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letterstothemidnightsociety · 2 years

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It's now time for Season 4, where the Drama(tm) is about to ratchet up so high that it will literally lead to the Apocalypse. But for now, we won't worry about all that because the most important thing to happen in Supernatural Season 4 is this moment, the one we've all been waiting for, right here -

CAS IS HERE!!!!!

Hot Takes on Cas:

As much as I fell off the wagon about this time 17 years ago, seeing Cas enter just feels triumphant. Like, finally! Cas is here! Now things can start happening! Why I feel this way when Things Get Done with the exact same consistency and speed that they were getting done previously (i.e. Nothing Gets Done) I couldn’t tell you. This is definitely a lie my brain is conveniently opting not to correct.

Cas is, as he puts it, an Angel of the Lord, which like...at least implies that literal (Christian-Judeo?) God is on Team Winchester. Watching season 4 for the first time, I found this thrilling - God is here and He’s gonna take care of everything and everything is gonna turn out alright for our boys! And yes, this notion was largely based on my own personal faith and a lot of optimism that this show was not going to spiral into a miserable shit show.

And let’s take a minute to unpack that because until this point, Dean Winchester (and also this show just generally) has been operating under the notion that there is capital “E” Evil out there and it must be stopped, but there is not necessary any equal and opposing force of capital “G” Good out there to help you out of a tough jam and/or take you home to the Good Place when your fight is over. Now, there’s something to be said about a group of people who try to do Good without the promise of any kind of reward, just for the sake of doing Good. But I also think that there’s a lack of optimism in the Supernatural-verse that made it hard to continue watching after a while. And for anyone out there who wants to nitpick my spiritual world view, I’m not arguing that people should only do Good because they’re racking up some kind of Goodness Points for big prizes later, but I am pointing out that when your life is a literal war with demons, and there’s no light at the end of the tunnel (figurative or literal), it leaves a bitter, hopeless aftertaste in the mouth.

So Cas showing up gives us the hope that God and the Angels are here to fix things in the Supernatural-verse and our boys might finally get a chance to be happy, yay! This is ALSO a lie that my brain is covering up, but for like, the first half of the season we can pretend it is the truth so let me have this.

Regardless of whether or not Cas is here to make anyone’s life easier, he is just a Joy and a Delight and I’m thrilled to have him!

Well, THAT'S a lie, but I'll let you have this one buddy.

I'm getting ahead of myself cuz obviously the highlight of this season is Cas, but we’ve gotta start back at the beginning because honestly there are a lot of triumphant moments in this episode starting with the return of Dean Samuel Winchester -

GUESS WHO’S BACK! BACK AGAIN!

DEAN IS BACK! TELL A FRIEND!

I forgot how much I love this open. When that hand punches through the dirt, I got chills. it is the first of three, no, four times that I legit cheered out loud in this episode. There’s some pretty solid scene work here - you’ve got the Hellraiser-esque flashback for Dean, just to catch you up on the Trauma. You’ve got the ring of dead trees and plant life to give you a hint that this rescue is not necessarily a good thing. Notice there is no music playing in this scene and very little music playing throughout this whole episode - they’re not dicking around this season. Things are serious. Side note: Can anyone point me to the fic where John Winchester buries his children to teach them how to survive being buried alive? Cuz you know that’s 1,000% something that happened.

And then there’s the fact that the town Dean finds himself in appears to be abandoned and the creep factor just keeps ramping up from there. When Cas tries speaking to Dean those first two times a) what the hell Cas, this ringing is creepy AF and b) WHAT THE HELL CAS! Like, how is Dean not DEAF after that?

Honestly from there, things progress just about the way that you’d expect and that’s also satisfying. Bobby hangs up on Dean twice and then tries to shoot him and that was just so A+ Perfect in-character reactions, like

Cheer number two was when Bobby finally hugs Dean (mini cheer when Dean says “You’re about the closest thing I have to a father,” - I like to believe he’s including John Winchester in that count). Cheer number three was when Dean and Sam finally reunite, although the more times I watch this episode, the more it's ruined by how obvious that Ruby reveal is. They’d really like you to believe that Genevieve Padalecki is a very 2000’s Generically Pretty Extra who should be forgettable but please. I don’t care how much he’s grieving, I will never believe that Sam is a one-night-stand kinda guy. On top of that, she gets a lot more lines than a random extra should for a bit part like this. Side note, not a fan of Sam’s hair this season but I’m pretty sure that’s just me.

Brothers gotta hug!

This episode really feels like the start of something - it’s not your average Sam-n-Dean Case format. Technically, the case they’re on this episode is Dean’s, but the drive to solve it, the energy involved, feels very different. The thing that saved Dean is SO different that both sides, the Good (like rando psychic Pamela Barnes) or Evil (rando diner filled entirely with demons) can’t handle it. It’s very cringey to watch in 2020, but I also kind of love the scene where Dean just straight up bitch-slaps Waitress Demon. He knows they’re too scared to actually do anything to him because no one knows what is going on, so he just does whatever he wants. It adds some REAL Big Dick Energy to the show.

Kripke’s said that season 4 was meant to be an all-out war, and regardless of whether they had the budget to fund that kind of operation, this episode does feel like the lead up to something. Like the opposite of assassinating Archduke Ferdinand, it’s the Unassassination of Dean Winchester. And as much as they want to know the who, what, and why of Dean’s return from the grave, a lot of this episode is about catching up and setting up, and its more set-up here than I think we’ve gotten in previous seasons. In the premiers for both seasons 2 and 3, we still had a case that took main focus, some hints throughout the episode as to where the season was heading. Even in "In My Time of Dying," where they're trying to save Dean from a coma, the main action of the episode is Dean trying to figure out what's killing people around him. This premiere puts the season arc, not just the case arc, in the a-story action, signaling that this whole season is gonna be different. Dean (and the viewer) came back to a much more serious Supernatural-verse.

And to cap that off, we get a hint that the brothers might not be on the same side. I heard a quote from Kripke once that was along the lines of, we spent three seasons trying to get these brothers to come together, now we’re trying to tear them apart. And that's definitely what's happening, cuz surprise! Sam’s pal-ing around with Demon Ruby in a brand new meat suit, while at the same time Dean’s finding out that he’s literally been touched by an angel and if that’s not a clue to some real drama real soon, I don’t know what is. More on this later.

But let’s talk about the angel in the room because that’s time number 4 that I cheered, I mean how can you not??? CAS IS HERE!!!!

Basically every line he has in this scene is ~i c o n i c~ and can you get a more perfect face for this role than Misha Collins? Like, what is that face? It’s both supremely serene and also kind of threatening and also kind of inhuman and ALSO definitely the face of someone I’d be thrilled to make out with and I don’t know how he manages to emote all of that with just his physical presence. I feel like it’s the vibe you’d get if you dialed back Benedict Cumberbatch’s etherealness to something more human. Anyway, I feel like Cas is what’s going to get me through the next 11 seasons.

Yeah, that's the Face. That's it.

We’re left hanging with a vaguely ominous “Because God commanded it. Because we have work for you,” and I’m still glad that I’m streaming this whole series online cuz I can jump straight into episode 2. No matter how long I've been away, this show still manages to suck me right back in and honestly, that's probably the real staying power of this show. THAT'S why it lasted for 15 seasons, or, well, it's probably this:

The big things to track moving forward this season is first and foremost that rift that's gonna split the brothers apart like the red sea. How deep is it gonna go? How dark are we gonna get this season? If memory serves, this is the season where the contrast between the Season Episodes and the Fun Episodes starts to get bigger too, so we're looking at a real nose dive into some High Drama territory here. Which is probably why Cas is such an essential part of this team because how else are we supposed to get through the next 11 seasons without lines like this?

Rude.

#Cas #castiel #Cas is here!!#Season 4 #Lazarus Rising #Supernatural #SPN rewatch #Dean Winchester #Sam Winchester #Here we go #Thank God Cas is Here #Literally

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letterstothemidnightsociety · 3 years

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And so we leave the warm and friendly bosom of the Ghostfacers and descend into the final three episodes of Supernatural season 3. And guys, it’s gonna be a lot of goodbyes.

Welp. We can't say they didn't warn us.

Goodbye Bela. Goodbye Katie Cassidy as Ruby. Goodbye Dean for like, a hot minute. But on the other hand, say hello to that Oh-right!-Sam-has-demon-powers story line!

I’ve mentioned it before and I’ll say it again - one of my fav lines in season 2 is in the finale. Right before he’s destroyed, Ol’ Yellow Eyes leans in to Dean and grumble whispers, “How certain are you that what you brought back, is 100%, pure, Sam?” And just like that, the whole Winchester dynamic that Dean (and we) thought was solid gets reeeeealllly shaky. By the time YED says this line, we’ve all watched sweet, cuddly Sammy cold-blooded murder a guy with a knife, so there’s definitely evidence that something is up. But that...never...quite pans out in season 3. Sam is still Sam. He’s soft and sincere and he’s got those big, open, puppy-dog eyes and he’s always willing to listen to both sides. Season 3 Sam doesn’t make a whole lot of adjustments. It’s possible that by pal-ing him up with Ruby, the writers were trying to say, ooo! He’s different now cuz he’s friends with demons! But that’s still V. On Brand Sam. Of course he’d be willing to listen. He fell in love (I guess?) with a werewolf. He made friends with a coven of Vampires. Given the right circumstances, Sam actually will ask questions first and shoot later.

See? Look at that Listening Face!

Now it’s not anyone’s fault entirely that this plot line never panned out. The Writer’s Strike really did a number on the season, and plotlines that could have been further developed had to get dropped due to the shortened episode count. I’ve been talking about the Writer’s Strike for like, well, the last 4 entries here, but if you’re old enough to remember the strike, you know it was a friggin’ big deal. It did a number on a lot of shows, changed the landscape of scripted and unscripted programming and probably changed the entire course of the rest of the SPN series as a whole. And honestly, with fewer episodes to develop some of the more complicated mythology stuff, it makes sense to simplify and switch gears to focus on Dean’s thing. That’s the important storyline. That’s the one that’s gotta pay off by the end of the season. But I still like to think about what could have been if we’d gotten the Slow Turning of Sam Winchester. It’s no secret Dean is my personal (problematic) fav and I think Ackles’ performance is a big part of why so many people love Dean/This Show. Not that Sam/Padalecki isn’t perfectly solid as a character/performer, but this season especially it occurs to me that there’s not a whole lot for Sam to work with. He’s still acting as the audience stand-in. He’s not someone we’re meant to humanize and analyze the way we do with Dean. He’s a blank slate we’re meant to embody. We’re him, riding in the front seat of the Impala, reading maps and putting clues together and singing along with Dean to the radio. How wild would it have been if we’d seen him slowly devolve into something less than human? And I’m not talking just the snarky brand of Evil(™) we see with a lot of the demon characters on this show. I mean something cold and remorseless and almost robotic - he’s not good, he’s not evil, he’s just focused on one thing at a time, and he’ll do whatever it takes to succeed, and that demon blood means he’s got the powers to do it. This season, that version of Sam is focused on saving Dean’s soul, but what about next season? Where could that Sam have gone?

Anyhoodle, that’s a storyline I’ve been thinkin’ about a lot cuz of Reasons. We’ll see how the whole Demon Powers thing plays out in later seasons, but my memory is that...it doesn’t? Stay tuned.

In the meantime, we’ve got “Long Distance Call”, an episode full of the kind of Dean-Centric Emotional Trauma that I fell in love with this show for. Is it just me or does this episode feel like a recap? Like, if you’re just tuning in now, you’re gonna get a lot of background on our brothers’ and their family dynamics, plus a renewed interest in Dean’s soul drama oh and also a regular-type-case to wrap it all up in. It’s like the show is reminding it’s audience what the show is about like we haven't been following along for 58 episodes already. Maybe it’s just because last episode was a completely different format and they wanted to reassure viewers that the show wasn’t actually changing anything about itself in any significant way. Maybe it’s just because we’re at the end of a season, and moreover, a season that had a surprise hiatus half way through filming so no really, maybe they did need to refresh viewers on a lot of backstory. Isn’t it weird streaming shows that were meant to be watched week to week?

The big fallout from “Long Distance Call” is that Dean realizes that he can’t expect some surprise miracle answer to all his problems to drop right into his lap. He’s gonna have to save his life/soul his own damn self.

I have two things to say to this - 1) uhhh, dude? You’re a Winchester. When has that ever happened EVER in your life? EVER? And 2) Uhhhh DUDE? YOU HAVE A BROTHER AND A SURROGATE FATHER NAMED BOBBY SINGER, SINCE WHEN DO YOU HAVE TO DO ANYTHING ALONE? In unsurprising news, I find this revelation infuriating.

Ok moving on to “Time is On My Side” and like...I could talk about how wild it is that the villain (played by veteran Hollywood Villain Billy Drago) is not magic at all but in fact, just very good at Weird Science. I could also talk for like, three days about Rufus Turner and his Johnny Walker Blue (played by veteran Hollywood Man About Town, Steven Williams). Instead, though, let’s talk about Bela.

Hello? 2008? Stop doing this to your female characters.

Bela, I will miss you SO much. Because this episode makes it VERY clear that Bella is gone for good. And also that the writers did NOT ship Dean and Bela, no sir, no we did not introduce this character to be a love interest, what are you even talking about? Dean is ruthless with her. He gives more credit to (and feels more remorse over) the demon that Sam kills way back in “Sin City” than he gives to Bela. To be fair, Dean is basically a caged animal staring down the barrel at this point in the season, so you could argue his behavior has more to do with desperation than real anger. But considering the long hiatus and the reworked back half of the season, it’s hard not to connect Dean’s attitude with the writers’ reaction to fan backlash over both Bela and Ruby. It’s almost like they’re telling all the Bela-haters out there “don’t worry, we heard you loud and clear, and yes, Bela’s going away and she’s going away for good.” To make up for it, they show us, the audience, a tragic and understandable backstory for why Bela’s on Team Demon but Dean never finds out any of that. I mean, cool motive, still murder, but they were definitely trying hard to end any Dean/Bela vibes still floating around in the canon. I guess when you’re coming back from a writer’s strike and your show is still on shaky ground, ratings-wise, you make a point to give your fans what they want. But also, fans are idiots sometimes and way back in 2008 we didn’t know anything.

2008, please also stop doing this to your female characters too.

And Dean’s got a similar attitude towards Ruby next episode. Ok, so he’s never been a Ruby Fan, but “Malleus Maleficarum” implied he’d at least come to some kind of mutual understanding with her. I’d even call it a real connection. Now he’s calling her “the Ms. Universe of lying skanks,” and hoo boy. On the one hand that comes off as unnecessarily harsh. On the other hand, that is a terrible burn, like, wow, I guess they can’t all be winners buddy, but sheesh. Is your heart even in that one?

Rolling right along into the finale finale and we finally meet Lilith! Lilith who is both a supreme evil power and also a small child and that’s just the sort of packaging I’d except from the SPN writers at this point you sick bastards!

Yeah, this feels real on brand for some reason.

I’m gonna take a moment to point out that the end of season 3 gives us this trio of women who could be...interesting? I’m probably stretching it a bit if I try to make an argument for a Fates/Triple Goddess/Maiden-Mother-Crone setup. (I mean, who’s who in this scenario?It’s a real reach.) I’ll give this to SPN - they introduced three morally complicated women this season and if nothing else, they were fun to watch. Do they count as recurring characters if the 2 out of 3 that live to season 4 get recast?

To round out this season, the Winchesters lose again. That’s 3 for 3 for anyone who’s keeping track.

That's rough, buddy.

The thing is? Dean...brings this one on himself. Seasons 1 and 2 Winchester have their hearts (and souls) invested in plans that fall apart at the end. They tried their hardest, but they just weren’t good/strong/smart/powerful/etc enough. This season, it feels less like a lack of ability and more like an overabundance of decisionmaking. Season 2 Dean makes the decision to trade his soul for Sam. Early season 3 Dean makes the decision to Not Care and wallow in self destruction. End of season 3 Dean makes the decision to stand on the moral high ground and not make any more deals that could end up with him worse off than he was before. That last one is not a judgement call, it’s just pointing out that there was a way out he could have taken and he chose not to. Dean is, and probably always will be, his own worst enemy.

Yeah, this is on you pal.

In the Year of Our Streaming Service of Choice, 2021, it is interesting revisiting this shortened season. I don’t remember it feeling rushed the first time I watched it, but I’m also pretty sure I watched the entire season in like, a week(...end?) so pacing had no meaning. Now that the average season of “television” is way shorter than it was back in 2008, the rushing on this season is pretty obvious. I think as a whole, it does still work, but we’ve got way better examples of shows with even shorter seasons that roll out smoother and more concise. Where SPN shines is in that balance between one-offs and season-arc episodes. Short seasons go hand in hand with tighter storytelling and less wandering/one-off eps. With a shorter season, SPN could have succeeded by adjusting Fun:Drama episode balance according to their usual ratio. Unfortunately for them, they started writing season 3 unaware that their episode order was about to get cut by roughly 25%.

Onwards to Season 4!

#Supernatural #Supernatural season 3 #Supernatural rewatch #Sam Winchester #Dean Winchester #Lilith #Ruby #Bela talbot #Long distance call #time is on my side #no rest for the wicked #Thank goodness this season is over #but also #I'm p sure it's just gonna get worse from here

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letterstothemidnightsociety · 3 years

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Twelve episodes down, four more to go before Dean's soul is sent to literal Christian-Judeo Hell, and for one brief, blessed, shining moment, there was

Ok so yes, there are only four episodes left in the season but this is maybe one of my all time fave episodes of SPN, so "Ghostfacers" is getting its own entry because I have a lot of thoughts -

Let's start with the format because this kind of radical change in the storytelling and the basic structure of the show is usually a kind of a benchmark for shows that are well and truly established. At this point, you know a show is doing ok because the writers feel a) confident enough in the show that they can pitch this kind of setup and b) connected enough to their audience that we'll be in on the joke. Everything from the opening credits to the style of filming is like a massive inside joke that you'll only really understand if you've been watching since the pilot. This is an episode that's a love letter to fans as much as it's an excuse for the writers (Kripke and Edlund) to have fun in the world that they're building. Cuz let's be honest, they've done 56 episodes of this show and sometimes you need a little breather from the established format to try something new. It's a nice reminder to writers out there that it's OK to have fun with your source material.

But I'm gonna submit another thought that may have been going through the writers' minds when they pitched this episode - what have we got to lose? "Ghostfacers" was the first episode to go into production once the Writer's Strike ended. The cast and crew already knew they weren't getting their full 22 episode season and had to make some rapid adjustments to when and where the Winchester Saga was going. At this point in 2008, rumblings of cancellations at all networks were probably in the air if they weren't actively happening already. SPN's numbers were never great, though they were consistently mid- to high for CW's programming. I have to wonder if Kripke and Edlund thought, well, if we're going down, at least we go down swinging for the fences. Not to mention that a lot of TV people thought the future of television was in Reality TV. I mean, this whole episode is a spoof/commentary on "reality" TV. They even make a joke about the strike's impact on scripted programming -

Now SPN will go on to receive an early renewal from CW in May, but this episode is produced sometime between the Strike's end in February and its April premiere date, so there's a real possibility that everyone on the show thought this was the last season. So if this is the end, then let's make such an end, as to be worthy of remembrance.

