Reception
Critical reception to Ellen has been positive. In their initial appearance, Bryan Enk of UGO felt that the new hunters of the Roadhouse had potential to be the Supernatural equivalent of Buffy the Vampire Slayers's Scooby Gang, comparing Ellen to Buffy's Giles, as she is "the elder who can help guide the boys from a home base and serve as an emotional link to their father, a parental figure without all the melodramatic baggage of the actual father from the first season". Diana Steenbergen of IGN also favored Ellen from the beginning, believing her to be "a great addition to the show". She deemed Ellen "tough and direct, and also female, something the boys don't have a lot of in their lives right now". Steenbergen was happy to see the character return in the fifth season, noting that the show has been missing "smart, tough women who are not evil in general". Maureen Ryan of Chicago Tribune was "annoyed" at the destruction of the Roadhouse in the second season finale, as she "really loved Ellen". Though happy to see her return in the fifth season, Ryan was disappointed at the lack of screentime the character received in the episode "Good God, Y'All!". Commenting on the character's final appearance and her farewells, Ryan noted that Ferris "brought A-game to 'Abandon All Hope…'". She added that " perfectly into the 'Supernatural' world because that on this show, restraint is everything. It's not necessarily just about what the characters say or do, it's about what they don't say—what they can't find the words for". Tina Charles of TV Guide also welcomed the character back, and enjoyed how Ellen's initial reaction to Dean Winchester—hugging and then slapping him—was "very much in character". Regarding the character's death, Charles noted that "when went down in 'Abandon All Hope' like did, I felt it. meant something".
Read more about this topic: Ellen Harvelle
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own; which is the chief reason for that kind of reception it meets in the world, and that so very few are offended with it.”
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)
“He’s leaving Germany by special request of the Nazi government. First he sends a dispatch about Danzig and how 10,000 German tourists are pouring into the city every day with butterfly nets in their hands and submachine guns in their knapsacks. They warn him right then. What does he do next? Goes to a reception at von Ribbentropf’s and keeps yelling for gefilte fish!”
—Billy Wilder (b. 1906)
“But in the reception of metaphysical formula, all depends, as regards their actual and ulterior result, on the pre-existent qualities of that soil of human nature into which they fall—the company they find already present there, on their admission into the house of thought.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)