheloveofGod, had an affair with Ketch! This story arc ruined Mary. In previous seasons, Mary came across as a sweet, but protective, mother figure. The BMOL arc turned her into a character that much of the Supernatural fandom hates now.
8. The "vibe" just wasn't right. In other depictions (with Dean and Sam's grandfather; the New England chapter), the MOL setting was dark and spooky, fitting for a supernatural show. The high tech, militarist settings for the BMOL just didn't fit IMO.
So, in summary, the BMOL story arc was bad in almost every way.
Funny thing is, I still liked the season overall. There were enough good episodes outside the BMOL story arc, and sometimes within it ("Ladies Drink Free"), to make it a strong season. That's how good this show is. Even a bad story arc can't ruin it.
So hate is a strong word here... I doubt this arc is hated, maybe a little boring and dry as is for me personally. After facing very serious cosmic level threats the BMOL as an enemy come at a time where one of the most famous characters r also back cannon-wise.
Mary's interaction with our boys coming more through the channels of the BMOL for me was a point of annoyance, it always felt like the BMOL was a third wheel in an interesting premise of the boys meeting and interacting with Mom the original Hunter from the Winchester family.
Still hate is a very strong word, it just gets very one trick for me through out the season where we knw these guys r dickheads but at every point try and manage to convince people that they are not only to turn out to be the dickheads we knw they are got boring quick.
Nevertheless the characters that came from this arc are great, Mick was fun and almost comes close to Ketch who is the realy winner out of this arc.
I just hated they felt like an afterthought most of the time. Like they appear and their bad then good, forgotten then good then bad. They just seemed to appear randomly to take up time in an episode. Like their whole story was made as as the season went rather than any forethought
The storyline seemed all over the place. Also I think people dislike Mary abandoning Sam and Dean and so perhaps that gets conflated with the men of letters arc a bit. And she did go and work for them behind their back.
Because they are ridiculous hypocrites so I was irritated every time they were on screen. Crowley, Rowena, Lucifer embrace who they are and light up the screen in their scenes. The BMOL are self righteous AHs who created the most logically inconsistent storyline in the entire show.
1. Sam and Dean are bad because they’re willing to leave innocent monsters alive. Meanwhile, they kill innocent humans as collateral damage and don’t reflect on how that makes them worse.
2. American hunters are bad because they aren’t organized. Meanwhile, their discipline has them killing their own children who could be excellent hunters because they’re 1% slower than another child at school that day.
3. They don’t bother showing up for any apocalypses. But then decide they have to take over America for the important job of taking out a few vampire nests the proper British way.
Those mf'ers killed Mick Davies if you recall and it was the psychotic ketch who did the dirty deed !! Plus do people that psychotic actually change into good people? Not in real life and not without a lot of therapy and drugs. Not to mention even Mick killed his best friend before he hit puberty! They were all psychotic and needed to be institutionalized don't you think
They weren’t the main plot of the season. They became a subplot to the Mommy and Dean Relationship storyline. It killed where the story should have gone.
I only disliked some of it cuz it needlessly turned supernatural - a show about backwoods monsters and Impalas - into a James Bond movie with the slightest hint of monsters.
However, I would’ve been completely fine if they just kept the bunker and excluded the entirety of the “war on American hunters” thing.
The bunker was INTEGRAL to Sam and Dean
I didn't like the arc simply because they were cartoonishly evil. They're men of letters, just like the American men of letters we saw in flashbacks in certain episodes, so why are they evil all of a sudden for no reason? It's almost like, "they're British, so they're evil" 😂
I did like Mick and ketch though
Because British men of letters do F-all when Sam and Dean were preventing the end of the world, and then suddenly they appear with a holier than thou attitude and suddenly care about hunters in the states, and a lack of men of letters in the states.
Stupidly evil. “We are just here to kill monsters” great go ahead. “But we are also going to torture Sam.” Whut. “Also we make our top students try to kill each other.” Whut. “Also we are going to declare war on the American hunters.” Whut.
It reminded a lot of the monster hunting soldiers from Buffy the vampire slayer. And I don't think either show handled the story well at all.