Well honestly, from minute one this whole thing just works. We're in a completely different world than a typical SPN episode and yeah, it comes across a little "expositiony", but it's also a perfect intro. It makes me think of how Will Ferrell intros The Spoils of Babylon each episode and I love it. It's over the top and it's also completely sincere. And that's the key to this whole episode. Everyone here knows that they are completely crazy, but they are also 100% committed to the bit every single second. Take the wardrobe, for example. Ed and Harry are both wearing tuxes to make this setup classy but they are wearing the most ill-fitting, scuffed up, totally used tuxes I've ever paid attention to and that is absolutely what they would be wearing IRL. The Winchesters have a uniform and there's rarely any deviation from it throughout the series. It get's updated to stick with the times and you can build 1,001 theories about why or why not Dean is wearing John's Leather Jacket, but those boys are set in their ways episode to episode, week to week. The Ghostfacers don't wear suits, they're pretty casual, but for this "unsolicited pilot", Ed and Harry knew they had to dress up. And because they're Ed and Harry, they pull out the best thing they have in their closets. These suits look like a mom bought them for a wedding/funeral/prom/bar mitzvah and that's what they use for every formal occasion for the next ten years. Just this one tiny detail and I'm already gone, like, it's over for me, this episode is the tits.

Then we get into the episode itself and just the investment in this bit is ALL in. To the point that I started to wonder - did the show get these tropes from actual ghost hunting shows or did the ghost hunting shows get their tropes from this episode. (That's ridiculous, SPN defs picked up stuff from the actual ghost hunting shows, but I got excited.)

Production on this episode is SO invested in this episode that they actually set up a 360° set in the Morton House - meaning there are cameras in EVERY corner to capture the action. It also means that, because every corner is being captured, there's no crew on the set because there's no way they won't be in a shot. So every handheld camera angle you see in this episode? It's shot by the cast. Yes, Ed, Harry, Spruce, Maggie and Alan J. Corbett shot everything we see in this ep.

From this interview I read with A.J. Buckley and Travis Wester (Ed and Harry respectively), this whole set was maybe a masterclass in experimental improv. There was a script, yes, but because of the format, because they had this reality show trope they had to establish, director Philip Sgriccia really just let these guys play. And that really does translate into this very alive, very in the moment, flying-by-the-seat of our pants episode. And that's when the Winchesters show up.

I think one of my favorite things about this episode is that Sam and Dean are very much side characters. They feel removed from the action, we're Ghostfacers looking at them from the outside in. It makes the two of them feel so much more mysterious and heroic and put together than they actually are. In a typical week, we're in the passenger seat with them - we see all the mess and mistakes and the human side to them. With the distance you get from the Ghostfacers, it's like their professionals or something!

Let’s talk about this Unsolicited Pilot for a second because it is SOLID. Like, these dumb babies really lucked out with what would have been a pretty excellent episode of television. I don't know that any studio execs would have fully understood what was happening, they probably would have thought that some of this was scripted and the show would most likely not have been picked up to series, but I DO think that if they'd convinced someone to watch this pilot, Ghostfacers would have at least gotten a meeting out of it. And in fact, Ghostfacers technically did get picked up to series! Based on this episode, they got an 11-episode webseries that ran on the CW's website. they were short episodes - 3- 5 mins - but that's not bad for what was meant to be a one-off thing. They even got Kelly Clarkson to guest star in it! Man, remember when webisodes were like, A Thing?

Now listen, is this a perfect episode? Probably not, although I'd argue it's pretty close. For one thing, it definitely creates a break in the action of the season. Today, I'm very happy about that, but as a fan in '08 who didn't have access to all 15 seasons of this show, I can see how that was probably frustrating for a lot of fans. It's also from 2008, so there's defs some cringey moments played for comedy that probably wouldn't happen today. Watching it now, the biggest question I have is: how do we translate Alan J. Corbett for a 2020's audience? I mean, he is most definitely the Big Hero of the day. The emotional crux of the episode is when Ed tells Corbett that he loves him and gay love pierces through the veil of death. In fact, that scene is probably what earned SPN a GLAAD nomination for "Outstanding Individual Episode (in a series without a regular LGBT character)". In 2008, that was a pretty big deal.

In 2021, though, I don't know how this storyline would fly. I have a feeling there'd be a lot of people pointing out a pretty solid Bury Your Gays trope and asking more out of a show with this kind of popularity and fanbase. I'm also assuming the bar for a GLAAD award is a little higher these days, if only because there's a lot more representation on TV than there was 10 years ago.

But I can't deny that the beats for this episode hit just right. It sings with just the right rhythm throughout. It's something that I don't think I appreciated when I saw it the first time, but after about 10+ years of editing and analyzing video, I can recognize the alchemy that went into this ep. Because thats the thing - there is a certain kind of magic that happens when an episode fits together like this one does that you can't manufacture. It's pure luck combined with just the right talents. Wedged in between the tragic events that precede it and come after it, "Ghostfacers" is a welcome breath of fresh air in the back half of season 3.

#Supernatural #supernatural rewatch #season 3 #GhostFacers #Sam Winchester #Dean Winchester #Ed Zeddmore #Harry Spangler #Maggie and Spruce #Alan J. Corbett

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letterstothemidnightsociety · 3 years

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And after a midseason downward spiral for everybody's favorite dysfunctional ghost-busting brothers, things REALLY turn around for season 3 and I am THRILLED about it! VINDICATION!!!

Now these next three are the last three episodes that were produced before the Writer’s Strike, so they're the last three episodes before the midseason hiatus that lasts for about 2 months - from February '08 to April. Up until this point in the season, the strike didn't impact production too much other than switch the air date order for episodes 11 and 12. Why is this important? Because it means that “Dream A Little Dream” was not a rush episode, it was ALWAYS supposed to be episode 10, after Christmas and after the series comes back from its holiday break. And why is THAT important? Because it means that they waited this long in the season for Dean to finally GIVE A SHIT!

I remember watching season three and just being riveted by Angst!Dean. Not that I don’t love him now, it’s just that I’m older, wiser and I just lived through a pandemic where basically everyone was experiencing low key depression all the time every day, so it felt a little too close to home. I mean, we don’t even watch Dean give up this season because he never even starts to try. It’s like he’s been waiting all these years for the excuse to roll over and die. And on the one hand, that’s hard to watch when I’m in the 2020 Emotional Headspace™, but on the other hand it’s also...a little...flat. And I mean that in a strictly story structure way.

Cuz see, the driving action for this season is built around the season arc that is “Save Dean”. And season three is similar to seasons 1 and 2 in that it’s mostly composed of Monster of the Week with a throwback to that arc at the top and tails of each episode. But Dean’s whole attitude for nine episodes is just, "meh. Don’t feel like it." And when you have a character that shuts down the driving action like that for this long it starts to make that action feel stale. The tension isn’t ramped as high. Or maybe it is, but it’s in the wrong direction right? Because the best way to build tension around the Save Dean arc is for them to be fighting like hell for a way out, for that loophole, that contract cancellation clause to get triggered. But instead what you have for, again, nine episodes is a character who just doesn’t commit. He just doesn’t care. He doesn’t care about the story that the writers are writing for him. He’s here to embrace it and that...doesn’t build the right tension. Watching this, my immediate reaction to Dean’s lack of interest in his own life is like, well, ok, let’s back track a little cuz now we gotta deal with THIS problem first. We gotta deal with Dean’s depression, his feelings of worthlessness, his lack of self care. We have to lay the groundwork for him to understand why his life is worth saving before we can actually save it. It’s like, this one time my mom told my sister and I that she was gonna make us BLT sandwiches for lunch, but we had to stop at the grocery store to pick up bread. Oh, and lettuce and tomato. OH! And also, we’re out of bacon so you have to pick that up too. We have to go pick up Dean’s bacon before we can try to save it.

Let me repeat, this is strictly a critique of the story structure. Sometimes you HAVE to lay that groundwork for yourself or your loved ones, right? You gotta help them to believe they’re worth saving before they can save themselves and that’s important. I’m looking at the pacing and timing of this season arc and thinking they take a long time to get there, but TV is not real life and real life doesn’t need to be paced like TV. Please take care of yourselves and don’t try to compare your life to television because it never ends well. Love yourself and do what work you need to do!

Bringing us back to “Dream a Little Dream,” I’m not gonna go into the plot of this episode cuz it’s not important. This stoner who can’t dream (now is that can’t dream or can’t get REM, SPN writers??) manages to Freddie Kreuger everyone else’s dreams by drinking some funky herbal tea and all of that is just a means to an emotional breakthrough in the way a lot of my fave SPN episodes are. Cuz the POINT of this episode is that Dean finally faces himself - his dreams (lol), his fears, his crippling self-hatred. He literally faces his literal self at the end and has a literal fight with him over how he IS worth saving. Literally.

Literally.

Lemme tell you, the satisfaction I got from this fight for two reasons. One - Dream!Dean confirms what we’ve suspected all along - Dean hates himself, kind of hates his life, is desperately lonely and doesn’t see himself as anything more than the dutiful grunt still following his father’s orders. It’s just nice to be right about all my character head cannons and it’s nice to hear that character acknowledge it. And two - Dean FINALLY fights back!!!

Like, it’s about fucking time dude.

Big takeaways from this fight scene include Dean admitting that his father was a psychopath and also a TERRIBLE father (It’s true and you SHOULD SAY IT!); and also, Dean doesn’t try to refute what Dream!Dean says. He doesn’t try to make excuses or deny that he’s a lonely, least-loved, war dog who doesn’t have a whole lot going on for him. But that DOESN’T mean that his life ISN’T worth saving. Despite all that, he STILL deserves to live, for no other reason that Because He Said So. And that, I think is REAL GROWTH!

I mean, buddy, you should really get DEEP into some therapy, but this is a start, a REAL start.

And of course, the REAL kicker for Dean is that, if he goes to Hell, it will not be long before he becomes the thing he hunts and the fear of that kind of dramatic irony is just TOO much.

Here’s my only issue with this episode - it is, again, episode nine. Which, if this was a full season of 22 - 24 is roughly 35 - 40% of the season and that feels like a LOT. With the season cut short due to the Writer’s Strike, that’s 50%+ of the season before Dean starts to care about the plot of this season. That’s a looooooong time to leave your character in emotional stasis, my dudes.

Honorable Mentions from this episode:

Um, how utterly tragic is it that in Bobby’s memory/dream, his house is PRISTINE? I love it, I love that detail, I love what it says about Bobby’s home life even though we’ve seen that he’s meticulous in his Hunter life, in short, I love Bobby.

What’s the first thing Dean sees in this episode? Lisa, sitting at a picnic, telling him they have an hour before they pick up Ben from baseball. All Dean wants, all he has EVER wanted, is Family and ugh. UGH. Ugh. That poor bastard.

What does SAM dream about? Bela showing up and getting naked. Just a WILD juxtaposition to Dean’s soffft boi dreams. Also, Sam straight up MURDERS our Stoned Freddie Kreuger in this episode and like, wow, nobody’s gonna acknowledge that ok.

But next up we get “Mystery Spot” and this is possibly one of my fave episodes of the entire series? Like...ok, my favorite half episode of the entire series. Because watching Dean die 100 times is just hilarious. I’m pretty sure I have watched this episode like, 20 times. I have forced OTHER people to watch this episode with me, people who did not have ANY SPN experience or context before I forced it on them. Like, PEAK comedy. Pig in a Poke.

The back half of this episode deteriorates rapidly. Sam canNOT handle his brother’s death, not even a little bit, not even at all. Things get DARK without Dean. Sam is efficient and effective but also apparently loses his soul without his brother. I do think that Sam’s ability to do the job without Dean is never in question. He’s equally as good as Dean is/was. He can do what he has to do. But he also cuts out everyone and everything that isn’t hunting from his life. How much more John Winchester can you get?

And it’s a WILD motivation from the Trickster (I swoon! I die!). Like, he just casually drops:

"This obsession to save Dean? The way you two keep sacrificing yourselves for each other? Nothing good comes out of it. Just blood and pain. Dean's your weakness. And the bad guys know it, too. It's gonna be the death of you, Sam. Sometimes you just gotta let people go."

And that’s it. That’s the whole show. This family is HELLA dysfunctional and if they’d just learned to let go, half of their drama would never have happened. But also, neither would this show, so here we are.

Then we get our midseason finale, and honestly, it’s a good midseason finale. Originally, the plan was to let “Mystery Spot” wrap up the midseason before the winter/spring hiatus, but with the strike in full swing and a longer hiatus on the horizon, they made a call to end on “Jus in Bello” and that was a good decision - bigger cliffhanger, bigger tie in to overall theme of the show, more Drama™.

Can we take a hot moment to remember and appreciate Henricksen? Henricksen who was just trying to do his job. Who was in the dark on the whole Demons Are Real and Other Terrifying Truths bandwagon and really believed the Winchesters were whackadoo serial killers who needed to be stopped. Henricksen who was so morally upright and ALSO incredibly wrong all at the same time. Let’s all give it up for Henricksen.

Say it with me now, but you did not shoot the deputyyyy!

Like, he is both the smartest and the dumbest boy in school. He knows that he needs like, an entire SWAT team to take down the Winchesters. Accurate. He knows pretty much every case the Winchesters have been on AND how many deaths they’ve been around, so we know he does his research. And he just casually drops the line, “Truth is, your daddy brainwashed you with all that devil talk,” and honestly, he’s not wrong! It’s true and WE SHOULD ALL SAY IT ALL THE TIME.

What I love about Henricksen is that he is a legitimately worthy adversary and he deserves a win. Maybe it’s the Phil Coulsoun/Mobius M. Mobius of it all, but I have a soft spot for overworked, under-resourced government bureaucrats who are just trying to make the world a better place. Henricksen is a legitimately Good Guy - he’s here to take down bad guys, he’s not here to go crazy or get revenge, he’s just here to see that justice gets done. Sure he can be a bit of an asshole here and there, but that’s just the stress talking, man!

And literally he’s just ONE missing piece of intel, one tiny, insignificant, world shifting detail away from being on Team Cool Kid this whole time and that’s that this shit is real. I think the most heartbreaking line in the ep is his conversation with Dean near the end -

“My job is boring, it’s frustrating. You work three years for one break, and then maybe you can save ... a few people. Maybe. That’s the payoff. I’ve been busting my ass for 15 years to nail a handful of guys and all this while, there’s something off in the corner so big. So yeah… sign me up for that big, frosty mug of wasting my damn life.”

And Dean responds with, “You didn’t know?” Like, buddy, really??? You think Henricksen knew there were ghosts and shizz out there and he was just being a massive dick this whole time???? Henricksen, a true class act, responds with “Now I do,” which honestly is giving me Han Solo “I know,” vibes. Same energy, different alignments, don’t @ me.

RIP Henricksen, we barely knew ye. By rights, you should have had a whole spinoff series about Victor Henricksen, Paranormal FBI. I would have watched 3 seasons.

Honorable Mention goes out to my girl Nancy. Nancy, the sweet innocent virgin who was willing to lay down her life to save everyone in that precinct like a damn QUEEN. Nancy who’s iconic line, “When this is over, I’m gonna have so much sex,” was only outdone by her follow up, “But not with you.” Nancy who lives to (??maybe??) have as much sex as she wants only to get blown up the next day by this season’s villain who FINALLY deigned to grace us with her presence.

Cuz yeah, this season waited until episode 12 to introduce their Big Baddie - Lilith, the terrifying demon child who only gets creepier with each new incarnation. I hate it, but I can’t decide if it’s a good hate, like a hate-to-love/love-to-hate situation, or if I just don’t like this choice. I think the more important takeaway from the introduction of Lilith is that the SPN team waited until half way through the season to bring this up which???

Like, ok, technically there were SOME hints but like...not big enough ones IMO. In comparison to the work they did on YED/Azazel, there’s been no lead up at all. And then when you consider that this season got cut back by 6 - 8 episodes, it feels really wild that they’d wait to introduce the season’s main villain until 3/4rs of the way through. That’s like deciding you were gonna follow Harry Potter through 5 books worth of adventures before finally finding out that there’s a guy out there named Voldemort who’s been trying to kill him this whole time. Like...why didn’t we get to this earlier? Why hasn’t this been more relevant to the plot this whole time? SPN, are you HONESTLY telling me that the BIGGER villain this season was DEAN’S LACK OF SELF WORTH??? Wow guys. WOW. I take back everything I said about episodes 1 - 9. I get it now, my bad.

And I’m gonna back track one more time to Nancy for a sec cuz she brings up another one of those Winchester fights that I like so much. When Ruby tells the Gang that they can save themselves + all the demon possessed people outside by sacrificing Nancy, Dean (and Henricksen, bless him) immediately says NO, but Sam...doesn’t seem to be 100% against the Virgin Sacrifice solution. Like, he’s not thrilled about it, sure, but he's got a little bit of pushback when Dean puts the kibosh on it. 1) That’s probably a little of Dark!Sam coming out in a season that never really takes him there, but 2) I like that the Winchesters are on the same side but have different moral codes. They rarely fight about things that are trivial or manufactured. The arguments come from deeply rooted places in each character that feel real and grounded in the moments they have them. And on both sides, they’re rarely 100% in the right or wrong. There’s never a clear cut winner although there’s usually a lot of losers. Because what the deaths at the end of "Jus in Bello" remind us is that even when the Winchesters win, they’ve lost. It’s never a Good Day for the two of them because they never get that Everybody Lives! happy ending. In retrospect, we should have seen that death in the series finale coming from all the way back in season 1.

I’ve talked about the fact that this show isn’t afraid to let their heroes lose before. This happens in both the season 1 and season 2 finales and it’s a nice way of keeping the show from wrapping up in a neat and tidy bow. That kind of ending can feel trite and unsatisfying, but looking forward, I’m worried. I’m worried that we’re gonna spend another 12 seasons watching the Winchesters lose and lose and lose and never get a moment of peace - that they did the right thing or that they completed their mission - until one of them dies. Sure we could say that’s unrealistic, but it’s also a television show. This is a fantasy that viewers pick up to escape from real life. And sometimes, even if just through the course of a 42 minute television episode, you need to give people a win.

#Supernatural #Supernatural season 3 #supernatural rewatch #SPN #Dean Winchester #Sam Winchester #Bobby Singer #Henricksen #dream a little dream #Mystery Spot #Jus in Bello #Just this once #can't everybody live?

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letterstothemidnightsociety · 3 years

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Alright, so if you've been following along with me, Supernatural season 3 starts out on a trio of episodes that are Really Fun, slides into some episodes that are Pretty OK, then takes a real nose dive into Bummersville. Hoo boy guys, I really hope that this season picks up. I mean, it won’t, but I can still dream. 2021 was maybe not the year to start watching this season. Fair warning.

The next three episodes for this season are just, like, real downers. First we get “Fresh Blood,” which, aside from the terrible title, starts out on a high note. Gordon (gross) somehow manages to catch up with Bela (HOW??) and threatens her if she doesn’t hand over the Winchesters. Bela, in all of her class and grace, won’t give them up because she has a high price point and Gordon is really lowballing her here. Just like, yes, ok, please stay forever, you’re amazing and I love you. And what a scene this is! You have two characters, one with a strict moral code (albeit one that allows for violence and winning at all costs) and the other with almost NO moral code, but an allegiance that can be bought with the best price and it’s such a fun back and forth until Gordon pulls out a gun. And then she pulls out her phone and just has Dean on speed dial and that’s maybe my fav part. Bela has run into the Winchesters twice and they maybe legit hate her but she’s very much like, oh yeah, my BFF’s the Winchesters, I love those idiots!

I love that we come back to this moment later in the episode when Bela, like, three days later, is like, Oh! I guess I should warn the Winchesters that some crazy guy is after them! She’s just so casual about it you kind of get the feeling that, even though technically Gordon was threatening her life, she doesn’t view him as A Threat. She gives the Winchesters a heads up just to be like oh yeah, you might want to watch out for this mild inconvenience, and she seems legit shocked when Dean freaks out. There’s this moment that plays across her face like, oh shit, did I...did I fuck up? And it adds a nice bit of depth to her character. She’s seems honestly worried, both for the lives of the Winchesters but also that Dean won’t like her anymore and that is just a charming bit of A C T I N G!

I am gonna miss her SO MUCH when she dies at the end of this season. WHY did we CANCEL HER???

But despite the fun beginning, this episode is about monsters and how people become monsters and how other people are probably the reason. Because our main baddie is a vampire who hunts to...well, listen if we look at the facts that he lays out in his monologue, it’s a little more tragic - he’s trying to replace the daughters that he lost hundreds of years ago, cool motive, still murder. In practice though, he goes around turning hot blonde coeds into vampires and then ?????? Who knows. I’d like to believe that this was a problem with the CW executives or maybe casting/directing and not with the writing, but it’s SPN and you really can’t be sure with anything. The fact is, this is a CW show from the early 2000’s and a lot of their extras are cast to type. And that’s maybe me exhibiting some girl-on-girl crime, but there are other episodes that did a much less blatantly gross job casting their extras/Very Special Guest Stars.

Anyway, the POINT of this guy is that he’s a monster because someone killed his daughter and he’s just been trying to fill that grief hole inside of him for centuries. This is not unlike Gordon, who ALSO has been trying to fill a grief hole that he’s had for decades, except he’s not killing people and resurrecting them as blood suckers, he’s just killing them. And then, when the Vamp decides to turn Gordon it’s a real sweet moment of comeuppance for like, a HOT second and then you’re like, awww dude, ya done f’ed up. That was a bad idea. You’ve made a HUGE mistake.

More importantly, our Vampire In Question finally runs into the Winchesters and get’s to say things like “I was desperate! You ever felt desperate? I've lost everyone I ever loved. I'm staring down eternity alone. Can you think of a worse hell?” and also “I just ... I didn't care anymore. Do you know what it's like when you just don't give a damn? It's like ... it's like being dead already.” and Dean’s v. much like, THIS IS TOO REAL ROY.

Sam may ALSO be feeling Too Real feelings because he is DONE dicking around with Gordon and honestly yes, I like this, this is good Sam development. It’s nice to know that Sam has a breaking point. And I admit I’m of two minds about this moment because 1) I love the idea of Dark!Sam this season and that maybe Sam’s decision to actually kill Gordon is just one step in that process but 2) I ALSO love the idea of Sam Lite finally having a breaking point and Gordon is IT. I don’t know which theory I like more in this scenario, but they are both good theories.

I think as much as this episode wants to draw parallels between the monsters and Dean (thank you artful editors), you can’t look at the “I’ve lost everyone I ever loved,” line and not think of Sam? Cuz he’s got one (1) person left in his life that hasn’t died horribly, so how desperate is he about to get through the end of this season? I’ve definitely been watching this season with eyes on all the ominous Dean foreshadowing, but the Sam foreshadowing is also there, just buried under the heavy weight of a thousand smulders and suicidal levels of denial.

And also, FUCK the tag on this episode! Guys, it is CUTE but it is also HORRIBLE. Dean starts teaching Sam how to fix the Impala and at first it’s all, “Oh! Adorable Brothers Being Brothers!” and I loved it but then I almost immediately hated it because you realize this is about making sure Sam can get along without him once he’s gone and Dean just accepts his own death with such casual ease that it’s just...INFURIATING!

This scene was rude and I HATE IT!

Cut to - “A Very Supernatural Christmas” Special!

Guys, I was so excited when I got to this episode. THIS is Classic Supernatural Shenanigans. Plus, you know a Holiday Special is the ultimate sign that this show has Made It, right? Or it could be a sign that they’re selling out, who knows, but I think we can say that at this point in the series, SPN is established enough to start having fun with their fans. That’s what this says to me. BUT THEN what we get is like...oh boy.

First - like, I’mma beat this horse to death, but what is WRONG with this FAMILY? John Winchester very quickly devolved into the sort of father that forgot about every single holiday and did not ever, even a little bit, make up for it. It’s not a surprise, but it kind of wrecked me seeing a flashback where Baby Dean is just so attached to a father who can’t be bothered to actually care for his children. I know he’s not in this episode because Jeffrey Dean Morgan was tied up in other projects, but the fact that John doesn’t show up at the end to button the flashbacks with a But then he DID show up for Christmas! just makes this plot line that more gutting. And despite Dean’s hero worship of their father, this is maybe the Christmas where Baby Sam stops believing in his own father. The only bright side to this is that it continues to enforce the fact that Bobby should have sued John for custody. Bobby should maybe STILL Sue for custody so that Dean at least would feel like someone wants him for once in his life, damnit.

And then we wrap this episode up with the Best Worst Christmas of all, because we see Sam start to...also?? accept that Dean is about to die? Cuz that’s what this episode is really about - Dean’s Last Christmas. And everything about that makes me ~ u p s e t ~.

So Sam decides to put his curmudgeonly grinchy attitude aside in order to make it a special day for Dean and ugh. UGH. UGHGHGHG. Season three is the worst guys, and I can’t believe I didn’t realize that until right this second now.

So let’s wrap this up with "Malleus Maleficarum", honestly an episode that is mostly forgettable until we get to, like, the last five minutes. Sure, witches and curses and selling your soul, woohoo whatever.

But then we get some real Ruby centric reveals and like, WHAT is happening?? First off, the scene where Ruby and Tammy have a moment is a real Moment. There is some baggage and tension here and it is heavy. And then Tammy drops the mic when she reveals that Ruby used to be human.

THEN, Ruby legit saves their asses by killing Tammy with a fancy magic knife. Ok, Dean does the actual killing, but Ruby brought the fancy magic knife. So between the hot and heavy tension with “Tammy” and her repeated attempts to keep the Winchesters alive, we’re left wondering what IS Ruby’s deal? I personally wonder how much of the show’s mythology the show actually has figured out at this point? Because interviews with Kripke definitely walk the line between “Oh we definitely have this whole thing worked out,” and “yeah, we’re sort of finding things as we go along,” which is maybe why it’s able to last as long as it does. More on that later.

Of course the big kicker is the final scene between Ruby and Dean. Dean is almost on board with Ruby at this point in the season, and much like his scene with the demon in “Sin City”, they share a kind of vulnerable moment together where Ruby admits that, yeah, she was human once and yeah, Hell will destroy you, body and soul, and yeah Dean’s worst fear will probably come true - he will become the thing he hunts, no ifs, ands or buts about it. And Dean knows that Ruby knows that Dean knows that there’s no way to save Dean from his fate, but they both agree that they can’t take Sam’s last ounce of hope away from him because, for both of them, Sam is their hope. Ruby and Dean both see the war happening around them and they know that with Dean gone, Sam’s maybe the last guy holding back the tide to save all humanity.

Which, honestly? Bull shit. Do you know how many hunters are out there? Neither do I, but this season seems to indicate that there are a LOT. We have barely scratched the surface on the hunter community and it’s a damn shame that they are all weirdo loners because there is a war going on. You know what works great in a war? An ARMY. Buncha mentally unstable, martyr-complex ijits who can’t put their differences aside for one damn MINUTE so that maybe, JUST maybe, the could actually defeat the evil they’ve spent their entire lives dedicated to fighting. And if Ruby and Dean wanted to help Sam, what they should probably do is get him plugged in to that community. I do believe that of all they backasswards, self-obsessed, painfully anti-social crazies out there, the Winchesters are THE WORST.

Listen tho, this was like, a solid scene between these two. Just a lot of work goin' into this and it paid off.

Anyway, back to the mythology for a hot second - This sort of loosey-goosey stumbling into your own world building is probably another one of those things that you’ll only really get in a show with this many episodes per season? It’s that room to play and experiment and just make stuff up as you go along. I think the slow drip method of releasing episodes ALSO helps in this scenario because you’re able to see what fans are reacting to in almost-real time. When viewers are binging episodes, I think you're less likely to see what specifically they’re reacting to and more wholistically they’re reacting to. And that’s not to say you won’t see those specific things that they like/love eventually, but by the time you get there, your season’s been produced in its entirety and you’ll have to bear that in mind for (hopefully) next season. But with SPN, they were writing and producing the show at the same time that some of the episodes were airing. That’s why they were able to make decisions on the fly, based on what fans responded to. And definitely by this point in the show, there was a sizeable and vocal fan base that made their feelings VERY well-known. We’re only in season three, but they’ve already had a number of con appearances and a pretty active online presence. That kind of feedback has got to be helpful, from a writing perspective, but it also allows for things like characters getting cut because nobody liked them for some dumb reason. BUT, if you’re fighting to stay on the air for 100 episodes or longer, responding to fan reactions is what’s gonna do it and that’s a fact.

#Supernatural #Supernatural rewatch #SPN #Sam Winchester #Dean Winchester #Bela Talbot #Gordon Walker #Ruby #SPN Season 3 #Fresh Blood #A Very Supernatural Christmas #malleus maleficarum #It's gonna lighten up on the next three episodes #I promise #I hope #Don't watch this season if you're still feeling 2020 #Is my personal opinion

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letterstothemidnightsociety · 3 years

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Previously On Supernatural Season 3, we had a really rock solid trio of episodes to kick us off right, so what does SPN do next? It’s gonna lay the groundwork for some spicy character development that may or may not pay off by the end of the season. Let's find out!

To be honest, I felt the next three episodes just sort of plateau? There’s enough nuggets in these three eps - “Sin City”, “Bedtime Stories”, and “Red Sky at Morning” - that it does feel like they’re setting up for something big but it’s taking too much time. If the season had been longer, I don’t know that I’d be complaining, because there’s SO much potential introduced with these character developments, but I know it’s gonna get cut off at the knees in the very near future. 2021 Me has been trained on what to expect from a short season, so half of my brain wants to give the show slack for Unexpected Circumstances, but the other half of my brain is shouting YOUR NOT DRIVING THE BUS FAST ENOUGH, YOU’LL NEVER MAKE IT TO THE END OF THE LINE IN TIME!!!

And that’s maybe unfair because there really are some great nuggets in here. We’ve got “Sin City”, which is Dean’s episode. I mean, they’re ALL Dean’s episode, but this one more so than the other two in this post. Dean gets trapped with a demon who turns out to be...kinda...nice? In kind of a Stockholm Syndromey way I guess? She let’s Dean in on the fate that awaits him when his year long contract is up and it is NOT great. This isn’t the first time we see that there’s more to the demons than SPN has shown us in the past (hello, Ruby), but it is the first time Dean chills out enough to actually have a conversation with one. Dean doesn’t really get it, like he’s still not interested in getting out of his deal, but the fear gets planted, it just needs some time to grow. Oh, also, the Colt Ex Machina is back in action, so that's important.

This dumb bitch thinks he can fool us with that devil-may-care side glance but he caaaan't

But then we get “Bedtime Stories”, the Sam episode, where Sam learns...to let go? That’s the point of this episode right? It’s about letting go of someone before that person becomes too toxic and dangerous? At least, that’s the lesson that Dean wants Sam to take away from this case. But Sam will NOT learn this lesson, so instead he tries to cancel Dean’s deal by killing the crossroads demon who wrote it. Spoiler Alert: it doesn't work.

And then we get “Red Sky At Morning”, which opens and closes with some heavy emotional baggage, but then is stuffed full of fun. Like, this episode ricochets wildly in terms of Feelings, but then that’s probably what we should expect from SPN. I mean, what show have I been watching for 3 seasons now?

Fun Facts guys: I’m a tired Millenial, and swapping DVD discs was too much work so I switched over to watching this season on Netflix and GUESS WHAT???? THESE EPISODES COME WITH A SUICIDE WARNING!?!?!

They're not wrong.

And like, if that doesn’t tell you everything you need to know about this season I don’t know WHAT will. Cuz Dean is absolutely suicidal and I am surprised (??) I guess (???) by how much the show acknowledges that. Or I guess, surprised by how much Netflix acknowledges that. It’s something that I did not...pick up on the first go around on season 3, possibly because I was 19 and I was an idiot and found this sort of emotional vulnerability to be endearing. Listen, I know there’s a lot to be said about the producers of the show making...umm…poor decisions in regards to character developments? But if the target demographic of this show was anything like me - and I suspect they were - then the viewers were also...probably...responding inappropriately to some of those character developments. And here’s the thing - I’m looking at this from 12 years in the future, with 12 years worth of real life drama that makes the heavy handed melodrama of television feel...well, heavy handed. Maybe irresponsible? Certainly a little uncomfortable. Big Me is having A Time confronting Little Me’s taste in TV Characters. It’s one thing to have a kink, Little Me, it’s another thing to romanticize suicidal depression.

And hey, I can’t deny that the character development for Dean makes sense. I actually appreciate that the show is thinking through the world and the relationship dynamics that they’ve built and the toll that these misadventures are having on their main characters. These episodes all get bookended by Impala Fights where Sam keeps pushing Dean to give a shit about his own life and Dean responds with an inability to care. That’s just where he is right now, and I get that. We’re early in the season still. But how will the rest of the season handle this? I honestly can’t remember but I also don’t want this to be a throw-away issue that they use to remind us that Dean’s supposed to die at the end of the season. I’m prob gonna come back to this throughout the season because I ~just~want~this~show~to be~repsonsiblllllleeeeeeeeeeee.

Lol, I know, that’s a lot to ask from the CW.

ON TO MORE FUN THINGS!!

Sam is gettin’ reeeeeallll bitchy in these episodes and #1, I love it, Bitchy Sam 5Ever, but also #2, was this supposed to be the sign that Sam was going darkside? Like, he’s snarky, he’s angry, he’s not pulling any punches and that could just be him reacting to his brother’s situation but it could also be….you know...him...becoming slightly...evil? For instance in “Sin City”, he kills the two demons who kidnapped Dean without even thinking. On the one hand, this is the Winchester MO, they kill demons, that’s their job, but on the other hand, Dean is actively telling Sam to stop. Same deal in “Bed Time Stories” - Sam kills the crossroads demon in cold blood (or maybe viscera). Again, we could blame this on instinct - the Winchesters were brought up to do exactly this - but 1) Dean keeps telling Sam not to and 2) that’s not Sam. This show spent 2 seasons telling us that Sam is the Good Brother, the White Hat, the Touchy-Feely One. This is not the Touchy Feely Sam who reasons with ghosts and falls in love with werewolves. Like, everyone else sees it too, right? Also, he is usually very nice to everyone but he is a REAL BITCH to Gertrude in “Red Sky at Morning.” Like, come on, Sam, she just wants to have a nice time. She is OLD. You really think she’s got what it takes to climb that tree?

Honestly, how tall are this lady's heels?

I know that there was a plan for Sam to start Turning in this season before the show’s episode order got slashed due to the Writer’s Strike. And man, I really would have liked to have seen this play out. Like, first season Sam is the Innocent, right? He’s our stand in for the viewer in those first few episodes and then he’s revealed to be kind of the only thing that went right in the lives of both John and Dean, so Baby Must Be Protected at All Costs. The fact that John ultimately lets Sam go off to college and doesn’t contact him for the next four years says to me that on some level, John felt the need to preserve that innocence, that kind of untouched quality Sam has. Dean is very similar - whenever Sam gets too into the job, Dean calls him out on it. So in the second season when we find out that Sam might be evil, it’s a real punch in the gut, for Dean most of all. But then the show admittedly got bored with that storyline and it didn’t really go anywhere. So whereas Dean has personality in SPADES that fluctuates and changes and develops/maybe just gets more intense as the show goes on, Sam remains that kind of blank slate that the viewer can put their face on. Except now we’re in season three, and if you’ve bought into this show, then you’ve bought into it, so the audience doesn’t need a Blank Slate Sam anymore. And if you start with Sam the Innocent and then introduce the idea of Dark!Sam and then just leave that concept hanging, then isn’t this sort of like Checkov’s Evil Sam? If you introduce Evil Sam in the first act you really ought to deliver on Evil Sam by act three, right? Wouldn’t that have been A+ and Wild? Wouldn’t that have made Sam’s arc and emotional struggles over the previous seasons have more weight?

Will this be resolved in later seasons? Maybe. I’m gonna be honest, this is the last season I watched all the way through and seasons 4 through...like, 8 were real touch and go for me. I know that Sam ultimately is revealed to be a vessel for??? The devil??? And Dean is ultimately revealed to be a vessel for??? Michael??? And then the two of them???? Fight to the death???? Point is, season 5 got weird guys and I’m not there yet.

Back to more fun things! You know what guys?? I think I ship Dean and Bela. I’m...almost ashamed to admit it? Like, I remember Little Me watching this season and just dumping on Bela, I HATED her, but this time? I am 1,000% On Board This Ship. Like, there is an alternate universe somewhere where these two got a spinoff show that ran for 6 seasons and I watched EVERY episode. And then, like, 5 years after it ended, they rebooted it with Dean and Bela’s grown up daughter as the lead and the whole OG cast makes cameos over the three seasons it stays on the air and it’s amazing. I’d own both shows on DVD.

What I like about Bela this time around (and again, I am WILDLY surprised about this development), is that she can dish it just as hard as the Winchesters can. Like, every line Dean throws at her she holds up a mirror to say, “Oh yes, I know the Kettle is black, but what color are you, Pot?” and I’m just continually thrilled. She is also just as damaged as Dean is but somehow channeling it into a healthier way? Like, she’s true Chaotic Neutral, which is not necessarily healthy, it’s just healthier than Dean. Or maybe it’s just that she’s better at managing it. In either case, they are HOT MESSES and I love it. I just love it. I know I complained about shoehorned romances but Ackles and Lauren Cohan just totally crush it in every scene and when Dean walks down the stairs all She’s All That in “Red Sky at Morning”, I yelled at the screen OMG just BONE already!!!!! And then like, 5 seconds later, Bela literally says “We should really have angry sex,” and it was probably the most vindicating moment I’ve had on this ride so far.

I just think they're neat!

WHY did we cancel her? WHY?? I don’t want to believe it was the Wincest again, so I’m gonna pretend that it wasn’t, but it was definitely fans. According to Kripke, Bela gets the axe at the end of this season because of the fan hatred of her. Now, I’ve already admitted that I personally held a grudge, but good Lord, what was wrong with us, as a Fandom? To be fair to me (and all of us), would we have felt differently if we had not been introduced to Jo a mere season earlier?? I'm gonna say yes. Although I had misgivings about Jo the first episode we meet her, by the end of season 2 I was certainly on her side. Working through season 3, I am remembering that, when we were introduced to Bela, I was immediately FURIOUS because WTF, WHERE’S JO? SPN just introduced to her. They just settled on a love interest for Dean and the writer’s just got me on board with that. Now they’ve completely done away with both that character AND that dynamic and you want me to get on board this NEW thing? And be excited about it??? So I'm gonna blame the love-interest-whiplash, combined with the fact that Little Me related my own personal self more to Jo than to Bela, that made me hate Bela in the first place. When you look at how quickly the show abandoned one character to introduce another character, it makes sense why fans got mad, but I’m also mad that we continued to hate Bela when she turned out to be such an A+ Frenemy. It makes me want to shout at the writers through the time void COMMIT TO A FEMALE CHARACTER YOU JAGWEEDS.