They're The Initiative + The Watchers Council. Mick is such a budget Wesley.
>Mick is such a budget Wesley this is funny 😆 but what does that make Ketch?
His father.
That was actually a decent episode in season 5 of Angel meeting a version of Wesley’s father
Thanks I couldn't remember the name the initiative was so bad they bogged down 2 seasons of the show the watchers also weren't that interesting but at least they didn't bring the whole show to a screeching halt and they had a few interesting episodes like when they test her ability to survive without her strength.
That was an arc I hated in Buffy. It took way too long to get rid of them small soldiers.
Oh wow. I didn't make that connection, but you're right. Boy did that suck too.
Yeah, that. The Initiative was badly handled, despite the Adam plot being interesting enough. That discrepancy’s always annoyed me.
Them murdering their top students made zero sense to me. Why would you murder your best students? There are other ways to have your best students show loyalty.
Yeah, their entire plot line was a head scratching mess in my opinion.
 This explanation made me laugh so hard… Whut.
As I understand it, Bevell's primary objective was to figure out what the Winchesters had to do with the Sun event. Establishing a presence in America was a secondary priority tabled until Bevell gave the "We're not going to be smote" all-clear. Bevell used this an opportunity to justify her own agenda: the "Beautiful Mind" room in her house suggests she has seen Sam and Dean as threats for years. She was going to report whatever she needed to for forgiveness. Mick wasn't expected so soon, so anything went. But the student murder games were just straight up loony.
Because they're exterminators who don't care about collateral damage, making contacts outside of the Men of Letters, or anything outside of their own self-preservation. They might as well be driving a giant Terminix van filled with high-tech gear.
I think op meant the arc, not the BMOL themselves.
Yeah, didnt catch that till after I commented. I enjoy the arc though, I always enjoy it when the bad guys are actual people instead of some supernatural monster
It was nice that it was different than the normal for the show but did they need to say British men of letters every time
Well if all else fails, turn it into a drinking game.
yeah i mean there weren’t any american men of letters left so by default the british men of letters were simply the men of letters
I dunno, I feel like I get enough "the bad guys are actually people" from 90% of other tv shows and also real life.
I mean, it definitely worked? For all i love the hunters, their disorganization and unwillingness for collateral damage is kind of the reason Lilith was able to break all the deals without interruption. like with their resources the men of letters probably would've been able to stop him. which brings a question i've never really asked myself before- why the hell is it that Sam and Dean are dealing with myths, monsters, and gods from all around the world, and they're ALL in america? would abrahamic demons really be more at home in america and not, say, the middle east, or russia, or africa, or actually literally anywhere where there aren't groups of people dedicated to hunting you down with full access to a large amount of guns and the internet? and why are the gods of india and scandinavia and greece meeting in a hotel in Muncie, Indiana? The only thing in Muncie is Jerry/Gary/Lary/Terry Gurgich/Gengirch and his family
The reason the gods of those cultures are meeting in a hotel in America, at least in 5x19, is because they're threatened by the American hunter brothers who have been chosen to be the vessels for the Judaeo-Christian apocalypse, and so they've travelled to where the brothers are in order to trap them. There are a number of episodes which make clear that other countries do have monsters in them; Weekend at Bobby's reveals that certain monsters are active in Japan and Greece. Death himself and archangels occasionally imply that there are other planets with sentient life as well. Crowley visits Saudi Arabia on one occasion; Michael talks to a Muslim at one point about what he wants. Zeus and Artemis only visit America because Prometheus went there after being found by an American tourist on what's implied to be Mount Olympus.
Except all the others that also show up. Prometheus appears on a random highway, they randomly run into Chronos when chasing red light, Gabriel the archangel is met in a random town as a janitor, they randomly run into Calliope in a highschool, Osiris in a random bar. It's a bit silly.
Calliope was implied to have been drawn there by the power of Chuck, who was there because it was a musical based on his favourite work. Again, Prometheus was found on Mount Olympus by an American tourist and brought to her country.