What’s wild watching this show now is just how Male it was, especially considering its audience was already skewed heavily female by this point in the series. If you made this show today, I don’t know that you could do that. Today, there’s a real push for balanced, diverse casts in programming, especially in sci-fi/fantasy and young adult. I think if SPN had started in 2021, they would have introduced the Harvell’s or Bela up in season 1, and that introduction would have been much more intentional. The benefit of having a shorter episode count as the standard is that there’s less of the “throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks” approach. Looking at it from 2021, reading snippets of interviews from Kripke, that’s definitely what they’re doing with the side characters in these seasons and you can feel that in Jo and Bela. A shorter season means that the storytelling has to be tighter, it can’t wander, so every decision has to be a load-bearing decision. On the other hand, one of the down sides of having a shorter episode count is the exact same thing - less room to throw stuff, less room to experiment. Heck, Bobby was technically a character they threw at the wall and he didn’t just stick, he became a tentpole character of the series. The only side character that actually made it into the series finale even!

So how much room should we be giving our television programs? I think it depends on the show, honestly. I think you have to decide up front if you want space to experiment, or if you have one, tight, compact story line that’s gonna drive viewers from episode 1 right through the finale without giving them the chance to catch their breath. You have to make the decision, but that doesn’t mean we have to stop making one style of show in favor of the other. Just because we’re in the Age of Streaming doesn’t mean there isn’t room enough for both.

#Supernatural #Supernatural season 3 #Supernatural rewatch #Sin City #Bedtime Stories #Red Sky at Morning #Sam Winchester #Dean Winchester #Bobby Singer #Bela Talbot #TV #TV history #TV format

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letterstothemidnightsociety · 3 years

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It's 2007 and somehow, miraculously, Supernatural survives yet another rocky (?) season of mediocre ratings to come back for a third season, or at least, half season, but that season starts out with a real bang! Like, just a real solid trio of an opener for season three. It reminds me of all the things I love about SPN and also it reminds us of all the things that frustrate the hell out of me on SPN. So where did we leave things off?

First up, there’s Dean, who sold his soul to the devil in order to bring Sam back from the dead. Sam, you’ll remember, was part of some overly complicated ponzi scheme to find the perfect vessel to open a door - yep, open a door - and lost to Aldous Hodge who just straight up murders Sam in the season finale. So Dean get’s Sammy back, but in exchange, he’s only got one year left before he permanently moves down south. Oh! And even though they got Sam back and Sam kills Aldous Hodge (RIP pal), they neglected to keep the door from opening. The door to Hell, that is, and now they’ve allowed a shiz ton of demons out to freely roam the earth. Way to go, boys, you lost again! They are two for two on these season finales guys!

OH but they DO kill the Yellow Eyed Demon, so that’s a plus, but not before he plants the most perfect seed of doubt in Dean’s mind - “How do you know what you brought back is all Sammy?” Like, ugh, UGH, ugh!!!! What a way to drive the knife in deeper! What a way to make the heart of this show slowly start to crumble! C’est Magnifique!! *chef's kissy fingers*

So with all that emotional baggage weighing us down, how do we start season 3? How else - with a threesome of course! And also some technicolor grading, it’s wild guys.

Oh boy guys, let’s talk about this opener for a hot sec. I got into it a little bit last season, but as much as I love Dean, you HAVE to admit that that boy is gross. Just like...he’s a little gross. I’m also old enough now to see exactly how many red flags he’s raising through the last 45 episodes. Like, sorry Little Me, but he is not boyfriend material. Not to mention that all this debauchery is 1,000% him distracting himself from the consequences of his own actions, but we’ll get into that later.

Meanwhile, Sam is doing something constructive and trying to figure out how to reverse the curse and save Dean’s soul. And here we have the culmination of two seasons worth of character development - faced with the imminent demise of Dean Samuel Winchester, Sam tries to step up and take care of his brother for once in his life; Dean parties like it’s 1999. There were two things I thought of during this episode - 1) isn’t this not unlike the sort of behavior you see in suicidal people who have finally decided to take their own life? Which is just, like, further held up by the fact that Dean’s big monologue at the end literally has the line “Truth is I’m tired, Sam. There’s a light at the end of the tunnel.” and like...dude, you are NOT ok! Why isn't??? ANYONE??? ADDRESSING THIS????? And 2) Dean is sharing a lot of similarities with the demons in this episode.

Because MEANwhile, there’s demons! So many demons! Specifically, the Seven Deadly Sins ones, but also, spoiler alert, Ruby, who is gettin’ reeeeealll into that ketchup.

All these baddies just really taking advantage of their time topside cuz Hell is, as they so artfully put it, it’s like Hell, so they’re just livin’ it up while they still can ~almost like foreshadowing or something~?!?!?

Real talk though, it being a real long time since I’ve watched this season, it’s these kinds of details that I’m impressed with this time around. There is so much character work that goes into this show and it’s something I definitely connected with the first time around, but not on conscious level. Now I can look at it through time and experience and articulate what I’m seeing, which makes this re-watch infinitely more enjoyable.

Episode 1 of this season continues what they started in season 2 and just keeps building out that Hunter Community. Like, there really is a whole Community out there that keeps in contact and works together and makes sure everyone’s up to date on the latest hot goss, and it all makes John Winchester come off like a real creepy splinter cell lone gunman type. And that in turn makes the Winchester sons look like total, unprofessional boneheads who managed to open a portal to Hell. “UGH Great Jorb Guys, but can we blame them? They’re John’s kids,” is a conversation between hunters that I am headcannoning, but also 100% support.

Honestly, I love the idea of the Winchesters being just these real, like, b-grade, Walmart Brand Hunters that other Hunters are just SO done with. We kind of see a little bit of that with Isaac and Tamara, but by the end of the episode, the Winchesters prove that they’re...better Hunters? I hope somewhere in the next 12 seasons I get an episode that is told from another Hunter’s POV who is legitimately better/more emotionally balanced than the Winchesters and the whole episode is them just, like, cleaning up a bunch of Winchester messes like, SONuvabitch, these two ASSholes. I think we see a fair amount of episodes from the POV of people who are less qualified than the Winchesters who end up being mentored by them, but I’d be stoked for them to run into just a group of people who hate them for totally legitimate, professional vs amature reasons.

Bobby does not count because Bobby signed up to be their Dad and so he agreed to take care of their messes when he took that job.

And then we get to “The Kids Are Alright” which showcases one of my fav changes for this season - BRIGHTLY! LIT! HIGH! SATURATION!!!! And of course, by fav, I mean, Most Hilarious.

I do walk a fine line on this one truth be told. Like, season 1 was definitely going for A Look. It’s super gritty and high contrasty and stylized. Now, I got what they were going for but I wasn’t always crazy about it, mostly because the quality on the DVD’s was terrible. Quick tip for everyone: in order to get 2+ hours worth of content on a DVD, you have to compress the final edit of the program to a pretty small bitrate. When we drop videos onto DVD’s at my work (it isn’t often, thank goodness), the discs themselves only hold, like, 2GB worth of content and that is NOT A LOT when it comes to video files. The more compressed a video file is, the less detail you’re gonna get in the visuals. Watching episodes on Netflix (where everything’s probably at a higher bitrate and therefore is a better quality visual), it’s not bad, but on my DVDs, the compression is so heavy that we get SUPER hot highlights and SUPER crunchy shadows - what a lot of people would called “crushed blacks” because you’ve lost all the detail in the shadows and you’re left with a grainy, noisy, black hole on the screen. Like I lost so much detail in the pilot episode guys, I could not make out this guy’s face.

A rough approximation of my DVD quality. Still recommend it over Netflix for the Accurate Soundtrack tho.

Season 2 SPN toned that Look down a lot, like, a lot a lot. Enough that you still got the general vibe they were going for but not enough that you couldn’t make out faces anymore. But through this whole process, the CW execs kept pushing for the show to look lighter, more colorful, less film noir more...well, CW. And in season 3 it finally happened!!!

I get what those execs were going for, but also, I feel like the colorists on these first few episodes just REALLY went wild out of spite. Lookit this shot from “Magnificent Seven” right before Envy causes some rando innocent bystander to beat a girl to death for her shoes -

GREEN GREEN GREEN GREEN!!!! I WONDER WHICH SIN THIS GUY IS????

Then in “The Kids Are Alright” the birthday party looks like everything is coated in day-glow neon.

The Winchester Bros look like they just got back from 3 weeks in Aruba - LOOK at the saturation levels in these skin tones! LOOK AT THEM!!

My screencap ability aside, only in SPN can a cemetery at night have brighter lighting than a diner in the middle of the afternoon.

This is definitely a thing I will be tracking the rest of the season because I have a distinct memory of a future episode where the brothers have been magically gifted completely different lives where they were never Hunters, they know nothing of Hunting, and they’re completely normal until the end when everything gets snapped back and the episode literally changes colors. V. Excited to see just how saturated this season stays through the end.

But maybe more importantly in “The Kids Are Alright” we learn that Dean does NOT, in fact, have a son. Not that he would be a good father...well...maybe? I mean, this Dean, this season 3, definitely-suicidal, completely-reckless, can’t-keep-it-together Dean, is not good Dad material. Later seasons Dean? Probably fine? Earlier seasons Dean might ALSO be fine? And if he’d found out that Ben was his legitimate kid, it could have made a WORLD of difference, who knows. I know he ultimately does become father-like to Ben and that gives me a lot of feelings. But this Dean is not in a good place to take care of anyone, including himself and really, someone ought to do something about that.

I gotta say, this is an actual bummer. I can’t remember if, in the later seasons, they do any clarifying on this or not, but I am legitimately bummed that Ben is not Dean’s kid and that as far as we know, Dean has no natural children floating around out there with surly attitudes and soft hearts. Dean’s motivation from Day 1 has always been family and despite what comments he may make in early seasons, Dean’s secret desire is to have the wife and the kids and the dog and the white picket fence. And honestly, we’re only 3 seasons in and I just want Dean to have nice things!!

And then guys, we come to “Bad Day at Black Rock,” and I just...WHAT a masterpiece. I had almost NO memory of ever watching this episode before and I don't understand why. What a glorious masterpiece this episode is. Let’s make a list -

More Hunters™, who should be really annoying but were actually kinda charming in a Marx Brothers kind of way

Gordon’s in jail, where he belongs, but also is masterminding a coup against the Winchesters which is A+ spooky stuff

Slapstick comedy that I didn’t know I was missing from my life

Bela F*cking Talbot

Guys, I think this is my fav episode so far purely because I felt, while watching it, that the last 10 years of my life were not in vain and that I had in fact grown as a human person. I remembered hating Bela Talbot. Like, I DID. NOT. LIKE. HER. To the point that I questioned if her British accent was even real. It is, her mother is from the UK and she lived there for a time, but like, honestly, the audacity of Little Me.

This time around? Oh she’s defs my new fav. Just everything about her is like, A+, Great Job, Why-Did-We-Cancel-Her??? Like, oh yeah, probably because somewhere in here they try to shoehorn a romantic side plot with Dean. I don’t actually mind rioting over shoehorned romance, but also, if they’d let this play out for a season or two and then got the two of them to bone? I’m on board. I’m 100% on board.

Maybe it’s just that she is unapologetically out for herself, maybe it’s the fact that she is definitely a match for the Winchesters in a non-murdery way, probably it is both of those things. She's smart, she’s crooked, she has impeccable taste, she’s honestly a helluva lot of fun and I am so excited to see more of her and so BUMMED that she will not make it past this season.

Despite the fact that I absolutely adore all three of these episodes, they also bring up the problem that I was starting to see in season 2 - WHO is this show about? Isn’t it supposed to be about the Brothers as a whole? But the majority of these first three lean pretty heavily on Dean’s emotional arc. Granted, it makes sense. I mean, of COURSE Dean’s demon deal is gonna be the BIG thing in a season where he is literally staring down the barrel, but knowing that there’s a side plot about Is Sam Evil?? seems like...something we should really explore more? I believe it comes up in season 4, or at least, Sam’s demon-blood powers become a bigger deal in season 4, but I would have enjoyed seeing Sam have a more active stake in this season. I can see planting some weird new ticks being planted for Alive-Again Sam that just get weirder and darker and then a mid-season finale or a run up episode to the end of the season where Dean (finally) decides he needs to stop his demon deal because he needs to stick around so he can keep Sam from going completely off the rails. As much as I love Dean 5ever, I do think the show works best when the emotional weight of the season is distributed equally is all. And to be fair to the writers this season, there could have been a bigger plan for something like that but they ran out of time - their season was cut by about a third due to the Writer’s Strike.

Still, all in all, a solid opening to the third season. I want to say that these episodes feel like Classic SPN, but then I remember that this is season three out of fifteen. These ARE Classic SPN. Mostly self contained with enough emotional drama to remind us of the overarching plot. Maybe a little heavy on the emotional drama, but Dean’s only got a year to live and the show’s only got 16 episodes to resolve that crisis, so it’s fine.

#Supernatural #Supernatural rewatch #Season 3 #Magnificent Seven #The Kids are Alright #bad day at black rock #Sam Winchester #Dean Winchester #Bela Talbot #Hunters #Sam and Dean #Writer's Strike #TV #TV History #Bela talbot is maybe great #and I should say it

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letterstothemidnightsociety · 3 years

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Season 3: The Background

Alright guys, so while I’m digging in to season 3, now seems like the perfect time to introduce the biggest antagonist to a television series - the 2007/2008 Writers Guild of America Strike.

Nary a scripted program was unaffected by the great Writer’s Strike of Aught 7, and woe betide those shows cancelled in their prime, cut down too soon. Pour one out for The 4400.

Since the Writer’s Strike would ultimately have a big impact on this season of Supernatural, I thought I’d start out with a Writer’s Strike Primer. Here are some very brief facts:

Every three years, the Writers’ Guild of America negotiates for basic rights and salaries of their members with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. WGA represents television writers (and film AND radio and OTHER media writers, but we’re only concerned about TV for right now); the AMPTP represents the studios that pay for production. It sounds wild now, but the big issues at stake in ‘07 were residuals (or small profits) for DVD sales.

See, screenwriters, and specifically TV writers, are paid a lump sum per script. So for a TV writer, every episode they hand in that airs is a payday. Now that may sound appealing, but for a staff writer on a 30-min sitcom in the year 2020, the payment for a teleplay is only between $10 - $20,000 and you’re probably not writing more than a handful of episodes in a season. Factor in that you will not be working for at least 6 weeks of the year in between seasons and the fact that there’s no guarantee you’ll get a job during staffing in April/May, and that lump sum payment doesn’t stretch as far as you think it will, especially if you’re living in LA. To compensate for that, the WGA makes sure that TV writers get residuals for each additional airing of their episode. This is why syndication is so important - that’s when you start making the REAL money. And by real, I mean, tenths of a percent.

But even back in the 2000s the media landscape was changing. The big disrupters were TiVo and home video sales, closely followed by the onset of Internet video. Rising DVD sales meant that the future of reruns were in question and so the fate of residuals was looking bleak. When negotiations were being held in 2007, there was a contingency plan for home video sales already in place, but it had been set over a decade beforehand. Back in 1985, when movies and tv shows were first getting released on VHS, nobody thought that home theaters would be much of a draw. VHS tapes and VCR’s were expensive, and the market didn’t seem to be going anywhere. So the AMPTP and the WGA agreed that the script writers for any movie or TV show would receive 0.3% of the profits for the first million dollars made on VHS or Betamax or LaserDisc (yes, BETAMAX OR LASER DISC) and 0.36% of the profits after that. And then home theaters did what no one expected - they boomed! VHS tapes got cheaper to produce, DVD’s were even cheaper, and by 2007, the home movie market was pretty money. By that time, the WGA felt like they’d gotten a poor deal and asked for a bump in percentages - from .3% to .6% of the sale of each DVD.

On TOP of that, by ‘07 shows were airing not just on television but also on the Internet, at that time dubbed “New Media”. New Media was a twofold question - 1) how will writers get compensated for purchases and rentals from sites like iTunes?; and 2) how will writers get compensated for episodes streamed on a network’s website?

The current state was that writers received .3% for episode downloads, but streaming video was considered “promotional” by the networks and therefore the networks concluded it wasn’t necessary to pay anyone residuals for those viewings. Reading the writing on the digital wall, the WGA wanted to lock in a better deal than they’d made on home video sales over a decade earlier. Even then, the industry knew that streaming was going to be a big game changer and they didn’t want to fall behind.

Negotiations started in October, but the AMPTP was unwilling to accept these major sticking points from the WGA and negotiations broke down almost immediately. The AMPTP (who was representing the big studios) claimed that they needed the profits from the sales (and downloads) to compensate for rising production budgets and would not move. The WGA responded by shutting down production on all shows in LA, New York (and Canada) starting November 5th and running through February of 2008.

In hindsight, we can see just how important the sales and new media issues were and still are, especially since cable TV is continually in a downward trend for American households. The WGA negotiations would shortly be followed by the Screen Actors Guild contract negotiations and everyone in the industry knew that the outcomes of the WGA deal would impact what SAG would be able to negotiate for their contracts, followed by other deals made for other guilds and unions in Hollywood.

Ultimately, the WGA received some allowances but not nearly as much as they wanted. DVD residuals remained at .3%, but they were able to negotiate for 1.2% of online rental profits, .65%-.7% of online purchase profits and 2% of gross profits from ad-supported streaming sites but ONLY after 17 days from the original air date.

Thanks to COVID, we’re coming out of a strangely similar situation. At a time when streaming media is higher than ever, COVID shutdowns put a halt on production for months, leaving the 2020 staffing season and fall premiere season in limbo through the summer. When you take into account the fact that traditional TV production is rapidly coming to an end, I won’t be surprised to see another WGA or similar strike on the horizon. In fact, there were rumors that the WGA was on the verge of striking while they renewed their AMPTP contract in April of 2020, but luckily an agreement was reached and a strike was avoided.

Then, like now, the whole industry was impacted by delays, shortened seasons, and outright cancellations. In both cases, Supernatural was impacted. In 07, production shut down after 12 episodes had been completed and ultimately the third season only ended with 16 episodes total. This time, Supernatural was shut down after completing production on 18 out of 20 final episodes. They did not shorten the season, but only 14 episodes aired in their original time slots. The final 6 were delayed until October, after they were able to complete production on the final two episodes. Thus, the series finale that was supposed to air in May of 2020 did not air until November.

Coming back to season 3, I’m going to predict that this season will play out closer to the kinds of shows that start up on streaming sites today. 16 episodes is a pretty big hit from the 22 of seasons 1 and 2. Although production in 2007 didn’t shut down until about half way through the season, my guess is that there will be a lower percentage of self-contained episodes and more emphasis on the Main Quest - saving Dean’s soul from hell. I’m very interested to see if this looks and feels like the show we could have gotten if SPN had premiered 10 years later on Netflix or Hulu, so I’m pretty excited to dive into it. I know that they introduce two new female characters - Ruby and Bela. I know that they introduce a new Big Bad since the Yellow-Eyed-Demon is dead. And I know that ultimately, our boys fail their quest yet again - that Dean doesn’t get saved and the final shot of the season ends with him literally in hell. I have almost no memory of anything else in this season. So it should be a fun ride!