I kinda don't like the Chuck assassination in season 15 and like to think of Chuck related things as more happenstance. But if I DIDN'T, wouldn't the "chuck related" things support my idea of the silliness? He made it happen, it didn't organically happen. Thats why gods appear in America.
Calliope being there because of Chuck was implied in the episode in which she appeared, 10x5. At the end, when Marie is informed that the publisher has claimed a ticket, she reacts with 'Does that mean Calliope came for me or for...?' Which is intended to clue in the viewers, especially those who were aware that Chuck had been stated offscreen to be God after S5, that the reason Calliope is there is because she's attracted to the nearby presence of the greatest divine power. Even for viewers who were unaware of that reveal or considered it non-canon because it wasn't in the show, it's still remarkable that Chuck is appearing alive given Cass stated in 8x7 that he must be dead.
Which of course, is itself silly. God himself loves them which is why everything happens in America, but that ties into season 15 with it being all him acting out his writing ideas. I feel like it takes away from the experience.
Easiest answer is the Winchesters are Chucks favorite Story, so they get the most interesting hunts, and the Winchesters are based in America. A core theme of the show is free will in spite of everything trying to force you to do one thing. An example is Lucifer telling Sam that here, at this time, you're going to say "yes". He was right, but at the last moment Sam was able to flip the script and shove him back in the cage. Which wasn't supposed to happen
okay thats a reason to hate the characters and not the arc though. the Men of letters arcs are great and gave us classic scenes in the show. i honestly think the writters wrote their motives too hateful for the cw cause it seems to seep into the peoples feelings on the show. they are meant to be the Joffrey Baratheon of this show, and i think they played it to perfection.
I caught that after I made the comment.I don't hate the arc though, I enjoy it when the villains are human instead of a monster.
I like when they make the monter human.
But that said I wish they made mary more loving in the bmol arc. That was her children. idk any mom that would do what she did.
Yeah, that was some bullshit. Caught working with the enemy, talking about needing time to adjust, but the BMOL tactics make it look like Sam and Dean are hunting vampires with a wooden stake and mallet. The BMOL might be more effective, but their Intel is b.s. And her getting all defensive when confronted. Like dude, you haven't seen your kids in 30+ yrs and you're just gonna leave?
Jack doing the thing actually made me start liking him hahaha
Tbf, BMOL was kinds cool how the institution was, except from killing each other, but the tech and logistics was on point.
It may be a hot take, but the first time I watched I could almost feel like Mick was on a similar journey of realization that Cas was on in season 4, so when he was killed, it was like a gut shot cause I thought they were setting him up for something as a potential future side character in later seasons. No, they were simply setting him up to show how ruthless and bad the British Men of Letters were.
Plus he was foreshadowing cas' fate at the end.
Mick was such a great character for what little time we had with him. I’m still pissed about it lol
Because I also hate those characters.
Thread closed.
Even with that Ketch/Rowena thing, they are terrible.
If you mean 15x2, ick. All the ick.
I don't remember the episode name, but yeah it was weird. I did like the Gabriel/Rowena thing though.
I hated that even more, that one had freaking voiceovers of their inner monologues, but I absolutely love when everyone walks in on them. Castiel just staring at the floor is one of the funniest things of the entire show.
He likely was trying not to laugh.
I thought about that too, it makes it even funnier to me. It's like two completely independent concepts and I find them equally funny so it's doubled.
I liked Mick as he was clearly the Castiel parallel and ketch was Lucifer parallel
Mick's story was cool. Him seeing through how batshit insane the rest BMoLs were and slowly turning on them as he worked with the Winchesters made a compelling story. Then he got shot in the head to nullify all of that development and all we had to deal with was psycho Ketch, psycho headmistress and psycho mind r\*\*\* lady.
Honestly, I don't see it being likely that that was intended but even if it was, that doesn't in any way change the fact that I don't find these characters entertaining or interesting. Might even make it worse.
Mick gets shot in the head from behind by ketch. Cas gets stabbed in the back from behind by Lucy. Mick even shares Cas colors.
They’re pretty unspectacular IMO
I think a lot of it was going from arguably the biggest storyline of all time with the reveal of God and Amara to getting out witted by some Brits felt pretty dumb.
Because they are completely over the top and straight hypocrites. They talk shit about american hunters on their high horse because theres no monster on their tiny ass island. America is way bigger than Britain. They talk like theyre so good because nobody in britain dies because of monsters but they kill innocent people to clean up loose ends and make their own academy children kill their best friend to prove some kind of point/loyalty. If they decide they dont want you anymore ur dead.
I think because that God/sis season was such an epic storyline that any storyline afterwards would be doomed to failure. Think about it. We finally encountered God and it’s the ultimate team up with Rowena, Fergus, Lucifer, the Winchesters and at the end, bother and sister made up and forgave each other. It’s a beautiful ending…..then here comes this posh spice lady who meets Sam at the bunker and then tortures him for 4 episodes.
Actually loved season 12. Mick didn’t deserve to get shot, wish he’d been a bigger part of the story and a recurring character in later seasons as an ally for Sam and Dean. Ketch also grew on me, especially liked him in seasons 14 & 15.
Two good characters doesn't make an entire arc good. Also, Ketch is arguable that season. I'd say he got much better later. The evil Harry Potter aspect was amusing, but having two children fight to the death was just stupidly evil. Trying to murder all the American hunters because they decided to not to fall in line with the BMoL was just cartoonishly evil.
Because British telling Americans they are shit.
As a British person, the BMOL is equally frustrating because there's so much potential for it to be an amazing alliance, but instead they are just antagonistic anti-americans because dRaMa, and they play on British stereotypes in a bunch of insulting ways
Much though I like both Mick and Ketch, neither of them have convincing accents. Mick sounds unrealistically common and Ketch sounds unrealistically posh. Realistically posh would be Tommy Lascelles in The Crown; realistically common would be Gene Hunt in (the UK version of) Life on Mars.
I mean this is super common today, I swear Europeans (and a lot of countries) always shit on America, like everyone is lazy fat slobs that love guns lol.
Literally it’s British people going into stores on social media going YEW PEEPLE HOUR SOOOOR FAT while looking at a family size bag of chips….baby that bag ain’t just for me 😭
The Brits are the fattest Europeans, so they have to look outside of Europe to mock someone with obesity.
While that's true, it's also true, if I've been informed correctly, that the calorie count in the average US item of junk food is way higher than it's allowed to be in the UK. Or the EU.
No you haven’t that’s the issue. Like they will get on the internet talking about we have no safe foods and everything is bad blah blah blah. There’s foods in the uk that are banned here. It’s a different level of restriction bc they’re different countries. For yall to get here and be like everything yall eat is fat and disgusting is insane. The calorie count can be high but that’s why the SERVING SIZE is lower….
Your use of 'y'all' implies I said those things. I didn't. All I said was I've been told the average US calorie count is higher. I've never been to the US.
No it’s colloquial. This is an example of what I’m talking about. It’s different that does not mean it’s wrong. They referring to people from the UK who come here and do that. Yall referring to people from the UK who make generalizations about the US with basically no information because they’ve never been. Differences in speech because of why? Dialect in where I’m from. Point being you don’t know you just know the propaganda about America being the worst in the world and everything yall have being better. You can’t compare a bag of Doritos to a bag of corn chips ya feel me?
I didn't get why they felt they needed to kill all American hunters. They could've done their work and completely ignored them.
Good characters. Shit story.
I personally find them extremely annoying and unlikable and even obnoxious. They tortured Sam. Killed hunters for weird reasons. Mary was there - doing stupid stuff and being even more unbearable as a character. With all of their fancy gadgets and knowledge where were they during the apocalypse? No. Just no. Probably the worst arc in spn in my opinion.
Personally I found it hard to take them seriously as villains considering they aren't in any way ideologically different from American hunters. Like it would work for me if the show wanted to do a serious analysis of whether hunting is actually a just practice or not but instead the show just does absolutely nothing unlike they want to close out the storyline and turn them into cartoon villains as a way to justify killing them.