#Supernatural #SPN #WGA #AMPTP #Writer's Strike #2007 #Sam Winchester #dean winchester #Season 3 #COVID TV #TV history #TV Production #supernatural rewatch #Betamax #Laser Disc #Writer's Strike of 2007

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letterstothemidnightsociety · 3 years

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Before I wrap up season 2 forever, I want to take a second to talk about the ladies in this show. SPN has a bad rap sheet when it comes to female characters and it still feels a little early to start talking feminist criticisms with the show - I mean, we’re only in season 2, have the tropes really solidified themselves yet to draw any conclusions? - but it’s something I want to track moving forward, so here we go.

See on the second to last disc, there’s a quartet of episodes (episodes 16 - 19) that really checks off the bingo card of Female Characters. You have your Damsels (Molly, “Roadkill”, Madison, “Heart), your Sluts (Tara Benchley, “Hollywood Babylon”) your Bitches (Nurse Dolores Glockner, “Folsom Prison Blues”), your free square for Bangs Dean (Tara again) and also your wild card for Bangs Sam (Madison).

A few weeks ago, I talked about the women in these episodes and if I didn’t mention it then, I’ll say it now - I really liked these characters. They felt well rounded, respected, their wardrobe wasn’t too 2000’s CW. Plus, they covered a whole spectrum of different women, they didn’t all fill the same rote character that you would expect from a show like Supernatural.

But a long running TV Series is all about patterns and templates. SPN definitely has several and watching this disc felt like the beginnings of their patterns for women. Now, none of these ladies were intended to come back after their respective episodes. They are not set up to be recurring characters. And in a show where someone is murdered pretty much EVERY episode, it stands to reason that some of those definitely-murdered people will be women about 50% of the time. And according to this livejournal that I dug up from the depths of the internet, that’s roughly the numbers on death/dead count on seasons 1 - 5.

But of the two female deaths that we do get in this quartet, I’ll even argue that these were good deaths - they were philosophically important to the story that the show is telling at this point in the series. Both Molly and Madison are technically Monsters, both need to be stopped from hurting others, both make the decision to leg go and move on to the Great Beyond. They’re setting up for the ultimate emotional showdown at the end of this season. And they don’t feel cheap when I watch it that way. Their deaths don’t feel like fridging the way that Jessica or Mary’s deaths felt like fridging.

Watching these characters, I started to get a little defensive - SPN, or at the very least, season 2’s writing team, do know how to write decent female characters. They’re not tropey, unless you count “Smol with a Hint of Slutty” as a trope. And that could be said about a lot of the female characters this season. Jo might need some fleshing out, but seeing as how she’s supposed to be green, that works for me. She’s just starting this journey, she’s not quite developed into who she’s supposed to be yet. Ellen is a great female character, and more importantly, a female character that doesn’t want to sleep with either of the Winchesters. Ava was fun and bubbly and excited to be here; Detective Linda Blair was a little bit of a badass; even Angela Mason- well, maybe not Angela Mason. She died because of texting and driving, which is rough. My point is, there’s actually a lot of very interesting and different and decently rounded female characters in this season.

What was it that made these characters work for me? What was the secret to them feeling well-rounded and real when I know that the show has a poor track record with female characters? I was seriously racking my brain trying to figure it out and honestly the answer was so stupid, I’m like, maybe the dumbest girl in school.

Cuz see, I was looking back at Jo’s introduction and the backlash from fans, so I thought that maybe the un-tropeyness of these women was a reaction to that. As in, the writing team knew they had to try harder to get the (primarily) female fans not to riot at characters who felt too manufactured. But then I looked up the writers on these specific episodes and all these stand out lady characters were written by female writers - Ava was introduced in “Hunted” by Raelle Tucker; Detective Linda Blair was in “The Unusual Suspects” by Cathryn Humphris; “Heart” was from Sera Gamble; “Roadkill” was Raelle Tucker again. You know who fans didn’t like? Jo. You know who wrote the first Jo episode? And the second? A dude - John Shiban and Matt Witten respectively. You know who wrote the episode “Born Under A Bad Sign”, where 19yo Me got on board with Jo back in 2009? A lady - it was Cathryn Humphris again. Now, I’ve said that I like Jo a lot in the Year of Our Troubles, 2020, and I will fight you if you try to tell me there is anything wrong with Jo, but I very much wonder what would have happened if they’d let Gamble or Tucker or Humphris introduce that character. I VERY MUCH WONDER.

Because SPN can’t seem to make a good woman stick around on this show. They give up on Jo. They give up on Ellen. They give up on Bella next season. And I know there are female characters that arrive in later seasons, but from what I’ve heard about them, the news isn’t great there either.

But Bobby becomes a series regular. Cas becomes a series regular. Crowley becomes a series regular for a time. I’m not mad about these characters that do become series regulars, but it does make you wonder why the female characters - especially the ones who were initially written to be recurring characters - don’t recur. I’ll be the first to admit that I didn’t like Jo at first, and I hated Bella. Jo grew on me through the season and obviously this watch, I like her character a lot, so we’ll see what happens with Bella next season. Also, cuz now I’m in my 30’s and I do my best to avoid girl-on-girl-crime.

I’d like to say that a show being produced today that skews this male heavy (and male gaze-y) wouldn’t work today, but we all know that it probably could. Things are looking better, and representation of women in film and television, both on-screen AND off, is becoming more balanced, so we’re moving in the right direction. What I think wouldn’t work today is the introduction of female characters as just love interests or just eye candy which is a lot of what SPN does - and probably why a lot of them didn’t work for the long haul. I think that a benefit to the shorter, more streamlined seasons from streaming services is that the addition of any characters, but specifically female characters, have to be more thought out and established, they can’t just be thrown in to see what audiences will respond to. They become more of an integral part of the storytelling, not just a side plot to help bulk out an episode. I think that’s why both Madison and Molly especially work - because they’re there to help tell the story, not just get an emotional rise out of our leads. Of course, Madison sleeps with Sam, so there’s still some of that kind of manipulation going on, but at least it has more weight to it.

TL;DR

If you want to write a fully fleshed out, solid female character, maybe at least consult a woman on your script? But that’s just one (wo)man’s opinion.

#Supernatural #SPN #Supernatural Rewatch #Supernatural Season 2 #Women and Supernatural #jo harvelle #ellen harvelle #Molly #Madison #Heart #Roadkill #Folsom Prison Blues #hollywood babylon #I should have made a bingo card #But I didn't #girl-on-girl-crime

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letterstothemidnightsociety · 3 years

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I made it! I made it through season 2! Finally! And buckle up cuz I’m pretty sure I have some Thoughts and I don’t think anyone is gonna like them. It’s Supernatural!

OK, I have to preface this post by saying I love(ed) the season 2 finale. But I gotta say, it is everything right and wrong with this series as a whole. Story-wise, I don’t even care; character-wise, they are all hot messes, and it is perfect; you get cameos from characters you got inexplicably attached to despite seeing VERY little of in the previous episodes and a plot that goes nowhere. Carry On My Wayward Son Forever!

Now even though it’s not technically the finale, let’s start with “What is and What Should Never Be,” because emotionally it might as well be. This episode might be the rudest bitch to grace my screen so far and also possibly for the rest of the series. I’ll say this for Raelle Tucker: she knows what we want. Or she knows what me, specifically, wants - all that gooey messy feelingsy internal conflict just right out there in the open.

Dean gets punched in the Face? Check.

Dean is happy? Check.

Dean is also very sad and struggling with ALL his feelings? Check.

Dean all hurt and weak and just generally in need of a hug? Check check aaaaand check.

Alright, all my kinks aside, what an episode! We’re far enough into the series (42 episodes to be precise) that the setup for this episode feels like payoff. Dean’s on a hunt and then suddenly, he’s not. He’s not on a hunt and also there never was a hunt and also there is no hunting because Dean lives in Lawrence Kansas with the Apple Pie Life that he’s secretly always wanted. He has a house! He mows lawns!

And there is something supremely, heart-breakingly satisfying about Dean getting to see and hug and talk to his mom. Like, that is literally all he has wanted for the last 20+ years of his life and he gets it, he finally gets it!

Of course, this AU world isn’t without its flaws. John is dead, for one. I’m sorry, that...that should have gone in the first paragraph. Great news! John is Dead!

This is the most magnificent photoshop butchery I have ever seen.

More of an actual flaw though is that Sam and he aren’t even a little bit close.

And here is SPN Problem #1 that the finale presents us with: Dean without the tragedy is kind of a dick. We’ve seen glimpses of Dean’s douchetastic behavior in other episodes - he’s a womanizer/sexist, he’s impulsive, he’s unyielding (as in, he doesn’t change his opinions easily, even when faced with evidence to the contrary). But all of these undesirable traits are mostly overshadowed because Dean is Tragic. He’s all full of twisty sad emotions that he bottles up and deflects because Man Reasons. Because of his Tragic Past™, his deepest desires are to love and to be loved in return, to make up for all that lovin’ he didn’t get when he was children. And that speaks to us.

But this episode takes away the hunting and the traumatic backstory and all that’s left are his worst traits. By the way that his family and friends react to him, these seem to have flourished. AU Dean is like, one long night away from an intervention.

AU Dean doesn’t remember birthdays or family events and that’s typical. AU Dean slept with Sam’s prom date and isn’t on speaking terms with him. Everything we know and like about Dean goes away, leaving only the parts that make me, a viewer in 2020, u n c o m f o r t a b l e.

And listen, listen. I am firmly on Team Dean. I think that should be pretty obvious. If a quick search of AO3 can be used as evidence, Dean seems to be the Winchester of Choice for a majority of the fandom (Dean is tagged in roughly 197,158; Sam in only tagged in 156,591). And I’m not going to pretend that I can speak to everyone’s feelings, but I think a lot of us Team Dean fans would agree that we like Dean cuz he’s strong on the outside, sad and squishy on the inside. It’s a little bit But I just really think I can fix him! and a little bit that hurt/comfort kink. And believe me, I get it. Like, I get. It. I am here for it. But I also...am not thrilled...about what that says about me???? Because if the only reason that I like a character is because Sad, it makes me take a real long hard look at my life and my choices. This finale really embraces the Tragedy Dean, and if that’s where we left this particular SPN trope, I wouldn’t be having this conversation. But I also know that the things Dean struggles with in this episode don’t go away. They’re always there. I’mma come back to this one, stay with me for a minute.

On to problem #2 that this season has - WHO is the main character in this show? I know, that’s a silly question, the main character is The Winchesters, plural. It’s not an is, it’s an are. Both of them are the main character. Except…

When it’s Sam vs. Dean, we ALL win...

This season starts with Dean, right? It starts with Dean trying to work out a lot of feelings while he’s in a coma. Then he comes back from the dead, sort of, and the first, like, six episodes are him “dealing” with his father’s death and the unbearable burden that his father left on him: John died so Dean could live and is Dean even worth all that? Not to mention the double whammy that John laid on him with “Oh by the way, your brother might be evil and you might have to kill him. K Byeeee!”

But then we do get episodes like “Simon Said” and “Heart” and you’re like, OK, Sam’s got issues too and now the show is giving those issues their full attention. But even eps where Sam’s abilities/arc become a major plot issue are as much to do with Dean as they are with Sam, maybe even more so. I’m looking at “Hunted” and “Born Under a Bad Sign” which show a way heavier emphasis on Dean’s inability to cope with Sam finally turning evil than on Sam potentially being evil. And I might just be seeing what I wanna see, but Kripke even talks about the fact that he never gave Sam’s emotional arc enough weight this season. I know I talked about this in my last post, but it’s the same story in the first half of “All Hell Breaks Loose”. This episode is almost entirely about Sam, we have way fewer Dean scenes than in the rest of the season, and that feels a little like whiplash. I’m not mad about what they’re trying to do. I like what’s happening in the Sam scenes, I don’t hate Sam’s storyline, and I think this is where we need to be for the finale. But it feels like there’s not enough build up to be satisfied by this part of the plot suddenly popping up again. And when you pair it with “What Is and What Should Never Be” it feels like a wild departure from the emotional peak we hit in the last episode. Even Andy is like, but wait, is Dean here?!?

So in “All Hell Breaks Loose Pt. 1”, Sam gets abducted by the Yellow Eyed Demon and dropped in a literal ghost town in some Wild West Backlot with a bunch of other Psychic Children. I’m not kidding when I say that this old timey ghost town full of actual old timey ghosts is the angriest I have been at this series so far. Just. REALLY. Really guys. REALLY. A GHOST TOWN? Ugh.

Anyway, this is a real dream team of some f’d up dudes and also Andy. Like literally, all of them have been traumatized by SOMEthing, except Andy who is still just living his best life now. Takin every day in stride, one hit at a time. And Sam, the most knowledgeable, tries to take the lead and keep everyone safe. I am a fan of Take Charge Sam. I like watching him both in and out of his element - in it because this is just another hunt, albeit with maybe higher stakes; out of it because he usually has an older brother to rely on and now he’s got to be the leader and do the protecting. And he’s doin’ a great job! Well, he’s doin’ his best.

But then the Psychic kids just keep gettin’ picked off one by one as the episode reveals that the YED brought them all here to fight each other to the death so he can find his champion for his plans and whatever. I guess. Honestly, this part gets a little muddled for me, because in the next episode we find out that this whole thing, this whole convoluted plan with the babies and the demon blood (oh yeah, btw there’s demon blood) and the moms on the ceiling and the psychic powers show down- yeah, this whole thing? Just a plan to open a door. That’s it. That’s all. The YED needs ONE thing and like…

Anybody else getting these vibes outta the YED’s plan? Anybody?

Anyway after Andy and Ava both snuff it, all that’s left is the magnanimous Aldis Hodge as Jake The Army Guy and Sam.

Yeah ya are!

The scene between Sam and Jake where Jake tries to explain that he has to kill Sam because if Jake survives, Jake can kill the demon is so good - like, it’s heartbreaking and it’s tense and it’s frustrating but also incredibly laughable because Jake, you don’t even know, like, Sam has been hunting this thing for literally his whole life and he’s never even gotten close and you just found out about this guy, like, yesterday and you think you’re gonna be the one to finally kill him?!?!

In the meantime, Dean’s teamed up with Bobby/Poppa Hunter, tried to get in contact with Ash (ASH!), found the Road House in ruins and finally made his way to the literal ghost town. Dean (and Poppa Hunter) show up just in time to watch Sam get KNIFED IN THE BACK AND DIE.

I mean, I gotta hand it to Season 2 SPN, they are NOT afraid to just straight up kill characters off. Just donezo. Like, in 2020 it’s hilarious that anyone thought Sam was actually dead, but in 2007? DUDE. Well played!

Who got stabbed again? Was it Sam? Or was it Me who got stabbed RIGHT IN THE FEELS??

And then, THEN, then. We get whiplashed again because “All Hell Breaks Loose Pt. 2” spends like, the first third of the episode in Dean’s head. Because Dean can’t handle anymore family deaths, OK? Dean can’t handle any more loss. Dean’s already given so much to this job and he is just DONE with it, WHY can’t he just have ONE thing go right? WHY is he NEVER good enough?!? And so he makes the dumbest decision of his young life and sells his soul to bring his brother back to life.

Not sell your soul you beautiful dumb bitch.

And yeah, the rest of the episode has a plot. Like, there’s a literal door into literal hell and Aldis Hodge (BLESS HIM for gracing us with his on-screen presence) is gonna go open it (because he’s kind of a dummy) and they gotta stop that from happening.

YEAH ya can, Aldis.

Also, Ellen (who did NOT die!) shows up and I immediately start shipping her and Bobby like, immediately.

It’s your Hunting Mom and your Hunting Dad! Let’s Parent-Trap this bitch!!!

But the heart of this episode is still Dean’s Feelings!!! Or, to use the technical term, I guess we could call it his emotional arc, sure, whatever. Even after Sam’s back in action and they start on the Quest for the episode, it still all comes back to Dean and his colossal F up. Bobby shouts at him because sometimes that’s what Dads do when you F up real bad, but it’s just cuz Bobby is scared for his boy and if Sam was John’s Fav, then I’m like 99% sure Dean is Bobby’s Fav.

Bobby, noooo!

The fight quickly devolves into Dean admitting that he shouldn’t be here. And I was...like...SHOCKED? That that’s where the argument went?? Like, the actual dialogue is:

Dean: At least this way, something good could come out of it, ya know? It’s like my life can mean something--

Bobby: And it didn’t before?? Have you got that low an opinion of yourself??

IT’S. TRUE. AND. YOU. SHOULD. SAY IT!

Which, like, 1,000% he does have that low of an opinion of himself. It’s all over this episode. The Crossroads Demon knows it. Dean admits it. The YED says it at the very end. Dean is Trash and the only good thing you can do with trash is throw it away.

And then, like, they continue on the quest, they DON’T stop Aldis Hodge from opening the hellmouth Literal Door to Hell, but they DO kill the YED once and for all and like, great news John Winchester gets to go to...Heaven???? It’s a little unclear, but also it’s unimportant because Sam finds out that Dean sold his soul. Because he [Dean] doesn’t think he [Dean] deserves to live.

And now we get back to my qualm at the beginning of this post. Dean is kind of at rock bottom here, so where do we go now? I mean, for a lot of shows and movies that hit a point like this, the only way out is up, so maybe I’ve just been conditioned to expect that. For SPN, they pull out a shovel and start digging.

Dean’s gonna spend the next 13 years in this emotional quagmire and I just don’t...I don’t...like it? Like, even when he’s happy he can’t be happy? And look, that’s not to say that people don’t struggle with their self worth and anxiety and depression for their whole lives, I am one of those people, but I don’t like the idea that the SPN writing team/The Fandom at large would take that and make it a character’s whole identity? Hell, Cas’ last line to Dean essentially boils down to “I know you don’t think you’re worth it, but you are.”

And again, I don’t want to make light of the fact that Dean’s feelings are experienced by people on an everyday basis in the real world. I don’t want to minimize the fact that Dean’s choice to keep fighting, every day, even though he thinks he’s garbage, even though he’s been knocked down so many times that he just doesn't want to get up anymore - it’s a damn important choice. Someone watches that season after season and maybe it helps them to keep fighting.

But I also know that a show likes SPN works on a pattern, a template for the episode structure and the characters. You give your audience the same basic model over and over and over again until you reach syndication and then you keep going because that’s what got you to this many episodes. You find something that works and you don’t fix it. This show digs into Tragedy Dean because That’s What the Fans Want. The writing team found out that we like all these gooey feelings and sad puppy eyes and so they don’t ever give the character an opportunity to grow and change and get better. Because TragedyTM is what defines him, right? They just lock him in this static border-line suicidal malaise for the next 13 seasons because isn’t that what you liked about this character in the first place? So it’s not that I have a problem with Dean having a tragic backstory, and it’s not that I have a problem with Dean battling his own depression and feelings of worthlessness. It’s that the show makes these character traits so incredibly obvious and clear, and then just makes Dean fester in these feelings probably because they seem to track well with the 18-24 yo demographic.