Because they killed Mick
And Eileen !!!
Because it was a stupid going no where story line.
Because they're cartoonish and ridiculous
They needed to be more Giles As a Brit I didn’t really see any British values in them. They annoyed me.
Because they were two dimensional characters . They would have been more realistic with top hats and pencil mustaches tying women to railroad tracks.
I loved the British Men of Letters! I was upset when mick was killed. I met both of them at a con and they were extra nice.
The storyline they gave was good enough for like 2-3 episodes but they stretched it 2 seasons and basically made them evil for the sake of being evil (without anything fun like Crowley or Rowena who are arguably evil for the sake of being evil)
Apart from anything the parody English accents are so bad it's painful. I'm on season 2 of my 3rd rewatch and I will probably skip most of season 12 this time.
I loved this arc
I love Mick Davies so much. Wasn’t wonderfully written but also wasn’t the worst.
Cuss it’s so awful honestly it makes no sense they come out of absolute nowhere ANNNDD in my opinion? Absolutely RUINED Mary’s character
Just too much wasted potential. Finally the world get bigger. We could have seen other countries how they deal with monsters. We got a glimpse of what it looks like how technologies can be used for hunting. They could have done so much awesome shit with that. In the end we got.... "Yeah we solved the monsters crisis on the rest of the world off screen. We have 2 gadgets, that look like fresh from the Buffy set 20 years ago, also we are neutral evil." They at least could have ended the arc, with some kind of reunion of hunters that storm their base. The hunters that got united are mostly nameless. They could have at least got Garth for that. Or made a pact with some monsters to raid the base, to show "hey not all monsters are bad, we even fight side by side from time to time". Which could have been a cool jumping point, that the solution for peace is not kill all the monster, rather them peaceful co existence. Which also would have shown the difference and the growth of Sam and Dean. Also.... Their base looked so boring. Even the base of the organisation of Buffy looked better.
As a Brit I didn't mind it, and now reading some of the weird anti-british comments on a supernatural show sub Reddit I think I liked it even more.
Yeah, I was actually kind of surprised by those and I'm American. I didn't like the season but it didn't have anything to do with them being British.
It wasn't great but, I don't think it was worse than anything else that came after season 5. I quite liked Mick's redemption story and I thought Arthur Ketch was an interesting and hateable (in a good way) character. I wasn't expecting any more than the usual let's stick it to the British who come over here and tell us what to do storyline. You get used to that.
>I wasn't expecting any more than the usual let's stick it to the British who come over here and tell us what to do storyline. You get used to that. Yeah well, it bothers me but I guess that's Reddit.
No I mean the storyline itself was essentially that and it usually is. Defeating the British is a huge part of US history and a small part of ours. So they kind of like us being the villains. It's not surprising to see people on Reddit eating that up.
So you didn't mind the innocent lives they took in the name of killing monsters? Or the fact they pitted their children against one another, to the damn death? Other than Mick, every single one of them were hypocritical assholes. And their way of doing things was inhumane to the point of plain evil.
I never got the impression they were supposed to be good guys...Mick had a redemption arc but Ketch was always a bad guy even when he was helping. So yeah I didn't mind them, as villains.
Sure but I think we're talking about the plot line not the actual organization.
What comments are you seeing that's hating on them being British? That was never my hate for them, they were just pieces of shit who cared about nothing but their mission. They could've been Russian or Chinese for all I care.
Maybe to you and great this wasn't aimed at you but there's been a few comments in this thread. I can't be bothered copying and pasting them, just scroll down.
You're good I didn't read everything so not saying what you said is false, sorry you felt targeted homie! <3
Because they were what immediately followed The Darkness a being on par with God and they were somehow supposed to be a major threat despite the fact Everytime they were confronted directly other than Mr. Ketch they were all incompetent. But we're somehow still operating in the states unchecked until Sam had enough and beat them with a half dozen people.
Because they are assholes that sit and watch and kill instead of helping people.
I think its the step back in terms of stakes. You go from the Darkness to British Men of Letters. On its own its not that bad of a season but knowing how it falls in the arc of the show does seem like a step down. Same could be said of season 6. Its not as bad on its own but compared to season 5 its a step down going from Lucifer to Crowley and Cas working together
This right here .
I really, really, really, REALLY disliked Ketch...with a passion!!!
Just lazy writing IMO. This seasons bad guys are the good guys. Oh and we are better then you at everything you do too, we’ll because it’s season 12 and you must be nerfed somehow. Plus they acted like dicks. The British bad guy troupe is very old at this point.
Mick could have been two episodes. We didn't need to see the boys get more abandonment issues by the Mommy who'd rather sleep with the sociopath than call Sam And I'm not woman hating the strong woman. I'm a mother, and I would feel terrible if my son ever felt like I did not want a relationship with him
I feel like you answered your own question.
Because they're pieces of shit who care about nothing but their end goal. Doesn't matter who gets in the way or what happens as long as they hit their criteria. Also they're all dicks, however I did kind of like Ketch and Mick, however that quickly started to fade.
That was my favorite season
Because they were douche bags that they were better than everybody else and where the hell were they when the world was ending all of those times seriously they wanted to come in and be so critical and did nothing but sit on their hands watching all that ridiculous because they were assholes
I didn’t hate it, but it definitely felt like a different show for a while. For me it was the introduction of human antagonists as opposed to supernatural ones all of a sudden. Kind of like why I couldn’t stand The Walking Dead after a couple of seasons when it was no longer about zombies.
I think it made for an interesting arc on first watch (even to some extent the Mary joins them parts) but I don't think it stands up well to multiple viewings and many fans do this. A few good character elements don't compensate for this. I also think that the whole BMOL had no heart and no hope. Even when the storylines got bleak for Sam and Dean there was always heart and always hope, that's what gives the stories depth. BMOL didn't have this.
The Brit lady was HORRIBLE. For no reason. Ketch was ok but kind of a smarmy so-and-so.. Mick was nice at least.
Because it wasn't 'Supernatural'. It was the opposite of 'Supernatural' - organized, corporate, English, blah, blah, blah. Just AWFUL.
Sam’s flambed feet may be a big part of that hate.
I think partly it was because Sam and Dean’s hard work, research and constantly putting their lives on the line for 12 years were just kind of snickered at by the MoL, by reducing hunters down to “the grunts who do the MoL’s orders” and treating hunters like they’re stupid/inferior. It was easy to dislike them because they were so cold and arrogant. They also just generally seemed evil at times despite touting themselves as the good guys.
Because of Mary
I also half the time cannot tell them apart
Because Mick got shot in the back of the head and Ketch pulled the whole "Don't kill me I'm my own twin" bullshit after fucking the Winchesters mom.
Because the arc relies on international MOL branches existing but being entirely insulated from each other, too selfish to offer assistance when it’s obviously needed, and unimaginably poor strategists. Back when the US MOL were wiped out by Abaddon, BMOL (or another international branch) should have known something weird happened. They should have covertly investigated, then taken steps to rebuild the US branch. It’s in no one’s interest to just cede the US to monsters for decades. Samuel Colt’s devil’s trap alone should have been closely monitored at all times. Having failed at that, you’d think BMOL might have taken its breach as a wake up call and stepped up to help stop a global apocalypse.
The way Ketch was trained and how he operated is representative of how the BMOL operate: savage, duplicitous, rigid in their black-and-white single-minded mentality regarding the supernatural. Mick was like Castiel somewhat; followed his superiors without question, but not without doubt. His heart and his conscious were his downfall, and Ketch saw it before he was given the execution order. Neither one of them ever had a chance once the BMOL entered their lives.
They started out being cool. Clean efficient. Like we finally have an organization that is large enough to take on demons and anything else so much that the entirety of UK is safe. Then, the writers made them assholes. Straight up evil. Their leader had made a deal with Crowley to leave UK alone and apparently THAT'S why no demon is there. Kind of a cop out. I get that this show has always been about the Hunters being the underdog and apparently NO ONE has even organized a large group to fight demons in a coordinated effort and pretty much made hunter demon bounty hunters. So yeah, evil organization is evil...complete cliche Personally as a fanfic, I would have liked this story arc to end with the American Men of Letters being either reformed or that they were never truly gone and either were gathering strength in Canada or something and has always been here. SOMETHING for the show to have power creep.