And I will admit it, I will stand up and shout it from the roof tops I am (was?) part of the problem here!!! but I’m also older and wiser and I’ve watched Parks and Rec like 80 times and never made it through SPN in it’s entirety. There’s a reason for that, and it’s not just the difference in episode count and duration. Parks and Rec isn’t as tied to its formulas. It allows characters to grow and change and fail and grow again. SPN doesn’t give us a Chris Traeger/Richard Nygard storyline where Dean recognizes that he has to do something about his mental and emotional health and tries to find help. The show just sort of ignores them until they can use them as an emotional gut punch to the audience.

Now listen, this is still back in season 2. At the time this episode aired, the plan was still only 5 seasons long. And again, if the show had ended after 5 seasons, I don’t know that I’d be making this argument. But Dean is ready to call it quits in season 2. Now it’s 2020 and I know, as an audience member, that he has to live like this for another decade. Maybe I will be surprised. Maybe as I get into seasons that I haven’t watched yet, this Dean will find some kind of healing or comfort or help or something. But at this point in the series, I feel a little concerned about what’s to come. If Dean wants to retire in season 2 how do you make that last for the next 13 years?

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letterstothemidnightsociety · 3 years

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It’s been a wild few weeks but surprise! I am back and I am still watching two dudes beat up ghosts and look pretty. It’s Supernatural!

Alright so here I am on the penultimate disc (thanks Lemony Snicket) of season 2 and at this point in the series we should be ramping up for the season finale. If you look back at this point in season 1, that meant putting the Winchesters under heavy fire (with the one funny episode), but this season it feels like they’re more interested in philosophical, emotional ramping than action ramping (with one funny episode).

So many FEELINGS!

And you know what? I gotta hand it to Kripke and Co., cuz they figured out what worked in season 1 (brothers and feelings) and they leaned into it this season (brothers + feelings = 15 seasons). It’s a little hit and miss, but the core of season 2 is all about the line between Monsters and Men. I say hit and miss because we have spent a LOT of time on Dean this season but these episodes are all about Sam. And Dean’s arc is very different from Sam’s. Dean’s emotional arc is all about how he’s done with hunting, he’s done with sacrificing, which is WILD if you think about how early in the series this is. And yeah, it does, it does tie in to Sam’s troubles but it just doesn’t feel as clean as it could. Maybe it’s just because they spend much more time on Dean’s feelings? Maybe it’s cuz I personally pay more attention to Dean that I feel this way? But also, consider: the ep where Sam seemingly goes off the rails is all about Dean’s internal struggle with whether or not he can waste his own brother, even if his brother is evil now. We don’t ever see the fallout from Sam’s point of view. Sam was possessed at the time, he didn’t really go darkside, but also, Sam was possessed at the time??? And we don’t see any emotional fallout from that?!?!?

Nah, we’ll just end on this cringy joke about a girl being all up in Sam for a week and deflect away from our problems, nbd.

Kripke has mentioned in interviews that he thought the mythos of this season was muddled and that the psychic children plotline doesn’t really land because we never see Sam struggle with whether he’s good or not. At this point in the season, I definitely agree. They do give dialogue to Sam to remind viewers that he’s struggling with who he is, but they don’t devote enough screen time to it to make it feel like it lands. Dean’s struggle to keep Sam alive hits a lot heavier, but that may have more to do with that face and that g- d- lip quiver.

Damn you and that lip quiver Jensen Ackles. Oh wait, this show already did!

Now we’re gonna make an abrupt turn into Sam’s emotional arc for the series. See, for the next few episodes we’re gonna follow a bunch of Monsters, right? By surface level definition, they are all text book Monsters, but they aren’t Villains, and that’s a big distinction. Because a lot of these characters are fundamentally good people, but they’re also the thing that the Winchesters have sworn their lives to hunt, so, like...how do we deal with that?

First up we have “Roadkill”, which I like as a deviation from the regular format. There’s a lot of this tinkering going around this season, or at least, those are the episodes that stand out the most to me. I of course love Tricia Helfer (as a sort-of-but-not-really Battlestar Galactica Fan). This episode straight up brings us back to that key question this season: Are All Monsters Evil? Sam consistently draws a pretty clear distinction between Monster and Bad Guy, Dean consistently does not. Sam makes it clear that he has to believe there’s a line because if #YesAllMonsters are evil, and Sam’s abilities/destiny make him kind of a Monster, the logic follows that he’ll become evil too, or perhaps already is.

In this ep we see Helfer as Molly, a woman who slowly comes to realize that she is a ghost who has been haunting the same stretch of road once a year for twelve years. I think Helfer totally crushes it. I think Molly as a character is hella interesting. She comes across as a pretty realized person rather than just a caricature. There’s a lot of heart in her and I appreciate that she handles The Truth pretty well, both when Sam and Dean tell her about the hauntings and then later when they reveal that she has been dead for over a decade. She asks good questions, like where DO those ghosts go once they’ve been busted? And she represents our philosophical conundrum - she’s a ghost that they have to bust, but she’s not evil. She’s not even really that bad. She’s just stuck here and can’t figure out how to move on. By the logic of the show, if she sticks around for too much longer she’ll start to get corrupted, but for now she’s just a scared, lost, woman trying to find her husband. She even starts to sympathize with the actual bad guy of the episode, a man she vehicular-manslaughtered but who comes back every year to torture her.

And in the end, she finds peace! This is the second ghost this season that they actually lay to rest, not just defeat, and it’s nice. I think it’s nice.

Is it odd that, for an episode that should hit so close to Sam’s internal struggle, the whole story is told from Molly’s POV? Again, I loved it, I love seeing the Winchesters from an external point of view, but it is...interesting...

Then we get “Heart”, which just digs deeper into the themes we got in “Roadkill.”

This time, our Extra of the Week is another unwitting Monster. Emmanuelle Vaugier plays Madison, a kind of kickass lady who is really getting her shit together. She’s dumped her bad boyfriend, she’s killin’ it at work (lol), she’s out with friends, she’s a homeowner - this chick is LEGIT. And damn if she doesn’t know what she wants. Almost from the minute that Sam steps into her house she is into him, like, into him. She knows exactly what she’s doing when she dumps that basket of panties in front of him to “fold” them. Their chemistry together is good and honestly I was pretty thrilled for both of them when they got down to business.

Good for you, you crazy kids! Good for you!

But tragically, Madison is also werewolf. She’s completely oblivious to the fact that she is definitely murdering people on the full moon. When Sam finds out, and then finds out that Madison is not only unable to control her transformations or murders, but also unaware of what’s happening entirely, it’s another blatantly obvious metaphor for what Sam is dealing with - do supernatural powers make me a monster? Does being a monster make me evil? Does it count as evil if I’m not in control of my actions? And I love that this forces Dean to re-evaluate his stance as well. Cuz see Dean (and I love the guy) views things in very black and white terms, rarely asks questions and is 100% ready to kill this girl because she’s a Monster, full stop. Sam throws this back in his face with the line “So me you won’t kill me, but her you’re just gonna blow away?”, reminding us that Dean’s attitude is pretty damn hypocritical. And I say all of this as a Dean stan who loves watching that lip quiver, but also I am much more in agreement with Sam’s line of thinking on this - we can make a distinction between Monster and Evil in this show. I think ultimately, Dean starts to do this too, but just not in this episode.

To their credit, they do try to save Madison, but failing that, they realize that Madison can’t be saved and so she’ll have to be put down - they can’t save her, so they have to kill her, if you will. It’s a surprisingly emotional climax and got pretty heavy at the end when Sam - who’s trying to figure out if he is worth saving - has to...what do we want to call this, a mercy killing? An execution? I don’t know, it’s mostly just a hell of a gut punch. A well done gut punch, but a gut punch nonetheless.

The first lady that Sam bones since his fiancé and then you’re just like, and now you KILL her! Damn, show, what is WRONG with you?!?

I have to point out that we end the episode on Dean’s face. Like, I’m not mad about it, I am thrilled that on the list of Things That Work, Kripke and Co. were like, oh yeah, gotta put in as much Sad Dean Face as possible, but also, this was Sam’s episode? So shouldn’t we...get one final shot...of Sam? Like, I’m not crazy, right? They’re really pushing Dean this season, right? Who is this season supposed to be about?!?!?!

This is it! This is the last shot of the episode! This Sam-Centric Episode!

And then after all that heaviness and spiritual questioning, we get our Funny Episode. Meta Episode? Doesn’t matter.

“Hollywood Babylon” is A+ Great and I love it. I love watching shows about shows, it is my jam. Watching this time, I did wish they’d thrown in more niche? Like, I just felt like the inside jokes could have been more inside, but also, Dean was SO happy in this episode, I didn’t even care. We so rarely see anyone in this show be happy, it’s nice that they get a break sometimes. It’s also weird that Sam seemed to get the most break? As in, he was getting a break from this episode entirely, especially since the last episode was a pretty heavy emotional arc for him? It’s a weird choice, but not something I really noticed because I was distracted by Dean working his way up from PA to Grip in like, a day, and I was just so proud of him. Anyway it was nice. It was NICE!

He’s doing SUCH a good job!

In this episode, our super special Extra of the Week is another lady, the fictional actress Tara Benchley played by Elizabeth Whitmere. I should probably stop using the term extra, by SAG/AFTRA standards she’s (probably?) a Guest Star, but honestly aren’t they all background extras in the lives of the Winchesters? Anyway, I appreciate how they portray Tara. They could very easily have written her to be a real piece of work. She could have been a whiney diva, she could have been a ditz, she could have been any number of Actress Tropes, but she seems pretty even-keeled. She has a certain amount of clout on set, she is friendly with the crew, she’s given a character trait that’s shared by real life actor Jensen Ackles - they really do treat her with a surprising amount of respect for an episode that goes real hard on producers and studios and horror generally. And she doesn’t die! So that’s a plus! But she does sleep with Dean which is...I mean...also a plus? I don’t know. I love Dean but I sometimes wonder how much sex he’s actually had? Like, if you told me it was 75% exaggeration, I’d believe you. Unimportant side head cannon.

And then our final episode on this disc, “Folsom Prison Blues”. About time those boys went to jail, honestly.

What can I say? The boy looks good in a coverall.

We get the return of Henricksen in this episode which is fun! We get a pretty kickass public defender, Mara White (Bridget Ann White), who is also fun! And we get Prison Dean, which is maybe the funnest.

I like the twist with the prison warden - where you think that he’s going to be all aggro and corrupt and it turns out that he’s actually, like...looking out for his charges? In a...In a nice way? I guess? He wants the ghost to stop killing the people in his prison is the only fact that we get in the script, but it leads me to believe that he takes his job seriously and he wants second chances and better lives for all the cons in the yard and that makes me happy. He is also another in a long line of father figures that would have done a better job raising Sam and Dean, but that’s not important. And yeah, some of the cons are probably in here for good reason, but Lucas seems real nice and Tiny literally has a conversation with Dean where he explains that he’s basically just a product of bad parenting + Low Self Esteem, so on a low key level this episode is saying the same thing - just because these prisoners are technically “monsters”, does it mean that they have to die? Does that make the killings in this prison right? Everyone from Dean to the Warden seems to think not. Side note, that story from Tiny sounds eerily like Dean’s own life experiences, so he should probably have paid more attention to it but I guess he was busy getting cardiac arrest from a ghost so whatever.

If this story wasn’t just RIGHT on the nose.

Cuz that’s right, we have a psycho lady vigilante ghost! She does not believe in second chances and is killing cons from beyond the grave with her heart attack powers. And if we look at the low key metaphor tie in that the episode might be trying to make here, then you could argue that the show is coming down pretty hard on this one - just because you’re a Bad Guy doesn’t mean you’re a bad guy! Stop shooting first and asking questions later Dean!

It’s not your fault, bb, you were raised by a dumbass.

And all of this buildup leads to...”What is and What Should Never Be”, possibly one of my fav episodes for Reasons, but guys it’s another SUPER heavy Dean episode, you could even say that Sam, the real Sam, isn’t even in, like 75 - 80% of it before we...get...to...Sam’s season finale? You know what, that’s next week’s problem.

As much as I’m enjoying the stand alone episodes for this season especially, the mythos/arcs here are kind of a mess. I think the 20 ep seasons are instrumental to why audiences love the show, so I don’t want to take episodes away, but I do feel that a shorter season could have streamlined this season arc better. With fewer episodes, you have to focus your story so much more and sharpen your storytelling that Dean’s Arc and Sam’s Arc would probably feel more connected if they tried telling it in 8 - 12 episodes instead of 22. But then we wouldn’t have gotten the show that lasted 15 seasons, so would the trade off be worth it? Maybe some day we’ll find the alternate universe where Kripke waited 15 years to bring his series to Netflix and we got 5 short seasons of something completely different

#Sam Winchester #Dean Winchester #Supernatural #supernatural rewatch #Supernatural season 2 #Roadkill #Heart #Hollywood Babylon #Folsom Prison Blues #Sam and Dean #So much crying!#So many Feelings!#It's only season 2 guys #give yourself somewhere to GO from here!

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letterstothemidnightsociety · 3 years

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Yesterday I watched the beginnings of The Purge happening in real time and wondered where, exactly, I was, both physically and ecumenically. And since this season of The News is starting off even more ridiculous than the last year’s season, I’m not just gonna bury my feelings, I’m gonna salt and burn them. It’s Supernatural

Alright, previously on SPN, I thought we were finally ramping up on the Main Arc for season 2 and boy was I WRONG. The next few episodes clearly put the Main Quest on the back burner. Which, actually is pretty standard for Supernatural - you get a good run of quest episodes and then a switch to self-contained episodes that just sort of brush up against the season arc.

Next up is “Nightshifter” - a pretty solid stand alone episode about a guy who is definitely not robbing a bank.

I love Chris Gauthier, our Extra of the Week. Sam really does him dirty by refusing to give him the Truth is Out There deal. I think my biggest question coming out of that whole scene is why??? I mean, cool, Sam’s worried about Ronald Reznik getting killed, I get it, but how is Ronald’s story any different from any number of hunters that they’ve met in their lives? Ronnie even has his own John Winchester Patented Murder Board™. He did do a lot of the leg work for the Winchesters, even if he wasn’t 100% right. In Sam’s defense, Ronald does die almost immediately, but he had a great run.

You did good, kid. You did good.

More questions that I had about this episode? Special Agent Henriksen. Now don’t get me wrong, I do actually like Henriksen as an antagonist. I appreciate that the show is acknowledging just how shady hunters are. I mean, sure, they’re saving lives and killing evil sonsofbitches, blah blah blah, but also, they are regularly breaking and entering, finding dead bodies, leaving prints at crime scenes, impersonating officials, desecrating graves, not to mention that they are the last person seen with people who end up dead or missing. Like, it was only a matter of time before that came back to bite them.

Some A+ work from Charles Malik Whitfield

But here's the thing - season 2 already has SO much going on. Like, they gotta avenge their dad and kill the yellow-eyed-demon. On top of that, they gotta keep Sammy from turning evil. Oh and also, they’ve gotta keep Sam safe from other Hunters who might think he’s turning evil, specifically Gordon. Now on top of all that we have to worry about the cops? Now it feels like you’re just throwing obstacles in their path to be a dick. Listing it out like this, it feels like season 2 is turning into a bit of a hot mess? Ok, Because I know that Henricksen comes back as a recurring antagonist, I’m maybe reading too much into it, but the next episode he recurrs in is episode 19 of this same season, so...maybe not?

As a side note, I’m just gonna reiterate that I like Henriksen. I like him specifically because he is an Antagonist, not a Villain. Same goes for Gordon, in this season at least. They are not Villains in the traditional way this show presents Villains = Monsters. Both Gordon and Henriksen think what they are doing is for the greater good and they’re both going about it within the boundaries of their own moral codes. It’s just that those moral codes are in the way of our Protagonists, the Winchesters, and that’s actually some neat writing, so good job Season 2 Writing Team.

Next up is “Houses of the Holy”, the first ever SPN episode about angels, and if you know anything about SPN but haven’t seen this episode (or seen this episode in a while), you will laugh out loud at this line:

AHAH! AHAHAHAHAHA! AHAHahahah.

I will briefly point out that after this line I gave myself a sad by responding to my TV: “Do you need proof Dean? Or do you not believe in angels because that’s easier than thinking they don’t believe in you?” So you know, that’s where I’m at these days.

And that’s basically it for this episode? I mean, there is a brief mention of the Main (???) Quest (???) when Sam talks about wanting/needing the angel to be real, as it gives him hope that he’s not all evil yet. It’s a nice piece character that comes out in a season that feels very Dean heavy in the emotions department so far. And so it does feel like a real hard let down when Sam finds out it’s not an angel, just spirit and he loses all that validation.

Oof. That’s rough buddy.

Next up is “Born Under a Bad Sign”. On the surface, it looks like a return to the Main (???) Quest (???) but it brings me back to the question, what IS the Main Quest on this season?? IS it Sam Goes Evil? Like...shouldn’t the Main Quest still be Hunting the Yellow-Eyed-Demon? But I guess technically, Sam Goes Evil is part of the yellow-eyed-demon’s plan so stopping that from happening is stopping the yellow-eyed-demon and so technically that’s still...the Main….Quest?????????

It’s a little murky. In the same way that I think it’s smart that the Winchesters don’t defeat the yellow-eyed-demon at the end of season one, I also think it’s smart that they differentiate the through-line on season 2 from season 1, but when you pair the two seasons together it does feel like they’ve abandoned the part about defeating the Villain - the actual Villain, evil plans and twirling mustache and everything.

But then we find out that, no, no this has nothing to do with the yellow-eyed-demon, this is just Meg Being Meg. She’s not here for some grand purpose, she’s just here to dick around with the Winchesters. That bitch is powered by Murder and Spite and I love it. And I’m not gonna lie, Jared Padalecki is hecking CRUSHING Being Meg Being Sam Being Meg again. Just like, CRUSHING it.

Of course, the bigger issue at stake is, unsurprisingly, the relationship between Sam and Dean. Sam wants Dean to make good on his promise to kill Evil!Sam, and Dean just loopholes his way out of it, even when he’s shot and drowned and beat to shit.

WHY is Dean driving in this scene? Between the head trauma and blood loss and the alcohol and whatever pills Jo gave him at the bar, he should NOT be operating heaving machinery.

He says he’ll save Sam if it’s the last thing he does and like...he’s probably just gonna die trying? Which like...ok, sure, but also you’d end up with Evil!Sam probably taking over the world or some nonsense, so it’s not a great strategy.

On the other hand, based on Jo’s general vibe this episode, I believe that she would not hesitate to take a shot at killing an Evil!Sam and I kind of love her for it.

That bitch is gonna do what it takes. Or you know probably just think up a better solution, she’s not so close to the situation and also she’s defs way smarter than all the Winchesters put together.

So this episode is not about the Main Quest, not really, although it ties into the major emotional arc of the Main Quest so maybe??? It is??? Anyone???

And then to round out this disc, we have “Tall Tales”. What would Supernatural be without the one two punch of Highly Emotional Episode followed by That Funny Episode??

And “Tall Tales” is great. Jared Padalecki is, again, CRUSHING it and Jensen Ackles is so committed to that eating gag, just *chefs kissy fingers* c’est magnifique!

I legitimately love this episode - the format is screwy, the narrators are both unreliable, DadBobby comes back. I want to complain that putting this episode in the same season as “The Usual Suspects” - another episode that breaks format - feels too soon, but you know what? You do you, guys. I love this episode and I love that the Trickster is a recurring...uhh, let’s call him another antagonist who thinks what he’s doing is for the greater good and he goes about it within the boundaries of his own moral code. Bless him he’s a delight and also he has a doggo so he can’t be all bad, right??