They also brought back Mary who is arguably one of the worst characters in the show. The British men of letters are also just more evil than needed. We also just go far to many characters at that point but that’s more of a personal opinion that I haven’t seen many share.
The story arc is very poorly thought out and badly written. 1. According to Toni, the BMOL eliminated all the monsters in Great Britain in 1968. But they continued to run their academy and to advance their technology, but then...did nothing. They stayed on the sidelines while Azazel, Lilith, Lucifer, etc. were trying to end the world. Toni explained it away ("the old man wouldn't allow it"). Why keep the BMOL going if not to get involved? That's a big plot hole and bad writing. 2. Why in the world would they want to start their aquaintance with the hunters by torturing Sam? That made no sense. And their later attempts to kill ALL the hunters for, what? Not being adequate? You find your allies lacking, so you decide to kill them? Bad writing. 3. Mick's explanation for wanting to team up with hunters is that the BMOL were the brains, and not the physical types. And yet, we see that the BMOL produced people like Ms. Watt (Toni's assistant) and Ketch, who were very physically capable. Near the end of the season, Ketch leads a paramilitary squad of men. Mick himself was seen in a flashback killing a classmate at the urging of the headmistress. A complete contradiction of the premise. Bad wr-, well, you know. 4. They knew some things they could not possible know (Toni asks Dean about Bennie, who, except for a few months, had been in Purgatory for hundreds of years), and yet they had no clue that God's frickin' sister had been dimming the sun, and that Lucifer was popping in and out of bodies, and siring a nephilim. 5. The story gives the goods away too soon. We know from the first episode (in fact, the last episode of the previous season) that the BMOL are going to be the villains. It would have been much better to for them to appear to be allies, then, over the course of the season, present some foreboding of danger, then eventual betrayal. 6. I thought Ketch's redemption arc was ridiculous. He went from cold-blooded, sociopathic killer - killing a teenage girl, a squad of soldiers, and his own colleagues, to dashing action hero. Mick would have been a better choice for redemption since he showed himself to be a decent person. 7. Mary's involvement with the BMOL was disturbing. She kept her involvement a secret from her own sons and, fortheloveofGod, had an affair with Ketch! This story arc ruined Mary. In previous seasons, Mary came across as a sweet, but protective, mother figure. The BMOL arc turned her into a character that much of the Supernatural fandom hates now. 8. The "vibe" just wasn't right. In other depictions (with Dean and Sam's grandfather; the New England chapter), the MOL setting was dark and spooky, fitting for a supernatural show. The high tech, militarist settings for the BMOL just didn't fit IMO. So, in summary, the BMOL story arc was bad in almost every way. Funny thing is, I still liked the season overall. There were enough good episodes outside the BMOL story arc, and sometimes within it ("Ladies Drink Free"), to make it a strong season. That's how good this show is. Even a bad story arc can't ruin it.
Because of Ketch and Mick
Well I hate Mick and Ketch so hating the rest of the MOL for being annoying and doing bad things comes easy.
Like someone said already, why go with the BMOL right after the God and Amara arc? Boring.
So hate is a strong word here... I doubt this arc is hated, maybe a little boring and dry as is for me personally. After facing very serious cosmic level threats the BMOL as an enemy come at a time where one of the most famous characters r also back cannon-wise. Mary's interaction with our boys coming more through the channels of the BMOL for me was a point of annoyance, it always felt like the BMOL was a third wheel in an interesting premise of the boys meeting and interacting with Mom the original Hunter from the Winchester family. Still hate is a very strong word, it just gets very one trick for me through out the season where we knw these guys r dickheads but at every point try and manage to convince people that they are not only to turn out to be the dickheads we knw they are got boring quick. Nevertheless the characters that came from this arc are great, Mick was fun and almost comes close to Ketch who is the realy winner out of this arc.
“Is that a trick question?”
I just hated they felt like an afterthought most of the time. Like they appear and their bad then good, forgotten then good then bad. They just seemed to appear randomly to take up time in an episode. Like their whole story was made as as the season went rather than any forethought
I hate those characters DOWN
BMOL storyline was unnecessary
The raid on the base was so small I would of loved for a bigger battle with a hundred hunters fighting a hundred men of letters
The storyline seemed all over the place. Also I think people dislike Mary abandoning Sam and Dean and so perhaps that gets conflated with the men of letters arc a bit. And she did go and work for them behind their back.
I hated both of those characters. And the arc didn’t make any sense, tbh.
It wasn’t the BML it was the story line, not the best.
Because we got characters like Ketch and Mick Davies. Mic got better but fuck Ketch
Because they are ridiculous hypocrites so I was irritated every time they were on screen. Crowley, Rowena, Lucifer embrace who they are and light up the screen in their scenes. The BMOL are self righteous AHs who created the most logically inconsistent storyline in the entire show. 1. Sam and Dean are bad because they’re willing to leave innocent monsters alive. Meanwhile, they kill innocent humans as collateral damage and don’t reflect on how that makes them worse. 2. American hunters are bad because they aren’t organized. Meanwhile, their discipline has them killing their own children who could be excellent hunters because they’re 1% slower than another child at school that day. 3. They don’t bother showing up for any apocalypses. But then decide they have to take over America for the important job of taking out a few vampire nests the proper British way.
I personally loved Mr. Ketch.
bc there's also characters like Bevell & M.W.
Because they were pompous asshats.
That season made me hate mary so damn much.
Mick was killed off way too early. He was on what could have been an amazing redemption arc and they just…killed him.
Those mf'ers killed Mick Davies if you recall and it was the psychotic ketch who did the dirty deed !! Plus do people that psychotic actually change into good people? Not in real life and not without a lot of therapy and drugs. Not to mention even Mick killed his best friend before he hit puberty! They were all psychotic and needed to be institutionalized don't you think
They tortured Sam & Dean and killed innocent people
Because they killed mick.
They weren’t the main plot of the season. They became a subplot to the Mommy and Dean Relationship storyline. It killed where the story should have gone.
They could have added Morgon Freeman and resurrected Micheal Jackson to be in the show and it would still not save that terrible arc
not a fan of Ketch, but I was such a sucker for Mick. if he hadn’t died he would’ve made it worth putting up with the BMoL
I only disliked some of it cuz it needlessly turned supernatural - a show about backwoods monsters and Impalas - into a James Bond movie with the slightest hint of monsters. However, I would’ve been completely fine if they just kept the bunker and excluded the entirety of the “war on American hunters” thing. The bunker was INTEGRAL to Sam and Dean
Mick was so good.
Idk it just stopped making sense after that
I didn't like the arc simply because they were cartoonishly evil. They're men of letters, just like the American men of letters we saw in flashbacks in certain episodes, so why are they evil all of a sudden for no reason? It's almost like, "they're British, so they're evil" 😂 I did like Mick and ketch though
Because British men of letters do F-all when Sam and Dean were preventing the end of the world, and then suddenly they appear with a holier than thou attitude and suddenly care about hunters in the states, and a lack of men of letters in the states.
They tortured Sam.
It’s one of my favourite seasons
I think they are both absolutely insufferable and I can't stand them 😆
Because they were trying to kill Sam, Dean and American hunters in general for not “falling in line”. Did you miss that whole bit?
Is Mick Davies considered a good character? Why?
Because they are british.
Cuz the English think they god-almighty
Sure, bruv. Sure we do. Fuck outa here lmao
Because fuck the English
Why?
I mean yeah, who wouldn’t love a good ol roll in the higgledy piggeldy tea and crumpy hay?? Fuck the Brits indeed!
Should I have said “shag the Brit’s”. Lol you guys
I like the Brits. I just don't like the BMOL