Also, yes, I know he turns out to be the angel Gabriel and you know what? I’m fine with that.

I gotta say, for a quartet of standalone episodes (ok yeah, I’m officially calling “Born Under a Bad Sign” a Side Quest), these were hella solid. These are not just filler episodes, these are interesting and emotionally complex and very enjoyable. I’d argue these standalones are more interesting and enjoyable than quite a few of the standalones in season 1, so it really feels like the show is in its stride.

This is why 20+ episode seasons are still relevant. Yeah, the throughline for the season does feel a little muddled and messy, but on an 8 or even a 12-13 episode season, you don’t get this kind of room to play and experiment and make fun of yourselves the way that SPN does. There’s all this breathing room to try new things. There’s space to introduce new characters and play with dynamics and surprise your viewers.

A 20+ ep season is a daunting (and expensive) task, but there’s gotta be a certain amount of freedom that comes with it too. Freedom to just have fun with these characters and this world that you’ve created. I don’t mind shorter seasons - honestly, it saves me, personally, a lot of time and the writing gets sharper and tighter and better at telling the one story the show is here to tell. But I hope that, if television continues to shorten seasons, that they also allow at least a little time for standalone episodes like these.

#Supernatural #SPN #Supernatural Season 2 #supernatural rewatch #Nightshifter #Houses of the Holy #Born Under a Bad Sign #Tall Tales #ronald reznik #special agent henriksen #Bobby Singer #Meg #Jo #Trickster #Sam Winchester #Dean Winchester #Sam and Dean #TV #TV structure

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letterstothemidnightsociety · 3 years

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Another day of quarantine, another attempt to decipher the secret to one show’s mind-boggling longevity - Are they casting spells on every airdate? Do they have some kind of talisman? Did they make an actual deal with a literal devil to stay on the air this long?? The fact that Jensen Ackles has barely aged a day sure suggests they might have. It’s Supernatural!

I think one of my favorite things so far has been the trailer that plays at the end of “Crossroad Blues” to really make sure you tune into the next episode which...did not play for two weeks. Looking at air dates, “Crossroad Blues” plays on Nov 16, 2006, so that’s right around the Thanksgiving break. Then they come back for ONE episode on Dec 7 and that is their midseason finale. TV programming is wild.

I was like, really into this Bobby Johnson, like...I was into that.

It’s very possible that at this point in the season, SPN is trying real hard to keep their audience. Looking at the numbers for all the episodes leading up to “Croatoan”, they’re only averaging between 3 and 4 million viewers, roughly 1 - 2 million less than where they were at this time in season 1, so it’s easy to see why SPN was on the hook for renewal in season 2. Looking over its ratings for the rest of the season, the audience numbers just keep going down. The show is the number 8 highest rated show on the CW in 2006/07, so technically in the top 10, but it’s tied with Reba and One Tree Hill and the CW only had (16) original programs that year, so it’s not boasting much. These numbers supposedly include Live + 7 day DVR watches, so those numbers really are not good, BUT: starting in January of 2007, the CW started releasing episodes online the day after they aired, so I’m willing to bet that large portions of their audience were still tuning in, just not tuning in in a way that could be tabulated by Neilsen at the time.

It’s also interesting to note that for both season 1 and season 2, the real mythos/lore/arc episodes don’t really start until the midseason. In season 1, it’s not until episode 10, “Scarecrow,” where we’re introduced to Meg and the bigger stakes at hand for the Winchesters. Their search for their father starts ramping up and the show starts subtly shifting away from Finding Dad to Fighting The Boss Fight.

Season 2 is pretty similar. Up until “Croatoan” (episode 9), the show has been about the fallout from John’s death. Finding the yellow-eyed-demon is certainly a driving factor, but it’s very much on the backburner. The show even makes a point to say, hey! Our guys don’t really have any leads, so it’s gonna take a while before we get back to this.

I actually really appreciate that the show takes this much time to let the Winchester process their grief. Kripke and Co. have said numerous times that they realized the episodes that work best are the ones that really dig into the emotional journeys of the characters, so they just went ahead and made that the primary focus of the first half of the season. It gives weight to their loss at the beginning of the season - John’s death is not some throwaway plot point, it’s a real gut punch that our characters aren’t going to get over in a hurry. It also lends weight to the danger the brothers face in the future - John died immediately, who’s to say that won’t happen to Sam or Dean?

I mean, sure buddy, but also...no one here is okay.

Not to mention, John’s deal with the yellow-eyed-demon (+ the events in “Crossroad Blues”) give us a subtle/not-so-subtle hint as to what’s waiting for us at the end of season 2. But we’re not there yet.

Then we’re in “Croatoan” and reminded in full force what our guys are supposed to be fighting this season - not their crippling grief but rather a very present threat to their physical and spiritual well-being. That’s not to say we haven’t had a taste of the Sam-centric plotline that appears in “Croatoan”. BUT I’d argue that even though “Simon Said” deals with the Psychic Children, it’s still only a tease for what those children are capable of. “Croatoan” really drives home the threat from the yellow-eyed-demon, not just from his Psychic Children but also whatever nefarious plans that he’s been cooking for however-long. And it puts this threat front and center as a main quest for the back 13 of the season.

Because of COURSE demon viruses come with their own dusting of sulfur.

Doing the math on this, it looks like SPN had a Front 9/Back 13 split? As in, they got picked up for the first 9 episodes of season 2 but weren’t sure they were going to get those final 13 episodes and that is...crazy? I have not seen any proof this is the case, but it is something to consider for a show that was on the edge of cancellation for this season and last season. It’s possible that the CW was treating all of its programming like they were pilot seasons since this was, essentially, CW’s pilot season, but again - I have no evidence other than this 9/13 split to prove it.

Back to the show. Let me just say: I LOVE “Croatoan.” Any time anyone wants to make up a supernatural reason for an obscure historical mystery, I am ON. BOARD. And the Lost Colony of Roanoke is definitely one of my favorites. I STILL love this episode even though I can hear my friend whispering through the decades, ”The colonists just intermarried with the local native tribe, the Croatoans…” which is apparently actually the answer in real life. But demon viruses are fine, and particularly relevant in The Year of Our Troubles 2020.

CROATOAAAAAAAAA!!!

What also works in “Croatoan” is the dynamics between the brothers that will play out for the rest of the season/series. The groundwork for their big fight at the end of this episode has already been laid in the beginning of the season. On the one hand, you have Dean, who’s lost so much at the hands of the yellow-eyed-demon he can’t stand to lose anymore, especially not his brother. On the other hand, Sam is becoming more like his father - ready and willing to sacrifice whatever needs to be sacrificed to defeat this thing, even if that means giving up his own life. Sam has the same motivation that Dean has but coming from a completely different direction. If his death will save his brother, then he’ll do it, no questions asked, just like John died to save Dean. Neither of the brothers are willing to lose the other and they will go on to make increasingly stupid, selfish decisions to make sure they won’t have to. Yes, I love this show, and I love Sam and Dean, but man they are DUMB BABIES.

OOF.

So we get “Croatoan,” where we see the stakes at hand - the yellow-eyed-demon is out for World Destruction, not just Winchester Destruction. He may have plans for the Psychic Children, but his plans reach far beyond a bunch of 20YO with wacky powers. And when Sam gets infected with the demon virus (LOL, sulfur in the blood?????), he knows he’s a danger to others and is immediately ready to sacrifice his life to keep those around him safe. Dean goes on to prove that this is a line too far - he’ll keep others safe but if the choice is between killing his brother and anything else, he will literally choose anything else. Sam turns out to be fine in a mysterious kind of way, although the town clearly is not, and the boys ride off into the sunset. Then we get the cliffhanger - John told Dean something important that we will not find out until January.

These dolly shots crack me right up.

If you’re watching this in real time, you wait a month for that cliff hanger to resolve itself in “Hunted”. If you are living in the era of streaming, you just skip the closing credits to find out what John said - “He said that I [Dean] had to save you...and that if I couldn't, I'd . . .That I'd have to kill you.”

Are you ever just like, What the actual F*CK, John Winchester?

This is literally Dean’s worst nightmare - having to choose between duty and family. Sam understandably doesn’t take this well to start with, but like in “Croatoan”, he ultimately settles into the idea, which is...deeply upsetting???

“Hunted” does a lot of fun things -

Number 1: We get more of the Psychic Children (because I REFUSE to call them the Special Children, sorrynotsorry). We see that there’s a range of Types, from Scott who definitely looks like a serial killer to Ava, who ultimately goes on to be the headmistress at a secret magic university (OMG, DO watch The Order cuz that shiz is GOLD.)

Seriously, if you liked Supernatural, you will like this show.

Number 2: We get the return of Gordon, this time as a head-on antagonist. Do I like Gordon? No, I find him frustrating at best. But do I LOVE Gordon as an antagonist? Absolutely! He is smart, capable, and (at this point) wholly non-supernatural, Natural, if you will. He’s such a good foil to Sam and Dean and he’s the perfect villain for this moment. He sees the world in only black and white. To him, there’s no moral dilemma as to whether or not the Psychic Children are good or bad - they’re definitely bad and he’s here to stop/kill them. I think he’s an important catalyst for Dean too, since in both of Gordon’s episodes, Dean sees what he could be if it wasn’t for Sam’s influence. He doesn’t want to be like Gordon, so he needs to keep Sam around.

Number 3: Alright, this one isn’t so fun just cuz the final scene is a little sloppy, but Ava turns out to be a good catalyst for Sam. When Ava shows up on screen, she is clearly on Team Cool Kid. She’s totally normal, very Apple Pie, but she shows up to try and save Sam’s life simply because it’s a life that she can (hypothetically) save. She knows nothing about demons or curses or Chosen Ones, she just had a weird dream that gave her a weird feeling and then she acted on out of the goodness of her heart. It’s exactly what Sam does when his dreams kick it into high gear in season 1 (with mixed results). Sam hangs out with Ava, gets to know her, gives her the whole Truth is Out There speech and when she leaves, I actually really appreciate this character. She’s had a wild ride of a day and she is just taking this whole thing totally in stride. Good on you, Ava!

Except, when we get to the end of the episode and Sam tries to check in on her, we find her fiancé with his throat cut, sulfur on the window sill, and Ava nowhere to be seen. Now I don’t remember what I thought the first time I saw this episode, but I don’t believe that Ava killedher fiancé. The show really seems to want me to believe that she killed her fiancé, though, indicating that no matter how cool she was at the beginning of the episode, it’s only a matter of time before all the Psychic Children “go darkside”, as Sam so strangely puts it.

Anyone else this this was a weird line? I thought this was a weird line.

And this is what pushes Sam’s arc through the rest of the season. Our next episode is “Playthings,” which feels like a monster-of-the-week episode where they squeeze in some unrelated emotional drama. Or maybe it’s the other way around. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a fun episode, but SPN is usually better about tying their MotW eps into the emotional character arcs and this one is not as finessed. There’s a little more disconnect here. The important takeaway from “Playthings” is this: seeing Ava “kill” her fiancé convinces Sam that his father was right. Sam may need to be put down, and if that happens, he wants Dean to be the one to do it. Dean agrees, but we all know that he’s doing that just to appease Sam and that he’s still gonna do whatever it takes to save Sam, no matter the cost. Nothing gets resolved and this will definitely come back later.

I mean, yeah that’s probably true.

Some things -

First off: Sam seems to be perfectly OK with this and that...is not OK.

Secondly, SAM?!? WHY would you put that on your brother??

Thirdly, DEAN! Don’t make promises you don’t intend to keep.

FINALLY, and maybe most importantly, this is the best example I can think of to showcase a character’s greatest strength also being their greatest weakness. The Winchesters are about two things - fighting evil and taking care of family. Done in equal measure, these strengths make them heroic tropes. Taken to extreme situations? Well, now you have two humans wide open to failing at one of these things so bad that the apocalypse literally starts.

What these three episodes remind us, honestly what this whole season so far reminds us, is that Supernatural works because of relationships. The monsters and the mythology and the classic rock are there as a fun framework to get us interested in the show, but it’s the characters that keep us. That’s what viewers connect to. I really appreciate the arguments that Sam and Dean have with each other, starting at the end of season one and up until now in season 2. They feel very deeply rooted in character, not contrived for the sake of Drama. Neither of them is wrong, per se, but then neither of them is right, either. Their emotional backgrounds feel complex and grounded, foundations for real characters, not just the caricatures that you’d expect from a show about ghosts on a network aimed at the 18 - 24 demographic.

See, THIS is the sort of fight you’d expect, not a fight where one brother is begging the other to literally kill him.

And this is gonna be the hill that I’ll die on - characters and relationships are always the heart of any successful franchise. I mean, why else are there so many shipping wars out there? Why write fic if it isn’t to explore relationships and aspects of a character that the show doesn’t present? Sure it’s not the only reason to write fic, but I’d argue it’s a BIG reason.

Because it’s not just the characters building relationships with each other, it's the audience building relationships with those characters (and to a lesser extent, with the world of the story). This is the core of any show that hopes to make it past season one and beyond, no matter the decade, the network, or the platform it airs on. We like stories about people with problems we can relate to. Dysfunctional family trouble? Check. Drama at work? Been there. Feeling like the world’s about to end any second? Oh yes. You can feel those problems deep down in your gut, even if the specifics are different. It doesn’t matter if those people are working in an office or a hospital or hunting down demons in the dead of night. If you can show us people, real people with something we can relate to on a gut level, that’s how you stay on the air for 15 seasons.

#SPN #Supernatural #Supernatural season 2 #Supernatural rewatch #Sam Winchester #Dean Winchester #Crossroad Blues #Croatoan #Hunted #Playthings #CW #TV #TV History #TV Structure #Are you ever just like #What the Actual F*ck John Winchester

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letterstothemidnightsociety · 3 years

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Rewatching season 2 and

WELP. He’s not wrong.

#I had to pause the episode #and laugh for a solid three minutes #Tetanus #And that damn nail #They should have listened to Gordon #Who knew #Gordon Walker #SPN #Supernatural season 2 #supernatural rewatch #Sam Winchester #Dean Winchester #sam and dean

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letterstothemidnightsociety · 3 years

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It’s crossroads and psychics and shipping, OH MY! Join me as I continue one millennial’s journey to discover why a show about beefcakes and demons managed to last on network television for over a decade. It’s Supernatural!

So now that we’re in the thick of it, there are two moves that the writing team of Supernatural pulled that make a season 2 work, or, more specifically, work for me. The first is that rather than Level Up their heroes, they allow our heroes to lose, and I discussed that in my last post. Now we don’t know what’s gonna happen - they didn’t defeat the bad guy, their ace up their sleeve (John) is dead, and they don’t even have wheels to roll around anymore.

Equally important, the second thing they do at the top of season 2 is World Build. I’ve read this article from Emily VanDerWerff at Vox like, 8 times so I’m just gonna go ahead and quote her directly:

Season two of a great drama usually finds a way to explain why the show isn’t just a story about the protagonist but a story about a whole cast and a whole world. With the premise having been thoroughly explored in season one, the show, by necessity, has to start looking for other ways to tell stories. This usually means turning to the other characters within the ensemble... but it can sometimes mean pivoting to explore a new corner of the show’s setting ...or diving further into core themes...

Side note: I know few TV critics by name but I find Emily VanDerWerff’s tv and media analysis to be particularly insightful and brilliant and if she ever reads anything I write about TV, I just want her to know it. Definitely go read/listen to some of her stuff at Vox.

So let’s break that down, shall we? The job of season one on a television drama (which SPN undoubtedly is), is to set up the show as a story about a hero(es) (which SPN season 1 undoubtedly does). We know the Winchester Brothers. We know their wants, we know their obstacles, we know their pressure points and triggers, they’re standard MO’s. We’ve seen them move as a cohesive unit against a big antagonist and with the start of season 2, we get to see how they handle failure at the hands of that antagonist.

But now season 2 has a bigger job: “explain why the show isn’t just a story about the protagonist but a story about a whole cast and a whole world.” As fun as it’s been riding with Sam and Dean across the country, that Impala does start to feel a little claustrophobic. We’re so focused on just these two characters that it’s hard to believe there’s a great wide world out there. Now, I call it claustrophobic now, but the chemistry between our two leads was definitely enough to carry the show without 3rd or 4th or 5th wheels through that first season and possibly future seasons. I was certainly happy to stick with just Sam and Dean for another 13 seasons when I watched this show for the first time back in 2008/2009. But after many years and many more TV shows, I understand that that model can’t be sustainable for the long haul. And that’s the goal, isn’t it? To get to a season five (and the sweet, sweet payday that is syndication) or farther. If your only regulars in series are two brothers and a car, that’s gonna get a little stale, at least for a broad audience anyway. And frankly, watching season 2 now and knowing what I know about the rest of the series, I’m excited to see new Found Family members show. If there’s one running theme throughout all 15 seasons it’s that Sam’s and Dean’s lives are deeply, tragically lonely.

So the writing team opens up a whole wide hunting world for our brothers to reside in - first with Bobby (AKA Poppa Hunter), then with The Roadhouse. But Bobby plus The Roadhouse crew don’t just expand on the SPN Scooby Gang. They show us, the audience, that Sam and Dean aren’t actually two lone guns out in the wilderness. Sure, season one gives us Missouri Mosely and then the deaths of Caleb and Pastor Jim, but these characters seem few and far between, unconnected to each other except by chance meetings with John Winchester. Introducing the new characters in season 2 shows us that there’s a network, a community out there, one that works together to stem the tide of evil from overtaking the Normals and their Apple Pie Lives.

Quick side note: Can we talk about how this, specifically, was a real disservice John did to his children? In “Everybody Loves a Clown”, Ellen tells Dean that she knew John was closing in on the demon and Dean responds “What, was there an article in the Demon Hunters Quarterly that I missed?”, and that’s probably a throwaway line for the joke, but it inadvertently signals that John really kept his sons isolated from having any kind of life at all. Sure, nobody wants the life of a hunter, but what if you had, oh, a community of hunters who took care of each others’ children and called people out on their bullshit abusive behaviors and watched each others’ backs so that there were fewer casualties and also were there so you could talk about all those things that Sam and Dean have spent their entire lives keeping secret from everyone? Ellen says John was like family once, and, like, whut? Why doesn’t Sam or Dean know who any of these people are? Why isn’t there a team trying to take down this yellow eyed demon? Why is it that Sam and Dean have, like, no support system other than their father?? I mean there probably IS a Demon Hunters Quarterly and John should have gotten his boys a subscription!

Of course, the Wider Hunting World isn’t all good guys like Bobby and Ellen and Jo and Ash. There’s also Gordon and Dean’s new Father Substitute, who’s a straight up psychopath, but they can’t all be winners, can they? That episode, as mentioned in my last post, also opens up the world of Team Monster - they’re not just mindless Evil devouring innocent victims. There’s also people out there with hearts and souls and consciousness’ who happen to have monster-like physical attributes, making the Winchesters’ mission that much more complex and fraught with drama and the potential for more storytelling opportunities.

And, in “Simon Said”, we start to see more of the Special Children, which is a fandom term that I do not like. Special Children? Special Children?? THAT’S what you went with?!? Anyway, we get the second instance of 20 year olds touched by the yellow-eyed-demon. There’s new abilities, stronger psychics, and just generally more to these children than Sam and Dean even knew existed. And I actually really love Andy a lot and really enjoyed this episode a lot. Andy is just an instantly likable character and I feel like, with his skill set, he could have been a real asset to the team. I mean, the guys get arrested by the feds at least once a season. But apparently Kripke decided, like, two episodes into the Special Children plot that he hated it and *spoiler alert* kills them all by the end of this season.

Just looking at the three other episodes on the same disc as “Simon Said” (yes, I am still watching the DVDs) I’d say “Crossroad Blues” is another expansion episode. Though it was hinted at in the first episode, the Crossroad Deal is now A Thing, and one that’s gonna come back to bite us later. So our lore is getting bigger, deeper, more involved in the plot. “The Usual Suspects” doesn’t do a whole lot of expanding the world, but that one feels more like filler/light fare to balance out the drama from the first 6 episodes anyway. I’ll add that even though it doesn’t have a lot to offer, “The Usual Suspects” is an A+ episode that does a great job of remixing the formula.

But back to our World Building - At the end of “Simon Said,” you get another taste of what this life should be for Sam and Dean. When Dean starts to pull the same secretive crap his father did, Ellen cuts back “This isn't just your war, this is war. Now, something big and bad's coming and it's coming fast, and their side holds all the cards. Now, at best all we got is us. Together. No secrets or half-truths here.” REALLY, John, you could have gone about your whole life of vengeance in a way that didn’t royally screw up your children and yet…

But Ellen’s complaint sums it up nicely - this show isn’t just about the Winchesters anymore, it’s not their war, it’s a whole world’s war, a world that the show now has the opportunity to explore and expand to their hearts’ content.

And here’s where things get sticky.

Like I said, the first go around, I was happy with only two protagonists and now that I worry about characters’ feelings, I’m really glad that the show tried to expand the Winchesters’ social circle for you know, mental and emotional and spiritual wholeness. And all the new characters that got introduced at the beginning of season two are generally well-liked characters...now.

I mean, nobody didn’t like Bobby Singer, right? The boys lose one father figure and he is replaced by another - better, stronger, more paternal than the one before. He’s the perfect blend of back country tough love and big ol’ softie and everybody loves Bobby, right?

I don’t think anyone hated Ash either, although, you know, he’s kind of barely there. I gotta say, I do appreciate the amount of mullets that show up in the show. I mean, that’s commitment to a bit right there. Ash is their Guy in the Chair and he’s ridiculous and I am not ashamed to admit that I kind of love him.

Then there’s Ellen. Ellen “Definitely Didn’t Sleep With John That One Time” Harvelle. And she is GREAT. She comes right out of the gate with that Big Mom Energy. Ellen is your mom, if your mom could also drink you under the table and still shoot you between the eyes without spilling her glass. A+ job on this character, would recommend, would watch again. Why she disappears for so long, I’ll never know, but it’s probably some kind of bullshit reason that has to do with misogyny and “bad” attitudes and unequal pay.

Honestly, in a sea of testosterone, there emerged a much needed island of femininity, and that island was The Roadhouse. But The Roadhouse also brings us Jo.

Oof. You guys. Now listen, I’m gonna say a thing and that thing might be controversial but here goes: there is nothing wrong with Jo. I’ll say it louder so that Me back in 2008 can hear: THERE. IS. NOTHING. WRONG. WITH. JO.

I’ve done a little digging and it seems the “official” complaint for Jo is that she comes off too naive, too innocent. I...do not agree. At least one site I read through says fans called her “immature”, but watching it this time around, she’s light and bubbly, sure, but she seems very much aware of the world she lives in. If anything, it’s the people around her who treat her like a child, it’s not the character herself who comes off that way. This watch, I see a character who is confident and pretty damn capable. I think “No Exit” shows a character who is maybe more fully realized than I gave her credit for the first go around - she’s tough, she knows how to handle herself in a fight, and she’s quick on her feet. But she’s also a human person, capable of making mistakes and getting in over her head and we see her deal with that once she’s captured by Holmes. She holds her own in both Sass and Skill against Dean and I think, at the very least, she could have made a good addition to the team on a regular basis. She makes a nice foil for both brothers - Sam, who never wanted this life, and Dean, who is already struggling to remember why he does what he does. Given time, I think her character could have settled into something that really stood out in the show. But that’s the problem with new characters who are written to be green - they need time to grow. Supernatural never gave her that time.

I think the REAL problem is that Jo is very obviously introduced to be a love interest for Dean and yeah, that feels pretty shoe-horned in there. But I think we have to hand it to Alona Tal - she really is doing the best she can with the material she’s given, considering that the writing team seems to have done very little work on fleshing that character out up front. It’s like the writers were shocked that they had to write? A person? And not? A sex appeal????? And that feels very on-brand for CW.

Do I ship Jo and Dean? I don’t know. My OTP at 19 was Dean + Me, so I’m real thankful I had no interest in writing fic at the time and there’s no incriminating author-insert work out there. But if asked me to chose an OTP for this entire series now, I’d say I ship Dean and Happiness and I feel like these two could have been happy.

But fans hated Jo, so much so that the writers completely abandoned the love interest subplot and all but wrote her out of the show for good. She was not well liked in 2006 when this season aired and according to several fan sites I looked through, attitudes towards her didn’t warm up until she comes back in season five, basically just to die. Sure, she sacrifices her own life to save Sam and Dean, but she literally comes back to be cannon fodder and that’s what changes peoples’ attitudes towards her. Listen, I’m not saying there isn’t some weird gross misogyny to talk about down the line, but I think we have to acknowledge that this fandom is also guilty of some real girl-on-girl crime.

Now I was curious - what was it exactly that so many fans hated? Why was the backlash against this character particularly passionate? And boy guys, did I find an answer.

I knew this was coming. I knew I couldn’t avoid it. And I’m not happy about it. But I said I was gonna dive into this show and you can’t dive into SPN without acknowledging the darker spots of the show and one of those spots is: Wincest.

I just. Hoo boy. Listen, I am a Ship and Let Ship person. My kink is not your kink, your kink is not my kink, and we can all still get along. At least I hope we can all still get along, cuz fandom is occasionally terrifying and I don’t want anyone coming after me. But also, I did not realize...that they were so...prevalent? Like, seriously. I am very glad that I never actually used LiveJournal as I intended to use LiveJournal because 19-year-old me was not READY for that kind of Fandom.

And hey I...understand why this happened? Sort of? Like, for all of season one, this show is only about two VERY attractive men folk who have VERY good chemistry with each other. And I will admit, in the spirit of honesty, that I too disliked Jo because I felt that introducing a girlfriend character would destroy the brother-character dynamic that was the heart and soul of the show. And I don’t want to dig too deeply into that sense memory because I don’t know that I like where it leads.

But where this becomes a real problem is the implication that Jo was written out of the show because it interfered with the Wincest community? The idea that the Wincesters had that much power is chilling. Chilling. I mean, it’s one thing for a creator to take their fans into consideration when creating, it’s another thing entirely when the fandom makes a major plot point disappear. I mean, I don’t know what Alona Tal’s contract for season 2 was, but I do know that contracting for actors on a television series is affected by how many episodes they appear in. The number of episodes you’re in is also tied to things like pay rates (like those mandated by SAG) and where your name goes in the credits (top billing vs. end credits) Are you a guest star or a recurring character? Are you recurring or a series regular? Now, as a new character, it’s probable that Alona Tal was considered a guest star/recurring role and contract was per episode and not by the season - after all, that’s how the majority of the cast of The Office worked for all of season 1 and most of season 2. Angela, Oscar, Kevin, Meredith, Creed, Stanley, Phylis - they were all recurring characters, only contracted for each episode as it was being produced and they were in way more episode than Tal had in SPN. In fact, it was not until half way through season 2 (episode 11, “Booze Cruise”) that they were promoted to series regulars and received season-long contracts. But as the love interest for their lead, she was probably hired with the promise of getting promoted to series regular at some point in the future. Now imagine being Alona Tal, and finding out three episodes in that you’re not getting that season-long contract and you’re probably not coming back for season 3 because the fanbase is more into Brother-Lovin’ than your character. I mean. Guys.

Now can we really say that the Wincesters derailed a woman’s career? I don’t want to believe it, so I’m gonna say no. I am sure there was a lot of testing the character in key demographics and screenings with diverse audiences and graphs and charts and it wasn’t just that the producers of the show were endlessly scrolling through message boards on LiveJournal to see what kinks the fandom was into. I’m sure that was not the case because that is not the world I want to live in. But also, it definitely seems to have played a part. A REAL part.

So let’s move back to television structure instead - why is this world building important? The key lies in a lot of the “prestige” shows that stream today. A lot of them have really strong first seasons, but a sophomore slump in their second seasons. Emily VanDerWerff calls out Stranger Things specifically, which had a tight, streamlined story that wrapped up so nicely at the end of season 1 that season 2 was left to flounder, trying to find its feet and its new story to tell. And they're not the only ones - this is a trend we see in a lot of premise driven shows.

How did we get here?The trend in shorter seasons has been really appealing to a lot of writers and directors who would typically work for feature length films. That means that a lot of the best shows are being written more like long-form movies than television series. The first season is a complete storyline from beginning to end with little deviation from the Main Quest. There’s less wandering like you’d see in a 22 episode season. Less of those filler/self-contained episodes where the writers get to explore new concepts and character work. This leaves less to detract from the single stream-lined story, but it also leaves little for the writers to explore once the season is done. When you wrap up all the loose ends by your season finale, you’re stuck wondering what’s left of the story to tell in future seasons? By not wrapping up the loose ends in “Devil’s Trap”, and by using these first 8 episodes to expand on more lore, allies, and world to inhabit, SPN is able to make space to create more story for years to come.

NOW - can they keep that up for the next 14 seasons or will it get boring? Will we end up with comically overpowered heroes and villains that result in lower stakes? I mean, all of the characters die at LEAST once and come back, so how can SPN sustain the audiences’ concern for the characters when we’re never that worried for them? How much of the world is there left unexplored as you get farther into the series? How are they going to keep plots and arcs and characters new and fresh and exciting when we’re so familiar with everyone and everything? So many questions and so many episodes left to answer them!

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letterstothemidnightsociety · 3 years

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And I’m back from my midseason finale, continuing my journey to decipher how and why a show about two sexy brothers who hunt ghosts aired on television for over a decade. It’s Supernatural!

Back in 2009, when I rushed head long from “Salvation”/”Devil’s Trap straight into “In My Time of Dying” (Kripke, you’re being a real bitch with these titles), I was not the TV connoisseur who writes tumblr posts about ancient shows that you read before you. The cliffhanger at the end of “Devil’s Trap” is good enough that it didn’t matter that I’d just crossed the threshold from the first season into the second season. What mattered was that Dean was dying in the back seat and holy shiz, they crushed the Impala?? So I popped out one DVD disc and happily plugged in the next without stopping to think what a new season might mean.

Of course, I knew second seasons were precious. You watch Firefly ONCE and you know the fear of a Show Cancelled Too Soon. Supernatural, apparently, was on the edge of cancellation after season 1, but it’s renewal coincided with the birth of the brand new CW, a network built from the ashes of The WB and UPN respectively, that was in need of nightly programming to fill up the air. So Supernatural was saved (aha) from the Cancellation Bear and remained in it’s (primo) Thursday night time slot, 9pm warning label in-tact.

What do we say to the Cancellation Bear? Not Today!

That’s not to diminish the importance of it’s renewal for season 2! Depending on what network or cable channel (or year), only something like 20 - 30% of freshman shows get renewed for a season 2. To be fair, if every show that aired in the fall got renewed in the spring, there’d be no time slots left for new freshman shows the following fall, so something’s gotta give. SPN getting a season 2, even if the odds were a little more in their favor than they might want you to think, is still pretty miraculous, especially for 2006. Remember, this is pre-streaming services acquiring original content. In 2006, Netflix was a rental service that focused on mailing you DVDs. Via the U.S. Postal Service. And they wouldn’t officially start acquiring distribution licenses for broadcast shows (let alone their own content) until 2007 - two years after SPN started airing. In the early 2000′s, there were fewer opportunities for television shows to make it in front of an audience because there were fewer options for watching television. I’ll say it a hundred times - Supernatural is a DINOSAUR.

So what do you do when you’re gripped tight and raised from cancellation after your first season? Well if your Supernatural, you start off with one helluva bang.

Maybe more of a wallop.

As should be obvious by now, I watch a lot of supernatural and Supernatural-Adjacent television. I love a Season One, but very often those shows start to go downhill in Season 2. Why? For the simple fact that your characters are too good now. They’re too powerful. They’ll never be as vulnerable as they were in season 1, and if there’s no vulnerability, there’s less concern about their survivability. I’m not as invested in these characters because I’m not worried about them anymore. There’s not tension of will they/won’t they - you know they will, in the end, overcome. Of course, the solution to this conundrum is to level your villains up alongside your heroes. The trouble with that strategy is you end up with ludicrously, laughably super strong villains that lose their grounding in reality. This is a problem I foresee for SPN post season 5, but I haven’t gotten there yet, so I’ll leave that alone for right now.

So for me, what Supernatural does at the start of season 2 is genius. Think about the end of season 1 - our boys lose. They straight up failed. They had one goal - kill the demon that killed their women mom/wife and girlfriend - and they did not even remotely do that. They’re beaten, they’re bloody and now, just when we think they can’t lose any more, they lose some more.

I’m gonna be real honest here, this was a real turn on for me Sammy.

First it’s Baby. For two boys who hop from cheap motel to cheap motel, I think it’s safe to say that the Impala is basically their home. They lose the fight and then they lose their home. That’s rough.

Also, Bobby, I love you, but WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT’S SCRAP?!?!

Next, they almost lose Dean. Dean is the only thing that’s keeping this family together and he is donezo. He’s so gone, a Reaper is concocting an elaborate hallucination to get him to come to terms with his imminent demise. Which honestly, is a very nice thing for this Reaper to do, but also bb, don’t you do it!

You gotta hand it to this Reaper, she really knew allll the right buttons to push.

Next, we lose the Colt. They have one (1) weapon to use against the Yellow-Eyed-Demon and John gives it away. Is he also finally acknowledging that his children require his love and care? Yes. Is this the shittiest decision he’s ever made, even if it is to save the life of his firstborn? ALSO YES.

Pretty damn stupid, JOHN.

And finally, in the last 5 minutes of the episode, we lose John Winchester himself. And this bitch ain’t coming back. He’s gone. He’s gone for good. Sam and Dean spent months searching for their father, building up this legend of a man, and we as an audience spent months right along with them, only to watch him die in the first episode of season 2! Sam and Dean don’t start out season 2 back at square one, they’re back at square -10. Sure they know who the bad guy is now, but they don’t know how to find him, don’t know how to kill him, and the only person who did know can’t help them anymore! And to top it all off, they don’t even have a ride back from the hospital!

JK, we all know Bobby came and picked them up and took him back to his place, he’s the Real Hero of this show.

Also, I’m getting ahead of myself here but I’m on a roll - John’s last words to Dean are basically a threat that oh yeah, you have one more thing that this war on hell will steal from you. If you can’t save your brother, you’ll have to kill him. Sure John. Sure. Dean’s definitely gonna do that, John, you bitch.

And they don’t just write this loss off. Over the next three episodes we see how deep this failure goes. Sure, our guys are still out there, doing their thing, killing evil sonsabitches, but damn they are torn up and they are not handling it well.

Listen, I don’t know what your viewing experience is like, but the recaps on my dvd play this scene every episode for the next, like, five episodes.

“Everybody Loves a Clown” is a very clear attempt to get back to normal. So clear that they even say it in the episode somewhere, but they have a lot of climbing to do before they get anywhere near normal. They’re driving around in a minivan, they’re taking cases from strangers, they’re living as carnies - their whole world is upside down.

We get another low blow in “Bloodlust.” Dean learns that a) no one can replace his father and b) that Monster doesn’t necessarily mean Evil. So at the end of the episode, when he asks Sam, “What if we killed things that didn’t deserve killing,” you feel it like a gut punch. Dean doesn’t even get to keep his own faith that he’s doing the right thing anymore.

Hey buddy. While you’re down on the ground, we thought we’d kick ya a little bit, OK?

And then we round that out with “Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things,” a nice zombie episode that is definitely not about the zombies. Sam and Dean are still grieving the death of their father in a very real way and I actually think Sam’s idea to visit their mom’s grave is really nice. He obviously took several psych courses and is handling grief in a much healthier, mature way than Dean. That being said, when he starts to go all Psych Major on Dean, even I want to slap him in the face. And then that whole attitude really bites him in the ass when Dean finally does open up and he realizes he’s not qualified to therapize this shit.

Oh no, it OK, don’t be cry!

See, we as the audience know that John Winchester traded his own soul to save Dean’s life, but Dean was in a coma with a Reaper, so there’s no way to know what Dean knows. But that bitch is astute and he figures it out. The Colt gone, their dad gone, and that horrible wrong sensation when he woke up in the hospital all point to the fact that John’s final gift to his son was the crushing weight of guilt. Dean knows that John should be here with Sam, would be here with Sam, if it wasn’t for Dean. And since a demon was involved, Dean probably suspects where John is right now. And that is something that he is just gonna have to carry for the rest of forever. I mean, I love Dean and I’m glad he’s still here, but that’s a real dick move John.

John Winchester. Ruining Lives from Before and Beyond the Grave.

Notice the change in this season - with the exception of the Yellow Eyed Demon, these first few episodes are not about the monster. These are Feelings Episodes, ooey gooey Feelings Episodes, that just use the monster-of-the-week to get characters to deal with their inner traumas. This is SPN saying they’re not gonna stay on the surface of this show, they’re gonna dig deep and focus on Character Substance over the Horror FX Style. And in season 2, that still feels fun! As an audience member plowing through these episodes, I was thrilled that this was the direction the show was taking. I was also thrilled that all these episode end with Dean staring dramatically into the middle distance, just some A+ cinematography there gentlemen, great job.

In order, Ep 201, 202, 203, 204. I was not kidding.

I’m also noticing, having written all this down, that these are some very Dean-centric episodes. Like, it’s very heavy on the Dean. Which I’m not mad about, but I just think it’s real funny considering that Sam was definitely our lead protagonist/entry point into season 1.

Now though? This is honestly my biggest fear as I continue my quest to make it through the entire series. I know how it ends. I have a tumblr account and sometimes I like spoilers to prep me for what’s coming, so I know how this all shakes out. And I think the reason that I sort of gave up on the series was because at some point, these Feelings episodes get too heavy. If all your characters are always bogged down by grief and guilt and loss, at some point that’s not enjoyable to watch anymore. You’ve gotta give them a win at some point. A real win that doesn’t come with caveats like Dean sold his soul to the devil, or, Sam’s locked in a cage with the devil, or really anything involving the devil at all.

So while I’m enjoying season 2 still, I am worried that my enjoyment level is gonna sink as the series goes on. But that’s still a ways down the road, so in the meantime, have more of Dean staring dramatically into the middle distance.

#Supernatural Season 2 #Supernatural Rewatch #SPN #sam and dean #Sam Winchester #but mostly #dean winchester #In My Time of Dying #Everybody Loves a Clown #Bloodlust #Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things #Seriously Kripke #What the hell are these titles?#Dean staring dramatically into the middle distance appreciation post #To be fair #they knew what I wanted #television #CW

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